The Adaptive Island - Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Taught by Dalia Munenzon

The Adaptive Island

FINAL REVIEW MAY 20, 9:30AM-5:00PM

GUEST REVIEWERS Jan Casimir Jongwan Kwon Francesca Liuni Robert Mohr Devanshi Purohit Arlen Stawatz Liliane Wong Nitzan Zilberman

INSTRUCTOR Dalia Munenzon Advanced Design Studio Adaptive Reuse and Climate Change on Peddocks Island, Hull, Ma RISD 2020

Swaminathan Mridula Wang Wenjin Xu Jeremy Zhuoqi Yang Jayden Jungil Yu Mona Chuming

STUDENTS

Gallagher Kayci Han Dong-Zoo Huan Xing Li Ziyao Lu Nancy Peng Jennie Ziying INTAR 23ST-04

Project Abstracts 2

The Adaptive Island

The Adaptive Island Taught by Dalia Munenzon

This studio aims to investigate the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on historic buildings and the complex environment surrounding them. Focusing on Peddocks Island and the structures of Fort Andrews, this adaptive reuse studio will inquire how time affects architecture, and how nature can interface buildings. We will explore how to combine recreational and educational programs with architecture as a research instrument, tool for surveying, and observatory for the dynamics of landscapes.

Peddocks Island is the second largest of the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park. The flows of sediments and the geology of the bay shaped the tombolos and tidal flats of the island. East Head houses Fort Andrews, an abandoned military base with some recently stabilized structures. And Middle Head is home for a small and vibrant cottage community, which has been residing and summering on the island for generations.

The natural condition of the island and existing buildings present an opportunity to use it as a hub for education and research. In this studio, we will develop a design to experience, measure, and document the dynamics of the natural environment, and experiment with the impacts of uncertainty on buildings. This studio will address adaptation in architecture as a resiliency measure and a creative opportunity to innovate on material tectonics, sustainability, flexible uses, and engage with the unique constraints of designing on an island.

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Framing the Ephemeral

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The Adaptive Island

Framing the Ephemeral Kayci Gallagher

Framing the Ephemeral aims to capitalize on the current conditions of Peddocks Island through a network of gradational interventions.

These interventions are designed to cooperate in tandem with the existing infrastructure and landscape, while facilitating the convergence of scientific research and the surrounding community.

This series of additions acts as a type of ‘scaffolding’ for the island, welcoming inevitable changes over time. By implementing small-scale interventions, such as boardwalks and resting areas, the existing pathways throughout the island become more serviceable and enjoyable for users of all backgrounds. The introduction of medium-scale interventions, such as new ‘plug-in’ moments at the waterfront, allows the island to become more accessible via various modes of transportation. These edge-based additions also encourage the observation of the everchanging shoreline and realities of sea-level rise. Finally, by formulating large-scale interventions, such as the adaptive reuse of existing architecture, the structures on the island become functional and resilient with time.

This system of interventions serves as an ephemeral framework, intended to change. Whether boardwalks become overgrown with vegetation, piers require additional connections toward the receding shoreline, or buildings become flooded, these interventions are designed to transform. Rather than attempting to contain inevitable changes, why not construct a framework for them?

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Peddocks Sanctuary

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The Adaptive Island

Peddocks Sanctuary Dongzoo Han

Peddocks Sanctuary is the place where various kinds of wildlife coexist with human presence with mere interference from each other.

Peddocks Island, which possesses abundant natural and cultural resources, can serve as the research and educational hub of the Boston Harbor Islands.

The overall plan design takes into account the existing architectural structures: the monumental concrete batteries and the utilitarian brick buildings. This plan identifies four user groups for the island: the birds, turtles, visitors, and scientists. Each user group occupies a different space and structure on the island. They intersect at the batteries in the juxtaposition of experiences.

Turtles, which are the most endangered species, will be brought for medical care and research. Vetting staff and turtles will take up space from the interior of the battery to the shelter going down to the sea level. As birds are not brought to the island purposefully, the improvement of their habitat will be placed over the drumlin. The visitor’s exploration pathway is designed following different habitat restoration plans. The Turtle Rescue Center adapts to sea-level rise and lets the water to gradually take up the structure. Structures on the upper level are composed of light materials that naturally fade.

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Break Out of The Shell

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The Adaptive Island

Break Out of The Shell Xing Huan

This is a project focus more on the different human experiences that people will get from the main axis of the island in different seasons. And the main programs will be related to agriculture.

