Garbage prison: Exposing unwanted phenomena in society through an encircled town on top of a dump

Abstract

As unwanted phenomena in society the capped dump and the prison often behave like isolated islands. Both phenomena are part of large infrastructures which remove objects and individuals from public consciousness. The dump and the prison are alien and alienate the objects and individuals associated with them. Garbage Prison uses simple geometric shapes to make up the plan layout. The simplicity of the plan provides order and orientation as a foundation for a safe environment for both clients and staff. Clients live in houses which are separated from work and leisure activities. The houses are close to each other to enable an urban situation. The prison mimics life outside by taking shape from the notion of a town. But the town is enclosed, the space of the wall creates a shock of an unfamiliar space which poses the question of its connection to society. Prisons can be seen as marginal. At the same time imprisonment has been emphasized by Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe Zenghelis as a modern spatial experience in the project “Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture” (1972). Imprisonment as a condition is combined in Garbage Prison with an idea of acceptance of the unwanted, sparked by the question posed by Kevin Lynch “Can we accept that we are part of a universal wasting stream, and see in that our place and our connection?” (1990). This project is represented in plan-, isometric- and perspective drawings. These drawings create their own universe of drawn and traced buildings, objects and individuals. The representations create a fluid and surreal expression within the reduced language of architectural drawings. The aim of the drawings is to capture how we perceive a world in dichotomy and how architecture can be both beautiful and ugly. To live imprisoned on top of a dump there has to exist positive- along with negative aspects of the unwanted. Garbage Prison reflects a contradictory existence where the project only functions when the conditions it tries to acknowledge are already addressed.