Competition Proposal
Brief:
Human beings have a history of landscape alteration: pyramids, aqueducts, and deforestation. Modern lifestyles are made possible by industries throughout the world, but we take them for granted. The natural world is transformed by industry, particularly those that extract raw materials and resources from the land.
What happens when industry leaves substantial marks on the earth?
What happens when industry leaves substantial marks on the earth?
The charge is to design a building complex for an institution devoted primarily to visual, literary, landscape and performing artists, engaging the site in a significant way commensurate with the size, scale and emotional impact of the quarry.
Memory is a major conduit for inspiration in art and design; it defines our self concept and determines much of our understanding of what happens to us.
This proposal is a series of architectural elements designed to both evoke and create memory within a unique landscape condition--an abandoned quarry filled with waters deep and fathomless as the human psyche.
Each element is a minimal volume reacting to the natural landscape of the site. Built using concrete with aggregate reclaimed from the quarry’s by-product, the buildings become platforms from which users can absorb the scenic aspects of the quarry, as well as peer over the edge into depths of their own experience.
This proposal is a series of architectural elements designed to both evoke and create memory within a unique landscape condition--an abandoned quarry filled with waters deep and fathomless as the human psyche.
Each element is a minimal volume reacting to the natural landscape of the site. Built using concrete with aggregate reclaimed from the quarry’s by-product, the buildings become platforms from which users can absorb the scenic aspects of the quarry, as well as peer over the edge into depths of their own experience.
Guests are led through the forest, and brought to the lobby of the Education Center, and immediately confronted with a panorama that suspends them over the quarry waters with an unobstructed view of the site, Memorial, and the mountains beyond.
The artist studios bridge across and scale up the western fracture of the site, while the residential units act as a series of interconnected floors terraced up the mountainside.
At the center of the site is the memorial, serving as a reminder that the quarry is ultimately a scar upon the earth's landscape, filled in by water, and beautified by time. In the same way, memories that were initially wounds on the soul become the quarry from which artistic expression emerges.
The architecture becomes the framework for the evocation, creation, and exploration of memory that will serve as inspiration long after the artist has departed.
Concept Sketches
