CINEMATIC
LANDSCAPE
EXCHANGE
Title: Terms of Engagement
Name: Celine Hobechi
Voiceover:
Sound: Us and Them - Pink Floyd
Communication will always involve some degree of misalignment and misunderstanding and will therefore always be approximate. The misalignment comes from the reaction between our physical environment and our desire to communicate. The physical environment creates resistance and might prevent us from taking action. I am questioning what makes space structured and what makes it negotiable if architecture is the formal suit of the terms of engagement, and how these designated boundaries shape behaviour.
This became clear to me in Bude, Cornwall. Where I saw what happens when architecture is no longer disruptive, when it’s taken for granted. It begins to lose its agency and becomes complacent. The GCHQ, the tennis court, the post office, Summerleaze Beach, the Embankment, and Alan’s house are all examples of how communication is controlled, disturbed, or made visible through architecture. These elements are not neutral: a glass window, a fence, or a line on a map are all materialised agreements about who is where, and under what terms. The project identifies two spatial conditions: the scripted and the dialectic. Where one enforces order, the other invites negotiation. The film asks: What does a fair conversation look like, and how can architecture support it?
Name: Celine Hobechi
Voiceover:
Sound: Us and Them - Pink Floyd
Communication will always involve some degree of misalignment and misunderstanding and will therefore always be approximate. The misalignment comes from the reaction between our physical environment and our desire to communicate. The physical environment creates resistance and might prevent us from taking action. I am questioning what makes space structured and what makes it negotiable if architecture is the formal suit of the terms of engagement, and how these designated boundaries shape behaviour.
This became clear to me in Bude, Cornwall. Where I saw what happens when architecture is no longer disruptive, when it’s taken for granted. It begins to lose its agency and becomes complacent. The GCHQ, the tennis court, the post office, Summerleaze Beach, the Embankment, and Alan’s house are all examples of how communication is controlled, disturbed, or made visible through architecture. These elements are not neutral: a glass window, a fence, or a line on a map are all materialised agreements about who is where, and under what terms. The project identifies two spatial conditions: the scripted and the dialectic. Where one enforces order, the other invites negotiation. The film asks: What does a fair conversation look like, and how can architecture support it?
