Final Studio Book: The Reimagined Shorebase

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Samples from Student Work

Symbiotic Shorebase Final Review

Final Review May 9, 2014, 9am-4pm
Exhibit May 9-16

School of Architecture
Room 107 Atkinson Hall
College of Art + Design
Louisiana State University

REvision the VISION

Following the mid-review on March 14th, armed with constructive criticism from the review team of Greg Watson, Moira Crone, Shelby Doyle, Jacob Mitchell, Elizabeth Williams, Clint Willson, and Robert Holton, the students spent ONE week revising the project. The goal was that by Friday they would have a new project substantiated by the goals of the mid-review, responsive to their critiques, and yet somehow it would look completely different. This is a difficult task to revision what you have already imagined and make major changes to something that seems relatively formed. Some student’s chose the siting and site scale to re-address, some chose the form of the architecture, some chose both.

Imagination is more important than knowledge…

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Statements of Intent

DEAN KELLY

ALEX KLINGSPORN

AMY GEMELLI

ELLIOT MANUEL

MATTHEW MCKEEVER

ALYCE HOWE

KATIE PITRE

TYLER BRANDIS

BRIAN LUCKE

ROBERT KETNER

VICTOR ERWIN

JU LIU

Schematic Design Development

2/26/14

Following the symbiotic course assignment, the studio has moved into schematic design of the Chevron ShoreBASE. The studio is working primarily in model and drawdel to develop both site and occupation symbiotically. To better understand the landscape and environment, Dr. Clint Willson of LSU, expert on fluvial dynamics at the mouth of the Mississippi, came to work with the class. The conclusion of his work session was “What, the Mississippi is not natural?” Back to the cutting boards, the studio went and major overhauls of site began. The site as it is, is not how it will be, and so now it must become what they deem it can be. Subsequently, the site is so intrinsically linked with the operations of the BASE that a position for one condition cannot be proposed without its reciprocal relationship developed for the other conditions. This is the true nature of the symbiotic occupation. After, Dr. Willson, the studio was visited by author Moira Crone, who gave an analytical lecture on science fiction “world building” and then visited with the students to critique their natural and industrial worlds (previous post.) The students are now working on new images informed by those comments.

PART 2_THE SYMBIOTIC CORPSE

As stated, as you traverse your field you will be drawing and photographing your world. The world you will be witnessing
will be both wild and woolly (nature) and constructed and tempered (industry). You must use your methods of media to capture the field so that it is always accessible, even when not physically present. You will use this documentation to create 2@24”X36” world image views of both the natural environment and the industrial environment. These “world images” must be collaged and constructed from the data you collected along the way to present your vision of the whole excursion. Each image created must present a NEW world tectonically constructed from all that you have observed. They must be thoughtful, analytical, IMAGINATIVE, and conscientiously constructed. They must be a composition of your reading of the
SITE (made from many layers). Site for this project is much greater than just the point the shoreBASE physically occupies. The shoreBASE is a network point connecting, affecting, and occupying a global network. Your “world images” must try to parse the site into its two major symbionts so that you can see them as their separate entities.

Secondly, you will participate in an “exquisite corpse” with classmates. You will exchange a percentage (less than 50% and to be confirmed with your instructor) of each image with a classmate. You will turn off layers in your image and save a new file to hand over. Then armed with new files from your peers, you will “exquisite corpse,” each file with the opposite symbiont:

Nature + Industry, Industry + Nature. These new “SYMBIOTIC CORPSE” images will be presented in 24”X 36” high quality
prints due @ 1 PM, Wednesday, February 5th.

