A Space For Past And Future

Politecnico di Milano, Polytechnic University of Milan, School of Design

Project idea

A Space For Past And Future, Creating Memory Through The Void
Location: Aleppo/Syria
What is the nature of an experimental action? It is simply an action, the outcome of which is not foreseen.

The reality with which we were confronted when we tried to understand and impose a logic on the site was the absence of scale and the absence of spatial continuity. In the first phases we tried to impose an axial logic on the site but we quickly came to understand that this specific site cannot be explained understood or rationalized in a conventional way.

The spatial rupture surrounding the site manifests itself in the following ways. The wall is an actual barrier allowing no visual or physical contact between the old city and the spaces that exist beyond it, the only point that can be considered as a source or as a point of reference even a genesis is the gate.

The second manifestation of the spatial rupture is the big open space that exists in the western part of our site. The transition between the complexity of the old city and this out of scale compared to the size of the city open space is very violent. Another example of how the scales interlock on this specific area is comparing the area of a typical building in the old city to the axis z of the height of the wall. Lastly, another factor that did not allow us to work in a conventional way is the sheer amount of scales of built elements that co-exist around the site. Our structure is meant to provide a transition between scales. To symbolize the end of the old city and prepare for the transition to the big scale.

Besides the analysis of the urban context we felt the need to create an element that would have a symbolical value. A gate of the gate, a city in the city, a place where people can remember the war, but also a place where they can find peace and be isolated from the violent chaos of the destroyed urban environment. An element that would simultaneously combine all the scales that exist in Aleppo’s complex urban fabric, but would be at the same time isolated from its surroundings, but also anchored to it by its connection to the gate.
The circular shape for the monumental scale was chosen because it represents the structure of time. It has no beginning and no end, it replicates itself and it ends where it started. The interior of this circular space would become the embodiment of absence (the absence cause by the war). Palmyra’s ruins for example, victims of the most recent human ferocity, are witnesses of an ancient culture and symbolize eternity. A people can build their sense of belonging to its timeless roots by its own symbols.

The concept of giving spatial users the opportunity to see the city from above, in a sense, observe it and simultaneously be trapped in another environment was also important. For this reason, the circular structure becomes a platform providing a 180 while at the same time the circular middle space is completely isolated from any activity. Its an end and a beginning, not a passing point.

Project description

AN ARCHITECTURAL NARRATIVE
Starting the designing procedure, we used the determined elements such as the diagonal, the circle and the edge as units of production of space. We could even say that the system that we used could be solving urbanism with architecture. The two elements that we used to design from the core to the edge and from the edge to the core would be the wall (which was used as a generator of perspective).
The wall is an element which in the old city is capable of taking you from the initial to the final ending point of the urban fabric, intertwining, interacting and twisting through public space, courtyards, houses and streets. It’s in itself a unit and a whole. Following it, manipulating and twisting it we worked from edge to core and from core to edge. More than trying to decide boxes with pre-determined functions what we tried to design is a spatial experience, a serial progression of perspectives that each time produce very different volumetric. Our structure is not about fragmentation, its about space, events and movements. Its not about breaking down the void its about the void becoming the source of creation.

The sheer scale of the site was a limit and an opportunity for limitless possibilities in itself. Koolhaas in S, M, L, XL when talking about Bigness declares, in Bigness the distance between core and envelope increases to the point where the façade can no longer reveal what is happening inside. Bigness transforms the city from a summation of certainties to an accumulation of mysteries. WHAT YOU SEE IS NO LONGER WHAT YOU GET. Bigness is no longer part of any urban tissue, it doesn’t care about context. It exists, at most it co-exists.
Bigness no longer needs the city; it competes with the city, it represents the city or better yet it is the city.

SPATIAL NEED OF THE USER VS COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE-USE AND CONSTRUCTION AS SEPARATE DISCIPLINES : A PROGRAMMATIC SEQUENCE BASED ON CODES OF ASSEMBLAGE

In what concerns the functional part or the program part the structure would in itself be a model of programmatic alchemy. Alchemy in the sense that its different elements constantly interact with its host environment (the urban fabric) and its activities and functions are constantly changing, adapting themselves each time to the new needs. The relation between formal elaboration of spaces and the setting of programs becomes something that is very fluid. Relationships between functional entities that mostly expand rather than limit their identities.

Technical information

Space-Event-Movement
What was important for us was also that architecture become the machine that engineers the unpredictable. Social and symbolic connotations characterize a programmatic sequence that is not based on predetermined functions, but rather become a series of halting points where events take place. More like a family of spatial points linked by continuous movement, movement that is framed each time by the wall. Spontaneity was also an important element for us. Since the structure acts somehow like a city in the city we did not try to imitate but rather recreate the spontaneity of events and rituals which are the substance of any city.
As we go from the bigger to the smaller scale we can notice an increase in complexity. The buildings are not flexible in the sense that they are modular but are composed of a structure that allows them to be fluid. The buildings become nuclei that are bound together by a relation of dependence and interdependence, by a relationship of togetherness and solidarity.
What must be underlined is that buildings are unstable systems in dynamic environments, the war in Aleppo is the ultimate example of how instability can affect the substance of a city or of a building. This procedure is not about adding program to predefined volumes but more like adding events to an autonomous spatial sequence. And that in itself would be a form of motivation to incite people to use the structure.

Our goal would be to imagine the current phase of the programmatic ensemble of the structure and this current phase would contain activities, events and rituals related with the reconstruction and the needs and programs that are a result of the post war situation. At the same time the buildings should be fluid enough to adapt themselves according to the way the city, culture and needs will develop. This fluidity is not about creating something modular that can be adapted by others, it’s ultimately about polyvalence and flexibility. A flexible plan is not adapted, it adapts itself.

The built volumes are not what Tschumi would call building billboards –which are buildings read at a first glance, but can be described as a plurality of interpretations rather than a singular fact
NEUTRAL BUILDINGS
Neutral buildings are characterized by polyvalence, so they are composed from a system of spaces (or ‘rooms’) that can be used for various purposed.
Even if the urban fabric changes the structure is destined to always work. Apart from the axis of the souk anchoring it to the location the structure is independent of its surroundings but its essence is fluid enough to adapt to the social conditions that impact its surrounding environment.