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Outside view of the space station installed in a natural context. Built for being installed in various settings; from urban to natural to (post) industrial situations, the space station boasts a resolutely disruptive materiality.
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Under the platform wings visitors can shelter from rain and sun. The machinery is left visible: pistons, tanks, pumps(...) indicate the architecture’s mobile machine character.
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From the entrance area, which is covered in aluminum grating and lets the diffuse light of the dome penetrate, a stainless steel stair with stairlift lead to the first floor. Under the stair is the kitchen and in continuation; the bathroom.
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During day, the sleeping platform is a vast domed space. Covered in natural cork, it allows various close-contact activities.
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The project adresses a special scale: at once intimate and finely ergonomic, the mobile structure becomes building / architecture and landmark through its bizarre volumetric and material composition.
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working model
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Name of work in English
E22SSPIU!
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Name of work in original language
Esch2022SpaceStation pump It up!
Prize year
EUmies Awards 2024
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Work Location
Esch-Belval, Luxembourg
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Studio
2001
EUmies Awards 2024 Nominees
Collaborators
Program
Food & Accommodation
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Labels
Refuge
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Client
City of Esch-Alzette
Total gross floor
92 m²
Completion
2023
Esch 22 Space Station is a 6-people mobile sleeping hut, designed for experiencing the various post-industrial contexts and environments of the city of Esch during the Capital of Culture 2022. In a mobile setting, the space station is reduced to a stainless steel trailer, containing a bath, kitchen, and dining space. Once arrived at a destination, 2 wings unfold to form a ø9 meter circular platform with a cork cover on top of the trailer. On this platform, a double-shell pneumatic dome is inflated to form a generous sleeping habitat. Moreover, E22SSPIU! problematizes, by its architectural and technical nature, our discipline’s and society’s relation to resources; soil, water, and energy.
E22SSPIU is a space station which can be deployed in everyday landscapes. It is a habitat for 6 people, looking for shelter along their voyage through the commonplace of southern Luxembourg. E22SSPIU does not solve social or ecological problems. E22SSPIU is not an answer, it is merely a question. E22SSPIU is a vehicle, hut, home, and sculpture, aiming at disruption: disruption of the certainties we project onto our environment, and disruption of the preconceptions we have about architecture. Doubt for a coming age. E22SSPIU thus problematizes how architecture engages with resources; from land(take) to water and energy. Instead of virtuoso architecture, E22SSPIU is a totem to both the discipline’s production but foremost the landscapes and environments hosting it. E22SSPIU is an assemblage born out of the intense collaboration between architects and engineers, between technicians and craftsmen on a European level.
The trailer is a metal-frame construction, insulated by polyurethane and clad in hand-brushed/vibrated stainless steel. The wings are operated by pneumatic pistons. Their surface, representing the sleeping dorm, is covered with 8mm cork. The dome is welded out of double-layer polyester textile, which is inflated - design and air become the structure.