concept and project: Martyna Rajewska, Agnieszka Chromiec, Anna Lubińska
supervision: Ph.D. Katarzyna Krakowiak / 2015
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Daylight Warehouse
We live in harmony with the Sun, it sets our daily rhythm, yet we live different in different places around the globe. The relationship between day and night is not symmetrical, their length varies according to time of the year and topography. Human access to light is always somehow limited. Architecture as a site-specific structure responds and corresponds to the rhythm of light and darkness. The building whose structure is going to be transformed by us will become a site where humans will be able to experience natural light through the mediation of architecture. Located at the outskirts of the town, it is a warehouse facility which was originally used to store stockfish during the winter.
The building is located on the island Vardø, in the extreme northeastern part of Norway, where one experiences a very specific and spectacular relationship between day and night. As Stieg Larsson wrote: “Vardø the last light in Europe during winter nights.” The aim of the project is to emphasize the existing angles and slopes of the building, allowing the natural light to flow into the construction. We would like to offer something to the inhabitants of the town, an exceptional experience of the natural rhythm they live in.
Vardø / flashback of light
The building of the warehouse is oriented towards north. We have analyzed the sun paths diagrams for Vardø and discovered that during winter there are two hours of daylight while during summer the night never falls. The relationship between these two extremes is thus 2 to 24 hours. And this was a point of departure for our project.
We would like to control the access to light by removing two horizontal elements of the building from the south elevation. Entering the building people would experience the daylight but mediated through architecture and thus as something exceptional. The contrast between the darkness inside the building and the light allowed in forces the viewers' eyes and perception to accommodate and appreciate this otherwise ordinary experience of being in and with the light.
During the perpetual night period, the situation is reversed – we create daylight effect in the building, while the night reigns outside. We use solar lamp that will absorb sparse rays of light and transform them into the source of light. We create a daylight niche in the middle of the night. Yet the rays of light form the shape of the traditional fish racks – fiskehjell (norsk). We found it a great challenge to be able to offer such a defamiliarization of the unusual yet ordinary experience of the inhabitants back to them. This is the light of tomorrow for that nearly ghost town.
