This second semester, we will be employing some of our first semester investigations into a concrete architectural proposal within a specific site.

Transcription

1 Semester IV (spring 2007): The gateway house This second semester, we will be employing some of our first semester investigations into a concrete architectural proposal within a specific site. Site: It is an open coal mine; at present still active and located on the fringe of Cottbus in East Germany approximately 125km south of Berlin. The mine itself covers a vast territory of around 14km by 6km and is only one among many. The ground excavation ranges from 0 to -40m. While the scale of this site is extremely vast, there are also plans to regenerate the site trough time as following; From 2007 to 2015, the mine will remain active (coal extraction). In 2015, the mine will close and all work will stop. From 2020 to 2033, the open pit will be flooded to regain a sense of peacefulness and natural calmness (one can witness some of this evidences in the surrounding mine pits already flooded and resting in time; untroubled and untroubling waters!) The studio will develop the gatehouse in parallel with the site regeneration scheme. Flooding has been a recurrent issue of lately (lowlands in Holland/ Hurricane katrina in New Orleans/ climate change; ice cap melting, ocean water rising) and the studio will seek out imaginative, architectural alternatives to this problem beyond pragmatism. Project: This semester's project is an architectural proposition before, while, and beyond flooding. The program is a gateway house. The aim of the project is both to collect and distribute a speculative urban proliferation by concentrating on a series of nodes at a comprehensive scale (24 gateway houses) within a field (the studio). While acting punctually along a section of the site, the project performs as a seed evolving over time and territorializing the site and its vastness. The spatiotemporal coherence of the gateway house versus the timing of the site regeneration project will become a key motivator in defying the expanse of its speculative nature over time. Program: The project is twofold: it contains a public as well as a private function. It is named a House; therefore it will propose a first inhabitation for the site for who will be defined by each student (private function: house). Who s the house for? Who lives there? Who might be the first inhabitants of a city to come? It is a Gateway that is one of the visitors first views of a city to come (public function: a visitor centre); a transition from one space to another (verticality/horizontality). The gateway house could become a transition from dry to flooded landscape. Procedure: We will tune the phases of the semester studio with the timing of the site regeneration project into a series of tectonic proposals evolving towards the gateway house (the ultimate aim of the semester). See annex f: Time Map Gateway House 15

2 1) Before flooding: Gravitational Descent Project duration: 3 weeks Site timeline: Condition: active mine period/ dry/ bottom ground exposed (research, analysis, study). Programmatic action: The first phase of the project will aim at bringing people down the mine by inventing a physical and spatial descent into the bottom of the pit in its dry and active condition to scale (meaning sensitive to human scale while considering the scale of the site). Gravity prevails! Logistics: To start, each student will be assigned a specific section of the site (see attached site plan in annex f) which will be drawn at 1/500. On the drawn section, one will locate a destination to reach. The tectonic descent to that destination will also become a first measuring device (its own ruler) to comprehend the scale at stake as well as establishing an inaugural foundation for the gateway house to come. This first phase will propose a physical mediation between two disjointed static grounds, that is an access from the top datum of the mine s edge to the chosen destination (on the section) inside the pit. The project will be developed in section, plan and model at 1/500 as well as at 1/33. Requirements: (see annex e) 1 st week section and plan drawings of existing topography at 1/500 as well as first schematic drawings for the descent 2 nd week model investigations at1/500 and drawings 3 rd week model 1/33 and plan and section drawings Berlin field trip 2) While flooding: Sounding of a Liquid ground Project duration: 4 Weeks +1 Week during the Berlin field trip Site timeline: Condition: flooding period/ wet/ bottom ground concealed/ water level rises (new ground) Programmatic action: ascent, buoyancy (concept/proposal) This second phase of the semester will be to continue to design the gateway house while considering an artificial yet physical phenomenon taking place; flooding. Flooding: the rise of a third ground, a liquid ground. One of the intentions here is most likely one of erasure by means of flooding. By doing so, this destructed, arid, severe, below-grade, desert like landscape is intentionally concealed and brought back to a sense of serenity (still water) by readjusting its calmer ground level to a more reasonable intimacy with its original edge condition. A potential for this project is that one is asked to begin action pre-emptively, that is before the fact as opposed to on the aftermath of the event (i.e. before being faced with the picturesque and the contemplative regenerated site). This will ask from each student to research properties and conditions taking place in order to take action(s) and to elaborate a conceptual approach that can be carried through the semester into the development of an architectural proposition. Below is a non-exhaustive (incomplete) compilation of words whose properties can begin to be revisited associatively for a project to emerge. Sounding/probing/flooding/air/liquid/solid/ground/immersion/floatation/foundation/buoyancy/gravit y/airiness/suspension/depth/rise/pressure/sound/volume/darkness/lightness/stagnancy/reflection/ evaporation/airtight/. Requirements: (see annex e) Plan and section drawings at 1/500 and 1/33 Physical model at 1/500 and 1/33 Any additional materials relevant to the proposal 16

3 Week ENAC 3) Beyond flooding: Tidal landscape Project duration: 4 weeks Site timeline: onwards Condition: stagnant? Where does the water level stop? Programmatic action: speculate, collect and distribute (manifesto) the design of the gateway house from after phase still has not provided it with a physical access from the site s edge, it may still remain hermetic (self contained, non-accessible from the land). If phase one of the project was a descent into the dry mine from the existing edge of the site and phase two was an ascent along with the rise of water towards an indefinite datum, a reemergence beyond the surface of the water (not necessarily on it), phase 3 will be first about defining the water level in relation to the physical edge of the site and then reinventing the edge condition of the site while providing a connection to the gateway house. Flooding in this instance can be perceived as a one way tide; as the water level rises, it progressively erases the site s edge. If observing some existing flooded mines in the surrounding area, one can notice how unresolved its edge is in relation to the water surface (often large bands of muddy territory blocking any possible access to the water), Where does flooding stop? What edge demarcation does the water create against the site hard edge? How can this edge be manipulated, transformed, reinvented from the gateway house point of view? Requirements: (see annex e) Plan and section drawings at 1/500 and 1/33 Physical model at 1/500 and 1/33 Any additional materials relevant to the proposal Definitions: In Google, on the search menu, type define:.(and the word you wish a definition for). I.e: define: buoyancy Result: (among others) Sounding is a method of measuring the depth of a body of water by dropping a weight attached to a rope and letting it hit the bottom. Beginning of source material: Raoul Schrott, Finis Terrae (1995) Book fiction: The Drowned World (1962), J. G. Ballard The Drought (1965), J. G. Ballard Film: Zabriskie Point (1970), Michelangelo Antonioni 17

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5 Annex e. Models / Size and Scales: 1 Board of 80 x 200cm to be cut in 2 pieces: 70m AMSL > Board for model 1: 4.5cm x 40cm x 200cm Scale 1/33 > ca. 1.5m x 13.3m x 66m 70m AMSL is at 150cm height < 70m AMSL Board for model 2: 4.5cm x 40cm x 200 cm Scale 1/500 > ca. 22.5m x 200m x 1000m 70m AMSL is at 40cm height Drawings / Size and Scales: drawing format: 40cm x 200cm drawing 1: recordings - scale both 1/500 and 1/33 - tracking process, geometrical dispositions, geometrical transformations etc. - 2 pdf-files due every week, total 24 drawing 2: author's cut - scale both 1/500 and 1/33 - explaining the project, its concepts and ideas in sections, plans, elevations, imaging 19

6 Annex g. 20

7 Annex k. 21

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