vienna AUSTRIA

THIRD PLACE - $300
williamsburg waterfront performance venue competition

suckerPUNCH: describe your project.

sahand AHMADIAN TEHRANI + dena SAFFARIAN: Inspired by the mechanisms of self-organization and bottom-up adaptations of cities, we propose (instead of a final answer to the program) a network of “infrastructure” capable of hosting a multiplicity of configurations for the original program as well as undetermined scenarios and future programs.

The trellis and the landscape together - the infrastructural network - will create a highly differentiated field of qualities and atmospheres, enabling and encouraging event designers (or the end users themselves) to improvise ad-hoc stage setups, enclosures, etc. according to the needs of each event and in relation to specific spatial qualities of each spot in this heterogeneous field.

Design Strategy:

Stage 1: The landscape is the only part having a top-down design, and acts much like a zoning master plan for the second stage.
Stage 2: The trellis is grown over the landscape by a swarm of interacting semi-autonomous agents, interpreting the qualities of the landscape in each step and reacting to these qualities (discontinuities, openness, etc.) and to each other (density, structural combination, etc.) to create a framework, a base for improvisation.
Stage 3: Provided with adequate information on the structural and technical capacities of the framework (color-coded on the structural elements), event designers are encouraged to improvise their design and “complete” the building for the single event. The infrastructural network will ensure a coherent architectural image for the waterfront venue, independent of how each event is spatially and materially designed.

sP: what or who influenced this project?

Urban Dynamics / Agent Based Modeling / Self-Organized Growth of Cities.
Constant’s New Babylon / Lebbeus Woods’ Freespace / Yona Friedman’s Spatial City.

sP: what were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?

Reading:
Non-Plan, Cities and Complexity

Listening to:
Faramarz Assef’s Haji, Grim Fandango OST, Chris Clark, Aphex Twin

Watching:
Salvia Dreams

Thanks to araz AZARNEJAD and saj

maxi SPINA: Very interesting approach to frame the space that houses large crowds of people through a piping mega structure. In doing so, the project brings up infrastructural memories of the recent past of Brooklyn related to the railroad and the port. While the assembly strategy for the structure is definitely a plus of the proposal, it would be interesting to see how some of the space between the piping could be covered in order to provide real shelter below.