Emilia Chegini

Dundee, a city with two objectives, is an example of a Dual City, a metaphor used to describe society’s increasing antagonism, according to Peter Marcuse, an emeritus professor of Urban Planning. The local newspaper headlines constantly shift between positive reinforcements and negative demean. Poverty, substance abuse-related deaths and teen pregnancies are hidden behind heavy layers of prestigious city design awards. As a city brand, Dundee constantly sways back and forth between being the good and upcoming city of design and the drug death capital of Europe, where the city’s future is left in the hands of serendipity to tip the scales. 

This project aims to challenge Dundee’s two radical polar characteristics and speculate a new city typology appropriate to projected future inventions. As a result, the city fabric will be reimagined as a self-sustained fort city, based on the perfect shape of a circle. The structure, ‘The Ugly,’ is an aesthetic condition in that its size neither sits on top of nor is devoured by the landscape; it is out of place and arguably out of time, which is why this concept is based on current city inequalities while intending to fit right into the future urban fabric. The megalith, ‘The Ugly’,  with a population of 35000, will be considered a new city state 200 years from now, situated between the realms of reality and imagination.