Passage: an architectural intervention to span the Mediterranean Sea

2015-09-10T17:53:00-04:00

Last year, the group 1W1P – 1Week1Project – created the memorable speculative project "The Qatar World Cup Memorial," a "scalable building that raises awareness about the number of workers who died during the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar."

Now, the collaborative duo of Axel de Stampa and Sylvain Macaux are back with another provocative project – this one just as timely, and a little closer to home for the French architects. Entitled "Passage," the project envisions a megastructure-like intervention that spans the Mediterranean, bridging the northern and southern shores and, in the process, the geopolitical and economic borders that distinguish them.

"Crossing the Mediterranean is one of the most perilous journeys for the migrants seeking sanctuary in Europe," they state in the project brief. With reference to Operation Triton, the border security operation led by Frontext (the EU's joint border agency), 1W1P invokes the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe ...

A Memorial for the Workers Dying While Constructing the Qatar World Cup Stadium

2014-12-18T15:22:00-05:00

The Qatar World Cup Memorial project is a scalable building that raises awareness about the number of workers who died during the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. It is in the form of a tower made of concrete modules, each one representing a deceased worker. The higher the number, the higher the tower...If the death rate is not reduced, the Qatar World Cup Memorial could reach a height of 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile).

1W1P – 1Week1Project – is a collaborative effort by French architects Axel de Stampa and Sylvain Macaux, graduates of l'Ecole d'Architecture in Paris-Belleville. They challenged themselves to produce a "spontaneous architecture" per week for a year, or fifty-two projects. At this point, they have produced 25 predominately-speculative projects, from this memorial to the workers who have died (and are continuing to die) while constructing the World Cup Stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to an ephemeral installation for the interior of the Eiffel Tower that would light up every time someone used #eiffeltower on social media.

With the Qatar World Cup Memorial, they invoke the memories of the more than 500 foreign workers who have died in the country since 2012. While Zaha Hadid, designer of the World Cup Stadium in Qatar, has become the subject of controversy for alleged statements rejecting an architect's responsibility for conditions on their projects, 1W1P proposes a distinctly d...

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Passage: an architectural intervention to span the Mediterranean Sea

A Memorial for the Workers Dying While Constructing the Qatar World Cup Stadium