On April 26th 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine suffered a catastrophic failure, resulting in a nuclear meltdown and a series of explosions which scattered radioactive material across large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. More than 50,000 people were evacuated the following day, and over the next 14 years another 300,000 people were moved, leading to an exclusion zone today measuring 2,600 square kilometers that will likely remain in place for hundreds of years. To this day, the human cost of the disaster is still unknown, with estimates that in their lifetimes, anywhere between 4,000 and 200,000 people will be affected by cancers attributable to the incident. Along with the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster of 2011, the Chernobyl Disaster is one of only two level 7 nuclear events in history.

Today, exactly 30 years later, the incident at Chernobyl remains one of the most poignant demonstrations of humanity’s mastery over its environment, and also one of the most powerful demonstrations of how easily, and how catastrophically, that mastery can go awry. But humans are if nothing else resilient, and throughout history have used every means at their disposal to put right the problems they have caused for themselves – including a number of structures constructed to mitigate the effects of man-made disasters, both from humanity’s past and its possible future.

The Chernobyl New Safe Confinement

The New Safe Confinement at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in March 2016. On the left of the image is the reactor facility itself. When the structure is complete, it will be moved over the reactor. Image © Wikimedia user Tim Porter licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

In the six months after the Chernobyl Disaster, construction teams hastily constructed the cheerily-named Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Sarcophagus, a structure containing 400,000 square meters of concrete to stop the further spread of radiation and the contaminated materials contained within the building. However, the hurried nature of its construction means that the Sarcophagus has a number of problems, not least its structural reliance on damaged parts of the original building. Due to the radiation levels in and around the structure, it was deemed impossible to maintain the Sarcophagus, and a decision was taken in the 1990s to build a new protective structure over the entire existing system.

The Chernobyl New Safe Confinement (NSC) consists of a barrel vault 92.5 meters tall, 270 meters wide and 150 meters long constructed of steel and polycarbonate. In order to reduce the radiation exposure of those constructing the NSC, the entire structure is being assembled 180 meters away from the reactor itself, and when completed it will be slid on rails into place.

The Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal

Construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal in 1899. Image © F. E. COMPTON AND COMPANY, 1914, via Wikimedia licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

19th century Chicago had a problem that was common to many rapidly-expanding cities at the time: human waste. However, in Chicago this problem was more acute than in most cities, as the city’s flat plain and slow-flowing river was not conducive to washing away human excrement – not to mention the fact that the city took its drinking water from Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the river. By 1854, the problem was already so bad that a cholera epidemic killed 6% of the Chicago’s citizens, but in the following five decades the city’s booming population only made the problem worse. The river’s south fork, known to this day as Bubbly Creek, got the name thanks to the slaughterhouses that lined the river and threw their waste into the water, causing bubbles of methane (which would occasionally catch fire) as the animal corpses began to rot.

The solution to these problems took place in three stages: first, every building in Chicago was raised by 10 feet (3 meters) to make space for a network of sewage pipes; second, what was at the time the world’s longest tunnel was constructed to extract water from Lake Michigan two miles out from the shore; and finally, when both of these measures failed to produce long-lasting results, the decision was taken to reverse the flow of the river entirely. This was achieved with the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal, whose complex construction is covered beautifully in this episode of 99% Invisible. However, the short version of the story is that between 1892 and 1900, the construction of the canal joined the Chicago river with the Des Plaines river, meaning that instead of flowing into Lake Michigan from the Chicago river, water flowed out of Lake Michigan, via the Chicago river and canal, and ultimately into the Mississippi river network. Shortly after the canal was opened, a headline ran in the New York Times sarcastically declaring that “The Water in the Chicago River Now Resembles Liquid.”

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The entrance to Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Image © Wikimedia user Bjoertvedt licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Around the world, many countries keep a repository of the seeds of their indigenous flora for emergencies; in case of catastrophe, these seeds act as a backup of their ecosystem. But since 2008, the Norwegian government has also operated the Global Seed Vault, storing samples from countries around the world to serve as the backup to these backups. The complex operates in a similar way to deposit boxes at a regular bank: Norway owns the facility, but the containers of samples themselves are owned by their respective countries, and only they can request access to them.

The site at Spitsbergen Island was chosen for a number of reasons: firstly, long-term storage of seed samples is best done at cold temperatures, and the icy conditions 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole help to reduce cooling requirements; secondly, the region experiences very little seismic activity; finally, at an elevation of 130 meters it is protected from even the worst predicted rises in sea level. Buried 120 meters deep in a sandstone mountain, the facility is cooled to -18 degrees celsius, and even in the event of a power failure would take several weeks to warm up to the ambient rock temperature of -3 degrees. Last year, the seed bank had its first withdrawal, after another seed bank located in Aleppo, Syria, encountered problems moving its collection away from the Syrian Civil War.

Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

A small overground part the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Image © Flickr user stephen_little licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Completed in 1959 as a safeguard against the worst possible outcomes of the Cold War, the existence of this 56,000 square meter underground facility in Virginia was not public knowledge until 1979. In the event of a disaster, the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center was designed to act as a bunker for the United States military and governmental officials as part of the country’s “Continuity of Government” plans. On a day-to-day basis, it is the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Crucially, the facility includes a radio station which, in the event of an emergency, would be the central control point of the emergency broadcast system. And, the facility is not defunct now that the Cold War is over – it was most recently used for emergency operations after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when some members of congress were evacuated to Mount Weather by helicopter.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex

Construction inside the tunnels of the Cheyenne Mountain Facility. Image via Wikimedia (public domain)

Another underground bunker facility constructed during the height of the cold war, the facility at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado is even more impressive than the Mount Weather Complex in its extensive underground network and impressive engineering solutions. The complex was originally built as the Combat Operations Center for the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), a joint security initiative between the United States and Canada set up to monitor North American airspace for incoming threats.

Though NORAD has since moved to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base, the facility is still used by the US Air Force as a training facility, and its formidable protective capabilities remain in place – including the springs which protect its interior structures from seismic shocks, its doors designed to withstand a nuclear blast as strong as 30 megatons from as close as 2 kilometers away, and its independent power plant, heating and cooling systems, and water supply. Today, the threats which it is designed to protect against, in order of decreasing likelihood, are “medical emergencies, natural disasters, civil disorder, a conventional attack, an electromagnetic pulse attack, a cyber or information attack, chemical or biological or radiological attack, an improvised nuclear attack, a limited nuclear attack, or a general nuclear attack.”

The New Town of Kiruna

Design for the new town hall in Kiruna. Image Courtesy of White Arkitekter

Sweden’s northernmost town, Kiruna, exists almost entirely as a result of the huge iron mine nearby, which supplies 90% of the iron used in Europe. However, before too much longer the town could very well cease to exist thanks to that same mine, as the excavation threatens to undermine the entire town. Ceasing excavation is certainly not an option either: without the mine and the jobs it provides, explained the city’s deputy mayor to The Guardian, “no devil would have built a city here.” To avoid this, the city commissioned White Arkitekter, in collaboration with Ghilardi + Hellsten Arkitetker, to envision a masterplan that would move the town of 23,000 people 3 kilometers to the east.

The proposal, which has now been underway for two years, involves moving 20 of the town’s most important buildings by carefully dismantling them and moving them to the new site. The rest of the town will be constructed anew, gradually moving everyone over a period of almost 20 years. However, the masterplan also includes a longer, 100-year plan to reduce the town’s reliance on the mining industry – showing that, in spite of humanity’s propensity for a startling lack of foresight, we can also be pretty good at learning from our mistakes.

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© Federico Cairoli

• Architects: Gabinete de Arquitectura
• Location: Asunción, Paraguay
• Team: Solano Benítez, Gloria Cabral, Solanito Benítez
• Project Area: 160.0 m2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Federico Cairoli

• Collaborators: Costanza Abente, Melisa Marchi
• Construction: Gabinete de Arquitectura S.R.L., Caló Estructuras S.R.L.
• Structures: Ing. Julio Alvarez

© Federico Cairoli

a “quincho” is a pavilion that is usually installed
at the back of urban lots, and which has in these
latitudes the mission to cover exceptional events,
whose cyclic repetition of
studied frequency and dosage, flirts with
capital sin and its consequent harmful burdens
to our health.

© Federico Cairoli

but to define specifically “why is this quincho 
as it is?” the previous description is not consistent with its
structure, which although is revealed founding in its affirmation,
it is not conclusive.

© Federico Cairoli

we do what we do to orient ourselves, we understand ourselves as languaging beings, and in our eagerness
for collective existence and making use of the mandate of the
discipline (ensuring the habitability of beings
as humans), we venture to produce new
tools of resources and possibilities, that
overcome the opportunities for a better life, as
message and offering that allows us to be in others.

Plan

we reaffirm our saying written in stone,
once imitative empathy is overcome, we conjure new ways
to summon matter, as a sign of our patent
need to improve ourselves improving in others.

© Federico Cairoli

a rubble ceiling, reused glass, cement floors,
some cable and some lighting, to accompany
life scenes.

© Federico Cairoli

the most important question about Quincho Tía Coral
can’t be but…
are its barbecues delicious?

© Federico Cairoli

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Shigeru Ban levantando una estructura de cartón en Haití. Image via Flickr. Autor: Forgemind ArchiMedia. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Japanese architect and 2014 Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban will visit Ecuador on April 30 to help with disaster relief following the recent earthquake, according to a press release from the College of Ecuadorian Architects – Pichincha Province (CAE Pichincha). Known for bringing innovative and high quality design to the people that need it the most, Ban has developed successful responses to disasters in Asia, Africa, Europe and Central America.

On April 16, a 7.8 earthquake hit the coast of Ecuador, killing nearly 650 people, injuring more than 12,500, and destroying nearly 7,000 buildings across the country.

Ban has expressed his solidarity with Ecuador and plans to visit the affected areas as well as lead a training conference in Quito on May 2nd.

More information on his visit will be released in the coming days.  

View some of Shigeru Ban’s past disaster relief projects, here. 

