Architecture of Bounderies by Raphael de la Fontaine

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THESIS The thesis is proposing a comprehensive and integrated perspective on the architecture of boundaries. Such architecture requires the careful analysis and response to the following factors, including boundary typologies, the convoluted three dimensional nature of boundaries, the impact on physical matter as well as the continuously changing impact on non physical matter, namely, human life.

CHAPTER

SCALE

ANALYSIS

A:

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HORIZONTAL DIVISION, PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES, VERTICAL DIVISION

4-12

B:

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FRONTIERS, IMPACT, BOUNDARY TYPOLOGIES

12-13

C:

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5,000

NATURAL BOUNDARIES, SPATIAL BOUNDARIES, LAYERED BOUNDARIES

14-15

D:

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100

SPATIAL BOUNDARIES, INTERVENTION

16-19

RESEARCH The data for the research is derived from the analysis of Israel at multiple scales. A snapshot of the current nation’s reality, reveals an astounding complexity composed of several physical and abstract boundaries developing through a logical system of evolution. The evolution is driven by archeological findings, ecological patterns, and civil security, transportation and circulation.

Underground aquifers, vehicular tunnels and historical ruins, in addition to the skies military zone, have evoked the interest to secure the control beyond traditional means of sectional boundaries.

PAGES

THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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VERTICAL BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER A

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GREEN LINE

HORIZONTAL DIVISION Division is a separation by the creation of a boundary that divides or keeps apart. The basic purpose of a division is to mark an end of one territory and the beginning of the next. Boundaries can serve to obstruct and control movement and/or visibility across the extents of the line.

A geographic or political boundary line tries to separate two differing systems of existence. The lines on a map are identifiable physical or spatial buffers such as walls, roads, dikes, slopes or valleys. Nevertheless, these lines are also ethnic territorial lines which reflect the persistent social, economic and spatial divisions.

While the line in reality proves to have various forms and meanings, it constitutes a third condition: the boundary itself. It lies in-between two opposing conditions, it negotiates their relationship, hierarchy and control over each other. As important it is to measure the impact of the boundary on the two oppositional sides, it is also significant to assess the impact created on the boundary itself.

What may have once been an active natural habitat, has turned into a dead space, due to the architectural imposition and pressures it needs to withhold.

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CHAPTER A

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POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

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SEPARATION FENCE GREEN LINE

THE WEST BANK The West Bank is a landlocked territory and is the eastern part of the Palestinian territories; on the west bank of the Jordan River in the Middle East.

To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coastline along the western bank of the Dead Sea. Since 1967, most of the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation as what it calls the Judea and Samaria Area. A smaller part of the West Bank is administered by the Israeli civilian authorities as part of Jerusalem District.

ELASTIC GEOGRAPHY Within the 5,655 square kilometers of the West Bank, the 2.5 million Palestinians and 500,000 Jewish settlers seem to inhabit the head of a pin. Within them, the mundane elements of planning and architecture have become tactical tools and the means of disposition.

These territories include the most explosive ingredients of our time, all modern utopias and all ancient beliefs are contained simultaneously, bubbling side by side with no precautions.

THE GREEN LINE The term Green Line is used to refer to the 1949 Armistice lines established between Israel and its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Green Line separates Israel not only from these countries but from territories Israel would later capture in the 1967 Six-Day War, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula (the latter has since been returned to Egypt). Its name is derived from the green ink used to draw the line on the map during the talks.

1947

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1947 UN PLAN 1,200,000 1,100,000

1949 - 1967 400,000 2,400,000

2005

1,400,000 5,400,000

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THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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CHAPTER A

VERTICAL BOUNDARIES

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SEPARATION FENCE GREEN LINE

THE BARRIER A physical barrier, and even oftentimes an invisible barrier, is a structure or space that impedes free movement. Incidentally, such a barrier does not always have to have an equal impact on both sides. For example, there are road blocks which block one side, while the other side is free to pass.

Thus, the variety of such blockage types, introduces a degree of direction. A barrier may also be able to block one type of movement, while allowing another through.

A good example of that is a wall that is strong enough to barricade people, while its material is permeable to water that filters through underground. The example of the permeable wall leads to a new type of spatial division, the vertical division which using horizontal boundaries.

