ELOP*6 // JONATHAN MUSY // HEPIA COACHES NATHALIE MONGE / NATACHA GUILLAUMONT / JORIS DE CASTRO // ELOP COACHES KEY PORTILLA / KATHRIN MERZ / JUERGEN MELZNER

01 Metaphoric layers kick-off summary

Brainstorming data collection

The roots system site comprehension

The hives prototyping

The windmill program comprehension

touching & weirdthe node of the problematic

the central platform

a part of a network

an evolving and dynamic system

catalyst transformation & gains

common identitiesrooted related

large-scale strategy interaction

potentials

fractal complex

We began this data collection with the visit of the site. Afterwards we put in common our feelings, informations and impressions of the site: we noticed that the west-part of the site impressed us. Indeed we found there a real poetic character, something touching, weird and really different from the other open spaces we are used to see in this area. We saw some fractal characteristics of Silicon Valley in this site, like smelling dry meadow, Mediterranean trees, or fire-phobia witness such as the reservoir.

The site holds a central position (in a short or large scale view): it functions as a important crossroad between Palo-Alto, Stanford, San-Francisco and San-José. Despite this central position this site shows us a lot of mobility’s dysfunctions and permeability deficiencies.

After putting in common ideas, we found a common goal: the site must be in the centre of everything instead of being in the middle of nowhere. Further we saw a great potential in the creation of a network for the 21st c. Research park.

The windmill was one of our first model. This metaphor permits us to put in common our points of view about the program’s elements. To compare the windmill to the project was a way of to discuss who or what are the different pieces, the wind, the inputs, or the outputs. The windmill was particularly efficient to show how to use something dynamic (the wind/people) to transform things, to give them value (wheat into flour/knowledges and money into ideas, start-ups, social gain or workplaces).

Despite this efficiency of showing a program, the windmill was deficient to show the linkage between the site and his context and to show a large scale program.

Indeed the site seems to be a part of a complex network that is much bigger than the site itself and that doesn’t depend on the program. The natures of those links are diverse: some are non-physical, depending on territorial characteristics or simple similarities (such as genius loci) or physical (such as infrastructures or transportation).

The roots system is for us a efficient metaphor. It illustrates particularly well the links that a site has with his context. The goal is to understand the palimpsest of a site. It could bring us to purpose a realist and appropriate solutions during the project process.

However it wasn’t enough: instead of a ‘‘one element focused’’ system we began to think to something more complex like the roots system of a colony or a mushroom. This kind of system permits us to show a multi-directional

complex network that is shared by a lot of elements (in our case: spatial entities).

This metaphor is really efficient to approach the real complexity of a site’s context at different scales. Nevertheless difficulties appears when we try to link those territorial layers to the more dynamic layers of people and communities. It’s even more a problem when we think about the way of enhancing the site trough a network: enhancement and potentials revelation seem to be inseparable of the people.

The hive is our last metaphor. It has a lot of advantages compared to the previous ones: it shows at the same time really complex and dynamic interactions between individuals (bees) themselves and a complex network and interactions between the community (the hive) and the territory. This metaphor is focused on people and it seems a good thing related to their importance in this project.

However it could be interesting to extend this metaphor: the existing territory has particular

characteristics, that involve the kind of ecosystems depending on it and maybe the existing hives. As apiarists we have to know and to understand them to develop a realistic and efficient strategy, that could improve the actual one and enhance the research (or honey !) in this area.

For the moment, we see in the suggested site good potentials to improve the network, but it also seems to us important to enlarge our strategy to a larger scale.

PURPOSEDSITE

??

TERRITORIAL &CONTEXTUAL LAYER

ACTORS &STAKEHOLDERS

SURURBANISTICPROGRAM LAYER

PROGRAM’SANSWER

SIMPLE IN/OUTRELATIONSHIPS

SUBURBANISTICNETWORK LAYERSPATIAL POLESITE’S LINKAGE

NEW SUBURBANISTIC PROGRAM LAYER

ACTUAL HIVE’SNETWORK LAYER

POTENTIAL HIVE INSTALLATIONS

MULTI-DIRECTIONAL DYNAMIC & COMPLEX NETWORK

Team building our heroes

about us through them bridge risks vaccum pioneer no borders transcultural team-spirit holistic strangeness

We began to meet us through our ‘‘multidisciplinary heroes’’. It was a strange way of presenting ourselves but actually really more efficient than normal presentations: through them we spoke together about what interests us in a fundamental way, what is precious for us in this multidisciplinary and

transcultural project. From left to right Tony El Suizo (Carla), Shane MacConkey (Key), Nassim Haramein (Eduardo), Rolf Disch (Zhe), Goethe (Maximilian), Da Vinci (Tringuä), Valentino Rossi (Jonathan), Bucky Fuller (Kathrin) and Zygmunt Bauman (Carla).