Oscillations

The proposal is a town hall which brings together private ‘introverted’ functions with ‘extroverted’ community engagement spaces. Spanning 4 sites across a residential and industrial block, the buildings create a ‘corridor’ of space which bridges the two programmes and allows users to move between introverted and extroverted spaces. This ‘oscillation’ between part and whole is enabled through spatial flexibility, so that users from each programme can experience a balance of environments. Assembly studies have informed the development of specific architectural ‘formats’ for shifting occupation.

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Filtering Boundaries

An organisational strategy of vertically and horizontally interlocking spaces has been used to structure the negotiation between programmes. While event spaces allow users of the introverted programme to depart from their familiar environment and connect with resonant extroverted activity, spaces for daily activities reverse this order, allowing members of the community to enter the introverted spaces. Both typologies permit different levels of exposure to support a balanced coexistence between users. These ‘grades’ of connection are enabled through movable screens which filter visual, thermal and acoustic levels.

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Interstitial Spaces

Using the constraint of the two edges enclosing the site, the proposal operates on the local scale and that of the broader urban context. Site investigations in Antwerp highlighted the disparity between extroverted new developments and modest residential territories. Situated in a site of particular tension, the building mediates between these scales. This condition is framed to encourage movement between contrasting environments. Rather than removing boundaries and thresholds, the thesis takes the position that proximity and tension between opposites can be utilised to create co-dependency.

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Shifting Configurations

A key criteria for the spaces which allow contrasting users to oscillate between introverted and extroverted environments is the practicality to accommodate changing application. The ‘fine tuning’ of divides between spaces is critical in enabling a connected experience, without impacting functionality. In the event and daily activity spaces, moving partitions allow the balance between experiential involvement and detachment to be calibrated. To enable shifts in ownership, these divides can also take on a variety of spatial and environmental configurations.

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Spatial Impressions

While the upper level of each building in the proposal are separate from the extroverted ground floor plane, the lower strata can afford varied degrees of openness and connection to the surroundings. The system of movable partitions is configured specifically to each building, and can be raised or lowered to divide or expand spaces. As a device for controlling levels of exposure, the panels operate at a micro level, whereas fold-able doors along the urban corridor work on the macro level. Movements between part and whole are moderated from the scale of an individual space to the scale of each building in order to control the balance between introverted and extroverted environments.

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The theme of my thesis project and broader architectural interest is the capacity for buildings to support ‘mutualisms’, or co-dependency between inhabitants. This has driven my explorations of architectural mechanisms for generating mutual relationships. Throughout the project, abstracted physical modelling and close contextual observation are two approaches which have overlapped with one another to act as a tool for the development and testing of this design idea.

An underlining influence to the thesis is the notion of a paradox, or dualism. This has raised the question of how such a condition could be framed architecturally. Studies of architectural components and their assembly initiated the thesis enquiry into the idea of mutual space, where contrasting user groups can benefit from moderated exposure to each other’s environments. Iterative processes of modelling architectural ‘formats’ for spatial connection and separation have been carried out to generate a set of rules, defining how a mutualism can be articulated between contrasting users.

Also underpinning the thesis is a methodology of framing relationships across a hierarchy of scales and varying formats. Distinguishing spaces by environmental ‘type’ has played a key role in this regard. With two definitions of space – those which are ‘introverted’ and ‘extroverted’, the project is concerned with opposites of character rather than strictly functional differences. The interconnection and friction between these two spatial types is articulated as the primary tool for establishing mutual relationships.