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McGill University School of Architecture Hubs, hubs, hubs : M1 Graduate Studio final projects Studio Critic : Michael Wen Sen Su Coordinator : Aaron Sprecher Hubs, hubs, hubs Although widely discredited, the notion of the so-called "ley lines", as coined by Alfred Watkins in 1921, is certainly applicable to modern day transportation lines. Whereas Watkins considered ley lines to have marked foot paths connecting elevated geographic features in rural England, our world today is criss-crossed with invisible lines connecting air, land, and sea. Where these lines have met and formed nodes, cities or otherwise dense landscapes have not necessarily emerged. That is, their efficiency of performance has generally not engendered any attendant architectural density. Rather, these nodes remain directed towards the smoothness -- even if disjointed -- of flow. This research and design unit will treat these nodes as candidate sites for architectural densification, of either horizontal or vertical orientation, on account of their non-physical, but intrinsic connectivity. Thus, the "extreme" conditions of rapidity of movement and storage, of continual alignment and optimization, and of the large-scale infrastructures of air, land, and sea, are the stimulative factors at work in this particular instance of Connective Tropism. Additionally, while the world's foremost transportation hubs are generally associated with neighboring large cities, this unit will concentrate on hubs distinguished not so much by their urban associations, but principally by the density of their connections. The intrinsic contingency of their very inhabitation is, therefore, the most extreme stimulus of all. Locations: AIR - Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Atlanta (most passengers & flights), Hong Kong Airport (most cargo tonnage); LAND - Delhi Millennium Bus Depot (most bus passengers), Tokyo Shinjiku Station (most train passengers), New York Grand Central Terminal (most platforms); SEA - Port of Shanghai (most containers), Port of Dover (most passengers), Port of South Louisiana (most volume). This video presents projects by: 1 Naomi Hébert & Marie-Pier Dufour : Shinjiku Station, Tokyo 2 Jonathan Goguen-Manning & Martin Chow : Port of Dover 3 Emily Baxter & Keith Thomas : Port of Shanghai 4 Maria Nikolova & Jonida Turani : Millenium Bus Depot, New Delhi 5 Hannes Hofmann & Sassan Mirkhani : Grand Central Terminal, New York 6 Victoria Henderson & Mira Mui : Hong Kong Airport 7 Thomas Evans & Francis Ng : Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Atlanta