Portfolio Architecture

VOL.3

LO GB O OK Simon Oudiette 2014

VOL.3

LO GB O OK Simon Oudiette 2014

S 4-11

M 12-13

L 14-27

XL 13-16

XXL 17-20

4

The Opera Cube A cultural promotion installation in Strasbourg As part of Strasbourg’s cultural development, students at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture had to work on a project involving the creation of an interactive installation that would promote one of Strasbourg’s many cultural curiosities. The project was aimed mainly at tourists, but also locals, and had to be carried out economically. The proposal takes the form of a minimalistic interactive lantern. It is a cube positioned along the street leading to the Opera House, on the most bustling square of the city, the place Kléber, and it displays the upcoming shows along with a musical background. The intensity of the lighting and sound becomes stronger as the premiere nears, and thus allows the passers-by to assess how close the event is.

5

6

SHORT CONVERSATION

EMERGENCY

ST AN

DI

19%

SIT

NE VE

G DOW LYIN

R

RAREL Y

TI

anecdotal

0%

0%

essential

essential

10%

NG

5%

5%

anecdotal

N

NG

24%

essential

don’t care

10%

intolerable

81%

48% 29%

5%

CALL

0%

PHONE

INTERNET

10%

19%

BATTERY CHARGE

ACCOMODATION

24%

24%

PREPAID RECHARGE

38%

33%

SMS/MMS

19%

JOB

MAIL SERVICE

anecdotal

PREPAID RECHARGE BATTERY CHARGE

EMERGENCY

SMS/MMS

PARASITE NOISE

CALL

BASIC

INTIMACY

POSTURE

POSTURE

NICE VISUAL ENVIRONMENT

VISIOCONFERENCE

LONG CONVERSATION ARE PHYSICALLY

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

PHONE TRAIN BUS TRAM How do I get there ?

TICKETS

Gather every data on the payphone object. Broad approach. identify key points findings

TRANSPORT

intolerable

don’t care

essential

essential

43%

political

OFT

EN

anecdotal

economic

social

historical

demographical

14% 5%

essential

anecdotal

enjoyable

5%

0%

anecdotal

19%

19%

LY

0%

MAIL SERVICE

33%

57%

33% 19% 14% 14%

INTERNET

5%

BASIC

14%

29%

14%

14%

10%

TASK

ELY

NEW USER

RAR

HOMEPAGE

WN DO

ING STAND

LOGIN

G IN

R VE NE

JOB

TASK

NG

GOOD DEAL

SALES

TI

RESTAURANT

SIT

COUPONS

15%

TOURIST

10%

29%

52%

33%

TAXI

exhausting

MAPS ACCOMODATION

TOURING

LONG CONVERSATION

SIGHTSEEING

THEATRE MISC

.0

.0

INTERFACE A RADIAL

CONCERTS

STROLLING

BOOK A TOUR

19

20

WHAT’S ON?

