PORTFOLIO Pauline Théobald
Index Theater on the Spree in Berlin (OISTAT Competition 2015) Museum at South Cadbury in England (Competition Archmedium 2013) Mixed complex: Games library and housing in Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Brussels «The City Within the Building,» from São Paulo to Berlin «Living Island», connection between Basel, Huningue and Weil am Rhein (Conceived within the project 3land) Housing along the Canal in Anderlecht, Brussels Development of a public square in Don Benito in Spain (Competition Europan 12)
The ninth OISTAT architectural competition proposes to work on the design of a floating theater on the Spree in Berlin. The implantation zone is located at the «Holzmarkt», representative place of the alternative culture and urban recycling, both very present in the German capital. In this alternative theater, the concept attempts to create the own identity of the city. Access will be by a walkway, which will be established in a linear way along the Spree, via a path lined with piles already present on the site. From this path, a walkway leads to the theater immersed in the middle of the Spree. The theater project is developed around the concept of a «hole in the water» that will be materialized by existing elements of the site: the piles.
Berlin: the Holzmarkt Theater under water
The circle of steel piles enables a hollow, a kind of dry dock in the middle of the Spree to accommodate the theater. It will place the viewer in quite special conditions with an unexpected relation to the water. To reach the theater, the public will follow a floating bridge that will lead him gradually under the water level of the river Spree. The theater will be developed on two levels. The first one will allow spectators to have a glimpse of the lodges of the artists and an access to balconies. Below, the second one will provide access to the concert hall as well as to the theater actors’ lodges. At this level, a counter associated with an outdoor terrace will also be installed. At the end of the performance, the scene will be replaced by a meeting place for actors and spectators around the bar. The theater will float on a balance of water and it will be moved and taken away during the winter. But the circle of steel piles will always remain visible, representing the memory of the theater.
Level of the bank
Transversal Section
West Elevation
Level -1
Level -2
Longitudinal Section
South Elevation
This museum space project takes place in the Archmedium students competition. The proposed site is in South Cadbury (England). The museum proposal must be built around the legend of King Arthur and the castle of Camelot. The particularity of this application lies in the implantation. Indeed, the program must be developed on the site of the old castle, on top of a hill, in order to revive the legend by a museum space and a research center. The proposed building has been designed to minimize its visual impact and not to distort the landscape. The access to the building has been designed in a very minimalist way, in order to preserve at best the site. After crossing the existing path, a free ride has been preserved for the discovery of the site and its museum.
South Cadbury Museum «Camelot»
The project is just emerging from the ground. It looks like a monolith, an introvert block that stirs the curiosity of visitors, because of its intriguing side. Symbolically, it was decided to recreate the «tombstone» of King Arthur. This one was broken with time, wich explains the fragmentation of the monolith. Access to the building is done gradually, through a path leading up to the vegetation crown. The path fades to allow a free walk that suggests both the discovery of the landscape and the museum. Thus, the building is revealed by a set of broken lines that give access to the museum spaces. After entering the «stone», the visitor is immersed in a totally different universe punctuated by plays of lights and patios.
The building plot retained for this project is located in the Brussels municipality of Sint-Agatha-Berchem. It offers a privileged situation on the Schweitzer square. The program to respect requires the creation of a games library for residents as well as three flats, independent of the cultural space. The major challenge for the proposed games library was to maintain continuity between the Schweitzer Square and the green space at the bottom of the plot. A large wooden terrace ensures the transition between the two spaces. Inside the games library, circulation is organized in half levels. In terms of housing, access is via a staircase located at the corner of the plot. This circulation space provides access to a shared terrace. The three units are organized around this outdoor space as a set of three independent houses. The apartments develop in duplex or triplex.
Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Brussels Games library and housing
Ground floor
First Floor
Second Floor
Third Floor
Fourth Floor
This work was conducted within the workshop of Professor Rainer Hehl at the Technische Universität Berlin. The exercise focused on the theme «The City Within the Building». The approach is part of a transfer process from an existing model. The example given is a specific type of concentrated urbanization and acts as an «attractor» in a fragmented urban landscape. From this model, spatial, programmatic and identity qualities are listed. They allow to extract strategic concepts transposable to a new project. The selected reference project is Praça das Artes, located in São Paulo. It’s a cultural and artistic center that offers many services to the population. This project has revitalized the city center and offered a new meeting place for residents. All the identified qualities have been transferred to a site in Berlin’s Neukölln district. This area is near the S-Bahn station of Neukölln. At present, the dynamism of this area is limited to a small part of the district. The new project aims to connect this area to the whole district, and to spread its attraction.
