First-year students in Architecture Design I studio were recently hosted by Factory Obscura, an “Oklahoma City-based art collective creating immersive experiences that awaken wonder, build community, and make the world better.”
Students in Factory Obscura.
On Oct. 25, the students were met by Factory Obscura founders Kelsey Karper, Tammy Greenman, Hugh Meade, and Laurent Massenat, who discussed their creative processes, collaborative experiences, and how Factory Obscura came to be.
The students then entered the immersive space, the door of which is a giant ear, and moved through and sat in the rooms. They spent a lot of time sketching the different spaces and practicing their observational drawing skills.
Students explore one of the spaces in Factory Obscura.
“Factory Obscura is a 6,000 square foot immersive and collaborative art experience that uses color, textures, shape, and space to evoke the various emotions felt when listening to a mixtape,” said Haley Prestifilippo, one of the course instructors.
“They were asked to really think about the relationship between the design processes in each room and their own designs. The students had a fabulous time and learned a lot!”
Students sketching a space in Factory Obscura.
“Similarly, in Design I studio, students have been creating a few different series of box models exploring ways color, texture, shape, and space can evoke and intensify a specific emotion.” Prestifilippo continues, "it was an important and amazing opportunity for our students to experience this same idea on a human scale – the immersive spaces at Factory Obscura allowed our students to actually walk through the emotions they had been working with throughout the past few weeks."
Photos provided by Haley Prestifilippo.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture professor and Institute for Quality Communities Director Dr. Amber N. Wiley’s book, Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital, has received two major honors from the Urban History Association.
Research initiated by Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture alumna Naila Hasan during her master’s studies at the University of Oklahoma has continued through faculty collaboration and resulted in a peer-reviewed publication in HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal.
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