POSITION
When looking at the themes of space exploration and extra-terrestrial mining besides the course demands of making a circular building certain clashes come to mind.
Designing a circular building for an insanely polluting industry seems very contradictory and made me wonder why we should even build circular.
Designing a circular building for an insanely polluting industry seems very contradictory and made me wonder why we should even build circular.
I am also presuming that the industry will not carry the answers to saving the earth from accelerated global warming, at least not in time before the deadline that would make whole continents inhabitable because of draughts and floodings. I think answers need to be found on earth and pretending we have a “planet B” is very harmful to this progress.
Therefore, I think this program is temporary, it is one of the spectacles that we as humankind, the spectator, have chosen as a diversion from what is happening around us. We choose to look up, and not around us.
PROJECT
The control room I have designed is placed within a 3d printed structure. The structure is permanent, it is a monument for the spectator. The monument will be built before the temporary functions have been added to it, and it will remain standing after the temporary spectacle has been removed. Spectators will have an everlasting need for the spectacle, the monument lends itself to house the next spectacle.
The organic structure follows natural topographic lines and looks out over an impressive landscape, which in the case of the control room spectacle has been filled in with anti- Russia defence radars, and rocket launch platforms. The control room and its requisite program have been placed within and on top of the monument for the spectator. The temporary program has been constructed from light and deconstructable materials, making it easy to remove when a new spectacle has to take the stage. The floor that has been added will have glass all around the façade giving it good views but also making it look as light as possible from the outside of the building. The permanent spectator structure is made from 3d printed clay locally obtained. The material will stand as long as people take care of it, but will also naturally decay if not, leaving behind only the foundation of a by-gone time.
