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AAInter10 UNIT BRIEF 2009-2010

ecoMachinesV3.0 Dubai Marine Life Incubators

Unit staff: Claudia Pasquero + Marco Poletto THE AGENDA: AAinter10 is an experimental unit and this year our urban laboratory will be the city of Dubai, where we will explore how architecture can exist and co-evolve within the local marine habitat. The unit work refers to the paradigm of environmental design as a modern re-appropriation of traditional models of sustainable development found in many pre-industrial civilizations; at the same time INTER10 recognises contemporary environmental architecture as contradictory, dominated by a reductionist approach which adopts fixed typological categories and related performance targets as main design frameworks. The ecoMachines agenda seeks to re-describe this abstract typological categorization by subjecting the discipline of architecture to the generative force of life and of living systems. Our main ambition is to breed new ecologic models of architecture directly from the recognition of relevant mechanisms of life as they unfold in urban contexts. The anthropologist G. Bateson referring to the progress of scientific work once stated: “even with current progress in chaos and complexity theory, we remain less skilled at thinking about interactions that we are at

thinking about entities, things”. Inter10 will function as a laboratory of embodied interaction; we won’t shape and regulate architecture through the application of immanent geometrical rules but rather breed it’s material organisation and form through the actualization of dynamic relationships (abstract machines), constantly responsive and reactive to specific local environmental and cultural processes. “The world” artificial lagoon – Nakheel – Dubai City - UAE

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BRIEFing: THE CONTEXT: The site for this year’s design project is an artificial lagoon 4 times Venice’ size, recently built by property developer Nakheel off the cost of Dubai City. Due to the current financial crisis the lagoon is left as an unfinished landscape project; however, while lacking a feasible architectural and urban brief, the lagoon itself has become subject of intense cultural and environmental speculation. Its material presence has produced a series of ecologic side effects some of which have called for direct intervention [like the rapid deterioration of the water quality in the enclosed pools or the potential creation of a new coral reef habitat to supply for the loss caused by the dredging process]. In other words the lagoon has unexpectedly turned into a laboratory of urban ecology. THE BRIEF: Inter10 will make use of this laboratory as an experimental ground to breed the new generation of ecoMachines. In the first term we will transform the lagoon and its microenvironments into “coral gardens”. Subsequently we will engage with property developers Nakheel and structure the gardens into “Research and leisure Centres on Marine Biodiversity”. Landscape architect and philosopher Gilles Clement in his book the “Planetary garden” has stated:

“ [...] paying attention to the behaviour of natural species, I have been measuring the immense discordance between the natural attitude of growth, reproduction, resting, and our desire of “beautification”. It is impossible to reconcile the two positions if we remain

connected to the aesthetic canons of the “gardening art”. How can we find a solution which would make compatible biology and scenography? [...] the movement only the movement – considered in its physical and biological meaning – allow us to solve this difficult problem [...] “.

Digital simulation model of water flows within the lagoon – Dubai Water garden for Jeff Kipnis – RUR architecture

Coral reefs perform a fundamental role in the marine ecology, providing food and shelter for a wide range of aquatic species, preventing coastal erosion and supporting

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The unit seeks students with a strong sense of curiosity towards the natural environment and an exploratory attitude towards a new definition of ecologic architecture. We aim at training architects that can operate as inventors, artisans, artists, engineers and explorers; or perhaps that will be able to evolve the scope of architecture beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries and within a multidisciplinary network of “creative entrepreneurs” .

INTER10 DATABASE A source of research links and cultural references to support the work of the unit will be made available to the new students. For more references: UNIT BLOG 08/09: http://aainter10.blogspot.com/ UNIT BLOG 07/08: http://aainter10.wordpress.com/ Claudia + Marco practice: www.ecologicstudio.com www.stemcloud.blogspot.com Growing coral gardens – experiment – by Reefscapers - Bali