SLABS Quarterly
The publication has the power to influence transformations in urban space. The project is packaged into the format of a magazine - in this issue targeting Basel, Switzerland.
←
SLABS Quarterly is a project for continuity of thought. The project for a slab to house a pharmaceutical corporation in Basel, allows for a rethink of urban space to create a symbiotic relationship between private and public. The magazine is a platform for new urban ideas distributed into the city.
The publication has the power to influence transformations in urban space. The project is packaged into the format of a magazine - in this issue targeting Basel, Switzerland.
A modern knowledge factory is a globally networked institution. The computer screen becomes the anthropocentric interface for network access. It allows the global to structure corporate society at each node. Corporate space undeniably exists in the context of the urban fabric. Yet a series of sociological conditions leads to an 'immunological' response to the city.
Corporations are built in society, not on the production line. Their globalised nature obscures this fact. The ‘urban’ campus is camouflage for a redaction of usable communal space.
Corporations are built in society, not on the production line. Their globalised nature obscures this fact. The ‘urban’ campus is camouflage for a redaction of usable communal space. The orb takes the corporate space away from its pretence to a relationship with the city fabric, freed to be conceived in terms of its true parameters: sociological phenomena.
The slab flattens the corporation into a single story plane - exposing its inner working to the urban fabric underneath.
The pharmaceutical corporation slab includes three public squares, 12 plazas, various interiorised public spaces, environmentally controlled streets and workspace for 10'000 employees.
The two planes allow for vertical culturally significant elements to become a component in the urban fabric. The hyperbolic lattice Zhukov towers organise circulation inside the slab and maximise light under the slab.
Striations in urban life become focused into a single whole around void spaces - spaces to interpret and contemplate. The darkness of the under-slab allows for a space that is completely un-programmed for function, an absolute void. A spiralling ramp to contemplate in the dark.
The under slab version of the shopping mall. The corporate space, lifted above the public plane means that capsular interior public space is an inherent condition under the slab. Facades taken from the existing pharma campus create a reason to dwell, beyond shopping in the gallery-like space of the market on the plinth.
Streets in the under-slab are arranged around cuts through the slab, letting light to the ground. This is carefully controlled for maximum effect. Street facades, that generally work towards a historical, social language are eliminated for environmental functionalism.
