PART II: THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS
[Part II]
3 | POROSITY AND MOVEMENT In January 2024, the students of Berlin: Close Encounters design studio and I entered the AIV Schinkel Competition 2024 with a brief entitled the day after tomorrow. The competition provided the exciting opportunity bridge the gap between the two proposals in the thesis and to continue to speculate our themes of exchange and co-existence. As part of our competition entry, we chose to expand and redeploy ideas established in The Park in Motion and to create a scheme that would be aimed at a specific group of people: the residents of the Berlin Blocks of Schöneberg. The AIV Competition brief opened with the following quote: "Yesterday the earth was a disc, today it is a sphere; what will it be tomorrow? What will it be the day after tomorrow?" The brief offered us the freedom to solve a task at an urban planning and architectural scale. Faced with an immediate point of reflection, the brief encouraged us to ask ourselves, what do we want to see in tomorrow's Berlin? We believed Schöneberg had our answer. In Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life by David Sim, a rather extensive research environment was establish, part of a wider movement at the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in the mid-1960s. Their collective goal for around 40 years was to develop research into people-orientated architecture and city planning. Not only did their efforts have a major influence on the development of Copenhagen creating one of the most livable cities in the world, but has also started a brand that has over the years been applied to other cities across Europe. David Sim taught me that there is a huge significance in the small and its the small that is the everyday experience of life in a city. We channeled our design efforts into creating a series of architectures with the aim of encouraging the residents of each block to connect with one another through common activity. Each block would house a different kind of sport or music specialism; access would be created on each of the four sides and would only be permitted to resident part of the scheme (to maintain a degree of privacy that is enjoyed by the residents). The lending library facilities would provide equipment for loan in the same fashion as The Park in Motion, providing financial autonomy to those who wish to take up an instrument or sport of their choosing. Integrated into this process of exchange, would be a celebratory carnival that would be held under the elevated railway spanning between Nollendorfplatz and BÜlowstrasse once a year, to put on a public display of talent yearned through their commitment to the craft. The architectures aim is to provide the means of conviviality and invigorate a new sense of atmosphere, some of which was lost with the closure of many popular venues. Ultimately, the scheme aims to advocating for healthy, enjoyable and meaningful relationships by being neighbors. pictured | Our competition panel entry for the AIV Schinkel Competition 2024. Our proposal expresses our vision for Schöneberg with The Park in Motion scheme shown in a long transect. The map serves to offer a sense of scale and show the sites relation to one another. The panel includes 2.No 1:50 sectional perspective, the top expressing the materiality of The Park in Motion scheme, the bottom detailing the AIV Schinkel Competition / 5 No. renders of The Park in Motion / SW-Isometric of the scheme digitally modeled in four blocks / 1:2000 map showing site analysis and the intervention implemented in other blocks across Schöneberg / Plan and section of the Potsdamer Strasse block, originally drawn at 1:200 / Urban protocol diagram
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