HISTORY

DIC

TAB LE

PLE COM

ATE

80

CLEAR

CONFUSING

76.0

81

BLE

.0

COMPLICATED - SIMPLE

24.0

UNP RED ICTA

PLIC

D

ITERATION 01

PRE

SIM

SPORTS

13.0

ORIGINAL

TYPICAL

CONFUSING - CLEAR

G ITIN

87.0

91.0

EXC E

9.0

.0

PREDICTABLE - UNPREDICTABLE

TYPICAL - ORIGINAL

LAM

LAME - EXCITING

TOURIST

19

10.0COMPLICATED

SIMPLE

90.0

100.0

78.0

100.0

TYPICAL

LAME

.0

COMPLICATED - SIMPLE HISTORY

PREDICTABLE - UNPREDICTABLE

CONFUSING - CLEAR

TYPICAL - ORIGINAL

LAME - EXCITING

USER RESEARCH

COUPONS

MAPS

RESTAURANT

SALES

UNPREDI CTABLE

27.0

COMPLICATED - SIMPLE

PREDICTABLE - UNPREDICTABLE

LAM

E EXC

ITIN G

CONFUSING - CLEAR

TYPICAL - ORIGINAL

LAME - EXCITING

.0UN

16 AR

CON

12.0

ORIGINAL

TYPICAL

88.0

COMPLICATED - SIMPLE

PREDICTABLE - UNPREDICTABLE

92

.0

84

.0

85

.0

LE TAB

DIC

CLE

EXC

ING FUS

PRE

94.0

LE TAB

SIMPLE

LAM E

DIC

6.0COMPLICATED

ITIN G

.0

15

PRE

INTERFACE B DROP DOWN

94.0

8.0

ITERATION 02

6.0

L

BLE

ORI GIN AL

PREDICTA

TYP ICA

81.0

70.0

SIMPLE

12.0

73.0 19.0COMPLICATED

CONFUSING - CLEAR

TYPICAL - ORIGINAL

LAME - EXCITING

PARTICIPATIVE

INTERFACE A RADIAL

88.0

30.0

STROLLING

CONFUSING

SIGHTSEEING

CUSTOMIZED MUSIC AND BACKGROUND

CLEAR

BOOK A TOUR

ROADBOOK

CLEAR

MISC

GOOD DEAL

TOURING

FAVOURITE PLACES

CONFUSING

71

THEATRE

SPORTS

TICKETS

TAXI

CLOUD DATA

22.0 LE TAB

WHAT’S ON?

DIC

INTERFACE B DROP DOWN

CONCERTS

TRANSPORT

PRE

TRAIN BUS TRAM

How do I get there ?

LE TAB

SHARE DATA BETWEEN PAYPHONES

DIC

PERSONALIZED SUGGESTIONS OF THE DAY

PRE

.0UN

PERSONAL CONTACTS

poll

Participative phase of the design where we gather data from polls and interviews Enables to dig a bit further in the directions found earlier in the background research

interview

results Compare results from first part of participative phase and compare with initial findings Conduct a focus group on either the whole concept of payphone or part of it (interface, design, concept, location)

FOCUS GROUP

Reconceptualizing the ubiquitous Telstra payphone

The historical paradigm of the public payphone, faced with the competition of mobile phones that inundate the market, seems doomed to fail. More mobile, more practical, less expensive, the cell phone has changed the lives of its users much like the public phone did in its era. Can we conceive of a public phone comeback that would bring about a similar breakthrough?

As an architect with only a passing familiarity with the design milieu and the methodol-

The final proposal takes into account all the background research, user research, testing sessions, focus group discussions, and a bit of personal experience and philosophy. Conceptually, the main idea is to offer a complementary service to the mobile phone instead of just a backup service. User research and focus group conducted throughout the weeks raised one particular point: mobile phones have become a fixture in the realm of short conversation, whereas for long conversations, mobile phones are not offering the best user experience possible. Most of the time, people tend to meet in order to avoid such long conversations over the phone, but sometimes,

DESIGN & FABRICATION

MVP

Final design phase and fabrication of the device. Here we use the “lean” approach where we use a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and put it on the market and wait for feedbacks

Design

change

PARTICIPATIVE

As industries attempt to digitize everything they can, the physical media markets strug-gle to withstand this trend. Some of them, however, have adapted to the new market constraints and continue to diversify the services offered to the last few contrarian consumers on the physical media market (book vs. ebook, DVD vs. VOD, CD vs. music streaming).

ogy of reconceptualization, I decided to take a pragmatic approach to the problem, and to begin with thorough background research on the historical and economic history of telecommunications in the world, later focusing on Australia to understand the questions raised by the topic more objectively, precisely and efficiently.

SMALL SCALE TESTING

positive feedback

Set the new design in particular location with a lot of users to see how they respond to the new device, namely the city center and major hubs (train station, airports, etc.)

Consider all the feedbacks and work on the negative ones

negative feedback

keep

LARGE SCALE TESTING

positive feedback

Widespread the concept in the country. Analyze feedbacks depending on location (center, suburbs, country) and change accordingly the device to have a contextualized response

negative feedback

Final stage of the process, the investment in the final device largely pays off at least in the city center and part of the suburbs which enables Telstra to keep its next gen payphones in remote places and even multiply them. Hence a potential universal service in Australia

expand & multiply

FINAL STAGE

high connectivity

universal service

7

geographic constraints cannot be overcome and phone/videoconference is the only resort. Being abroad myself, I am quite familiar with the issues of conversing for hours with people around the globe. Therefore, the final concept, though open to anybody, especially targets immigrant/expatriate/tourist populations.

