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The City of Exiles

Part 2 Project 2006
Daniel Burt, Sam Dawkins BenOlschner, Will Wang
Alexander Lucas Grice
 University of Edinburgh Edinburgh | UK
The City of Exiles is the name of the group proposal for urban renewal in Floriana, Malta. The City of Exiles instigates a process of regeneration by constructing new connective tissue of urban seams. Four architectural propositions are embedded within these seams: an Optical Space, a Market and Bus Station, a Broadcasting House, Concert Hall & Park and a Gymnasium. These proposals work alongside less specific programmes to counter the corridor nature of Floriana by regulating the flow of movement across the city - from pausing on a park bench to settling as a new resident. It becomes a city, not just a place to pass through, but a place to remain.
Daniel Burt, Sam Dawkins BenOlschner, Will Wang
Alexander Lucas Grice

The ‘City of Exiles’ is the product of a group thesis of extraordinary depth. By embedding a new system into Floriana’s fractured urban grid (a system literally drawn from an intense analysis of Valletta’s physical condition) Dan, Sam, Will and Ben create a network of seams, cuts, wells, bridges, gates, eddies and traps that operate as a geological disturbance, revealing the complex section of this limestone city. Throughout, their key strength is ‘depth’. Their work, which is beautifully documented in a series of bound reports, oscillates with ease between the heights of poetic abstraction and the depths of obsessive detail.
Tutor(s)
2006
The lectern is a device around which the characters of the explorer and the scribe set up a dynamic mode of engagement with the world.
The Exile Machine is embedded and entangled with its context of Valletta, Malta.
The House for an Exile comprises a four detailed studies examining the relationship between the mechanical structure of the house fragments and the movement of the body entangled in domestic ritual.
The Exile Machine's trajectory through the city.
A model interpreting the Exile Machine's movements through the city. It documents the many possibilites generated by the many conincident interactions between the machine and the city.
Urban Seams create a connective tissue that begins to suggest possible means of cohesion between different fragments.
City of Exiles Plan, Floriana. The Plan highlights four individual programmatic islands developed through four exile characters’ narratives. These are embedded within the connective tissue of the Seams.
Section: Optical Space. Detail: construction of deformed ground plane.
Section: Market & Bus Station. Detail: operation of a row of market stall
Section: Broadcasting House. Detail: Constructing, enveloping and inhabitation of the sound stage.
Section: Gymnasium. Detail: bridge structure of gymnasium roof & changing room locker.
View across The City of Exiles towards St. Publius Church via the Broadcasting House and the Gymnasium.
Section cut through the Market & Bus Station looking towards the Gymnasium and the Broadcasting House.
The City of Exiles Plan on which the connective tissue of the seams as well as the individual programmes are articulated.
The City of Exiles, Floriana containing: Optical Space, Market & Bus Station, Broadcasting House, Concert Hall & Park and Gymnasium.
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