Hidden Myths in the Infectious Voidscape
2021 / Mashhad, Iran
Masters Graduation Studio, TU Delft
Hidden Myths is a transgressive architectural manifestation. It is a symptom of and reaction to a larger phenomenon; a series of Infectious Voidscapes that can be found throughout the city of Mashhad, existing of sites in which all architectural forms of existence have been erased.
Hidden Myths activates the forgotten memories of one of these sites through a series of procedures, which create architectural elements that become programmatic constellations, that regenerate everyday life inside the Voidscape. An example of this is the element ‘Retaining Walls’, that with re-used steel sheet piling, outlines the site, creates new accessible depths within the site, and generates the basis for a new landscape within the city.
Hidden Myths’ procedures, elements, and constellations, together, create a landscape that it is simultaneously full and vacant, alive and provisional, and thus provoke a negotiation with the nature of the Voidscapes found in Mashhad, with the intention of uniting the people that reside, visit, and embody the city. It is through combining the religious cosmology of the site with everyday inhabitation, that slowly become apparent the invisible myths that are hidden within this Voidscape.
Hidden Myths in the Infectious Voidscape marks the design phase of my graduation project, visit the research phase here: Hotel City.
︎︎︎ Watch the film
Infectious Voidscape
What do you do when you stumble upon an empty site sitting next to the divine and tumultuous presence of the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza? What do you do when you learn that this empty site is actually a symptom of a larger phenomenon, a series of Infectious Voidscapes that can be found throughout the city of Mashhad? What do you do when you unravel this site’s history, and find remains of passed activities and bodily extensions, along traces of futuristic optimism?
Catalogue
This catalogue holds the contents of the Hidden Myths manifestation that can be carried out near the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad.
Palimpsest
Hidden Myths unravels its site’s history through the reconstruction of its Palimpsest, which consists of the physical things that once resided within the site, that are reinterpreted through a process of delayering. The Palimpsest activates the erased remains of previous inhabitation, echoing its long-forgotten memories.
Procedures
Hidden Myths is operated by a set of Procedures, that are carried out by a range of characters, who transform the site into a living entity: a Landscape. These procedures establish everything but a status quo, as they constantly reshuffle the Landscape’s soil conditions, boundaries, and material elements. Each procedure is provisional and prepares the landscape for something to happen on it, which ultimately creates a lasting state of the Landscape feeling ‘unfinished’ and ‘unpolished’.
Elements
Hidden Myths consists of a range of Elements, that each have distinct tectonic qualities. Their architectural anatomy is visually comprehensible and every single element generates some form of space. Each element co-produces the landscape just as much as the other one right next to it, and thus Landscape in the end becomes the sum of all of them taken together.
Constellations
The Elements on the Landscape come together to create various programmatic Constellations, that gracefully submerge within the Landscape. These Constellations create a multitude of simultaneously occurring conditions that seemingly clash, yet actually co-exist, as the landscape is a public garden, construction site, material storage facility, infrastructural network, private guesthouse, functional bazar, and quiet prayer space in one.