absent bodies frozen architectures on the prairies
project | construction materials by andrew lewthwaite
ice water winter winnipeg celebration
Water is deep and shallow, life-giving and murderous. Twinned, water arises to form chaos and waters cannot be but dual. —Illich, Ivan. H 2 O and the Waters of Forgetfulness. (London: Marion Boyars, 1986)
sub-zero situating : the project begins on the frozen banks of the Red River in one of the world’s coldest major cities, known by its seasonal moniker – Winterpeg. The site is the abandoned Amy Street pump house, formerly an integral part of a downtown steam heating system that warmed the blood of the urban core during the depths of prairie winters. With its feet dipped in the waters of the river, the building site opens up a series of questions both general and particular: how might the making of architecture participate in the seasonal rhythms and dramatic physical transformations that qualify the site’s fundamentally restless character? How might one construct with the materials of weather?
drawings above: stair ascending from pumphouse to tower walkway level, above right: steel tower and walkway shrouded in frozen skin. photos above: small ice slab & driftwood construction occupying river surface. above top: the abandoned Amy Street pumphouse, below: tower model in hibernation state showing gabion foundation and protective steel plates right: an architecture of winter and water. opposite page: in-situ model/ laboratory of the pumphouse and river condition. The model was used to explore the phenomenal realm of frozen architectures as well as test the realities and possibilities of building in the cold by engaging the material transformations directly
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
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