Last month I had the pleasure of attending final reviews at University of Michigan Taubman College for two days. I saw an incredible range of work within a studio premise called "Perimeter." Each studio developed a position relative to the condition of a perimeter as a site. Perimeter to what? In what way is the perimeter advantageous for divergent forms and formats of urbanism? And is the perimeter just a slumbering future center?

From my visit, it is difficult to select a single project, again because of the sweeping diversity of propositions within each brief, but I was struck by the simplicity and industrious viability of a project that had the Thames River as a perimeter site. Its author is Jonathan Blair working under professor Sophia Psarra's studio site of the Thames. Now you might be wondering, in what way is the Thames a perimeter? And I had similar hesitation, but generally it depends on who is asking the question of perimeter. If it is fisherman and fishmongers than it is most certainly a perimeter to a larger center.

Blair's project originates from the following two facts:

Fact 1: Britons eat one-third of all the cod consumed in the world, and 85% of cod caught in European waters is destined for plates in the UK. (BBC)

Fact 2: The very shape of the food web has changed, from plankton on up to the cod and flatfish that once dominated the icy waters, supporting rich commercial fisheries. They’ve been largely replaced by jellyfish and crabs. (Wired)

[The first fish n chips shop was opened in 1860 in London offering Atlantic Cod fried in the Jewsih traditional way from trawling in the North Sea.]

Jonathan Blair's Miles of Liquid History: A Half Real/Half Fictional Atlas of the London Thames addresses a projected near future in which the ocean's fruit is even more threatened, and to maintain fish consumption we have resorted to new forms of aquaculture. Blair embraces some of the initial successes of the aquapod for aquacultural harvesting. (read more on offshore aquaculture here.) He writes:

The oceans have been critical for maintaining food sources worldwide. What happens when we relieve them of their fruit? Just as London has replaced cod, the famous fish n' chips variety, with plaice due to overfishing, other once abundant species are disappearing. Due to such occurrences, fish farms have popped up as a way to monitor stocks. Fish farms make fishing an easy chore and stabilize fish prices.

[An aquapod submerged ready to cultivate, as developed by Ocean Farm Technologies.]

The catch, however, is that Blair rigs the aquapod's arrival point into London at the historic Tower Bridge, completed in 1894. Effectively, the bridge reels in the pod, when ready, it hovers over vehicles and pedestrians passing below as a gantry pulls it toward one of the pier-towers. After it is emptied, it is then deposited back under the raised bridge-road, into the Thames, and cast back out to sea.

[0:00 | Condition normal.]

[5:00 | Aquapod arrives.]

[6:00 | Aquapod lifted to high gantry.]

[9:00 | Bridge back to normal.]

[18:00 | Aquapod empited, and bridge opens to release pod.]

[19:00 | Aquapod cast back out to the North Sea.]

He further writes:

However, a present challenge with fish farms lies in the pollution from a large aquatic populous occupying a coastal region previously uninhabited. Antibiotics, feed, and fish waste plague the stagnant water surrounding the farm. This is currently tolerated as a positive alternative to scraping the bottom with ever-expanding nets. The Tower Bridge Seafood Market explores a fictitious urban scenario where direct access to the sea provides the ability for fish farming to becoming free-ranging.

[View of a model of one of the Tower Bridge piers rigged with over 25 handlines for the local catch-of-the-day at the proposed Tower Bridge market.]

The two towers of Tower Bridge are outfitted with a light-weight supplementary structure that allows access to the market, food court, lift operations, and a crow's nest. Each structural member is threaded with a handline that fihes for local catch. This operates in complement to the larger scale offshore aquapod.

[Elevations of the filigreed structural rig wrapping the tower-piers of Tower bridge.]

Finally, Blair writes:

The proposed method utilizes a recent invention in which a geodesic structure of aluminum and Kevlar mesh preseeded with a particular marine species serves as the vessel for off-shore farming. Autonomous feeding and satellite guidance systems navigate the spheres on predetermined migratory paths until the school has reached adequate size for its return to port. This mobile fish farm is juxtaposed with the traditional handline method, where a balance of wild versus farm-raised is played out on a central stage. The handline method also allows for a specific species not able to caught by net to be acquired. Tying in to the existing hydraulic lift systems historically used to raise and lower the drawbridge, the "AquaSphere" is hoisted upwards between the two towers where it will be unloaded while simultaneously the fishing lines retract bringing up the a wild catch and special for the day.

