Above and Below
Exploring the Interplay of Nature and Architecture in Favignana´s Quarries over Time
J. Steinberg (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
R.R.J. van de Pas – Mentor (TU Delft - History, Form & Aesthetics)
L. Cipriani – Mentor (TU Delft - Landscape Architecture)
G. Karvelas – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
André Mulder – Graduation committee member
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Abstract
Since Roman times, the Sicilian island of Favignana has been shaped by stone extraction, leaving behind a hidden architecture of quarries beneath its surface. This project asks how the spatial dualities of light and materiality below could be translated into an architecture above.
To capture these buried qualities, conventional design methods do not suffice. It requires a mixture of digital and physical experimentation. Through 3D scanning and printing, the embodied experience underground is translated into a spatial vocabulary that guides the design process through physical model-making.
Here, the construction site becomes a testing ground for post-anthropocenic architecture, shaped equally by human and non-human actors. Built with salt and stone, it anticipates erosion and reuse, questioning static architecture, where humans are only brief visitors before nature returns.