THE MUNDANEUM

INDETERMINATE GROUND

Fabrizio MatillanaAA Dipl

Emily YeungMCantab. Dip/MArch

Table of Contents

Abstract

1 Commuting Class

2 The Indoor

3 Interconnectivity [Station]

4 Border [Plinth]

5 The Mundaneum [Courtyard]

Project Plates

I Indeterminate IndoorII The Introverted GroundIII Punctuator as networkIV Master Section 1:5000V Section 1:500VI PlinthVII EntranceVIII Entrance SectionIX Arrival from stationX View into CourtyardXI CourtyardXII The Mundaneum

The Ground Plane as an architecture of Maximum Permanence with Minimum

Presence.

�e Quintessential Accesory for the technophiliac

1Commuting Class

�e economies of the EU have accepted the permeability of its borders by means of its economic treaties allowing for free internal migration and exchange of human resources, industry, knowledge, instigating an osmotic commuting class that takes indeterminacy of place as a way of life. �e internationalisation of the commuting class has spread across other forms of living and classes, where the precarity of perma-nence and labour �exibility has risen as new common denominator for this emerging transient class. �is transient class, paired by a commodity economy that caters to the needs for this on-the-go �aneur, has culmi-nated in the consolidation of a culture of consumption and perpetual mobility.

Typical i-StoreNo-Stop City

2�e Indoor

�e homogeneity of the interior takes the supermarket organizational premise of in�nite dimensions and arti�cial environ-ment as the �nal relationship between the citizen and its increasingly technologically interconnected capitalist framework.

A city without qualities for a man ( �nally) without qualities – that is, without compro-mise – �eed society ( �eed even �om architec-ture). Andrea Branzi No-Stop City

�e indoor when released by its techno-cratic motif in terms of product and purchase and turned into a place for pure exchange and unprescribed acitvity, becomes the new agora where technology as an invisible reality allows for a new place for research and debate within the city.

Twitter MapLondon Underground Map

3Interconnectivity

[Station]

�e interconnectivity in terms of tra�c and reducing distance and the instantaneity of communications allowing for a virtual permanent collective presence are realities that we consider as facts. �e project allows for both conditions to coexist within the same footprint: connecting a wider network by means of a station and perma-nent wireless transmission from within. In a literal provision of the two forms of connectivity, an empty interior is condi-tioned to be unde�ned and appropiated by its passing occupants, from the city or daily commuters. �e building relies on this networking as means to consolidate it’s introverted presence within the city.

4Border[Plinth]

�e project favours no speci�c urban setting but considers its own footprint and its connection with a greater infrastruc-tural link as the site of the proposal. �is allows for maximum permanence with minimum presence: an introvert building that considers the ground operating in an amgiguous state of recognising its context and denying it, providing a setting for the transient and access to the local. �us, the plinth that acts as frame for the interior and border with the exterior. �is threshold acts as link to the outside via the platforms and concourses leading from the stations and with entrances connecting the city by means of discrete openings throughout the plinth in all 4 elevations of the building.

�e MundaneumTraite de Documentation, Le Livre Sur Le livre, �eorie Et Practique

By combining all central o�ces discussed in this note, one could create a “Document Super Centre”. �is would be in contact with national centres to which a countries principal o�ces of documentation and libraries would be linked to form stations in a universal network. �ey would be provided with limited equipment for copying their own collections and for the reading of micro�lms by the public. �e books, articles and documents that have been �lmed would be brought together in a great collec-tion. Gradually a classi�ed Microphotic Encyclopaedia would be formed �om the, the �rs step toward a new microphotolibraries. All of these developments would be linked together to form a Universal Network of Documentation.�us would economy of e�ort in the conversation and distributions of documents be obtained to a degree impossible with the means presently in use.1 Paul Otlet

5�e Mundaneum

[Courtyard]

1. RAYWARD, W. Boyd, international organisation and dissmeination of knowledge, Selected Essays of Paul Otlet, Tranasted and Edited with an Introduction, Elsevier, 1990, NY, USA, p. 208.

Otlet foreshadowed a time where commu-nication and access to knowledge would coallesce into centres for research and exchange. We extend this concept into a de�ntion of a new ground as the place for exchange for the indeterminate collective. �e unde�ned and in its empty, �lled by the possibility of communication instanteneity and technology allowing for the formation of a Mundaneum in the courtyard.

I Indeterminate Indoor

The Mundaneum The Mundaneum is expressed as a Ground

Plinth that reflects this indeterminite urbanism.

The plinth becomes punctuators that redefine the notion of the urban ground plane as a continuous urban network. An introvert

building that works in reciprocity, naturally establishing itself within its site as the nodal

point amidst the transience within every city, yet it considers its only context to be the

network it constitutes.

II The Introverted Ground

IIIThe Punctuator

IVMaster Section 1:5000

1, PLINTH2. COURTYARD3. STATION

1. 2.

3.

2.

3.

1, PLINTH2. COURTYARD3. STATION

1. 2.

3.

2.

3.

VSection 1:500

VIPlinth

VIIEntrance

VIIIEntrance Section

IXArrival from Station

XView to Courtyard

XICourtyard

XIIThe Mundaneum