Kristen Smith Advisors Neyran Turan Rudabeh Pakravan
(UN)DESTRUCTION
Thousands of buildings are declared obsolete and torn down each year. Meanwhile, thousands more are being constructed, with the same bleak future ahead of them. As architects, we must think about this impending destruction from the conception of the design. Everything human made is impermanent, though at different scales of time. This project takes on the reality that buildings do fall apart, and reimagines that destruction as a way to prolong the building’s life. As the building falls apart, new facades are created from that action to reinforce and further protect the now more exposed interior space. As this deterioration happens, the layout of the building is changed over time. Users move out, new users move in. The cycle of the building’s life continues. The building embraces instability, and uses this instability as flexibility over very long scales of time. Its instability is used to extend its life, as its destruction is what is keeping it alive. Image: case study drawing of deterioration of Woo Hon Fai Hall’s façade