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Creating a purpose for the elderly. Get them back moving.

Turn around the evolution. 

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In my visual representation I have been working with the telling of an elderly person. I have been spending 3 days togther with med Grandma and talked with her about her life and how it is to become an elderly. One of the things that I found very important from our conversation is that fact that we as architects have look behind the description of what end elderly is and instead listen to what they have to tell. 

I have made the grid in the back of the A2 to represent the system and way of looking at the elderly today. I want to break this way of thinking and my way to illustrate that is by making the hole in the A2 - a space for a new way of thinking. The hole also represent the way of ‘looking behind’ the typical description of an elderly person and instead listen to them as i mentioned earlier. 

I talked with my grandma about what things she would like to have at an elderly home. She mentioned how a balcony is a must. The balcony gives the opportunity to look at the blue sky and feel the living life surrounding you. Nature is very important. A garden with flowers and vegetables is also a nice way to be activated and be a part of life growing.  She also mentioned that hens would be very nice to have. 

We talked about how it would be nice to have different activities in the house. Maybe a sewing space and a workshop. She also came with the idea of collecting all the residents books and thereby making their own library.  

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2. Semester study trip to Germany 

Der Energiebunker in Hamburg Wilhelmsburg

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Phase 2B 

Visual representation draft

Caused by the lock down of the school and a missing printer my visual representation is at the moment only made digitally, but my plan is to make part of it analog. 

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Different atmospheres experienced in Bad-Meinberg

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My architecton has been a further development of my mapping. I have continued working with the lose of perspective but I have also worked with the chaos of the city. Even though you can argue that the city isn’t chaotic but is a systems of complex patterns for an elderly this seems very to overwhelming to overview.

I have worked with the city as a theater where you as the visitor can explore a flow through the city’s different spatial sequences and change in pace.

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In my mapping i have been working with the lost perspective in the city. How you as an elderly loses the overview of the city and things happening around you. You can fell the high pace but you cannot react towards it other than standing still. It fell terrifying to be out control and without any possibility of predicting what’s coming next.

As an elderly you senses get sharpened. You can’t use all your senses at ones. You will have to kind of choose between seeing and hearing and in a high pace society it can seems almost impossible to behave without both at once. And even though you choose to intensive your sight you only get to view a very part of the big picture.

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Through my Arkitekton I want to investigate how different elements and surfaces creates different atmospheres and contributes to a feeling of being safe.

I want to see how the spaces opens and close due to how much light you let in and different treatments of light. Starting from a massive non-see-through construction to an open construction with hard light.

I want to investigate how shadows can create different atmospheres. How some can seem terrifying while others invite and make people want to stay longer.  

These investigations make the foundation of my development of the community house.  I want to change to the meeting point of the city of Bad-Meinberg from the darkest place in the city only lighted by artificial light to create a space where people can see each other and feel safe even when the light is out. A place where the light contributes to a nice atmosphere.

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With my collage I want to show how the city of Bad-Meinberg today seems to be divided in two. The only place where the two groups have a change of meeting each other today is in the supermarket in the outskirt of the city.

I want the collage to underline that todays only meeting point is an anonymously and dark place without any atmosphere and only lighted by artificial light. I want to show how the city is caught in the history of what they once where and it seems like they can’t move on.

The collage shows how I want the city to move on and how the two groups in the city should join and build a new social meeting point together.

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CWR

Approaches to sustainable architecture

As an architect today, you cannot just build whatever you want to. It has to serve a purpose and be built on a good basis. One thing that is important is that what you are going to build is ‘green’, sustainable, environmental or ecological. But what would I mean to make a ‘green’, sustainable, environmental or ecologicalbuilding? There is a lot of different ways to approach this subject and in this text, I’ll try ague for and against some of them in relation to my own project in Bad-Meinberg.

Architect Susan Maxman suggest that “sustainability isn’t a prescription. It’s an approach, an attitude. It shouldn’t really even have a label. It should just be architecture”. But it doesn’t seem to be that easy. Everyone have their own definition of what sustainable architecture is, we all have different approaches and different agendas, when we talk about sustainable architecture. We want to achieve different thing. I agree that sustainable architecture is an approach and that every architect should be working from this approach. But in a world where it is not only architects who are to decide what should be build, we have to have a common language, a way of showing people from outside the architecture world our intentions and visions. And here sustainable architecture is a way of underlining what we want.