[Fish-eye view of the structural wrapper showing integrated reelers.]

To reach Jonathan, please contact him at blairjo [at] gmail [dot] com.

For Palestine and Israel, and undoubtedly for the rest of the world, the year 1999 was one of hope. A huge step towards a peaceful future in the Middle East was made in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, when the Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the so-called “The Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum”. It was overseen by the United States (represented by the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) and co-signed by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan. Beyond political issues it contained the following physical (and potentially architectural) implications:

1) A stable and safe Gaza – West Bank Passage
2) The construction of a Seaport in Gaza to connect Palestine to the global economy
3) A Free Trade Zone shared by Israel and Palestine to foster stability
4) Solutions for the pressing water problems and the damaged Dead Sea area

This was all in 1999, ten years ago. Just one year later, in 2000, the promising situation was overshadowed by the start of the Second Intifada, halting the progress to the goals presented in “The Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum”. It seems that the window of opportunity is almost now closed.

The following 'student works' critically re-examines the memorandum while addressing the current political situation and necessities.  Designed by Christoph Hesse for his Masters of Architecture and Urban Design Thesis (2007) at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design,  the project highlights the potential of architecture, urban, and infrastructural design to go beyond political strategies (that often lack the strength to alter a given situation), to create a new reality, formulate new ecologies, and produce new economies.

Hesse states:

Especially in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we have to overcome the domination of political approaches which usually end in military actions that capture a whole region under a ‘permanent temporarily’ of physical underdevelopment, fear and desperation. Maybe the project started as a dream, but so did peace in the Middle East.

[A stable and safe Gaza - West Bank Infrastructural Link]

[Water connection and elevation difference between the Mediterranean Sea and shrinking Dead Sea]

[Port Connection: A New civic center for Gaza, Image: C.Hesse]

The project proposes an inner harbor as a new seaport for Gaza – benefiting trade on the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Israel.  The origin of the water connection between the Mediterranean and Dead Sea would remain open as a canal to allow containerships to reach a distribution center in the hinterland of Gaza. Along the canal urban programs such as a linear park, housing and commercial areas would couple the infrastructure with other functions that are linked in a symbiotic relationship.

[Sectional Perspective. Urbanization of the new canal and the inner harbor of Gaza. Image: C.Hesse]

[Free trade zone shared by Israel and Palestine. Image: C.Hesse]

The infrastructural form of the Gaza – West Bank connection is comparable to the shape of a boa. At two distinct points, the passage, which contains a four-lane road and railway connection, widens into a space for potential exchange between Israel and Palestine. The program of these critical sites are embedded into a free trade agreement to ease cooperation. Similar free trade zones exist between Israel and Jordan.

[Water storage reservoir with hotel and public functions. Image: C.Hesse]

The end of the infrastructural connection occurs where the water tunnel reaches the Dead Sea.  Here, the water is held in an upper storage reservoir. Similar to the so-called urban attachments along the open canal in Gaza, a hotel is embedded in and around the dam that underlines the symbolic value of this place. Since the Dead Sea is located 418 meters below sea level, the drop between the upper reservoir and the Sea is ideal to produce fresh water and energy for the tourist industry and 250,000 households in Israel, Jordan and Palestine.  While doing so, the water replenishes and gives new life the shrinking dead sea.

[Fresh water for the shrinking Dead Sea and electric energy for the whole region]

Currently based out of Germany and Switzerland, You can view the current work of Christoph Hesse Architects & Lorenz Kocher Engineers  here.

With the aim of providing a global architecture in the world’s largest terra incognita, emerges recent MIT graduate Andrea Brennen's M.Arch thesis: Arctic-tecture for the Global Commons. Brennen’s proposal centers on the mysterious and remote continent of Antarctica – where architecture and infrastructure are difficult to find. Antarctica has been in the news as of late – particularly because it contains sixty-five percent of the world’s fresh water reserves, and more importantly because they are quickly melting.

