Elke Presser
How to create a new species of knowledge?
The project proposition is for a research and learning center on the northern part of the site, close to the existing city center of Reykjavik. The proposal distributes the building activities in an internalized landscape according to a scheme relying on an "urban column field."
The column field and the dynamic relations that it would contribute to produce between the users of the building is in part derived from an analysis of Zaha Hadid Studio's design for the BMW factory in Leipzig, Germany. Here, the relations between workers, supervisors and administrative staff is organized around the spectacle of the automobile production. In the research and learning center, the aim is to produce comparable inter-individual and group relations that emerge in how users move between the in, through and between the columnar organization of programmatic zones.
The columnar field is designed on the basis of a unit that is a tool to regulate and control various types of flow through the building - first and foremost, the flow of users and visitors. Hence, the program is organized into zones, including an action zone, a learning zone and an entrance zone.
The internal spatial organization attempts to transform the conventional space of business models. The new model would rely on the temporal and periodic rhythm of work and research patterns to generate a dynamic and non-reified spatial dynamics.
The building's columnar elements are built in steel reinforced concrete and the building is clad with metal panels and large glazed areas to allow for degrees of transparency between the inside and the outside.