MANIFESTO Unbuilding

Unbuilding

manifesto and design proposal

sponsored by Building 21

written and designed by Adam Ghadi-Delgado

Contents

Manifesto

Proposal of Unbuilding

Preconceptions

Zeitgeist, Life and Death of a Building

Program & Non-Tabula Rasa

On Space & Form

Continuously-Changing City Landscape

Phenomenological Value of Artificial Ruins

Artists’ Ideologies

Guerilla Architecture

Addressing Adaptive Reuse

Laissez-Faire

Moments

New Buildings

Political Hurdles

Role of the Architect, Further Thoughts

& Current Practices

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Project Proposal

44

3

STEP 1: Let inhabitants abandon the

structure to be unbuilt

STEP 2: Dismantle, surgically destroy,

or rearrange the building’s material


After the building has become abandoned, because of the lot acquisition

by another party, because it is to be demolished to favor a new

project, or any other reason, there is an opportunity before demolition

to create a cultural agent in an active cultural landscape. To do this, the

building must be, as implied, in an active cultural landscape, and the

building must be deemed structurally safe.

The project proposed is to dismantle, surgically destroy and rearrange

the materials of the building to create a novel architectural experience

of space for its potential experiential and cultural value. This space is

prescribed as public domain, similar to how a park would function, until

the building’s inevitable destruction.

STEP 3: Allow individuals to repopulate

the space and use it the way

they wish, engage in the flexibility and

eventfulness of the unbuilding space

Unbuilding is the digestion of material until it is unusable, reworking and

recycling on site, replacing outright demolition. Avoid being prude with

buildings, knowing that they will be demolished makes them malleable.

This creates potential for the built environment to allow individuals to

experience spaces that are otherwise unsustainable.

Destruction, dismantling and removal of material in a space is a creative

tool for spatial manipulation. Make the demolishing of a building a

process, a performance, a tectonic experience.

STEP 4: Repeat STEP 2 & STEP 3 until

there is no possibility of event in the

space.

STEP 5: Recycle remaining building

material into new architecture

Unbuilding is by definition, a true-to-form deconstruction of architecture

in the built environment.

Cambridge Dictionary’s definition:

Deconstruction

noun [C or U] - /ˌdiː.kənˈstrʌkʃ.ən/

“the act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand

its meaning, especially when this is different from how it was previously

understood”

5

Preconceptions

Unlike Peter Eisenman’s theoretical applications of deconstruction,

where his buildings are ideologically deconstructed, drawn as process,

and then constructed as a proof of process, unbuilding is a material

form of deconstruction.

The process of deconstruction in itself is of interest because of the process

that involves disassembly to disect and understand. It is a disection

of the building, to reinvigorate the material quality and other fluxes

of the buiding, particularly program.

It is to remove words from a sentence until it is no longer grammatically

correct, unbuilding is to question what differentiates a building to a

sculpture. It is so challenge what can be done inside a space, and the

difference between outdoors and indoors. Gaston Bachelard, in Poetics

of Space, tried to define the difference of indoor to outdoor with the

experience of a Canadian or Russian winter and the wall separating the

warmth of the hearth to the cold seen in the window. It is this contrast

that makes the experience of an “indoor” self-evident. Unbuilding supposes

that it is when the space is no longer usable for events that could

not happen outdoors. In other words, it is the experiential death of a

building.

House IV Drawings / Eisenman

Image bibliography number: 8

Applicably, unbuilding it is closer to Levi-Stauss’ bricolage in terms of

process, because it is to reimagine compositions of an already existing

pool of material. Unbuilding is to play within these limitations, to

acknowledge that the tool-box is limited and “bricoler” these artefacts

together once more.

FR:

Le bricoleur est apte à exécuter un grand nombre de tâches diversifiées ;

mais, à la différence de l’ingénieur, il ne subordonne pas chacune d’elles

à l’obtention de matières premières et d’outils, conçus et procurés à la

mesure de son projet : son univers instrumental est clos, et la règle de son

jeu est de toujours s’arranger avec les « moyens du bord », c’est-à-dire

un ensemble à chaque instant fini d’outils et de matériaux, hétéroclites

au surplus, parce que la composition de l’ensemble n’est pas en rapport

avec le projet du moment, ni d’ailleurs avec aucun projet particulier, mais

est le résultat contingent de toutes les occasions qui se sont présentées

de renouveler ou d’enrichir le stock, ou de l’entretenir avec les résidus de

constructions et de destructions antérieures.

7

Horse Emergy Analysis / Rydberg


Zeitgeist,

Life and Death

of a Building

Buildings are meant to transcend generations, to build and to do it

correctly for generations to come. Ruskin’s mentality of trying to build

forever echoes this sentiment. To be an architect is to, therefore, be partially

clairevoyant. To destroy a building is to disagree that the building

can be re-adapted for a novel use, its materials have become unusable,

or the owner of the lot has chosen that they do not want to use the material

accumulated on the site.

I wish to define buildings as an accumulation of materials and labour.

This allows for the application of emergy material theory from H.T.

Odum and Marxist labour value theory to understand the value of a

building outside its cultural or practical importance. In fact, one of the

defining qualities of civilization is the way groups of people are able to

use labour to rearrange the material world to habilitate living.

