Global warming has increased the frequency of catastrophic environmental events such as blizzards, cyclones, floods, and droughts. These events and rapidly changing ecological systems are significantly impacting the built environment and transforming people’s collective way of thinking about architecture. The dynamic nature of ecological systems reflects the universe’s inherent quality of constant change.
Continuous development, change, and adaptation characterise education. Here, the ongoing process of acquiring knowledge and revising ideas is analogised with cosmogenesis and the accentuated physical dynamic of ocean cliff formations. A rigorous drawing methodology explores the possibility of a satellite University of Auckland campus at Hinerangi Pou. A spatial and structural architecture was found and generated directly from the solids and voids in the landscape created by the passage of time. Form is found in coastal erosion and slips and an architecture which both pragmatically and metaphorically works with the topography. Cosmogenesis serves as a theoretical tool to express and embody the notion of adaptation, representing a continuous process of change and self-organisation. In this work, the reality of the rapid physical transformation of our planet is interpreted as a speculative architecture for a dynamic universe and humanity, both in a literal and figurative sense.
The Process:
The exploration process is achieved through a rigorous drawing methodology, resulting in six modules utilising various architectural representation media, including free-hand sketching, collaging, and digital modelling. Mixing, combining, and layering multiple media interpret the inherent qualities of change and transformation. The drawings are the tools for analysing and comprehending cliff formations, scientific theories, and concepts of adaptation.
Final Outcome:
The process of exploration and interpretation resulted in a new Marine life educational facility. The proposal aims to connect the dynamic universe and humanity, literally and figuratively, with shapeshifting, transformative and adaptable architectural masses that merge and respond to its context and environment.
This series of drawings coveys the ideas of adaptation and ever-changing. The architectural masses represent the unfolding undulations of the cliff; the forms adapt to the cliff forms using fractal composition. The self-similar openings can change in size and form depending on needs, allowing natural lighting and ventilation as required. The masses drape over the cliff formation, merging with it and allowing the natural plants growing over it to become part of the architecture. In this way, architecture still allows nature to find its own balance.
