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MSc 1

Public Realm

Loet Smeets, Ferdi Koornneef, Rajiv Sewtahal | 2010 |

  

Casablanca, Morocco, is a city of differences; differences in culture, architecture and its public. To design a successful mediatheque for Casablanca and its public, we have to be aware of these differences. After our visit to Casablanca, we could define three social typologies, namely traditional, traditional-modern and modern social groups - from lower class people living in the old Medina to people living in luxurious gated communities.
To make the mediatheque a building for the public of Casablanca, we make use of the border condition of the design location - a plot in front of the train station of Casa Port. The train station works here as an urban attractor; everyone uses the train. By connecting the mediatheque directly to the station, people from all social layers of the Casablanca public will pass through the mediatheque.
‘The mediatheque as a marketplace of media.’
Therefore, we defined that the mediatheque should function as a filter, and filter the public on their way to the train station. By filtering we mean attracting and fascinating the passing public and therefore activate them to use the mediatheque, as a marketplace of media.
To improve accessibility from all sides to the station, and thus the mediatheque, the station is lowered and the mediatheque is lifted up. Underneath the mediatheque different spaces are created by pushing through parts of the overhanging slap. These spaces function according to different temporalities and accommodate the diverse program. Some parts of the slab are psychically connected to the ground plane; others only ensure a visual connection. This structure of temporalities is based on the everlasting structure of the Medina, the urban structure that adapted through time, and where private, collective and public spaces overlap each other.
 
 
 
Border Condition

| Nina Sickenga | 2009 |

  

The site: Located between the Kruisplein and Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam, is currently characterized by the dynamic flows connecting Rotterdam Station with various destinies in the city. This emphasis on movement at the representative entrance of Rotterdam lacks the articulation of a public experience, where people can meet, interact, exchange thoughts, express themselves freely, and enjoy the city.
 
Paths: Articulating the urban condition of the site as a mayor infrastructural node and convergence of a diverse population, paths are designed to create an artificial density at the human scale amidst the vastness urban fabric in Rotterdam. This density recreates the currently lacking congestion essential for a public urban experience; the exposure of oneself to difference, to others - a density of different desires.
 
Locus: The meandering paths connect special locus that were identified through photographic investigation and interviews with the ultimate urban citizens: Rotterdam’s homeless. These locus articulate certain views, proBestgrammatic connections, and leave room for new program like podia, shops, tourist information, bookshops, kiosks, etc. These places would function as intermediate destinies, but also as podia for the passerby.
 
Movement + InterAction: The design emphasizes the balance between movement (paths) and human interaction (locus). By spatially defining the route and articulating special locus on it, the human and built environment are stitched together as one cinematographic experience of Rotterdam.

 

| Michiel van Loon |

 

 Within the studio Border Conditions my architectural project has been the outcome of a pinhole camera bottom-up research of Rotterdam, and several index models on 1:1 and regional scale. Historical maps where the basic static recordings of the specific site at several moments in time. The focus was to map out the changes between one year and a few years later. This act resulted in the construction of a layered model where each layer with its own story gained a certain height, densification and silhouette. By excavating this model at the location, the project constructs and intervenes its local developments at the same time. City patterns and actions are extended to the deepest part of the open space without the resistance of façades. It is the materialization of the layers which forms the fixed vertical borders. The façade as a typology is diminished through 24 hour openings, cuts, stairwells and patterns on a horizontal level. The project does not pre-program completely, but it states an excavated open public space. It needs to be discovered and offers place for small scale developments and activities. Programmatically it mainly consist out of a city stage, small library, restaurant, archive and park. All the levels together provide partly covered terraces for reading, playing and sitting.

Public Territory

 
 
 
 

Spa – Water purification plant | Paulina Grabrowska  and Irina Niculescu |

 
The studio aim was to develop a public function - the boat deck that connects Amsterdam Central station with NDSM area in the north of city on Ij river - with a spa facility that includes a boarding house and another public function of our choice.
The studio structure was divided in two parts. First part was mainly focus on experimenting with physical models in order to develop an architecture language. The experiments were based on the conceptual conclusion we drew over the site analyses and a specific route we walked from Amsterdam Central Station to our site location. For the latter part we had to propose the third function and to frame an architectural solution based on the previous process.
Through our group discussion we conclude that the subject we analyzed progress on a continuous direction and there are certain events and activities that bends it up but it never breaks, so we used the stripe as the main element to develop our architectural language.
Further on we examine the relationship between the interior and the exterior data of the given functions and we propose as a third function a water purification plant that considers both the environmental and sustainability questions. The proposal consists in a complex system that filters IJ water through mechanic pumps and is used for boarding house and spa facilities and then the grey water is filtered again through a network of reed beds and reused for outdoor swimming pools. The reed beds determine a park that is part of the circulation between the boat deck and the neighborhood center. Thus the process of water purification is a transparent system that functions as a public encounter as well. However to emphasize the duality between interior and exterior by introducing elements with dual orientation: in interior work as skylights and on the public space is urban furniture. In as much we tried to develop the theme of filtering on different levels, as a water purification plan, a public space with emergent elements and a spa where light is filtered by different devices and generate a specific interior atmosphere.