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Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

• Architects: Caramel Architekten
• Location: Linz, Austria
• Area: 604.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

From the architect. Located on the periphery of the city, the plot of land offers a spectacular view of Linz, as long as one builds high enough to be able to gaze over the neighbouring properties. That is why the ground storey lies about 6m above street level – with the pleasant side-effect of allowing the garden area to adjoin the living area on the same level to the west and north, despite the extreme slope.

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

Since regulations only permitted construction up to a maximum of 200m² per storey, it was not so easy to accommodate a spatial plan for a five-person family , especially since all the primary functions were to be arranged in the living area; an upper storey was not desired.

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

Plan

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

Only the children’s section has a further level; each of the children’s rooms received a gallery with an adjoining children’s balcony, obtained through stacking above the access and sanitary level.

Section

The main entrance (which at the same time serves as a drive leading to the spacious garage area) cuts spectacularly into the embankment, while a single-run stairway leads from the entrance to both the living storey and the cloakroom and wellness area, which is set off somewhat from the entrance. The sauna opens up onto a discreet rock garden on the northern part of the property.

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

The dark golden brown of the mosaic tiles on both the interior and the facade match the fair-faced concrete surfaces produced from roughly-cut shuttering; the projecting cantilevered roof covers wide-ranging terrace areas, with wooden flooring that continues from the spacious halls in the living areas. The inner and outer living areas are only separated by delicate full glazing, large parts of which can be opened.

Courtesy of Caramel Architekten

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Masterplan and schedule of the expanded Geologics. Image © The Open Workshop

The following article was first published by Volume Magazine in their 47th issue, The System*. You can read the Editorial of this issue, How Much Does Your System Weigh?, here.

The movement and management of sediment is arguably the largest continuous project of spatial manipulation on the planet. This ongoing battle between geology and industry is most apparent through the act of dredging. Dredging is the excavation, gathering, transport, and disposal of sediment from subaquatic areas, enacted to maintain depths of shipping channels, harbors, and ports as well as to reclaim land, create sea defences, and remove toxic chemicals.[1] The primary impetus for dredging is to sustain logistical routes for the shipping industry by countering the forces of erosion, movement, and settling of sediments. Like the logistics of the global shipping industry it serves, dredging is a continual process whose magnitude and significance have fostered their own series of ‘geologics’ – the engineering of material processes that operate in temporal and spatial scales that are geological in scope.[2] Currently in the United States alone, more than four hundred ports and over 25,000 miles of navigation channels are being dredged.[3]

The combination of integrated globalized shipping as well as growing ship sizes has created logistical routes that, as they approach shallower depths close to urbanized areas, require incessant dredging to counter the natural tendencies of erosion and sediment movement. Accordingly, dredging is continually reconciling the meeting of anthropogenic forces on land with shipping logistics on water. This ceaseless process of dredging – the co-making of hydrological and geologic processes – has been termed the ‘dredge cycle’. It is cyclical because it is constantly driven by anthropogenic influences that produce erosion (urbanization, agriculture, deforestation, damming, etc.) and the desire to tame the effects of these forces that cause shoreline fluctuations.[4] Ironically, dredging accelerates the forces of erosion that they are established to counter, thus stimulating more-and-more dredging.[5]

Given the complexity of engineering a logistical cycle to counter geology, dredging is currently a highly top-down process. It should be no surprise that the largest dredging organization in the United States is a branch of the army, given that logistics itself was born from military operations. To execute this massive land manipulation project, The US Army Corps of Engineers uses an extensive number of (relatively) small instruments such as barges, geotubes, mechanical dredges, hydraulic dredges, cutter dredges, dragheads, suction pipes, trucks, tractors, backhoes, geotextiles, pumps, and silt fences, amongst others.[6] These almost ubiquitous instruments are the primary components of a logistical sequence that includes the removal, transport, and disposal of sediment. What varies in the dredge process is the selection of technologies – decided through a combination of natural geology, available technology, volume, and costs – as well as both where and how to dispose of its material. Traditionally, dredge material was highly contaminated and placed in confined disposal facilities (CDFs), which are now approaching maximum capacity and becoming a costly venture.[7] Another method of disposal has been open water dumping, but the environmental ramifications of this approach are still not fully understood. As a consequence, new ‘beneficial uses’ are actively being sought for dredged material that positions this sediment as a resource.[8] Beneficial uses are part of a longer-term strategy of sediment management that focuses on environmental health, such as: topsoil creation, aquacultural facilities, beach nourishment, aggregate for construction material, brownfield improvements, and habitat restoration. Yet in the context of the United States, despite this transition from a linear process of dredging and dumping to a productive and opportunistic cycle of sediment management, little design effort has been granted to how the engineered geologics of dredging itself – a continual backdrop to urban life in most cities – can be rethought more holistically to benefit currently unheard yet affected subjects.

