Selected works
Tree House Park Design Competition
To build a tree house is to questions the relationship between culture and nature, the artificial and the natural, the acquired and the innate.
In the growing city of Istanbul, where the expansion of the city puts huge pressure on natural resources, building a tree house challenges the development of the territory.
The particularity of the Cekmekoy competition site is its location at the edge of two territories: the densely urbanised south along the Marmara sea, and the vast natural systems of ridges and basins to the north. The 2009 Istanbul masterplan acknowledges the need to densify the city to the south, while protecting the forest and water zones in the north where ecological agriculture and ecological tourism should be promoted.
In this sense, the competition’s assignment can be related to this regional effort: how can these two territories profit from each others presence?
I intend to formulate a plan in which human presence and natural resources are indissociable components of a single system. The starting point would be to map all the existing ressources of the site, its fauna and flora, the movement lines, the topography, the energy flux, the climate and the future uses. The map will serve as a base for the positioning of the tree houses, and it will inform the decisions on materiality and construction.
In my previous work on tree houses (Wood Stock, Hut festival competition 2016, winner, built | Wooden Crown, Vectorworks Benelux Design Prize 2019, unbuilt), the projects catalysed the site’s ressources into impactful projects. I intend to achieve these qualities for the Tree House Park Competition.
Wooden Crown
Cabin for one dweller
European forest
2018
Karol Wojtas, codesigner
Winner | Vectorworks Benelux Design Prize 2019
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How to inhabit a spectacular but fragile environment? This project aims to create an eco-cabin in the dense forest of Europe. To allow the cabin a close proximity to the surrounding nature, it is burrowed into the ground. Its crown-like appearance is allowed by the repetitive wooden ribs that accentuate its vertical relation to the forest. All the functions fall under the unified volume of the cabin. A meditation area is created near the circular patio. Walking in the forest, both spaces are visible: the shelter in the form of an orthogonal box and the meditation area under the curved roof.
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The Wood_Stock hut was realised in response to the competition “Festival des Cabanes” 2018. The open competition aims to sensitize visitors to the fragile natural ecosystem of the Savoie territory. The hut is an interpretation of the wood piles which one can observe in this territory. The piles result from yearly maintenance cuts in the forest by the National Forestry Office. A simple change of positions of the logs provide a playful pile where one can climb, sit together or simply meditate by the sound of the water stream.
The project is only made of local logs, holding together with notches. The logs are left raw to respect local eco-systems. Once the festival over, the dry logs will be reused for the village nearby. The site will be left without any mark of the installation.
Wood Stock
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Hut for the Festival des Cabanes
Gerbaix, France
2018
Mathieu Hofer, codesigner
International Competition | Winner | Built
Philippe Burguet, director of the festival
David Hamerman, architect DPLG
Redesign for the Green Cross park, community center
The Hague, Netherlands
2020
Individual | MSc3/4 Public Building Studio | TU Delft
Henk Bultstra, Nathalie de Vries, Jelke Fokkinga
external critic: Nico Tillie, Jaap van Heest
The abundant green areas in The Hague Zuid-West lack certain qualities in order to stimulate social cohesion and wellbeing in the district. This public spaces - well over the city’s average - are largely concentrated in a large central park called the Green Cross. A mapping of the existing functions and vegetation revealed that the park is mainly used for sport activities and allotment gardens, and offers limited uses for the general public. Moreover, the overabundance of grass fields, the fragmented forest area and limited wetlands have a negative impact on biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
The assignment was to redesign the park, creating a new public knot by merging the landscape with public transport, sport and culture functions. I moved away from conventional design principles and adopted a series of guiding principles from “Landscape Ecology Principles in Landscape Architecture and Land-Use Planning” by Dramstad, Olson and Forman, mainly the intersection effect, connectivity, species movement, soft edge and boundary.
New Green Cross
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Expo Stand for Switzerland at UIA 2017
Seoul, South Korea
2017
Mathieu Hofer, codesigner
International Student Competition | 1st prize | Built
Patrick Bouchain, architect, urbanist, scenographer
Taramo Broenimann, Architect AUG SIA FAS Jeanne Della Casa, Architect EPFL FAS
Philippa de Roten, Dir. Society department, RTS
Catherine Gay Menzel, Architect ETHZ FAS
Sarah Nedir, Architect EPFL FAS
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Swiss Room
