Program - regeneration/
 
 

"There is no architecture without action, no architecture without events, no architecture without program.
By extension, there is no architecture without violence."

It is evident how architecture has exerted its violence to the surrounding environment of the site.  The program thus challenges architecture to questioning its prior violence through the themes of Apokalypsis, by bringing its present condition to a type of fulfillment; and Horologium, by collecting its past events on one common Ground that is always in between phases of urban metamorphoses.   The construction and the operation of the Clepsedrae has provided a similar Ground in revealing the possibility in discerning what is often missed and ignored in time reckoning.  Such Ground, which may also exist in architecture, will be the focal point in which the new transformation of the site is at the same time the keeping of its time-passed, i.e.. its violence-being-acted-on.

Apokalypsis implies the aspiration for a regeneration in the time to come, the regeneration of mind, body and place.  Yet such regeneration can not have taken place without keeping in account the consequences of one's prior setting in time.  Thus these three implications of regeneration may take form as an architectural aspiration through trans-programing from the post industrial era in a tri-partite strategy of mixed events and functions.
 

Program - regeneration of mind/
Apocalyptic Art Gallery/

Artistic creation has been known for its ability for allowing one to connect with spirituality.  Beauty in the Middle Ages Art is intelligible in the sense that it is experienced through the transcendence of God's manifestations in materials, wisdom in numbers, and reflection in nature.  Though art works have different connotations and meaning in different time and cultural settings, the nature of art nevertheless acts as a vehicle that allows for the transformation of an emotion to become a physicality and again return to an emotion.   The timelessness of art is that it is an intelligibility that expresses one's mind and it is only through its making, manifestation, and engagement can the intention be appreciated and be reached to another mind.

The Gallery of Apocalyptic Art will house exhibition spaces and studios for a large variety of art pieces that deal with the issue of degeneration and renewal, from the large global notion of the Apocalypse and Doomsday, to the more subtle level that concerns the domestic and local issue of individual healing and Karma.   It is hopeful that through art one may extract the familiar sense of Ending as "Terminus", by acknowledging its latent possibility as a collective teleological enlightenment.
 

Program - regeneration of body/
Travelers Hostel and Health Quarter/

Traveling acts almost as the crossroads in a magnified view of everyday life where coincidences are always intertwined with expectations.  The adventures of travelers are filled with nostalgia, hope, fear, smiles and surprises in which expansion of both the spirit and body occurs.  Travelers cross both boundaries of their mental setting as well as the physical limits of the human body in acknowledging other cultural dynamics and places.  They reckon time-passed as collecting and offering memory, for their memory is the only medium that they have to share between themselves, the experience, and the other half of the experienced - what is left behind.  .

Similar to other sports and health training activities, traveling is a discipline that requires both mental preservation and physical determination.  It is through such a rejuvenation from their prior adventures that amount to a form of enrichment both in spirtuality and body endurance. The Travelers Hostel and Health Quarter will house travelers, bikers, and backpackers in a Hostel setting that encourages memory to be further collected and offered, both between travelers, and their bodies to a foreign ground.

Lastly, the Health Club component will facilitate different sport and excercise equipments that provide opportunities for training the body and enhancing both the mental and physical health.   It is part of the hostel but also opened to the public.
 

Reception Rest Rooms     -4 singles                           -8 doubles                           -4 triples                           -12 quads Hostel kitchen Communal room Bathrooms Services rooms Health club Health club lobby Shower, changing rooms, and refreshments Storage Outdoor sports equipment support

25sqm 40sqm 120sqm 80sqm 240sqm 10sqm 25sqm 40sqm 20sqm 315sqm 25sqm 50sqm 25sqm 25sqm 1080sqm

Program - regeneration of place/
Lachine Canal Redevelopment Facility/

At the present, the site suffers not only from the local contamination in its existing infrastructural deterioration, but also the overall disjunction from the urban fabric and landscape.  The Lachine Canal Redevelopment Facility serves to carry the present condition into a regeneration but at the same time not forgetting or discounting its degeneration.

It shall support the greater Urban Redevelopment Planning scheme as a linear park by providing opportunities for different sports and leisure activities.  The History and Transformation museum will be attempted as the focal point along with the other component to re-collect the perhaps time-ignored in the phases of urban metamorphoses that the canal and the particular site surrounding have already in its memory bank.  Special attention is to be given in manipulating and handling the existing elements.
 

total programatic area: 3650sqm
 

Conceptual drawing 1 - Traveler's Map maps out the violence that is done to a space.  Every traveler requires a map, a map to orientate one's direction in a new environment.  This conceptual map outlines regions of violence and in-between spaces that one may explore in recreating and regenerating.  To engage into the violence itself is perhaps by participating its architectural journey and not ignoring its or discounting its scars and wounds.  It introduces new possibilities to for the traveler to gather memories - reuniting mind, body, and place.
 
 

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