Site Selection

Ruins of Detroit

Ruins of Detroit






Blog: Squattercity: Squatters and Squatter Cities Around the World

I found this blog while search for squatter communities. This blog discusses squatter communities around the world as well as this writers two year travels to these communities.

http://squattercity.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50"

Gordon Matta-Clark

Gordon Matta- Clark was an artist who explored new ways of expressing the urban environment. Most of Matt-Clark's work composes of extractions of different planes of a building. By extracting various planes Matta-Clark fragments the interior space causing the building to resemble a compilation of images.

Site 2

The second site that I thought would be appropriate is an abandoned building located at the corner of Higgins and Annabella Street. Much like the site one, I chose an abandoned building that is designated for demolition. As seen in the images below this structure presents many opportunities for the Medusa system to thread itself throughout the structure. In addition to this the structure is primarily composed of materials that could be used for thermal mass.

Sites 1

The next stage of medusa project is to select a site in the Point Douglas area. In doing so the phenomenon of medusa will start to translate into a building program. As discussed in my previous blogs the medusa system is stealth like system that intertwines and interacts with its surroundings. With this said I felt it is most appropriate to choose a site that has some sort of framework for medusa to work within, in this case an abandoned building.

In regards to the medusa, I believe that the most appropriate kind of system to look at are mechanical systems because the mechanical systems is a system that spreads throughout the form much like medusa. What I find interesting about mechanical systems is that is some cases the function of a building may change over time and because of this the system originally put in place may not be appropriate for the current building function.

The first site under consideration is the void space between the Starland Theater and the Jack Hotel. Currently these two buildings are vacant with empty lots adjacent to them. Due to the amount of vacancy within and surrounding the site, I see this as an opportunity for the medusa system to expand in area as demonstrate from earlier devices.

In further analysis of the site, I attempted to gain access within the building in order to see structural inside, unfortunately this wasn’t possible without the right set of tools.

Current Article On Starland