S達o Paulo to Berlin
Transfer of Surplus Value The City Within the Building
For Praรงa das Artes, the architects have created a set where the void is as important as the site. This place brings together cultural and artistic activities in a complex that fits the existing site. The irregular shape of the site, with its many accesses, has been turned into an opportunity to create high quality public spaces. The activities are hosted in different monolithic blocks. They are identified by an ocher-colored concrete and various facade openings. This choice contributes to the homogeneous appearance of the project in the fragmented existing context. The monolithic blocks are connected to the ground floor by an open public space. It acts as a transit zone and ensures a continuity with the streets. On the opposite, blocks with activity rooms are closed to the outside, offering tranquility.
PRAÇA DAS ARTES
SOZIALPALAST NEUKÖLLN
SURPLUS TRANSFER Program Space
Identity
Space The primary value transferred is the concept of spatial morphology. For Praça das Artes, the architects designed homogeneous buildings that stand in the diverse urban landscape. As in São Paulo, Neukölln’s district is very fragmented. The purpose of the proposed project is to gather all activities creating a strong and homogeneous framework structure built among the existing. This element creates voids that determine a public space as important as the frame. Footbridges complete this public space. These operate between the different blocks that emerge from the framework structure and contain all the dedicated work spaces. They bring and provide a new kind of life inside the complex.
Program Praça das Artes has a cultural and artistic program, so it was difficult to transpose to the project of Neukölln. The aim of the transfer was to restore, as Praça das Artes, an open and permeable public space as well as impermeable and closed private spaces. The approach integrates working and daily living activities in the same complex in order to answer to all circulatory movements. The four blocks host work-related activities (coworking, start-up companies, workshops, ...) and services related to the daily life of the worker (multimedia library, subway, trains, ...). However, the services and local shops necessary to the habitat provide the link between housing and work spaces.
Identity In São Paulo, the architects chose to use a uniform material in front as well as various window openings for monolithic blocks. In contrast, the public space takes a complex and diverse form. Neukölln, this accumulation of footbridges and local services between working blocks causes internally a varied and complex public space. However, this agitation is not noticeable from the outside with uniform appearance. The monolithic and neutral aspect of facades of Praça das Artes is transferred to Neukölln. The aim is to keep this project idea that seems both open and closed.
Praรงa das Artes - void
Praรงa das Artes - inbuilt
Praรงa das Artes open public space
Neukรถlln - void
Neukรถlln - inbuilt
Neukรถlln open public space
Praรงa das Artes open public space
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Praรงa das Artes private monolithic blocks
= Arts documentation center
Schools
Auditorium/ Schools/ Disco Administrative buildings
Neukรถlln - working blocks connected by open public circulation with services
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Neukรถlln private monolithic blocks
= Atelier Housing
Coworking activities/ Junior achievement
Public Semi public Private
Station/ Multimedia library Firms
Praรงa das Artes
S達o Paulo
Sozialpalast
Neukรถlln
Ground floor
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA
DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
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b
b'
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Within the context of the project 3land and IBA Basel 2020, LIN architectural office was selected to conceptualize the urban plan of the area of the three borders between Switzerland, Germany and France. Finn Geiepl, founder of LIN office and professor at the Technische Universit채t Berlin, suggested us to study this topic in the work-group. This border area with specific identities in each country generates three areas, very heterogeneous in their urban fabric, their functions and their architectural typologies. This project aims to establish a connection, a necessary link point between these areas. It aims to revitalize isolated areas and to provide flexibility, in order to manage different contexts. The answer to this study offers an urban plan as well as a bridge to establish a connection (focal point) between the three countries separated by the Rhine.
3 LAND: Basel, Huningue, Weil am Rhein Living Island
A set of green areas, mostly inaccessible or barely visible, are present on the entire territory. They allow to consider the three regions as a whole and to imagine a network connecting them. The urban plan proposal bases its development on that network connections by considering the island as focal point. These green areas are connected through a course, punctuated by paths along the banks of the Rhine and large buildings. The proposed plan is open to any changes in the density and the typology of the building. Thus, each area can evolve independently. The island, defined as the central point of convergence of the three countries, is seen as more concentrated in gathering many activities. So, it could take advantage of the diversity brought by each country and spread it by its appeal to the ÂŤ3landÂť. This urban concept is completed by a straight pedestrian bridge, from KleinhĂźningen to the French area, combined with a skyscraper located on each of the three areas. This connection, clear and strong, connects the three lands as a whole. The bridge is a simple and thin white structure that floats above the Rhine, giving a calm attitude to this chaotic environment. It goes through the different situations with elegance and fits into the vertical drive system of each skyscraper. Its range of ramps at different levels allows the pedestrian access from each zone to the bridge. An extention of the Swiss tram line is proposed too. It connects each area via the bridge.
