Essay part 2

   Orestad is a developing city area near Copenhagen which houses one of its largest projects by BIG architects, the 8 House. Comprised of retail and commercial space, residential housing, and offices; this mixed used building is designed in an unconventional way with both form and program. The building itself is a conglomerate of programmatic elements creating a neighborhood in its own. This unconventional way of layering program and creating a unique form adds new characteristics and meaning to the city fabric.
      Since Orestad is a developing city which I deem that much of its newly constructed architecture derives from influences of what is built around it but still challenging the conventional ways of enhancing a developing city. The reading discussed "points" and "lines" as infrastructural points and lines of force whose positions and relations have been determined by a notational language.  In Orestad, geography plays a huge role in determining positions and in creating those lines of force that help create a form and eventually house the program of a building. Context is important to the 8 house in which it helps the building react to its environment and therefore having the context become an influence in the form. In Orestad, this is actually quite good considering that there is a lot of land in which any form could be basically imposed onto the terrain. So I think that this building "works with the site and not against the site".
      The programmatic elements are designed to ve layered horizontally and provide a range of options for this building to flourish as its own neighborhood. I deem that this 8 house challenges the conventional ways of designing program by mixing different ingredients to one therefore adding more value to the overall developing city of Orestad. The text stated that "sudden and unexpected juxtapositions dislocate the spectators habits of perception". One of my questions was how this was achieved in the 8 House and Mariela stated that the place becomes a maze which may or may not be convenient for the spectator. So program has a huge influence to how the form is experienced. That said, Mariela also stated that she expected the program to liven the atmosphere of the space that touches he ground but it didn't.

"There is an uncanny coexistence of a regular field and emergent figure".

     One of the critical things to understand about the 8 House is that its definitely  one of those buildings where function is its sole purpose. The building itself is described as a 3-dimensional neighborhood.