The urban/maritime palazzo
Elin Leysen
Master Architectuur
2022 — 2023
studio
Het Eiland en de Familistère
promotor
Koen Van Bockstal
Depiction of the internal organization, alluding to the spirit, the richness and the bliss of Cadix’ past
Without content: flexibility within regularity (the intelligent ruin)
Floor plan +2: sequential living as a social and financial benefactor
Sequential living on the edge (floor +2 and +3)
Neighbourliness in a maritime vastness
The urban/maritime palazzo
“He was always in the right place, but no one noticed him”. This small piece of the collection of essays called “without content” by Kersten Geers can be paraphrased to the wider architectural practice. Architecture can remain relatively unnoticed by simply existing in the right place and time. If something ultimately belongs to its context, there is no reason to question it.
Identity and identifiability are two of the most important factors when creating a building block of such scale. This shift from nothingness (without content) to everythingness (with content) is where the negotiation process starts. The urban/maritime palazzo aims to achieve a wide variety of identification within different scales: a sense of architectural belonging in the urban fabric – and thus ultimately going unnoticed – yet also creating a sense of communal belonging and neighbourliness.
The artistic repertoire of Anne-Françoise Couloumy highly inspired me. Her profound body of work focuses on the sequence of spaces within the domestic realm, allowing the spectator to wonder what lies beyond those successive views. Since sequential living applauds the idea of bounding every room to its essence, only small coverages are required per floor, per unit, and per room. This creates the opportunity to reuse discarded tiles, creating boundaries or thresholds between spaces and places.
Thus, every room could tell a different story. It adds to the idea that the ruin will last a lifetime, while the shell and installations will go through different cycles of life, re-use, and demolition. The rubble of one project could mean the beginning of a new one. Evidently, it also alludes to the profound interest in creating joyful spaces where childhood experiences are shaped and formed into cheerful memories.