Thesis Synopsis
The Tangier Bay is two movements with two distinct origins. Firstly, ships that anchor in the ports looking for the sold promise of Tangier, secondly people that have crashed in the city like shipwrecks, they are unwanted. These two movements, contradicting each other, can be unpacked to understand the larger histories of Tangier, their mappings inform each other, and their histories orient the self. The same territorial anxiety is true for water and soil, both polluted and corrupted by foreign powers, they have become alien objects long lost to the Tangier locality. This tension is quantifiable in the condition we inhabit, the intertidal zone, a place of movement, reflection, production, and power.
With the help of four key design elements, we will be proposing a productive red algae park and soil and water archive that sits on the underused Ghandouri outlook point. This concrete hinge connects three tables which can be read in section, plan, and elevation, they are a political proposition wherein lost ground is discovered once more through a set of design apparatuses that re-mediate soil, grow red algae, and consume the pollution that has stained the natural fabric of the bay. Four independent satellite structures are proposed on site, they are in tension on the site, in the programme, and in tectonic language, much like the tides surrounding us, they evolve, change, retreat and regrow. By excavating the ground surrounding us, we not only gather construction materials but also unpack the city and its territorial conditions to create a space for productive conversations. This new ground of the Anthropocene is formed and becomes the frame for our panoramic views, this is the stereotomic commons.
