Final diploma project in UEL The cable car project
Final Diploma project Cable car in Wengen
manifesto The brief focused in the politics of tourism, representation and simulation. The study case, was a small touristic Swiss village, Wengen. Wengen’s population is around 1200 people. Due to tourism Wengen’s population can reach up to 10.000 during wintertime and 5000 during summertime. Wengen, is a picturesque alpine village. Philosophers of the 18nth century, when travel to the Alps they interpreted the concept of the sublime. An appreciation of the fearful and irregular forms of nature, an understanding of its alien beauty, far away from human proportions. More specifically, Imanuel Kant suggested that the sublime is to be found in a formless object, represented by boundlessness It’s the extreme natural beauty that attracted tourists back from the early of the 19nth century. Nowadays there is a vast amount of hotels and shops that cater solely for tourists, and most of the time during the year they are closed. I tried to understand and analyse the consequences of tourism in Wengen. I start deconstructing the village, through a series of catalogues, trying to understand what is authentic and what not, what is local and what not. The village is filled with touristic shops. The residents of Wengen have created a whole condition dedicated to tourists, to please them, feed their needs and desires and make them come again. It is almost like a theme park, an entairtenment zone. Wengen seems to be a place with no identity, a generic place as Koolhaas describes it, offering generic experiences The whole experience of skiing, the participation in cheese festival, the village festival, among the other activities and entertainments that Wengen offers are fake, since the spontaneity of events is deceptive and the only reason of the events is purely the profit. Wengen is transformed into Disneyland, a machine of discipline and amusement, of control and enclosure, governed by the logic of capitalism. As Sorkin recalls, the capacity of theme parks is to fabricate an imaginary nature in which people encounter the exquisite sublime, but in a safe atmosphere. This is what Wengen offers. What happens in Wengen is that they are trying to “sample a personal identity based on corporate material” as De Cauter explains. It is trying to have a personality with cheesy labels and over decorated Swiss and Austrian style restaurants. Wengen is not authentic. It is impossible anymore to distinguish the tourist simulation from reality, since the simulation is part of the everydayness and routine of the inhabitants.
topographic map
wengen
context
village’s atmospere
nolli map
hotels
concept
I started exploring the archetypical Swiss chalet and its tectonic system, how timber behaves, and how its put together to construct the chalet. In chalet, all the structure, the ornament, the floor, the windows are put together and comprise one consistent system. The beam in the interior becomes ornament in the exterior. Based in this fundamental idea that all the functional elements is one system, and one single element has multiple functions, the design was organised to articulate the same logic. A single timber element was repeatedly used to organize this consistent tectonic system. According on how it is positioned and engaged within space, it operates different functions. A rational relationship between geometry, construction and material behaviour was created. This spatial structure creates a thoroughgoing revaluation of the modernist models of structuring space. In a laborious attempt to make this structure tolerant in weather conditions, a shingle shell was created. The edges and the outside of which were intentionally kept fairly simple, responding to the urban character of the site. The shingles although it seems from far that are timber shingles they are actually made out of plastic. The main argument that is encapsulated is that what seems to be local is not and the interior structure as alien it may looks it incorporates more local tectonic logic. This aspect of the design is an interplay between intensive and extensive differences found in the context and a challenging position to the authenticity of Wengen.
the archetypical chalet
detail/ornament
fundamental idea
model
catalogue of atriums as a study and design development
best option
catalogue of physical models testing tectonic systems
best option
TIMBER STRUCTURE
material organisation using computational methods
detail of plan showing how structure reacts in case of skylight
Object oriented design a single element defines the form, the scale and the structure of the building
detail of column showing how ceiling becomes column that becomes floor
Tectonic diagrams
Relationship of interior timber structure and exterior
diagrams view 1 village
view 2 church view 3 mountain 650
730
pitched roof
footprint
diagrams
kitchen coffee ramp restaurant toilets columns
cable car
solid parts
structure/ solid parts
space division
programatic division
golf court
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3
1 5
2 6
ice ring
4
touristic information
site plan 1/1000 1. 2. 3. entrance to market at ground floor 4. entrance to cable car 1st floor 5. public space for locals 6. public space for skiers and tourists 7. seating area/views to mountain
main road
Cable car is a place of circulation and connectivity given its position, the center of the village, it offers the opportunity to create a meeting point for locals and tourists.
7 5 6 9
3 8 7
4
2 2
1
1st floor plan scale 1/200 1. entrance to 1st floor 2. waiting area 3. cable car 4. stairs 5. cafe 6. restaurant 7. kitchen 8. toilets 9. elevator
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11500
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10
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7 5
2500
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21700
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3000
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2800
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Plan ground floor scale 1/200 1. 2. entrance to market at ground floor 3. market 4. maintenance space for gondola 5. seating area for locals 6. seating area for skiers 7. stairs that leads to cable car 8. stall 9.seating area 10. elevator for restaurant service and disabled people
3d print models investigating the relationship of pitch roof and skylight system
detailed section scale 1:50
1. concrete floor finish 2. insulation 3. vapor barrier
1 2 3 4
4. gravel
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5. earth of column showing how ceiling becomes column that becomes floor detail
view 2 to village
space hierarchy translated in roof
view 3 to church
lighting strategy roof 3 restaurant ventilation strategy
section 1/200 ventilation and light strategy
roof 2 cafe
roof 1 cable car view 1 to mountain
in order to create different functions timber element was organised accordingly detailed section scale 1:25
detail of column showing how ceiling becomes column that becomes floor
cable car in context
view from gondola looking down at Wengen during winter
detail of column showing how ceiling becomes column that becomes floor
building in context
section 1/200
atmospheric interior