Wild Synapse | E13 Winners
Europan 13 Espoo, Finland
Housing for Aalto University´s Campus in Otaniemi, Helsinki (FI) by Borja Sallago, Alan Cortez and Manuel Pinilla.
Wild Synapse///a manifesto///
Wild Synapse is not a project. It is an attitude.
Wild Synapse is a sudden spark in the friction between human beings and nature.
Wild Synapse is a way of living in radical contact with nature.
It is a Synapse because it links multiple realities concepts we cannot see, but can feel and live.
It is Wild in order to let nature run its course.
Wild Synapse comes as an answer to multiple conditions.
It builds a shelter, a home, a meeting point... but it also fades in the presence of ever changing nature.
It is timeless and complex. Adaptable to the inhabitants of today and tomorrow.
In our eyes, this is a great opportunity to make explicit the complex network of realities which emerge from the city’s cultural background and the very own Aalto University’s campus.
Among this reality, we had to be aware of the physical space which our proposal will occupy. A space which works as a link between the campus and a protected natural reserve. It was essential to understand its condition of natural border, to which we provide with inhabitability.
Adaptable Living.
Our programme comes from the mixture of different agents in Espoo ́s territory.
PLAYERs + TOYs + GAMEs = WILD CODE
The goal is to link players with a toy and finally with a game.
When you coagulate this algorithm, a code appears... and so Wild Synapse occurs.
And now, the program goes wild. It is intuitive, yes, but innovative at the same time. It radicalises the way that architecture adapts to circumstances. A board that enables movement and multiple plays. Said program surges from the data processing of users, which we call Players, available objects, Toys, and activities that can be done with them, the Games.
This complexity is translated into a programatic adaptability. This adaptability comes in a double form; not only the adaptability given to each of the floors, but also the adaptability in the inhabiting relation with the building’s skin, filtering the contact with nature in each of its levels.
The mixture of all these codes represents the adaptability that the pieces provide, built or not, to our site.
On each building, the strategy is the same: we propose two floors for regular housing and two floors for collective housing.
It enables the users to feel in touch with nature, because apart from their space in confort, they can enjoy extra space outdoors in harmony with Espoo ́s Campus.
© Authors: Borja Sallago Zambrano, Alan Cortez de la Concha and Manuel Pinilla Fernández.
Team collaborators: Ana Georgina Hernández Aranda — graphic designer—, Francisco Crespo Burgueño, Alba Sospedra Arrufat, Luisa Daza Reyes y Fernando Basurto Gallegos — architecture students —
