The Port and the Automaton
An Investigation into the automated transition of the humber estuary and its port infrastructure
A.L. Cardoso da Fonseca (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Stefano Milani – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
Nicola Marzot – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Public Building and Housing Design)
J.P.G. Holst – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
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Abstract
This project initiates by looking at the space as a territory (Raffestin, 2012), constructed through social interactions and networks. I believe the design project must anticipate the global social and economic shifts that are present within the territory of the North Sea and must be shaped in relation to the effects of these changes on local societal level. Mapping is used as a tool of associating, ordering and projecting the changes in the qualities (territorialities) of the space rather then a mere visualisation tool (Corner,1999). Equally important, The scripting of scenarios based on literature and statistical data allows for the depiction of the alternate realities that the societal shifts could produce. Taking Port Landscapes, Automation and the energy transition as drivers of change, the project aims at redesigning an automated infrastructure for windblade production, storage and maintanance, and with that reshaping the coastal form based on this process. The aim is in determining the relationship between automation, form and the port landscape. Taking both automated and natural processes into account when designing, the project is inspired by the writings of Martin Pawley, in his work Terminal Architecture (Pawley, 1998) he writes: “ The real barometer of the value of buildings today is not their aesthetic pedigree, but rather their usefullness as terminals in the maze of networks that sustain modern life.Authentic Architecture has been disurbanised. It survives only in the shape of building like distribution centers, factories, petrol stations, that are designed as instruments not monuments.” The design depicts the process and actions of the machine. An automated line, hatched by the elements involved in the different processes along it. An attempt of containment and exposure of the ever expanding developments in automation and production. Human actors are no longer present within the confinement of the interior space, and instead as automation is pushed further out to sea due to increasing vessel size and production capacity, the Human remains on the coastline, to bear witness to this new separation between themselves and production. The human is now the spectator of this ever ending automated line.
Key words: North Sea, Ports, Infrastructure, Automation