Dezeen Magazine

Asemic Scapes by Sarah Schneider

Asemic Scapes - Rehabilitation Center Rainberg is a concept for a medical rehabilitation centre in the Austrian Alps designed by architecture graduate Sarah Schneider.

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Designed to accommodate 50 patients, it features balconies overlooking the mountains and raised walkways running through the surrounding forests.

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Schneider is a recent graduate of Studio Lynn, an architecture course run by American architect Greg Lynn at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Asemic Scapes was her Diploma project.

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The following is from Sarah Schneider:

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Asemic Scapes - Rehabilitation Center Rainberg

This project is a conceptual design for a rehabilitation center for trauma and post surgery patients with a capacity of 50 beds in the Austrian Alps, in Vorarlberg.

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In general rehab centers like their predecessors the sanatoriums of the 19th and 20th century are based on a dualistic set of values: they embody the belief in the healing power of technology and the healing power of nature, which is why they are mostly situated in prestine landscapes.

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Therefore my attempt was to develop a contemporary relationship to the landscape based on calligraphic ornamentation.

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Calligraphy is adding an idea of creating variation through artistic expression to a technical matter of communication and is connected to ornamentation which generally uses natural motifs and often rules of natural growth.

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The project develops an architecture that uses rules of natural growth and connects both growth and ornament, with a landscape environment, topologically and calligraphically.

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The ornament creates a symbiotic relationship with the existing environment by framing existing topographic features and at the same time giving a feedback to the landscape by creating topographical irregularities.

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In the landscape the ornament starts to organize the ground by subtle terracing and it creates paths that break the clear definition of an indoor ñ outdoor boundary by running through the building, widening up to create bigger platforms and shrinking back to paths when leaving the building again.

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This ornamented landscape topography develops the roof structure transforming from a plan calligraphy into a complex volumetric condition of overlay and envelope.

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