Landscape Urban Ecology: Groundscraper Condominium beachfront project, East Uruguay

 

 

 

This project is situated within a larger system of natural geographic accidents where the typological sequence Bay-Bar-Peninsula-Cape-Lagoon-River is repeated with topological differentiations. This project articulates a landscape-sensitive proposal to develop housing with care to natural formations and dynamic processes. This green initiative goes further into ecological concerns, redefining the concept of “nature” to begin with. Nature is an artificial category identifying the first contradiction in current green initiatives that aim at most for a natural preservationist attitude. This initiative focus on a deeper understanding of what might be the meaning to develop an ecological approach within artificial interventions. An artificial ecology that is sensitive to the logic of the environment within which is situated.

This project develops a variety of low to large scale building units, ranging from independent isolated house units. Through various intermediate scales open up deviations within types, and reach larger scales of intervention, constituting medium density building types. This strategy critiques large tabula rassa type of modern interventions that are not sensible to the logic of the place. By these means, the project intends to develop a series of intermediate discrete types articulating bottom up and top down modus-operandi, alternating tactics based on the latency of opportunities for discrete categorization based on a topo-logos, and aiming for the constitution of indexed larger architectural structures that incorporate organizational strategies as well as systemic logics.

Cartesian strategies and top down systems are constituted by mirroring existing rock formations. But this mirroring of nature is purposely put against a Hegelian mirroring of Nature. A negative dialectic becomes active when the existing rock formations are considered articulate cuasi-Cartesian rational orders. These rocks formations conform large linear strata of rocks that develop perfect straight lines, differentiating these accidents from mere natural formless rocks and opening up other larger humanistic questions.
The project aims to make sense of the dialect between systems and singularities, activating possible systemic singularities between: Cartesian systems and the topo-logos. The project form emerges from a parametric negative-dialectic information exchange between a natural pseudo-Cartesian rock formation and an artificial topo-logos.

Due to such interesting faults in the rock this potential latency opens up a different consciousness about the known relationship between nature-artifice. With this basis, the project develops a Cartesian order that is grounded in a topo-logos sensibility. This sensibility works with an accidental formal logic that is based on the formal language that these rock formations develop, but implementing a humanist artificial philosophy. This logo-centric philosophy is then sensitive to the logic of the place, since tactical movements are related to formal structures that arise through abstract metaphysical categories.

Facts: building area: 20,000.00 sqm (m2)

Units: apartments and houses from 55 m2 to 400m2

Site area: 50,000 m2 (only 20% occupied)

Architect: Eiroa Architects, Buenos Aires-New York

Team: Design Principal: Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa; team: Glen Banfield, Max Golden, Luo Xuan, Eunil Cho

 

 

 

Parametric model establishing topographical cross relationships among types | interior perspective | units 1A to 5A

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