Concretely, those new communication pods are scattered around the city in a slightly different way than usual payphones are: instead of being directly on the street, in a bus station, or any other unwelcoming and noisy areas, those new communication pods will be located directly in the nearest nice spot from existing payphones (squares, parks, along the water, on the beach, etc.) following the need of nice visual environment raised in the poll and focus group session.

Design-wise, those new communication pods will be entirely soundproof, use clear glass so that users can see the outside, and use some sort of adjustable one-way mirror opacity system so that people can choose to be seen or not. The inside of the pods consist in one to three adjustable seats (straight up to lean back) so that people can converse in any positions, with several people at the same time.

Pods will of course embed the videoconference feature, as well as more common ones such as mail service, maps (transport, itinerary, bus/train/tram tickets), “what’s on?� (news about concerts, sports games, etc.), accommodation and job services. They merge the basic features from payphones and information kiosks, and put emphasis on the transcontinental communication experience with 8

relatives throughout the world.

From an economic standpoint, all services featured will be fully financed via passive or active advertising in the pods (10 second advertisement before making a call, digital billboards on the outside of the pods, logos of sponsoring firms, etc.). Profitable communication pods in the city and the outskirts will enable Telstra to maintain and, eventually, multiply public phones in remote regions of Australia, first with basic public phones (free) and then with these new communication pods.

This final proposal embodies a 180 degree change in the payphone philosophy by focusing on long instead of very short conversations. By doing so, this new paradigm crystalizes unfulfilled expectations from mobile phone users and uses them as new foundations to foster long distance social interactions throughout the whole country, even the world.

9

PREPAID RECHARGE BATTERY CHARGE

EMERGENCY

SMS/MMS

PHONE

LOGIN

HOMEPAGE

CALL

PHONE

NEW USER NEW USER

HOMEPAGE

TASK

BASIC

NEW USER

HOMEPAGE

INTERNET

TASK

BASIC

TOURIST

PHONE

INTERNET

TOURIST

PHONE

PHONE

JOB

HOMEPAGE

NEW USER

TASK

BASIC

INTERNET

NEW USER

HOMEPAGE

MAIL SERVICE

TASK

BASIC

NEW USER

HOMEPAGE

INTERNET

TASK

BASIC

INTERNET

ACCOMODATION

TOURIST

TOURIST

TOURIST

TRAIN BUS TRAM

TRANSPORT

How do I get there ?

WHAT’S ON?

TRANSPORT

WHAT’S ON?

TICKETS

GOOD DEAL

TOURING

MAPS

JOB

SMS/MMS

EMERGENCY

PREPAID RECHARGE

MAIL SERVICE

BATTERY CHARGE

ACCOMODATION

PHONE

INTERNET

GOOD DEAL

TOURING

TAXI

MAPS

PHONE

INTERNET

CALL

BASIC

BASIC

BASIC

TRAIN BUS TRAM How do I get there ?

TICKETS

TRANSPORT

TAXI

TASK

LOGIN

TOURIST

HOMEPAGE

TOURIST COUPONS

RESTAURANT

GOOD DEAL

SALES

TASK

LOGIN

TASK

HOMEPAGE

LOGIN

HOMEPAGE

MAPS

TOURING

WHAT’S ON? CONCERTS

HISTORY

STROLLING

BOOK A TOUR SIGHTSEEING

THEATRE MISC

SPORTS

PERSONAL

PERSONAL

PERSONAL

CONTACTS

CONTACTS PERSONALIZED SUGGESTIONS OF THE DAY

CLOUD DATA

ROADBOOK

FAVOURITE PLACES

JOB

SMS/MMS

PERSONALIZED SUGGESTIONS OF THE DAY

CLOUD DATA

CUSTOMIZED MUSIC AND BACKGROUND

ROADBOOK

FAVOURITE PLACES

CUSTOMIZED MUSIC AND BACKGROUND

EMERGENCY

PREPAID RECHARGE

MAIL SERVICE

BATTERY CHARGE

ACCOMODATION

PHONE

INTERNET

CALL

PREPAID RECHARGE BATTERY CHARGE

EMERGENCY

SMS/MMS

CALL

BASIC PHONE TRAIN BUS TRAM How do I get there ?

