Architectural Design V-IX: Re-Aggregation. Amsteg I (GD Menn)

Abstract

Buildings are physical repositories of the history of their time and place. In the Alpine region, various buildings have lost their function and meaning in the course of their lifetime for different reasons of structural change.

Objective

The studio teaches how to understand an existing building through analysis in its constructive spatial contexts and how to use it as a repertoire and trigger for design. Through targeted inputs, students experimentally practice translating structural features and principles into spatial programmatic and constructive statements and incorporating "discoveries" as part of the design process. Relating to the existing and thinking of design in temporality means taking a stance on the history and contemporary issues of place. With the design and representation techniques taught, the project finds a coherent and profiled statement.

Content

Buildings are physical repositories of the history of their time and place. In the Alpine region, various buildings have lost their function and meaning over the course of their lifespan for various reasons of structural change. We deal with an alpine architectural wasteland of hydroelectric power and examine on this "aggregate of history" the approach to design and look for the architectural capacity for a place of artistic performance. We discuss questions about the form of memory, public appropriation and sensuality of space. The subject is the Amsteg power plant and its empty machine hall. Amsteg is a place of passage on the Gotthard axis, which spatially impressively bundles alpine cultural and technical history at a pronounced narrow point of the valley. The Gotthard railroad, built in 1872, was electrified in 1922 by the Amsteg hydroelectric power station. Around the turn of the millennium, the NEAT generation project and the Gotthard Base Tunnel demanded a significant expansion of SBB's own electricity production, which is why a new power plant in a rock cavern replaced the Amsteg powerhouse in 1998. Since then, the building of the imposing complex has stood empty. By using it for different forms of theater, we are developing a new public sphere. While theater describes the perception of space as a phenomenon of movement between subject-body and space-body, we ask what relationship the new enters into with the existing architecture and what spatial qualities the different actors create. How does the mobile, the temporary relate to the static and the given? The project shows potentials for the site and takes a position in the context of the history of energy and mobility, as a de- and/or re-aggregation of the existing. We are interested in drawing from the existing architecture, ideationally and materially as a repertoire of design. We work from the small to the large - from detail, to space, to house. We relate the construction and material logic of the parts to new building elements and formulate constructive concepts that are experimentally translated into spatial ones. The existing building represents an anchor and at the same time a fund, which we make productive in terms of design. What are the discoveries, how do they fertilize the imagination of space? In gradual scales we work with the physical model and model photography as a medium of image fixation. The studio is accompanied by BUK, an integrated construction is offered.

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