Glass that strengthens floors, facilitates change, and tells stories
Stefanie Poon (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
F. Oikonomopoulou – Mentor (TU Delft - Structural Design & Mechanics)
G. Pardo Redondo – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Heritage & Technology)
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Abstract
This text is an investigation of process. It outlines the design development of a historic concrete slab retrofit using glass. By working through iterations that build off each other, it chronicles the steady unfolding of the concept coming into being. Materiality, statics, construction, and aesthetics are the parameters that are mediated in a case study intervention. The divide between preservation and progress, between the currently clear-cut choices of conservation or structural design, is a powerful space for transformation. The research looks in depth into the existing historic structure, recalculating it using modern methods. In turn, this informs geometry and configuration, which are iteratively redesigned to be minimal, respectful, and surgical. Foundationally, this project is a love letter to the ghosts in the hall, who are tasked with handing down their teachings to the future generations, so they better understand their responsibility to the universe and that all things past and present are equal parts of the whole.