Peter’s Smoking Room                Spaces Builds Making, a Research project at MDX University 2005/8 funded by AHRC

The spoken recorded word was used in this sound installation to relay a new reading of the building to unsuspecting audiences as they entered the campus. Speakers randomly amplified the recorded voices of known members of the campus’s staff reading data generated by QuantitySurveyors during the construction of the Phase Two building from found archive information 1973/78. 

Two audio speakers were installed in the eaves of the front entrance canopy and then speakers amplify the recorded voices of campus academics, secretarial and other workers onsite to record data generated by the Quantity Surveyors during the construction of the Phase Two building. Via their voices, we were given detailed specifications for such items as the number of light bulbs, meters of wire, building bricks used to construct the campus, their type, the glass used in the windows and doors, the floor covering used, how many toilet seats on campus, plumbing pipes and fixtures, refractory tables and so on.

In total, there were 148 audio samples played at random intervals from a sound store. The information to which one could listen is essential to the structural integrity and continuing upkeep of the building at the time, but little of it was foremost in our minds when we think about our experiences and the building itself.