The culture of building is one of reorganizing material onto a site which

implies ghost acreage, where to compensate for a building, a specific

amount of land is required to make a physical product using labour. To

think of a building as a product and to think of its raw material equivalent

as if a list of extracted ressources is undoubtedly the most revealing

aspect in realizing the importance of preserving buildings and their

materials.

Western 20th century into early 21st century culture has no inherent

value system for raw materials or the natural energy that they require to

be produced, and therefore, there is no capitalist incentive for material

sustainability. The value of material is determined by labour and material

scarcity not by the energetic value of a material object. Therefore,

there must be a different incentive to the extension of material life in old

buildings.

2-4-6-8 House - Parts / Morphosis


9

Zeitgeist,

Life and Death

of a Building

In Empire, State & Building, Kiel Moe outlines that the Empire State

Building has been in its current iconic position for a long time, and this

is due to its cultural affluence.

The concept of velocity is also outlined where a building’s materials,

therefore the building itself, have a velocity. The velocity of a building

can be used as an indicator of its sustainability, for the raw materials are

often displaced to a company or factory that will make a product out of

the raw material and turn it into a building material, which is then imported

on site to produce a building.

These movements have an inevitable impact on the environment. The

velocity of the building then, once it is built, continuously decreases.

Once it is on site it starts aging, a building develops different relationships

to its surroundings: the city.

Pulsation of Building Material (kg) Over Time / Moe


Buildings develop histories and cultural significance, collective memory

accumulates to give additional ideological value to the building. Over

their life cycles, buildings effectively perform.

Performance Mapping / Tschumi


Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas would say it because of the programmatic

performance of a building being the way we define our

spaces. Tschumi even pushes it to be “material”. The idea of ‘program’

is the way we discern buildings in our culture. Latour further thinks of a

“moving project” a material performance where buildings age, move,

contrasting the thought that buildings are generally seen as immutable

and unmovable objects. Buildings continuously perform throughout

their material cycle and programmatic use.

We are prude with buildings in maintaining their state and this is for

mainly two reasons: either its organization is helpful to the way it functions

(or poses no hindrance) and there is therefore no need to edit it,

or careful renovation can become expensive because it often requires

analysis, labour and a positive influx of material. What is proposed here

instead is no influx, possibly even outflux of material from the site as to

change the spatial quality of the spaces in the building.

Performance Building / Tschumi


11

Program

&

Non-Tabula Rasa

A building’s ideological identity comes from its program. The reason it

is urgent to think of buildings as a spatial rearrangement of material using

labour is because, instead of that, we generally think of buildings as

their program: a library, a school, a house, a shop. Instead, in a space

that is losing its identity because it is abandoned, architectural cues

are helpful to understand its prior identity. These cues are enablers of

architectural programs: chair arrangement, magazines and a secretary

make a waiting room while two bedrooms with closets, a bathroom, a

living room, a kitchen, etc. make an apartment.

Yokohama Master Plan Diagram / Rem Koolhaas


Architecture as a structural, material, formal object is devoid of program;

program is prescribed and gives life to a building. Architecture

functions on either simple or complex hierarchies relating different

spaces. Instead of having a building being torn down, it is possible to

edit its identity and rearrange spatial hierarchies to create unexpected

experiences otherwise improbable in conventional architecture. This is

especially true in relationships between exterior and interior spaces.

When a building becomes programmatically obsolete because of its

cultural or political (or other) context, and the architecture is of a specific

quality, it may be an interesting case for an adaptive reuse project or

an unbuilding project if it is to be demolished.

Because of historical reasons and technological reasons it is sometimes

impossible to readapt buildings. For example, architects designing

prior to the technological advancements of the 20th century did

not plan server rooms, which must be kept in hermetic conditions at

specific temperatures. Buildings, over time, become obsolete much like

a technological object would because it is sometimes impossible to

retrofit, forcing an adaptive reuse project, additions, or renovations. This

forces demolition.

Program specificity makes it difficult for a space to be versatile enough

for adaptive reuse. For example, hospitals are highly specific buildings

because they are idealized as efficient machines with multi-part

programs interacting continuously. These are programmatically fragile

ecosystems that are not adequate to place in a space of unbuilding.

Despite this, the inverse is true, it is possible to make an unbuilding

project out of a previously-active hospital.

ropes and rules - Advertisements for Architecture / Tschumi


13

Maison Dom-ino / Le Corbusier


Diagram about Le Corbusier’s Work / Eisenman


Program

&

Non-Tabula Rasa

After Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture and the Domino House, the

infill-type concrete skeleton building permeated world-wide as a prototype

that takes the form of a three-dimensional grid. The grid is structural

and acts as a guide for architectural manipulations of the space.

The grid is effectively a rigid skeleton where pseudo-malleable walls

are arranged. Because of the importance of this idea, we have a series

of buildings structured this way which can be endlessly rearranged by

floor. Most skyscrapers are structured in this way. Further, in unbuilding

terms, these can express intra-level relationships by surgically removing

parts of the floor to create atriums while floors present a blank canvas

for event and material manipulation.