TICKETS

TRANSPORT

TAXI

TOURIST COUPONS

RESTAURANT

GOOD DEAL

JOB

SALES

TASK

LOGIN

HOMEPAGE

NEW USER

TASK

BASIC

INTERNET

MAIL SERVICE

MAPS ACCOMODATION

TOURING

WHAT’S ON? CONCERTS

HISTORY

STROLLING

BOOK A TOUR SIGHTSEEING

THEATRE MISC

SPORTS

TOURIST

PERSONAL CONTACTS PERSONALIZED SUGGESTIONS OF THE DAY

SHARE DATA BETWEEN PAYPHONES

TRAIN BUS TRAM

How do I get there ?

CONCERTS

TRANSPORT

WHAT’S ON?

TAXI

MISC

GOOD DEAL

TOURING HISTORY

CLOUD DATA

10

COUPONS

MAPS

BOOK A TOUR

ROADBOOK

FAVOURITE PLACES

CUSTOMIZED MUSIC AND BACKGROUND

THEATRE

SPORTS

TICKETS

SIGHTSEEING

STROLLING

RESTAURANT

SALES

The pod on the beach

The pod in aquatic area

The pod in scenic park

The pod on the shore 11

12

A writer’s house Located on a 20-degree incline, the writer’s house is divided in two volumes laid out according to their varied roles. The first, which is composed of a living room, a kitchen and a study, is detached from the ground, offers a view to the south and east, and opens on a terrace. The second is buried up to the window breast, and includes the bedroom and the bathroom. Sitting on the bed, one can enjoy a panoramic view overlooking the site. The two volumes are linked at the back by a staircase that leans against a retaining wall. Private access to the house is provided down below, by going under the main volume, while the guest entrance is at the back, at the top of the stairs, where the porch faces the road.

Massing plan

Left page: - South facade Right page: - Exterior staircase

Exterior circulation space 13

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A research foundation in a rural area This project for a literature research foundation is located in an orchard tended by Dominican friars on the outskirts of Strasbourg.

The site being particularly vast, a contrarian stance was adopted in favour of embracing verticality. The project thus consists of a 35-meter high tower that dominates the plot and the nearby park. As visitors progress toward the tower, they go past two lakes at the foot of the orchard, go through the 12th century surrounding wall, and come out in the entrance hall that is carved out of the rock, where they can admire the view over the trees. The tower symbolizes both knowledge and humility, which is why it is covered with a perforated copper layer. It will thus enjoy a first bright life in the middle of the forest, before gradually disappearing in the foliage as the copper acquires a patina.

Left page; - Lobby space

View from the adjacent lake

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16

A vertical market in former customs The project is located within the existing walls of the former customs of Strasbourg : L’Ancienne Douane. This building, formerly built in 1358 stretches along the inner city river on more than a hundred meters. The construction was divided in several stages : a main block, stretched twice and then a new secondary block between the existing one and the river was built. Due to multiple hazards, the building standing nowadays is nothing more than a mere reconstruction out of concrete of what the customs used to look like.

Therefore, the project philosophy here lies in questionning the ground aspects of the architecture of the customs and what made it so powerful, only to then reinterpret it and shuffle it in order to make it a functional entity on the city scale. To this day, the building is underutilized since it only host two programs : a restaurant and a childcare. The remaining floors are all empty.

As F. Choay often notes in her books, a heritage building, whether its significance, has to be utilized to keep its status of building and not become a ruin. Not only should it be a landmark in the landscape, it also has to be a monument of everyday nature for all of the inhabitants of Strasbourg. In order to achieve such a goal, the proposal is a reconfiguration of a building as a autonomous, self-productive vertical market, an absolute machine of production and consumption in the hyper center of Strasbourg.

The program will consist of sale spots for fruits, vegetables, fish and meat, a restaurant and a bar serving the same product in a revisited traditional cuisine, as well as sale spots for end products.

Mutliple assets of green ecology are catalysed in the very same building in an original program for Strasbourg, making it the place to be.

