Splügen Rest Stop

Splügen is a landscape project located in the Upper Rhine Valley in Switzerland using parametrically designed “fins” to engage the river and manipulate the fluvial landscape. The Upper Rhine Valley is characterized by its pristine alpine ecology, yet, contrasted with a mayor highway connecting Germany and Italy running through it.

Articulating the impact of infrastructure on alpine landscape, Splügen Rest Stop is an expanding field of “fins” running along the highway for about one kilometer. The fins act as rhythm-keeper to passing vehicles, creating a cinematic effect of animation in landscape. In return the fins function as noise barrier to the settlement of Splügen.

Besides their interaction with the highway and the village, the fins engage the river Rhine as well. The river is directly feed from glacial waters and regularly peeks in spring and fall when melting snow and rain drain into the valley. Fluvial changes are dramatic, eroding large areas of arable land, threatening roads and settlements. The changes in water loads have spurred in recent years, as global climate change impacts the Alps. The fins of Splügen Rest Stop act as piece de resistance, while the river becomes the motor for a gradual transformation of the landscape. Annual floods redirect into the field, sedimentation fills parts of the structure, while water slow down, relieving pressure on the river below. Sedimentation and erosion constantly change the appearance of the field of fins throughout time. Man-made, yet partly reclaimed by nature Splügen Rest Stop is an active landscape-infrastructure hybrid.

The design of Splügen Rest Stop started with a parametrically controlled proto-fin. Designed in Maya and implemented in the coding language MEL in 2002, fins propagate by thousands, changing frequency, amplitude, direction and angle through a form-synthesizing feedback loop. After fabricating a series of test models with cnc-technology, the original nurbs-curved shape was translated into a triangulated model of which a 1:1 prototype was fabricated on site. The mock-up was then cast in concrete and placed in the Upper Rhine in early spring 2003. At our next visit a few weeks later the fin was gone.

Authors: Aurel von Richthofen
with Moritz Schoendorf and Lorenz Kocher

Place: Splügen, Switzerland
Year: 2002–2003
Size: –
Type: Self initiated
Client: –

Variation and repetition in the parametric model

1:1 mock up in the Rhine river close to Splügen

Freiheits- und Einheitsdenkmal / Berlin

Einheits Denkmal is a design for a memorial for the German freedom process leading to re-unification in Berlin. The memorial traces vectors across a layered time-space continuum traversing the multi-layered and charged German history. Located at the center of the city the monument aims to educate and commemorate at the same time.

Compact City Oman

Compact city is a design for a sustainable neighborhood in Al Khoudh within the larger Muscat Capital Area based on cultural, climatic and economic criteria of sustainability. This model – both a research method to evaluate, interpret and integrate specific criteria of sustainability as well as a design proposal for a sustainable neighborhood - exemplifies an integrated approach to urbanism adapted to the local Omani conditions.

Elephant Park

Elephant Park is a design for an elephant house with inner and outer spaces as extension to the Zurich zoo. The design maximizes visitor experiences though undulating layout in the landscape. The Elephant Park negotiates a series of programmatic constraints based on the nature of designing for elephants and humans alike, moving away from the classic separation of exhibit and observer.

Tournesol

Finalist in 2 stage, international, cross-disciplinary design competition for a new signage and orientation system for the Castles and Gardens of Saxony, in Germany in 2010 – 2011 (Informations- und Leitsystem für die Schlößer und Gärten Sachsens). aurelVR and Studio Laucke Siebein teamed up and entered the project 'Tournesol'.

Portfolio 2009-2013

This portfolio collects three lines of investigation explored simultaneously and mutually re-enforcing the work produced by aurelVR during 2009-2013: Research, Teaching and Practice. Research on urbanization in Oman and the Gulf marks a new field of investigation of design processes and spatial organization beyond form. Teaching expands in the same direction using digital tools to support design and research. The design part, finally, collects various projects done with aurelVR in Berlin and Oman.