Princeton University, SoA

Fall 2018

Erin Besler
Michael Meredith

The creation of an imbalance in between greenhouse and visitors space directs the orientation of the building. Too many visitors in the library and workspaces, and the human environment lowers while closing the parking lot beneath, if there are not enough people researching environmental change while the plants are overgrowing, the greenhouse side lowers to the surface of Lake Carnegie.

Through this project, the relationship and balance in between the human and natural environments stand in a direct dialogue, communicating the state of the symbiosis in the orientation of the project. The dialogue in between a micro-cosmos of human built artificial environments and controlled natural environment, as well as triggers and dependencies are brought to an extreme, investigating the fragility of nature within the environmental research laboratory itself. The building becomes both a polemic gesture of artificial environments as well as commentary on the impact of our behavior on our natural environment, in form of a gigantic balancing act.