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The Labyrinth and the Aedicule: inner city interventions

Part 2 Project 2003
Liam Young
 University of Queensland | Australia
The inner- city village of West End is entering a phase of rapid transformation, without architectural or urbanistic preparedness. A radical increase in inner city densities requires a new architectural and urban language able to contribute to the making of the city.

The narratives of local people tell of largely unsuccessful campaigns aimed at defending boundaries from encroachment. The disappearance of public buildings and urban spaces that hold place memories were spoken of with sense of loss as having represented ‘aedicule’ like places of retreat, reflection and a secure buffer against the ambiguity of the larger urban environment.

Juxtaposed with the stories of loss and defense of boundaries were my observations of what Walter Benjamin defined as ‘porosity’ - a blurring of boundaries and an interpenetration of the sacred and profane, of private and public, of past and present to create new constellations. Porosity finds its expression in the labyrinth, which provides the conditions of possibility for unpredictable encounters in the crossing of entwined paths.

Across all scales of design, the promise inherent in the labyrinthine qualities of West End are integrated with the protection and prospect of the ‘aedicule’ to explore the possibility of creating new stories and urban languages.

Liam Young

The inner city village of West End is entering a phase of rapid growth and demographic change raising the question of emerging urban frameworks and their architectural transformation.

“Labyrinth-Aedicule” is an outstanding submission that proposes an inter-related urban and architectural project where research based tactics and strategies interact with and extend the qualities of ‘surrounding pre-existences’.

In this well-judged project – close observation, recording the storytelling of residents and cognitive maps of community life contributed to the formulation of an intelligent working manifesto.
The intention was to explore a sustainable contemporary architecture that can create a ladder of relationships between past, present and future – between the broad urban landscape and intimate interstitial spaces.

“Labyrinth-Aedicule” is both imaginative and generative in proposing an urban-based architecture where emphatic imagination informs the making of places for free association and for retreat.
In keeping with the Benjaminian framework redemptive qualities are found within objects and events that are at the point of disappearance – given an ‘after-life’ that is expressed in architectural form.

Tutor(s)
2003
The inner city village of West End is entering a phase of rapid transformation, without architectural or urbanistic preparedness. Radical increases in density require a new focus on ideals, and strategies to develop a sub-tropical, urban language.
Dividing Practices - strategies of governance and manipulation, in a spatial and social sense, that have classified, excluded and dislocated.
Contemporary West End is described metaphorically by residents as an 'Island of Refuge'. defined by a unique sense of 'diversity ' and 'community' that provides a home for a large migrant population.
Aedicules- a collection of 'place narratives', 'cognitive maps' and 'oral histories' of residents communicated a sense of loss linked to the disappearance of fragments of the built environment which represented a sense of security.
While the industrial landscape is giving way to a service economy and 'play' is replacing the work of production, pockets of 'physical making' that still exist blur the work/play nexus.
Redemptive qualities are found within objects and events that are on the point of disappearance. When placed in a new context and open to reconstruction they have an after - life that is only discernible at this point.
Labyrinth- a palimpsest of scripts both past and present provide conditions of possibility for a theatre of new constellations, stories and song lines.
The labyrinthine, its porosity, theatricality and potential for creating new ways of making and experiencing the urban environment is overlayed with the protection and prospect of the aedicule at all scales of the project.
It’s difficult to see where a building is in progress or where dilapidation has set in. Unbuilding and erasure predominate. A mapping of left over publicly owned and residual land identified viable sites for the development of a network of urban rooms.
The rooms are not autonomous enclaves but ways of incorporating the overall field of experience. It is the interchange between these fields and the overlapping of networks that make up the cultural space of West End as a site and a generator of meanings
A field of exchange is activated not on one site but in a network of civic aedicules. The identity of each room will be overlaid and re-traced by the improvisation and creative use of multiple authors.
Density is clustered around the urban rooms providing a vital and active civic realm. Built edges to the voids maintain a robust presence able to withstand future development forces. The clusters relieve the development pressure on more fragile areas
A gentle 'massage' of existing structural elements has allowed for the creation of a collective and theatrical civic space on the main street.
The labyrinth behind the main street, the buildings and civic places here are designed to provide an 'interpenetration' of different forms of 'play/work' as production rather than consumption.
The architectural project is massed around the civic room, defining its edges and opening it to the northern light. These occupied edges give the space an urban quality and reinforce its presence as a centre.
Stairs as labyrinthian spirals wind their way through different levels of the building externally and internally. They erupt onto the civic plaza as occupied edges forming places for theatre, and story telling, improvisation and appropriation.
A cantilevered roof floats above the public. This urban style verandah space protects and guides pedestrians through the site and out into the precinct labyrinth.
Public rooms are conceptualized as discrete aedicules and inserts into the neutral, commercial infill. The aedicules hold traces of 'place memories and narratives' and activities in danger of 'disappearing'.
Casement windows, are salvaged from the obsolescence of past ruins to be recycled in new constellations.
The identity of this urban room is not one of 'sentimentality'or 'nostalgia' . It is a theatrical place where the skills of the past can meet with those of the present to provide the potential for new meanings and possibilities.
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