World Image-a word or phrase in a literary text that appeals directly to the reader’s taste, …. and generally realistic depiction of an ideal society or alternative world. (DePaul Literary Terms)

im·age n. \ˈi-mij\ 1. a picture that is produced by a camera, artist, mirror, etc. 2.a mental picture : the thought of how something looks or might look 3.the idea that people have about someone or something

[click images to enlarge]

  

FE_Day 11 And so it Ends

• 7:30_Departing for the Chevron ShoreBase @ Venice

• A refinery along the way, Chevron Site Pics to follow

• 15:30_Arriving at the East “Not Yet”, Fort Pike @ the Rigolets

• At the water’s edge

• Immediately adjacent, the old and the new

• Texture_growth on the walls

• Decay along the Lake Edge

• Hard at work at the entrance_one last sketch

• The ruin stands alone

• Getting one last shot

• Looking through the decay

• The beauty of sunlight after days of overcast skies

• Marks of the past occupants

• Once again, between land and sea

• 17:00_The view at the edge of the eastern border

The last day has arrived. Even with time lost, the studio will reach the eastern border by day’s end. To complete the excursion, the group departs early for their site, Venice, Louisiana. After passing through another Marine Corps threshold, all arrive a bit early at the Chevron Shore Base. It is not hard to see the site is exposed to the weather and the river. The Chevron team is ready and waiting for the group. Each expert on the operations of the base presents in detail the daily activities and the dilemmas. By the time the tour of the facility is complete and all have sat down to enjoy one last meal together, the students have a thorough knowledge foundation to begin the project.  From Venice, the most southeast point of the excursion, the caravan takes off for the state’s eastern border and the last sampling of the coastal environment, the Rigolets. The group descends on Fort Pike, built in 1818 to protect the 8 mile strait, by 3:30 armed with cameras and sketchbooks. The western sunlight makes the fort glow, the water glisten, and the burning marsh simmer in the distance. The students scramble about for one last photo, one last sketch, one last moment in the “Not Yet.”

FE10_Finally Port Fourchon

• 8:30_LA1 Departure from Grand Isle

• 9:00_At last, meeting with Chevron and Chouest @ CPORT1

• 10:00_Onward to the OSV docked in berth 7

• The majesty of the Alyssa Chouest

• The wood storage deck

• 

• The connection points for the tubes that feed the ship

• Navigation on board

• Chouest orange on the rescue craft

• 11:30_The Beauty of the Bow

• In Awe

• 12:00_Moving on to the Chouest Drydock with LSU Alum, Blake Guidrey

• The Grandness of the 50 ton crane

• More Color Coding the supply lines

• The small drydock in the large structure

• 12:30_Onto another small structure_CPORT 3 for Chevron

• The ephemeral quality of construction

• The 5′ column

• The 70′ deep, sheet pile bulkhead and bumper

• The beginning of the skin

• 5′ painted steel on 1″bolts waiting for the non-shrink grout

• Waiting for assembly

• 150′ give or take at the peak

• Girts, Subgirts, Columns, Diagonal Bracing, Beauty

• Glad to be on the move again, Geaux Tigers

After a full day of confinement, the students are eager to explore a new venue. Off to the Port the studio descends on CPORT 1 where Chevron occupies 3 slips. After meeting with Mr. Taylor, he takes us out onto the Alyssa Chouest, an OSV leased from Chouest. Once on board, the students roam about exploring the ROV unit, the pilot house, and bright orange metal hull. High above the bayou, the students fill the captain’s area, admiring the high tech digital screens and the sophistication it requires to man the vessel. From there the studio ventures out into the large scale  yard of the dry dock and then the construction site of CPORT3. The constructions are massive, dwarfing all, and reminding those who studied in Rome of the power man possesses over space. The ships are grand, the cranes gargantuan, the volume endless. As they roam about the sheet piles of CPORT 3, crawling on the piles, lying on the gravel, and balancing on the 4″ tieback cables, the exposed framing of the new slips presents a clear diagram of construction. At 13:00, the group departs for Venice suitably impressed by the efficiency of the CPORT structure and possessive of a clearer  understanding of the shore base operation.

