Abstract:
The contemporary city faces the recurring issue of the inability of public space to combine cohesion and a sense of community, with the extensive desire for individualisation. Collective experience has shifted to prioritise the individual. This raises the question: Can architecture play a pivotal role within the urban field to redefine the social condition of collectivity? An approach to the collective sphere is investigated through the work of Oswald Mathias Ungers and Rem Koolhaas in their Archipelago City (1977).1 Their concept outlines a specific view of the role of architecture within the city to create a space of collective meaning. The archipelago describes a condition of clearly formalised city parts that negotiates the idea of forming a sense of community that can go beyond the purely individual without destroying the freedom of individualisation. In relation to the architectural form as possible Archipelago Cities the thesis investigates the autonomy of form through the condition of separation, integration and the dissolution of boundaries. In particular investigating the precise definition of boundaries of the archetype, the wall. Auckland’s Archipelago: Piecing together Myers Park as an archipelago employs the theoretical framework of Ungers and Koolhaas as a strategy to redefine collectivity. The project proposes an urban park combining the ideas of leisure, specific local conditions and negotiates the monumentality of city walls. Myers Park, situated within the heart of Auckland has undergone few alterations since its original development in 1913. Initially conceived to be a site of health, beauty and efficiency, the park once had a sense of community where children could reveal their creativity, curiosity and imagination. The built environment and the essence of the park have changed. Today, generic high-rise apartments and offices of the periphery overshadow the park and evoke feelings of suspicion and gloom. Can Myers Park once again offer a space of significance and create a specific identity of a public space for the city? More explicitly, is it possible that the Archipelago City offers a collective architecture within the heterogeneous urban realm?