"Maybe, architecture doesn’t have to be
stupid after all. Liberated from the obligation
to construct, it can become a way of thinking
about anything—a discipline that represents
relationships, proportions, connections,
effects: the diagram of everything”
- Rem Koolhaas
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Possibilities of an Island is a re-telling of Lynetteholmen, a planned new islet in the Copenhagen harbor.
Lynetteholmens presentation and subsequent treatment in Danish Parliament is an event that can be read as a large-scale illustration of architectural and planning processes. In these processes, possibilities are continually created and used up as a project goes through the stages from conception to completion.
In the case of Lynetteholm, it suddenly becomes possible to mobilize a mega project, the scale of which rivals the nation's greatest historical achievements, and at the very same time, this colossal potential is used up. Spent.
Lynetteholmen was presented with built-in rationales and rationalizations. This made exploration of alternatives within the space of possibilities all but impossible.
Possibilities of an Island attempts a trick, that can technically be described as putting a pin in or freeze framing this process.
By sneaking into the narrow slit between cultivation and consumption of possibilties, the project opens up the space of possibilities in a non-linear, fluid dreamtime, within which that very space of possibilities can be scrutinized and mapped.
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The project consists of three discrete elements:
- The Program, which outlines architectural, theoretical and artistic themes.
- The Model, which materializes the island as a rhizomatic machine.
- The Drawing, which illustrates a speculative SF narrative, situated on the site.
A comprehensive, linear walk-through of the project and its processes can be found in the PDF document "Presentation".
PROGRAM
The program is my primary reference work, containing various openings into the project: theoretical frameworks, motifs, intentions and so forth. During the process, it has offered useful and surprising strategies for tackling the problems I faced in developing Possibilities of an Island.
The openness and porosity of the program relates to the conceptual problem at the heart of Possibilities: unlike the static, completed city (or work), the program insists on keeping the space of possibilities open.
MODEL
At scale 1:200, the model fills out a small auditorium to represent the complex situation that is Lynetteholm.
The model can be understood as a representation, but it can also be understood as an instrument or a machine for thinking, more akin to a sculpture or art installation than a traditional scale model.
By choosing to represent the island in the given materials and constellations, the model enables me to re-engage the Space of Possibilities even as the proposed island is undergoing construction.
DRAWING
At scale 1:500, the cartographic drawing measures 160 by 200 centimeters.
It illustrates the suggestion, which has taken the form of a Situated Fabulation in the spirit of Donna Haraway.
The drawing combines elements from program and model with pointclouds, paintings, script-scenes and other media. The four-act narrative is inscribed in the sections, and further materialized in four brass casts that underline the projects primary motif: material > machine > repetition > landscape.
A full-resolution version of the drawing is available for download along with the PDFs.
