Bubble Trouble
First place winner
non - architecture competition, "thinking - alternative designs for offices"
SELECTED BY: Maria Eugenia Latourn
Missed your train? No worries, your office is here
The project is based on the theory of the French anthropologist Marc Augé of “Non – Places”. According to Augé, non – places are created by the rupture of historic, social or local connections. This is especially true for places that have a time-based function rather than a space-based function, namely, waiting instead of walking. The project proposes the dissolution of working and productivity functions in the urban space around train, bus and subway stations, thus redefines them by their new use.
The planning method used for this project is extroverted and allows the bubbles to spread in the urban space. The smaller bubbles seen here are used as street furniture for collaborative work, and inspirational brainstorming. While the larger bubbles are enclosed rooms for more concentrated, focused independent work. The bubbles connect to each other in different ways to create a large variety of usable spots. The bubbles provide electricity, light and Wi-Fi connection and operate on solar panels, thus contributing to the city instead of consuming resources.
THEORY
The smaller bubbles previously seen are used as street furniture for collaborative work, and inspirational brainstorming. While the larger bubbles are enclosed rooms for more concentrated, focused independent work. The bubbles connect to each other in different ways to create a large variety of usable spots. The bubbles provide electricity, light and Wi-Fi connection and operate on solar panels, thus contributing to the city instead of consuming resources.
Unlike buildings, that have specific “users” and uphold a pre-planned lifestyle, the urban space has always been freer. The typology of the soap bubble, I believe, responds to that nature by filling whatever space it has, each bubble responding to the other. The temporary, fragile nature of the bubble also resonates with the unstable, unpredictable nature of the truly urban space. I believe that instead of attempting to maintain control and regulation, architects should create spaces that allow for mobility, change, transformation, and individual self-expression.
RESEARCH AND PROCESS
STEP 1: Research of the negative space left behind by the light rail construction work in previously bustling central locations around Tel Aviv. The spaces were left unidentifiable, creating an urban maze in the streets surrounding the sites. Each site had an aura of influence on the urban tissue around it. The size of the influence was determined by various parameters, such as centrality, rupture of connectivity, effect on local businesses, and street identity.
STEP 2: Identifying spaces suitable for a happening to occur, based on street section parameters, privacy levels, interference to and from urban activity happening nearby, etc.
STEP 3: Identifying the borders of the site, and filling it up with three dimensional bubbles (Using 3D Voronoi scripts for Rhino + Grasshopper).
STEP 4: “Popping” unnecessary bubbles to leave only those that form functional, useful spaces which allow activity to take place.
