“Mke_Me_yungR_sheltR_tmptation” or mmyst , as it is more popularly known, is a new concept by New Territories, an Architecture Studio lead by the French Architect Francois Roche.
photography by© Mike Sinclair
Hybrid MMYST Habitat
Envisioned as a ‘Breeding Resort’, it is a hybrid shelter for humans and an artificial cave for birds balanced together and serving as a common habitat. It has three main underlying features, namely; Mutualism, Time-Concept Sharing and Continuum Morphology.
Mutual-ism vouches for a sort of symbiotic dwelling experience within. The birds, Swiftlets (aerodramus fuciphagus), to be specific, are not tamable, they need to be provided with a natural environment in which to build a habitat, hence the breeding resort concept. The nests of Swiftlets are edible and the extract from the nests has health benefits which the co-dwelling humans would be enjoying.
The selected location for the project is in Krabi, Thailand, the native place of Swiftlets.
The Time-Concept Sharing or ‘USUFRUCTUS‘ (use + fructus) refers to the 10-year lifespan of the structure in which the inhabitants will share time, space and the right to use the area as they pledge to. The structure would be demolished then and go back to where it came from, that is, its natural state of being.
The whole concept is being developed as a project of architecture involving innovative techniques and inventions in the fields of Robotic Fabrications and Computations. The design is to be developed in a ‘Continuum Morphology’, that is, the development will not be abrupt, it will be an “organized gradation between biotopes.”
photography by © Tsukui Teruaki
The spaces defined inside the shelter would include on the ground floor, a kitchen-garden room, then, a lounge on the second floor, and two bed-rooms with adjacent bathrooms on the third floor as we go up.
Each floor would have access to the farming with a transparent staircase as the means of access. Mixed with these would be facilities like Steam/sauna room, Swimming Pool, Laundry, and, beach facilities like Sailing, Diving, and Boating etc. There would be a maximum of six people residing at one time.
The principle idea is that of a three-story high construction to be developed as a “deformation-expansion” of a Black mass of volcanic rock, the kind which occupies the site. In simpler words, it is to resemble a Volcanic rock Structure.
The result would be achieved in the form of a complex and hybrid geometrical shape employing a fabricated starch-flax foam (lava skin) wrapped around a steel frame with catenary mesh geometry joining the faces together.This all would constitute large habitable volumes with huge silver-coated windows. The coating on the glass serves to protect against UV rays and creates an aesthetical expression onto the façade via a reflecting view of the spreading landscape.
This transparent(glazed) zone would be that of the humans, the other half would be dark and shrouded in shadows as per the researched needs of the Swiftlets, almost akin to caves.
The construction would be done using Robot on Scissor-lifts. A number of experiments involving the techniques have been successful and at present the New Territories Studio is looking for investors via an on-going kick-starter campaign.
The project all-in-all is entirely too idealistic. Although, it boasts a nice concept and technology usage, it requires a lot of funding to be realized and the only users to ever inhabit the place would be the ‘backers’ of the same who would enter into a contract with the New Territories, Thailand.
The whole idea rests on it being the ‘decaying architecture.’ At the end of ten years, the structure would no longer be in physicality, but will always be remembered as an experience flattened in time and returned to nature.
Cortesía de Naoomi Kurozumi Architectural Photographic Office
