Hypersites in the Urban Realm: A Reinterpretation of Parasitic Architecture

Abstract

Our urban environment is often synonymous to a hostile landscape, an agglomeration of built mass devoid of opportunities to explore, interact, and converse with space. Our intuitive mental depiction of a “building” is reduced to that of an introverted and passive receiver of the outside. However, we do find exceptions: outgoing and outspoken, the Architectural “Parasite” has gained its seductive yet accusatory naming through its extroverted behavior in the City. As a bringer of hybridity, Parasitic Architecture seems to miss no opportunity to intrigue and engage with the space that surrounds it, whether built or human.

This thesis will examine and explore the methods through which Parasitic Architecture presents potentials for the creation of an Urban Trialogue, a combination of exciting conversations between Architecture, Urban environment, and Human User, hereby proposing the Architectural “Parasite” as a “Hypersite”.

An initial research phase will evaluate the ability of Parasitic Architecture to establish dialogue with the entities it affects. This will involve an in-depth look at 25 case studies of Parasitic Architecture. The findings extracted will serve as a base for the following implementation of the thesis as a series of Hypersites, typological design interventions adapted to several spatial occasions within City, notably within the Lebanese neighborhood of Ras Beirut. The notion of spatial dialogue is thus made pragmatic, as a method to tackle “Spatial Adversity”, or one’s perception of urban space as an antagonistic landscape. The proposed hypersitic interventions behave as a collective of architectural companions populating the neighborhood with meaningful encounters. The Hypersites form an architectural ecosystem adapted to Ras Beirut, but potentially applicable to any other city where one’s relationship with space is to be questioned and rethought.