The Labyrinth

From the mechanically regular grids of UCSD’s Eucalyptus trees, a soft translucent structure spirals into an set of 25 rooms and passageways. The material construction of the Labyrinth enables it to act as a student-operated gallery, performance theater, and informal social space.

The Labyrinth’s walls and passages manipulate and amplify the phenomenas of light, shadow, sound and space resonating within UCSD’s man-made eucalyptus landscape. The intervention injects a sense of play and wonder to a physical landscape devoid of ecological diversity and an institution devoid of social interaction.

Much of UCSD’s landscape and architecture are composed of vacant antiseptic spaces that result in a fractured, dysfunctional social body. The Labyrinth resuscitates and defines its specific space with a series of labyrinthine passages woven through the grove’s grid. It co-opts and adapts to this underlying blueprint and underscores the inherent contradictions present at its core: the creation of a man-made space that mimics one developed over centuries and the questionable failure to include diversity in the structural, landscape and social design of UCSD.

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topography (tə-pŏg’rə-fē) –noun, plural -phies.

The three-dimensional arrangement of physical attributes (such as shape, height, and depth) of a land surface in a place or region. Physical features that make up the topography of an area include mountains, valleys, plains, and bodies of water. Human-made features such as roads, railroads, and landfills are also often considered part of a region’s topography.
- American Heritage Science Dictionary

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Presented by Marko Manriquez, Shawn Yourd, and Marjory Loh in conjunction with Derek Lomas of Social Architectures.

Labyrinth manifesto and statement co-authored by Marko Manriquez and Akemi Hong.

Special thanks to Derek Lomas, Todd Pittman, UCSD Media Teaching Lab and Sixth College.

Original concept by Marko Manriquez.