MARL | City of Dreams Runner-up | 2017
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MARL
City of Dreams Pavilion Runner-Up, 2017
Governors Island, New York, USA
Architecture always begins with the movement of soil: terrain leveling, foundation trenches, slopes, terraces, no building can be built without them. Even the simplest hut will involve some kind of modification to the ground. MARL, our proposal for the City of Dreams Pavilion, strives to go beyond the norm, using soil movement not just as preparation for construction, but as a design tool by itself.
The ability to modify the earth characterizes us as humans.
The skills of excavating, moving and piling soil, learned millennia ago with the first agricultural and funerary works, shaped the world around us. Places like the Chinese Rain Terraces and Machu Pichu, are authentic geographies
created by humans shifting soil. More recent projects like Governors Island The Hills, manage to create amazing landscapes and landmarks through topography.
MARL stands for Mixed Adpated Recycled Lanscape, and it celebrates Governors Island as the newest vibrant public space in NYC, thanks to projects like the Hills. The very same materials the island provides are borrowed and given shape through recycled earthbags - a natural building technique that evolved from historic military bunker construction, and currently used in several countries as an alternative, resilient construction for buildings. The materials used will ultimately return to their origin, creating a ZERO FOOTPRINT pavilion.
Governors Island, New York, USA