Portfolio
Joffrey Rozzonelli
Architecture ULB La Cambre Horta 2012-2017
Portfolio
Joffrey Rozzonelli
Architecture ULB La Cambre Horta 2012-2017
architecture
The cemetery of Laeken : An ossuary and a columbarium in a Royal context.
Close to the Royal residence of the kings and queens of Belgium, the famous cemetery of Laeken spreads between the Palace and the cathedral Notre Dame de Laeken. Iconic, it welcomes the tombs of important politics, architects and artists of the Kingdom, and of course the royal crypt in the cathedral. Differents layers are seen, the first one enfolding the ancient presbytery partly destroyed which stands in the graveyard. The second one shows ÂŤavenuesÂť from the nineteenth century, welcoming stunning funerary tunnels and the last one, still used today, tends to blur this royal context...
Everything changed in 1971 when the law ending the right to have a perpetual grave was promulgated. Since then, a problem was born : what to do with the human remains when the contract is over and not extended by the family? A hole in the legislation still exists today and in the Brussels’ region, a decent ossuary is not mandatory. Thenceforth, the cemeteries administrations can choose every solution they want. It leads to improper answers, such as buring surreptitiously undecomposed bodies in a giant pit, often due to economics reasons. Then, in every cemetery of the region, and even more in Laeken in such a royal neighborhood, it is more than urgent to take care of the problem.
First proposal, in a non-used space : A giant sepulture, inviting people to connect with it and to meditate. It also interacts with the weather and a draining system allows the rain to create a water mirror. The sky reflection brings a new dimension to the contemplation.
Final proposal : A cut in half pyramid, a reference to ancient Egypt, as well as the Lumières’ mystical projects. The rupture in the volume is highly symbolic, shows that the life is broken, and brings the visitor to the columbariums. It also guides his eye to the big ash tree outside of the cemetery, which is a symbol in many cultures of connection between life and death. The structure offers at its bottom worms filled tanks, in order to take care of the bodies decomposition in a natural and ecological way. At the other levels, boxes for little bones and shelves for the skulls and tibias take place. Like in catacombs, during special days those spaces can be visited. A square exists at the center of the construction, allowing people to sit and think, pray and mourn the defuncts.
Production Unit: Supernormal
“There are better ways to design than putting a lot of effort into making something look special. Special is generally less useful than normal, and less rewarding in the long term.” Jasper Morrisson. In order to perpetuate the call of the designer Jasper Morrison, we made this semester a research about a «Supernormal» architecture. The Supernormal architecture is caracterized by the gesture economy and espacially by the effect of these gestures, and the attentions to the daily context it affects. The aim is to go over the style neutrality or the self satisfied ordinariness to improve the appropriation capacities which often caracterize the common architectures.
In small groups of 3 students, we worked at the beginning of the semester on reference houses identified as supernormal, here Upper Lawn Pavillion by Peter and Alison Smithson. In a second part, we inherited a city portion in Laeken (North of Brussels) we visited, and in which we focused on the wilderness, the vacant lot. A process of production through a concrete model workshop bring us to the creation of a project.
Rehabilitation of the Brussels’ slaughterhouses
Along the artificial river that comes from Antwerp to Charleroi, industries strongly developed until not so long time ago. Today, they are in an era of transformation. In Anderlecht, the famous slaughterhouses that still welcome a market nowadays are changing too. The aim would be to bring a new attractivity to the area and to mix the populations in a neighborhood still suffering about his deep industrial past. There are several problems, like monofunctional activity, soil and water pollution and difficulties to bring new visitors from outside the neighborhood, especially during no market days...
ORG, an architectural office from Brussels started to think about a project for the slaughterhouses. But it’s still in a sketchy state, so we took it as a base and tried to develop the idea. Then, in a group of three students, we splited the area in three parts : the market zone welcoming the ancient slaughterhouses, a beautiful building that we kept, a new building supposed to contain social housings and, what I will show here, the new slaughterhouses and their offices, as well as a platform inviting people to walk and observe the city from a highest point of view. Indeed, the view to the canal would be wider an secure, without the highway between the project and the water.
The building shown stays in the same shape that ORG designed. Another identical building, like an answer, would be in the back, connected to it by bleachers leading to the walk. Into the bleachers, some purification basins are integrated in order to wash the waters used during the animal slaughter, volontary shown to sensitize the public to the water treatment. Logistics would be under the platform, to allow a direct acces from the road, and keep the top area for pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders...
Charleroi’s Block: The Block of the Patinoire
This exercise has for goal to ask about the collective housing inside of a block. It questions about urbanism matters, such as location modalities inside of an existing block, the density connection between existing buildings and the new ones, and the empty/full connections inside the new project or in the articulations between this one and the pre-existing buildings. And in the same time with architectural questions: which typology? private/shared, social, inter-generational...
The proposed area is the patinoire and the soccer stadium of Charleroi (southern Belgium), located inside a block (Brigade Piron street / Neuve street). It is close to the city center, eastside, and materialized by houses lined up to the streets. The built density is low, and the middle of the block is big enough to include two sport infrastructures. The developed part will be the south of the block, which offers interesting vis-Ă -vis between the public space and the inhabitants.
The Architecture as a critic transformation: The House on the Lake.
A compact housing program (3 rooms for 135 sq meters) including the definition of an outside space linked to the architecture. Personal research articulated to a collective reflexion about the grouping mode and the way the houses are arranged all over the shared landscape. This reflexion consider the role model projects which are on the sites, on this project the Wall House by Tadao Ando, as well as the landscape conditions (hills, forest, shore, plain,...), and the accessibility organized by the masterplan (3 plots corresponding to 3 decreed students).
The house I worked on is the one in the middle, which has to deal with a double neighborhood. The problem is solved by a simple urbanism rule, each owner close his northern wall, in order to his neighbor will be able to wide open to the south, and put here his garden. This way, everybody enjoys the southern, eastern and western light. Moreover, the size is limited to one floor, and to a 5 meters width, to avoid being in the way of the garden, a necessary light provision. Speaking about materials, the concrete is used almost raw in all the building, to refer to the Wall House at the other side of the road.
theory
La Grande Motte, the dream of one man or the birth of a city
Thesis dealing with the late recognition by the public, specialist or not,of a major artwork of modern and postmodern architecture from the 60s to the 80s. La Grande Motte, new city built under the supervison of the chief architect Jean Balladur, is famous today in France and abroad for its pure geometrical shapes, like concrete pyramids or seashells. At the beginning made with many others seaside resorts along the Languedoc-Roussillon coast to attract the tourists going to Spain, Côte d’Azur or Italy, it has an unique urbanism and architecture at this time in France and even in Europe. However, since its construction, bad critics were usual in the press and in the architectural world. How does everything changed today, from a negative image to the recognition, and the attribution of the Label of XXth Century Heritage? And what are the architectural, cultural, economical and ecological stakes that need to be taken into consideration, to keep going towards a positive image into the future?
expression
Watercolors
Nude model
Indian ink, quill, continuous line.
Indian ink, bamboo quill.
Pencil, wash drawing.
Greasy pastel.
Greasy pastel on double page poster.
Movement study, wash drawing.
Painting
Wooden board 74x34, acrylic, aerosol, permanent marker.
Sculpture
Structure-sculpture. Column in situ, 250cm. Chicken wire, plaster.
Joffrey Rozzonelli, ULB La Cambre Horta, 2012-2017