Moontrip by UNI Competition Runner-up

The design proposal of SPECtre gives a facelift to the traditional museum typology through its incorporation of research, laboratory, and classroom program. The resulting new typology of the living exhibition- a facility capable of both producing and displaying its own contents- acts to engage the public in education and recreation.

The design’s formal language arose out of a series of gestural sketches, a process that sought to physically represent the concept of space exploration. Analysis of these sketches revealed three omnipresent concepts in-abstract: mass, or the aggregation of matter as an object; vectors, themselves being trajectories of these masses; and gravity, manifesting itself as the distortion of mass and trajectory by other masses. It was from the interplay of these three tools that each sketch manifested unique spatial conditions.

From the onset of the SPECtre’s design, the site itself was seen as a valuable public commodity for its proximity to the river and ample urban greenspace. With respect to this observation, the proposed architectural intervention seeks to retain as much green space as possible.

The unique formal language also allowed for additional outdoor space in the form of green roofs. Due to the blooming nature of the building mass as it rises from the ground plane, several low-lying portions of the roof form provided ideal opportunities for secondary circulation routes.