Field architecture, Land work architecture
Scale — "can be defined as the relative magnitude between subjects, the ratio between the size of something and the representation of it, a measuring instrument or the pattern that makes, regulates, sets, and or measures to a rate or common standard."
The Castle Down District Park exists as a large area devoid of disposition where articulation has not currently been devised or implemented to scale and connect the field to surrounding local amenities, communities and existing sporting terrains, all layered within the park. In essence, the park suffers from a scale complex. It appears as a residual enclave surrounded by man-made communities, roadways and an isolated recreational center. Users need to feel connected to and be familiar with a park which provides memorable and sustained amenities in order to be part of its potential on an urban and social level. As such, the park needs to responsibly initiate a dialogue through architecture and landscaping to motivate Edmontonians to engage and invest their energy and time to ultimately enjoy and benefit from a pleasurable park experience.
In its essence, the vast area occupied by the park possesses an agricultural-like disposition which in turn can be conceptually scaled to the greater context and geography of farm lands and can be perceived as being part of the larger macrocosm which is the Alberta prairies. On the prairies, it has been common practice to allow for architecture and landscaping to aid in redirecting the natural forces that drift across such large open areas. Form making usually exists to assist in the activities of the land, such as a wind break tree crop or a collecting water swale or even an enclave of structures that topographically organizes the setting of farming activities. By contrast, in the case of the Castle Down District Park, the activities are recreational in nature.
In its inception, the pavilion design was intended to be an abstract opportunity to fashion from its own skin and texture a gesture similar to cliff, crest or ridge. The challenge in this concept is creating a pavilion gesture that will provide a scale, orientation, patterning and measure in contrast to a field that appears infinite or that is otherwise immaterial in the mind's eye. Additionally, thought must be given as to how the pavilion can perform this act and initiate a dialogue where the park itself would be visually understood, where the pavilion can be the generative argument to the existing amenities such as the water park, recreational centre or flanking neighbourhoods. Thus, the pavilion would be field architecture, materialized through landscape architecture, intended as an act, intended as a land work.
Land work — "a natural landscaped manifestation, of the land, a form making process where the resulting construction although anomalous and man-generated camouflages itself into the greater field and seems to appear naturally as part of the land. The resulting land eddies either collect or prevent, in essence temporarily change a condition to accommodate another."
Conceptually the snow fence was carefully studied as a manifestation of a land work in its ability to re-structure native material, snow and earth from the land itself. A snow fence is utilized to suggest a drift, an accrual, an accumulation of activity at a desired location which in turn results in secondary consequences such as a supply of resources. In the case of a snow fence that resource being water.
Hence, the architectural proposition for the pavilion, in large part because of its pre¬determined location within Castle Down Park, is meant to behave and be articulated to emulate the architectural phenomenon described above. The pavilion is a site specific gesture that is meant to be a man-made land work resulting in a piece of architecture that enables a land drift to occur which allows for a realignment of the site. Several key architectural elements are carefully developed so that as a sum, their surface planes and relative inclinations blend into the greater horizon. The position, material and scale of each inclination are informed by the various and specific anticipated approach of the park user. As a result, the pavilion would both dissipate in the larger horizon of the playing field and be perceived to be from the field. From this vantage point the pavilion drifts across the site, its purpose unclear and its act camouflaged as a land work. At a distance and at a perpendicular approach, the pavilion appears to not discern itself from its surroundings. The striking nature and purpose of the gesture, much like the snow fence is unnoticeable. The pavilion's architectural mechanism allows for it to dissipate and be painted into the backdrop perspective.
However, once approached the purpose and striking scale of the act is clear. The pavilion directs its intent through its linear articulation and larger landscape architectural gesture.
The pavilion bisects the site, organizing the surrounding sports fields and indicating where the supporting resources and amenities of the park, such as the small spray park, are located. The land work further serves to link the communities abreast in a directional manner. The expanse of the field simultaneously permits for a large scale architectural act to go unnoticed and to generate an understanding of the park through a spatial experience based on a contrasting scale. Through participation, the park user begins to understand the greater context and presence of the field. In this instance, landscape architecture is not utilized as a series of features or as a superimposed didactic language, but rather the genealogy of the field simply helps to form the architectural act.
Like the snow fence, where the sum of each picket and the length of each screen results in an overall schism, the pavilion is a sum of programmatic components disposed along the drifting gesture at a relative human scale to create overall utilitarian exterior spaces. The washroom module along with the meeting room, storage volumes and canopy, in symphony with trees, path and walks, delineate and create perimeter areas for gathering. The vertical surfaces can be used for notices or schedule boards, where groups can assemble pre or post game, where travel through the field can be paused and amenities utilized. Each piece is disposed within the land work, such as canopy and trees or nestled into the ground. Texturally , the canopy and roof constructions would accumulate the natural deposits of dust, earth, leaf, water and snow and be constructed to allow for this sediment to become a stagnant medium, and evolve into a green surface. As such, the quality of the angled planes would emulate the greater field around them through art and landscape, and their built form would architecturally be disseminated into the greater vista.
The integrated or commissioned art work would function to articulate the planes of the pavilion to allow them to "read" in their relative architectural mechanism in relation to the behaviour of the land work. Hence, the art work would texturize the drifting architectural planes to either dissipate the pavilion in the larger context or to emphasize the fault. A large non-integrated art piece should be placed at one of the divergent locations within the pavilion. Located on the playing field side of the gestural drift between the washroom module and storage module as an object that draws the eye to the horizon, the piece would provide a focus and be enjoyed more specifically during the use of the meeting area.
(From competitor's text)
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