Every individual person has their own way of perceiving the world that originates from observation and comprehension of life.
Similarly, architects have their own process of constructing space – from reconstructing a micro-world based on their impression of the macro-world.
For me, architecture develops when the contextual site is reorganized.
Redoing Lanzarote ’17
GSAPP, Advanced Design Studio, instructed by Andrés Jaque
Hector Song + Adam Sun
LIFE
- Cesar Manrique was born in 1919, in a wealthy family, Arrecife, Lanzarote.
- When he was 14, his family moved to live by the beautiful beach Playa Famara. Which the scenery became a lifetime inspiration for his artwork.
- At the age of 16 he joined the army, fought in the Spanish civil war. He returned home after the war, burned the uniform, refused to talk about this experience.
- He attended the University of La Laguna to study architecture and dropped out after two years. In 1945 he moved to Madrid, studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, taught painting after he finished school.
- Cesar met Pepi at Atocha Station in Madrid, 1945, married. Pepi died in 1963, Cesar moved to New York City in 1964.
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- Cesar was a very active and social person. In New York he quickly became acquaintance with many artist, scholars, politician, many famous people at the time. Including Nelson Rockefeller, Andy Warhol..
- He missed his Lanzarote a lot while in New York. In a letter to his childhood friend, Pepe Domaso, he said New York people live like rats, he wanted to go back and make his island the prettiest island on the earth.
- In 1966 he went back home, where later him became an icon by making art, architecture and speaking for the people.
- He died September 25, 1992. of a car accident. Hit by a car at an overgrown sight-blocking roundabout. Ironically he was proposing the use of roundabout instead of traffic lights on the island.
- He was recognized as a painter, sculptor, architect, and activist. Handed down his work of 192 paintings, 23 sculptures, 10 wind toys, 39 murals, and 18 architectures.
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Redoing Lanzarote ’17
GSAPP, Advanced Design Studio, instructed by Andrés Jaque
Hector Song + Adam Sun
Proposal
- It seems like Manriquian Movement had already been spreading on the island like a religion. Whenever we mentioned his name to people, they told us are crazily in love with him. César Manrique’s was considered by Lanzarote people as an Icon, as the father of Lanzarote.
- But yet in people’s mind, Cesar Manrique was merely a name, a portrait image, a guy who made all the buildings white and green. It is time to remind them about Manriquian’s ultimate goals:
- Develop High Quality Tourism
- Protect Lanzarote Natural Beauty
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- To live a Manriquian Style Life is necessary for us, in order to achieve such goals. Manriquian Life Style’s four core values are:
- Be Inventive to Make All Natural contexts easier to Inhabit
Live within Nature, being explorative, enjoy Nature, enjoy Being Alive
Sustainable living, using Local Products, Natural Resources and Found Materials
Love Nature, Experience nature from Visual to all Senses
- We made seven interventions on existing Manrique Buildings to actualize these Manriquian values
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- Manrique did many projects on Lanzarote to make Natural contexts easier to Inhabit
- MONUMENTO AL CAMPESINO, is a project in which Manrique was trying to concluded the traditional building style into a “Lanza Casa” court yard you see here. The elements or modules are separable. These elements allow us to reprogram the existing ground environment and make it Inhabitable.
- We use 3D printing assembly lines, prefabricating all Manrique building elements. From a house to a chair, a building dome to a windtoy sculpture. The idea is to print Manriquian Manuals that help New Manriquians to be able make homes easier on the ground context of the island, by the same time extremely normalizing the island. Providing unified architectural elements for our other interventions.
- Interesting feature here, the noise of the 3D Printer will be programmed to make joyful music, which will help the local goat/sheep raising - milk producing - cheese making industry.
- VALLE MALPASO is one unique piece of Manrique’s projects. Originally it was a shop/viewing deck, but it is now abandoned. From its window you can get a beautiful view looking over the town of Haria, and the mountain ridge. Here you are also closer to the sky and the stars at night.
- We see an opportunity to make the sky also Inhabitable for Manriquians, by introducing multiple cable car lines, providing mobilized view access to the beautiful landscape and the sky, making connections between mountains simultaneously.
- Next one is his earlier house, TARO DE TAHICHE, now modified to make it the CESAR MANRIQUE FOUNDATION, A HEADQUARTER OF MANRIQUIANS. He found his site randomly while riding with his friend Pepin Ramirez. A fig tree top sticking out of a lava bubble caught his eyes, and there were four other bubbles adjacent to it. The land owner was a family friend, he let Cesar build his house inside these bubbles.
- To make the found lava bubbles Inhabitable, he used inventive construction method to connect the bubble by stoneworkers using tools and tiny amount of dynamite, and constantly yelling at each other to measure with sound. Here we want to provide tours for Manriquians to experience the process of inhabiting natural landscape.
