I WANT YOUR ROOF
LONDON, 01 JULY 2043
The first streets only became impassable in 2023. By that point the Thames had doubled in width. The Great 2036 Flood of London was the turning point – that was when the pleasure turned to fear: the romance of the river turned to the horror of isolation. It grew from the lower lying areas within the city. At what point they became lakes and then rivers no-one knows. The water did not discriminate between businesses, homes, parks, or transport; it did not care whether you were old, young, poor or rich. It enveloped everything that touched the ground eventually. Suddenly we realized how slow rowing was. Slowly we realized how few foods grow in water. Gradually we realized how little fun water everywhere could actually be, when there was not a drop to drink. But then we rediscovered what was above us all the time: our roofs. The lower ones were snapped up quickly as docking points for the city transportation boats. But the higher ones became the heart of the new city. Each one began to reflect the nature of the tenants below. Some were more practical: places to power the city, places to grow food, farm animals, process waste. But soon a new type of space developed: communal roofscapes, or ‘Scapes as they became known. No one really knew what was public or private on the ‘Scape. Here one could rest and party, tweet and think, sleepover and trade, or just kiss and make up. Some came just to enjoy the view, to smoke up or just to wait. But it was the sense of being a part of the collective that made them work. That was where the new politics began.
Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time. (R. Buckminster Fuller)
Our roofs are empty all of the time. It’s time we gave this some architecture.
THE AA, 01 JULY 2013
1. WHAT? This studio will make a new piece of city on a roof, a new public space. We will make new parks, terraces and parties. We will make new squares, markets and training grounds. We will make new playgrounds, campgrounds and hostels.
2. WHAT WHERE? This studio will use a test roof as the basis of our research and design. We will remake the various roofs of the Georgian Terraces of The AA. We will rethink the potentials of the roof.
3. WHAT WHERE HOW? This studio will use social media as a research, creative and interaction weapon. We will search, find, broadcast, share, like, ponder, and think through our social network. We will get 1000 ‘friends’ a week, as we become the future of which everyone wants to be a part. We will get 5000 comments, desires, critics, ideas, claims, appeals from Londoners and foreign. We will ‘check in’ to every space we like, as we check out the city we want. We will ‘like’ everything that should be kept, as we hunt and gather the bits of city we will preserve.
4. WHAT WHERE HOW WHO? This studio will use, learn from, and share with local expertise. We will hear from Peter Rees, the City Planning Officer about the need to party. We will talk with David Ireland from “Homes from Empty Homes” about the reuse of spaces. We will get drunk on roof terraces with bankers so we can know what we (don’t) want. We will enjoy the roofs view from the Shard, Centre Point, One New Change, and of course our favourite pub terraces.
5. WHAT WHERE HOW WHO WHEN? This studio will make films, drawings and models of the future of our roofs. We will make drawings to explain our architecture of the future ‘Scapes. We will make models to understand our architecture of the future of the ‘Scapes. We will make new types of films to share the story, atmosphere and experiences of the ‘Scapes.
The environmental crisis that we are already beginning to experience leaves us - as architects uniquely positioned to provide solutions and ways to adapt. This studio is going to embrace change and welcome the potentials of the unused spaces of the existing city. We’re going to look at how the forgotten and unused spaces can provide both a solution to a problem, and a new necessary model of urban development. This is time to rehabilitate, rethink and reinvent new urban solutions; it’s time to explore what a roof can be and do for us - the citizens.
From oblivion we will create opportunity SCHEDULE WEEK ONE: SITE RESEARCH Each student will research and analyze the roof site and its urban capacity, using diagrams, photos, models, architectural drawings and film to understand fully the existing conditions of the specific site and its urban context, and hint at latent potentials. The students will explore how in general we, the citizens, are using the public space in London. We want first to understand the floor to design the sky later. WEEK TWO: ‘SCAPE DESIGN Students will pair-up and based upon their observations in Week One, each pair will choose a given theme for their model ‘Scape: exercising, partying, eating, growing, resting, makingout, instigating, trading, sleeping or working. They will explore projectively what their model ‘Scape could do, be and feel like, in our flooded imaginary scenario, through models, film, diagrams and sketches, for the Mid-Review. WEEK THREE: MAKING MOVIES and DRAWINGS, MODELS and FUN Students will refine and build models, draw diagrams, develop and represent their schemes architecturally to produce a short two-minute film to develop and communicate their proposed model ‘Scape for the Final Review. We will try to show our films out of the AA, we will try to be criticized by the ones who would be using our new public spaces. AA (sweet) SUMMER NIGHTS: Let´s party, share, and debate! You’re going to be watching late evening films on the AA roof terrace: from music videos such as Jump (Madonna, 2008), films of architecture such as Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (Pierre Chenal, 1929), innovative narrative films such as La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), roof performances such as the Beatles concert on the Apple building, and cinematic classics such as 3 Iron (Kiduck Kim, 2003), Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987), Million Dollar Hotel (Wim Wenders, 2003), London The Modern Babylon (Julian Temple, 2012) and Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995), all followed by your own experimental work.