The dynamic of the program is reflected in its architecture. Formerly opaque, the building becomes translucent, a shopfront for local products. The roof tiles are removed for a contemporary sun protection system using the same frame as the original one. The blades can move so that they follow the sun’s course. Having different colour on each side, the blade, as they move, generate new patterns as the day goes by.

In a radical and thoughtful way of organizing space, all the services are located in a black steelcladded monolith on the southern side of the building. It segments the building in two main parts : the vertical space of the market hall, and the double-height spaces of the restaurant and the lounge bar. The dynamic roof system is used in the shelves system so that free spaces for displaying product are in a different colour that busy ones. This system combined with the abundance of circulation systems (escalators, stairs, lifts) improves the efficiency of the building, hence the number of visitors per hour, hence the profit the market hall makes.

In a nutshell, this project through combining multiple tasks, mechanizing and standardizing every bits of the production and consumption process aspires to become a proper machine. A mechanical machine, reinstating a social ecology in the heart of Strasbourg.

Massing plan 17

18

19

Radical cut through the existing 20

Bar lounge area

Downward view of the hall

Gastronomic local restaurant 21

22

A sports complex on the Esplanade campus in Strasbourg Located at the heart of the campus of Strasbourg, the plot allows for a complete restructuring of the urban logic of the area. Historically, the campus has an East-West aspect, but the new university buildings have reoriented the flux of students and passers-by along the North-South axis. Taking advantage of this new trend, and of the elongated shape of the plot, the project forms a thin strip along the East side, delineating a new pathway. The ground level is entirely open, which permits complete freedom of movement between the surrounding buildings. The emerged part of the building includes badminton and squash courts, a dojo, a dance hall, and a boxing gym, all superposed like boxes in space. A semi-open cafeteria is laid-out south, while a climbing wall covers the whole East side of the building. The underground part contains the locker rooms, as well as thermal baths and a fitness centre, and is made out of mineral materials that counterbalance the metal of the other part. The whole building is covered with a double layer of metal brackets that opacify the rhythm of the faรงade. Only the dance hall is entirely open and acts as an advertising display for sports in Strasbourg.

Left page: - Esplanade Right page: - Block plan

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24

An architecture school in Dubai Collaborators : Joffrey About & Billy Martini AC-CA competition An architecture school is a peculiar place. The environment where a student will grow into an architect and acquire knowledge through experience is fundamental. Experiencing that place must feel unique and yet effortless. For our school, we emphasized spaces that foster creativity. We wanted it to highlight interactions and relationships. To make the architect conscious he has to be open to his environment, both local and global. How we can use an architecture school as a pedagogical tool, rather than just attend it, is at the heart of our vision.

The tower is meant as a signal that indicates the gate of the city on its sea front, facing port Rashid. A city as emblematic of architecture deserves a strong symbol, such as this architecture school. The urban project circumvents infrastructures and facilitates the interplay between the city and the sea through the use of a system of programmatic strips. The strips unfold their own topography for different functions, and ensure a coherent development of public spaces on the sea front, thus answering one of Dubai’s great challenges.

The school will create an impetus and position itself as a pivot for the ongoing urban expansion of the sea front, reinforcing the city’s metropolitan image.

The tower takes after the city’s urban design:

much like public space in the city consists of a series of places linked by streets and passages, the tower creates a series of spaces that allow for new relations, sequences, paths and atmospheres. We started with a solid mass from which we subtracted matter by carving out empty spaces that appear on the façade. Some empty spaces open up on the outside and naturally ensure ventilation for the whole building. Students and working architects can use the spaces to meet, relax and exchange views.

The tower can be broken into blocks where each hosts the class of a given year. Each of them is given a symbolic program articulated around a backbone that runs through the whole tower, and which includes libraries

for books, materials and other media as well as relaxing spaces. Elevators and freight elevators are intentionally glazed and cover the whole tower: as they go up and down, their users can briefly see all of the activities going on inside. Like the city, our tower is structured around a lattice to maximize potential connections, and programs can be placed arbitrarily in one block or another. For example, the painting studio, which can be used by all students, is located between the blocks for first-year and second-year students. It is easy to imagine how students of all years will go through all the different parts of the building, creating richer and more productive interactions between students, and making the tower a hotspot for creation.