Waiting lands of the 1124 foreclosed sites in Toledo in 2014 are operationalized as micro-diffused detention basins. This distributed lake totals 84 acres. Image © The Open Workshop

The dredge cycle can be used to unpack the relationship between anthropogenic and geologic influences that are negotiated through dredging. To short-circuit this relationship would entail the introduction of currently silent subjects that are implicitly implicated in the dredge cycle and question how these subjects can leverage the actual geologics of dredging. For instance, how can local populations re-appropriate this process for socio-political engagement and empowerment? How can ecological processes be an integral component to this system to reduce the environmental footprint of dredging? How can dredging be used as a mechanism to remediate territorial ecologies that it has traditionally impacted? The potential here is to re-envision how smaller components – both physical (instruments of dredging) and systemic (within the geologics of dredge) – can be tactically expanded to both engage and integrate local populations and environments, while strategically aggregated to address urgent issues at a territorial scale. Using differential and overlapping timescales, we ask how incrementalism, dispersion, and iteration enable new subjects – human and environmental – to co-evolve with the dredge cycle.

Dredgescaping Toledo is a design case study that attempts to advance a new discussion on the geologics of dredge by focusing on the Maumee Bay on the western edge of Lake Erie and part of the Great Lakes navigation system. Dredging in the Great Lakes began over one hundred and fifty years ago, and currently over three million cubic yards of sediment are dredged annually from its 136 harbors and 745 miles of federal navigation channels. The removal of this sediment from the Great Lakes shipping channels costs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between twenty and thirty million dollars annually.[9] Shipping, however, generates over thirty billion dollars in annual revenues for the region.[10] Almost one-third of dredged material from the entire Great Lakes system – approximately 800,000 cubic yards – originates in the Maumee Bay adjacent to the City of Toledo. Dredgescaping Toledo proposes a series of tactics that we have termed tributaries, islands, sponges, and lakes to expand the geologics of dredge.

The expanded geologics — integrating social, cultural, and ecological factors to the logistical system. Image © The Open Workshop

As Toledo grew beyond its urban core, its fabric encircled the industrial lands that first colonized the riverfront. These lands are still extremely productive – the port of Toledo is ranked seventh in the Great Lakes in total tonnage, generating nearly seventy million dollars in personal income and supporting fifty thousand regional jobs.[11] While these industrial lands are vital to the city’s economic health, they have forged a wall between the expanded city and water. A continuous linear public waterfront is perceived as a cultural catalyst for gentrification in struggling cities such as Toledo, though here rendered implausible. Instead of negating industry, this study employs a series of connectors between land and water – tributaries – that provide a public easement and access through the port’s terrain vague while seldomly interfering with the industrial lands and processes themselves.

Presently, Toledo’s dredged material is disposed of in an existing two square mile open-lake placement area, located at the mouth of the Maumee River. Not only has this disposal technique been associated with inciting algae blooms in Lake Erie that suppress aquatic ecosystems,[12] but by dumping this material far from the City of Toledo it is difficult to leverage as a public amenity. Due to the Maumee River’s narrow width, steady flow, and considerable shipping routes, it is impractical to dispose of this dredge sediment in the river itself. We see this material as being capable of creating vital and lacking public waterfront lands for the city. Working within the geologics of dredging, we ask how land can be operationalized in its different states of matter – from slurry to soils – and cleanliness – from partially contaminated to remediated – to enable the co-existence and symbiosis of industry and public life.  Our proposal utilizes a series of geotube pontoon islands to process the dredged slurry in close proximity to the city.

Island States: from dewatering / public program to remediation / wetland. Image © The Open Workshop

Geotubes are massive ‘sand bags’ fabricated from flexible geotextiles that hold and dewater newly extracted dredge slurry. Dredge material is pumped directly into these bags, and over the course of three months purified water slowly seeps out. What is critical about this technology is that the tubes can be fabricated in a variety of sizes and are easily filled, deployed, emptied, stored, and transported. This enables dredge slurry (both water and sediment) to be dewatered and remediated in close proximity to the city of Toledo without disrupting draft depths or navigation routes. Geotubes can be inhabited during the dewatering phase as islands and treated as public land. During the dewatering phase, these islands host a series of programed platforms that connect to the easement tributaries, forming a poly-nuclear public waterfront – an evolving archipelago. These pontoons are grouped into larger figures to provide different programmatic opportunities for a city starved of public space and access to water. This disaggregated approach to managing dredge sediment establishes a highly flexible and resilient system, as temporal public land is incrementally deployed alongside and within the dredge cycle and can therefore be calibrated to seasonal changes, festival and event schedules, or the general needs and desires of local citizens. This inserts a bottom-up, tactical, and iterative approach to forming public space within the geologics of dredge.

After the dewatering period, the public island platforms are removed and reinserted into newly dredged pontoons, while the dewatered pontoons are ‘unzipped’ and hydro-seeded for a phase of phytoremediation. These floating wetlands are connected to the stormwater culverts and detention basins that are integrated within the easement tributaries. Once the sediment is remediated and safe for open-lake placement, the soil in the pontoons is mixed with a rare-earth bentonite and water solution, which acts as a sponge to suppress and absorb algae growth. This allows territorial issues like harmful algae blooms or other specific ecologies to the lake to be addressed in an appropriate timescale. The sealed geotubes are then tugged into the bay and the slurry is distributed throughout Lake Erie. Over several years, this process is anticipated to return Lake Erie to its original nutrient composition. The emptied geotube pontoons can be either reinserted into the dredge process or stored, depending on the season.