Four greenhouses will serve as a transitional zone between the commercial and agricultural fields on the east end of the island. Following the density trend of programs and buildings from north to south, the greenhouse will have three different forms, opaque, transparent, and open to the air. From the perspective of landscapeďźŒthese, three forms of the four greenhouses form a series of visual barriers from concrete to ambiguous. What’s more, different greenhouses with different transparency can be used to grow different crops or vegetation that need different growing environments.

The greenhouse area will serve as an important educational place on the island all year round. There will be supporting buildings around them to store agricultural machinery and serve as classrooms or museums.

The transforming method of the four buildings is taking off the original roof and adding new structures. This symbolizes the rebirth of the building, as well as the rebirth of the island, and echoes the thriving agricultural plants within it.

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Overlapping

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The Adaptive Island

Overlapping Ziyao Li

Peddocks Islands is a great experimental and research frontline to test out the impact of climate on a mini-ecosystem. Concerning a 40 minutes waterway to Boston, the island would be a great classroom to teach the public how climate-change impacts the island naturally.

Therefore we will be trying to overlap these two interdisciplinary experiences together to maximize the achievements of tourists.

I treat the existing and demolished footprints of buildings or ruins on the island as alive creatures that are growing. After years, these footprints would expand, and parts of them naturally overlap and create their interacting zone. The overlapped areas grew for fields of experimental agriculture for researchers and the others for commercial or self-sustain agriculture. We also adapt parts of the existing building to greenhouses which perform different usage and growth of different vegetation and plants for either commercial use or self-sustain usage on the island. Combined with these two methods of agriculture, the island has certain capabilities to supply self-sufficient amounts of food.

Around the island, I propose bike circulations which are not only connections among different attractions, but also they are the protection of islands. Along the eroded edge of the islands, these bike routes are made of bio-concrete. They absorb the energy from the wave to reduce the impact on the shore. While sea level is rising, these bike routes are in a chance that is filled with seawater and to be the base of aquaculture and water-life.

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The Shifting Landscape

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The Adaptive Island

The Shifting Landscape Nancy Lu

The Shifting Landscape is an adaptive reuse architecture and landscape project exploring time and architecture as well as documenting its relationship with the ecologically diverse landscape. The curated experience is derived from Peddocks Island’s rich history of the landscape and ecological transformations, from agricultural, militaristic to its eventual abandonment.  The master plan of East Head focuses on preserving the existing ecology and vegetation while creating four major nodes. The act of excavation to host new programs and circulation allows visitors to explore the island without hindering the current vistas and sublime landscape. The programs include an ecological museum and farm, research facility, water channels, and rainwater collection, and hostel and restaurant.

The museum hosts six vegetation hubs recreating environments of pre-European settlement to the present-day farm, whereas, the research facility focuses on investigating the relationships of invasive species and native plants of the Boston Harbor Islands. The water channels create streams and pockets of ponds along pathways throughout the island while collecting rainwater. In addition, the quartermaster building becomes the host that envelopes around a semi-open air hostel, which carves the existing structure in half. The design of the new quartermaster building addresses time in association with not only visitor flow through different seasons but also different times of day as light and vegetation growth are essential to the curated experience of East Head.

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Memento

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The Adaptive Island

Memento Jennie Peng

When I visited Peddocks island, I was impressed by the ruined buildings that were abandoned after humans left. Those buildings were activated at a certain period of history and deactivated as time went by. Then I started to realize that human and man-made architecture only occupied a fragment of history and time.

Therefore, the question is: how can an architecture or a landscape design adapt time change. More specifically to the site, how does the architecture of Peddocks island avoid the destiny of being artificial garbage left in the forest? To provide a solution, I want to explore the connection and tension between nature and architecture. And how those elements could vary when time passed. I investigate the space inside and outside the quartermaster building by reshaping the natural landscape and introducing those elements into the building.

The quartermaster building was programmed as a seasonal residency for artists and a research center for the public. To serve two different groups of people, the building is separated into two parts with independent entrances. The right side of the quartermaster provides artists creative workspace, dormitory, and gathering space. The left side of the building includes facilities that serve the public, such as the admin office, classroom, gallery corridor, and auditorium.

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On the Edge Of

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The Adaptive Island

On the Edge Of Mridula Swaminathan

Peddocks Island is faced with the challenge of loss of land not only by coastal erosion due to the strong currents but also by the looming global issue of sea level rise. In fact, the former phenomenon is accelerated by the latter. In a time when all these phenomena are inevitable, preserving the island and its essence in a manner of adapting to these climatic and therefore geological changes becomes imperative.

One must note that these changes that occur do not limit to just the physical transformation of the island but also involves the loss of existing ecologies and geologies.