F. P. Program Diagram / Price


There is a distinctive point in the material breaking-down of a space

where the possibility of program restricts itself and usability becomes

impossible. Much like a syntactically correct sentence, there is a certain

expectation for the space to operate. In the destruction of a space,

there is a point of no-return where the material qualities of a space now

impede more restrictive programs from happening. The inverse tends

to happen as well, when spaces are too versatile, nothing happens in

them. Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, for example, is effectively a Tabula

Rasa of program, rendering a sort of utopia vision of a blank space as if

it were a cultural enabler.

The argument is that once a building has been digested enough to lose

its usability, then it is not a building anymore. That is the edge-condition

of unbuilding, or when the sentence becomes solecistic. Once it has

reached that point, it is programmatically, and therefore culturally, dead.

This opposes the zeitgeist where when a building is abandoned, it is

immediately dead.

Fun Palace Brochure / Price


15

Program

&

Non-Tabula Rasa

In the case of unbuilding, the incentive is to explore the programmatic

breakdown of the usability of a space through the removal and rearrangement

of material. It is to use the parameters and rules (or ropes

and rules, so to speak) of the space, extrapolate programmatic use,

and offer the framework to the city to see what can happen in such a

space: a weathered, intentionally decaying building.

Poetically, a building is alive for as long as it is used. As a building is set

to be destroyed, there is a moment between its abandonment and its

demolition where the building can be considered dead. During this time

is when unbuilding should take place.

During unbuilding, the space implies a set of programs: ephemeral programs

and indeterminacy projects. These are projects involving short

time-scales and using spaces to experiential ends. As easy-to-grasp

example, these can be pop-up boutiques, bars, performances, galleries,

parties, reception halls, cafes and more. They are programs that

benefit from unconventional spaces because they aim to be experiential

more than purely practical, and they require very little spatial arrangements

or furniture to function and it is often flexible and mobile. Their

furniture is their spatial enabler, and allows the space to become entirely

experiential. The flexibility implied in the space creates an avenue for

program unlike conventional spaces.

Program Diagram - Sensitivity / Self

17

On Space & Form

House / Whiteread


The space we occupy is never as intuitive as assumed. Poetry in this

sense is always closer to the essence of a space than a rigid plan is.

Rachel Whiteread’s House is revelatory of this phenomenon by solidifying

a theoretically occupied space. It materializes the continuous fluidity

of the home itself and gives it form. The connections of a building formally,

its non-material tensions influenced by material, are in continuous

flux. The influence of the architecture onto these fluxes is the interest of

unbuilding and how these have an active dependency to the material

dismantling of a building.

To do so is to first acknowledge the specific formal-cultural associations

in geographical contexts. This is to say that strong classical buildings

are often associated with government or powerful associations in the

western zeitgeist, for example. More challenging architectural forms like

OMA’s Très Grand Bibliothèque proposal start to put into question intra-building

relationships. By adopting similar approaches to unbuilding,

creative programmatic frictions start to occur via material voids.

If material influences a building’s form, and form creates programmatic

flux and tension within the building based on its context, then a particular

attention must be made to both the formal manipulations to the

building and its relationship to the site and context.

Très Grande Bibliothèque Proposal / Koolhaas


19

Continuously-Changing

City Landscape

Demolition of buildings in small lots aiming to engage a different project

is closely related to gentrification. Gentrification points to an active

community in both its financial and cultural affluence. While it is difficult

to stop without strong-handed policy, unbuilding is the type of project

that is able to breathe cultural continuation into buildings destined to

the graveyard.

In its current prescribed state, unbuilding is a project that relieves gentrification’s

tension socioculturally, and has to be geographically specific

while also topically sensitive.

Property-lot value extrapolation / Steif


Gentrification is experienced in varied tectonic ways across the globe,

but has clear commonalities that should be understood:

Happens commonly in historically rich or “legacy” cities;

Happens as a result of new proximity to sought-after amenities and

types of amenities;

Causes increases in real-estate value, meaning an overall increase in

household income over time;

Changes cultural priorities of a neighbourhood over time;

Using spatial lag, historical value of plots of land by sale price, neighbourhood

proximities, and extrapolating, Ken Steif of Urban Spatial

analytics explains in much more depth the ways plots of land change

over time and how spatial dynamics in a city operate in his research

project “Predicting gentrification using longitudinal census data.” The

project represents a predictive model for gentrification in legacy cities

in the United States. By reviewing the data, and changes in real-estate

development in cities, with implications of demolition and construction

of buildings, this type of study points to the continuous existence of

buildings near the end of their material lives.

Pruitt Igoe Demolition / Yamasaki


21

North view of what would become Places des Arts / Archives de la Ville de Montreal


Continuously-Changing

City Landscape

I will shortly refer to effects of gentrification in Montreal specifically because

as an individual, it is the metropolitan city I understand best. This

sentiment continues in later segments, where Montreal is used as the

host for pertinent examples. The Quartier des Spectacles is one of the

most dramatic changes in value of real-estate in Montreal’s history after

the age of prohibition where North American businessmen would stop

in Montreal for its bars and cabarets. The change came as the mayor

Jean Drapeau took it upon himself to modernize the city of Montreal.

