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stephanie peer
Diploma 16

Tango Transport is a new type of public space for a contemporary city that provokes public interaction to reawaken the thinning cultural identity of Buenos Aires. In the specific cultural context of Argentina, the project explores Tango dancing to choreograph the rhythms of people circulating around the city and the cultural activities that they engage in.

Spatial juxtapositions, material transparencies and effect qualities explored through physical models and drawings of isometric projection [1], become the architectural grammar of the proposal. Isometric projection allows the re-interpretation of three-dimensional arrangement and organization of the rhythmic composition.

The experiential qualities of fluidity are translated into the physical word by the employment of a digital fabrication methodology, utilizing KUKA Robotics and steel rod bending apparatus to manufacture the space frame. Water jet cutting and folding of sheet metal transforms the planar material to achieve volumetric qualities, forming the infill material enclosure. Set within the space frames it delivers flickering lighting effects as the occupant moves through the structure. In the same way isometric drawing questions spatial arrangement, the architecture reveals the ‘unexpected’ through movement.

Composing a cultural center, the project organizes a new transport hub located strategically near the river La Plata, in the midst of the financial and cultural center of Buenos Aires. Using the transport hub to as a catalyst to generate flows of people, the project will attract users to experience a new mixture of programs that are interwoven to promote public attention and interaction.

[1] Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott and The function of the Oblique by Claude Parent are particularly relevant texts that question the relationship and transformation from one dimension to the next. The drawing investigation takes these ideas as a foundation to explore how drawings can be re-interpreted and they question relationship to the ground plain.

Tango Transport is a new type of public space for a contemporary city that provokes public interaction to reawaken the thinning cultural identity of Buenos Aires. In the specific cultural context of Argentina, the project explores Tango dancing to choreograph the rhythms of people circulating around the city and the cultural activities that they engage in. Spatial juxtapositions, material transparencies and effect qualities explored through physical models and drawings of isometric projection become the architectural grammar of the proposal. Isometric projection allows the re-interpretation of three-dimensional arrangement and organisation of the rhythmic composition.The experiential qualities of fluidity are translated into the physical word by the employment of a digital fabrication methodology, utilising KUKA Robotics and steel-rod bending apparatus to manufacture the space frame. Water-jet cutting and folding of sheet metal transforms the planar material to achieve volumetric qualities, forming the infill material enclosure. Set within the space frames, it delivers flickering lighting effects as the occupant moves through the structure. In the same way isometric drawing questions spatial arrangement, the architecture reveals the ‘unexpected’ through movement. Visual connections through overlapping levels and transparencies allow the rhythm of other spaces to be perceived. The juxtaposition of rhythms and programs activates the public plaza encouraging the public to engage in socio cultural activities. The ground plain is segmented and folded into a landscape that differentiates spaces by rhythm or speed; generating sloped areas of slow activity and rising around the periphery to shelter the plaza from the noise of the street.The landscape is punctured by space frames that contain escalators to transition between the layers, leading to the underground station. The amphitheatre and the Tango dance academy dominate the composition and the jagged landscape acts as a sieve to filter activities into different speeds. By night the amphitheatre hosts Milongas – a traditional socio-cultural gathering where the Portenos gather to dance and meet new people. After every three songs the dancers rotate and partner with someone new. The dance must flow anticlockwise around the stage and the best dancers, or the ones who want to dance faster, follow the outside lane.The sunken road crosses the metro station, interweaving the rhythms of transportation vehicles flowing across the space, together with the fluctuating crowds of passengers that sweep across the platforms waiting to be carried away.Columns of light pour down into the platform through the punctured landscape above. Passengers flow through the space frames, and experience the dancing flicker of lights that become reflected by the folded metal infill components. The walls of the station are reflective and angled, revealing fragmented and unexpected views superimposed on to the space.Composing a cultural centre, the project organises a new transport hub located strategically near the river La Plata, in the midst of the financial and cultural centre of Buenos Aires. Using the transport hub to as a catalyst to generate flows of people, the project will attract users to experience a new mixture of programs that are interwoven to promote public attention and interaction.