Myself, I have already been on a trip since my start at the Aarhus School of Architecture. When I first started I was sure that I wanted to work with sustainability but I had no idea how far-reaching this subject is. From my earlier education institutions, I got the idea that sustainability was equal to solar cells and windmills. So, for me, new in this architecture world, it helps my understanding of different approaches to sustainable architecture, by using the term sustainable.

When we talk about sustainable architecture, we divide different approaches to the subject into different logics. Marteen Hajer defines logics as “a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories that are produced, reproduced and transformed in a particular set of practices through which meaning is given to social and physical realities”. Logics should never be frozen in time or space and are never static and rarely stable. The different logics can be mixed and matched as the architect wants. But it can be seen as a way of defining what focus your project might have.

In my project in Bad-Meinberg my approach to sustainability will take basis on the eco-cultural logic. The city itself is already divided in different cultures and I want to keep them and learn from them. But at the same time, I also want to enrich them with new spaces for new traditions. I want to create a place where the different cultures of Bad-Meinberg can start new traditions together.

I think human cultural diversity is an important factor to preserve our individually identity, but I also mean that we need places where we can meet these different cultures and get to understand them and by getting to understand them wanting to preserve them.

The eco-cultural logic argues that we should use local materials for building. Bad-Meinberg is a town with a lot of abandoned hotels caused by it former greatness and I see how this could become of a good use by reusing some parts of the hotels in my project instead of just demolishing and throwing away useful material.

The eco-social logic aim is “the creation of healthy, self-reliant societies that exercise local control, take responsibility for their environment, operate a local economy based on minimal levels of material goods and the maximum use of human resources”. I see how some of the approaches can be used in my project. I think it is important that people take responsibility for their own environment but people also need guidelines and a helping hand to get started otherwise it can seem almost prohibitively. I also think that, in a small town like Bad-Meingberg, it is important to keep the money in the town and make use of the human resources instead of letting in big companies who will just take the money without giving anything back to the town.

Another approach to sustainable architecture is Biophilic design that seeks to connect building more closely to nature and incorporate natural lightning and ventilation. This approach touches one of my main focuses in my project. I want to connect my building to the nature by creating an indoor garden surrounded by a glass construction similar to a glasshouse. Thereby I will get a lot of natural lightning and in the design process I will investigate how to create the best possible way of natural ventilation at my site.

The glass construction will also contribute to the heating of the building. But if I want to succeed successfully with both natural light and ventilation, I’ll have to take good notes of and consider the orientation of my building very well. The orientation of a building plays a big part in the eco-centric logic, which also has an approach of reducing the impact and the waste. These are some factors that I want to be aware of in design process, but I also know that this isn’t my main focus and thereby this will be a focus with lack of attention.  

As an architect who wants to save the whole planet, make it greener and create a sustainable future, you sometimes have to compromise, scale down and just work from one focus to actually get something done. We don’t get anywhere if we have to fulfill all the criteria of what is considered as a sustainable way of building.

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Reflective text

A Community House

Bad-Meinberg is a city now divided in two. The one side of the road now lies in the shadow of its former glory by the abandoned hotels, and the former spas which the city used to be renowned for, has now been reduced to a mere public pool.  This part of town is now only inhabited by native families.  

The other side of the road is a new flourishing community, that grows with in its own nature. The place revolves around the yoga culture, and therefore inhabited by newcomers.    

When you look at the city, the only place where the two communities can meet on a common ground, is at the supermarket which lays in the outskirt of the city.  A place where you often only socialize with people you already know, and you are not encouraged to seek new relations to others.  

A possibility to join the widely different communities, could be to create a space where they can connect with one another, and be together without meeting any prejudices.

For Yoga Vidya people the food is an integrated part of the life style. The food could be a foundation for the two communities to bond over one common activity, where they could all learn from each other and over time start new traditions together.

The food should be made from homegrown vegetablesprovided by the community’s own garden. The garden could create a mutual responsibility to nourish it and it would encourage them to create new relations and work together as one community.