Archiprix International 2001
Edinburgh College of Art, School of Architecture - Edinburgh, Scotland
Nathan Jon Ward
Tutors: Leslie Forsyth
As the urban fabric of Edinburgh has evolved it has formed a distinctive pattern of form and use. For this process to occur it is necessary that elements within it become obsolete. The project has underlying theoretical basis underpinning this that I have defined as Entwicklungskunstwerk (artwork of development/evolution). This is applicable as an approach to the development process, in the creation of an overall loose fit structure that will allow the continued process of development of the urban area. Seeing the new development as an integral part of the existing structure, helping to strengthen its existing fabric and identity, particularly with the tools of Form, Scale and Function. This approach has six key areas, developed from Luckermans view on place, all of which will be affected by the development process and are key to the identity of the physical location Location (physical) – (site / internal characteristics) Uniqueness (ensemble of particular elements) Circulation (interconnection and spatial interactions) Locality (part of a system of localisation within a wider framework) Evolution (historical and cultural change) Meaning (beliefs, interpretation and understanding) The generative elements of the project rely on the existing structure into which the modern development is sinuously inserted. By utilising the existing form to provide sense of location to the new development, the aim is to have the new area evolve as an integral part of the 'Old Town' of Edinburgh. This approach stems from Vygotsky’s developmental approach to identity, in which there are three fundamental developmental processes, ‘phylogenesis (biological evolution), sociogenesis (cultural history), and ontogenesis (individual development). (Stephen C. Bourassa, A Paradigm for Landscape Aesthetics) These form part of the same evolutionary process in the formation of both perception and in turn identity. Vygotsky’s developmental approach usefully describes the basis upon which the existence of place is formed, without which physical space is merely three-dimensional space. The experience and interaction with space or more accurately ‘context’, is the creation of place in its essential form. E. Relph in his book Place and Placelessness sum this up, stating that: ‘…the objects and features of the world are experienced in their meaning and they cannot be separated from those meanings, for these are conferred by the very consciousness that we have of the objects. This is so regardless of whether we are self-consciously directing our attentions toward something or whether our attitude is unselfconscious… our everyday world is from the outset, an intersubjective world of culture. It is intersubjective because we live in it as men among other men, bound to them through common influence and work, understanding others and being an object of understanding for others. It is a world of culture because, from the outset, the life-world is a universe of significance to us, i.e. a framework of meaning which we have to interpret, and interrelations of meaning we institute through our actions in the life-world.' This theoretical approach is brought together in a design that creates public space in which social discourse can occur. This is primarily shared surface and pedestrian streets, squares, and other public access functions, formed within the overall masterplan, which is made-up of individually developed plots each with its own design guidelines.