The Language School of Iraqi Narratives:
Reconstructing a fragmented architectural history
The new architecture school assists in working and representing the Iraqi architectural heritage and history. The school is responsible for unpacking stories of Iraqis who have lost their homes from war or the diaspora community whose homes have been left vacant for long years.
Therefore to adapt to these sensitive topics, the school develops a strong ethical framework for new techniques of listening. The framework expands on the notion of the interview or the dialogue as the primary method of inquiry in oral history and introduces the concept of 'actions,' which include speech, drawing, and playing.
These new concepts of actions replace the loss of documentation on social, anthropological, and architectural data, which due to its absence, also affected the self-understanding of a place. A place without an officially documented history is perceived as a site without its narrative.
The schools restore the narrative of the sites, which means first and second generations of the diaspora community have a narrative to relate to and strengthen their self-empowerment.
Clients:
The Smithsonian Institute
The Iraqi institute of conservation of heritage & antiquities
Floor plan
Each plan is free form, as the structural column lattices are independent of the facade and fluctuate in diameter as they stretch from floor to floor.
Section
The sound archive constructed from a Lebanese cedar wood exoskeleton and motorised louvers appears to float from the street, hoving over a pool of water across its perimeter. The building is supported by the tree-like stair core that stretches from the lower ground plane to beyond the roof, where there is a platform for users to take an aerial view of the layered landscape and a new unique angle of st Bartholomew's church.
This unique visual quality of the stair core taking the structural load of the sound chamber is one of the most identifiable characteristics of the project. The stair core is comparable to large trees in a forest and functions as light and ventilation shafts.
Cedar forest trail
The cedar forest trail is to immerse users upon entrance into a time capsule that offers a glimpse into Iraq's architectural and cultural past. The schools architectural models, drawings and recordings are displayed for a submersive experience. The forest also prompts a physcial engagement with the culture through traditional Iraqi board games as users sit under the artificial trees where changes striking shadows made by the mashrabiya panels alternate throughout the day.