While we were doing the prefabrication of our frames, we needed to send the final Rhino file to the engineer in order to have his agreement to build our project. We did a skype with him to see the load descent in the proto.

At first, when he used our system of bracing and kept our wall at height meters high, we had 1800 kilograms at the left foot of the protostructure.

The engineer, Stephan and Teresa helped us to change something, like the bracing or the walls, in order to reduce the weight that went down to the foot. 

At the end of the Skype, we made a strong decision but we all agreed that it would be even better than before. The solution was to low down our walls. Given that we had already made every frames, we chose to take away one series of frames for every walls, which means that every walls was 1.66 meters lower. This choice allows us to have not so much bracings, and allows us to keep the energy of the project, which is the space that are created inside those vertical walls. What's even nicer is that the horizon with the Marechal's screen showed up again, and the link with their project is stronger than before.

Here is the scheme of the load descent that the engineer sent us when our walls were shorter.

We still have 650 kilos that goes down to the left foot of the proto, but we are going to dig 50x50x50 holes to put the proto inside and then put concrete.

The last week before going in Evian, which is the fifth week for the House phase, we all worked on doing the prefabrication. We started by going couple times at the cutting site, we used the measures of our drawings and of our Rhino files.

We then made some templates to assemble our frames with a right angle and with the correct distance. 

We then all screwed our frames. All our frames are built in a way that every horizontals sits on the horizontals of the proto, and that it won't be too heavy to lift it up.

                         

Making the template and having with fun with Leo                         (placing our frames in the template with Charles and Philippe)

From Rooms to Houses

Complex transition- how can we establish a dialogue between the two phases -rooms and then houses- as well as adpating the project obtained in rooms to the concrete site of houses? 

Above all, what changes were to be made knowing that the protostructure, which holds our ROOMS, was vanishing in the phase HOUSES? 

Technical Challenge

Starting straight with the maquette was too complicated; we had to much technical questions to be answered. In addition, one of the project's criteria was to be built as prefabricated, so that it could sit on the site without too much struggles. Our challenge was therefore to find a system, throughout the development of the drawing, to facilitate the anchorage of the project directly onto the site. 

         

                        Plan site/projet et élévation éclatée, avec détail d'ancrage. Échelle 1:10

                                         Axonométrie éclatée et système d'assemblage, échelle 1:10

   Détail pincement sur le béton 

 Vue en plan                                                                                                                                       Vue face Nord

                                                                                   La jetée 

It's not just about the name

"Butterfly", "moment", "passerelle"... finding a name to the project wasn't that easy. As a team, we were all concerned that the name was not a finality, but more a way to express the project as an experience. 

Der Wanderer appeared as a strong alternative to the previous ones. The name is a direct reference to Caspar David Friedrich's painting from the romantic era, which depicts a traveller contemplating a sea of clouds.

The link to the painting did not appear randomly; as the maquette was growing in our hands and the drawings took shape under our pencils, the question of the site and how the project could interact with it clearly concerned us. Therefore, we all tried to imagine the project in it's real context, the one we could not catch in EPFL's atelier. To evolve in that way, we decided to re-understand the project through writing:

Dans la continuité du quai, au loin, je regarde cet horizon qui s’étend à perte de vue, les

vagues frappent mes pensées.

Un pas, puis deux, le sol résonne sous ma semelle qui s’élance sur le bitume. Plus que

quelques mètres, mais plus j’avance plus il s’éloigne... un mur, un obstacle, mon pas est

stoppé instantanément.

Je me confronte au béton froid, les vagues se brisent en quelques notes qui résonnent.

Comment briser cette barrière, comment créer une passerelle entre ce monde physique et

l’étendue qui m’appelle …

                                                         Le Voyageur contemplant une mer de nuages

                            (Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer), David Friedrich 

Der Wanderer

Douce étendue qui frissonne de tes vagues brisées

La dure froideur du béton

Se mêlera à la tendresse du bois

Et nous franchirons le seuil

The name "der Wanderer" came quite naturally after this interesting reflection on the essence of the site. It was not a question of building a passerelle; it appeared more as an experience, starting onto the ground, evolving at the extremity of the dock and finishing above the lake, surrounded by its vastness. 

                                                                                      Immersion

                                                                                                        Angles

                                                                                                 Underwater

                                                                                              Déploiement