SOFT ARCHITECTURE
There have been a lot of discussions about ‘soft’ architecture recently. As a counterpoint to traditional architecture that imposes a rigid system: buildings that exert permanence and attempt to order and control its content and context, soft architecture offers a dynamic system that has the capacity to absorb, transform, and exchange information with its surroundings.
Soft architecture started gaining its reputation as rebels against Modernism since the 1960s with visionary projects by architects and artists such as Cedric Price, Buckminster Fuller, Reyner Banham, Hans Hollein, and Archigram. Their projects, which include moveable pods, inflatables, as well as expandable structures presented a radical shift in design strategies from conceiving architecture as a permanent physical structure toward a more responsive and flexible system.
The development of soft architecture in the 1960s aligned with the emerging awareness of environmental issues, radical transformations in social structures in Europe and North America as well as technological innovations in the fields of biology, cybernetics, and aeronautics. However, the socio-political context as well as the technological development at the time were still primarily top-down and centralised, allowing minimal room for these soft proposals to be realised.
Today is a different story - we now live in a much more transitory, intangible, and decentralised world. Wireless technology, cloud storage, cryptocurrencies, smart materials - we find ourselves in yet another era of radical transformation in economic, ecological, political and climatic amongst others - prompting the repositioning of the role and performance of architecture, infrastructure, and technology. “Soft has reemerged and gained increasing traction as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems that are no longer viewed as suitable to address contemporary urban complexities and their continual transformations.”
AMPHIBIOUS LANDSCAPE
We can discuss the necessity for soft systems as alternative strategies to address many contemporary problems. However, in this studio, we decide to take a few steps back and to test the idea on the most primal foundation of architecture - ground - but ground as an unstable, soft condition between earth and water - the amphibious landscape.
The Bahía de Cádiz Natural Park is a protected natural area since 1989 that extends over 10,500 hectares. It belongs to the municipalities of Cádiz, San Fernando, El Puerto, Puerto Real and Chiclana, and includes marshes, beaches, pine forests, beaches and scrubland. The influence of the sea and the mild Mediterranean climate are key factors that determine the special ecological characteristics of this wetland. It is a contact area between marine and terrestrial environments, and thanks to the easy flow of water with good sunlight and plenty of nutrients, there is a wide variety of species including molluscs, crustaceans, fish and waterfowl. Its location between the neighboring Doñana National Park and the Straits of Gibraltar makes the bay of Cadiz a key migration area for many bird species. Salt mining and inshore fishing have been the traditional use of the bay for centuries. However, there is a dramatic decline of the salt activity resulted by the progressive filling and draining of thousands of hectares of marshland for urban, industrial and agricultural uses.
The location selected for the project tries to further strengthen the focus of studio’s main topic, ‘Soft Architecture & Amphibious Structures’. The territory of Natural Park of Cádiz Bay consists almost entirely of soft landscape: a diffuse and changing natural border between land and sea. Its amphibious territorial organization changes in a short time cycle depending on the tides, the general weather condition, and the programmatic activities in the area. The territory also undergoes drastic long-term changes due to climate change and the rising sea level, making the boundary between water and ground even more transitory.