Aquatic Pavilion
Intention: to create a networked system through systematically placed hubs which will facilitate localized living. This aquatic pavilion will provide conditions for survival with minimal resources. As a means of improving its environment, this space serves as a bio cycle: it will collect and purify water, create food security through the implantation of hydroponic gardens, introduce commerce through the sale of excess crops, while simultaneously engaging the community. This pavilion is more than an open urban garden; it is a catalyst for community development.
Points of access will shape the space. A terraced landscape will be formed by the network of connections to, through, and within the site – linking this pavilion to a larger social and urban context.
Hydroponic gardens will grow crops with the water purified on the site. The terraced landscape will provide various plateaus on which the crops are grown. Nestled into the landscape could be small markets or kiosks from which the excess crops could be distributed or sold. These gardens will create jobs while simultaneously creating food security.
Aquatic umbrellas will produce “interior like” spaces, provide shade and collection and purify water, while a constructed wetland acts as a basin to collect and clean stormwater runoff.
The pavilion space serves as an open market, meeting place, and a performance stage.
Creation of a modular system through the use of a repetitive shape – triangle, hexagon, crest, – will create surface and space. This simple shape would allow the implementation of complex geometry -insuring that this technique could be introduced into other “hubs.”
Comment:
Hi Lindsey,
When I read the description of your project, the first thing that comes to mind is the “Park Fiction” art collective, working in the St. Pauli district of Berlin. For 10 years they’ve been working on an urban community garden, which is now in existence!
This is a great article by Momus on them: “Park Fiction becomes Park Fact”
“The Park Fiction group began in 1994, just asking local residents what kind of garden they’d like to see. A Turkish girl suggested a youth cafe with letter boxes for kids whose mail is monitored by their parents. A Russian couple wanted an avenue of friendship lined with rose bushes. The artists coined slogans: “Desire will leave the house and the realm of boredom, bringing the administration of misery to an end” and “Art and politics make each other more clever”. They planned strawberry-shaped treehouses, treehouses with bathtubs in them, a swimming pool in the docks, poodle-shaped boxwood hedges, an open-air cinema, a hedge maze, a pirate well, a open-air Solarium, a flying carpet of wavy turf, and artificial floating islands with palm trees.”
Interesting points to examine from this project:
+ collaborative design process + interaction with the community
+ fantastical elements of the design
+ documentation / communication: pamphlets, films
+ slogans / strong themes as a guiding force
+ PLAYFULNESS
For more info, check out
+ the Park Fiction website (great but mainly German)
+ English description of the project
+ A great paper: “The City is Unwritten: URBAN EXPERIENCES AND THOUGHTS SEEN THROUGH PARK FICTION”
I hope you find this interesting! Looking forward to making more comments about your project.
best,
Miranda
