YES2020 MArch Comprehensive Design Studio Studio 5/5 (Vandermey)

Museum of Truth

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.�

George Orwell - 1984

Museum of Truth

University of Calgary School of Architecture, Landscape, and Planning (SAPL) Master of Architecture EVDA 682.04 - Comprehensive Design Studio

Museum of Truth

Philip Vandermey - Instructor Elizabeth Cook Dustin Dodd Kylene Dupuis Jarrid Hrupp Mojdeh Kamali Gordon Ngo Ugonna Ohakim Edward Park Seung Ho Rhee Laura Sandor Mehakpreet Sidhu Yagmur Yurtbulmus

Cover: Senate House, London. Eileen Orwell worked for the Ministry of Information in this building during WWII.

SPECTACLE - The City of Capital and Leisure

“As the Boomer wave burst through the dams of religion, restraint, boredom, morals and conservation, the following generations are left with the difficult task of defining their place within the flotsam of moral debris. The ungrateful task of cleaning up after the party.”

Charles Bessard & Nanne de Ru, Rien ne va Plus: Architecture in Times of Crisis

“Our starting point is that Canadian oil and gas makes the world a better place. […]

There will be a demand for fossil fuels for years to come and Canada, with its focus on environmental rights and human rights, is ideally positioned to meet that demand.”

Tom Olsen, CEO, Canadian Energy Centre (a.k.a. ‘Alberta War Room’)

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Museum of Truth

Table of Contents 009 017 057

VAHA: Urban Oasis - Mehakpreet Sidhu and Yagmur Yurtbulmus Machine: A Cultural Warehouse - Elizabeth Cook and Laura Sandor 089

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Museum of Truth - Philip Vandermey (Instructor)

Center for New Media - Kylene Dupuis and Edward Park

CTJ: The Center for Truth in Journalism - Dustin Dodd and Jarrid Hrupp

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The Iceberg Center for Urban Agriculture - Gordon Ngo and Seung Ho Rhee 171

Institute of Cultural Genocide - Mojdeh Kamali and Ugonna Ohakim

SPECTACLE - Water Column

Museum of Truth

STUDIO INTRODUCTION We live at an Orwellian moment in history. The crisis of facts that has evolved over the past years has gifted us words such as ‘truthiness’, ‘alternative facts’, ‘fake news’, and ‘truth isn’t truth’. In regions of the world that are suddenly slipping in authoritarian and totalitarian directions, the moment has been described as a ‘Post-truth’era. Does this shift represent the end, or perhaps the beginning of the end, of the Enlightenment - an age committed to the pursuit of truth in the face of religious dogma and political bigotry, a demand for reason and rational justification, and the fight for freedom of speech and freedom of the press?

This Post-truth moment represents a moral crisis. It is an intrinsic contradiction of democracy that truth matters, and also that no one person has the right to define what that truth is - so that the truth can never actually be determined or defined. However, there is a difference between disagreeing on truths and enthusiastically engaging in lying in order to fool the general public - in many cases these lies go unchecked and the better answer, or more truthful answer, does not prevail. The boundaries between fact, opinion, and misinformation are failing, and, with them, the foundation of democracy based on a common understanding of facts and information that we use as the basis for negotiation and compromise. The dangers of unchecked, unquestioned Stalinesque attacks on the press and evidence-based truth is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, and specifically the Ministry of Truth; centralized authoritarian power tends to do well when there is chaos and uncertainty in the world. It is also extremely risky and dangerous to continue this race towards the end of the cliff at a time of environmental crisis, soaring inequality, and rampant capitalistic consumption.

This studio began with the premise that a museum focused on secular morality, atheist humanism, ethical imperatives, and conscientiousness, might serve as a forum for the exploration of important and timely issues and inspire debate.

Yet, is it possible today to imagine a monolithic and universal model of truth? The Museum of Truth responds to the idea that a complex and diverse society must always maintain a constantly negotiated cloud of truths, and undermine the dangers of righteousness that have led to totalitarianism, tragedy, and religious wars in past ages. A composite society with many individual concerns and identities should aim to maintain the subjectivity of the observer, constantly renegotiating the relationship between the self and society within an agonistic process that is valued and protected.

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SPECTACLE - Water Whirl

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Museum of Truth

PROJECT ‘Museum of Truth’ is actually a misnomer, intentionally selected for its similarity to Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. The project is a non-collecting, radically flexible machine for perpetual programmatic instability that is more closely related to a cultural center than a museum; rather than a backwards-looking repository for historical objects, it is a forum for the invention of the culture of tomorrow. 12 students working in teams of two were able to further define and particularize the program of a 2500m2 cultural center.