Between the 1950’s and the construction of the Desjardins complexe in

1976, the city had invested into Expo 67, the Olympic games of 1976,

a metro system, an underground megastructure and other massively-scaled

projects. After the city had effectively received a face-lift, the

Festival International de Jazz de Montreal uses the unused land around

Place des Arts to build ephemeral stages. Over time, the notorious

Quartier des Spectacles would become notorious for its summer-time

activity, cultural phenomena and slew of services and amenities. Naturally,

real estate prices shot up, real estate development continued. This

produces a tense neighbourhood where old buildings and cultural icons

like the Montreal Pool room still stand in proximity to new giants and

glass boxes. Most of the neighbourhood’s buildings have been demolished

and set aside to allow new buildings, now more culturally in-line

with the city’s vision.

This same phenomenon happened in the city’s Mile-End where, historically

a poor working class borough is now host to small local boutiques,

renowned restaurants, and does not represent a working class demographic

anymore, has had many adaptive reuse projects appear, and

over time will most-likely see dramatic real-estate development. Cultural

agents such as White Wall Studio and Casa del Popolo are currently

active in that neighbourhood (Year 2020).

Entremise, a Montreal-based NGO, aims to reuse vacant spaces

around the city. Their promising prototype project, Project Young, reinhabits

an abandoned space for twenty-two months as a work space

until the building must be returned to the city of Montreal. Their active

model is one of transition spaces which is familiar to the concept of

unbuilding and is one that points to how cities change continuously.

Visualisation of Vacant Buildings in Montreal / Le Séisme


The generalization is that gentrification comes from industrial success,

cultural importance due to emerging artists, events, and/or architecture,

and the rising value of properties. It is easy here to think of New York

city as a fervent example of gentrification. This indicates that it is all

the more important to implement a system of unbuilding as neighbourhoods

and boroughs experience changes in character. Gentrification is

a continuous process in the western canon of land ownership in cities,

and therefore, unbuilding will remain relevant until western ideals radically

change, even in economic recessions. Socio-cultural event does

not halt.

23

Phenomenological Value

of Artificial Ruins

Unbuilding, represents a strong phenomenological argument for the

individual in the city for its subversion of preconceptions about architecture

and functions of architecture. Similar to almost any readaptation

architecture project, there is an unexpected experience because of a

remodelling of what was there before, especially if the prior was experienced.

Spatial reasoning, that is influenced by collective memory of

places, is affected by this subversion because an individual expects

characteristics of space and spatial cues, while an experience of discovery

quickly replaces this expectation. These are moments otherwise

inexperienced that are now possible because of the changing of physical

attributes of a space.

Further, in unbuilding specifically, this subversion happens differently

than in other projects because of the appearance of material flux

as a process. For example, cutting a hole on the floor and using that

material to make a bench next to it, a beam in the ceiling removed to

make a railing makes for a procedural material mapping of the space

and its manipulations. Unbuilding spaces are places of potential and

imagination, they are effectively a material playground involving only

the necessary influx of labour. This process makes for an experience

of space that changes over time until the building is unusable. This

kind of process of space is rarely experienced outside the architectural

imagination, or drawing which is how deconstructivist architecture is

recognized, but I highlight this: ideas of deconstruction making novel

architecture is not ideologically the same as deconstructing an existing

building. This prototype of a programmatically active deconstruction of

a building is phenomenologically captivating.

Le antichita Romane, Tomo II, Tav. LX / Piranesi


Unbuilding’s poetry is using a space unexpectedly, to go against the

grain of the space, what it was prescribed to do. It is witnessing the

remnants of the space, and accepting the ambiguity of the space. Unintended

is the best way to describe this phenomena, it is an uncanny

psychological and sometimes physiological serendipitous experience

that challenges one’s established senses of perception, it is akin to the

sublime.

25

Artists’ Ideologies

Conical Intersect Gelatin Silver Print Collage / Matta-Clark


Gordon Matta-Clark contradicts the built environment zeitgeist and portrays

ideas already addressed in this document by using power tools

to destroy specific parts of buildings. His manipulations are material,

therefore spatial in nature. Specifically Four Corners, Splitting, Conical

Intersect, his photo and material montages of architectural elements all

provide a visceral realization of the malleability and fragility of architecture.

With his power tools, Matta-Clark is able to dismantle a space almost

entirely with formal intervention, the space breaks down and there

is a different spatial hierarchy that now permeates the building. This is a

play-ground for events, despite no proof of it. His work displays a thriftiness

and rearranging that is somewhat akin to Martin Margiela’s.

Albeit with garments, Margiela pioneers ideas of reuse and of deconstruction.

His ethos of deconstruction and reconstruction is transferable

to architecture, and most evident perhaps in works like his sock sweater,

or his belt jackets, leather sandal vest, and so on. It is, by definition,

a non-commercial aesthetic because it is highly specific to the materials

that are found to be recycled.

These ideas are, as the architecture itself, performative, they are of

process. The act of making is part of the art itself, and as performative

art itself is, it is ephemeral. They evoke ideas of manipulation of material

over time and are the basis for unbuilding. Documenting the process to

offer the documentation as a product instead of the object itself points

to the value of the process itself over the finished product. When the object

itself obviously delineates process, it is all the more interesting, like

seeing a a hammer next to a hole made in the drywall.