Dredge is mixed with a bentonite rare-earth solution to absorb phosphorus and suppress algae. Image © The Open Workshop

The last component of this design study examines how the dredge cycle can more robustly interface with the hydrological cycles of water management in the city. Due to a large number of combined sewer overflow events, the Environmental Protection Agency has mandated new forms of stormwater management for Toledo. While the city contemplates a series of hard infrastructures and the consolidation of stormwater onto three sites, our proposal investigates how a distributed approach to water management can reduce contaminants caused by the large distances traveled by stormwater run-off, and once again, disaggregate a sizable (and potentially expensive) problem into a series of distributed soft components. The study proposes the employment of foreclosed home sites in Toledo as a series of distributed detention basins. These ‘waiting lands’ are operationalized by creating a perimeter curb of dredge-filled bags around the house and property line to allow stormwater to fill these sites and reduce pressure on the sewer system. In total, this ‘distributed lake’ consists of an area of land equivalent to the three sites currently set aside by the city. Further, public platforms from the islands could be placed on these lots – resting on the curb foundations – to enable local neighborhood public programs when not in use on the river.

The proposed geologics of dredge enable local environments and citizens as well as territorial transformations to co-evolve with and through the dredge cycle. The expansion of ‘beneficial uses’ that moves beyond sediment repurposing requires engaging with the system of dredging itself and asking how it can be a resource to cities and their ecologies. This strategy has the potential to implicate new subjects into what was once a top-down linear system. While the health and growth of industry instigates dredging operations, these operations also accelerate erosion and therefore more dredging. This means that where industry is steady or flourishing, dredging operations are continually increasing in scope. Dredged sediment acts as a material index to the prosperity of industry, yet in mid-sized towns with industrial waterfronts, how this new land is processed and disposed of can be advantageously reconsidered. While dredge material is often used to create new lands, particularly in cities boasting high real estate values, as the histories of Toronto, Boston, New York, and San Francisco, amongst others has shown, these cities have used these same real estate values to push industry to the periphery and return their waterfronts to the public. In the context of mid-sized cities such as Toledo, where low land values, productive industry along the water, and an associated depravity of public space collide, a system of producing land in a malleable, temporal, transformable, and transportable logic enables the symbiotic co-habitation of industry, culture, and ecology. This positions land not as a commodity to capture and hold, but rather a temporal material state that is iteratively deployed and used by local constituents and then redistributed within a territorial ecology. Within this expanded geologics, culture, politics, economics, and ecology find synergetic opportunities that empower new subjects to be agents within what was once an engineered system of global capital.

References

[1] Brett Milligan, ‘Suites of New Elemental Landscapes’, Ground Up Journal, Issue 2: Grit (University of California Berkeley, 2013), 38.
[2] Brian Davis, ‘Index of Landscape Typology: Easements’. In: Neeraj Bhatia and Mary Casper (eds,), The Petropolis of Tomorrow (Barcelona: Actar, 2013), pp. 402.
[3] US Army Corps of Engineers, ‘About Dredging’. [access] (accessed 8 February 2016).
[4] Dredge Research Collaborative, ‘Packaging Sludge and Silt’. In: Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse (eds.), Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life (Punctum Books 2012). [access]
[5] Stephen Becker, Rob Holmes, Tim Maly, Brett Milligan, ‘Dredge’. In: Neeraj Bhatia and Lola Sheppard (eds.), Bracket [Goes Soft] (Barcelona: Actar 2013), pp. 154.
[6] W.J. Vlasblom, ‘Introduction to Dredging Equipment’. In: Designing of Dredge Equipment, (TU Delft, 2005). [access] (accessed 8 February 2016).
[7] In the context of the Great Lakes, The U.S Army Corps of Engineers estimates that thirty-seven percent of dredged sediment is placed in open waters, while forty-five percent is placed in CDFs. See: Great Lakes Commission, Building more Sustainability into Great Lakes dredged material Management, (Great Lakes Dreading Team, December 2015), pp. 3. [access] (accessed 8 February 2016).
[8] Great Lakes Commission, Testing and Evaluating Dredged Material for Upland Beneficial Uses: A Regional Framework for the Great Lakes, (Ann Arbor: Great Lakes Commission, 2004).
[9] Ibid., Great Lakes Commission, (2015).
[10] Great Lakes Dredging Team, Beneficial Use of Dredge Material in the Great Lakes (Great Lakes Commission, March 2013), pp. 2. [access] (accessed 8 February 2016).
[11] US Army Corps of Engineers, Great Lakes Navigation System Five Year Development Plan Fact Sheets, (Cincinnati: Stakeholders Meeting Report, 2006), pp. 96.
[12] Ibid., Great Lakes Commission, (2015).

