REMNANTS THE CATHEDRA AL OF WASTE
devin gharakhanian THESIS _ B.ARCH _ WOODBURY UNIVERSITY
table of content thesis statement project narrative preliminary investigation t.arget site site research project concept diagrams,mapping,site strategy proposal crippler regenerator cathedral experience
“I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.”- Albert Einstein
For the last 200 years society has been obsessed by the myth of development, catching it in a ‘progress trap’. How can we further the process of creating, making, and distributing the state-of-the-art, without exhausting the environment around us? Can we create “stuff without making other stuff”?
The Cathedral of untapped resource is an urban prototype that targets modern waste streams. Each prototype responds to that specific city’s supply of retired products. This scenario recycles and repurposes a collection of inactive aircrafts sprawled across the Mojave Desert. Driven by a spatial narrative, this dense network of machines, majestic yet noisy, are stationed upon the western edge of California City’s airport. The organization is based on three primary zones – Crippler, Regenerator, and the Cathedral - creating an experience beneath a network of undulating machines.
This ever-growing city element serves as a functional machine and also a public space generator. This is where big objects live with small ones, where the tower is adjacent to the house, where the aerospace scientist stumbles into the city dweller’s dream.
We begin to reimagine whether waste can be considered high culture...
an aero-space scienƟst finds a city dwellers diary, that’s been leŌ behind and buried under a layer of desert dust, he opens the decade old book to a random page, and begins to read:
It’s been nearly 15 years since I returned to my hometown, a bizarre city segregated in the midst of Mojave Desert. From the crows view, the patchy city faintly etches the rustic surface of the homogenous setting. Occasionally one sees cars, planes, and other machines, yet no man in site, where did everyone go? I still believe California City is a mirage, a dream, and yet daring developers seem to speculate the “next great city”. However the invisible sprawl of abandoned homes states otherwise. Failing to adopt suburbia, California City is left with a vast grid of crumbling paved-roads, intended to lay out residential blocks, aimlessly- stretch towards the edge of the cities blurry boundaries. This endless link of vacant streets, mark the urban scars, indicating a city in pause. Yet something extraordinary and active seems to loom within its compass... I recall being 11 years old, racing out the back door of my old house. My mother’s voice would be piercing out the kitchen window, “don’t you dare sneak into the aircraft-yard.” My younger brother Herman was my permanent tail, as he closely trailed behind me. Off we went, into the dusty outdoors, zigzagging around the baking brown rocks. We were off to the cathedral, a fantasy in the depths of the desert where one wastes dreams… It was five passed three; the gust grew strong, as the dusty-yellow wind brushed against our face. We skipped over the racing tumbleweeds and continued to scramble between the shackles of shrubs. Coughing and giggling, we easily passed through the main city. Our minds still anxious however our bodies spent from the walk, we decided to take a moment to catch our breath... As I rubbed the dust off my brother’s eyes, I squinted to spot the checkpoint; usually marked by a puddle of remnants. My favorite catch was the fin of a B-17 heavy bomber, my most prized position today. For some reason the sequence was absent and instead we were left with a sun-burned pathway containing no context, and no trail of aircraft debris.
I immediately squinted my eyes, looking around hoping to catch a blimp along the horizon that would hint at a destination. Even worse, a dust storm was unraveling. Huffing and puffing, we decided to continue with our intuition and lingered along this endless path. We were practically blind as the pathway began to grow seamless with the open desert field. Fortunately, the wicked conditions were no match to a child’s memory. I even saw something soaring above. Herman said it was a bird looking for prey, however I re-imagine it being a Bell-59 Airacomet. Soon enough I began to sense a distinction in the atmosphere. We stopped in a blurry gust to listen; our shoes covered in a glittery brown gradient and Herman’s white shirt wasn’t white anymore. The noise I heard was the harsh screams of screeching metal transitioning with whizzing desert wind. Following our ears, we continued to drag our feet, as if we were robots moving to the nimble tunes of the machines in the desert. The noise grew louder, as this robotic musical kept seducing us towards a particular direction. “Finally”, said Herman, “I can see it”, as a chain of objects began to materialize within the rustic fog. This is the very moment where the tension intensifies, where homogenous meets heterogeneous, where the desert contradicts the object(s), this where the experiential shift intensifies, more importantly this is what I remember from my childhood. Before entering the mirage, Herman and I would perform an egg hunt along the parameters of the space, as we loved collecting the left over nuts and bolts scattered in shiny puddles. Eventually we marched towards our secret space called the cathedral, but first one would have pass through the laboratory sector. Walking under the space, we rarely ever spotted a yellow suit. I called the scientists, yellow suites, because they were always cloaked with a neon-yellow outfit. Actually I don’t recall ever seeing a yellow suite on the desert ground. In fact I think they lived up there…
We were always afraid someone would capture us for intrusion, but no one ever came. Ever. The cathedral of waste, as I called it, was the space we intended to dwell in. It was a space for all sorts of functions, activities, and events. Weather one wants to catch shade during a hot day, write or read a book; this was a place that seemed to keep re-inventing itself in many different ways. We turned the corner and railed along the fenced-off edge, until we reached a 30 ft. high structure. I decided to take my time and walk in graciously, like a divine prince entering his castle to be thronged by his king. Immediately, I felt as if I’ve entered a different world, my world. If I had to explain it: a undulating landscape where the ground evaporates and one begins to look up and wonder. But my brother explains it best, “it’s like the object is the puppeteer and instead of puppet figures, is a network of captured aircraft-remnants, whom’s motion is controlled by spider like structure”. For some reason, in that day, the lighting was perfect. In that moment, the sun rays were penetrating through in just the right angle. Every captured “remnant” seemed to have its own spotlight, highlighting a dense collection of textures, colors, and shapes. Angelic in its illumination, I felt as if I were under a stream of treasure, even the ground seemed to be blessed with a shimmering pattern, as if the hardscape surface was transforming into the sea itself. I had never been to the ocean, nor seen it, however at that instant I was a fish under a giant wave moving to earth’s breath. The back of my neck began to swell, as I continued to skip under this artificial sea, my head tilted vertically observing the threshold of the structures underbelly, trying to catch every unusual moment before sundown. Sometimes my imagination would turn cynical, in that I would catch myself wishing for a tornado to pass through this space, activating the cathedral into a chaotic ballet. I laid down and dreamt of just that, until I was rudely awakened by the crude smell of oil and the loud noise of a running engine. “You ok kid?”, said the truck driver, “yea, I was just dreaming, and now you wasted it”.
