06 – LAN WEI

GNOMON

Watchtower, Climate Research Station, Memorial

This project is an entry finished in 10 days for the 119th John Stewardson Memorial Fellowship in Architecture-2020. The site is in Angeles National Forest, California.

HOW CAN ARCHITECTURE ECHO WITH THE FLOW OF TIME IN THE FOREST?

The flow of time is felt in buildings, and also felt by buildings. In this design, the buildings themselves are creatures that show different emotions with the change of time and environment. In the fall, the shadow of the tower is cast on the buildings below in different positions during a day, and all the buildings become a giant gnomon together. There is a linear skylight in the hiking shelter and the other parts of the roofs are mostly accessible, which allow people to feel the change of time while they are interacting with the spaces.
To make the design breathe with the forest, besides responding to time, the buildings also interacts with birds. Although birds in Califonia don’t necessarily migrate, the location of the site is where many birds will pass through in their migration. And the migration season significantly overlaps with the fire season in the forest. In the design, some of the structures stretch out, providing rest stops for migrating birds, just like the hiking shelter providing rest stops for hikers. By extending the structures and let them go out of the boundaries of the buildings, the boundaries are blurred and the buildings are better merged with the forest.