Cooperative urbanity
Architectural Association School of Architecture GRADUATE SCHOOL 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES Housing and Urbanism 2016-17 Design Workshop Studio STUDIO TUTORS Jorge Fiori Elena Pascolo Francesco Zuddasv TEAM MEMBERS Ahaladini Sridharan Ayรงa Sapaz Charlotte Lin Pedersen Khanittha Torchareon Tanvi Grover Santiago Benenati Wentao Hou Wenyi Zhang
Content: Abstract page 7
1 4 Cooperative Urbanity page 9
Fabrication School page 79
23 5 Food Incubators page 29
Hospital Hotel page 53
Appendix page 99
Acknowledgement 120 Bibliography 121
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Federation of cooperatives
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Cooperative Urbanity
I Abstract The research presented in this booklet, explores a possible articulation between urban development processes and cooperatives as socially driven enterprises. It will discuss new possible arrangements regarding the governance of urban processes and how they can have a spatial significance that can be understood as drivers for typological change. In this sense a set of specific architectural projects will be proposed as entry points to an open discussion. With this in mind, the area of Whitechapel in East London is taken as the primary test field of research and discussed in relation to the Masterplan launched in 2014 by BDP and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It would be argued that the proposed Masterplan focuses mainly in scaling up density and in the generation of financial value while overlooking the urban potential of the well rooted local institutions of the neighbourhood. The set of three urban speculative projects presented in this booklet, explore collectively the possibility of amplifying the potential of this Masterplan by taking into consideration the existing network of institutions present in the area.
Each one of the speculations, then, locates in relation to a local institution, and extends
into the Masterplan’s proposed sites of intervention while exploring specific architectural devices and organizational issues. Nevertheless, all of them take as a basis the spatial concept of threshold, as a way to define a socially negotiated gradient between the urban realm- as open, accessible space- and the interior areas contained within. In this sense, certain shared architectural approaches can be found all through the speculations that relate mostly to the possible negotiated continuity of the urban space into the interior space, either it is a continuous ground between different education facilities and stakeholders or a shared roof that cover and articulates various food production and consumption facilities.
This research, then, explores the architectural potential behind the argument that
having cooperative-driven proposals at the centre of Whitechapel could be a strategy towards an improvement of socio-economic aspects. In this regard, this will lead to a discussion on the capacity of cooperatives, as economic and social organizations, to scale up in order to propose a comparable quantum to the traditional development sector while including an expanded understanding of value generation.
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“Expanding or open common space explicitly expresses the power commoning has to create new forms of life-in-common and a culture of sharing. Threshold spatiality, a spatiality of passages which connect while separating and separate while connecting, will be shown to characterize such spaces produced in common and through communing.”3
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Stavrides, Stavros
“To ensure ongoing collaboration among commoners (…) ideals of homogeneity need to be replaced by multiplicity, and commonalities of interest cannot be taken for granted, but need to be re-established incessantly. While an ethics of multiplicity sounds nice, the tough question is: what arrangements are conducive to institutionalizing such ethics as a social practice.?”4
1 4
8
- Markus Kip
Stavrides, Stavros. “Common space. The city as commons” (2016) : 5 Kip, Markus. “Moving beyond the city: conceptualizing urban commons from a critical urban stud ies perspective.” in Dellenbaugh, M. et al. “Urban commons. Moving beyond state and market”. (2015): 54
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Exhibition & Offices
Fabrication
Co-working
Royal London Hospital
Temporary Living
Temporary Living
Wellness & Healthcare
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Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Cooperative Urbanity
Swanlea School
Training & Education
Food production & consumption
Housing
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II Cooperative Urbanity State and market articulation
As Spear, Conforth and Aiken3 claims, social enterprises, such as Cooperatives, are
usually defined as initiatives that “trade for a social or environmental purpose. As well as meeting their social and/or environmental goals, they have to be business-like and meet financial and commercial goals.” This two-fold quality becomes a key issue for the project explorations disclosed in this book as it relates to a possible articulation between state driven urban policies and urban developments led by private investors. This quality appears of special interest regarding the urban realm, as it can be conceived as the social, relational space par excellence and at the same time one of the principal assets in capitalist value generation.4
The definition of what a Social enterprise is and how it should work is a matter of
ongoing discussion, nevertheless, the ‘Social Enterprise Coalition’, the main network of social enterprises in the UK, describes further characteristics beyond those aforementioned qualities; it highlights a third criteria of social ownership, which is defined as follows: “They are autonomous organizations whose governance and ownership structures are normally based on participation by stakeholder groups (..) or by trustees or directors who control the enterprise on behalf of a wider group of stakeholders. They are accountable to their stakeholders and the wider community for their social, environmental and economic impact. Profits can be distributed as profit sharing to stakeholders or used for the benefit of the community.”5 This conceptualization, defines a third main characteristic that guides the process of political participation of the user by virtue of the collective membership, a specific way of affiliation that relates not only to ownership but also, in a certain extent, to an activist procedure. In that way, it could be argued that social enterprises, and specially cooperatives, articulate capitalist profit driven activities with what could be potentially conceived as politically involved social activities.
