EXPLORATIONS . ADVANCED ECOLOGICAL BUILDINGS
/DEVELOPED AT ETSAB- UPC
/COURSE FINAL PROJECT
/FACULTY EDUARD CALAFELL
/LINKS THERMODYNAMICS BLOGPOST
PROGRAM BLOGPOST
ECOSYSTEMIC STRUCTURES BLOGPOST
PROACTIVE ENVELOPES BLOGPOST
SYNTHESIS BLOGPOST
It is a recurring topic, but knowing its origins is really complexe. It started years ago, with nazism, jewish holocaust, zionism creations, contradictory promises of Great Britain to arabs and jewish, migration waves, Israel creation... producing riots, violence and terrorism.
The conflict has shaped the territory with limits and boundaries -the wall- and checkpoints -the points where it is crossed-.
The reality we are dealing with can be defined in three inseparatable concepts:
a referent: the conflict / a context: the territory / the element: the wall (emblem).
SPATIAL OCCUPATION APPARATUS *ref weaponized architecture Palestine.
In a critical way, israeli ocupation could be redefined as a series of architecutral means:
1. Separation Barrier: Its trajectory is not only in the east of the Green Line (Cisjordanian territory) but it's also following a zigzagging path including "inside" israeli settlements -either existing or potential- and excluding palestinians. Its temporality seems permanent.
2. IDF Checkpoints: mean to prevent, control and filter palestinian movement through their land.
3. Infrastructures separation: The West Bank works through different overlapping layers without touching one another.
4. Militarized Destruction: it implies urban transformation an attacks people's intimacy.
5. Palestinian enclaves: dense and limited.
6. Israeli Settlements: its contruction engineer is involved in a militar strategy.
The wall acquires special importance because it does not only separate physically but also phsycologically enhancing "the fear of otherness" and defying individual freedom. Diversity is perceived as a threat, impacting people's imaginary and enhancing separation. But it is where simultaneous realities happen, between political, social, economic, spatial and temporary tensions happen, that there are places of opportunity.
*ref. Léopold Lambert via Weaponized Architecture
ARCHITECTURE'S ROLE
The project's approach may seem a bit abstact, but it is reclaiming architecture as a mission.
Conflicts are generally about space, and it is there where they happen. Therefore, it seems logical they should be solved in the space.
The architect has been educated so as to think the space, imagine it, visualize it... that's why, by taking part in the peace process and working with the negotiators, they could fill the gap between the way of making policies and the details of the people these policies concern. There's a lack of spatial vision to make places more positive, liveable.
The architect's capacity of imagining a fiction and then cristalizing it to reality is a real hope. The complexity of the conflict is not an excuse for doing nothing. The real work of negotiators, politicians, urbanists, architects... is to dream another reality is possible, and only then it can become.
STRATEGY
Checkpoints: potential as exchange points. We declare the ideal scenario would be one where the wall has disappeared, but in order not to start with an utopic vision, we accept there will be militar presence. Nevertheless, the building will not become an enormous checkpoing, because we are not supporting colonialism architecture, but the requirements of this type of space are adapted to the project. The building would continue working in an ideal peace scenario.
Objective: cross the wall. The modus operandi are borders, our response are connexions.
Formalitzation: circular-oval form providing equality of conditions and generating a shared interaction public space in the center.
Considerations: acting in conflictive areas require respect and caring.
How it works: we do a Cut in the Wall, then we Unite it with a Circle and finally it is Occupied producing Interaction.
Process: It closes from the hostile exterior through an opaque hermetic filter. / Its Presence represents a Landmark -acquired for its condition as a cut in the wall-. / It condense Activity in its interior so that it is not only a symbolic gesture but rahter a Public Space Generator of Interaction inbetween the wall.
Basis: Filters: progression of enclosures from opaque and closed to the exterior to openess in the center. / Central Patio: element condensing activity and enhancing interaction. / Program distributed through the same principles.
The Wall: from a line in a map (Green Line) to an opaque concrete wall of 8m and zigzagging route (physical and pshycological barrier). The tension it accumulates makes it potential of actuation. The intervention suggests a dialogue between what it is and what we want it to be.
1. Present: in the exterior we find the opaque existing wall, it represents the conflict and accumulates tension.
2. Memory: when entering the building it is altered, perforated, preserved only as a memorial monument.
3. Utopia: in the central patio the wall has disappeared as an statement of what we want to reach, a pacific common future.
The proposal does not have to be understood as the solution to the conflict, but it carries intrinsically in its nature a series of principles. Architecture has the power to show people an opportunity. I says: a border can separate, but it can also connect.