Project Credits
Office: The Open Workshop
Team: Neeraj Bhatia (Lead), Anesta Iwan, Cesar Lopez, Jeremy Jacinth
Year: 2014

Introducing Volume #47: The System*
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The Project of a Collective Line
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Geographies of Uncertainty: Space and Territory in the Operational Logic of UPS
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Coup De Grâce
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This article was shared in collaboration with Volume Magazine. You can buy a copy of The System*, re-designed by Irma Boom and Julia Neller, here.

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© Sergio Grazia

• Architects: ATELIER 2+1
• Location: 23 Rue de la Rochefoucauld, 75009 Paris, France
• Area: 2500.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Sergio Grazia

© Sergio Grazia

From the architect. The program, conducted in the psychiatric sector of a hospital, required the restructuring of the headquarters and the rehabilitation of the Institute, together with the building of a new extension of 2300 m2. Atelier 2 + 1 was involved in all of the developing the program and in participating in the definition of the requirements with the relevant services and the patients.

© Sergio Grazia

The existing building consisted of two perpendicular structures of which the facades were maintained to comply with the provision of ABF (Les architectes des bâtiments de France): a Haussmann building overlooking the street, with a vaulted porch, and a right wing with a modern structure dating from the 1960’s. A dreary courtyard was used as parking. The extension which encloses this courtyard now provides continuity and consistency between all the different levels of Haussmann and modern buildings.

Floor Plan

The three buildings, including the new restaurant on the ground foor, open today on a new mineral square, which generates light. Above all, this patio symbolizes the desire of the agency to provide soothing living spaces in this health care environment.

© Sergio Grazia

As further evidence, the multipurpose room to be found on the first floor and the two spa rooms installed in the basement. This design also made it possible to simplify and optimize the labyrinth that was used as a place of passage.

Existing Sections

The mirror effect of the glass extension reflects the distinct character of the two other buildings and brings in the nearby city. The access from the street to the paved courtyard and vice-versa makes it easy for the patients, the majority of whom are ambulatory, to have access to the place with a friendly atmosphere.

© Sergio Grazia

In this specific environment, the work was carried out in occupied site with special attention to the welfare of the patients and that of the Institute ‘staff.

© Sergio Grazia

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© Shai Epstein

• Architects: BE architects
• Location: HaSharon, Israel
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Shai Epstein

© Shai Epstein

From the architect. The house was designed for a sixty year old couple. Prior to construction the building site was characterized by flat and natural forestry.

© Shai Epstein

At the first meeting after receiving the program, I presented two basic alternatives to the customer the plan that was selected was for the trees on site to dictate the planning of the home.

© Shai Epstein

The initial planning incorporated placing a rigid square criss crossed with porous holes , the effect of the division within the square is similar to the closed and open spaces of the home i.e the covered and non-covered area depending on the location of the trees.

Plan

This is like laying an outstretched extended hand between the trunks out of a desire to preserve them as much as possible.

© Shai Epstein

Upon diving into the detailed planning, the rigid frame of the square was broken, and the house was divided into three parts: a central one which connects to two secondary parts through two “connectors” – which are narrow transparent passages. Among the three wings – Courtyard retains the natural state of the area prior to the construction and the fourth area there is a bridge, which in effect defines an internal space beneath the open sky, while below is the garden.

© Shai Epstein

Most of the house is characterized by openings that reach from the floor to the ceiling on all sides of the house, except for the West, which is shaded this blurs the transition between interior and exterior, creating a constant shading on the primary openings.

© Shai Epstein

Central Division: Space height of about 4 m includes, dining area, kitchen and storage room. This space functions additionally for a t dining table, seating area and outdoor kitchen.

© Shai Epstein

The south rear wing includes: bedroom, bathroom and walk-in closet.

The north wing towards the street includes: guest room, bathroom, kitchenette and a den / office. Glass walls on its exterior characterize this division. The study, which is located at the eastern end, is open on three sides to a natural forest.

© Shai Epstein

The ceiling height in the secondary spaces is 3 m.

The vegetation has been added to the existing vegetation is characterized mainly local vegetation such as olives, oaks, figs, etc. 

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© Mario Wibowo

• Architects: D-Associates
• Location: Bali, Indonesia
• Partner In Charge: Gregorius Supie Yolodi
• Senior Project Architect: Maria Rosantina
• Design: C.Kunti Dewanggani.
• Area: 1013.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Mario Wibowo

• Interior Consultant : Sammy Hendramianto for Hadiprana
• Structure Engineer : Krisna Triadi
• Mep Consultant: Rusman Riady
• Lighting Design: d-associates architect
• Contractor : Paul Tendean ( PT.CKBP)
• Review : Amanda Achmadi

© Mario Wibowo

From the architect. Boutique resort and villa design developments on the island of Bali are well-known for their extravagant attempts to stage a lush tropical getaway embellished with reproductions of craftsmanship associated with the exotic ‘Balinese’ atmosphere. Against this backdrop, D-Associates’ pursue of a humble sense of home away from home in Bali is a rare undertaking. The brief is simple, to design a villa for an extended Indonesian family in Sanur, one of the most iconic Southern Balinese settlements and the island’s most established tourist destinations. Not dealing with the Western world’s imagination of a somewhat ‘Balinese’ exoticism, here we are encountering a more subtle appreciation of the calm tropical landscape of Sanur. The villa is envisioned as a family retreat set in a tropical landscape, a contrast to their Jakarta living, while learning from a particular aspect of spatial configuration of Bali’s indigenous dwelling architecture: an emphasis in breaking up the volume of a house and in blurring the inside and outside spaces.