In the UK, social enterprises are not just a conceptual category, they are a ‘policy
vehicle’ which have gained importance specially over the first decade of twenty-first century under the New Labour government6. In 2002, the Social Enterprise Strategy was launched and established a Social Enterprise Unit7 in the Department of Trade and Industry to “encourage
Spear, R., Cornforth, C. and Aiken, M. “The governance challenges of social enterprises: evidence from a UK empirical study” (2009):248
4
Maden, D. and Marcuse, “In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis” (2016)
5
www.socialenterprise.org.uk
6
1
7
Spear, R., Cornforth, C. and Aiken, M. “The governance challenges of social enterprises: evidence from a uk empirical study” (2009):248
Ibid.
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and support the development of social enterprises across the economy. Social enterprises are seen as having potentially important roles in the restructuring of public services as well as being a source of innovation in fields as diverse as recreational and cultural services, and recycling.”8
In this complex background, cooperatives, probably the most traditionally established
form of social enterprise, can be understood as entities which propose to articulate state and market, transcending a polarized view, as a way to revisit the notion of state intervention in terms of clear policy directions which then can be further developed by socially framed entities. As Stavrides claims, “We need to abandon a view of autonomy that fantasizes uncontamined enclaves of emancipation. (…)The challenge in this process is for commons not to become dependent on the state, but rather, in reverse, to be continually pushing the state to do certain things.” Value generation
David Maden and Peter Marcuse9 argue that we live in an age of “Hyper-commodification”
meaning that the process of prioritizing exchange value over use value is going through an unprecedented rise. “In today’s transnational, digitally enhanced market, housing is becoming ever less an infrastructure for living and ever more an instrument for financial accumulation.”10 Arguably, this statement can be expanded from the understanding of housing to a more comprehensible, wider urban context, implying that the way in which most cities in developed countries are materialized relate more to an understanding of the built city as a commodity than as a basic infrastructure for life.
In this particular regard, it could be argued that cooperatives as social entities, but
specifically in their understanding as enterprises with a social purpose, propose an articulation among different understandings of value which may articulate a diverse range of views and actors in regard to the urban realm. In this way cooperatives could be seen as a possible tool to intervene in the city avoiding what Maden and Marcuse11 consider the main risk of contemporary urban projects: its understanding only as a commodity. All three speculative projects presented in this book intend to explore this line of thought by looking at present institutions in Whitechapel in relation to a cooperative approach. 8
Stavrides, S. “Emerging common spaces as a challenge to the city of crisis”: 548
9
Maden, D. and Marcuse, “In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis” (2016)
10
Ibid., 26.
11
Ibid. 13
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The report “The UK co-operative economy 2012, alternatives to austerity”12 postulates
on the resilient quality of the model, proposing that it pursues not only short term profit but rather a longer term dividend yield for all the members, searching for a more sustainable way of profit making. Ed Mayo, Secretary General of “Co-operatives UK” describes it clearly in the following words; “we have privileged short-term, rentier finance over long-term and sustainable wealth creation. In the process we have neglected enterprise and allowed deep inequalities to become the norm.” Could this search for a more resilient, long term economic perspective be translated to the urban development process? That is the main question that the speculations presented in this book intend to discuss.
III Commons, Institutions and enclosures. Dialectic relation between strategic enclosures and communing.’
The concept of the commons has been in the centre of discussions regarding new
understanding of collective urbanity. In this sense, Stavros Stavrides explains the spatial aspect of common as such: “Understood as distinct from public as well as from private spaces, ‘common spaces’ emerge in the contemporary metropolis as sites open to public use in which, however, rules and forms of use do not depend upon and are not controlled by a prevailing authority. It is through practises of commoning, practises which define and produce goods and services to be shared, that certain city spaces are created as common spaces.” In this way Stavrides emphasizes the negotiated quality of the commons as neither completely ruled by state regulation nor by its capability of profit making, but it refers to a quality still to be defined and created by the act of commonning, meaning by the act of daily life and its political implications.
