Liberated Ground
Sihyun Kim
The liberated ground suggests alternative housing typologies, equipped with collective infrastructure, to accommodate the diverse population flux of Aberdeen. Moreover, the project responds to the seasonal use of the coastal landscape, near the newly planned harbour in Aberdeen. It proposes an extention of Torry neighbourhood towards the hilly landscape of the Balnagask Play Park.
Torry is one of the historical cores of Aberdeen that has gone through various periods of social, spatial, and econimic transitions– from a fishing town, to the oil industry, and recently, to a hub serving the renewable energy industry. Each period has divided Tory into isolated zones. Bounded by inpenetrable husing blocks and infrastructure, this Tory’s spatial development resulted into shaping of segretgated communities that lack social and communal facilities. Such isolation has not only disconnected various social groups but also has detached them from the coastal landscape.
The project organises a series of spaces, that change the occupation of the ground. It proposes two different scales of collective spaces; Platforms, for communal use, that accommodate various forms of collective activities and mediate the their performaces to the fluid landscape of the Park (wetland). Secondly it suggests shared spaces within the new housing blocks. The proposed housing, towers and low-rise slabs, provide multiple scales of flexible spaces and sharable facilities. It shapes inclusive environemnt that not only forsters forming of a more resilience and diverce community but also activates the ground, that has been left obsolete for decades, promoting forms of social interaction.