"Soms Atoll" by Radical Craft - 3rd Place Winner in World Sustainability Centre Competition

Yesterday, Bustler published the winning design of the World Sustainability Centre competition. This international contest asked designer to envision a home for the World Sustainability Centre that highlights innovative techniques in the field of water, sustainable energy and nature and is housed in an innovative and high-profile building. The concept had to incorporate the Afsluitdijk, the great historic dike that has been preventing floods in the North of the Netherlands for 75 years now.

“Soms Atoll”, the entry by Los Angeles-based Radical Craft / Joshua G. Stein, was awarded 3rd place.

Here is how the architects explain their concept of “Soms Atoll”:

The World Sustainability Centre is planned for a location along the Afsluidijk, a major infrastructural barrier in the north of Holland which protects a large region from flooding. One of the fundamental challenges of the context is the scale of the natural and man-made environment in which it is situated and how it could significantly impact development in this region. The Afsluitdijk connects two major land masses across a stretch over 30km wide with only vast expanses of sky and water to either side. Any discrete object building located on the dike risks serving as a simple rest stop on the way to some other final destination – too easily an opportunity for a quick tourist photo before heading on. Soms Atoll (the ‘Sometimes’ Atoll) operates at the scale of its context, becoming a destination landscape unto itself. The Soms Atoll raises the potential for the Centre’s impact on both tourists and its local context by allowing it to operate as a terrain of discovery rather than a point of explanation.

The Dutch have mastered a certain control of their environmental factors and there are numerous museums in the Netherlands which document these technological accomplishments. However, there are few institutions devoted to demonstrating how contemporary society could become more in tune with natural cycles rather than defending against them. Would it be possible for the initiation of the World Sustainability Centre in Friesland to create a new interpretation of the role of the man-made versus the natural?

The Soms Atoll creates a condition where the man-made interacts intimately with the cycles of nature. While the ‘building’ incorporates climate control technologies, its impact on the environment is more profound – asking the public and specialists alike to anticipate and respond to the environment on a daily, hourly basis. As building technologies will improve and newer techniques become available, the infrastructure of the Soms Atoll quietly accepts retrofit. Rather than using green technologies to ‘solve’ the problems of the environment, this strategy aims to create a more fluid system of real-time feedback with nature. Therefore, rather than a display of technology, the entire center becomes an index of the cycles of nature. The Soms Atoll offers postcard picture perfect silhouettes on the Waddenzee – but not upon demand. Visitors may arrive to find they need to wait two hours in anticipation for that perfect island to appear. Although there would always be a ferry boat from land, for those who want to walk across the land bridge they may find that the need to get their feet wet in the hours around high tide. Some may wait to see the perfect crescent of the lagoon form in the Atoll while others may be more interested in the tidal pools once the lagoon recedes. For all who visit, they must start to align their desires with the rhythm of nature’s cycles.

The land bridge and its manicured counterpart inland would provide an open terrain for new discoveries both by specialists and novices. It is in these areas that scientists and specialists could test and monitor new techniques for permaculture developments, water purification and desalinization, blue energy systems, and other green technologies. The combination of a wild terrain as well as a controlled, ‘manicured’ terrain offers opportunities to conduct a variety of tests close to home. Integrated into this mix are the tourists and day visitors (policy makers, artists, locals) who would make use of the same terrain for a variety of different activities. The tidal flats create the perfect location for gathering mussels, flying kites, riding bike or other activities more specific to the area such as fierljeppen, farmersgolf, wadlopen, and festivities surrounding the Elfstedentocht. This vital mix between the local and the international, the invested specialist and the curious adventurer, the well-defined and the entropic, will create a landscape which supports exactly the ecologies that support innovation - both cultural and technological.

Radical Craft / Joshua G. Stein
Soms Atoll Project Team: Thurman Grant, Architect; Lisa Hollywood, Darius Woo, Jaclyn Thomforde, Hiroyuki Sugiyama, Yvette Escalante, Lisa Nesterova

Radical Craft previously on Bustler:

• AIA Selects 2009 Upjohn Research Initiative Projects
• Winners of A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE Competition Announced