Zeebrugge Sea Terminal
LE / 2019
From London Abroad Semester with Kalani Mah, Julia Ocejo, Diego Becerra, Stephanie Michell, Maria Gutierrez & Jamely Ramos
Between 1978 and 1989, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture produced a set of unbuilt projects reinterpreting the idea of the social condenser in a completely different context and historical moment from its Soviet roots. OMA used the idea not as a pedagogical project, but as a tool to intensify the “metropolitan condition” and accelerate the “culture of congestion” that they understood as main qualities of urban life.
The Zeebrugge Sea Port Terminal, a few miles northwest of Bruges, Belgium, is one such unbuilt project. With an opportunity to access and expand on OMA’s plans, through models, drawings, and a collection of images, this speculative design attempts to once again reinterpret the idea of the social condenser for today, adapting it to the challenges presented by the United Kingdom’s political departure from the European Union.
This project is included in the first edition of STOÀ, an Italian journal published in print every four months. The magazine is focused on architectural design, on its didactics, its methods and its objectives, by collecting some of the most relevant experiences combining academic research and educational practices, presenting their results while trying to distill the reasons and highlight structures and tools inherent in its construction. View Publication︎︎︎