25

The plaza adjacent to the building becomes a spot for experiment and testing 26

restaurant engraving

AIRPORT

PORT RASHID

studio

METRO STATION

painting sculpture

UNIVERSITY

BUS STATION

library

TRADE CENTER

24

km

lounge 7 km

11

km

printing room

food court

exhibition circulation

lobby

RESEARCH

POSTGRADUATE

restaurant

ENGRAVING

TOILETS

LECTURE ROOM LECTURE ROOM

STUDIO

lecture theatrestudio TOILETS TOILETS

1st year undergraduate

OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES OFFICESOFF OFFICESOFF

PAINTING

LIBRARY

studio LECTURE ROOM LECTURE ROOM studio STUDIO LECTURE ROOM lecture theatre

LECTURE ROOM

darkroom

STUDIO STUDIO

OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES

3rd year undergraduate

TOILETS

2nd year undergraduate

SCULPTURE

OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES OFFICESOFFICESOFFICES OFFICES

modelling materials

LASERCUTTER

2D/3D PRINTING ROOM

OFFICES lecture OFFICES theatre

FOOD COURT STUDIO LECTURE ROOM STUDIO LECTURE ROOMLECTURE ROOM

EXHIBITION

FOOD

lecture

LOBBY theatre PLANT ROOMSTORAGESTORAGE

COURT SOCIETIES

waiting room ART ADMINISTRATION

2nd year master

LECTURE ROOM

1st year masters

IT ROOM IT ROOM IT ROOM

STUDIO LECTURE ROOM

kioskBOX experimentationsART PARKINGPARKINGPARKINGPARKINGPARKING PARKING PARKINGPARKINGPARKING ART

27

28

UniverCity - a new urban ecology Collaborator : Justin C. Cawley We propose a radical re-evaluation of Sydney University’s place in its environs. This proposal is defined by a staged development of medium and high density housing types which seek to ‘democratise’ the University’s quasi-urban sphere. The result is a metropolitan university-city, where the juxtaposition of existing and new programmes with the University’s buildings produces a more intimate relationship between living and learning.

Programmatic over-determination and departmental autonomy lead to radically autonomous architectural objects. Their programmatic and formal distinctions come to characterise an emergent typology of university buildings: academic, administrative, housing, etc. While much of the University might be thought of as objects in a field, programmatic adjacencies and disjunctions lead to novel spaces for social engagement: the footbridge which becomes a space for political activism, the lawn which becomes a space for circus practice; or the courtyard which becomes a space for meeting a friend all contribute to the culture of the University. Every new building, while seemingly distinct, shapes and is shaped by the context of the campus, creating new opportunities for rethinking the University and education. The agglomeration of each of these ‘moves’ in time comes to constitute a bricolage of architectural ideologies. In this way, the University of Sydney is imagined as a site of experimentation in building as well as an experiment in thought.

As part of our conceptualisation of this project, we saw a need to accommodate a wide variety of students, each with different desires for housing.

29

pus seeks to democratise the campus. While once a private domain, the University cedes control of its boundary in order to afford new relationships which will create a more complex experience for students, staff and local residents alike.

Variety of housing types which accommodates differing desires of different students. The relationships generated through staging the project according to building and housing types led to an interesting experiment in typological combinatronics, in which each stage supported and transformed the previous stage.

We understand the University as an ecology of information and material flows, which together create an environment for social interaction and the production of knowledge. We sought to conceptualise these relationships and their products in order to produce a framework within which to develop architectural and programmatic responses. Through surgical programmatic augmentation, this proposal aims to produce a series of flow-on effects which draws the new residents, staff and student population into communication in order to generate new micro-communities around various interests.

At a larger scale, the Darlington campus’ inability to produce complex urbanity leads to an abrupt disjunction between the University and the surrounding suburbs. Through programmatic additions, including a bicycle workshop and food coop, and community engagement, through leasable garden plots and a presence at the Eveleigh markets, the redevelopment of the Darlington cam-

30

In order to generate the kind of ecology that we are interested in, we aspire toward a ‘re-metropolised’ university. This proposal injects functions and programmes of the surrounding community back into the university grounds, which generates a need for a new urban form. It would be ludicrous, of course, to suggest that the Darlington campus ought to be reverted back to a working-class suburb. Thus, we propose a new strategy for formal intervention which works within the existing fabric, while allowing it to be changed as the needs of the university change. This imagines the University as a hybrid, part school part urbanism, in which learning is linked to living.

