GRADUATION SUMMER 2020
Arctic Clay: A building for brick production in Sisimiut
Studio 2C: Building Culture and Tectonics
+45 2896 8014
Linkedin: Maria Skovgaard Olesen
maria_skovgaard@hotmail.com
Constructing Autonomy
This thesis project explores ways of establishing self reliance and autonomy on an individual and phenomenological level, conceptualized through a building for brick production.
The project aims to ground these perspectives on autonomy and identity by making them embodied and geographically anchored to a specific place and context. By fostering an emotional and bodily sense of autonomy and agency, it could gradually extend to structural, societal levels.
Resource: Glacial Flour
Glacial flour is formed during glacial migration, where the glacier grinds against the rock beneath it, resulting in fine grained material, which then wash away and are deposited in layers in fjords. As the continent drifts upward, these deposits can be found up to 100m above sea level now.
Several scientific studies have studied these Greenlandic marine sediments, and found them to have similar properties as clay found in Denmark
Ceramic process as a design driver
A key element in the design of the building has been an intention of having a production that is visible and understandable, seeking to make visible the process from soft clay to finished brick. The intention is for this transparency to be empowering for the people who work or study there. To create a low threshold for participation, encouraging innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
I have studied different kinds of ceramic processes, which can be described in six steps. I have synthesizes my findings into a proposal for an essential production line which can be adjusted to produce several kinds of products, ensuring agility in terms of emerging experience.
Tectonic principles
The overall scheme has evolved from notions of following the landscape, and intention of slenderness for the sake of showcasing the ceramic process.
The brick factory is comprised of three interlocking buildings that are variations on the same overall layout and constructive principles.
The total height difference within the length of the complex is 15 meters, this is resolved in the building by stepping 2.4 metres once within each building, as well as between each building. This results in 6 levels, each corresponding to a step in the ceramic process in the final phase.
I have chosen to acknowledge the fact that the Greenlandic skillset is mainly in carpentry and concrete work, and let these be expressed in the building’s materiality. In this way, the building connects to the existing traditions, not starting anew. As a new technology emerges, ceramic products have space to be incorporated in the buildings, but without having strict and predetermined notions of what directions the development could take.
Wall as archive
The overall building system’s simplicity and repetition is broken up by the heterogeneous nature of two load bearing axises which take on their form from the experimentation and research that happens gradually as the building’s phasing progresses. These axises is meant to be a place of experimentation, archive, exhibition and furniture.
Mathias Sommer 
