Welcome to Banoi, a tropical island where you can leave the stresses of the world behind. The Royal Palms Resort offers its guests from around the world the ultimate in luxury and relaxation, a holiday paradise where your dreams should come true--but where a nightmare is about to begin. A mysterious epidemic has suddenly, and without warning, broken out across the island. The local islanders, hotel guests, and workers alike are struck down--only to rise again, craving the flesh and the blood of the still living. For four of the vacationers and a handful of others scattered around Banoi who are seemingly unaffected by the plague, they must face the awful, terrifying reality of a zombie apocalypse. Now there is only one thing left to do: survive. Welcome to Dead Island--a paradise to die for.
In light of current developments in modelling, and with the aim of reinvigorating debates around the potentiality of the architectural model - its philosophies, technologies and futures - this issue of AD examines how the model has developed to become an immersive worldbuilding machine. Worldbuilding is the creation of imaginary worlds through forms of cultural production. Although this discourse began with an analysis of imaginary places constructed in works of literature, it has evolved to encompass worlds from fields such as cinema, games, design, landscape, urbanism and architecture. Worldbuilding differs from the notion of worldmaking, which deals with how speculative thinking can influence the construction of the phenomenal world. As architects postulate ever-increasingly complex world models from which to draw inspiration and inform their practice, questions of scale, representation and collaboration emerge. Discussed through a range of articles from acclaimed international contributors in the fields of both architecture and media studies, this issue explores how the architectural model is situated between concepts of worldbuilding and worldmaking - in the creative space of worldmodelling.
Contributors: Kathy Battista, Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallen, Pascal Bronner and Thomas Hillier, Mark Cousins, James A Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn, Kate Davies, Ryan Dillon, Christian Hubert, Chad Randl, Theodore Spyropoulos, and Mark JP Wolf.
Featured architects: Phil Ayres, FleaFolly Architects, Minimaforms, and Stasus.