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EPHEMERAL TOWERFALL 2022



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Unadaptable to our changing needs, buildings are rendered obsolete, sometimes even before they are completed, leaving behind concrete skeletons. What is to become of these structures, high in embodied carbon?

The proposal is an adaptive reuse of concrete ruins via a timber space frame structure. It winds around the concrete base, like a growing vine, reshaping its envelope by extending its floors outwards.

Rather than imposing a fixed intervention, the timber space frame and concrete structure function as ‘skeletons’ whose ‘organs’ may change over time and space.



These ruins of modernism are often homogenous,
contextually disregarding structures --a mistake of our
era. Yet, we can rely on these known characteristics
to analyse, design and respond with a replicable
intervention. A holistic proposal must however, consider
how all essential systems to support occupants’ basic
needs can be integrated within this hybrid structure.








The concept is applied to the existing Belvedere Luxury Apartments Project in Noida City Development, just outside New Delhi. Due to crashing real estate market, hundreds of abandoned reinforced concrete carcasses remain. This situation exists alongside a severe housing shortage crisis, with millions of people lacking adequate housing.

The space frame intervention re-animates these obsolete towers into new livable and sturdy homes for the inhabitants of the slums and huts. The proposal calls for new bridges and infrastructure to enable this transition.















TIMBER SPACE FRAME

Mass timber jointing parts are digitally fabricated and transported onsite. Wall panels are infilled using found materials. Parts can then be disassembled, moved and replaced as needed with minimal cost and waste.

Structure invades the concrete buildings and is connected to the exisiting towers with metal brackets for support.