SITE:
An ‘accidental’ plaza: the surrounding buildings here, instead of forming the plaza, instead of carving out the plaza, just happen to be there on the edge. Below the plaza is another plaza, an underground plaza, a subway station.

PROPOSAL:
A circle is imposed onto the square; the circle is made up of interlocking smaller circles; the circles are expanded into spheres; the spheres function as an open structure-system, a set of frames for landscape and architecture; the landscape and architecture rise up through the surrounding buildings; the plaza swells up out of itself.

The pavement of the plaza is inscribed with a circle, its diameter as large as the longer length of the plaza; the circle is cut off by buildings and streets. This large circle is full with smaller circles, in three sizes, each size a different color of pavement. Where the smaller circles come up to the edge of the large circle, the left-over space is covered with grating and lit from below.

You enter the square, you enter the circle inside the square, by walking over a void of light.

Embedded within the circles of pavement is a circle of spheres, above ground and below ground. Where the pavement is cut off by a sphere, the pavement folds up into a railing wall; in the left-over spaces between spheres, the wall folds again to make a bench. You walk between worlds; you sit outside a world, sheltered by a world above you.

The spheres are open tubular structures, in three sizes, bunched together and interlocked: one sphere intersects another -- a sphere above is cradled by spheres below – the spheres scoop out the ground, they settle underground and bulge up above the ground. The perimeter of each sphere is a ramp made of grating: you walk out in the open, you see through to below -- you circle around each sphere, from top to bottom and from bottom to top -- you spiral from one sphere, one globe, one world, into another.

The spheres are frames for parks and buildings; the spheres are an interweaving of free spaces and programmed spaces.

The Parks. These are the veins, the arteries, of the complex of spheres. The center of the complex is a large park; it’s as if the other spheres have burst out of it, as if the other spheres have revolved away from it in orbit. Intertwined through the complex, high and low, are small parks and medium-sized parks; there are more parks than other spheres, the parks pop up in-between the other spheres. In the middle of each park-sphere is a cluster of trees, planted in a pyramid of soil that’s suspended within the tubular structure; it’s as if you’re climbing the trees: the ramp around the sphere takes you down to the roots, and up into the foliage -- the inside of the ramp is bordered by a bench, where you sit inside the foliage, within the trees. The parks function, on the one hand, as places to be in, places to meander around and lose yourself in. The parks function, on the other hand, as places to pass through: as you spiral around each park, you can spin off onto the sphere that intersects it – the park is the access into a building, the free space is the passageway into the programmed space.

The Subway Entrances. Two of the parks double as entrances to the subway below. On the surface of each sphere, one triangular section is a blue wall; a ‘U,’ as large as the wall, is cut out of the wall: you enter the subway through the subway sign – an escalator, cutting through the pyramid of soil that holds the tree, brings you down into the station.

The Parking Garage. Landschafstrasse turns off into a sphere that functions as a parking garage. The asphalt street continues up and down the sphere; it becomes the ramp through the parking garage. The railing wall of the ramp is mirrored, inside and out; the cars inside are multiplied in the mirrored walls – the parking garage, the highest sphere of all, is brought down to size as its outside walls melt into the reflections of the plaza.

The Market. This sphere cuts into Weinstrasse, the pedestrian street. From the ramp that circles the sphere, you make a turn onto grating bridges that shoot to the center like the spokes of a wheel. Market stalls and counters line the bridges. Each triangular section of the sphere, above ground, is equipped with a translucent fabric shade; the shade is pulled up or down to let in air.

The Theater. The ramp around this sphere takes you to four theaters, one above the other; each theater is a different size, filling out the sphere. From the ramp outside, a door opens inside onto a ledge around semi-circular seats that step down to a stage. The shell of the sphere is two-way mirror: during the day, the exterior surface is reflective; at night, light from within exposes the theater and makes it glow.

The Aviary. This sphere is a cage. The ramps of the neighboring parks push the cage in: it’s as if you’re walking inside the cage – birds fly around you, above you, under you – it’s as if you’re walking on air.

The Swimming Pool. The upper half of the swimming pool is a glass hemisphere; the swimming pool is climate-controlled. You walk up the ramp to diving boards at different heights. The pool is a pyramid that extends down into the subway station; as you walk through the station, swimming bodies hover above you, like fish in an aquarium.

The Skate-Board Rink. The skate-board ramps are like slices of a cup within the sphere. Around the sphere, the grating ramps take you to the entrances to the skate-board ramps; the entrances are at different heights, the skate-board ramps are of different lengths, you choose the one with just the right degree of difficulty. The skate-board ramps are translucent fiberglass; from behind, the skaters are ghosts swooping down the ramps and rising up on the other side. The rink is suspended above other spheres; the skate-boarders fly off into the sky.

The Service Areas. Where two spheres interlock, the space shared by each is closed up with frosted glass. The space functions as a service area for the adjoining spheres: at the market, for example, it might be a storage room – at the parking garage, it’s the attendant’s office – at the theater, it’s a backstage area, a dressing-room for actors, a supply-room for props – at the aviary, it’s the maintenance room, where food and cleaning-supplies are kept. At least one floor of each service area is used for toilets. Another floor might be used as a snack-bar; passers-by take what they buy here and eat and drink in the parks.

This new plaza, dense with spheres, is a city within the city. The collision of spheres with the surrounding buildings, the collision of sphere with sphere, is the collision of town and country, street and park, architecture and landscape, underground and overground. You have the world at your feet, and in your hands; you’re in the middle of multiple worlds, you switch from world to world, as if on a video screen, as if on a computer terminal.