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The Dover Dichotomy: Toward an Automotive Landscape

Part 2 Project 2011
Adam Hiles
 University for the Creative Arts | UK
Faced with the need to expand to meet ever growing traffic demands, yet restrained on all sides by SSSIs, the powerful White Cliffs and the turning circles of increasing large cross channel ferries, my project envisions the seemingly inevitable expansion of the Port of Dover into its namesake town, and the subsequent infrastructural infiltration and reordering of its urban fabric. The project speculates upon a potential urban outcome of this assimilation, and considers the aggressive absorption of the town centre into the jurisdiction of the Port as the progenitor for a new Autopian urbanism.

Exploring the idea of an incremental strategic take over by the Port Authority, the project willingly considers the polemic juxtaposition of Dover's town centre with the grimy, concrete and auto-exhaust pinball-machine landscape of an overcapacity logistics node, where by concrete flyovers and overhead gantries manoeuvring a hypnotising choreography of vehicles into and through the intestinal complexities of the port are seen as equally beautiful and captivating as the adjacent White Cliffs.

Subsequently, the project speculates upon the realignment of the town toward an urbanism of lorry turning circles and vehicle queuing lanes, and explores the contested spatial and political territories of the port and town. Ribbons of tarmac intravenously feed this hybrid landscape, accumulating into a public realm of hyper congestion, where drive through typologies and provisions for operation stack rub up against urban programmes and fragments of Dover's historic town that have been slowly consumed by the port and absorbed, adapted and re-worked into its automotive landscape. As these new adjacencies emerge, the port's vast array of communicative and peripheral surfaces play out the ongoing discourse(s) of the now cohabiting town and port.

'Eat More Chips': Port of Dover Groundscape Research Film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kgi6q9kI5k

Adam Hiles
Tutor(s)
Mr Alan Atlee
Charles Holland
2011
Relief Perspective in Frame. Concrete flyovers and overhead gantries manoeuvre a choreography of vehicles into and through the intestinal complexities of the port
Incremental Strategy Matrix of Port Authority Take Over, including building morphology, augmented infrastructure and territorial shift
Incremental Strategy Matrix of Port Authority Take Over, including building morphology, augmented infrastructure and territorial shift
Infrastructure and Surface Development Model
Urban Anatomy Isometric exploring urban levels, proximities and surface conditions
Urban Anatomy Isometric exploring building adaptation and vehicular choreography
Ground Level Masterplan identifying the realignment of the town toward an urbanism of lorry turning circles and vehicle queuing lanes, and exploring the contested spatial and political territories of the port and town.
Overhead Level Masterplan identifying the infrastructural infiltration and reordering of Dover's urban fabric
Isometric studies of Programmatic Components where experiential richness is utilised to establish connection between port and town users
Isometric studies of Programmatic Components where experiential richness is utilised to establish connection between port and town users
Isometric study of HM Customs Mobile Security Unit, a 'natural' evolution of the aposematic corrugated shed typology. Capable of performing security spot checks at will.
Relief Perspective in Frame. Ribbons of tarmac intravenously feed this hybrid landscape, accumulating in the public realm. Prolonged quiet periods between ferry sailings warrant the re- adaptation of surface for other uses
Longitudinal Section through Port Landscape. drive through typologies and provisions for operation stack rub up against urban programmes and fragments of Dover's historic town that have been slowly consumed by the port.
Longitudinal Section through Port Landscape. The port's vast array of communicative and peripheral surfaces play out the ongoing discourse(s) of the now cohabiting town and port
Relief Perspective in Frame. Experiential view of approach to Security Checks and adjacencies to consumed fragments of the historic town.
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