In a metropolitan scenario, disjunctive programmes, and the desires of multiple stakeholders are accommodated. The metropolitan war machine redefines capacity at every stage of development. It has no clear image because the outcome is always in flux. Links and opportunities are not always apparent, but emerge from a tactical reading of the site. The question “Where can we build?” is deployed productively to transform the site and its environs.

Bird’s eye view of projected towers on site 31

Projected collective street through former main patio 32

Student housing slender tower facing east 33

Engineering building, north facing facade 34

Students’ leisure area 35

36

Reclaiming the skyling Biomimicry - Parasitism Collaborator : Tina Chow 21st century is the century of ubiquitous and omnipotent governments and policies. Progressively giving up their liberty for more security and control, citizens are now facing their incumbents inability to answer their needs. In Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman wrote “there is likely to be a lag between the need for action and government recognition of the need; a further lag between recognition of the need for action and the taking of action; and a still further lag between the action and its effects.” Town planning systems are just another string to government’s bow to establish its authority. By following an anti-innovation policy, a pro-heritage aspiration and a pseudo-ecological mantra, governments succeeded in completely shifting the market logic, freezing the principle of supply and demand, of citizens’ needs and private offer. Our cities are doomed. Our project shall set them free.

In The Parasite, Michel Serres wrote “The parasite has a relation with the relation and not with the station”. Drawing on the singularity and strong potential of the parasite’s position in the overall cycle of interactions, we aim at translating the notion of parasite as an intermediary between two states into an architectural logic. Therefore our parasite will rebuild the missing link between supply and demands, between cities and citizens. The parasite acts as a catalyst, a counterweight to

government omnipotence. A social parasitic device that revitalizes the city and reconnects people. As per the initial concept, the functionality and well-being of any vital organs of the host are uninterrupted by the parasite to ensure its own survival. To better analyse the infection process, the characteristics of the host is applied onto a generic building, looking at how and what this architectural parasite reacts to. Most buildings are comprised of three elements which are considered the vital organs; the structure, the core and infrastructure. The structure acts as the skeleton; the core houses the amenities, and the infrastructure as the functionality. Everything else is vulnerable against the parasite. Although the parasite can be applied to all buildings, its infection and its success may vary from host to host.

A visual spectacle of the parasite expanding beyond the host’s skin at high levels and starting to connect visitors to attraction points of the city DEPARTURE As the parasite leaves to spread and infect another host, a portion of itself is left behind and its growth process posed as voids throughout the host, leaving the building on the verge of destruction.

COLLAPSE The abandoned host eventually collapses due to instability, leaving pockets for new life and +

The parasitic process emulates the initial concept and is mapped out as a series of stages which engages and redirects the public on various levels. Throughout the stages, the host undergoes behavioural change programmatically.

INFECTION The beginning of the parasitic growth, engaging the public at street level showing apparent signs of change

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MANIFESTATION The growth of the parasite within the host building, and injecting new programs BREAKOUT 37

Through manual manipulation in Rhino we began to explore how two different forms intersect and subtract from one another, intrigued by the spatial qualities, forms and relationships created. Each component is portrayed by its characteristics such that the parasite is represented as a free organic form, the orthogonal solid symbolises the rigid host, and areas of subtraction are where the parasite once resided and attacked. Once the parasite was extracted from the host, the opposing forms were united as one, encasing an imprint of the parasite within the orthogonal solid. A common dualistic relationship between the forms is evident in this example, each acting as the positive or the negative to the other, or the a reaction to the other’s action.

At this stage was also already suggested the idea of social and behavioural response to architectural change, or how negative spaces would accommodate different social categories than positive spaces.

In continuation with the previous exploration, this exercise investigates how two contrasting bodies integrate with each other, and how the parasite is capable to disrupt the structural grid of building through parametric design. A script was created in Grasshopper utilising attractor and repulsive points exemplifying vital and non-vital organs of the host.

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HYBRIDISED BODIES

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39

INFECTION

MANIFESTATION

BREAK OUT

DEAPRTURE

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Manifestation 42

Breakout

Departure

Collapse 43

Breakout