STAGES OF STAGES OF STAGES.

Arguably, all spaces we inhabited proceeded from a ‘mise en scène.’ Even if this matter of fact was often tacit and overlooked, it bound daily life to an act of conception—something that required drawing (in two dimensions), building (in three dimensions), and thinking (beyond dimensions).

The objective of the workshop was to investigate the intersection of architectural space and theatrical stagecraft. Through this inquiry, the workshop also questioned the tension between representation and physical space. Was depth indeed ‘an illusion’? Did one think in 2D or 3D, or both? And what consequences did this have? What did it mean to stage, and what were the various ways to do so? How was a space affected by the stories that occupied it, and how were stories affected by the space in which they happened?

Working in collaborative trios, students selected a historical house defined by a distinct narrative arc. Every architectural project operated as a self-contained fiction in dialogue with its physical context. At times, this narrative was disrupted by external forces, transforming the architecture from a passive setting into an active character within its own story.

By coupling a rigorous study of the house’s narrative identity with spatial logics analogous to Aldo Rossi’s Teatrino Scientifico (Little Scientific Theater), teams designed three distinct “stages” within a physical toy-theater framework. Each stage was intended to convey a moment of the fiction, producing a continuous sequence: a scenography within boxes.