question _ [phase1: irting with curiousity] _
challenge _ [phase2: the mad scientist] _
What is thesis? using sci-arc M.ARCH thesis statements as an example to disect the meaning of what a thesis is derived from. What questions to ask? To follow one’s intuitition?
questioning the birth and death of cities around the world, the urban success’, the abscent links failing to connect the sprawled programs, the lack of dense integrated and super interactive urban planning.
prepare _ [phase3: the urban-tect] _
understanding that architecture is part of and urban entity; the sum as its parts, must be integrated and work collaboratively to serve both scales as a single unit.
implicate _ [phase4: the urban-tect] _
understanding that architecture is part of and urban entity; the sum as its parts, must be integrated and work collaboratively to serve both scales as a single unit.
California City, Mojave desert, CA _ documentary photography _ site research_ winner of the Julius Shulman photo contest
Phase_6
Phase_5
Phase_4
Phase_3
Phase_2
P1
Phase_1
machine meets tower
phase-x-hybrid section : a 6-month mixed-media design process, growing and evolving with the thesis. site
territories
current issues
P2 interactive nodes/public space within vertical assemblies
future issues
exploration
P3 inspiration
integrating industrial and living zones
precedents
P4 dense linkage/bridging
designated investigation
sketchs
HYBRID SITE MODEL _ URBAN SCALE (36” by 24” _ model representation)
P1 figure ground construction: (oil, water, vinegar, soil)
P2 3d diminsionalize figure ground: (heightfield script, cnc, fine plaster)
P3 figure ground transfer on topography (polyurethane sealant, 8 pass laser-etch)
P4 superimpose aircraft-yard mapping California City, Mojave desert, CA _ documentary photography _ site research _ thesis concept frame
(1/8” plexi, laser-score, laser-etch)
geography raphyy m map ap po off mojave mojave d desert esert
dense sprawl of aircraft stations
35 deg. 21’N, 116 deg. 5’W elev. 1450’ eye atl. 120mi
M PPI MAPPING IRREGULAR ULAR R SCENERIOS: SCE S SC CE C E E S:: 344// Aircraft stations 34/62 tati ta are located t within h a 50mi 550m 00m mii radius ra adius a d us off the site ssitee
no homes, no people, just planes
ca city airportr 10 10m 10 0m mi
20m 20m mi
30mi
mojave air+space p airport
SP1
SP2
California City Center vs. target site (CA city airport)
establishing a link in-between
speculating a central growth and future linkage
deserted infrastructure: results of a failed city-boom
site strategy
35 deg. 5’N, 118 deg. 4’W elev. 2612’ eye atl. 20mi
rail-line
site
california city blvd
esta
bli
g shin
a lo
re cal
lati
ons
hip
we bet
en th
e re
side
lc ntia
ilitty fac fa t l nta me peri x e thhe nd itty a
1//2 2 mile 1 mille
SP3
SP4 mojave
california city
SP5
vacant site occupied soley by 1,000+ desert shrubs
SP6
site _ adjacent to the CA CITY Airport station
CA deserts are used as graveyards, collecting inactive aircraft _ “More than 14,000 planes will be retired within the next 20 years� - AIRBUS CO.
problem or solution?
program orgranization
form assembly
integrating functional elements
site strategy phases
thinking through section(s)
P1
current site
P2
site strategy
crippler
cathedral
regenerator
P3
site plan
phase 1: urban axon
long section
short section - A
short section - B
CRIPPLER
4'-4 1/2" 10'-0 1/2"
16'-6"
23'-7"
3'-1 ''-1 -1 1 -1 1/2" //2" 2"
3'-7"
34'-0 1/2"
crippler_plan
20' 2 20'-2" 20 2"
crippler_section
10'-6"
40'-4 1/2"
CATHEDRAL
The quad-head columns are prefabricated, by repurposing salvaged aircraft components produced during the dissection phase of the crippler.
adjustable / spider-column tentacles
ďŹ xed / air-compresser column foundation
repurposed quad-head column
cathedral netscape _ bird’s view vignette
cathedral netscape _ east elevation
1
2
3
4
5
6
programmed systems + mechanical bins work in sinc to carry, move, and systematically distribute aircraft components to the appropriate “sack�, measured by the components density, size, materiality
REGENERATOR