CANADIAN ARCHITECT 12/16
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CONSTELLATIONS OF THE IN-BETWEEN
ARCHITECTURAL SPECULATIONS IN METRO VANCOUVER’S INTERSTICES Lőrinc Vass The University of British Columbia (Thesis Advisor: Blair Satterfield)
In cities, usage patterns overlap, collide and shift—between groups, across history and over the course of a single day. This thesis project selects five interstitial locations across Metropolitan Vancouver that are characterized by ambiguous or contested relationships between spatial jurisdiction and temporal occupation. An architectural intervention poised between realism and provocation is presented for each site. By responding to multiple viewpoints, the proposals have a transformative effect. Among the sites is Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6, the repatriated vestige of a Squamish Nation reserve, where a series of large scale acoustic mirrors are proposed to engender provisional connections across the territory.
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In a second instance, a greenway where a natural gas pipeline slices diagonally through a suburb is populated by collapsible shelters, which facilitate communal gathering. A set of floating shacks on the edge of Vancouver’s mudflats invites squatting, while doubling as nodes in a system of tidal booms. A fourth episode proposes a series of canopies for Burnaby’s infamous winter roosting site of northwestern crows, providing civic amenities for both human and avian occupation. Finally, a series of parking silos responds to the uneasy coexistence of assembly and agricultural uses along Richmond’s “Highway to Heaven,” allowing both activities to expand beyond their conventional zoning boundaries.
2016-11-29 10:39 AM