The earth is our support, our base, the root that will, eventually, allow us to fly. To speak of the earth requires us to think about water, the slow force that moulds, cracks and bores. That transforms and sometimes also weakens it. It also requires us to think about air, empty space, the wind that moves over the surface of the earth’s crust and which our buildings, extensions of that crust, channel or resist. In the autumn semester 2012 we have proposed the students to design an interpretation centre at the Creux du Van in the Jura mountains in Switzerland: A Place of vision and contemplation connected to the scientific knowledge of the physical landscape.
The Jura Mountains are a sub-alpine mountain range located north of the western Alps, separating the Rhine and Rhone rivers and forming part of the watershed of each. At the entrance of the Val du Travers the huge falaise formation of the Creux du Van builds up. On the top of this plateau, about...
Read moreIsabelle Ramseier
The project derives from the typology of the ruins. A ruin generally keep contact to the earth. The more distant part as the roof...
Could you shortly explain the formation oft he Jura mountains and ist relationship with the Alps?
The rocks which we find in the Jura mountains formed at the northern margin of the Alpine see. This northern margin occupied a shallow marine environment where mostly limestones were diposited. Most...
The first concerns of the architecture project when addressing the future construction site are, necessarily, spatial, tectonic and topological; always resting on it, but in some cases fitting into it, and in yet others sinking right into it to root it there. Occasionally, this in-depth colonization...
Read more Our semester task was earth: To speak of the earth requires us to think about the other elements the water, the air and the fire. How do you relate earth to the other elements?
Of the four elements, earth is the one that represents the solid state of matter, and consequently, is the...