CHARTING NULL ISLAND_CONCEPTUAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS INTEGRATION

Conceptual Drawings explores the ‘vertical’ overlapping of cartographic representations that traditional cartography does not typically consider. In the case of the research site, Null Island’s ‘identity’ is defined by the ocean floor, the intermediate currents, and the ocean surface. In figure 1.3, Mechanical-like devices, derived from three-dimensionalised cartographic notations, appear to draw lines upon the surface of the site (see fig. 1.4) where Null Island is located. The axonometric drawing (see fig. 1.2) appears to map the place by simultaneously engaging the topography of the ocean surface, the currents in-between, and the underwater

Thesis Supervisor: Daniel K. Brown

Research Stream: Architecture & Dystopia/Architectural Narratives Stream terrain; all are of equal importance in the mapping. By portraying a real/unreal site that is simultaneously topographic, cartographic, and architectural. A sail-like device suggests programmatic functionality, representing the implied dynamic movements inherent to the site, as if the site’s dynamic characteristics may have been caused by architectural interventions.

In figure 1.5, drawings were initially reflected upon as temporal and memory fragments of longitude and latitude which primarily focuses on the investigation of Null Island as a conceptual set of

‘urban textures’ that cross the meridian and equator. They take on the form of a collage superimposed onto the previous fictitious plan, creating a hypothetical city layout on the ocean floor. They are presented as a series of 'memory fragments' extracted from historic urban textures from a cartography perspective, which look at the site as a compass rose spanned by the prime meridian and the equator. In terms of temporality, the fragments appear as a continual depiction of growth and decay. They represent the experience of duration and time, past and future–– a fictional realm remembering the real world.

Thesis Supervisor: Daniel K. Brown

Research Stream: Architecture & Dystopia/Architectural Narratives Stream

The ruin as an allegory of memory is fragmentary, imperfect, partial and thoroughly incomplete. There is no clear sign that the meaning of the past is self-evident and easy to decode if you possess the necessary expertise. There is an excess of meaning in the remains: a plenitude of fragmented stories, elusions, fantasies, inexplicable objects and possible events which present a history that can begin and end anywhere, and refuses the master narratives of history, or instance, of the stories which encapsulate places within cycles of boom, bust and decay.

––Tim Edensor, Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality 141

CHARTING NULL ISLAND_PRELIMINARY DESIGN EXPERIMENTS THE MOVEMENT OF OBJECTS IN THE DRAWING

Figure 1.6 and 1.7 illustrates the use of projection lines to resituate speculative cartographic representations as dynamically transforming temporal and memory fragments. They move between layers of the drawing surface to transform architectural linework into a mapping system that infers and circumnavigates spatiality within the drawing. The movement of the objects, as functioning artefacts, offers potentials for the discovery of dynamic and temporal spatial prototypes. The notion of projection lines suggests a set of known data from the site that affects the architectural form through spatial production.

In figure 1.6, the architectural device is represented by two mechanical armatures moving across the drawing plane that simulate the ‘whirlpool’ created by the ocean at this site over time. The use of the projection lines aims to outline a vortex that turns into an architectural barrier, which is further developed in the next experiment. Figure 1.7 can be seen as a combination of the representation of plan and elevation drawings simultaneously appearing in the same plane. By suspending the architectural device vertically, the longitude line represented by the horizontal mechanical armature divides the architectural device into two parts: the upper part can be regarded as a 'Soul' Buoy in reality, while the lower part can be seen as a metaphor for the imaginary world underwater, both located at the intersection of the Prime Meridian and the Equator. This series of drawings invite the architectural device to manipulate the drawing composition itself, which provides a dialogue between drawing and building, while allowing a more architectural spatiality through the speculative cartographic drawing.

In figure 1.8, the drawing builds upon the previous plan experiment by considering its appearance in elevation. It explores dynamic confrontations between environmental and man-made architectural objects, to encourage the architectural fragments to blend with the natural environment and undergo a dynamic transformation. The transformation from architectural fragments as man-made architectural objects into the form of ruins generates a temporal dialogue between the past and future, memory and point of view.