NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR COSMIST EXPLORATION (NICE)

by Joseph Robinson

My proposal for the site in Deptford imagines a large scale operation designed to incorporate ordinary people in space exploration. The proposed new building is organised as a congregation of structures that accommodate a series of processes. In the first place the organisation aims to produce a community of fully trained individuals, able to embark on an exploration of the cosmos. In the second, it is where a space vehicle, designed to accommodate the explorers, will be tried, tested and eventually launched. Inspired by Nikolai Federov’s text, Astronomy and Architecture, the project interprets Federov’s idea of the ‘Great Electric Boat’ as a summons to build a vehicle that could travel the universe and visit new planets. Taking this idea, the proposal fuses the listed Olympia Building, originally used for ship manufacturing, to a canopied extension that will allow the site to produce ships (of sorts) once more. An evident need for three differently functioning zones was established early on; however, it also became clear that these needed to be unified in order to allow the organisation to function correctly. The idea of building a unifying canopy came to me in a flash, like a bolt out of the blue! The canopy would allow each of the differently functioning zones to maintain a degree of autonomy, yet unite all three of them within a single structure. The canopy needed to respect the double curved roof of the Olympia Building and create viable spaces below. I decided to produce a curving, undulating shape that stretched the required length in a seamless flow, replicating a motion similar to that of a radiation wave, gradually shallowing as it moves further from the source.