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SITUATING:Montreal &The Topological Media Lab

The opportunity arose to continue our work rom last year with the Topological MediaLab (TML) at Concordia in Montreal. Sha Xin Wei, director o the TML, and PatrickHarrop invited mysel along with Gregory Rubin and Candace Fempel to help oster astudio culture within the Design and Computation Arts Department at Concordia as wellas to continue to develop our own work while taking advantage o the many technicalresources available. As part o the move to Concordia we enrolled in a Theory Seminarwith Chris Salter which covered the theory o interactivity.

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INITIATING:PNEUSChamp Libre & E-Arts Shanghai

As part o the term startup we continued our research work with PNEUMA (PatrickHarrop & Peter Hasdell) and the TML. We participated in constructing and developingpolyurethane cells as well as the electronic systems that would control the event. Wewere also introduced to the methods o circuit board making. The t wo installations wewere helping to produce or were Champ Libre in Montreal and the E-Arts Festival inShanghai .

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INITIATING:PNEUSChamp Libre & E-Arts Shanghai

PNEUS is a suspended orest made o a multitude o sensors and electronic generatorssurrounding translucent PVC tubes. The latter reproduce the bers that lend treestheir fexibility and regenerative capacity in a structure many meters high. This magicspace o sound and light is the outcome o a progressive real-time recording and itstrans ormation that condenses and expresses in one space - a structure and spatialoccupation - an immediate experience o all the perceptible phenomena o movementin the context o the occupied neighborhood, including passersby, passing clouds, andthe wind.

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GRIFFINTOWN:Development & Protest

Gri ntown is currently ri e with political controversy. A major developer - Devimco -has proposed a complete reappropriation or Gri ntown in the orm o a residentialand commercial takeover. They intend to completely gentri y the area which hasbeen largely void o any city interest since the 1960s. The commercial aspect o theproject completely conficts with the citys long established shopping district (St.Catherine Ave.) which is only a ew blocks away. Devimcos plan is also completely outo scale with both the area that is Gri ntown as well a s Montreal as a whole; they haveproposed to erect buildings between 12 and 14 storeys high along with a couple o towers while the building code limits local structures to heights o no more than 4 - 6storeys.

The other side o Gri ntown that we became amiliar with was that o politicalactivism. Despite the extremely low number o residents in the neighbourhood - thereis a strong source o protest against the Devimco proposal. Alternative proposals arecontinually being developed and presented to the city in the attempt to generatenew ideas or what could potentially take place in Gri ntown rather than completelygentri ying the area.

We have had the opportunity to meet with a number o individuals who are at theore ront o de ending Gri ntowns heritage and have made arrangements to share our

work with them throughout the next term.

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GRIFFINTOWN AS SITE:Premise - Public Institution

The position or the term became not one o either major development nor the kind o historical preservation. Rather, by injecting a smaller intervention that might be able tonudge or poke at the dormency which exists in Gri ntown we may be able to agitatethe neighbourhood in a way that a shopping mall or heritage building might not beable to. The goal then became to the context or some kind o public institution. Notinstitution in an authoritative sense - but in a socially generative manner.

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SITE SELECTIONCN Wellington

A ter taking a ew walk throughs around Gri ntown, I ound mysel continually comingback to the CN Wellington Building. My initial draw to the building came rom its veryinteresting position along both the Lachine Canal as well as the CN Via Rail line. It issituated at an intersection o transportation and industry and I thought that it would bea rich muse rom which to develop a project.

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The CN Wellington at one point during the 1930s was a control station or therail lines which pass right by it. With the advancement o more centralized controlsystems - the need to control the lines locally became less important and this it isnow le t abandoned along side the still active track. The track services numerous smallcommunities surrounding Montreal and making up the greater Montreal a rea. The usersare a mix o daily commuters into downtown Montreal, as well as commuters rom moreNational locations.

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As part o the redevelopment & gentri cation o the Lachine Canal during the mid1990s - a bike path / walking / running path runs through the site and along sidethe canal.

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Interior views o the abandoned CN Wellington Control Tower.

