The Babylon Times
Unit 1
Sunday, 20 July 2014
A NEW CITY IS BORN By Archana Moorthy & Isabella Marques Castro
The new skyline of Babylon looks down into its reflected past - London
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ven before the debris from the war could be cleared, architects and designers were busy at their drafting tables. After heavy speculation and thought, the creative minds of the city came to an agreement. A fusion of the past and present was decided as the final verdict for the rebuilding of our new city of Babylon. So what does this fusion mean to the city and most importantly the people of the city? What should we expect at the inauguration? As the leaders of the city work that out, we will update you on the varied processes of rebuilding. Every city needs some fundamental spaces. Since it is now the age of verticality and
compression, our architects and planners have taken the spaces which have an unprecedented horizontal history and made them vertical. The proposals were each approved by the most influential people within the city with Her Majesty at the helm. The ambitious young and the functional old have each had their say, with some of their decrees emerging alongside new governmental policies and laws. By the phase ‘fundamental space’, we are looking at the expanse that will dominate the city while creating a characteristic identity at the same time. Through building a new city we are also looking at reframing the needs and necessities in terms of 1
spaces and building typologies. The set of concepts and drawings that were revealed at the last press meeting was a bizarre amalgam. The architects are clearly redefining what the city needs in order to function and flourish. The proposals include a museum, an archive/cemetery hybrid and a surveillance tower apart from the conventional residential, commercial, leisure and Parliamentary spaces. The new skyline is to be dominated by gravity-defying, fluid, inverted, hybrid, panoramic and multi-elevation structures. The wild imagination of the quixotic architects is giving the engineers a run for their money as they turn ink on paper into an experiential reality.
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Tuesday, 15 July 2014
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TOWER TALK: ARCHTREEISA By Archana Moorthy & Isabella Castro Marques
Above: The architects Archana & Isabella Below: The new tower, Archtreeisa
The process of designing and constructing this new exhibition tower for Babylon
The first tower to feature in this editorial debut of Tower Talk is the exhibition towerArchtreeisa. This weekly column will feature articles about the newly proposed towers for the city of Babylon. This gravity-defying tower designed by architect duoArchana Moorthy and Isabella Castro Marques is quite an exhibit in and of itself. Ask the designers of the tower and they say that rendering a sculptural quality was the major idea behind the project. They viewed the city as the stage and their building as an exhibition space, executing the primary function of their structure at a mega-cityscale. Inspired by artist Seon Ghi Bahk, the building was designed in collaboration with the artist. The conceptual principle used to derive it’s unique form was inversion. The building is an abstraction of a tree to symbolise 2
the lessening of nature’s importance with the advent of the industrial revolution. Remodeled from the 19th Century design for the Crystal Palace Tower, Archtreeisa uses the basic structural element of the arch and supporting column of the first modern building in the world to create a free standing suspension tower.
The view from the platform atop Archtreeisa with the exhibition towers poking above the deck to form a micro skyline
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A NEW TOWER IS BORN... By Medha Bansal & Dhruv Khurana
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HIGHER HOROSCOPES By Medha Bansal & Dhruv Khurana
THE GHERKENNIUM No more fights are seen in your the future. 2014 will be a good and peaceful year for you as human DNA begins to be a factor in your evolution. You will become a hybrid, combining the iconic forms of Foster’s Gherkin and the Millennium tower.
THE MANSION MIRROR Your quarrels will soon be finished and the year 2020 will be a constructive year for you. Don’t be sad as this time there are very high chances for your reflective surfaces to be realised. Just stay confident that the narcissistic views afforded by your tower will ensure your construction.
THE SELFRIDGES MAZE 2017 will be a lucky year for you as earlier there were some financial issues, but this time there will be none. Consumerism will reign supreme as a unique place for people to shop will achieve success.
TOWER X 1831 was a constructive year while 1832 was a disastrous one. Now, 2014 will again be a productive year for you. History is an important part of your life. You will have different faces that each serve to protect the past, present and future existence of Babylon.
ARCHTREEISA You faced problems in 1861 due to a lack of technology but thankfully that will no longer be an issue. There will be new technologies alongside ideas to help build you to great heights in 2014. Nature will be a great inspiration to your form and materiality.