INSTIGATORS MARK E BREEZE Mark E Breeze is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and architect; he is the founder of the film and architecture design, research
and
production
office
REPEAT
DIFFER.
He
is
currently
the
Cambridge University
Department
of
Architecture Teaching Fellow and Visiting Lecturer, where he teaches undergraduate architectural design studio and film courses, and he lectures on contemporary architecture and theory. // Mark has practised architecture in Beijing, Boston, London and New York, working on commercial and mixed-use projects for Norman Foster, cultural projects for Colin St John Wilson and MJ Long, and residential projects for Annabelle Selldorf. Mark's professional film experience includes working as a Producer, Architectural Consultant, and Field Director for the Discovery Channel and Dreamworks under Steven Spielberg. // Mark has taught at the Architectural Association, Boston Architectural College, Nanjing University and Harvard University; he has lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and American University; and he has been a juror on design reviews at a wide variety of international institutions - from Columbia University, the University of Michigan, Northeastern University, Parsons New School of Design and The Pratt Institute, to The Bartlett, the Royal College of Art, and The Architectural Association. // Mark graduated from the University of Cambridge as a Life Scholar with a Bachelor and Master of Arts with First Class Honours, and a Master of Philosophy with Distinction; he received his professional Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Design School as a Herchel Smith Scholar and a John F Kennedy Scholar. He is
an
Accredited
Professional
Leader
in
Energy
and Environmental
Design,
and
he holds
a
Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Design. // Mark's current work explores the experiential potentials of architecture and film at the intersection of culture, ecology, and community.
His recent work has been exhibited and broadcast
internationally: in 2012 he was nominated for an Emmy for his work as Producer of the international architectural documentary Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero; in Winter 2012 his work was featured in the Royal College of Art exhibition The Perfect Place to Grow; and in Spring 2013 his Directorial debut premiered at the Barbican Cinemas, London. //
DOLORES VICTORIA RUIZ GARRIDO Dolores Victoria (Lola) Ruiz Garrido is a founding partner of Semisótano Arquitectos, practising and teaching architecture in Spain and London. Her office has over 12 years of experience designing and building over 40 cultural, commercial, and residential projects; her recent award-winning projects include the Church in Roquetas de Mar, and the Tetris House in Almería - both selected for the Spanish Biennial X and XI. Semisótano have won several competitions, including Europan 7 in Latvia, and the international competition for the Natural Science Museum in Roquetas de Mar, Almería.
Most recently
Semisótano collaborated as an allied studio with Professor Sir Peter Cook at his office CRAB, where they won together an honorable mention at the Spiretec Competition in India, and the second award with the Tower of Droplets in Taiwan // In parallel to these years of professional practice, she has been developing a personal project to bridge architectural understanding and people through culture and sustainability. In the UK she has designed an educational project for children, teaching sustainable architecture with her “Future Cities Project” in different institutions such as the Islington Museum, and the Hugh Myddelton Primary School. She has created the “Proyecto Express” protest architectural competition in Madrid, curated several editions of Pecha Kucha Jaén, and also directing 10 years of Quick Paint Competitions in her hometown // Lola taught in The Architectural Association in Summer 2012 and has been a juror on design reviews at a wide variety of universities such as The Bartlett, East London Architectural School, Cambridge University and also The AA. She has been lecturing in the Spanish Ministry of Housing in Madrid, Granada Architectural School, and several architectural congresses in Barcelona and Madrid including the 2013 “Architects, Society and Future” congress. At present she is a member of the research group Vandelvira Architect in Jaén University, where she has directed summer courses and sustainable urban projects // Lola is currently the general secretary of Asociación Sostenibilidad y Arquitectura (ASA), the biggest sustainable association for architects in Spain. She is curating within ASA the next WSBChallenge 2014 //