The Paradigm shift
The project was an experimental Architecture project, leaning towards the sci-arch design school, the project took 6 months only to form a debate on a philosophical topic in the case of the paradigm shift the debate was about skeptisizing the scintefic methodology and the challenge was to translate the debate into a an architectural space
Supervised by Dr.Holger Glaydes Designed by Mahmoud Fahmy
Tribute to Thales
the project vangaurd was in the paradigm shift of thales of miletus sinceit was the most abstracted form of the skeptical thinking and reasoning. Thales was one of the pioneer in his field and one of the seven sages of greece and the first pre-socrates philosepher, his life was mainly in miletus but his hear abouts were in all greece. He influenced a lot of the philosopher after socrates even if his two publishment didn't reach them and a lot of his teaching were deliverd on the tounge of Aristotle. he influenced a lot of philosphers leading to the establishment of the milesian school and founded through it he spreaded a lot of his theories like the unoverse is created from one element which is water and by product of his students critiques on it. in his life he predicted a sun eclipse before it takes place he was a very rich business man in olive merchendise due to his noticing of the seasons and using it in his advantage he was placed in a story known as "the astronemer who fell in a well" which is considerd a joke or an urban myth, putting light on his way of thinking and always observing and searching for reasons in the nature around him and especialy in the cosmos. all of these fact lead us to know that his influence was in all greece not just miletus and that in order to serve the idea of the tribute for him the site must be a special place in athens itself not miletus so the site moved to athens.
The site the site wasn't limited to a handout and had to be chosen due to the concept in abstarct. Likavittos a lime stone hill on the height of 300 m from the sea level, located in athens north to the acropolis on a distanc of 5 Km away, has two tips one facing the akropolis and another facing the northern part of the city, currently it is just a touristic site to see the landscape view of the city and on the tip there is a theatre ,the 19th century chapel of saint george ,and some touristique restaurants, the tip is reached by car roads till the middle of the lattitude then the rest is a small walk on ramps, and the fast way up is through a funicular which climb up form the eastern side of the hill.
mythologicaly its story tell that it is a falling lime stone that fell from the goddess athena when she was building the akropolis hill, it was the point of gathering of the wolves which is translated into lyko in greek and that what derives its name. geologicaly the two hills akropolis and likavittos are formed due to a huge flood that struck the greek cities due to thera volcano erupted and caused the huge tsunami named ogyges flood earesing the minons civilization, this flood had formd the two hills acropolis and likavittos explaining the smoothness of akropolis hill and the shaped tip of likavittus that lead to the myth that this two hills were built, not shapend by a natural element the point is the two hills have a very strong link visualy and metaphoricaly yet only one of them is used in a remarkable way which is akropolis
by imposing a relation between the site and akropolis as peers in the project to be used to metaphore how thales broke the idea of the mythology just placing the design over the used tip of the hill facing akropolis as a peers and imposing the fact of the ogygos flood in the design could be used in metaphoring the prejudice subdue through putting the design inside the hill to esemble the strong barrier that the prejudice apply on a new paradigm. the milestones paradigm shifts through the relation between the design and the mountain as the shifts are the ones which surpaced the prejudice so they will be extruding out of the mountain and the current paradigm is forming the prejudice so it will be inside
so at this point the site did add up the project and served every point needed so the choice of the site was setteld in likavittus hill in athens.
the conceptual models were used to experiment diffrent languages to morph the idea of the project,the material choce and the scale wether spatial or a releif was open for our decision in te experiment
the conceptual model represent the dynamics between the prejudice to a new idea and the loop that obligat the idea to be back under the same prejudice layer to be reformed in a new one and continue the loop defined by Dr Thomas kuhn to define an idea as aliving idea
the second mode is emphasizing the idea of the loop but revrersing the process in making the prejudice recapturing the idea again in a new form and that what the project is stumbling upon to trancend over
concluded from the instalations was two principels to be used in the concept:
-the extrusion language through the mountains solid -the loop in between the new and the current paradigm
built on that another idea was added to which was the beacons
the idea is attached to the extrusions so it made every extrusion work through a force leading to a certain direction, this force is summoning the metaphoricaly the spirits of the old idea which is the milestone
each extrusion will point to where the idea was stated geographicaly
- Thales towards miletus
- alchemy (toward baghdad)
- Erathones towards biblothique alexandria
- aviation towards italy milano
- newtonien and general relativty conflict towards prinston newyork - copernicus towards poland
a spatial program must be made to arrange the space relation togather so the program was made first into three phases.
- intro for skeptesism. which was through the 6 milestones summoning extruded spaces offering a ind teaser for the possibilty of a paradigm shift typology: exhibition pavilions estimated area: 500m2 each
- the current paradigm a space that describes the currnet paradigm ,the best way to describe what was found to be an archive that collet every info we know about this universe so collectivly it form the current paradigm in a form of a library in a form a digital library its info is controled through a main server to ease up the categorizing and secure the info by easing itstransfer typology: digital library
- the new paradigm the portals a space that trys to predict the new paradigm through showing every possibilty being experemented in all physical labs through showing a live streamin events at every physical labs around the world including: CERN -LEGO - KK - Prinston- NASA......etc typology: Media Portals estimated area: 2000m2
the program was yet translated into schematic drawings and sections to show the relation between spaces more clearly
in the first trial the inside of the mountain was a seperate space for the entry of the design and the library was outside revolvng around the mountain to turn back inside to change to the new paradigm space and get out agin of the mountain
the exhibition were extruded out of the lbrary at this phase as the library formed the prejudic just by being the current paradigm and let the mountain be the next layer of a harder layer of prejudice to be only broke by the future paradigm
At last every thing was ready to be assembeld The program: -
7 milestone Exhibitions Digital library Portals(live streaming accsess points) Confrences areat
The space sole purpose would be to prove the uncertainity of scintefic methodology and enhancethe skeptisism point of view . th project name will be Pandora's box ,for the reason previously disscused in thr thale exhibition narration, which is that skeptesism thinking is juxtaposed by the pandora's box as to equalify the misery of all humanity and the hope with the uncertainity and the continous discovery of reality the universal space holding the library, the portals and the confrence zone is now called the paradigm areana as it show this infinite ouroborus loop in a form of the contradiction that will take place between this space two elements. this is how this space will serve it sole purpose
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