But, what exactly makes the urban commons? In which way the concept relates
specifically to new understandings of urbanity? As Markus Kip proposes, discussing urban commons require us to take the negotiation of boundaries and solidarities seriously, in the sense that contemporary urban environment proposes certain dynamics in which “mobility and social differentiation (…) constantly challenge commoners to re-establish the common ground of their collective praxis”13.
This constant process of re-negotiation of solidarities and its limits can be arguably
related to a dialectic relationship between spatial qualities of closure and openness, as Kip claims; “Temporary enclosure is not simply a disabling condition (…) but also an enabling one.”14 The set of speculations in this book intends to discuss that possible dialectic relation between the urban realm in its completely open condition and private enterprises understood as enclosed spaces. In that sense the open quality of Cooperatives, as entities available to new actors as members and its enclosed condition as private enterprises that must deal with market logic, becomes a possible articulation between enclosed/open logic.
All three urban speculations in this book, propose to install the discussion about these
issues by specific projects. In that regard, the achievement of certain level of resolution was understood as a way of discussing feasibility in each case and a way to explore specific designs in relation to the political concepts involved. Each project, then, is understood as an architectural entry point to discuss the conceptual background and not as a finished result of it. The UK co-operative economy 2012 Alternatives to austerity. http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Soci ety/documents/2012/06/27/UKcooperativeeconomoy2012.pdf
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13
14
Kip, Markus. “Moving beyond the city: conceptualizing urban commons from a critical urban studies per spective.” in Dellenbaugh, M. et al. “Urban commons. Moving beyond state and market”.(2015): 44
Ibid., 51.
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Architecturally, the concept of threshold as a possible way to translate the open/
enclosed logic to each specific case appears as a common tool all through the three speculative propositions. All three interventions discuss, on a spatial level, a gradated articulation between the urban realm and the interior private space, discussing how different extents of collective life can be managed by specific spatial devices. In this sense, the section as a graphic tool, has become essential for the development and description of the proposed projects.
In this sense, the recently published book by Richard Sennet, “Building and dwelling.
Ethics for the city.”15 establishes a conceptual background for the understanding of this concept. Sennet proposes the concept of ‘Open City’ as an elaboration of the open system theory translated into the urban realm, he discusses that an open city would necessarily engage with its own complexity “to create an interactive, synergetic ville greater than the sum of its parts”16 In a very specific spatial understanding of this idea, he discusses the potential of the border as a meeting space in which difference can be negotiated. As he claims; “The closed boundary dominates the modern city. The urban habitat is cut up into segregated parts by streams of traffic and by functional isolation between zones for work, commerce, family and the public realm.”17 He asks for the design of thick urban spaces of mediation, where difference can be negotiated, rather than establishing clear lines of separation. “This dialogue is what the urbanist should want to initiate, rather than imagining that sheer open space – a pure void – counts as porous. Neither totally sealed nor totally exposed, the dynamic relation between porosity and resistance”18
IV - Whitechapel as a test site. East end specificities.
We take Whitechapel as a powerful test field to propose how institutions as cooperatives
may motivate urban change. A set of three speculative projects are in different ways challenging the conventional governance of institutions through cooperative approaches to production and reproduction. More specifically we are looking into production of knowledge, food industry and healthcare.
With the increased density and urbanisation in London, much like the rest of the world,
the expansion of the central city has transformed completely the understanding of Whitechapel’s relative position in the city, from being considered “East end” to being part of London central area. As a result of this expansion and the improvements in the infrastructure, a process of densification became necessary in the area.
GLA has proposed in recent years, an understanding of London’s development around
a series of hubs of excellence that define, in a way, what can be considered a monofunctional, specialized approach to urban development (see image Fig 1.). It could be argued that this procedure has been translated directly into Whitechapel by the Masterplan launched in 2014 by BDP and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It proposes a significant presence of private development in the area along with a cutting edge med-city centre that brands Whitechapel as a ‘hub of excellence’ in medical industry. On an urban level we acknowledge the development
15
Sennet, R. “Building and dwelling.” (2018)
16
Ibid., 9.
17
Ibid., 220.
18
Ibid., 221. 15
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potential of Whitechapel proposed by the BDP masterplan. However, we question that the main character of the plan which is directly related to this hub of excellence approach in relation to medical infrastructure and we think that at certain levels it fails to address the specificities of Whitechapel which could be understood in relation to the existing network of institutions currently working in the area.
In this sense, all three explorations presented in this book explore collectively the
possibility of extending the potential of the masterplan as an urban complex that can go further by taking into consideration the network of institutions present in the area as a ‘common ground’. Within this context, the three speculative projects suggest a possible addition to the masterplan rather than as a complete opposition to the general reasoning behind it.