FE_Day 9 Not leaving the NOT YET

• 8:15_Leon @ the end of the world

11:00_The pier @ Grand Isle State Park

11:30_Ice indicating the direction of the storm (NE)

• Textures of the storm_the water’s edge

• frozen grass @ broken pipes

• frozen puddle

• slick floor joists

• a die-hard fan

• a bottle/decoy/buoy etc. tree maze

• 18:00_Leon departs

There is no departure from Grand Isle. The bridge between and the bridge off are ice bound. So work it is. Not a bad time to sit and reflect on all that has been seen in the last 208 hours. Thank goodness everyone is stranded so no tour is lost, just rescheduled. Tomorrow will be the quote of the day “Best Day Ever.”

FE_Day 8 Port Drive-by

• 11:00_Elevated Infrastructure at Port Fourchon

• 11:30_Canal Traffic

• 11:40_250 companies operating between land and sea

• CPORT 3 Drydock_Boat Blocks

• The boats that will rest against the aforementioned blocks

• OSB with heliport

• The multiplicity of transport available in relatively close proximity

• 13:00_30 degrees at the beach, standing on a Geotube 8′ diameter manufactured sand dune

• No zoom_Production rigs from the beach

• the steel pipe that pumps the sand to refurbish the beach

• 14:30_Remnants of a car in the marsh near old LA1

Winter storm Leon fast approaches but if the studio can go boating in freezing temperatures than driving through a Port should be no problem. The day commences early with a presentation by Chett Chiasson, Director of Port Fourchon. A proud graduate of LSU (both undergrad and grad) he speaks articulately and passionately about the symbiotic relationship the Port has between the community, industry, and mother nature. The students now armed with knowledge fire questions at him right and left but he and his staff are poised with answers. By the end of the discussion/debate, the studio is impressed with the Port’s efforts and somewhat depressed with the federal government. Moira Crone’s The Not Yet seems more foretelling than ever. Following the lesson, the studio takes off to the Galliano Airport to drive over the pipeline for 20% of the federal nation’s domestic and imported oil supply and then on the Port. It is getting darker, colder, wetter, and the windows steam-up on the bus, but our Harbor Patrol driver does not desist. The studio is not allowed to disembark and so with rapid fire, high technology they attempt to capture what they see through the small operable air vents in the bus. The day ends early standing on one of the Port’s project’s (a giant tube of sand forming a dune) staring out at the industry’s water world with our tour guide, Davie Breaux. Then, back to the Isle before the bridges close at the end of the world and leave us stranded on the boundary between land and sea. Two quotes for the day: “I think we have come to the land of GIANTS!” and from Mr. Breaux, “We want to be cajun, we want our seafood and to enjoy the fruits of our estuaries.”

FE_Day 7

• 11:00_Hercules Training Barge Rig (notice the scale of the truck)

• 11:30_The studio lined up for lunch

• 12:00_Back at the 5″ hole with our expert, Mr. Shane

• 12:30_Helicopter pad below the pipe derrick

• 13:00_Cables for operating the pipe winches

• Textures on the rig_Gears

• More Pipes_Rust

• The Kill Switch

• Pipe lifting lever

• 15:00_LA1 SuperBridge to Grand Isle/Port Fourchon

• 15:30_The expanse of sky and gulf

• Textures on the Beach_Dune Grasses

• Sea Foam

• 17:00_The colors before the storm 

• 19:00_”The Fruits of the Estuary”

The day begins at Hercules Offshore where Instructor Shane Mendel provides the studio with the 101 on offshore drilling. For more than two hours, the students listen in rapt attention to the complexity and simplicity of drilling pipe into the sea floor. From gumbo to possum belly, hydrostatic pressure (HP) to formation fluid pressure (FFP), true vertical depth (TVD) and measured depth (MD), the physical science of extraction is presented. The in-class lesson ends with rigs larger than the Sears Tower being hauled out into the ocean and erected. Once again AWE abounds. With those images testing one’s imagination, lunch is served on the rig and another saturated tour commences. The sun is shining, the paint is vivid; one might argue it is warm. As the group heads to the southernmost point of the tour, Grand Isle/Port Fourchon, Winter Storm Leon is fast approaching. The bridge to the end of the world and potential entrapment is more monumental and awe inspiring then ever. Not to worry, the ocean provides, and the group drenches themselves with its bounty.