© Mario Wibowo

On a long rectangular shape 1277 M2 site, the main structure of the two-storey villa is located near the long southern side, while creating a generous open area of pool and lawn on the northern side. This configuration allows all the rooms in the villa — four bedrooms each equipped with its own bathrooms, living, dining, and kitchen to all be opened on both their south and northern sides (avoiding the direct east west sun direction of the tropic) with the lawn and the pool becoming the main focal points throughout the villa. From the neighbourhood street, the considerably tall massing of the main volume of the villa is set back and scaled down through a strategic configuration of the front part of the site where an enclosed carport area, a landscaped front yard (with a pond) and a foyer pavilion with a flat wooden roof act as a humble entry court to the house. Further toning down the volumetric composition, each of the structural elements are covered by a distinct natural building material — the heavy grey river stonewall as the carport enclosure, the timber columns and screen of the foyer, the unfinished concrete pathway softened by the landscaped garden and the pond. 

© Mario Wibowo

The foyer pavilion is a reference to the aling-aling element in Balinese dwelling compound, a transitional screen element where the act of entering one’s house is emphasised as a kind of procession that marks where the private space of a house begins. In this project, D-Associates spatialises this traditionally surface like architectural element into a small foyer space enclosed and supported by a row of recycled ulin timber (previously used as railway track sleepers).

Section

The main structure of the villa inside is divided into two volumes of space: the upper level area is configured as a floating dark wooden box sheltering over the lower level area, a contrastingly open and light transparent volume that acts as a platform of family living activities. This strategy again tones down the massing of the villa in order to maintain a sense of home and human scale. The heavy tone of the dark coloured ulin timber and plywood finishing of the upper volume introduces warmness into the villa from the strong tropical sun. The lower volume appears more as a platform of space that merges with the pool and the garden due to the lightness of its enclosing elements: the pilotis like row of thin round concrete columns painted in white and the floor to ceiling panels of glass windows that can be thoroughly opened. This configuration is also a modern articulation of the rumah panggung (wooden house on poles) typology, a common vernacular dwelling type built in tropical region in Southeast Asia.

© Mario Wibowo

An anchor to the whole composition is a two-storey height sheltered terrace breaking the long massing of the villa in the middle. This tall terrace space is a spatial bridge that connects the upper level (which contains all the private bedroom units) and the lower level (which contains all the living spaces), the internal living spaces and the surrounding landscape. It amplifies a sense of lightness and openness into this otherwise large structure (with a total floor area of 1013 M2). By using the same finishing materials indoor and outdoor, the boundary between the inside and outside is blurred, maximising the family’s experiencing of retreating into the landscape of Bali.

© Mario Wibowo

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© Jeong Taeho

• Architects: TUNEplanning
• Location: Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Area: 867.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Jeong Taeho

© Jeong Taeho

From the architect. Our has completed recently a building with the architectural elements same to had been used at our previous project Dayang Sanghoi at Pyeongchang-dong introduced on this korea magazine in September of 2014.

However, this project isn’t a series of the project at Pyeongchang-dong.

© Jeong Taeho

Saying that we has concentrated on the world of Lee U Fan’ artwork, a master of Monoha which gives object fundamental existence and emphasizes relation between object and object, object and human, by presenting the materials such as wood, stone, clay, steel sheet and paper as we are without touching them.

© Jeong Taeho

Mono of Mono Ha means ‘object’ in Japanese, and Mono Ha is an art trend in 1960s and 1970s of Japan originated in the interest about object.

© Jeong Taeho

Lee U Fan’s viewpoint on the object is just relation between object and world.

Just as Lee U Fan’s artwork ‘Relatum’ thrown unintentionally forms relation with objects placed around it such as steel and glass, this project looks like several stones thrown unintentionally on the site of Seoul.

Section D

It is new attempt proceeded by Tune Planning through its own approach, as an artwork of Lee U Fan forms relation with world though minimum intervention.

Client had a plan to build a building for rental at the area around Hongik University, and proposed that all the accesses to each floor are separated in order to be used independently because it might be rented by different tenants respectively.

Model

Spaces of each floor with private stairway and terrace are not the interior of building but the separate space for forming relation with its surroundings.

© Jeong Taeho

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© HU Yijie

• Architects: Wutopia Lab
• Location: Shanghai, Shanghai, China
• Architect In Charge: YU Ting
• Design Team: XIA Murong, GE Yufei, WANG Suyu, LIU Qicai, YU Junfeng
• Area: 39.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: HU Yijie

• Epc: PSA Associate

© HU Yijie

Located on the top level of no. 23 at 389 Lane, East Jinling Road, the Dream Reformer’s Tower House was originally a water tower constructed in the 1920s and rebuilt in the 1980s. It had a total area of 39m2 and two floors connected by a ladder, which was occupied by the kitchen. The house had been in such a bad state of disrepair that it almost seemed a ruin. 