THE DIMARYP While once you were whole you are now split in two. Dividing your time between the corporal forms of the dead and the papery sheaves of forgotten ideas, your mirrored form seems to float at once mysterious and solid, light and heavy, but always related to death.
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THE PLUG-IN TOWER & THE MAZE OF SELFRIDGE By Derek Ho & Bai Yusof
The Idea of Plug-In Tower
From Tower to Room
The Maze of Selfridges
The idea of turning the Selfridges Tower into a PlugIn Tower is inspired by the Archigram proposal for a Plugin City tht was designed by Peter Cook in 1964. The city is portrayed as a mega-structure without any buildings. With a massive framework, modular components could plug into the slot of this huge machine. In the new proposal, the Selfridges building is dismantled into fragments and reassembled through sectional slices. The signature elevation of the Selfridges building is preserved. The second layer is the skyline of the city of London. The idea is to create a combination of scales so that it starts to blur the boundary between the city scale and the tower scale.
The third and fourth layer of the sectional slices are inspired by the unbuilt Selfridges Tower. In this renovated version of Selfridgea, the unbuilt tower is hidden inside the building so that it can transform into a vertical tower, allowing the building to expand and grow in size. The concept of ‘plug-in’ is also manifested at the room scale. Thus, different department stores are now able to plug into different spaces at different times. Hence, the layout of the Selfridges constantly changes on a periodic basis. Horizontals become verticals, while shops and building pieces plug-in and plug-out.
In the new Selfridges building, each of the small compartments are connected to one another through staircases. Some of these stairs don’t form a continuous pathway but instead create an optical illusion through which the people inside would constantly experience the feeling of being lost. Eventually, the Selfridge building transforms from a regular department store into a giant maze.
Plug-In City
The Maze of Selfridge Tower
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The Tower Model in progress
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WARNING WATCH OUT !!! Recently, there was a rumour in the city of Babylon that a large number of mummies escaped from the secret chamber hidden inside the Primrose Pyramid ... Please contact the R.I.P. Department ASAP if anyone sees any suspicious paper-wrapped creatures hiding in the shadows of the city. By Derek Ho & Bai Yusof
Sherlock, do you have any clues on the mysterious outbreak of mummies from the Pyramid?
Mate, to be honest, I think Dr. Moriarty is definitely involved in this ‘Mummy Incident’. But I need to pay a visit to the pyramid to collect more evidence.
I have a feeling the mummies might be hiding inside the Reform Tower. Why do you think so?
Think about it. The Reform Tower is the Headquarters of the Government of Babylon. The most dangerous place is always the safest place to hide, don’t you think so?
Oh well, just pray that we don’t need to jump off the train thus time!
Very true, that what the evil Dr. Moriarty wants us to think . Do you remember if Dr. Moriarty’s cousin is the curator of the exhbition hall of the Crystal Palace? The mummies could be hiding inside the Exhibition of Ancient Civilization. Very wisely, they might be hidden inside the coffin behind the window of exhbition glass.
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MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief Manijeh Verghese Madeleine Kessler Elena Palacios Carral News Editors Archana Moorthy Isabella Castro Marques Editorial Team Abby Liu Tanvi Gupta Gossip Editors Derek Ho Bai Yusof Obituaries Eva Ibanez Fuertes Patricia Moericke Prieto Comic Strip/Horoscope Editors Medha Bansal Dhruv Khurana Advertisements Douglas Lee Nishigandha Sakhardande With special thanks to: Bodo Neuss Edward Bottoms Johanna Agerman Ross Stefan Jovanovic Katerina Scoufaridou Johannes Schick Natasha Sandmeier Catarina Sampaio Cruz Anny Stephanou Yasmin Verghese Uma Verghese Meha Verghese Stella Bella Steele Chee-Kit Lai Squire and Partners The National Theatre The BBC Angel Lara Moreira Henry Cleaver
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THE MANSION MIRROR By Abby Liu & Tanvi Gupta
The initial construction phase of the new mansion mirror tower
The new Mansion House Mirror tower is our proposal on the location of the existing No.1 Poultry building by James Sterling. This tower stands 88 metres high and is the continuation of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s idea of a modern building in the beautiful city of London. The building starts of being similar in aesthetics to his famous Seagram building in Manhattan.However, it soon transforms into a more postmodern style with a rotating tower reflecting itself through its base creating a contrast between the modern and post modern elements of the building.
