Adaptable Architecture vs. Global Warming AND Al Gore

http://www.mbarchitect.net
http://www.hingearchitecture.net
By Matthew Baran, Architect

SUMMARY
MASS is a mobile, Adaptable Architecture vs. Global Warming AND Al Gorethat integrates into any site through a series of horizontal and vertical rotations, where various skins are revealed and orientation is adjusted to allow optimal alignment with natural conditions including solar, wind, rain or snow, as well as engineered conditions including traffic and building patterns. There is minimal impact on natural resources through adaptability and materiality, and positive influence on developing communities through green job training and placement.

BACKGROUND
In April of 2003, a former yeast factory that had been identified as a source of an extraordinarily high number of cases of asthma and cancer in a West Oakland community was forced out by grass roots action and subsequently torn down leaving a 'brownfield' site. In 2004 a design was created to replace the factory with a green housing project. It was conceived as sustainable not only in terms of environmental impact, but also in its' potential social effects. The developer for the project simultaneously created a job training program to teach construction techniques to local residents. This process led the architecture group HINGE to an investigation of portable, adaptable structures that might supplement the reconstruction effort.

The result of the HINGE investigation was the mobile architecture / sustainable system. MASS was conceived as a construct that would occupy spaces considered uninhabitable by most, such as roadway medians, freeway overpasses, and abandoned rail yards, particularly in fringe communities in the process of redevelopment. West Oakland was seen as an ideal test site.

This project was submitted for and won an AIA (American Institute of Architects) San Francisco Chapter Design Award for Unbuilt Architecture in 2006.