Speed sketching
(Reasonably) quickly sketching out programmatic/experiential and in some cases geometric/formal ideas for 18 corners. Some are better than others, and some will undoubtedly be scrapped along the way, but it's work in progress and a beginning. Probably hard to read for anyone but yours truly, and not very poetically described here, but these notes help me remember what I want these corners to do:
Index showing the placement of the 18 different corners + listing their programmatic/formal function. This will be turned into a circulation diagram.
More or less starting from the ground up, here are the corners:
More or less starting from the ground up, here are the corners:
1. The vague corner. Also known as the Batman foot. Does the corner begin at ground level or does it pierce through the ground? The building seems to grow out of the ground. This begins as single bricks jutting out of the asphalt, and ends with shapes 'growing' into the building fabric, on their way providing seating, spatial division, shade, and so on.
2. The recursive corner. The corner that forms the entrance of the building is an example of Greek space: the building pushing forward a corner to greet the visitor. A myriad of recursive corners making up one corner. Poché space for concierge, waiting areas, maybe an espresso bar...
3. The reflected corner. In this building, the elevator is no longer an enclosed box travelling up and down, but an open platform. This allows for new corner constellations, as each elevator wall picks up and reflects the forms inside of the space one is just about to enter.
4. The dancing corner. The famous boxing ring/oyster bar clash on the ninth floor of the original building is updated and turned into a space where one can do gyrotonics in the corners while sipping smart-drug tonics. Mirror-clad bricks supply reflective surfaces: a room-sized disco ball.
5. The growing corner. The hanging gardens of Babylon squeezed into a corner of the building. Similar to the melted corner and the network corner; a kind of root-like structure covered in plants grown in corner nisches for self-sufficiency...
6. The folded corner. Folding corners into a kitchen for the restaurant, pulling down parts and breaking them up into smaller corner units that can be used as work areas...
7. The melted corner. The restaurant offers al fresco, or maybe almost-al fresco (depending on how much glazing we want) dining behind 'melted' brick arches. Romantic corner tables. Lights are hidden inside of the brick wall, lighting up the niche left when a brick is taken out.
8+17. The icicle corner. The stepped corner. A pool shoots down through the building, across several floors, a sharp corner stabbing through the rest of the building like an icicle falling through snow. Next to it, a series of stepped corners provide relaxation space for sunbathers. Corners above the pool double up as jumping platforms: you throw yourself out into the air 150m above ground...
9. The disjointed corner. Along the light shaft, corners jut out as if they were ripped out of their corner spaces, providing balcony space for the people living in the flats within. At the bottom of the shaft, a communal area is focused on kids and play space.
10. The spiky corner. Stalagmite- and stalagtite-like corners dip down like extruded diamond vaults, letting direct and ambient light in through the ceiling and raising the floor into desks and shelves - a library/reading/working space.
11. The tee corner. The beginning of the interior golf course (one of the programmatic functions from the original building that I'm sticking with), which, like the pool, trickles down through the building. You tee off into a corner here and then take the elevator down to, say, the 14th floor, where you find the sand bunker corner and continue.
12. The glowing corner. The top floor features a sky bar/observatory, in which a corner-based structure covered in fluorescents strips collects UV light from the sun during the day, so as to glow at night. Cue Tobias Rehberger's excellent Night Shift exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo a few years ago.
13. The light corner. Any self-respecting neo-gothic skyscraper needs a Batman light on the roof, signalling its presence and driving people from this 'corner of light' via a lit-up corner of the sky to the corners within.
14. The inverted corner. The building's own corner shop is shaped as if someone pressed the corner into the building. And/or maybe several corners are pressed into each other.
15. The network corner. An underground space of corners, an all-corner space; nothing but corners, corners within a void. A huge, heated space with walkways between corners. Corners extending into each other. You walk from one corner to the next.
16. The interlocking corner. Interlocking in three dimensions, these corner-based flats are a nod to Escher and different proponents of mathematical tiling. Each programmatic function takes place in a corner, which carries the function in question: sleeping, washing, eating, working, entertaining...
18. The squashed corner. Once again picking up on the original program, the squash courts get a new twist as the corners of the original box-like halls are squashed, transforming the game into a new, much harder one. Architecture inventing new games, new sports, through a reconsideration of the corner.
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