Fig 1. Hubs of speciality in polycentric London
KING’S CROSS
SHORDITCH
BLOOMSBURY WHITE CHAPEL SOHO WESTMINSTER
CITY
CANARY WHARF
TECH CITY LIFE SCIENCES CREATIVE FINANCE
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LONDON FIELDS HAGGERSTON
BETHNAL GREEN OLD STREET
SHOREDITCH WHITECHAPEL
SPITALFIELDS
MED CITY
ALDGATE
Fig 2. Development of the city fringe; including Whitechapel
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Fig 3. BDP masterplan proposal
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Fig 4. Whitechapel masterplan
Cooperative Urbanity Main Institutions: Schools, medical cluster, religious centres.
Infrastructure: Overground, Crossrail, Underground
Living failities: Low density, low rise housing
Local production: the informal market, light industries.
Fig 4. Whitechapel site impression
Fig 5. Whitechapel institutions
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Social significance of intervention
East End use to accommodate different cooperatives in different scales and typologies.
In Whitechapel co-ops like ‘Toynbee Hall’, Jewish Bath and Doss Houses are outstanding models of how co-ops have successfully worked throughout history. We acknowledge that the land values have rocketed and opportunities have turned into challenges for cooperatives to survive nowadays, but we will argue that cooperatives in relation to existing institutions, opens up the opportunity to explore other understandings of value generation that transcends financial value as the main driver for urban change while at the same time having the potential to engrain in the current private driven urban development model. As we can see, the Whitechapel Masterplan proposal focuses in the central area, (see fig. 7) around Whitechapel road. As a conscious decision, each one of the urban explorations presented in this book, choose to locate on the periphery of this area in order to explore the possibilities of articulating the projects in the masterplan with the extended residential tissue beyond the limits of the masterplan.
The three sites where the speculations are located are clearly bigger than the parcels
Co-operative Group HQ, Manchester by Mecanoo
that the masterplan proposes (see fig. 8 and 9). In this sense, it is argued that the scale of the cooperatives habilitate the possibility of larger interventions than expected according to the Masterplan. In the sense of understanding the potential impact of cooperatives in relation to urban development, we can look at the project developed by the office Mecanoo for the Co-operative Group Headquarters19. In this case, a site of 8 hectares in the limits of Group HQ, Manchester by Mecanoo the Manchester City Centre was developed including the social enterpriseCo-operative headquarters as
well as other residential and office buildings and public spaces. The cooperative character of the developer implied that not only financial value was pursued by the intervention, but also a set of social interests guided the masterplan. The large size of the intervention stands out as a remarkable characteristic taking into account the fact that it was actually lead by one developer, the Co-operative group itself, as its own scale habilitates. This consumer cooperative, counts currently with more than 4 million members.
Among the variety of institutions present in the area, this set of urban speculations
engage with the following: Queen Mary University, Barts Health NHS Trust and Swanlea Secondary School and extend into the sites that the Masterplan propose as sites of intervention. (see fig. 10) Furthermore they envision a set of other institutions like the Coop Bank, for instance, which could be interested in locating in the area and working along the existing ones. establishing a network with the potential of shared facilities and resources, in this sense we propose that institutions would be able to work cooperatively as a federation, which is not unprecedented in the area. In this sense, the explorations intend to ask collectively if this network of institutions can be the foundations for a more collective city making process in Whitechapel. http://www.mecanoo.nl/Projects/project/144/Public-Realm-for-NOMA-site?c=0 and https://www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/the-co-operative-group-hq-manchester-by-3dreid/5049430.article
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Project Info: Co-operative Group Headquarters Manchester City Architects: Mecanoo, 3DReid Location: Manchester City, UK
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Fig 6. Whitechapel as a test field
Fig 7. Current BDP masterplan proposal
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Fig 8. Areas of intervention in the periphery
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Fig 9. Sites of intervention
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V - Brief introduction of the speculations As mentioned previously, the three speculations are situated in close proximity to institutions university, hospital and secondary school. The objective is confronting the challenge of bringing production back to the city centre while providing services as collaborators of these institutions. One thereby turns the challenge into a potential of adding value to the current development trends through sharing of facilities, knowledge, space, plus encouraging collaboration among the different developments. Not surprisingly, the chosen sites fall on the periphery of where the masterplan proposes to reach for its own development. One way of looking at it, is that the projects could physically and socially embed the current development of the med-city hub into the deeper fabric of Whitechapel.
Each one of the projects, then, locates in one of these sites and explores different
architectural devices and organizational issues (see fig. 9):
Site 1 - Food incubator: Different scale of food production spaces are organized
under a common roof to provide food for surrounding institutions, food business start-ups and members from related living facilities. The food incubators and the living facilities generate a cross subsidization both within and beyond the plot.