One to make at Home ... / Margiela


27

Araña / Recetas Urbanas


Photo of Men Playing Cards Outdoors / Lara-Hernandez


Szimpla Kert



Defined as form of counter culture to the built environement by minimal

interventions, often in old disused buildings, in goals of readapting

guerilla architecture is, by definition, the closest active concept to

unbuilding. By definition it is a subversive endeavour Where they differ

is in hierarchy where unbuilding englobes the guerilla architecture

ethos because of the expected continuity of material and recycling. The

expectancy is for unbuilding to address the material wastage in demolishing

buildings in productive ways and change perception of buildings

the way they are currently understood in the western canon.

The most significant catalyst for guerilla architecture, one that is not

necessary to it but makes individuals realize the necessity of, is political

turmoil. These types of tensions create further architectural questions; a

brutal example of that is questions of ownership in the Palestine-Israel

conflict where, as Eyal Weizman put it, “[The borders in question] may

even errupt into Palestinian living rooms, bursting through the house

walls.” That very tension is the type of force that enables guerilla and

subversive architecture. Further, in the chapter titled Urban Warfare:

Walking through Walls, Weizman explains vividly how these forces were

materialized (or de-materialized) by the Israelian military, which involved

a different thinking of the urban fabric in deconstructed ways which is

not far from the formal argument for Unbuilding.

Non-exhaustively:

In Spain, political tensions, economic challenges and restlessness

makes cheap but meaningful architectural interventions the most contextually

sensitive and pertinent. Santiago Cirugeda of Recetas Urbanas

reclaims material and builds in illegal spaces, without warrant, for a

perceived need in the community.

In Mexico, it is common practice to appropriate the public sphere by using

little means and minimal furniture, similar to street merchants but to

different ends, this social friction happens because of housing shortages

in Mexico city. This is outlined and explained in J. Antonio Lara-Hernandez’s

Temporary Appropriation of Public Space As an Emergence

Assemblage for the Future Urban Landscape: The Case of Mexico City.

This phenomenon extends itself to abandoned spaces around the city.

In Budapest, Ruin Bars are an important part of the night life and are

constructed from a complex of several buildings that have been manipulated

and redecorated frantically. Bathtubs repurposed as seating,

bar counters in living rooms, and a plethora of unexpected frictions of

architectural assumptions.

29


Non-exhaustively (cont.):

Centro Financiero Confinanzas (Torre David) / Alias: EneasMx


B018 / Bernard Khoury


The Egg / Karam


In Venezuela, the economic disparity between individuals forces some

to live in the equivalent of slums while others in gated communities.

This makes the appropriation of abandoned spaces necessary. For

example, Torre de David, as it is commonly called, or Centro Financiero

Confinanzas is a 45-storey tower in the middle of Caracas which was

abandoned mid-construction and reappropriated by families that now

work and live in the building. For a long time, the building had no running

water or electricity which points to the resilience of people in need

of shelter.

In Lebanon, the civil war forced a displacement of the population.

Physical spaces now are being reappropriated for different projects. An

example of that is Bernard Khoury’s B018 nightclub project in the zone

of “Quarantaine.” It is a politically and culturally subversive project that

reappropriates politically tense spaces in a poetic way. There are also

ruin-like buildings representing cultural icons in the city-scape such as

Beirut’s Egg, previously one of the city’s cinema theaters (1960s), that

are completely abandoned and rest as a shell. These spaces are often

visited and used for momentary event, and have been effectively reclaimed

as public space.

In Berlin after the wall fell, the new-found spaces without any political

validity were soon overrun “illegally” by notorious nightclubs, artist

groups and others. The ones that have survived are set in Stalinist

industrial architecture such as Berghain and Tresor. While more in the

realm of adaptive reuse, the Koenig Galerie was a brutalist church in

Berlin turned into an art galerie. Despite projects like this, there exist

more ephemeral events in Berlin that appropriate spaces in a more aggressive

way, making site-specific art, or performances that are lacklusterly

documented. These types of projects often lack documentation for

their illegal and ephemeral nature.

Berghain / Reuse Mostly by Studio Karhard


31

Addressing

Adaptive Reuse

SSENSE 418 St-Sulpice / Chipperfield


In Montreal, adaptive reuse is partially ingrained in the culture, SSENSE

(David Chipperfield), Centre Phi (L’Oeuf), Darling Foundry (In Situ) are

splendid recent examples of that. Darling Foundry, in fact, is closer to a

“Laissez faire” than a full renovation (refer to subsequent title). Quebec

culturally prides itself in its history, which is physically manifested by

the preservation of the historical buildings in the province. This makes

adaptive reuse in Montreal and the rest of the province a wide-spread

ideology and there are splendid examples of it. Despite this, unbuilding

is not an adaptive reuse proposal, it is a proposal of surgical destruction

of buildings but it is important to acknowledge the difference between

them.

As a concept, adaptive reuse, more often than not, completely renovates

a building from the inside out. As an image, these buildings are

effectively matryoshka dolls, seeing the preserved facade followed by

an interior building. The similarity also comes from having a similar

hierarchy because of exterior constraints, buildings systems and other

essential architectural elements, making warehouses often the most

interesting to manipulate for their facilitating shell-like architecture.

