Christian Opdal (he/him)
Hi, I am a Norwegian architecture RIBA Part 1 student at the Glasgow School of Art/Mackintosh School of Architecture, currently looking for opportunities to make better landscapes and buildings for people.
I believe architecture is about making good spaces and places for people’s health and wellbeing.
My approach to the year has been to explore physical and digital mediums together, in a ‘collage’. The architectural investigation and method have explored how a new construction and structure can adapt and sustain its local environment and culture over time.
It has been a journey I have very much enjoyed, and that I am excited to share.
Energy, Landscape & Culture
By establishing music communities, called `nucleos` for young people within vulnerable societies, El Sistema`s method to dwelling is found on unique and inexperienced places.
A `nucleo`, described as a growing organism with big pores to the community, suggests a method of integration to an existing place.
For El Sistema to assemble a music retreat on the site of Balloch Pier, the approach is to respond to the established heavy masonry boat-service-pier, and the newly grown woodlands behind it. By lifting the internal spaces on stilts, the site`s flood risk, due to its juxtaposition between Loch Lomond and river Leven, is avoided, and further creates big and small openings/pores of new playful spaces and circulations. This interprets a new vernacular, which gives the dweller a chance to feel El Sistema`s activities and community in a local and special atmosphere.
5/10, World below
7/10, The retreat
Design Journey
A ‘behind the scenes’ to the ‘Energy, Landscape and Culture’ design proposal, showing how the process was closely connected to architectural technology and interdisciplinary design.
Conditions, Context, Composition, Construction, Comfort, Communication, Transition, Interaction, Consolidation and Articulation.
120h competition proposal
Providing an opportunity to create spans and protection from the elements, based on the most commonly used building materials around Kilifi, Kenya. A system that is customizable/modular in the way it’s constructed.
Engaging with a new culture, we try not to respond to assumptions of cultural needs and establish precon-ceived rituals through the use of space. We don’t impose but intend to create possibilities, based on a local set of material properties and our knowledge. The structural system aims to be simple, integrate into predominant economic systems and be flexible in the way it can be laid out. What the space will be, its exact floor plan and the way it’s being used should be up to the users and the people who will be in charge of maintenance as well as construction. This allows the sustainable development of the local community in the long term.
