Unit F

A Night in the Countryside

Digital Romanticism from the Ruins of the Poconos Honeymoon Resorts

Unit F focuses on digital and critical narratives as tools for architecture. We aim to create a domestic disobedience laboratory to generate speculative versions of living environments in the form of immersive drawings and animations.

We started the year studying the Poconos honeymoon resorts built in the late 40s in Pennsylvania (US). Operating under the myth of love, those resorts were a matrix for (re) building the society in post-war America. The emphasis was not on creating sexy environments, but a space where domesticity could be rehearsed and negotiated. During the year we explored what means “domestic “ in architecture using the two definitions of the term; producing home and putting something under human control.  

Students were invited to challenge and redefine honeymoon resorts understood as performative organisms and architectural micro-prototypes to build society. Our main site was the Isle of Wight, a Victorian propagandist honeymoon destination.

Who we are:

Bicycle Design

Cerise Turvey

Blow your Sail

Gianluca Gianfiglio

This resort is destined for couples that enjoy sailing and would like to compete in the new category of the Round the Island race.  The category is specifically for couples or married couples.  There are activities present at the resort such as the après sailing bar, where the couples can enjoy a post sailing drink discussing strategies and compete further with the other couples.  

New Moon Culinary Resort

Kaan Bag

New Moon Culinary Resort is located at one of the best locations in the Isle of Wight, The Needles overlooking the Scratchell's Bay and the Sun Corners natural cliffs.

It's about preserving the best, replacing the worst, striving for high level design and build quality and ensuring that future growth does not adversely impact on the natural beauty of the Island. Implicit in all we do is to protect our unique environment, develop in a sustainable way and strive to grow our green economy.

Play + Work

Hui Loh

Wine Days' Wonder is a vineyard resort that combine PLAY and WORK into a romantic experience. Couples are able to cus-tomise their own wine and explore each other through a new taste. It not only give an opportunity to couple to experience the process of wine making together, but also it will be a romantic experience to explore the building itself.

AstROmanticism

Navid Fatehpour

In the age of technology and social media we might have experience the feeling of being lost in a virtual word, thus, the resort will offer to experience the real universe and the sensation of getting connected with the loved one by trying to find the meaning of all that is surrounding us!

Bare Nature Resort

Nur Sajeli

The Bare Nature Resort explores the idea of considering earth as a romantic partner rather than seeing it as an infinite resource to exploit. In a climate where the world needs compassion more than ever, ecosexuals believe that treating the planet as our lover is a way to create awareness from climate change.

Self Love Resort

Paruch Piyachot

The purpose of this resort is to give people a break from the fast-moving digital world and gains back their good mental health and well-being.  Therefore, the philosophy of love, the resort carries is Self-Love.

Playground Resort

Rhiannon Dallow

For many adults today play is perceived as unproductive, pretty or even guilty pleasure.  The notion seems to be that once we are in adulthood, we must be serious in both our personal, professional and romantic lives, leaving no time to play.

The Sailboat Resort

Shubhi Barthwal

The Sailboat resort, is a resort catering to honeymoon couples, both young and old who keep a hobby of riding Yachts and sailboats. The purpose of this resort is to give their “active” outdoor couples a space to relax away from stress of work and city life. It serves to give them a place to relax and observe the races happening around the island if they wish to not participate.

Hedonism

Stephen White

A project rebelling against the concept of monogamy by establishing a distinguishable safe space in one of the Isle of Wight’s most prominent locations 

Digital Couple

Weize Liang

Relationship is one of the key which reflect romanticism, however there is a shift in paradigm during 20th century, relationship becomes more flexible.  The typical relationship with two different gender is not the only case nowadays, it can be two partners with the same gender.  With the development of technology, it becomes possible to form a relationship between human and a digital character, as a result digital couple becomes a new trend.

Harmony

Yen-Yu Lee

“Harmony” is a nature resort where users can truly experience what “freedom in nature” means and the extent of its necessity to our wellbeing.  Each visit hopes to evoke harmony between nature, people, and the resort, so that we can be challenged to reconsider the tension between political, economic, social gains and climate change, pollution that puts both ‘freedom’ and ‘nature’ at great risks.