it all starts with a wall

mentors: 
Nishat Awan, Mauro Parravicini, Oscar Rommens, TU Delft

individual

2021

labyrinth for oil smugglers 

basing on the locations around the gaps in the iran-pakistan border fortifications, the concept envisions model spatial premises, that would enable smugglers to maintain their occupation and reside in their independent cross-border settlements built along the riverbeds. Adapting to the changing perimeter of the periodic river, the design maintains constant self-transformation. Most importantly, however, the complex, labyrinthic structure of these premises, thanks to its quality of obscurity and confusion, is expected to help smugglers avoiding law enforcement forces pursuits, that currently deter them from trading. The project, therefore, spatializes the condition of the ‘hide and seek’ game that is being repeatedly played out by smugglers from both sides of the border and law enforcement forces.

See the project booklet below:

The design takes advantage of a great variety of resources available locally - such as mining minerals, bamboo, or clay, mixed with reused left-overs of smuggled commodities such as car particles, solar panels, or oil barrels. Eventually, to accommodate the spatial strategy to the site-specific conditions, the grasshopper script generating instances of labyrinths adapted to the specific gap indicated in the course of the border was created.