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- Inside these lava bubbles, Manrique lived a life explorative with nature, slept on the couch, active and social, loved parties, also being explorative with sex, enjoyed Nature, enjoyed Being Alive. He is a role-model of us Manriquians.
- To let Manriquians enjoy an explorative Manriquian life. We propose public kitchen and collective lava bubble housing units, in Timanfaya National park where other lava bubbles were found.
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- Here IN TIMANFAYA, Manrique designed RESTAURANTE EL DIABLO. This restaurant was built on active volcanic area that the ground was too hot to dig for a foundation. They had to lay 9 layers of basalt rock on the ground instead. Its kitchen uses volcanic heat to cook food.
- One of Lanzarote Tradition that we Manriquians take it as one of our values, is to Sustainably use our own local, found material and found natural resources. Timanfaya’s stores a great amount of earth energy such as Heat Energy and Helium. Instead of the current condition - only use the volcanic earth energy in the kitchen and the heat demonstration tourist shows. We want to use the earth resource to provide energy for the collective lava bubble housing unit.
- Helium can be used for air vehicles such as Airships and Hot Air Balloons, Providing an alternative Manriquian transportation method instead of cars.
- Manrique introduced a tranquil interspecies relationship in JARDIN DE CACTUS,as another demonstration of Manriquian’s idea of sustainable living.
- A collection of devices built from Manrique’s building elements are introduced here. They grow cactus and aloe vera. Cactus flowers attract bees and other insects work in the process of pollination of zucchini farms. Aloe Vera as an important ingredient for producing Aloe soup, which will be exported aboard.
- MIAC - Museo Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, originally CASTILLO DE SAN JOSE, a lookout castle during pirate attacks. Renovated by Manrique into a Contemporary Art Museum, housing a great number of permanent collections, now it needs a temporary exhibition space.
- A port and a shipping container yard nearby give us New Naturally found materials. We multiply the shipping container ticket booth in front of the museum to make a space for temporary events.
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- Manriquians Love Nature, we want to connect to nature and experience nature not just visually but also physically.
- Built on a cliff, Look over to the El Río, MIRADOR DEL RIO once was a military lookout. The materialization of this project was fascinating, material differences often indicating a tendency of separation between elements. To enhance the momentum given by the cliff landscape, and the idea of materiality. We put an incline car on the cliff by making Manrique’s building slide on a track. Providing a direct access instead of only visual access to the sea.
- Windtoys on top of the landscape are modified for the use of delivering imported goods from the sea to all other interventions. Together they work as one import and distribution center.
- Cesar Manrique’s made a unique kind of windtoy sculpture visualizing natural elements. His modification to Watery sites are also fantastic. JAMEOS DEL AGUA is part of a lava tube formed by volcanic eruption got refilled by the sea water. Here we introduce a recreational park built from Windtoys. Here the visual experience of natural is upgraded to physical experience. The water and wind element get together to have this final celebration of Manrique, the celebration of Manriquian lifestyle in Lanzarote. The windtoys also work as a turbine, generate energy for seawater desalination plants.
- These new interventions are working together to help with the formation of this new Movement of Manriquian, proposing an upgraded tourism while bringing back many traditional industries. Promoting the beauty of Lanzarote as well as a Manriquian lifestyle.
Summer ‘17
GSAPP, Advanced Design Studio, instructed by Karla Rothstein
Connie Jan + Xingjian Shi + Adam Sun
Fluidity is an essential characteristic of urbanity. Buildings, population, and individual lives are in flux in the city. The relative stasis of traditional cemeteries has resulted in their isolation. To bridge the gap between spaces of death and the city, we embrace death’s relationship with time. The shorelines of New York City have undergone progressive change. We are engaging the unstable threshold of the waterfront as a site to intensify engagement with the temporality of death and remembrance. Programming and mediated experience intertwine with the city and the water to include layers of disposition, therapy, coexistence and release. NYC’s historic floating baths, which once created a bond between people’s lives and the water, are re-integrated into ceremonial activities.
Spring ‘18
GSAPP, Advanced Studio, instructed by Laurie Hawkinson
Peiyu Ding + Adam Sun
The project is to design a promising planning for Willets Point, also known as Iron Triangle. The site was occupied by the auto-industries, which thrive the site, while poison it simultaneously. Through the toxic mapping, we can tell the severe contaminating problem on this site, thus the first step of out design will focus on the soil and water remediation process, turning iron triangle to clean park to super clean park and finally to Fourth Nature.