SITE Each of the projects is located on the north-west portion of the city block in downtown Calgary containing Olympic Plaza, Calgary Commons, Teatro, and the Burns Building. The building site for a 2500m2 cultural center (with a more specific program defined by each student team) is located on the north-west portion of the site - an ‘L’ shaped plot wrapped around the historical building housing Teatro restaurant as well as a bar and offices. The student teams were also each responsible for the redesign of Olympic Plaza - a public space in the city center that includes a stage, an open plaza that can convert into a reflecting pool in summer and ice skating surface in winter, and perimeter raked seating, trees, and benches. Adjacent activities include city hall, a performance arts center, a museum, a large convention center, schools, offices, and religious buildings. Several light rail transit lines pass by the north edge of the site, and a pedestrian-oriented street (Stephen Avenue) runs along the south edge of the site. Busy commuter roads are located to the east and west.

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SPECTACLE - Border Lands

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Museum of Truth

APPROACH Urban Realism - The Good, the Bad, and especially the Ugly While truth is the content, agenda, and program, it is also the intention of the studio to develop an architecture of its time and place. Architecturally, we are interested in normalcy and replication over innovation, anonymous and global contemporary urbanism rather than regional impulses, and a totality of design that provides the capacity to interrogate political, economic, and social models in addition to architectural ones. This architecture is less concerned with form and ideology than with the shaping of extant forces, logics, and technologies of our metropolitan condition. It manages the city as it is, and responds to real inputs and conditions, rather than ignoring or denying them, with a focus on something new, different, and external. Urban reality is ugly, not beautiful; chaotic, not visually rational. We inhabit the Non-places of Marc AugĂŠ - we are in them but we do not experience them. The contemporary city is a montage rather than an innovation. Our projects visually simulate the present while programmatically envisioning a utopian vision of a better world.

Heterotopia - Law and Order Modernity is characterized by differentiation. The radical container of the Museum of Truth is a neutral, contingent structure tailored to create ongoing internal contestation, contamination, and infinite programmatic instability. The neutrality of the system creates the laws that will allow for unlimited interior and exterior freedom. Rather than a standalone object, the Museum of Truth will engage its neighbors, invite them in, and encounter them in the spaces in-between. A diversity of opinions is not the same as relativism individuals and societies should not be infallible, opinion should not overwhelm fact, and facts should not be contradicted.

Mirror / Amplifier - Reductio ad Absurdum We test architecture’s capacity to interact with, as well as transform, hidden or embedded shaping forces. Projects in this studio are projective of an optimistic future - a proposal - while simultaneously unmasking an existing condition, reflecting it, and in perhaps even amplifying it. The mirror does not entirely disappear into its context, it is political in its dissidence and antagonism while appropriating themes towards strong formal and cultural reaction.

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VAHA: Urban Oasis

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VAHA: Urban Oasis - Mehakpreet Sidhu and Yagmur Yurtbulmus Our interpretation of the overall concept started with studying the meaning of truth and how each individual experiences truth in a different way, and is mostly reliant on the truth of our senses. We wanted to provide a space for the people that allowed the senses to be fully open and provide a relief from daily busy life. Therefore, our program centered around providing wellness and bathhouse typology spaces in a building together that is fully public and takes advantage of the central location of the site in the middle of Calgary downtown. The cultural center will house bathhouse spaces on the lower level with wellness courtyards on the upper level to bring in light and provide a space for contemplation.

VAHA is an urban sanctuary with a cultural space overlaid in a dense urban environment means to perceive or awaken the truth that inherits ones life. The architecture will provide a place for psychological cleansing allowing spaces fro contemplation that would reveal the nature of the true self. Its is an oasis centered in middle of a dense urban environment. The main choice of material for the project is concrete: board form concrete on the exterior and rough concrete texture in the interior. Timber slats are also used in the interior to being warmth into the meditation courtyard. The organic form of the building allows various sectional qualities to take place. Light is another factor that was given a lot of thought during the design process. Small skylights are placed above the pool spaces to create a unique and contemplative experience. The landscape around the building and in the plaza allows various trees to create a forest like feeling with the light filtering through the canopies.

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Machine: A Cultural Warehouse

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Machine: A Cultural Warehouse - Elizabeth Cook and Laura Sandor Machine is a building that confronts the conformist nature of Calgary. The building also challenges censorship, specifically in the arts community. The lack of a safe space for the arts community to freely express without restriction is limited. Machine aims to provide Calgary with a building that allow for creative liberation and confronts conformity and censorship through materials and transparency. Rotating interconnected floor plates are used to create a container where various cultural events can populate each floor. A relationship between viewer and performer is explored through the way the open to above spaces start to converse with one another. The building camouflages within the downtown area. Reflective glass allows users to confront the conformist nature of Calgary and at night the building becomes a transparent beacon where cultural activities can be seen. The cultural landmark acts as a catalyst that symbolizes the future for the arts community.

