Architectural Design V-IX: Structure and Space - Negotiation on the Inventory (GD Menn)

Abstract

The theme of the studio is in the overriding interest for the architectural resource of the housing stock on the outskirts of Switzerland. We are concerned with the conversion of an industrial building that has been disused for decades in the rural context of the Gonzen mine in Sargans. Core topic is dealing with the phenomena of structure and space as a "negotiation" on and with this inventory.

Objective

The students learn to discover a building stock in its temporal and spatial structural context, which enables them to take a critical stance and to act in it as a designer. You learn to formulate an architectural idea of ​​a change of use from the existing resource and to develop it into a consistent project.

Content

The theme of the studio is in the overriding interest for the architectural resource of the housing stock on the outskirts of Switzerland. We are concerned with the conversion of an industrial building that has been disused for decades in the rural context of the Gonzen mine in Sargans. The core topic is dealing with the phenomena of structure and space as a "negotiation" on and with this inventory. The subject is the Malerva ore processing plant, a solitary witness to the industrial history of disused mining in the Sarganser Rhine Valley plain. The iron on the Gonzen shaped the region for centuries. After numerous scientific and technical development steps, the extraction of raw materials attained its greatest importance during the Second World War, before the decline and the cessation of operations in 1966. The Malerva ore processing and sorting plant was designed in 1940 as a three-dimensional steel framework, its structure and shape Free of aesthetic goals or thoughts of flexibility of use, it was tailored to the vertical and horizontal processes of ore processing and the economical use of the material. Based on this special building typology and materiality, we would like to formulate design strategies for conversion and at the same time adopt an attitude towards the location and its historicity. We are researching the original machine, which today is a space structure that has lost its purpose. We are interested in the inner regularities and the thinking of the design from the conditions of the primary structure and material and the spatial potentials from them. We are guided by questions: What architectural relationship can be established with this filigree steel skeleton and its specific shape? Which spatial strategies and potentials does it open up? How evolutionary does an architectural concept emerge from the existing structure as a further development or how much does the intervention become a reshaping and new creation? Programmatically, we design a mixed use in which a collective space formulates the heart of the facility. This public space is a new bearer of meaning and a meaningful part of the concept based on the existing conditions. With the projects we would like to formulate answers to the memory and the future of this cultural heritage and to include questions of sustainability. In addition to dealing with material resources, we ask whether interventions in the specific space structure open up potential for a generic, open-use structure. Is a narrative conceivable that understands the project as an intermediate form in an open-ended life cycle?

Resources