A Time-Slowing Machine

Basel, Swiss. In a hyper-connected border landscape, an urban island emerges, enclosed by visible and invisible boundaries. Abandoned railway embankments form a ghostly space where isolated communities exist without interacting. Outside, a decaying industrial infrastructure landscape shapes this liminal zone. Yet, bathers reclaim the river - festively, subversively - disrupting the enclave’s inertia. In this complex territory we ask : how can Basel’s obsolete industrial heritage be reinterpreted to offer marginalised communities a place to connect, slow down and create a monument to slowness ?

In the valley of the Wiese river, "A Time-Slowing Machine" manifests itself through a seasonal movement and can be seen as a place welcoming slowness in a liminal territory, where nothing ever stands still. Located on the outskirts, the machine creates a real face-off between the latency of the enclave and the productive speed outside. The almost imperceptible speed allows its users to extract themselves from the dynamics of external acceleration. The structure’s movement is cyclical, on the disused railway embankment and covers 4km in 730 days. This cultural and sporting metal infrastructure fosters two existing local practices : a social circus and open-water swimming - that counter fragmentation and marginalisation. Rather than performance, the focus is on body and mental expression. The main volume, dedicated to the circus explores artistic movements and efforts of the bodies. Suspended above water, the bathing space gradually connects to the training areas. Inspired by the city's temporary boarding decks, the modular structure allows users to lie down, change and descend to the Wiese river. Down below, our proposal for the remeandering of the river evolves with the seasons, welcoming bathers and local animals. The temporality of the uses thus largely revolves around the seasonal movement of the machine. The project is developed through the reuse of fragments of local ruins, integrating their dismantling and transformation as an act of reappropriation of decaying industrial heritage by the local community. The structure's base uses harbour crane legs and latticework, enabling two-level track travel. The idea is that of a resilient structure fostering community while constantly rebuilding itself, passing through time and processes of growth and evolution.