Urban plan after intervention
Longitudinal Section
Transversal Section
This project deals with a wasteland along the edge of the Brussels Canal, near the junction of Cureghem. The urban plan proposed was inspired by the intervention of Portzamparc in Massena. The main ideas put forward by Portzamparc, such as the concept of open block respected and reinterpreted. Nevertheless, some concessions were adopted for the connection of the site to water. The project wants to show a built front to recreate the perspectives of existing streets, and extend their traces on the plot. Densely built up buildings allow free collective green spaces on the ground, and the sizes are defined in order to provide a maximum of light and views to each flat. A mix of programs agreed with many houses, shops and facilities. The processing of outdoor spaces and facilities is a different approach from that of Portzamparc. The aim is to offer a direct connection to water via a reference library and a pub which extend to a public square looking on the Canal.
Living along the Canal Housing in Anderlecht
The drawing of this urban plan plays on contrasts. At the front, along the banks, the public spaces and facilities are fixed in an horizontal way and follow the river linear way. They adapt to the flows of comings and goings, to highlight the presence of the Canal without competing with it. At the back, some density appears. The facades stop the view in order to define clearly the plan space of the public square. If the reference library and the public space remain discreet in their size, it’s to highlight the Archives and the Brasserie, emblematic buildings in the area. To be part in a larger scale than the one of the plot and the Anderlecht district, a real place is given to bicycles. Indeed, the site near a convergence of many flows (trains, cars, boats on the Canal, ...), is also a real crossroads for cyclists. The two storied building, within the hollow of the bridge, was designed with a bike repair spot for bicycles. The terraces proposed below provide a pretext for a break along the Canal.
The developed housing project is located in the corner of the plot and communicates directly with existing streets. The two entrances, one at each street, are situated in continuity with the outdoor space. The inhabitants enter the grounds of the block via a gate which offers a direct access to a green space shared by the inhabitants of the plot. From there, they can also reach their flats. They’re located, for some of them, on the ground floor garden side or to the upper floors. Stage street, the building gives way to ground floor shops or local facilities such as a doctor’s. The entire building has flats from one to four bedrooms, sometimes developing in duplex. The common circulation is always open and organizes itself in gangways on some floors. Each apartment has a terrace overlooking the street or the garden, hidden from view by a modular wooden panels system. The size of the wooden panels is used to define the ideal dimensions of the openings in apartments.
Ground floor
First Floor
Second Floor
Third Floor
Transversal Section
Longitudinal Section
Detail of a three bedroom apartment
Detail of a one bedroom apartment
The Europan 12 architectural competition proposed to work on various sites all over Europe, including an urban redevelopment project in the small Spanish town of Don Benito. The site is located in a central area of t he town of Don Benito, which includes the «Plaza de Espana» and its close area. The square in front of the church functions as a roundabout and not as a meeting or relaxation spot. Cars constantly circulate and park all around, reducing its spatial qualities. At the back of the church, a group of disparate developed sites faces a vast empty space used as a parking. The intervention aims to bring harmony and coherence in this disintegrated public space. It will have to re-value the church as well as the historical buildings of the city, and include a meeting place close to all facilities and utilities, necessary to the inhabitants.
Don Benito: urban planning Historic center of the city: Plaza de Espa単a
Urban plan before intervention
FULL/EMPTY
PRIVATE/PUBLIC
Urban plan after intervention
The whole site has turned into a shared area where the traffic system of the vehicles is modified. The texture of the coating requires a low speed traffic and it’s forbidden to take the side emergency lanes wich border the shared areas. The old parking areas give way to a large pedestrian area that highlights the church and the historical building nearby. The back of degraded and disorganized buildings disappears behind a new housing building. This homogeneous developed site completes the block and gives a clear structure to the public space. This building provides additional accomodation and even more, new places for shops and facilities on the ground floor, to dynamise the site. A huge roof is installed on the place of the church square and is planned to welcome all kinds of public events. This roof, built on thin columns, protects a small modular room with different functions, such as a bar, a restaurant or a hall. To overcome the lack of parking places, an underground parking is proposed below the new housing building.
GROUND FLOOR
SECTION AA’
SOUTH ELEVATION
SECTION BB’
NORTH ELEVATION
pauline.theobald@yahoo.fr