Safe Spaces
Created by Marina Andrioti, Nina Attinello, Angel Ikuewan, Nada Yaakoub
2024
Type
Immersive Experience
Project produced for Cinematic and Videogame Architecture, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
Tools
Procreate | Adobe After Effects | Adobe Premiere Pro
Credits
Editing & Visual Development:
Marina Andrioti, Nada Yaakoub
Design & Animation by:
Marina Andrioti, Nada Yaakoub
Music & Sound Design:
Nina Attinello, Angel Ikuewan
Script Writting:
Nina Attinello
The Immersive Experience:
Participants enter through a blanket-fort portal and step into a playful, interactive world guided by the magical narrator, Zack. He leads them through a series of activities that draw them deeper into the narrative, helping them rediscover the joy of building forts and the sense of safety and imagination they symbolize.
The Story:
In the immersive experience, Zack guides participants through playful tasks like collecting balloons and drawing forts, leading them into an animated forest for storytime. There they learn about Mira, a girl who becomes lost in a shifting, magical forest and suppresses memories of home to cope with loneliness. During a violent storm, she builds a small fort that rekindles her sense of safety and belonging. This act helps her remember her past, and she soon finds her family’s cottage and reunites with her loved ones.
concept & Research
How can unrealism and embodiment amplify emotional impact in immersive spatial experiences?
Amer Karic, Inner Child
The story reminds us that the instinct to build refuge, both physical and emotional, is universal and timeless. It invites us to reconnect with the childhood sense of safety rooted in community, rather than facing life’s challenges alone. Our “forts” become metaphors for the spaces and relationships we create to guide, protect, and ground us when we feel lost in the forest of life.
Reference: René Magritte, The Blank Signature (Le Blanc-Seing), 1965. This work served as the inspiration for the painting we created for the projection-mapping piece.
Source found on Pinterest
We used pencil-like, crayon-style 2D animation with loose, imperfect lines to mimic the look and feel of children’s drawings, keeping the visuals playful and childlike.
Materials / Blanket Forts
We chose white, soft sheets to enhance projection clarity and crafted flowing geometry to evoke a cocoon-like, immersive atmosphere.
PROJECTION MATERIALITY – ARTSTYLE TESTING
Pencil drawings – outside
Pencil drawings – inside
Abstract images – inside
Realistic images – inside
Fort Construction
To build the fort, we assembled a soft, immersive environment using heavier fabrics that could hold projected light without warping. The sheets were suspended from the ceiling pipes with rope, creating a canopy-like enclosure. The interior was furnished solely with soft materials, pillows, blankets, and rugs, to create a fully cushioned environment that enhanced both comfort and immersion.
Projection Mapping
To enhance the immersive experience, we used two projectors to envelop the fort’s occupants in projections and atmosphere. One was positioned 5 meters in front of the sheet to maximize coverage, and the other was placed at the back. We conducted test runs with various art styles to identify what worked best with the materials.
Projector 1:
It features more detailed animations, projecting onto the front sturdier material where the main story unfolds.
Fort – Exterior
Fort – Interior
Projector 2:
Projects onto softer material with creases, displaying background animations that support the story but do not feature the main elements.
Animation
The animations were crafted in direct response to the script, ensuring that each visual sequence aligns with the narration and reinforces the storytelling. This approach creates a seamless connection between what is seen and what is heard, allowing the narrative to unfold cohesively across image and sound.
SEQUENCE 1: Opening Scene
SEQUENCE 2: Dawn Breaks
SEQUENCE 3: Mira’s Room to Forest Transition
Script: We hear a sudden crash and the dramatic rustling of leaves and wind whipping through a forest wood. A magical soundscape builds as Projector 1 [P1] and Projector 2 [P2] slowly fade up on an animated hand drawn dark, lush, surreal, and magical forest. The animations depict simple swaying of leaves, the whirling wind, or a camera panning through the dark magical landscape accented by specks of light and sparkles of color. We are suddenly enveloped in a highly theatrical visual and aural world of the wood.
Swirling Leaves Animation
Script: Dawn breaks over the forest’s horizons and the scene brightens with the light of daytime. Projector 2 continues playing this simple daytime forest animation as the trees on Projector 1 part like a stage curtain revealing the exterior of a woodland cottage. to enter us to the beginning of the story
Projector 1
Projector 2
Throughout the narration, the forest transitions between day and night or shifts in mood from calm to fierce to reflect the story’s progression. To achieve this, I primarily used fade-in and fade-out effects, along with color inversion and edge detection, or adding rain to create smooth yet distinct transitions.
Script:She trailed its magical tail, but couldn’t keep its pace and suddenly found herself lost and alone. She didn’t realize how far she had gone, but when she turned around her family’s cottage was nowhere to be seen.
Projector 1 & 2
The transition is driven by the animated tail, which gradually diminishes to mirror the pacing of the narration.
The environment then shifts using a combination of edge-detection and color-inversion effects, allowing the forest to fade back into darkness to emphasize the narrative’s tonal shift.
SEQUENCE 4: Raining Forest
FINAL SEQUENCE: Goodbye!
Script: This magical forest was ever shifting and for years Mira couldn’t find a way back home. After months of daydreaming about her lost forts and wishing to reunite with her family, Mira willed herself to forget the comfort and safety of her former life. Easier to forget, she decided, than to carry the pain of such a profound loss.
P1 and P2 forest darkens. On P1 we can see the violent whipping of the wind as the branches and leaves whirl around.
This decision served her many years until one night a terrible storm blew through the forest. Unable to defend herself from the harsh wind, Mira collapsed onto the forest floor. She cried out for her family and grasped for leaves and branches, trying desperately to build a shelter.
Projector 1 & 2
Wind Animation
Rain Animation
Script: Well thank you for joining me everybody! Next week’s storytime will be held in Penelope’s fort so you can arrange the carpool details with her. All of your fort drawings are outside if you want to help Penelope with the build. See you soon everybody! Byeeee!
Both projectors are showing the forest sketch to return gradually to blank paper as goodbye
Projector 1 & 2
A reversed timelapse animation gradually erases the forest sketch, returning it to blank paper as a symbolic goodbye, marking the end of the fairytale.