"THE ARM: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN OPPOSITES"
An Atelier-Apartment in Maastricht (NL)
On the border between the Netherlands and Belgium, in-between Water and Land, surrounded by dense vegetation, a surreal lunar landscape rips the ground in a terraced downhill, which dissolves in a dynamic turquoise pool. Here, the feeling of dissociation is so intense that you could ask yourself: “Where am I landed?”. Indeed, my architectural intervention takes place in this suggestive scenario, a hybrid of peaceful woods, sullen industrial equipment and white rocky dunes. Therefore, re-thinking the area as a precious resource to transform it into a lively Research Campus. A cultural hub, in a unique environment, which includes and promotes both Production and Protection. Thus, my aim for this project will be to create a dialogical connection between what is natural and what is man-made. Moreover, by offering public gatherings, residence-ateliers, labs, workshops and exhibition spaces, the place could inspire Artists and Scientists to build connections, share their work and learn from the exchange of ideas. Indeed, a place designed to host “thinkers” and their network of ideas and handworks. Hence, after an essential but clear draft of Masterplan was ready, the focus of the project shifted towards its most detailed outcome: A Residence - Atelier for an Artist / Scientist, located in one of the distinctive ‘Unloading Facilities’, designed as a hybrid product of a dialogue between opposites.
"However, we do believe that one fundamental characteristic is invariant, from culture to culture,. In all cultures it seems that whatever it is that is holy will only be felt as holy, if it is hard to reach, if it requires layers of access, waiting, levels of approach, a gradual revelation, and passage through a series of gates. [...] This layering, or nesting of precincts, seems to correspond to a fundamental aspect of human psychology. When such a place exists in a community, even if it is not associated with any particular religion, we believe that the feeling of holiness, in some form or other, will gradually come to life, there among the people who share in the experience. "
(p.331-334, “A Pattern Language” - C. Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, Oxford University Press, New York (USA),1977)
Acoustic Intimacy
"Sight isolates, whereas sounds incorporate; vision is directional whereas sound is omnidirectional. The sense of sight implies exteriority, but sound creates an experience of interiority. I regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives. […] Anyone who has half-woken up to the sound of a train or an ambulance in a nocturnal city, and thought his/her sleep experienced the space of the city with its countless inhabitants scattered within its structures, knows the power of sound over the imagination; the nocturnal sound is a reminder of human solitude and mortality. […] Sight is the sense of the solitary observer, whereas hearing creates a sense of connection and solidarity. […]
Silence, Time and Solitude[…] Ultimately, architecture is the art of petrified silence. […] The silence of architecture is a responsive, remembering silence. […] The incredible acceleration of speed during the last century has collapsed time into the flat screen of the present, upon which the simultaneity of the world is projected. As time loses its duration, and its echo in the primordial past, man loses his sense of self as a historical being, and is threatened by the “terror of time”. Architecture emancipates us from the embrace of the present and allows us to experience the slow, healing flow of time. […] Architecture connects us with the dead."
(P. 49-52, “The Eyes of the Skin”- J. PALLASMAA, Jhon Wiley & Sons Inc, New York(USA), 2012 )
“Take off your shoes and walk along the beach through the ocean’s last thin sheet of water gliding landwards and seawards. You feel reconciled in a way you would not feel if there were a forced dialogue between you and either one or the other of these great phenomena. For here, in between land and ocean – in this in-between realm, something happens to you that is quite different from the seaman’s alternating nostalgia. No landward yearning from the sea, no seaward yearning from the land. No yearning for the alternative - no escape from one to the other” Aldo Van Eyck, 1978
(P.14, Aben, R., & Wit, S. (1999). “The Enclosed Garden”, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.)