Arctic Frontier

Arctic Frontier: Fragility of the monument, power of the environment

Aquilina, Emily (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Kuzniecow Bacchin, Taneha (mentor)
Sohn, Heidi (graduation committee)
van der Meel, Hubert (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

2019-07-12

Through the synthesis of a speculative design project I explore the meditative process of working together with earth forces to create alternative ways of valuing the Arctic and its critic yet fragile environments. Emerging as a response to the changing global trends of climate change, territorial claims and rapid melting of ice in the Arctic region; this research evolved as an investigation into the theoretical concepts of Architecture x Power x Territory within the context of the Arctic. To understand the complex conditions and factors that have influence within the Arctic Ocean a process of mapping conflicts – defined as disruptive forces – documented the interactions and relations between assemblages and ecologies existing within past, present and future organisations of territory. The overall methodology and investigation into the mediation of this planetary condition unravels through Levi Bryant’s Onto-Cartography and his three dimensions of geophilosophy: cartography, deconstruction, and terraformation (Bryant 2014). The political practice of cartography combined with the deconstruction of the theoretical concepts establish a point of intervention, mediation and negotiation of relations between assemblages and ecologies through an iterative process of mapping, analysis, deconstructing and redefining. The deconstruction of the key concepts – Architecture, Power and Territory translates and shifts the application from the territorial context of land and constructed landscapes into the context of the ocean, challenging the current understanding, dynamic and interaction of the concepts. Where Territory is explored through the notion of Terrain, a term that considers volume, the three-dimensional space or verticality of territory (Elden 2017), Power is expanded to include earth Forces and Architecture is inherently linked to Environment and its critical ecologies. Finally, the terraformation dimension or the “building of alternative worlds” (Bryant 2014) materialises as an alternative path of movement - enabling humans the ability to escape existing conditions such as those of extractive measures, creating the possibility of projecting new realities through the relations and intermingling of ecologies and the built environment. Thus, projecting an alternative future for the territory by rendering ecological and intrinsic processes visible.

Arctic
Ecology
power
territory
architecture
conflict
extreme
polar
environment

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0259ac5b-29fb-49bb-81cb-4c47e65869c0

Student theses

master thesis

© 2019 Emily Aquilina