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ECOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER A

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UNDERGROUND AQUIFERS SEPARATION FENCE GREEN LINE

THE SEPARATION FENCE The Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier being constructed by the State of Israel along and within the West Bank. The barrier is a fence with vehicle-barrier trenches surrounded by an on average 60 meter wide exclusion area (90% of its length), and an 8 meter tall concrete wall (10% of its length).[1] The barrier is built mainly in the West Bank and partly along the 1949 Armistice line, or “Green Line” between Israel and Palestinian West Bank. 12% of the West Bank area is on the Israel side of the barrier.

AQUIFERS The Israeli occupied West bank includes scarce water resources. These mountain aquifer areas have a water saturated substratum 200-600 meters deep. Israeli planners consider that the aquifers vital to Israeli water needs, and therefore would like to retain control of settlement blocks over that area, adjacent to the so called “center” of Israel, the Gush Dan area.

A recently prepared assessment report by the World Bank (2009) revealed that “Palestinians abstract about 20% of the ‘estimated potential’ of the aquifers lying beneath the West Bank, Israel abstracts the balance, and in addition overdraws on the “estimated potential” by more than 50%.

SEASONAL WELLS There are 714 wells in the West Bank, of which only 325 wells produce water. The remaining wells have run dry or have been destroyed. The operating wells produce an average of 65.5 mcm per year used primarily for agricultural purposes and in a lesser extent for drinking (PWA 2007).

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SEASONAL WELL PALESTINIAN TOWN JEWISH TOWN

THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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CHAPTER A

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HORIZONTAL BOUNDARIES

UNDERGROUND AQUIFERS SEPARATION FENCE GREEN LINE

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EXTENDED OCC SEASONAL WELL

VERTICAL DIVISION Vertical division can have additional impacts on both sides, such as ecological, health and psychological. The concept of digging tunnels underneath, or spanning above another autonomy creates a whole new world of means for control, as well as, a whole set of moral questions.

Although horizontal boundaries allow for an innovative spatial connection between two disjointed tissues of land, it also expropriates the layer which extends beyond the boundary due to its resulting sectional disconnection.

The relationships created through a combination of horizontal and vertical divisions of space can become very sophisticated. They can surpass one another, create hierarchy, or function in perfect harmony.

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CHAPTER A

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CIRCULATORY BOUNDARIES

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ISRAELI ROADS

UNDER AND OVER The separation is not articulated on the surface of the terrain alone. Palestinians had been forced into a territorial patchwork of sealed islands around their cities, towns and villages, within a larger space controlled by Israel. Areas under them, the vast water aquifer in the sub terrain beneath them, as well as the militarized airspace above them.

Revisioning the traditional geopolitical imagination, the horizon seems to have called upon to serve as one of the boundaries raised up by the conflict, making the ground below and the air above separate and distinct from, rather than continuous with and organic to, the surface of the earth.

The various borders of the conflict have accordingly manifested themselves as different topographical latitudes. Across this fragmented geography the different Israeli settlements are woven together by lines of infrastructure routed through three-dimensional space: Roads connecting Israeli settlements are raised on extended bridges spanning Palestinian lands, or dive into tunnels beneath them, while narrow Palestinian underpasses are usually bored under Israeli multi-laned highways.

Bet Safafa Gilo Har Homa

FRONTIER C

Bet Jala

BETLEHEM

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PALESTINIAN TOWN JEWISH TOWN

THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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CHAPTER A

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MULTIPLE BOUNDARIES

UNDERGROUND AQUIFERS SEPARATION FENCE GREEN LINE

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ECOLOGICAL BOUNDARY SEASONAL WELL

DYNAMIC BOUNDARY The examination of these conditions create the opportunity for analysis of a meaningful and spatial complexity which is measurable, rule based and sometimes very elastic.

The elasticity of boundaries introduces the concept of time. Boundaries can grow, shrink or move while their impact can also change over time due to the evolution taking place on either side. For example, a physical boundary can have a very strong psychological impact on a settlement with low rise buildings.

However, as the sides rise vertically, the relationship to the boundary and the hierarchy to the area across changes. It is therefore necessary to react to the aspect of time and include a degree of flexibility in any intervention.

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ECOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER A

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PALESTINIAN TOWN JEWISH TOWN

SCATTERED LAND Since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2000, Israeli attempts to isolate and fragment Palestinian resistance and limit the possibility of suicide bombers arriving in Israeli cities have further split the fragile geography of the Oslo Acords.

