b' notion

"We don't normally look at light. We are generally looking at something the light reveals.. [...] You could be not only be looking at a painting or a work of art but you are actually looking at yourself perceiving. This world that we have around us is not a world that we receive but more a world that we create and make. […] We really feel and we are very much attached to the fact that we are receiving these perceptions as opposed to creating them. But we do create the reality in which we live.”James Turrell

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.art21.org%2Fvideos%2Fshort-james-turrell-second-meeting&ei=l0lGVJqIJaa9ygOf1oJA&psig=AFQjCNH4M_btdlSys4LNZFwsBN5s8DXN8Q&ust=1413978803465964

 Mid section of the Terminal is where the transformation of the visitors' begins.
Once the campers made their way through check-in they are divided by gender and directed to changing rooms.
There, cathedral-like lockers provide depository for the 'contemporary' attire before one showers and returns to claim their Luggage in advance Kit. Campers enter this Purification Cathedral clad in current fashion and leave as their 1950s alter-egos.

While each of the visitor showers, their deposited luggage is swapped for the Kit, by behind-the-scenes Dumb Waiter mechanism. The lockers are loaded with Kits at Lower Ground Floor Level, delivered to Ground Floor to be claimed, while deposited luggage is stored in Lower Ground Floor vaults, until the Person's departure. Luggage is claimed at Departure Level- First Floor Level, where reversal of the 'purification' process takes place.

Time and space signifiers have been removed as much as possibile to achieve a 'no place' aesthetic, preparing visitor's for the '50s visual galore.

Tardis- the gateway to VanderLand's 1950s reality marks physical and visual milestone along the Visitors' transitional journey.

Having just emerged from Customs' control, purified from fashions of 'today' and with their Luggage In Advance kit in hand, the Campers can take-in offshore view of their destination.

Once they have emerged on the other side of the portal, '50s Maint Street galore awaits!

New international airport terminal built entirely on stilts to preserve precious an limited Maldivian land.

http://www.ida-hk.com/architechture_details.php?id=31

// preliminary master plan //

// from Levittown to van der Island_house types //

The lace of streets demarcating grid will be interwoven by variety of buildings.
They will be organized so as to promote shoreline views and reinforce holiday atmosphere by continuous visual remainder of the 'sand & spade' idyll.

Waterfront is reserved for a typical New Town focus point: Civic Centre. Here, the centre is seen taken apart and each function given its individual block within the matrix.
Moving away from the parade, accommodation is becoming denser and taller: from 50x50 Miesian prototype villa [fig.1] , through McCormick row houses [fig.2 & 3], to Lafayette Park, IL, single- and double-story row houses [fig.4 & 5].

// van der Island transport infrastructure //

A small selection of electric cars will zip around the grid of streets, chauffeuring  the Escapists from the Exchange hub (immigration and departure terminal) to their accommodation location. The automobiles will be operated by on-board robots or autopilot programmed in advance of the passenger's arrival- complementing the Luggage in Advance and Accommodation in Advance Kit services.

The selection of wheels encompasses:

Messerschmitt Bubble Car KT175

In keeping with the project's driving force, the notion of nostalgia for the mid-century ecstatic lifestyle amid rise of consumerism, this unique holiday camp takes its inspiration from the American '50s. All that the baby boomers longed for and desired, but which was unobtainable in the UK will be celebrated in this land frozen in the summer of '52- with the diners, outdoor cinemas, dance halls and  lived to the soundtrack of the all-american music.

Unbuilt '52 50x50 [15.24m x15.24m] House by Mies van der Rohe establishes base grid unit for the Never Had it So Good settlement along the South-West shoreline section of Canvey Island

Working inside-out to arrive at the organized mosaic of buildings, the House is the smallest unit. The footprint is surrounded by some land, in line with post-war New Towns/ New Suburbia ideals, totalling 100ft x 100ft. Working up the scale, a group of 6 residences forms a module of urban layout regimentation. 

Due to war-effort shortages of building materials (especially steel, so crucial in modernist architecture), and need for modular construction led to decision to make the house available in a kit- alike popular in the decade Bankyo model sets. Complimentary kits would be made available with time, to facilitate growing DIY movement in house customisation.
In terms of fabric of the build environment, tail-end of early fifties' austerity dictates use of concrete, hardboard, glass or plexiglass (salvaged from war-effort production, i.e. airplanes) and steel. Key buildings, such as Immigration Terminal, Civic Centre [or Country Club] and Sick Bay, will receive post-scarcity treatment of opulent materials, as mid-century contemporary architects would aim to achieve: unlimited steel supply, bronze, copper, travertine, marble... 

Finally, the matrix of streets and buildings will be elevated on pilotis, creating interplay of solid (buildings) vs. void (gardens at existing Island level). Appropriating vocabulary characteristic of both seaside piers and jetties, as well as one of the 5 Points of Architecture, widely used by MvdR himself, future-proofs the development against its flood-prone location.

//summary of inspiration & precedents// for the Archipelago of Dreams

//chronogramme// unfolding the establishing shot in 2D, mapping where; how; what; when & the ambiance of the project

//Scars from the past//






//now//
These, whose memories we adopted as our own nostalgic notions:

..and a fabric upon which to realize the British Hamptons:

//Escapism//
"The good old times" flashbacks