Yale School of Architecture | 2016 Fall
Post-Pro Design Studio | Edward Mitchell + Aniket Shahane
Partner: Istvan van Vianen
YSOA H.I. Feldman Prize 2017 Recipient
A Maritime Town Scheme to Negotiate between Conflicting Voices
The historic identity of Gloucester, a once renowned New England marine town, is under siege. Global capital is challenging its deep-rooted sense of place while ruthless tourism development rapidly erases local fishing traditions. Rather than forced preservation that inevitably turns the city into a cultural fossil, this plan establishes the Gloucester Maritime Trade Campus as an anchor institution to empower Gloucester with social, economic and political impetus to firmly reinvigorate its identity.
The GMTC reshapes the shoreline with key nodes fusing traditional activities (fishing, logistics operations, boat crafting, and ship maintenance) with novel curatorial/educational practice. It brokers a zero-sum game between tourists, the local maritime community, business development and working class professionals. The resultant social adjacencies are never perfectly smooth, yet strives for a subtle equilibrium, preventing any single interest group from taking over.
My partner and I formulated this project into a comic narrative to show the struggles and reconciliations between various social groups around the township. They argue and complain but get along in the end. People realize that everyone needs each other to thrive, and GMTC, as compromised as it is, is an assurance of a common future.
We infused the narrative with a certain amount of distopic dark humor as opposed to the “everyone living happily ever after” delusion. There is also the pensive foreshadowing of neo-liberalism eventually wiping out everything despite the valiant effort of the community.