[A continential site Strategy]

Brennen’s thesis, however, finds something else intriguing about Antarctica – its ambiguous ownership. With no indigenous population (except for scientists), Antarctica is legally designated as a Global Commons, residing under sovereign jurisdiction. Governments can demonstrate ‘substantial interest’ (and therefore gain voting power) by operating a scientific research facility in Antarctica. Therefore, Architecture becomes the mode for governments to lay claim on the Global Commons.

Operating in the spirit of Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog — a 1970s counterculture bible for “whole systems” thinking — this project examines Antarctica as a testing ground for an expanded mode of architecture. Antarctica, with its extreme environment, scientific value, and legal status as a Global Commons, is a site that cannot be understood in any way other than through its relationship to a larger global environmental system. This reality, when combined with the continent’s mystique, creates an unparalleled opportunity for architectural innovation.

[Station 3 site plan]

Architecture, or Artic-tecture takes the form of several programmes in dire need in Antarctica – particularly tourism and a biological vault. Brennen uses the concept of offset to ensure a symbiotic programmatic relationship between all parties. A mega-bio vault provides secure storage for global specimens, that is partly funded by tourism. Inspired by the Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway, Brennen’s bestows the following tasks on her vault:

This is a last-resort effort to protect global food sources from a range of threats such as war, natural disasters, or agricultural mismanagement. Unlike the Norwegian vault, it will not be controlled by a national government, but rather, will be located in the Global Commons.

[Interior view of Biological Storage Vault. Image courtesy of Andrea Brennen & Carter Skemp]

[Station 3 plan]

[Station 3 section with biovault carved into the ice]

[Diagram showing nested program organization according to temperature requirements]

The program is organized by the largest constraint in Antarctica – temperature. Warmer programmes are nested within cooler ones that are wrapped in nested inflatables. The inflatables are both easy to ship to the remote site, and use the simplicity of air to provide a high insulation value. Further, local materials – particularly snow and ice – enrich the Arctic-tectural material palette. Foundations of compacted ice support the large trusses, which use snow fins loaded with precipitating snow as a counterweight. The biological vault is simply cynlindrical shelves that slot into holes drilled into the compacted ice floor.

[Partial Section showing structural and climatic concept]

[Interior view of Station 3. Image courtesy of Andrea Brennen & Carter Skemp]

As resources become increasingly precious, Andrea’s proposal forecasts how minimal elements can create rich spaces. You can see more of Arctic-tecture and other work and research by Andrea here.

We will regularly be publishing student projects and thesis research titled Student Works that is an extension of themes related to infrastructures and networks of habitats and resources. The first is a project by Vivian Chin, a recent M.Arch graduate at University of Toronto, whose research "Convergent Species" is a study on territorial boundaries of animal and human occupation.

She distinguished between convergences that are constructive, and therefore have a political motivation, and convergences that are inadvertent, and therefore have an environmental impact.

Vivian writes:

The expansion of human territories has dramatically overlapped with animal boundaries and activities, allowing geographic, socio-economic, and cultural forces to effect mutations in behaviour. These overlaps generate two kinds of boundaries; inadvertent, and constructive. Animals that augment their habitation through symbiotic relationships with human activities exist in inadvertent boundaries. Constructive boundaries such as national borders, or conflict, generate habitations due to marginalization and opportunism. Animals which inhabit these boundaries should neither be considered domestic nor wild, but a new group which is defined by their contingency to both human and natural environment. This thesis seeks to respond to these inadvertent and constructive boundaries and question the potential of adaptation, mutualism, and co-habitation.

Territory #6: CHERNOBYL, ZONE OF EXCLUSION ("THE ZONE")
Radiation is absorbed by soil, vegetation, and water but is not retained by asphalt. With the concept of adaptation, asphalt as a building material suggested in the Chernobyl studies.

[A proposal for asphalt buildings and other amenities supporting new wildlife. For example, Przewalskis Horses were released in the Zone as a mutual preservation rehablitation program. The Zone of Exclusion was established shortly after 1986\'s Chernobyl disaster.]

[A proposal for an immersive observation infrastructure that avoids the minefield littered ground in the Falkland Islands.]

[A proposal for an infrastructure serving as a wildlife bridge as South and North Korea reoccupy the DMZ.]

[Swim with the local megafauna.]

[Public beach.]

[Channeling the water processes of the existing power plant for use in the newbuildings.]

If you would like to contact Vivian about her research and project, you can reach her here.