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Center for New Media

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Center for New Media - Kylene Dupuis and Edward Park Similar to how Amazon’s fulfillment centers can successfully operate through human-machine interactions, the Centre For new Media aims to create an extroverted architecture that reveals alternate truths of music in media. Built upon a legible grid, the intelligent architecture utilizes music as the common language to communicate and interact with people. Various aspects such as the roof, glazing, and moveable partitions contribute dynamically to this digital discourse on understanding human-machine relations. By masking the intelligence of the system with a simple grid, this allows for the ground plane to become activated with countless musical fields The architecture strives to gather and distribute human-machine interaction data while providing humans the opportunity to relinquish their fears of data governance in return for musical liberation.

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CTJ: The Center for Truth in Journalism

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CTJ: The Center for Truth in Journalism - Dustin Dodd and Jarrid Hrupp The Centre for Truth in Journalism (CTJ) building sits in the heart of Calgary, in Olympic Plaza which functions as the public agora in front of the Municipal Building and City hall.

The program consists of a building that provides office spaces for journalists and experts in various fields to bring clarity to the discussions surrounding contentions topics in social and political debate. The Centre also allows for the content created within to be projected in and onto the building by the means of a fully encompassing digital facade. The combination of location and program increase the Centre’s ability to bridge the gap between experts and public by placing the building as an object of truth into the heart of the public square, allowing for interaction of expert and public and providing spaces for close discussion that can help to bring an understanding to the production of facts, as well as reveal the complexity and nuance associated with navigating bias and revealing objective truths on complex subjects.

The program responds to the brief “Museum of Truth” in the way that it critiques the current role that the provincial government has played in its creation of a energy war room whose mission is to sway investor and public opinion towards investment in the oil and gas industry. This is despite overwhelming academic study that has linked the reliance on fossil fuel combustion to global climate change. (CTJ) aims to provide a civic function, one that produces objective analysis of the facts that surround contentious issues being discussed in the political and social spheres, and place the results in the public agora for public and politicians alike.

Instead of producing biased agenda driven content/propaganda, CTJ is focused on removing the bias associated with content creation and is focused on public interaction with the processes of media and academic fact production.

The building responds to this brief by allowing for the news cycle and fact creation to be produced in an environment of surveillance that the public may oversee. This is in contrast to the current state of news creation that takes place in a new digital sphere that is hidden from the consumers of the content. The increase in fake news correlates with the increase in global/digital producers, which is a potential result of lack of public accountability due to the removal of a physical location and the loss of a need for credibility in content creation.

CTJ is a local building that ushers the public into the central space to allow for immediate oversight of the production of facts. The transparency of the building by mans of a continuous glass curtain-wall facade and the absence of internal partitions allows for the internal program to be fully revealed to public central space. The program also mixes spaces for public amongst the fact checking spaces to allow for close interaction with experts to demystify the process of news creation.

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The Iceberg Center for Urban Agriculture

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The Iceberg Center for Urban Agriculture - Gordon Ngo and Seung Ho Rhee The idea of an iceberg is that we see it and think we understand it, but what lies beneath the water - or in this case, beyond our general understanding - lies a vast network which moves in concert alongside each other to bring products to the general public. By taking the concept of an iceberg, we flipped the script - what was previously hidden from view is revealed and vice versa, the previously revealed aspect is now obscured.

The Iceberg Center is a cultural center located in downtown Calgary designed with the intention of creating a location in an urban setting to expose visitors to the inner-workings of the food production cycle. As consumers what we recognize of our food is generally limited to picking what looks best at a market; however, the depth and breadth which makes it possible for us to make these choices. The goal is to expose the public to the food production cycle from start to finish. Taking a processional form of circulation, the visitors to the building move through the programming starting at the planting section and moves through harvesting, processing, distribution in the form of an auction, and finally at a restaurant which represents the consumption portion of the food cycle which we are familiar with.

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Institute of Cultural Genocide

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Institute of Cultural Genocide - Mojdeh Kamali and Ugonna Ohakim The concept of this project is centered around the theme “Museum of Truth.� The project focuses on truth as it relates to culture; the book 1984 by George Orwell serves as an inspiration for the proposal. In 1984, the ruling party had a Ministry of Truth that specialized in the alteration of truth to keep the proletariat ruled and under. We asked ourselves why it was so easy for truth to be altered and we realised that it was a result of the lack of physicalisation of truth and the fact that the country was in isolation. Our project, as a response to 1984, identifies buildings that were attacked and destroyed because of war and rogue elements to target a specific culture. These buildings start to become fractured and composed to create a new whole which becomes the plan of the building.

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