Fonderie Darling / (L’Oeuf)


Centre Phi Prior to Adaptive Reuse / Centre Phi (In Situ)


33

Laissez-Faire

Within the realm of reuse, there are two projects that I would like to explain

more in-depth for their appeal to this manifesto.

The Meeting / PS1, intervention by Turrell


The Hole / PS1, intervention by Saret


MoMA PS1, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A is a museum-type project where

MoMA reappropriated the first public school built in Brooklyn and artists

are now invited to manipulate the space in a significant way. The artistic

manipulations are meaningful spatially and often involve an outflux

of material. The most material alternative manipulations include Alan

Saret’s The Hole at P.S.1, Fifth Solar Chthonic Wall Temple and James

Turrell’s The Meeting.

MoMA’s PS1 also teaches about site specificity because the art is

meant to be exclusively displayed in the space. All art pieces in PS1,

therefore, change the nature of the space. It is, in spirit, an unbuilding

project kept alive by its novel function as a museum.

Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France by Lacaton & Vassal is effectively a

space reappropriation project. In spirit, Lacaton & Vassal take the

space as it is, clean the cobwebs and dust, and call the space perfect.

In a way, this simple efficient reappropriation of this old pavilion is in the

spirit of unbuilding, all while being one of the strongest contemporary

cultural agents in Paris. It is in a method of reappropriation that I describe

as “laissez-faire.” Which is one of the cornerstones of unbuilding.

The only element missing would be a material reevaluation and surgical

removal.

Palais de Tokyo / Images by 11h45, architecture by Lacaton & Vassal


35

Moments

Ephemeral structures and interventions are at the spiritual threshold

to Unbuilding. This is because ephemeral structures are in constant

flux of material, usually programmatic enablers or experiential interventions.

For this, a blank-canvas-like space is used to these ends whether

outdoor or indoor. Indoor spaces can inform a performance and a great

example of that is Silo City in Buffalo New York, where decommissioned

grain silos are reused as venues for art and performance. Musicians

and other performers are quick to take advantage of the eight second

reverb the space offers and often invade the space with their instruments,

tools, and other space enablers.

Silo City, Buffalo / McGinnis


Ephemeral structures often involve quick inputs of labour before and

after the moment for which the ephemeral architecture is active, using

lightweight materials,

For this there are a slew of examples in Montreal for the outdoors:

First, there are the terraces set up every year in front of restaurants and

bars, usually constructed out of wood and put up within a day.

Second, the stages set for the Francos, Jazz Fest., Juste pour Rire and

others around the quartier des spectacles.

Third, Village au Pied du Courant where every year, crowd-sourced

design selected through competition enables a space near the shore

for inhabitants to attend a DJ set as much as have a calm day with their

kids depending on the time of day.

Fourth, Le Virage campus MIL is a Université de Montréal initiated

space for ephemeral projects and structures currently featuring container-type

architecture.

Etc.

2019 Edition / Village au Pied du Courant


These structures imply movement of material, labour and users in conjunction,

which is interesting to graft as a framework to unbuilding as an

argument for feasibility.

37

Hy-Fi / The Living (at PS1)


The Growing Pavilion / Krown


New Buildings

New constructions must be over-designed in ways where material can

be digested into different objects after the fact. Architecture in the 21st

century designs with products more than material itself, distancing

the material from the architect is a crucial flaw in the building process.

Material is taken for granted, which is part of the problem in the construction

zeitgeist stated at first. Material is seen as replaceable, which

is particularly the case for building materials because they are exploited

for their material properties and ready availability, making waste management

a crucial aspect of new buildings.

All new buildings, as do existing buildings are subject to influx and

outflux of material, as it is part of their performance. It is the part of

the architect’s responsibility to predict what kind of influx and outflux a

building requires, including building systems. If an architect assumed

responsibility over the building over its lifetime and had to maintain it

themselves, the state of the building industry would largely right itself.

Hypothetically, it is possible to create new buildings using specific

methods so that the material influx of the building happens in a natural

way. Although incredibly long as a process,for example, salt pools

can theoretically be used to coat material endlessly because of natural

phenomena, and building with salt presents a potential material alternative.

There are also discoveries of new materials such as mushroom

based bio-material that may prove itself viable for responsible new construction.

These are to say: architects of the 21st century need special

attention to the material they consume and how they will perform, age

and so on.

The current building industry’s norms for green building are also

non-extensive and cannot be taken as the end-all to sustainability. LEED

and other accreditations work on a point-system which is goal-oriented

and not process-oriented. “Green buildings” come in different forms,

and in Singapore for example, it means continuous investment into social

housing, control over the ecosystems (man-built and natural), and

lush flora. While a tremendous example of a complete overhaul of a city

at the building-scale, it is not the only option for green buildings.

Three Material Stories / Wikstrom


In fact, instead of trying to use as little energy as possible, Kiel Moe

hypothesises that is more beneficial to use more energy in building, but

use it in effective, cyclical ways that feedback into the building’s and the

city’s ecosystem. Not every form of sustainability involves energy and

carbon per capita calculations.

