DAY01 . . . . sometime in January
opening of the world's first purpose-built spaceport in New Mexico. The Southwest Regional
Spaceport at Upham, 25 miles southeast of Truth or Consequences, will focus on space tourism
and scientific research through commercial sub orbital flights.
As an estimated 50,000 customers will pass through this
state over the first ten years of the
spaceport's operation, it will
be the responsibility of the spaceport to offer proper accommodation,
spectator area, and public and private transportation access for all
visitors. This was the
programmatic
parameters for this semester's speculative
architecture project.
The student's development of this project was based on
notions of tele-presence as it pertains to three
architectural components,
structural system: cellular, site: Prisor Hill, Upham, New Mexico and
body:
the urban body.
The given programme encompassed the activities of sleeping, viewing, and orienting. These activities were explored through the physical experiences of tele-presence within altered environmental conditions of gravity/buoyancy, time, temperature, sound and oxygen.
Both the programme and the characteristics of an "ambient virtual co-presence" were situated at Prisor Hill, located in proximity to the future site of the spaceport. Furthermore, these conditions were to be encapsulated in a volume defined by a cellular structural system.
Although this speculative project was situated in the desert of the Jornada del Muerto, far from any commercial or residential development, these students were engaged in an urban project - understood through the architecture's occupants, its engagement with the landscape and the technology it uses.
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