Pokerzen House

The world doesn’t stand still, to stimulate and modify human behavior, to trigger all human senses, concepts and symbols, Pokerzen project is an experience design project practicing the design of a future game focusing on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions. Pokerzen experience is aiming to revolutionize the entertainment industry and define new standards and add educational goals towards the final products and services.

Not in any comparison to a tradition gaming house, pokerzen has an self-exploration educational goal embedded. It's not just an entertainment, it's also a consciousness elevating experience, carefully choreographed give-and take power, rhythm, parry, thrust, withdrawal and retreat.

The idea for the PokerZen House relies on creating the space where players (as beginners mind performers) can play poker. Nevertheless it should be more than that. It’s a building where the game concept influences the totality of itself.

The start point for the project left for future decision, either it should be a physical space or a virtual one. Although it might seem awkward, this issue was not a key factor for the development of the architectural project. For we understand the virtual space as another way of comprehend the physical approach. Technology developed for videogames, as we know it now and more in the future, offers the sensation that the reality and the virtual reality are getting close to one another, in what concerns to the perception one can have of both realities.

For that reason, the PokerZen House project aims to deal with issues related with the principals of what should be the House to play poker, almost as a sacred ritual, rather than take effort on the practical and logistics problems within the place to game.

The general concept
A huge aggressive and geometrical mass floats above a calm and infinite sheet of water. It contains the PokerZen House.
On the approach to the building, the player must get through a promenade marked with several steps/stages, that will lead him to the game house and eventually get him out into the exit way, with a new understanding of himself and of life itself.

The promenade
A narrow path goes from south/north and lead towards the main building.
The player passes it like if he’s walking above the water. He first reaches the maze, which is under the water level. At this point the disorientation and the distortion of the fluxes affects the player in a way that the only possible thing to do is to find the way out from the maze and achieve a more conscious state of mind.

A high and elegant tower divides the path between the maze and the main building. Two parts constitute this Tower, one way up and one way down. As the player walks the stairs and reaches the upper level, he’ll have the consciousness of the path he had done and a greater view to the PokerZen House, the main goal for the performers to achieve.

The house game

To go inside the building, the performer must abandon the water level and go trough a ramp that goes under the huge solid that seems like floating above the blue. This ramp will lead him to a central courtyard, where two elements get together - water and sky. This central element is the empty core of the building. On its walls, the players can almost perceive of stairs that will guide them to the upper level, where the playground is located.
This level is divided in five spaces: the entrance hall, the teahouse, the baths and the playground. They are organized around the central courtyard, and placed to form a perfect square. Ancient knowledge, the Early Heaven Bagua (Xiantian Fuxi), was crucial to the position of those elements, since this organization brings harmony and balance of the energies that inhabit the building. The element Sky is related to the entrance hall, for it is the space still connected to the outside world. The element Fire is associated with the teahouse, as the baths are with the Water element. The playground is in the earth position, here the receptive energies will embrace the performers to achieve higher levels of knowledge.

The way out
There is only one way out. From the playground, a stair will guide the performers to the rooftop of the PokerZen House. Here they will have a wide-open view to the vast infinite and contemplate the levels that they left behind. From here in order to leave the place, the players must pass again the central courtyard, this time to descend a stair different from the one they once climb into get inside the PokerZen House.
As they go down eventually they’ll see the very first space of the courtyard where they entered the building, achieving the consciousness that they know more about themselves, the others and the interaction between them.
The path is wider as you walk out since it symbolizes the increase of options for the fulfilled players.