FE_Day 6 All Along the Bayou

• 7:00_Breakfast Sunrise

• 7:30_Looking to the east, the winds have calmed.

9:30_Two by two and three by three, the students set out into the spartina marsh.

• The continuous horizon of the state’s buffer zone.

• 10:00_Deep into the marsh

• The vividness of contrast

• 10:15_A paddling respite in the fragile system.

• Textures along the Bayou_Cattails

• Barnacles on a festival chair

• Oysters in the full shell

• 11:30_Goodbye LUMCON

12:00_Sketch Exercise 1 for the Day-Elpege Picou Cemetery.

12:45_Sketch Exercise 2 for the day-Highway 56

• 1:00_Sketch Exercise 3 for the day-Chauvin Bridge

2:30_Nicholls State Sculpture yard

Sunday is a day of rest. Leisurely breakfast at 7 followed by some morning work and then out to explore the invaluable salt water marsh. It is quiet and peaceful out on the water (quite a contrast from FE_Day 5.) The students return exercised and sweaty. Following the studio packs up and heads to Cecil Lapyrouse Grocery for snacks to hold them over through their sketch exercises. As the caravan heads north, the students disembark multiple times to capture the complexity of the environmental section. At first glance it seems low and flat, but upon closer observation, the dynamic variation of the terrain is revealed. At stop 2, nine changes occur in less than 200 yards between the bayou and Lake Boudreaux. It may not have the elevation of the Rocky Mountains, but it is as craggy and variable.

FE_Day 5 LUMCOM//TERREBONNE BAY

•  9:00_Departure from LUMCON slip

• 9:30_Approaching industry infrastructure in Terrebonne Bay

• 10:00_Temperature 40 degrees, Water 4′ to 6′ swells, Wind N8mph, Time = Good

• 11:20_The sun comes out and the water world becomes saturated.

• jack-up barge

• The expansion of the horizon, piles from an abandoned platform

• 12:00_Still windy and cold

• 12:30_A newly completed flood gate barge for the Houma Navigation Canal.

• 13:00_Survival of the Fittest

• 16:00_Sketching in the Spartina outside LUMCON

• 17:00_The beauty of Cocodrie, LA-the horizon & staying above it

• 17:36_Spent

The studio now ventures in situ of the industry and landscape. Braving the icy wind and bone-crunching swells, the intrepid students and LUMCON guides take off into the bay. As the fog lifts, and the sun shines white on the surface, the water-world of industry infrastructure is revealed. The boat travels from East to West in Terrebonne Bay, approaching each production platform, pressure valve, and observation stations for photo opportunities and a respite from the icy wind. Skirting behind the barrier islands (the North wind pushing too much water out of the bay to allow the group to disembark) the boat traverses from Timbalier Bay to Lake Pelto and then up the bayou. The excursion concludes at the newly minted “Bubba Dove” in the warmth and stillness of the saltwater marsh. The rest of the day is spent accruing warmth and peacefully tracing the environment from the constructed base of the research facility. One beautiful sunset, 13 servings of  devil’s food cake, and a 12 sketch-book throw down, the weather worn explorers fall into their bunks.

FE_Day 4 Life on the Rig

• 8:30_Gulf Land Structures – Modular Pre-Fab Dwelling Units for Life on the Rig.

• 9:30_ The Factory Floor

• 11:00_Fiberglass Skin Precision

13:00_Ice Storm, 28 degrees and North wind

• 14:00_International Petroleum Museum, The First Offshore Rig

• 14:30_Up on the Deck

• Operational Complexity

• Oceaneering’s Robotic ROV Arms

• 15:00_The drill pipe tree, 32′ @ a time

• The clamp that puts the pipe together.