In an effort to preserve the aura of the island inspite of these changes, observing these occurrences becomes an important aspect of educating as well as preparing for what is to come. Understanding how the contour edges can be capitalized on to eventually accommodate for these physical alterations can help guide in the process of observation. The very concept of a living lab is to observe and experience these changes on a personalized or direct manner. With the objective of making this education process more experiential than dictated, the intent is to develop the Quartermaster as the center for living those moments through the various edge qualities that the site and the design has to offer.

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Sense of Breathing

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The Adaptive Island

Sense of Breathing Wenjin Wang

Climate change is no longer an unfamiliar issue for us. It has been integrated into almost everywhere in our lives. We are told that we experience minor changes every day in our daily life, and there will be a huge change to our environment due to the accumulation of these nuanced changes. But it is difficult for us to feel what will happen in the future. How to perceive climate change better help us understand and start protecting our planet will be a significate problem.

From the masterplan design to the quartermaster building design, the most important criterion is how human being experiences these changes on the island and in the building. In Project 2, I tried to amplify these changes so that people can directly experience the effects of the rising temperature and sea level within a hundred years.

In Project 3, I want people to liberate themselves from busy urban life to the wild nature in the Quartermaster Building. The breathing research lab allows people to gain direct feelings of climate and natural environment changes. After all, the research and follow-up actions conducted for climate change and environmental protection are more like our self-reflection on nature.

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Connectivity and Hyperactivity

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The Adaptive Island

Connectivity and Hyperactivity Zhuoqi Xu

The most significant entry point for master planning is to cope with the sea-level rise. Through the existing problems, it is concluded that the four aspects of adaptive utilization, regional connection, industrial development, and environmental response should be taken into consideration. The concept is outlined through the idea of connectivity and hyperactivity/occupancy, and the design is mainly carried out from three aspects: connecting regions, connecting islands and oceans, and linking diverse traffic.

The adaptive reuse approach is based on the master plan. The functional configuration is mainly considered from the three aspects of the whole season, the entire period and region, and the functions of research, entertainment and function are subdivided.

In the indoor renovation, a triangular steel truss, glass roof, and convertible windows installed to improve the building’s stability and enhance the physical energy-saving effects such as lighting and ventilation of the building. Also, the atrium public space divided into various experiential activity spaces with different heights, scales, and functions.

The outdoor environment improvement preserves the trees, and the original landscape on the island considers various activity systems. And use the “circular” as the spatial prototype to layout four landscape systems, namely the bicycle ring road and the sunken ladder theater, resting area, and trestle. The use of floating house experience devices provides a variety of experiences for tourists to explore and activities.

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Hidden Base

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The Adaptive Island

Hidden Base Jungil (Jayden) Yang

Peddocks Island once was a military base that guarded other islands of the Boston Harbor. It served not only as a bunker but also as a barrier for the other islands. Based on its historical factors, my design interventions seek to apply two main ideologies of Adaptive Reuse.

Firstly, respecting the original feature of Peddocks Island, my first step was to create few excavations that represented the identity of the island, paying homage to the existing structures such as the battery’s bunker, the past user’s experiences are existent. To elaborate, excavating the island refers to the idea of the military bunker, which users’ experience resonates with a soldier’s life. There are reciprocal relationships among new programs: 1. Farm -> restaurant 2. Rainwater storage -> General use 3. Sea Water -> Aquatic Vegetation 4. Research/Laboratory -> Education The next step was to insert design components in the Quartermaster building. Following the same ideology of Adaptive Reuse, all of the components were inspired by parts of the Quartermaster building. Maintaining the same proportion of original windows, new objects now function as micro gardens and corridors. Furthermore, understanding the issue of sea-level rise, access to the building will be elevated, fully enclosed, and perfectly climate controlled. Utilizing the existing structures as historical and architectural signifiers, the design embodies the historical significance of Peddocks Island while satisfying present issues.

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Growing Architecture

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The Adaptive Island

Growing Architecture Mona Yu

According to the researches we did for history and ecology of Peddocks Island, we learned that the Island is disappearing over time, and it will disintegrate into four distinct parts with sea-level rise. Instead of “saving” island and architectures from sea level rise, we decided to “let water in,” trying to adapt with the rising sea level, thus in our notion of the master plan, we were using nature as an architectural component to build different human experience, to find new ways dwelling on the Island within the changing environment.

Similarly, the design of quartermaster building was also seen as an experiment of designing with both architectural and natural materials. I see quartermaster building a footprint of human beings in nature; if the destiny of it is to be covered and abandoned, we should turn it back to nature, and let it take over our footprint.

That comes to my concept of blurring the boundary between in and out, connecting the interior to large scale vegetation on the land, in order to make it “functional” over time, and not only for human but also for other features.

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