The aim of this year’s project is to work within a materialist approach to culture and architecture, looking this year at the former soviet military town in the high north of Latvia. Karosta – roughly translate to a war port, used to be a closed secret military town for the russian empire, and then later for the soviet navy due to its strategic location.

Today, Karosta is a city in desperate need for revitalisation to solve some of the socio-economical questions as well as the reintegration of different ethnic groups. The idea will be to examine architectural proposals that will foster for local cultural activities as well as art residences. The potential proposals will respond to the changing social and economic circumstances of the city through generating new cultural opportunities.

Set within a materialist, object-oriented framework, the idea is to explore the relationship between building topology, massing, ornament and structure using novel fabrication techniques and computational tools. We will develop research into specific material processes and substances found on the site. We will look into the industrial and fabrication paradigm embedded in this objects, related to a complex social and economic context of soviet and post-soviet times. The idea will be to conceive the architectural project as an assemblage of interacting objects. We will use advanced computational methodologies as low-polygon modelling, zbrush, grasshopper and hands-on structural analysis software to define and design modes of interaction between architectural objects as circulation, structure and massing.