• 15:15_Student Quote of the Day “All this for 5 inches”

On FE_Day 4, the studio experiences life on the rig. Beginning at Gulf Land Structures, the students fill-up a prefabricated 12 man sleeping pod. Four bunks and eight bunks, divided by a bathroom suite, clad in a pristine, 21,000 lbs. taut, white, fiberglass shell, the quarters are tight and efficient. Two and 1/2 icy hours later, Mr. Virgil has the class skate out on Mr. Charlie. From 1954 to 1986, this rig drilled hundreds of offshore wells off the coast of Morgan City. He was the first transportable, submersible drilling rig and represents the springboard to the current offshore rig technology, both shallow and deep. Intrepidly, out on the icy drill deck, Mr. Virgil explains how the entire platform works to support a single 5″ pipe, one that now can travel over 7 miles below the surface of the earth. Finally, it all ends in a rig repair yard, where the scale of all it takes to drill a 5″ pipe comes to fruition. Wow!

FE_Day 3 LEEVAC Shipyard

• 10:30 The steel hull of Aries OSB out in the yard.

11:00 “Super Mike” Jannise in the Belly of the Aries

• Down we go.

• 11:20 Traversing the Pipes

• Up we come

• 12:00 Out we are_The Beauty of Steel
• Appreciating the Section

• Clearly, the scale has changed.

FE_Day 3 is spent in the LEEVAC Shipyard. “Super Mike” and his fellow engineers provide the class with an incredible tour that begins with the design process, goes through the modular assembly floor, out into the yard for steel erection, and then into the belly of the beast. The craft and precision at such a large scale is inspiring. The seams are beautiful, the bends are fluid, and the 1″ plates are massive. The myriad of systems, both active (plumbing, liquid storage, mechanical, electrical) passive (sea water cooling) and technological ( computer operated DPS, etc.) are threaded so tightly, even the smallest must yield to the complexity. Student quote of the day “I am not going down there.”

• taking over the hotel lobby for a work session at the end of another long day

FE_Day 2 The Port of Lake Charles

• 
• 8:30_Port of Lake Charles Authority
• 10:00_Stop 1 @ the Port (Grain Elevator)
• aluminum bars for extrusion
  
• 11:00_Container Storage
• 11:00_Ocean Tug
• 11:30_Spiral Grain Crane
• under the crane (notice the scale-check the stairs)
• 13:15_Stop 2 @ LEEVAC (outside the drydock)
• Inside the drydock
• under a 150′ crane barge
• barnacle growth under the barge (to be removed)
• 1/2 inch steel plate for ship construction
• steel tire rubber boat bumpers to be recycled

Day 2 presented the opposite landscape to the studio. From the man-made, dredged 68 mile Calcasieu channel lined with spoil landscapes to the 150′ span warehouses and 160′ tall stainless steel lined, concrete grain elevators, the constructed landscape is monumental both in scale and effort. It is also rich in texture and material. These images provide only a small sampling of all the studio witnessed. The last stop of the day, the casino – a massive barge disguised as a building and made by LEEVAC. Student quote for the day “WHAT?”

FE_Day 1 The Drive West

• 9:30 _ depart
• 10:15_Butte La Rose
• 13:30_Cypremort Point
• 14:15_angiosperm
• 15ish_Pecan Island
• 16:15_Rockefeller Refuge (the road to where?)
• 17:20_Holly Beach
• 17:30_esquisse
• 18:01_Sabine Pass (the western edge)

On day 1, the studio travels west through the Port Allen delta, across the Atchafalaya Basin, and then down in the chenier plain. At each ecosystem adjustment, the section through the landscape from water to land is constructed. The water starts off fresh (taste tested) and culminates in salt. Multiple stops, pink flamingos, a 50 cent car ferry ride adjacent a quebecois fiat, and an onslaught of beach mosquitoes, the studio stands on a pier in the middle of the Sabine pass, between LA and TX in the shadow of twinkling lights of LNG. Day 1_Complete.

Ram Nation Launch at LEEVAC

Moving Ships

Moving Sands

Ram Nation Launch at LEEVAC

Moving Ships

Moving Sands

Leon on Grand Isle