BC Alumna Negar Sanaan Bensi wins honourable mention at National Archiprix with the project 'Space of Remembrance and Forgetfulness' in Havana (Cuba).
The project narrates the void as a new kind of space for Havana, old and filled with memories that are gradually being forgotten: a memorial space for daily life. Here the voids are conceived of not as leftover space but as space of a new kind that is old and filled with memories and meanings that are gradually slipping away. The project adopts a narrative approach and a presentation in drawings that together express the specific qualities of these voids. It all began with several walks taken by its designer in the old part of Havana where most of the voids are to be found. This resulted in the Spatial Void Map of Havana. The process then took two parallel paths. One of these was to record the spatial qualities in models and drawings, with the drawings often superimposed in a reference to the layering and the notion of the palimpsest. The other path was to present scenarios for the voids through drawings, texts and one model per scenario. Lastly the project was presented in one of the blocks of central Havana, itself a void in the city. Space of the Voids is a memorial space for daily life. A new approach to the city, it presents a fragmented picture of differing scenarios as a metaphor for changes in Havana. Space of the Voids embodies the space between reality and fantasy, between inside and outside, open and closed, memorial and everyday life, urban and architectural scale, building and landscape, public and private. In the end these voids are absorbed by the city and become part of the grid...
See also: http://www.archiprix.nl/national/index.php?project=3066&language=en and
https://www.archined.nl/2011/06/archiprix-2011-eervolle-vermelding-space...