Using a complex ever present system of closures and traffic restrictions including road blocks, gates, earth dykes & trenches, these barriers sustain the creation of a new geographic, social and economic reality.

The various barriers splinter the West Bank into a series of approximately 200 separate sealed off territorial cells around Palestinian population centers with traffic between those cells channeled through military controlled bottlenecks.

THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES 1:500,000

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CHAPTER B

BOUNDARY TYPOLOGY

WALL FENCE ROAD TOPOGRAPHY WASTE LANDS PUBLIC GREEN CHECKPOINTS Bet Safafa Gilo Har Homa

FRONTIER C

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FRONTIERS AND IMPACT

FRONTIERS In order to make such an intervention on a local boundary, one has to first qualify the array of boundary typologies. Physical boundaries can differ by their formal characteristics and their impact. Nevertheless, there are additional invisible boundaries which often divide and impact the environment just as much. Distinct sound, smell, language and even architecture style can serve as a clear invisible territorial line.

Both visible and invisible boundaries are conceivable by humans. Humans are driven by such perceptions and react accordingly. That is the reason why boundaries have a direct impact on human life beyond the physical environmental impact, including psychology, sociology, economy, education and culture.

The frontiers are not rigid and fixed at all. Rather, they are elastic, and in constant transformation. The linear order, a cartographic imaginary inherited from the military and political spatiality FRONTIER TYPOLOGIES of the nation state has splintered into a multitude of temporary, transportable, deployable and removable border-synonyms including: - separation walls - barriers - blockades - closures - road blocks - checkpoints - sterile areas - special security zones - closed military areas - killing zones

CHAPTER B

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WALL

These borders shrink and expand at will.

SLOPE

INFRASTRUCTURE

TOPOGRAPHY

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THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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NATURAL BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER C

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NATURAL BOUNDARIES While man shapes and evolves boundaries through markings and construction, boundaries eventually adapt to the natural condition. At a certain point the natural boundary becomes absolute and the only way to redefine it is by removal of substance from the opposing sides.

NO BOUNDARY

KIBBUTZ RAMAT RAHEL

LOOSE BOUNDARY

SUR BAHIR

DESIGNED BOUNDARY HAR HOMA

NATURAL BOUNDARY

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LAYERED BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER C

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DIVIDING THE OLD CITY During the peace talks at Camp David under Clintons administration, an unprecedented proposal came into play. The Old City Temple mount would be divided “vertically and horizontally”: the Palestinians would control everything above the ground, while Israel would have sovereignty over everything underneath the ground.

TIMELINE JERUSALEM 19 BCE: Herod expands the Temple Mount and rebuilds the Temple in Roman style (Herod’s Temple), including the construction of the Western Wall 614: Siege of Jerusalem (614) - Jerusalem falls to Khosrau II’s Sassanid Empire led by General Shahrbaraz, during the Byzantine-Sassanid War

HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL

661: Muawiyah I is ordained as Caliph of the Islamic world in Jerusalem following the assassination of Ali in Karbala, ending the First Fitna and marking the beginning of the Umayyad Empire 1016: Caliph Ali az-Zahir undertakes extensive renovations to the Dome of the Rock 1967: Jerusalem is recaptured during the six day war. The Mughrabi quarter is flattened and the modern day Western Wall Plaza is constructed

JOAB’S ENTRY PT POOL OF SILOAM

1016 CE

1967 CE 661 CE 614 CE 19 BCE

THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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SPATIAL BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER D

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SPATIAL BOUNDARIES The conclusion of the analysis of boundary typologies, looking at the types of barriers, topographical shifts, infrastructure and others, one thing is in common for all boundaries: Every boundary is a space, and every boundary has a section. The analysis of these sections is crucial in order to understand the dynamics, impact and opportunity. The analysis reveals an enormous tension and is likely to have the potential for program that can greatly contribute to its basic functions and beyond its boundaries.

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CONTINUITY OF BOUNDARIES

CONTINUITY OF BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER D

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THESIS THE ARCHITECTURE OF BOUNDARIES

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SUSTAINABLE BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER D

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SUSTAINABLE BOUNDARIES

TO BE DEVELOPED

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ADAPTIVE BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER D

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ADAPTIVE BOUNDARIES

TO BE DEVELOPED

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"Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect, they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries."

-- Jose Ortega y Gasse