Eco-Niche

The massive Hilton Hotel that was built on site as the second tallest building in the country, had its excessive capacity to host and entertain its visitors, but it also overshadowed its environment within its enormous mass. This block of concrete not only blocked its region’s view and sun exposure, but it also damaged the city’s silhouette – as it’s not ideal to build a 34 storey building between 8 to 10 storey buildings. These problems even got worse after Hilton shut down; now it’s left unused that causes energy & movement flow around the building to zero, it occupies this extensive valuable space that does not benefit anyone and it takes up soulless space on earth, without anyone inhabiting.

As we only start to care about our place as we inhabit, Hilton needs to be reinhabited to heed and give value to its ground again. It’s impossible to think of nature today as untouched by human hands. Nature is in contrast with humanity, and this state is creating an inevitable end that will bring about humanity’s demise. To reach this inevitable end as slowly as possible and continue to exist on Earth, we must remember our “place” on Earth and how we got here.

If humanity existed within nature and we are beings capable of thought, we are constantly changing and shaping this Earth we inhabit, whether consciously or not. This shaping is an opportunity to delay our inevitable end as much as possible. Since we cannot restore our past actions and the environment we have transformed back to its original state, we need to reinhabit this deteriorated, already human impacted state by creating a new habitat. Inhabiting both human and nonhuman components in a life system that is going to benefit each other can be described as second nature, which means emergence of new habitat for human and nonhuman components that is shaped by human influence, not dominance. Every being on earth already inevitably takes up space and inhabits the earth. To reinhabit a structure where it is difficult for nature to thrive, it is necessary to destroy its old form and liberate its constrained state. For this, the existing Hilton structure should be demolished, and its concrete junk can be used to create niches within it, forming a secondary habitat where both humans and nature can coexist.

As we know, only a systemic change can support this spreading of solutions. The first step of systemic change happens if humans accept that they need to do something, to dwell on earth much longer. They need to realise what they have lost, and what they will be going to lose. As they inhabit this realisation of thoughts, then they will start to feel responsible for earth. The second step begins after this co-responsibility of humans becomes collaborative awareness, which seeks overall needs of the community, create more holistic approaches, and create synergistic benefits with nature. As everything inhabits earth together, every being needs to collaborate. Nature already exists within its own harmony, so it does not need this collaboration but humans depend on this collaboration to prevent its own extinction. The final step and result is to coexist with earth, which happens as we remember our desire, to be with earth, with all of its contradistinctions. After all, it’s the conatus that knits our string of fate, it’s our will to exist on earth, to be with earth.

PROGRAM:
In secondary and learning niches,
humans can connect with nature; in
performance niches, humans can connect with society; and in transfer niches, humans can connect with each other.

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM:
The structural system of the building proposes a new settlement model, where construction waste filled cube meshes are used as the main load bearing
element. This meshes, which can be called gabion cubes are stacked on top of eachother and makes the building stable with its big dimensions & weight. This system does not require any vertical bearing elements like columns, it only needs beams as it works as a masonry kind of system.