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SITE CONTEXT:Fire Map Research

Unable to nd very much actual literature about the CN Wellington Building I began tostudy a series o re insurance maps which helped to provide some historical context

or the development o the site.

1879

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1890 1907

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1909 1914

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SITE CONTEXT:Pre-Existing Public Bath

I determined rom the Fire Insurance Maps that somewhere between 1890 and 1907a public bath was constructed adjacent to the existing site o the CN Wellington. As avery intensely industrial, and there ore dirty neighbourhood, the health o the publicwas o great importance in the late 19th to early 20th century. Public baths werenecessary to stave o disease and to preserve a healthy work orce in the absence o in rastructure necessary or homes to have their own private baths.

1890 1907 1909

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RUE DE LA COMMUNE

R U E M U R R A Y

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H I N E P I S T E C

Y C L A B

L E

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A S I N

R U E O

L I E R

R U E R I O U X

P A R C

G A L L

E R Y

R U E D E LA M O N T AGN E

PISTE CYCLABLE

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C A N A

L L A C

H I N E

P A R C

P U B L I

C B A T H

P U B L I C

B A T H

S Q U A R

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SITE CONTEXT:Pre-Existing Public Bath

The notion o the public bath generated a lot o interest or me. To me it seemed likea per ect example o what a public institution could be. To think o public baths bringscertain implications o publicity and privacy. These notions would lead me to urtherinvestigations into observation as phenomena in the context o the site.

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SITE CONTEXT: Industry to Abandonment

Gri ntown remained success ul industrially until the opening o t he St. LawrenceSeaway caused the Lachine Canal to basically become obsolete and eventuallyclose in 1970. With the collapse o industry in the area it ba sically ell to the waysideo the citys priorities. Businesses moved out and the once very active industrialneighbourhood became dorment.

This created the per ect setting or those who wished to be unseen and the areabecame notorious or being a c ruising zone. People would meet in this unwanted and

orsaken part o the city to engage in sexual activities.

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These actions would go largely unseen in the area. However, the passenger train linethrough Gri ntown into the downtown o Montreal remained active. The acts thatwould be considered very private now became - i the passenger was looking at theright moment - very public.

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CN WELLINGTON &THE RAIL-LINE

I began to draw out some very peculiar correlations between existing conditions o the siteas well as some o the sites history. There seemed to be a very apparent overlying notion o observation within the context o the site. When thinking about the Public Bath it becomesvery clear that there are viewership implications - undamental architectural questions o privacy and publicity. Given the sites history, as well, as a pick up zone during the time thatit was largely abandoned - the relationship between the observer in the train and the CN

Wellington (i it were to be reappropriated or the unction o a public bath) becomes veryloaded. There are certain things that should and can be seen - and other things that shouldnot. It was this notion that led me to urther investigate the relationship between the CNWellington and the Rail-line in terms o observation.

Example o a very specifc ramed view passing through the building which is determined by thealignment o two existing open apertures.

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CN WELLINGTON &THE RAIL-LINE

Upon numerous visits to the site - one thing started to become clear to me; that thebuilding was acting as both a sur ace but also a s a device mediating the relationshipbetween the observer on the train and the extents beyond the structure (the city).

The abandoned CN Wellington is covered in potential apertures which lead beyond thebuilding - but also which delineate a certain space within the building. I then began tostudy a number o situations in which windows would align to o er pat hways through thebuilding. I decided to treat the building as an open shell - which it largely exists as aside

rom a number o boarded windows.

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I began by investigating a series o situationsand attempting to draw, in plan, the example o a single observer on the trains sight l ine throughthe structure as windows aligned depending ontheir position on the track.

DRAWINGCN Wellington &The Rail-Line

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I then produced a series o drawings thatextracted the building a observer rom the siteto identi y how the relationship between the twoshi ts and changes as the train moves down thetrack.

You begin to see that through parallax the buildingcontinually turns in relation to the observersposition.

In elevation you begin to see the subtle shi tswhich take place between track locations.