The site, Iron Triangle, is located near the flushing bay, known for its auto industry. The auto industry, which constitutes 60% of the whole economy, thrive this site, while at the meantime, severely polluted the soil. However, the historical mapping of this site reveals the lush green past, that is, it used to be a wetland 100 years ago. Our intention is to recover the green land, recall the previous time when the mother nature and human both enjoy this glorious space. Firstly, we want to clean up soil and recover the nature vegetation. Secondly, we want to break the fence and show a welcome position to public. Thirdly, we want to relink our site back to surrounding Eco and social system. We wish to transform Iron Triangle to Clean Park to Super Clean Park, and reach the final state, fourth nature, just like the black to dark blue to pure blue. The machinelike diagrams also express that some high-tech mechanisms will be used to accelerate the purification process. And then, surface water treatment and water production. Storm water from expressway and parking lots, are purified to supply irrigation water for phyto-remediation. And the rainwater which we harvest inside our site, are used to produce potable water and sold to Citi field. Specifically, the water are purified step by step by coagulation tower and polymer tower, sterilized and disinfected by membrane filter, and finally stored in storage tower. Specifically, the water are purified step by step by coagulation tower and polymer tower. Inputting water is pumped up to top tank, mixed with polymer, filtered vertically and outputted to the next nodes. And then these water will be sterilized and disinfected by membrane filter and disinfectant tower, and finally stored in storage tower. This is the basic process of surface water treatment plants. Producing potable water need more process to purify the water.
Yang Lv + Mingxuan Qin + Adam Sun
Mingxuan Qin + Adam Sun
Yueheng Lu + Adam Sun
One of the problem we observed at the site is that the edges of the landscape and buildings are usually very hard. But there is also potential emerging on the facade of the existing buildings that over time the natural and the built are not necessarily divided rather, they could grow as a whole.
Given that the site is contaminated and loosely built, we would like to bring it back to its original state. By doing so, we are envisioning a new suburban experience where people could collectively living, working and shopping closely in contact with nature.
First, we intended to reveal the invisible edges on the site, including two flood zones, historic water body, contaminated class zones and surface geology zones. When we overlaid them, four types of new zones were generated, each with different edge condition: the most buildable area, the less flooded area, the more flooded area and the natural landscape.
To break the objectiveness of the densely built and the untouched nature, we introduced the third element which could negotiate between the two by thickening and softening their edges in the in-between area (the less flooded area & the more flooded area). The less flooded area becomes the collective space for the community. The more flooded area becomes the wetland for people to have intimate relationship with the water.
Corporate Headquarters as Catalyst of City Life
Mingxuan Qin + Adam Sun
Our proposal is to develop a new Amazon Headquarter in Boston, which will not only meet the requirement of amazon working space but also will be beneficial to the local neighborhood. We envision an Urban Amazon, a corporate Headquarter as a catalyst of city life.
We have finished a comparison study including headquarters of Apple, Google and Facebook, finding that they have a similar space structure. These precedents all have dense building clusters inside a campus, surrounded by huge parking lots, with several connections to the urban major roads. They are more like isolated corporate islands with no contact with local context. So, we want to create a much porous and much active HQ type. In this new type, thickened edges with different programming will replace the original parking lot, and the inside mega building will be redistributed in a moderate block scale.
The existing border condition of our site is illustrated in this diagram. As you can see, the edge is very hard with little connections to each side. So, at first, we want to propose a thickened edge with different programming based on their context, like we expand the existing residential blocks into our site, this yellow pattern; and we preserve the racecourse building and plan a recreational and cultural zone; and we introduce the wetland to our site and design a new natural park. Therefore, the thickened edges will function as in between spaces between Amazon and surrounded neighborhoods.
And these edges will be connected by horizontal and vertical boulevard, which will also divide amazon into small parcels. And some anchor points or attraction points which developed by amazon will also be in the start and the end of the boulevard, like an amazon store, convention center or theater, a visitor center as well as these waterfront facilities. Residents here and Amazon employees might well go back and forth because of the boulevard and anchor points, thereby creating an active complex community in this big scale.
Even through implementing thickened edge and pedestrian corridor, amazon is still concentrated in the middle as a hard core. So, we zoom into the block scale, created several typical amazon clusters. Each cluster is composed of office space, activities and facilities, parking garage. A private courtyard connects these spaces. And these corridors serve as interior connector and defender of the private space.
In common situation, with its own internal economy going well, it usually damages the local commerce. To solve this problem and make the headquarter more permeable. We inserted several local commercial developments into the amazon headquarter area. As is shown in the typical block(typology), one side sits the amazon headquarter cluster. while on the other side, there is local retails and offices. An interactive public space is in between, where Amazon employees could walk out of the private courtyard at break, eat or relax in this flexible open space.
There are also some smaller public spaces as the residue of Amazon courtyards. Together with the in-between space connecting to the public corridor and therefore structured a public space system, which further enhanced this in between space in serving the surrounding neighborhood. During weekends and nights, these walkable linear parks would lead people to these public spaces, which creates rich city life across the site.
With all the benefits to public life and local commerce, this corporate headquarter will be a generator of local urbanization and a catalyst of city life.
