CHARTING NULL ISLAND 01 2022 - 2023 I SPECULATIVE CARTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION

CHARTING NULL ISLAND_DEVELOPED DESIGN EXPERIMENTS INTRODUCING THE THREE LAYERS

The architectural device is divided into three vertical layers. The bottom layer is represented as a realm of temporality and memory sited on the ocean floor that chronicles the shifting patterns of sand. The intermediate layer represents a realm defined by the dynamic movements of the ocean currents. The top layer builds upon the three armatures in the previous experiments; they stand hidden just beneath the ocean surface, continually spinning and causing the ocean waves to surge. All that can be seen from the surface is the tip of one armature, which takes on the form of the Soul Buoy. The architectural device appears to be composed of an infinitely expandable series of parts in a changeable environmental system, simultaneously providing a dual place identity of both mythical and real. The three principal plans (see figs. 1.10 – 1.12) are located on the sand, current, and ocean layers. Each plan represents one 'unit' of a habitable community in the sea, assembled as a new urban archetype to offer a solution to marine pollution. In the lower plan, the circular architectural barrier appears as a baseline, against which the dynamic transformation of form that is theoretically changed by ocean conditions can be assessed over time. Programmatically, the building is conceived as both the source of the ocean’s turbulence, as well as an archive for the continuous recycling and recovery of marine waste, oil pollution, etc. The dynamic transformations and rotations throughout the building stir and gather these pollutants together, and the progressive filling of ‘memory chambers’ with the earth’s discarded fragments becomes an allegorical ‘timeline’, showing the effects of mankind’s treatment of the earth. The complex on the ocean floor, extending in the direction of the Prime Meridian and the equator, physically re-presents the latitude and longitude lines as architectural components of the building, progressively covered and uncovered by ever-changing fluid patterns of sand.

THE INFINITELY EXPANDABLE SITE AND THE INTERIOR SPACES

Figure 1.14 explore the middle of the three zones of the structure

Thesis Supervisor: Daniel K. Brown

Research Stream: Architecture & Dystopia/Architectural Narratives Stream that is defined by the flowing ocean currents. The aim is to build upon the previous design experiment and attempt to investigate the habitable interior spaces of the three-dimensional cartographic architecture that blends into the site as a set of cause-and-effect mythical relationships with reality. Figures 1.15 and 1.16 offer a fresh perspective to witness the composition of the architecture and the site. The series of interior renders seen in figure 1.14 draws from the earliest design experiment that was constructed with the real and unreal, 'memory fragments' and 'temporal fragments' over time. The interior spaces are consistently changing with the transformation of the infinitely expandable site, which acts as the foundation of the architecture in response to imaginative cartographies, implied dynamic transformation, temporality, and memory. The spaces feature situations of liminality and transformation, within memory and temporal space, created to invite viewers to travel and imagine the space that lies between fiction and reality.

Figure 1.13 explores the upper of the three zones of the structure that is defined by the turbulent ocean surface. Its counter-pivot creates the turbulence, inviting the ocean’s detritus to settle to the bottom where it can be collected and stored: a memory archive of mankind’s destruction of the environmental systems. Once the archive is full, the machine will come to a stop. The ocean currents will no longer flow, and the seas will rise above Soul Buoy, removing it from sight/site forever.

Design Tutor: Daniel K. Brown

Project Stream: Architecture & Dystopia/Architectural Narratives Stream