new haven CONNECTICUT
LUNAR CRATER CULTURAL CENTER COMPETITION
Third Place — $300
suckerPUNCH: Describe your project:
amy DEDONATO: The Moon can be described as a ‘non-site’—a vacuous, untamed territory lacking limitation (gravity, vertical boundaries, atmosphere, temperature, edges, etc.) The project proposes a lunar city of culture that develops according to predetermined constraints. The outer wall of the urban complex serves as an infrastructural frame, one that maintains the cultural center’s artificial atmosphere, power supply, and transportation hubs. Growth of the cultural center develops inward along the infrastructural frame and its cross supply axes until its internal growth reaches maximum capacity.
As a highly contained enclave, the project develops through its inherent contradiction: controlled chaos. The figure’s interior produces a world of ad hoc experimentation, growth patterns, and micro-climates, yet its chaos develops within the constraints of a highly defined armature preventing the possibility of “lunar sprawl.” Throughout its lifetime, the zone becomes a cultural center for moon-bound tourists, as well as a testing ground for architectural ideas.
sP: What or who influenced this project:
aD:Pier Vittorio Aureli, Calvino’s “The Distance of the Moon,” Charles Fourier’s Phalanstère model, Walter Benjamin, Aldo Rossi, forts, medieval city walls, and my good friend and colleague, Miroslava Brooks.
sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?
aD: I was reading the Arcades Project. I was eating homemade tamale soup.
sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
aD: Piranesi, DOGMA, and Kanye West.
Additional links: amydedonato.com
Jury comments:
michael SZIVOS: The danger here seems to be taking a piece of earth and placing it on the Moon. A solution that simply walls off and encloses a portion of the moonscape does not curate or propose a strategy. It simply seems to provide the most basic need: atmosphere. I am afraid of what a blank state would provide for developers interested in space tourism, assuming they are crazier than the ones in the Middle East. If this project is propaganda about what can go wrong, it is great; if it is an actual proposal, it is unsettling.
jimenez LAI: This project showed the best understanding of part-to-whole relationship by framing a colony, instead of cropping it. It is elemental and messy in a clean way. It also considers the legibility of the project viewing from earth, the only project that really does that. As well, it shows restraint toward the outline that borders vacuum beyond. Nice touch with the Kowloon Walled City reference.
john SZOT: This entry is daring in its open-minded embrace of what makes for a beautiful city. The brazen introduction of an arbitrarily square precinct on the Moon’s surface sets the stage for an anything-goes scenario; it promises the best of the bold and the banal—a truly well-rounded idea that forms the basis for what would be a legitimately vibrant lunar community.
January 13th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Despite having the ability to fly us to a world of fantasies in architecture, this project—nor the other previous honorary mentioned ones—were not even close to start exploring a “Lunar” world of freedom that we as audience for this competition are expecting to find. In my eyes this project in particular is unfortunately closer to a cemetery typology in fact than it is to a 2012 futuristic architecture; not to mention a further more developed Lunar/ space typography for that matter.
January 14th, 2012 at 10:03 am
If it is a dark artistic stance through a series of badly photoshopped collages, I’d consider this proposal as art.
But I can’t see anything close to architecture or design. What is happening? I used to visit this website for inspiration and I was eagerly waiting for my mind to be blown off by the outcome of this competition. Those two projects that got honorable mention may not be top notch material but this certainly is shouldn’t be above them.
There is space, moon, low gravity in the mixture and this is what you come up with? Come on!
January 14th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
300$ for the Moon`s first cemetry. Sad to say that the Cathedral got only a honorable mention….
January 15th, 2012 at 7:12 am
This really looks like Albert Speer finally found a nice spot for his megalomaniac ideas. A huge wall with arcades?! Come on…
By the way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEueJnsu80&skipcontrinter=1
January 15th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Personally, I like the nazi cemetery on the moon aesthetic…
The section is KILLER… so much detail
Who gives a shit if photoshop was used. It isn’t a competition on the methods of producing representation. It is an IDEAS competition. I find the ideas expressed and implied in this project to be far more profound and interesting than what has been posted so far.
It is refreshing to see something as sobering as a square put on the moon and not just another spidery hernan project that struggles to find enclosure. In essence it is taking a nihilistic stance toward the ‘design freedoms’ traditionally associated with the moon, which is a very compelling formal argument.
January 16th, 2012 at 4:58 am
Although I agree with Yo’s opinion that it is a competition about ideas, and methods shouldn’t be discussed; I can’t see a specialty relating to the Moon. I mean, a “chaotic experiment zone” idea is wonderful, but it is very strong as an idea rather than design.
I also I agree with Anton; there are fantastic de-facto design opportunities and this project does not bother playing with them. However I wouldn’t prefer a swishy swooshy design without a strong statement.
All said, I feel attracted to the idea, but not to what I see here. Design-wise, this idea could be executed very differently.
January 16th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Where to start?
1) Assuming colonizing on the moon was possible would you put a square surrounded by tall and ugly walls. I don’t think it is a design.
2) Everything inside those walls seem to be randomly copy-pasted from any available drawing from internet. And I don’t think it is design.
3) Scale is confusing throughout the project.
The project is all over the place and what makes it more sad is it won the third place. Really?
January 16th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
just PATHETIC !
February 7th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
http://www.cosmicinspirocloud.com/post/3668595592/pier-vittorio-aureli-from-the-ruins-of-the