Masters Thesis: "The Lightness of the City"
Formal Synthesis - Final Phase
2017
Lightness: Lightness is, from its outset, an abstract construct meant to transcend the rational modern condition. The core presentation of this work elevates and preserves traditional cultures through this abstract lens. Modern forces and local conditions are brought into parity as a focused exploration of the contemporary human condition and its future development.
Digital Flow: The flow of commodities, like a modern city foundation rite, grounds the evolution of Kilamba from its very inception. Local Angolan traditions are reflected in the ephemeral quality of the digital particle, as it dances and sings throughout space amongst its manifold pixilated tapestries, unfolding from the cosmological ground plan necessitating the emergence of a radically dynamic city. Theatre and dance lead to core market and political exchanges in dialogue within a digital mainframe. A library is wrapped with undulating surfaces streamed with elementary particles that vary in geometric configuration, concluding in an elevated dance of digitally archived platforms.
Continuity of Time: The city evolves from modern and historical creation myths that extends well beyond normative time-scales. Its essence revolves around the continuity of all things, meaning that we are all connected to the very origins of the world and the formation of its first elements. Each of its component forms are interconnected with the rest of the city, its people and its diverse histories that are manifested in a contemporary setting drawn from a cosmic diagram. The design process plays with varying histories and time, where after centuries of persistence we see a radically subjective city-artefact emerging sometime in the next millennium, only to be brought back closer to the present through a series of exploratory design phases. Initial speculative sketches precede quantum field energies and glowing-floating volumes leading to a contemporary city that demonstrates greater structural integrity.
Form and Context: The development of context saw the synthesis of form, where macroscopic forces had direct implications for architectural invention and intervention. Form and context are two sides of the same process, providing an equivalence relation between site characteristics and formal synthesis. The site necessitated the development of the city’s central core, as an act of modern and local cultural preservation. The emerging forms reflect the active vibrancy of a people at the threshold of the contemporary world. It is a story about the elephant and the dragon, where the rational and the unpredictable work together for the survival of their new city. Rational cores are represented in the central market-agora and library sections, where their canopies structurally symbolize the elephant above a gold statue in the central city-festival space. The magic and unpredictability of the dragon envelops and protects these rational cores, in a city whose very essence is a radical departure of modern urban form.
Systemic Subsets: The goal of any rational plan is to provide enough programmatic subsets that are adequately independent from one another to make structural adjustments in a sufficient amount of time. The programs are therefore very open and adaptable to the evolving functions of the city, where waterways, agricultural preserves and parklands mediate between different regions. The market-agora is comprised of a two-tiered modular structural system that is sculpted for a variety of functions to form a den of clustered jewel-like places, where vibrant colors are associated with the most celebrated spaces. The central festival area is surrounded by commercial premises connected by bridges along with a relatively independent city hall. The digital library has a central circulation space rising from the ground plane, that allows the program to evolve around a central core. The continuity of the circle is represented in section, forming the upper perimeter of the dome that diametrically connects to the ground relating earth and sky. The circle is centered around the most celebrated space, creating a unity between center and periphery. Quiet study areas are located next to outside windows overlooking the city. Committee meeting and teaching rooms are at each corner of the plan, that extend onto a band of interior-exterior internet cafe’s framed by openings in the undulating facade. A rotational narrative along the library’s periphery is created by a series of stairs, pathways and ramps that spiral up the edge of the building towards the top of the roof cupola, where its plan forms a relief of light and shadow uncovering new programs. Square-pixilated areas are reserved for services, such as washrooms, storage and HVAC systems. The very idea of a “digital” library affords greater flexibility of space, since much of the information is stored in a digital archive base or accessed through the internet.
Technology and Architecture: The development of new technologies is intrinsic to the development of new architecture. Given the continuity between the first moments of creation to antiquity and beyond modernity, the same basic notions of scientific and technological development continue to arise. Whether it is the architect or the scientist that is formative in its development, technology has a direct effect on the broad evolution of architecture. With each invention, a new potential arises for typological adaptation. The increasing complexity of the modern world requires that the architect invent new forms, resulting in the continual generation of novel technologies.
The Accident: The accident occurs in the design process when a misfit element becomes functional. We are all in fact a collection of accidents, and from our very inception, it was an accident that caused the first formation of life, where the unfolding adaptations of our species were driven by genetic changes that became functional for survival. The accident is intrinsic to invention, and it is as subconscious to our own making as the evolutionary processes that have afforded us the ability to create. At the building scale, the accidental dislocation of the library truss system from the floor plate allowed the glass envelope to become more flexible resulting in an undulating structural system that is less predictable. Glass reflected light and shadow uncover a new realm for which to experience architecture in ways that are unforeseen, and whose beauty provides a glimpse into future manifestations. The revolutionary urbanisms that spontaneously mark the evolution of Kilamba are as accidental as the first formation of elemental commodities revealing its unfolding history. The city as a work of art is a continually emerging artefact within traditional and modern cosmological frameworks that are manifested at all urban scales. In time, the struggle and renewal of a people will reveal a city-artefact placed centuries into the future that defies our rational understanding. In this way, the accident is beyond light and dark, where invention occurs at the threshold between them.
