Terrains vagues are the abandoned, undefined, empty, often forgotten spaces of the city that are in a temporary state of no more and not yet. While they are traditionally considered eyesores in the cityscape, signs of social ills and counter-sites to urban order, we looked at them as spaces of possibility for a new urbanity in fragmented cities. Copenhagen based architects’ group Cobe won the bid to design the new waterfront where the old Deutzer Hafen currently is, and next year the first transformations will begin. The old industrial harbour is no more, and the new waterfront is not yet making the current harbour a place of temporary in-between – a terrain vague.
In this two-week project we explored, extracted, and transformed details found around Deutzer Hafen. Together with architecture students Lisa Gerdiken and Lina Kasper, I created a time machine installation inspired by the Deutzer Drehbrücke. The project was supervised by Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler (KISD), Prof. Dr. Michel Müller, and Johanna Terhechte (TH Köln Faculty of Architecture).
phase #1 find
phase #2 extract
phase #3 transform