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MODELINGFramed Cones of Vision

Realizing that the idea o these pathways through the building was not a 2 dimensionalproblem, I moved away rom CAD and into Rhino3D where I began to model t he ramedcones o vision.

What I began to model were the di erent combinations o sight lines through the buildingaccording to the CAD drawings. Moving into 3 dimensional space allowed me to realizethat there are nearly in nite permutations through a set o two given windows / apertures.Thus I began to model the 1st extent in which the line o sight rst begins to pass throughthe rst window to the second opening. The average point directly t hrough both windows.And the 2nd extent at which there is no direct path through that speci c combination o

openings.

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Taking multiples cones through the buildinga density begins to build and sight linesstart to merge and cross or miss each other- leaving voids between the convergingpathways.

MODELINGFramed Cones of Vision

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MODELING THE CONES IN SPACE

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MODELING:Light as Vision - Physical Model

A ter ghting with the 3D modeling program - I realized that it could potentially bear more interesting and perhaps telling to move rom the digital realm to a physical

medium. I began to construct a simpli ed model o the CN Wellington building in orderto urther study its relationship with the observer o the train.

I would begin to use projected light in place o vision. But in order to make the lightvisible I would need a controlled dark environment as well as the use o a particulate torefect the light.

MODELING

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MODELING:The Site & Apparatus

Getting the light to become visible consistently with the use o a particulate proved tobe very di cult. I booked a projection room so that I could isolate the model. I neededa closed room so as to not disturb anyone with the use o di erent particulates (chalkand di erent aerosols, etc.). The shoot also needed to be secure so that I could leave itin place without ear o it being shi ted or moved as the goal was to recreate the coneso vision rom the Rhino3D studies in real space. This would require still photographycomposites. I was also able to attain 2 digital SLRs, a second laptop, numerous tripodsand a mini-projector.

MODELING:

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MODELING:Light as Vision

Knowing that it would be a daunting task to attempt to photograph all o the di erentpaths o vision through the buildings existing openings - I gave each window and foora code / number so that I could build a matrix and schedule all o the photographs thatI would be required to shoot. This proved to be extremely use ul or keeping track o the photographs.

A1

B1

B2 B3

B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8

B9 B10 B11 B12 B13

C4 C5 C6 C7

C1

C2 C3

A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 A2

A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7

MODELING:

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A ter many ailed experiments with both chalk and aerosol particulates my only optionwas to rent a ogging machine and ll the room with a haze in order to better ca pturethe cone o light rom the projector.

Photographs: Morgan

MODELING:

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I then began to physically model the cones o vision by setting the projectors lens tothe elevation o an observer on a train in relation to the elevation o the CN Wellington.To draw the cones I would align the projector with the predetermined combination o windows and projecting live out o Adobe Illustrator in ull screen mode basically tracedthe extents o the rst aperture.

Photographs: Morgan

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Photograph: Morgan

WINDOW A06-A09

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Using the codes I had determined or both foors and windows I very care ully ranthrough a large number o possible permutations o openings.

WINDOW B04-B10

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FLOOR A - COMPOSITE

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Gathering all o t he images I then composited them to demonstrate the movement andbehaviours o the cones as the train travels linearly past the structure.

FLOOR B - Composite

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p

FLOOR A+B+C - Composite

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p

FLOOR A+B+C -

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Elevation Composite

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MODEL AS WORKING DEVICE & ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED

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There are a number o interesting potentials that I need to address in order to urtherdevelop the project. One issue is that o time and temporality. I have been dealing with

xed positions along the track, but the train is not static. Working with the electronicexpertise and resources available to me at Concordia and the TML I will construct adevice to help me study the trains movement along the track.

Another potential is the reciprocal relationship o the potential user o the buildingback out to the rail line / observer on the train. By developing the programme o thebuilding with the intention o creating a public bath I can then begin to play with t heimplications o viewership which are both inherent to the site as well as the bath.

This is where I propose to continue to work with both the model as a working device aswell as the light (as vision). I can take advantage o being able to physically manipulatethe cones as they pass through the building by introducing built elements within andaround the building.

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