This picture depicts a typical facade of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe building and resembles the Seagram building in New York.
The upper part of the tower is the continuation of the base of the building which starts from within the building, making it a
mirror of the base. The mirror plinth of the building reflects the building creating a vertical infinite mirage.
The new Mansion House Mirror tower sits on the same site where the No.1 Poultry by James Sterling now stands and where it was originally proposed.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR By Abby Liu & Tanvi Gupta
MILLENNIUM TOWER Millionaire Tower was faced with a tough player in boxing, the Gherkin. Although the Gherkin is shorter than the Millionaire Tower, he is famous for his unpredictable punch. Gherkin leapt in with a beautiful left hook to Millionaire Tower’s head and a win by a knockout. - Anonym from Unit 1
SELFRIDGES TOWER The yellow bags are too shiny, I get sunburn after shopping in Selfridges every time.. - Queen Elizabeth II
MANSION HOUSE SKYSCRAPER Modernism is unbearable, this tower is a glass stump better suited to downtown Chicago. - Prince Charles
TRANSFORM TOWER I think I could provide a little assistance on the structural design if I was born earlier. - Albert Einstein
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THE PYRAMID I would like to reveal a piece of highly confidential information - some scientists were creating Frankenstein out of dead bodies inside the Pyramid. - Frankenstein Monster
CRYSTAL PALACE TOWER The flashy building exhibits everything. Is there any privacy? - David Beckham
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“DARK KNIGHT” GUARDS BABYLON By Nishigandha Sakhardande & Douglas Lee
Babylon has gone through a dark phase. The War of the Architects has been intense and life-taking. The people of Babylon seem to be demanding a monument to commemorate the bravery that the citizens have used in the past week to survive this war. Talks about constructing a new monument for the City of Babylon have been constantly abuzz. The architect of the project wishes that this new monument will be the symbol of Babylon. A monument named Tower X is proposed to be constructed in the heart of the city. It is speculated that this tower would be 1000 feet tall rising over most buildings in Babylon and standing tall to guard the city. This is expected to be a monument that would be a reflection of the past and a prediction of the future. The monument would look like a pyramid-shaped obelisk. The four facades of the monument would symbolise different elements that have greatly contributed in the history of Babylon. One side of the monument is speculated to have the appearance of the Reform Tower: its original inspiration. One side would have a mirror that would reflect the whole city of Babylon, accomodating the current state of the city in it. One side would celebrate the Reform Tower in terms of its purpose – to commemorate the Reform Bill, which should a transition of one governance into another. This tower would exhibit reform in architectural styles that have been prevalent since ancient times until the most modern
Mysterious figure flies over Babylon
architectural language. Starting from the base of the facade being one similar to the Greek Parthenon and moving up towards newer and more commonly used styles like brickwork, concretework, massive iron and glazing techniques, deconstructivism; this monument facade ends with the most modern free flowing and fluid architectural techniques that have crossed the barrier of rigidity. Finally, one side of the monument would be a lighthouse which would help keep track of difficult situations in the city. Also, this lighthouse would be a landmark for those who require orientation during travel. What seems to be a monument on the outside,actually is hypothesised to be operational on the inside. The destructive architects’ war was put to peace last week by a vigilante who now uses the monument as his den and operates from the high reaches of the building. A highly technologically advanced interior seems to help the vigilante guard the city of Babylon. Babylon city streets, which turned into vicious
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urban scenes of urban carnage last week as architects fought for dominance in the 21st century, now seem to sleep quietly after the saviour has arrived. A man reported seeing the vigilante at the top of the Monument, from his residence. The witness was petrified but amazed by the idea of seeing he who the city has now nick-named “Super Architect”. Two days after this report, some other citizens who stayed up late into the night were reportedly glad and relieved that the city is now in safe hands. This Super Architect is presumed to step out from his den only while the city sleeps. He is claimed to be the Guardian of the city and citizens state that the monument is not just for the beauty of the city but also functions as a surveillance tower for Babylon, so the city can sleep peacefully.
Mysterious figure flies over Babylon
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Tuesday, 15 July 2014 By Eva Ibanez Fuertes & Patricia Moericke Prieto
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Tuesday, 15 July 2014 By Eva Ibanez Fuertes & Patricia Moericke Prieto
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PRINCE CHARLES:
LOVER OF ARCHITECTURE HATER OF MODERNISM
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