39

Political Hurdles

A project such as unbuilding presents several political hurdles. First and

foremost there is the respect of building code which varies by government

over time. These involve design requirements, preservation, safety

regulations, etc. It is possible to rearrange material in a respectful way,

but the inability to use certain spaces will also involve what is deemed

safe or not in an unbuilding space.

As explained previously, guerrilla architecture arises primordially

through or after political tensions, self-building without permits and

invading abandoned buildings is effectively an open act of rebellion and

subversion. Spaces being illegal creates a slew of other problems such

as fines, gang involvement, unrespected safety regulations, etc. Paperwork

is often too long to consider doing an ephemeral project such as

unbuilding unless there was regulation allowing for it.

One of the largest issues with this type of project is the conventional

hierarchy of actors where the client has power of veto, the architect is

a creator and executioner, contractors dictate what can and cannot be

done and users are to take it or leave it. In this sense, smaller projects

require smaller channels and hit fewer bumps in the road, but since

ownership can mean the vetoing of a project, the owner of the lot needs

to have incentive.

A tapestry of stone and brick... / Alison Creba


Demolition involves soil, surface water, ground water, air quality, and

pollution (includes noise and light) surveys. Since unbuilding is demolition

over time, because it is procedural, it is important to actively survey

over the period. Construction waste is usually brought to a process

facility to be recycled or discarded or brought to a landfill. In this case,

since the project is being dismantled piece by piece, there is a gradual

opportunity to recycle certain materials.

41

Detroit Reassembly Plant / T+E+A+M


Trash Peaks / DESIGN EARTH


Role of the Architect,

Further Thoughts

&

Current Practices

The architect is in a precarious situation when in the city, because his

role is one of approaching tabula plena. The architect should actively

consider possibilities of adaptive reuse or material recycling where possible.

Disposing of the previous building, constructing a new building

and maintaining said new building should all be part of the responsibility

of the architect. In addition, the architect has a social responsibility

to design for the community concerned and those who will be using the

building. While platitudes, these guidelines are all too often ignored.

Theoretical work is also as important if not more than physical spaces.

Conjecture and proposals involving an advancement of the field is

necessary. Two splendid examples in the spirit of unbuilding are Detroit

Reassembly Plant by T+E+A+M and Trash Peaks by DESIGN EARTH.

Historical accounts of material cycles in building are also productive,

as material is digested from building to building in the city environment.

The city is simply an additional ecosystem. Somewhere in between:

material flows in Brussels by Alison Creba is an exemplary account.

In active practices, Adam Corneil and his company called unbuilders is

a Vancouver-based company is taking the initiative by offering a service

of dismantling existing wood-frame buildings and salvaging the wood.

Theaster Gates initiated the Chicago Arts and Industry Commons where

abandoned spaces are reused in effective societal ways. This is not

the only practice of its kind. Where Unbuilding comes in is in proposing

such sites as habitats for event, and witnessing the programmatic

breakdown in a material space.

Interior view of Garfield Park Powerhouse / Sampson


With the evolution of non-physical spaces, virtual options are ways to

free up and diversify physical approaches to space. The real benefit to

physical involvement is the phenomena associated. Virtual reality as

well as software involves new forms of interaction and possibility. The

future of physical stores, for example, is through experiential benefit

rather than the product they provide.

Once I am dead in the dirt, my designs and opinions on future societies

disappear with me, my designs will not have temporal agency unless

they are reused in significant unexpected ways.

43

STEP 1: Let inhabitants abandon the

structure to be unbuilt


STEP 2: Dismantle, surgically destroy,

or rearrange the building’s material

STEP 3: Allow individuals to repopulate

the space and use it the way

they wish, engage in the flexibility and

eventfulness of the unbuilding space

Chinatown

Boulevard Ville-Marie

Downtown & Financial District

Champ de Mars

Old Port

Place des Arts

Zones of Urban Friction for the Site

STEP 4: Repeat STEP 2 & STEP 3 until

there is no possibility of event in the

space.

STEP 5: Recycle remaining building

material into new architecture

45

Initial State + Recent History

Material Components of Building

Upper floors believed

to be office spaces

and/or storage

South West View

Bottom floor of the entire

complex formerly

Steve’s Music Store

Currently a Parking Lot

with reviews pointing

to a problem with theft

Intersection of

Saint-Antoine and

Saint-Urbain

A space becomes specific

through objects, the role

of a space is established

by its artefacts, otherwise

architecture is defined by

hierarchies. Unbuilding

aims to emphasise these

hierarchies via removal

of these objects and the

stripping of programmatic

cues in the space.

Site proximity to the

Palais des Congrès, Old

Port and Chinatown creates

a tension on the site

Loading dock in

the back most likely

supplied the block

North East View

Homeless people

gather in this area

consistently

Phase 2:

Windows

The common elements of architecture

engage and enable a space. Through

these, events can take place. They are

the objects that are going to eventually

disable the space as they are one by

one removed from the building.

Phase 2:

Walls and Doors

Phase 1:

Artefacts

47

Initial Ground Floor

Proposed Material Flux and Time Scale

Parking Lot

is now

dedicated to

the space, for

its labour and

for its visitors.

