Category Archives: Youssef Rashdan

THESIS

Residue BCN is a hovering city that is self-sufficient that offers new possibilities of functions due to its complex dense system of colossal form and positioning within the context of Barcelona.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of the Workshop is to explore the idea of connections and/or extensions through a colossal form and to arrive to that by the gathering of existing typologies within the context of Barcelona and mainly around the assigned site which is the Besos river.

CONCEPT

A diverse set of typological forms collected and abstracted were to be experimented with as individual objects with the potential of finding alternative formal attributes that can be re-assigned to serve a purpose for the overall proposed city. Further on, the following step involved to arrive to new formal results which unfold new functional possibilities for the overall form.

The different combination systems that were explored were aggregation, accumulation and piling. the constant shuffling of the typological forms and applying the different combinational methods gave new suggestions of openings, structures, connections, circulations, and surfaces started to happen. An example of that is for instance, a courtyard from a typical Barcelona housing unit transforms as an opening when rotated for a circulation system coming from a tower held diagonally, or the facade of a warehouse becomes the floor when rotated and attached to a perpendicular surface.

Through this method, a system of formal transformation occurs, from conventional topological language on the micro level to a colossal form on the macro level and by having a section cutting.Through this new architectural formation, a new set of formal and functional rules are derived.