Activating Continuity

Activating Continuity: Interval as a link between past, present and future

Sośnierz, Zofia (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Schoonderbeek, M.G.H. (mentor)
Eckardt, H.F. (graduation committee)
Sanaan Bensi, N. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Borders and Territories

2022-06-22

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

With this short statement, the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart aptly captures the essence of the Interval spaces that this thesis was defining. Those are left-over or side-effect spaces, which have many programs but are not programmed. They emerged over time as a consequence of placing other primal and secondary objects. They become used by different agents in unprogrammed or instinctive ways. Due to their undefined nature, they become places of possibilities, change, freedom, and availability.

The aspect of time plays an important role both in creating them, and in their constant development. Firstly, they are created as a consequence of many layers of elements assembled at different time periods. They form a three-dimensional patchwork of layers of history, human actions, nature’s impact, and urban and architectural decisions. All the different layers leave traces on the site, which have an impact on one another.

Their constant transformation never ends. Those spaces always evolve. Even if the primal elements do not change for a period- new human activities are always emerging there. This is a fundamental aspect of the intervals- they give a sense of freedom and possibility. The agents feel liberated to express themselves and use the space in an undesigned way and sometimes even random.

This thesis focused on first defining and exploring the Interval Spaces and later using them to analyse the Project Site and imply their spatial logic into Architectural Design. A site in Marseille city center was mapped and analysed. It contained ancient ruins from various periods. The design focused on creating a spatial situation that would enable experiencing them in a completely new way. The logic of Interval Spaces was used to create spatiality and the experience for the visitors. This approach helped to create a completely new approach to designing with ancient ruins, but also to create new way of forming spatiality. Lastly, it explored and showed a new way of looking at sites. The site is no longer a modernist tabula rasa where a new project emerges in isolation to what used to be there, but it is a space full of traces of the past, which when taken into account in the new project can only add an enrich it.

in between space
spatiality
spatial situation
acient ruins
ruins
city
mapping
drawing
design through drawing
design through mapping
Borders & Territories
interval
interval space
left over
side effect
traces
layers
time
space
body
body moving through space

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Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Zofia Sośnierz