Anna Schaefferkoetter thesis pamphlet
PROMPT
TYPOLOGY
Control Structures
ENVIRONMENT
Lower Mississippi River
THESIS
a Typological Situation
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The concept of type is relevant across many fields. Its ubiquitous importance across time and disciplines renders the demarcation of a singular definition irrelevant. Rather, it is the complex negotiations between conception and formation, or “in the unresolved or partially resolved tension of disparates” that type is at once a tool and a lens. Within the field of evolutionary biology, the concept of type is refined through the terms geno-type (the genetic makeup of an organism) and pheno-type (the physical expression of the interaction between environment and genetics). A polyphenic trait, therefore, is a trait for which multiple, discrete phenotypes arise from a single genotype as a result of differing environmental conditions. In this case, it is the combination of genes (explicit structures) and environments (implicit pressures) that produce an extraordinarily diverse set of emergent, novel types. In architecture, Moneo’s seminal essay, “On Typology”, describes type as simultaneously inhibiting and liberating in relationship to creativity. In his view, type risks the burden of familiarity and rote repetition. Simultaneously, he argues that the knowledge of type is liberating as a place to begin and act upon. Therefore, the distinction between routine and innovation relies upon the selection of appropriate constraints that respect, destroy and ultimately transform type. In this way, creativity thrives on the mediation between rules (explicit structures) and constraints (implicit pressures). Combinations will, therefore, interrogate the expression of productive ambiguities between building and environment, between rules and constraints and between the given and the negotiable. Our venture into the unknown will begin with an examination of that which lies at the crux of what is defined as “known” through the study of type and expand into the realm of unrealized possibilities through the lens of polyphenism.
PROMPT
COMBINATIONS
Advisor: Jen Maigret
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TYPOLOGY
Control Structures
In his seminal essay, “The Architecture of the City”, Aldo Rossi defined the concept of type as “something that is permanent and complex, a logical principle that is prior to form and that constitutes it.” Furthermore, Rossi positions constructed landscapes as an important component within an understanding of the development of cities as urban centres. These centres become the construction of habitable microclimates. He names this the “artificial homeland.” Concerned with the creation of these habitable microclimates, infrastructure projects strive to stabilize dynamic systems of the environment. Emblematic of these control measures are the dams of the Mississippi River. Designed to stabilize water level, these intensive constructs attempt to make a shifting landscape static. With repetitive measures of stability, the environment is reconstructed for our occupation. It has become our homeland, articulated and organized for us.
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TYPOLOGY
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ENVIRONMENT
Lower Mississippi River
By holding the Mississippi back from permanently changing course and re-routing into the Atchafalaya, the Old River Control Station currently holds the Atchafalaya Basin and lower Mississippi in a stable, yet tenuous balance. When the waters of the Mississippi become too powerful, the cities within the Atchafalaya Basin currently and will permanently become subject to its force (see maps on following page). Under these circumstances, Rossi’s notions of a typological situation which constructs our homeland can be extended to consider a foreseeable end to permanence and a new relationship between architecture and dynamic landscapes.
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ENVIRONMENT
(above) existing Mississippi River placement within Louisiana’s levee system (centre) flooding simulation overbearing the existing control measures (opposite page) abstraction of the Mississippi River’s shift into the Atchafalaya Basin
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THESIS
a Typological Situation
Faculty Thesis Award
sq. footage: 55,000 location: Melville, Louisiana date: May 2013 objective: Graduate Design Studio Thesis advisor: Jen Maigret This thesis is an investigation into a site specific experience of our homeland. Bridging between the vast scale of construction necessary for stable habitation and the micro scale of individuals living within these systems, architecture becomes the mediator. It influences both the extensive landscape, subjected to diverse circumstances, as well as the individuals who must adapt to these changes. The principle of control inherent in infrastructure provides the typology through which this architecture is executed. As the dams create points of reference datums along the river, a similar approach is taken to the site. Longitudinal and Latitudinal lines serve as abstract horizontal points of orientation while water datums serve as abstract vertical datums signifying different occupations within a shifting landscape. These points become the catalyst for a future reading of the site.
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THESIS
Here the Old River Control Station (see large red circle on opposite map) serves as a the typological construct, but within this construct of control, measures of protection have been built into the system to protect against its failure. The Morganza Spillway is first in line to relieve the dam of water pressure in extreme circumstances. But on a more localized scale, this area is constructed through a series of circumstances that relate to how the larger environment is controlled. 01_extension of control (decisions on how the environment is handled) 02_spillway relief (area which changes due to inundation) 03_levee (extensive system of a locally scaled barrier)
W 91 37’
W 91 41’
W 91 45’
W 91 49’
04_transient habitations (cities awaiting inevitable displacement)
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THESIS
Relating to the four circumstances, there are three phases of occupation which must be accounted for when extreme situations present themselves. 01_safety monitoring 02_mandatory evacuation 03_stability
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THESIS
PHASE 01 SAFETY MONITORING Breaking the protective barrier between water fluctuations and the transient city, the gantry serves as a safety zone. Here inhabitants can collect and store their belongings while waiting out uncomfortable circumstances. When the city is inundated, the crane is no longer needed and moves on. Any and all are free to ride. Flooding Simulation: Day 01 Beginning of flood event monitoring activities Day 07 Date identified as beginning of the flood event Day 18 State of Emergency declaration for 14 parishes
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But what holds the eye is the happiest of invention of TVA’s first phase, the mobile gantry crane that fishes generator components up from the hatchways when they need servicing, and puts them back when they’re done... like a giant aluminised watch-beast from an old science fiction epic, keeping guard over the good works below. Banham, Valley of the Dams
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THESIS
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THESIS
PHASE 02 MANDATORY EVACUATION Cutting through the spillway, the tracks stretch across both cultivated and wild fields. Their placement provides a new organizing datum on the land. As flood water distributes across the fields, the organization of interior gains definition. Water rises and the gantry moves through, individuals become isolated from the stability of the ground. Flooding Simulation: Day 24 Six parishes issue voluntary evacuation Day 30 Morganza Spillway is open, mandatory evacuation ordered Day 34 Assistance and recover programs for recreational and commercial fishing, hunting and ecotourism industries impacts
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THESIS
PHASE 03 STABILITY Arriving at the line which controls the balance of this situation, the gantry becomes stable. Here it converses with the infrastructure from which it was born. In a shifted landscape, the gantry provides a datum for orientation and operates as a stable imprint on the land. Flooding Simulation: Day 43 End of flood event proclaimed as the last bay of the Morganza Spillway is closed Day 54 Major disaster declaration for 15 parishes issued Three months later End of flood monitoring event
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What we see before us is man continuously working at a viable relationship with nature. The basic patterns in the landscape, the patchwork of fields, pasture and woods, of homesteads and villages, the plan of cities and suburbs, all reveal man’s conscious selection of soils and slopes, elevations and exposures, sites and routes provided in the beginning by nature. Thus even when landscape seems to display some maladjustment, it is only a phase in man the domesticate working toward symbiosis, a process he has been engaged in for a million years. Meinig, The Beholding Eye
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THESIS
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Storage dams: They are constructed to store water during the rainy season when there is a large flow in the river. Many small dams impound the spring runoff for later use in dry summers. Storage dams may also provide a water supply, or improved habitat for fish and wildlife.
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THESIS
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section through gantry where programs adapt to accomodate shifting water levels
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THESIS
Utilizing the inevitable displacement to come for many inhabitants of this shifting landscape, this thesis introduces an architecture which provides those living within an unoccupiable homeland a protective datum with which to view and also take part in establishing a new habitation of the environment.
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