SITE
In order to define and place the project in the map, we set a series of conditions:
1. Proximity to the barrier: the wall is one of the main causes of the conflict. It seems logic it is also a starting point of the solution.
2. Israeli-Palestinian Interaciton: in order to strengthen it.
3. Impact to Jerusalem: proximity to it because it has an emotional and cultural bond with both communities, and because it is a special scenary -concretly the old city- where we find coexistance without phyisical divisions.
The site is Giv'at Shapira (French Hill). Israeli settlement in the north of East-Jerusalem, stablished illegaly in 1968. It is close to the barrier, a principal infrastrucutre (road 1-60) and Hebrew University. The wall in this part is characteristic because it creates boundaries between palestinian territories.
PROGRAM
The main focus is to work for a common objective where interaction will be directly generated (and not in a forced way). The program will be related to the technological and communicaiton sector, which is important and strong in both locations. Besides, it will provide its inhabitants a rather public program as a response to its situation and the flow of people crossing it. Thus, the interaciton will be not only between israelis and palestinians but also between genders, ages and social classes. The more occupation and diversity, the better.
The building has two accesses (from Israel and from Palestine) in different levels (3m difference in 78m length). Both include a checkpoint in a covered area acting as a compressing treshold between an uncontroled hositle exterior and an interior-exterior defined and shaped by the building. From this point the user gets accesses the central public space.
The two main halls-receptions (+977 and +678) distributed from the patio -where they extend their activity- allow the acces to the interior program. In the space immediatly ater the checkpoints we find a stepped ramp and an elevator which allow the user to reach directly the first floor (+682, a continuous space). The use of the ramps enhances the density of the semiexterior spaces, the interaction between users and a movement sensation from the patio.
All the elements are found in equal conditions so that none is prioritized.
CENTRAL PATIO
Main element of the project. It gathers the public space where the wall disappears (utopic coexistence scenario).
It has an oval area of 4155,5m2 and has not a defined program, but represents a continuous inclined space that unifies and tries to equal teh two entrances. It is also the circulation articulator. It stands up for spatial appropriation: multiple uses, multiple groups, multiple meanings. It highlights the users' right not only to use the space but also to interpret, identify and appropriate it. It can host different activities: sports field, market stands, concerts, exhibitions... it provides a frame to fill.
STRUCTURE
The building is organized through 50 glulam portal frames of different dimensions.
The floor is configurated by an hybrid system consisting of structural CLT panels + concrete layer. Lateral resistence is provided by two systems: CLT panels along the exterior perimeter protected by the corten-steel skin of the façade, combined with LVL walls along the inside perimeter. The roof consists of CLT panels and a corten-steel finishing which provides formal continuity to the façade.
Due to the dimensions and mass of the system the combination is considered "heavy timber construction" allowing it to remain exposed without any additional fire-resistant material. Nevertheless, all the members are sized slightly bigger from the structural requirements so as to allow external carbonization in case of fire without compromising the building's resistance.
The length of the columns in the patio has been determined so that the lowest height (in the façade plane) can be inhabited. From the patio the beams start going down with a 7º inclination.
Regarding the filters, we find first an exterior façade: a filter completly opaque and rude in a gesture of refusing the hostile exterior. Its materiality (corten-steel) retain and show the variations through time. The overlapping plates reforce this image of hostility. The interior is where the program is developed, separated from the semi-exterior area through an enclosure which is mainly glass -wood or drywall when privacy is required- allowing the entrance of light.
The intermediate space -transition from interior to exterior- is a covered space, protected but not conditioned, relating the interior with the central patio. It hosts the main circulations and protects from the sun with its brise soleil (3rd filter) made of corten steel sheets perforated and folded. It provides a vertical lecture of the building from the central space.
INSTALLATIONS/ EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES
Whenever possible, natural light is used, filtred and controlled. The steel-paneled curtain acts as a brise soleil reducing solar incidence but allowing ventilation and light. The oritentation has determined the postition of each panel, and also the program distribution inside the building. The hermetic envelope, in a second plane, enhances the light entrance and filter it through gradations and hints of translucency. The exterior façade is totally opaque and hermetic.
The building is divided in three climatic ambiences:
Class A: intermediate spaces, "thermal pillow": Passive and bioclimatic systems + indirect systems. Its control is not strict.
Class B: bigger rooms. Climate control with tubes running through the technical floor and air impulsion from it.
Class C: rooms occupied occasionally. Climatic contribution from fancoils only when occupied.
The HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) system is based on a unitary installation with a common production source placed in the service floor (+678,5) and with diferentiated treatment for each ambience through semicentralized equipments. Tubes run through installation patios vertically and through technical floor horizontally avoiding the presence of suspended ceilings and allowing the wooden beams to be seen from the interior.