Random Access Material

Area (RAM)

(Where salvaged material

is stored for short amounts

of time)

Initial Combined Second Floor

Undress

Doors & 2x4’s

Walking Through Walls

PHASE 1

Clean-Up

Remove all

remaining furniture

from the space (salvage

what possible)

Remove all

Finishings, mouldings,

dangerously damaged

surfaces (salvage what

possible)

Remove all

non-structural and nonstair

securing partition

walls, being careful to

salvage all wooden

elements, also remove

any systems from the

walls unless vital.

PHASE 2

Program-Material Friction

Start significant spatial

manipulations via the removal

of important materials

such as mezzanines,

parts of floors, firewalls.

Do so with power tools

but also being careful

to salvage the material

for further use, remove

windows as needed.

Use RAM material to

reinforce or secure as

needed.

Initial Perspective-Section

Firewalls present

unique spatial

opportunities if

pierced

Floors can be

pierced to have

continuous spaces

Initial Combined Third Floor

Use RAM materials to build

event structures as needed

for indeterminate program

re-enabling, these programs

are to be organized

by communities requiring

a space such as the one

presented

PHASE 3

Total Breakdown

Treat the remaining

structure as open

space, the space is now

broken, it is no longer

different than the outdoors,

salvage remaining

material and introduce

new architecture

49

Phase 2 - Proposed Manipulations and Events

RAM (Random Access Material)

Event Hall Terrace and Rooftop Dancing Club

Speakeasy w/ Inflatables above Night Club

Phase 2 events start to looks like a freeform community center, where rooms and the exterior are unexpectedly

connected. Scheduled events swarm the space. This is the most active point of unbuilding.

Car Enthusiast Meet-Up

Events include: art studios, rooftop dancing club, performering cafe, ephemeral library, club, speakeasy, pop-up

boutique, semi-interior garden administration and Halloween showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show

Yoga, Art Studios, Gallery, Boutique, Info. Center

Projection Atrium, Library, Performance Cafe

Admin. Office + Storage

Night Club Party w/ Inflatables

51

Phase 3 and Calendars

WEEK IN LATE PHASE 2

2 0 2 1

UNBUILDING

C A L E N D A R

53

Works Referenced and Further Reading:

Bachelard, Gaston, et al. The Poetics of Space. Penguin Books, 2014.

Notes

and

Acknowledgements

Eisenman, Peter David. The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture. Lars Müller Publ, 2006.

Foster, John Bellamy & Holleman, Hannah (2014) The theory of unequal ecological exchange: a Marx-Odum dialectic, Journal

of Peasant Studies, 41:2, 199-233, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2014.889687

Foucault, Michel. “Des Espaces Autres.” Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité , Oct. 1984.

First and foremost, this work and research has only been made possible

through the generous help and varied framework of Building 21 at

McGill University, and I must thank them for their challenging discussions

and interesting approaches.

Second, I must acknowledge the history of the term “Unbuilding” as it

was popularized by David Macaulay’s fictional account for the dismantling

of the Empire State Building. Imagining this in conjunction to Kiel

Moe’s material history of the same site makes it all the more fascinating.

In addition, Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted

Houses by Brad Guy and Robert H. Falk has also coined the

term in their self-explanatory book.

Third, and finally, I will take the time to thank my mother’s patience.

Guy, G. Bradley, et al. “Material Circulation, Energy Hierarchy, and Building Construction .” Construction Ecology: Nature as

the Basis for Green Buildings, Routledge, Taylor Francis Group, 2015, pp. 37–71.

Jackson, John Brinckerhoff., and John Brinckerhoff. Jackson. The Necessity for Ruins. University of Massachusetts Press,

1980.

Jackson, Steven J. “Rethinking Repair.” Media Technologies, 2014, pp. 221–240., doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0011.

Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. The MIT Press, 2004.

Latour, Bruno, and Albena Yaneva. “‘Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move’: an ANT’s View of Architecture.”

Birkhäuser, 2008, pp. 80–89.

Lévi-Strauss Claude. La pensée Sauvage. Plon, 1995.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, and Colin Smith. Phenomenology of Perception. Franklin Classics, 2018.

Moe, Kiel. Empire, State & Building. Actar, 2017.

Moe, Kiel. Convergence: an Architectural Agenda for Energy. Routledge, 2013.

Roberts, Bryony. Tabula Plena: Forms of Urban Preservation. Lars Müller Publishers, 2016.

Ross, Susan. “Somewhere in between: Material Flows in Brussels.” WASTE HERITAGE RESEARCH: Deconstruction, Salvage

& Re-Use, 31 May 2020, wasteheritageresearch.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/somewhere-in-between/.

Steif, Ken. “Predicting Gentrification Using Longitudinal Census Data.” Urban Spatial, https://urbanspatialanalysis.com/portfolio/predicting-gentrification-using-longitudinal-census-data/.

Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture Concepts: Red Is Not a Color. Rizzoli, 2012.

Weizman, Eyal. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation. Verso, 2017.

Wigley, Mark. Cutting Matta-Clark: the Anarchitecture Investigation. Lars Müller Publishers, 2018.

Wigley, Mark. “Network Fever.” Grey Room , no. 04, 2001, pp. 82–122.

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