Existence self-explains

I am different from you. It's not a critique, it's just like that. I sit on a slightly different background, observing from a slightly different angle. Still we share this place and this existence.

Pictures from tiny beach in Sandviken, Bergen, last week.

The bath

Yesterday I made this first concept model of the bath at Nøstet. Main elements are a more closed entrance space, represented by white cube, where changing of clothes happens. Could also have more elements such as after bath relaxation space. A main platform stretches from this space through to the bath, which is a translucent space, and out on the other side of the bath. The dressing space is halfway hanging off the pier. The bath has drowned in the ocean, its walls going down into the water. The walls of the bath allows daylight to enter during the day and like a light tower it lights up during the night. It is not transparent enough to allow silhouettes to shine through to the outside.

I suggest a modern kind of bath which is a lot to do with the sense of water in Bergen. A place where you can experience waves and the salt water, because it is that which is entering the enclosed bath space. The openings are big enough to let the motion of the ocean come through, however I must look at this if I need filters to take away oil from the sea. In the same big bath space are smaller tubs with hot water.

At one place there is a sauna aswell.

To be with people, and to see people, in this situation, is a very humble meeting. It is very tactile and bodily. The space is large. Sound of water hitting surfaces. Play of light.

This is also why bath

Upper right side of sketch: The way I perceive it informal meetings between different cultures/social class/etc. happen in Bergen mostly between boy/girl, typically in a bar/something similar, in the weekends, and many times involves alcohol. It is something about the meeting that happen under influence of alcohol that doesn't justify either. Meetings otherwise within ones sex happens often with people from similar background. This only strengthens ones locked idea of reality, since these people tend to have similar opinions, perceptions etc. as yourself. It's hard to r e a l l y understand that no one a c t u a l l y perceives what you do, although mistakenly it can seam like it on the surface.

Lower right side: A bath is an activity that can attract young, old, sick etc. and they can all use it at the same time! I suggest that the bath is sex segregated. For example Mondays for women, Tuesdays for men, Wednesdays for families.... or something like that.

Lower left side: diagram of division of space in Turkish hamam and Roman thermae. I am also going to check out Japanese bath and the traditional baths in Bergen to create a modern bath.

Center vs place

This sketch shows a important development in my process. A center is introvert, it concentrates some action and people interested in this action, but at the same time excludes other activities/flexibility/people. Place is a more open place, and I see it as extrovert. Instead of making one thing I will suggest several. I will work on different locations in town where every place will work on integration of spaces/places/people/actions. This post should probably have come before that of the bath at Nøstet, because it is because of this decision that I got the idea of the bath. I will start working on the bath idea now that I have many ideas about it. Then adding with other programs on the other locations that I have looked at. I will work on the different locations at different depth, some will be more finished projects for my diploma.

Body/mind oneness with atmospheric temporality

I grabbed the chance on Saturday to wander on the site in Vågsbunnen (Skostredet) since it was a rainy day, normally what you would expect in Bergen, but what we have had little of the last year. It wasn't raining so much, so I walked without an umbrella. I realized that when the sun is up almost every place is good for staying. However when it's raining it's not so much the water that is falling from the sky that is the problem - it is the low pressure in the atmosphere. Other places with a different typography (not forcing the clouds to crowd down the valley) a rainy day is not so heavy on the body.

Top sketch: Lydgalleriet (The Sound Gallery), exhibition space:

Left side: From the outside it is not possible to see that there is an extensive exhibition on the inside. It has beautiful wooden floors and many large and smaller rooms, including fascinatingly mazed plan with sudden verandas and other unexpected spaces.

Right side: People open up, expand, and fill their bodies with the healing rays of the sun when the sun is up. When it's raining people contract due to air pressure and the dense humid air.

Bottom sketch: Pressure chamber:

Left and lower side: I got an idea about a pressure chamber that would invert the outside pressure. This means that on a rainy day you get a sunny-day air lightness and on a sunny day you get a rainy-day air denseness. It's about realizing the body/mind reaction to atmospheric pressure, and not just in a atmospheric change, but in all other situations too. Getting a clear sense of how your body/mind contract/expand space in different situations. Maybe the space itself could also react physically by actually expanding and contacting according to it's situation .... remembering eternity in temporality.

Right side: In places like Tokyo and LA you can go to special places to drink fresh oxygen, a response to the air pollution.

This is not a common place - a common place!

Concept model of BIKS today. Located in narrow streets that are not much visited, especially in the evenings. The big scene, Fensalen, is reached through several halls and staircases. You cannot know what is going on there from the outside, a problem since the program always varies.

Lately I have been thinking about how to create a program that can make a background for meeting, a place where people of different cultures can meet, understand... but not forced socializing. I have been aware of the many young women/girls that have an immigrant background and that have many restrictions as to which activities they can participate on. Many have school as one of the few places to meet new people. Others, anyone, are blinded by their own cultural or familiar traditions, and do not know of alternatives.

Development plans Vågsbunnen

At the pages of the municipality I found these questions answered about Vågsbunnen, where the void between Domkirkegaten and Skostredet is located. Sorry, only Norwegian. I will try to get a meeting with the owners of the land - Pallas Eiendom.

