Architectural Laboratory II

Description and Assessment

Table of contents:

1.  Introduction

2.  The Intersection

3.  The Exploration

4.  Tools of Presentation

5.  The Teaching Process

6.  Students' Results

3.  The Exploration

The exercise was less about re-designing the intersection (although it included a bit of that) than about exploring and understanding how this important example of an "urban joint" functions within Amman.  The participants discovered there is a great deal to explore and understand.

A major challenge was getting the students to view this intersection in a fresh manner, to look at it differently, and to explore it in ways not thought of before.  This was not an easy task to accomplish.  The students' immediate reaction for initiating this exercise was to look at the site in a predictable, conformist manner.  Their initial approach was to take a map of the site and follow the layout of streets and buildings around it.  They also wanted to take a few photographs of the site, but were not sure as to what to do after that.

The instructors encouraged them to go about the exercise in a different, more unconventional manner.  Using a map of the site, therefore, was to be kept for a later stage.  The participants instead were asked to go to the site and explore it directly, through walking in it, observing it, and examining the manner in which people use it.  The instructors raised challenging issues for the students to consider.  One of them was to decide on the "borders" of such a site.  At first glance, such a site would be defined by the roundabout in the center and the buildings bordering it.  However, the overpass and underpass zipping through the site had extended its borders beyond those immediate boundaries.  The overpass and underpass connected the site physically, functionally, and visually along Mecca and Medina streets.  The Haramayn intersection therefore is not a stand-alone, autonomous urban element, but an amorphous "joint" that reaches into the areas surrounding it.

Another interesting issue that the instructors raised was whether this new intersection was superimposed on a pre-existing urban fabric, whether the opposite took place - i.e. a new urban fabric grew around the intersection once it was completed, or whether what has taken place is a bit of both.  The topography of the site also was to be considered, especially in a hilly city such as Amman.  Depending on the direction from which one approaches the site, one either would move uphill or downhill, but never along a flat stretch of land.  Accordingly, the person approaching the site either looks down towards the site or up towards it, but not straight ahead.

The students also were encouraged to consider the factor of time.  The intersection takes different qualities at different times of the day.  The site is very different during the day hours from the night hours, when the street and sign lighting overtakes the buildings and spaces of the site.  In this context, one instructor mentioned a film on architecture that documented a cultural building after hours, at night, when the janitors would clean it, rather than when those working in its offices or visiting it would be in the building.  This presented a totally different understanding and experience of the building that allowed the viewer to become more acutely aware of its forms, spaces, planes, and textures.

By extension, the students were asked to examine the uses of the site.  What activities took place around the space of the roundabout?  To what extent could pedestrians use the area, and to what extent is it the exclusive realm of the automobile?  How did people reach the various shops and offices located around the intersection?

Students even were asked to let senses other than that of sight explore the site.  What are the noises of the site?  What are its smells?

It took the participants some time to adjust to what for them clearly was a new manner of exploring their built environment.  Their knee-jerk reaction initially was to take an "inventory" of the buildings and spaces of the site.  Once they began to understand that there was more than that to examining the site, it was as if they had discovered a new world.

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