CRITICAL CONSERVATION:

Time-Hybrids, Recycling Wars Architectural Corpses

Jernimo van Schendel and Alejandro Valdivieso
Th 19.15-22.15
BRIEF:
Because material objects are continuously transformed, every
stage in preservation forces choices among many valid, but irreconcilable
criteria. No preservation decision is logically right or permanently
appropriate.
David Lowenthal, Material Preservation and Its Alternatives
1-The History of Boston is closely related with the development and
protection of its waterfronts. Since the 17 th Century, and more intensively towards
the end of the 19th Century and the first decades of the 20 th Century, the historical
events and the significative transformation of these lands brought together the
appearance of abundant industrial architecture in the continental shore and
deffensive architecture in the insular one. During this process, the values of stability
and permanence that inspired preservation theories and practices throughout the
past centuries were questioned. A new and increasingly transient world of
disposable objects and spatial transformations emerged. This approach to the built
environment was mainly influenced by the new production of industrial and
mechanical resources and the irruption of the first functionalist theories towards
architectural space.
2-Since the last decades of the 20 th century first decades of the 21 st
Century, the meteoric development of information, technology and the spatial and
economic stress derived from the demographic pressure and the need for a new
energetic agenda have generated major changes in cities. Not only it is important to
address the way in which we understand, value and inhabit their different
components, but also the way in which we intervene in them. This shift has entailed
the irruption of new approaches to the industrial heritage of our cities. What was
hitherto abandoned, occupying peripheral locations has been or will be absorbed by
the fabric, representing valuable spatial resources for the inclusion of strategic
programs within the city.
Bostons history and geographical characteristics have contributed to shape and
urban-coastal landscape, populated of forts and fortresses: sedimentary remnants
of other times Each cases particularity date, location, size, use, architecture
have influenced the forts different current states, ranging from generally restored
pieces, considered to be historic, to decadent and forgotten ruins, slowly
disappearing under the ruins of nature.
Industrial archaeology: The course will focus on a mid-size industrial heritage
piece (Fort Strong WWII), and propose a mix and coexisting program for a
Workshop Center for Creative Arts that would be a shared infrastructure by a group
of universities, and a Students Residence. Fort Strong unifies three specific
conditions: an insular vs peninsular duality as a connected island, that makes it a
potential urban extension infrastructure; a partial and intermediate state of
conservation, together with infrastructural connection with the city, both constitute
a well-defined while open canvas for design speculation; finally, Fort Strong
coordinates a documented history and body of preexistences. We propose an
experiment on critical conservation working as contemporary industrial
archeologists, thought the analysis of this specific piece of heritage, and the
enhancement of its values in coexistence with its future function. Each student will

have to evaluate and take a position about the intervention in the industrial piece
that will guide the project:
-

What is industrial heritage, and how we can extract opportunities from its understanding?
How can architectural heritage play a role in the proposal of new architectural identities for our
time?
When past, present and future coexist in one object, how do they influence and empower each
other?
Which are the timeless architectural values of a space? How they can be transported from one
time and one function, to others?
What is the potential of Architectural time-hybrids for a design in a world pressured by cities,
exponential growth, spatial material scarcity and energy excess?

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1. Strategic thinking: to respond to context and to industrial heritage.
Students will learn how to work in pre-existing built environments. By
acknowledging some of the conditions and challenging others, they will establish
an intervention strategy. This will help them to take decisions based on a final
desired outcome and a theoretical approach, rather than only by design
sensibility.
2. Conceptual and spatial thinking: the program of the building is a
design tool.
Students will learn to analyze the program, define the needs and constraints
that are external to architecture and translate them into spatial solutions. The
coexistence of two complementary yet different and independent programs will
accentuate the awareness of the particularities of each of them.
3. On Typology: the double reality of architecture, exemplary
architectural and specifically contextual.
Polemical concept statements will be articulate throughout the semester. The
process of translation and transformation from the original typology to the
final building will consist in the exploration of possible aggregative strategies
and in the visualization of how these consolidate, alter or transform the previous
type.
4. Energy and Form: emerging design techniques, the integration of
architecture, landscape and the environment.
Students will aim to develop new strategies in relation to form. How is
architectural form re-codified by the new energetic agenda? How this situation
reflects on a reinterpretation of the traditional idea of type? Reflection on
materialization and construction techniques.

5. Building representation. Reasoning and project explanation:

Students will develop their ability to successfully express complex, abstract
ideas (i.e. programming, social interactions, modes of use in time) through
compelling representational narratives. There will be an important focus in
establishing the links between a generating idea and the design outcomes, in
order to produce fluid and direct discourses.