45. Fra Ruth Grung (A):

”Status vedrørende Vågsbunnen som byutviklingsområde

Vågen er en sentral del av både det gamle og nye Bergen. Området er sammensatt. Vågen representerer mye av vår historie men samtidig etableres det nye aktiviteter som har stor betydning for et levende sentrum. Skostredet er et eksempel på slik ny aktivitet som er med å gi ny identitet. Bymisjonen sin aktivitet har også skapt nytt liv og fellesrom er blitt pusset opp. Samtidig registrer vi at tomter ligger brakk og at private har kjøpt opp flere eiendommer. Fana Sparebank sin karakteristiske bygning fikk hard medfart i en av de mange brannene som har rammet byen. Gårdeier har gjennom media sagt at fasaden skal bestå. Tanks videregående skole blir lagt ned når den nye skolen på Nygårdstangen er bygget. Trafikk og parkering er også en utfordring.

Spørsmål:

Hvilke byutviklings planer har byrådet for Vågen? Er det samarbeid med private eller andre aktører for utvikling av større deler av Vågen? Hvilke mulighet har kommunen for at slike unike gatemiljø som Skostredet er blitt kan få videreutvikle seg?”

Magically unintended

On a wall at the school a slender hole in wall lets in the reflecting light from the evening waves. It dances up on the indoor walls. When shooting the film I was constantly changing the focus making the wall fuse wobblingly into the light and the shadows.

Small problem getting the dimensions of the movie right, better watch it directly on youtube. Double-click on the movie to open at youtube.

Identity ~~~~~~

~ I like sitting at a coffee place. Being intimate with my friends, I can be around strangers. I get a chance of rebirth in every new encounter.

~~ This model is about process, mood and relations. The self can observe relational patterns - there are spaces that are more inclusive, or more closed. The nature of the place is communicated to the exterior as well as interior. The self stands in a big place.

Identity ~~~~~

~I can see you, quietly I write my journal in the sun. You are sitting on these same steps.

~~ This model is for example 1:1000. A high ceiling and wall structure. Opening inside-outside visually. Indoor spaces in humble contrast. Different people and activities in different spaces. The roof/wall grows, shrinks according to season - response to impermanence.

Identity ~~~~

~ All peoples... fears, joys and suffering. Many I know have spent time locked-up. Understanding comes to whom listens with pure intentions. See the smile in her eyes.

~~ Complexity is simplicity. This model in 1:1000 are some simple elements resting on a complex background. The complex background is two-dimensional, because of its incomprehensible nature. Simple ritual spaces rest in composition on the background.

Identity ~~~

~ Paradoxes are, dissolve and mirror. My perception I can choose and shift only in the past.

~~ This is a model in 1:200. A narrow space for quiet contemplation. Warp zone. Time travelling.

Identity ~~

~ My closest bring weight to my shoulders. My closest put me on a pedestal. I find my place next to people. Forever diving into his eyes.

~~ This vertical element is in 1:200. At the base is a firm self. At the top is a self on exploration. The whole humanity sent the self on this mission. It's a liquid space.

Identity ~

Based on the diagrams I posted on the last posts I made six small models last week. Today I looked at them again and made immediate comments. After that I looked at them as spaces/architecture and decided what I saw as spacial elements.

~ Humanity is an extension of myself. There are no borders, just space between. Sometimes a stranger is my mother and my mother my fellow citizen.

~~ This concept model is about flexibility in space between people. Space between people, space between zones/rooms.

Understanding ideologies

I made this sketch of some predominant ideologies, how they take shape and manifest. It is related to the last post. They describe hierarchies, political systems and power. Architecture has been used to strengthen political ideas. When we die, our opinions remain in the architecture. Architecture can be mountains, but they can also be more organic and flexible to change. You need dynamite to blow up a mountain, but flowers and other plants grow on the mountain, slowly transforming its shape. When on the mountain side the mountain is not so powerfully present; you experience the plants, the trees, the flowers, the small mushrooms, hear birds, see the sun or the rain, listen to water running...

Cosmopolitanism vs. Hierocles

Another graphic I have been working on. Upper two rows Hierocles circle of identiy, lower row cosmopolitanism ideology. As an overview Hierocles defines degrees of identity, might add trust and care, to the ones close to you in life - the cosmopolitan ideal is to draw all degrees closer to your self. What I find interesting in this comparison is that Hierocles view clearly defines spaces between people, but the cosmopolitan view tries to eliminate these spaces.

Seeing Øvre Skostredet

The plot is behind those trees. In between this white building and the peach one in the back of the image.
Looking into Øvre Skostredet towards Skostredet.
The plot behind the fence. And below in between houses, seen from Skostredet.
These are images that GoogleEarth took last summer looking into Øvre Skostredet and they are interesting because the GoogleEarth car can only move along streets, much like pedestrians are led by visual signs in the city, a car is led by signs and guided by surfaces. Many people probably don't know that this place exists, because there is "nothing there", however it is located in a quiet but popular area that has flourished the last years with art, culture and café-life. It is a place in town which is in-between areas, the powerful line of municipal buildings has cut the harbor area away from the Marken area. Also busy roads following the Bergen mountainside grid the city up in areas, and areas between these roads become one identity.