oldenburg | 7th - 21th july 2012

GROUPWORK 9: Sara Vicente Arenas | Ömer Aksoyak | Adrien Heinrich | Efraim Papathomas

intermediate presentation

final presentation

"MAGNETWORKS" minute, by Sarantis Zafeiropoulous

The members of the group worked very intensively and the atmosphere of their collaboration was very creative. They were attentive to all of the remarks the professors made to them, and they followed a clearly developing and upgrading path throughout the program. In spite of the fact that one member of the group had, due to an unforeseen urgent obligation, to return to his country one day before the final presentation, the remaining three managed to meet successfully all the technical requirements of the final presentation. Their basic concept sprung out of the idea of magnet and its magnetic field. According to their intention the building itself should not be the pole, but the function of the building should be the pole of magnetism for the people, so the mix of urban functions can create an attraction point, counterpoint the downtown area. .

They give proper attention to the role of the boulevard connecting the site with the downtown area and turning it into a backbone item for their whole idea, without implementing successfully, though, its part that remains out of the limits of the site. The position of the train station adjacent to the boulevard strengthens the importance of both for the cohesiveness of the whole area. Nevertheless, the handling of the station’s open public plaza in a lower level, having the rail tracks run over it, do bring some functional problems into the whole scheme.

The relationship to the surrounding neighbourhoods, shopping center and the two campuses is a working one, even though their orthogonal geometry in their proposed urban fabric contradicts the very dynamism of its archetypal magnetic field and leaves a boring, repetitive character upon the area.

The group integrated creatively into their final proposal most of the remarks given to them during the intermediate presentation, proving in this way the educational character of the whole process. The drawings and sketches that included in the required panels were very communicative, as well as their model.

The jury appreciated not only their intentions, working habits and group atmosphere but the architectural and urban merits of their proposal, by raising it to the final four competing for the three prizes.