The Pause - GSAPP ADV Studio

The

pause

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

In collaboration with Sara Karim

REVIVIFY Does remembrance require physical presence of a corpse?

How can we create civic use of an urban cemetery with over a million unsolicited bodies in a new time of ecological crisis and heightened demands for social justice? These are the taboo questions raised by Karla Rothstein’s brief to re-imagine Hart Island, New York City’s potter’s field. The studio did not seek utopian dreams or hard-nosed solutions, but instead provoked students to critically re-evaluate how we perceive public spaces of both secular and sacred purpose.

DISCONNECT TO RE-ENGAGE Pausing creates space between two processes, two places, two realities.

Moments of shared and private reflection are orchestrated to intersect, branch apart, and slip past. The landscape of Hart Island is both cut and stitched together from East to West, and North to South, disorienting to allow disconnection and re-engagement between the individual, the city, and the land.

Through converging and dissipating logics, a network system mediates pro-

cesses of absorption and isolation. Multiple inputs are reconfigured to intersect, branch apart, slip past, and interlock.

Adaptation takes place in the negotiation of inputs and outputs, and how these processes meet. Points of critical convergence and connection form nodes of hinging and opening. In this network of perpetual movement, we interject with pause to provide opportunities to disconnect and re-engage the system.

21

20E

19

15/16/17

12/18/20N 20S/20W

8S/9S/10

7W/8N 8E/9E

OFF DUTY

+1 (VA)

VA-ICU

NAR

CCU

+1 (VA)

VISITING ALLOWED

VISITING RESTRICTED

VA-ICU

CCU

Columbia GSAPP

ON CALL

CCU

NAR

6S

Charles Vincent Thornton

6W

4

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

top l e f t Mapping the relative isolation of rooms in the interior of NY Presbyterian and their accessibility. b ot tom l e f t Cross weaving of visitor hours and resident schedules of NY Presbyterian.

5

6

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

7

left Three lines map the circulation of three different user groups in the hospital; patient, visitor, and staff.

Each point is a room. The number of circles branching off of each room counts the number of doors not taken. The lateral movement from point to point documents the cumulative rotations of the body from one room to the next.

The open or closed position of each ellipse documents the relative proportions of each room, from open square to narrow corridor. Lastly, the poche covers or reveals different rooms according to the access to that room by the other user groups.

8

Charles Vincent Thornton

left Material tectonic development with split straws and fishing line.

R IG H T Reflecting on the intricate circulation and accessibility of the hospital system, I constructed a 3-Dimensional matrix of splitting and nested straws. The straws were cut, spliced, and interwoven with 100 feet of fishing line.

A minute variation in the length of each connector piece creates a modulated flexibility across the system.

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

9

10

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

left Telescoping techtonic.

and

flexibility

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

r ig h t Expanding system of joint proportions relative to flexibility.

The Pause

11

12

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

left View West towards City Island

The Pause

13

m i ddl e

r ig h t

View East towards Long Island Sound.

Visibility umbra of Hart Island created by woodlands and topography.

14

Charles Vincent Thornton

left North South Boundary along ridge, and thresholds to areas of burial divide the island into parts. r ig h t The programs of interweaving memorial and retreat re-stich the island through key locations.

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

15

16

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

left Connecting lines of tension pull together the folds of topography. r ig h t The profile of where the shoreline of Hart Island will be in 100 years hovers over the site plan of structures to be located throughout the island’s folded landscape.

17

18

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

19

all Landscaped walls zig zag down the center of Hart Island forming a stitch that allows physical crossing while visually separating the Western areas of collective activity form the Eastern spaces of isolation.

20

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

left

m i ddl e

r ig h t

In emergency rooms and trauma wards across the country every day, doctors rush to try and save patients, but sometimes their efforts fail and a patient dies. They must move on immediately since there are always other patients.

The staff do not have adequate time to process the trauma of witnessing a death.

In response to this problem, some hospitals are instituting a mandatory moment of silence.

This pause allows medical staff to acknowledge the death, and prevents the otherwise automatic processes of detachment from or internalization of the trauma.

Programs of mourning, burial, and retreat. Promession is a safe and ecological way to dispose of human remains by way of freeze drying. As opposed to typical cremation, Promession has low energy consumption and does not create carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, or hydrochloric acid as by products.

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

21

22

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

23

left Sanctuary, Promession Center, and Administrative buildings

24

Charles Vincent Thornton

left

TOP r ig h t

View from Promession Center to Separation Sanctuary

Floor Plan of Separation Sanctuary

Columbia GSAPP

B OT TOM r ig h t E-W Section Sanctuary

of

Separation

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

25

26

Charles Vincent Thornton

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

27

left Partial site plan of isolation retreat

28

Charles Vincent Thornton

all Collective remembrance occasionally puctuate the network of retaining walls that hold promession remains. Bereaved and retreat participants share these spaces of repose between periods of wandering the island.

Columbia GSAPP

Advanced Studio - Karla Rothstein

The Pause

29