FleaFollyArchitects are spatial-storytellers who use narrative and fiction to discover, explore and invent unique architectural propositions encompassing all scales. Operating across, and blurring the boundaries between the fields of architecture, design, fashion, art and installation, they use craft as a key component of their work in trying to bring speculative worlds to the wider audience.
In an effort to construct ‘real cities’ at micro scale, FleaFollyArchitects have been investigating the seductiveness of spatial condensation within bonsai landscapes and doll’s houses. What makes these micro worlds so powerful in captivating the imagination of their observers and set them in contrast to the traditional architectural model?
How can the approach to the way we experience models be challenged to create a similar receptacle for the imagination to inhabit? Furthermore, how can one build an actual architecture entirely by hand within the confines of the Architects’ workplace? Have the boundaries of traditional architectural model – making and drawing been pushed far enough, before we are fully absorbed by a technological age?
Grimm’s Fairytales, Elias Canetti’s ‘Earwitness’ and Mary Shelly’s ‘Modern Prometheus’ are but a few fictional narratives that have inspired FleaFollyArchitects to craft microcosms for the characters of these stories to inhabit. These tectonic renditions investigate the very notion of how miniature architecture may transcend the domain of architectural models and occupy the make-believe world of doll‘s houses and fairy-tales. One such piece is Grimm City – a city of bonsai proportions