Diagram

The architect regarded the Tower House as a spatially complex system consisting of a new house stuck in the old structure. Based on the ergonomic module system of the six homeowners, the designer reorganized the functional layout of the interior, striving to create new spaces with maximum economy and comfort. The designer dismissed the idea of a supposedly convenient, “Transformers”-inspired approach, but instead tried to simplify every design to serve a single functional purpose; when joined together, such singularities would constitute variety.

© HU Yijie

The interior variety is first embodied in functional aspects. Combining the owners’ requirements with unexpected details developed from them, the designer came up with a wish-list program of more than 140 items. Specifically, he avoided infringing upon the owners’ wishes by the excuse of his own aesthetics. Next comes spatial variety: taking advantage of the L-shaped staircase, the designer allows a spatial and local narrative to unfold on seven different levels. He deliberately discards uniform visual control and the so-called architectural logic, but instead creates dramatic scenarios on various nodes, forming rounds of climaxes. Rather than being fabricated, such dramatic scenarios are derived from interviews with the owners. Finally there is variety in the owners’ life, as well as in the new possibilities that the complex system provided by the designer would stimulate him to develop. Though small, this complex system may expect to have a more enduring lifecycle guaranteed by variety and certain self-organization. 

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Diagram

The complex system has a blurry boundary, and, due to its commanding height in the old neighborhood, each window presents a borrowed view to the interior. Carefully devised skylights, deliberately treated maple-leaf wall and the kid’s room with painted walls break the definite climate boundary. Such indefiniteness is ultimately embodied in the patio that is conceived as a vertical garden, and in the flexible climate boundary formed by the facade. As a result, the interior of this complex system is more like a sophisticated world rather than an ordinary architectural interior.

© HU Yijie

Still, this complex system is subject to regulations in terms of the boundary between itself and the community outside. According to the suggestions of the administrative department, no alterations should be made to the external profiles of the Tower House. Following these profiles, the designer carefully renovated the exterior walls, patio and roof, reorganized the drainage system and painted the whole house together with the rooms downstairs. On the other hand, the designer was free to redesign externally inaccessible areas such as the interior elevation of the patio and the attic facade. They are skillfully concealed in the second layer behind the renovated profiles, making the exterior elevation and the interior space appear to have two design logics, when in fact they are but different aesthetic variations of the same design logic derived from the old building’s intertwined structure. Apart from basic functions for living, the design explored more uses that are beyond the owner’s expectation, such as the kid’s room, the exterior-like communicational space, etc. The renovation features comfortable spaces with pleasant scale. 

© HU Yijie

The small, complex system of the Tower House forms a response to the other un-renovated households in the water tower, while the repainted tower in its turn forms a response to the whole neighborhood. As the architect insists on a light intervention with the urban interface, the completed work of renovation remains unperceived by the residents after having redefined the relationship between the house, the water tower, the neighborhood and the city.

All the deliberately reserved design ambition is ultimately fulfilled in the roof plan, a surrealist scene of a silver roof floating above a sea of red roofs, which greatly transformed the negative impact of this old neighborhood. A tower house within the view, the renovated building constitutes a view in its own right. 

© HU Yijie

The new episode Dream Home Renovation (season two) produced by Shanghai Oriental TV Station is a renovation project of a residential water tower on East Jinling Rd. The tower used to be a tube-like building for storing water, with elevations no wider than 4 meter. Under the tower is the main channel for the residents of the housing estate. After the Cultural Revolution, the tower is transformed into a civilian house to improve the residents’ livelihood. Columns are built up on the ground floor so that the upper floors can be extended southward. Since then, the eight columns have supported the four families living above, each family occupying a floor.

In the water tower home lived the grandparents and their granddaughter. Their biggest hope is that the son and daughter-in-law can also live here after the renovation. Clothing, living, food and transportation, all basic necessities are contained in this 39-square-meter-space.

© HU Yijie

The architect added a mezzanine to the original two floors. Seemingly the space is squeezed, but because of the split level, rooms with different function actually become alienated, creating longer “journey” between each space..

“Squeeze”, namely the establishment of the split level, breaks the original gathered space into scattered individual space, Meanwhile, privacy is guaranteed in each individual space. But this is not enough, the architect wants to create “journey” between different rooms, and enhance the experience of the transaction between “indoor” and “outdoor” space within the house. For example, the corridor with red maple leaf wall, is a combination of the interior façade design with skylight facing the aquarium and bay window of the children’s room. It produces a sense of living in a series of small houses connected by outdoor environment, instead of living in a closed chamber.

© HU Yijie

The owner wanted to have a roof garden on the sloped roof. However a vertical garden was placed on the balcony instead, considering the safety problem and uncertainty of the future. The proper reconstruction of the outer facade is also a kind of attitude of the designer. Even if it is to change a small individual, a positive response is still necessary for the negative urban space.

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