Site 2 – Hospital hospitality​: A temporary accommodation complex that responds to the
need for short term accommodation for the medical cluster users; mainly the patients, hospital staff and researchers while integrating the concept of healthy living with the morphology that is weaved through the urban block.
Site 3 – Fabrication school: This project explores the potential of urban impact of
learning institutions. For that, it discusses the possibility of articulating vocational learning with contemporary means of production of goods related to new technologies of fabrication.
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3.
2. 1. Fig 10. Institutions the projects are tied to: 1. the Royal London Hospital, 2. Queen Mary University, 3. Swanlea Secoundary School
Fig 11. Selected sites next to the institutions
Fig 12. The interventions forming federation of cooperatives 24
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VI – Interventions It is possible to argue that having cooperative-driven proposals at the centre of Whitechapel is a strategy towards an improvement for socio-economical aspects that could generate more value than the free market intervention in the developing process. This approach would imply discussing how cooperatives, as economic and social organizations, could scale up in order to propose a comparable quantum to traditional development sector. Many cases have already proven how collective organizations of this sort have the capacity of strong impact in the urban environment, the “Red Vienna” housing movement during the 1920s or the Uruguayan cooperative movement of the 60s are clear examples. Currently UK Cooperatives are already working on a huge scale contributing £34bn a year to the British economy and including over 7,000 registered cooperatives owned by 17 million individual members. With the proposed Masterplan focusing on mainly scaling up in density with the concerns of profit and thus enhancing the market intervention in the area; the well rooted local institutions of the neighbourhood are being overlooked. The market is in search of a capital value, whereas an alternative approach can propose generating value in more than one aspect. In that sense, we challenge the masterplan and try to see the potential for generating social and cultural value as well as production in the centre of Whitechapel through an architecture that builds connections between individuals, collectives and institutions.
The three interventions challenge the idea of institutions as areas of total specialisation
functioning as enclosures, together with exploring the possibilities of unexpected relationships between different activities. In all three cases, the speculations explore the possibility of expanding and diversifying the already existing masterplan. Each one proposes a two-folded approach, on one hand exploring how specific institutions can engage with current urban trends happening in Whitechapel area and how can this be translated into governance innovation. On the other hand, exploring how these new approaches might have a spatial significance that can be understood as drivers for typological shifts in specific architectural projects. As has already been mentioned, the proposals are not only working within each site but also forming a federation across sites including the institutions. By doing so the project enriches the way in which institutions may provide better services locally. Moreover, the federation is cross subsidizing not only in financial terms but providing a richer variety in sharing facilities, knowledge and enhancing production. Thus, this might lead to a potentially more successful development in Whitechapel, which may further enhance what the masterplan proposes as the medical hub.
The idea of thresholds also elaborates why these specific projects fall on the periphery
of current development plan. If we understand the existing institutions as relatively enclosed commons among certain social groups, then the three interventions located physically close to the institutions on the edges of the plan are acting as articulations across the boundaries, both physically and socially. Thus, they are further embedding the transformation process into the wider community. Therefore, there are certain shared architectural approaches carried out all through the design process to achieve a sense of continuity among the projects, either it is the continuous ground to strengthen the permeability between different education facilities and stakeholders, overlapping space to function as both living facilities and healthcare devices, or a shared roof to literally cover various food production and consumption facilities. These approaches not only contribute to a more vibrant urban environment as architectural devices, but also physically enhance the potential of carrying out a cooperative model among these facilities, which seeks to elaborate, the concept of “cooperative urbanity” both socially and spatially. 25
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Federation of cooperatives
3
Fabrication School/ This project explores the potential of urban impact of learning institutions. For that, it discusses the possibility of articulating vocational learning with contemporary means of production of goods related to new technologies of fabrication.
3
Exhibition & Offices
Fabric
Co-working
1 1
Food Incubator/ Different scale of food production spaces are organized under a common roof to provide food for surrounding institutions, food business start-ups and members from related living facilities. The food incubator and the living facilities generate a cross subsidization both within and beyond the plot.
Royal London Hospital
Temporary Living
Temporary Living
2
Wellness & Healthcare
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Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry
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cation
Swanlea School
Training & Education
Food Production & Consumption
2
Housing
Hospital Hospitality/ A temporary accommodation complex that resonds to the need for short term accommodation for the medical cluster users; mainly the patients, hospital staff and researchers while integrating the concept of healthy living with the morphology that is weaved through the urban block.
Key axonometric of the interventions
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Food Incubators
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Concept sketch
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Food Incubator In terms of the vision for Whitechapel as a driver for cooperative urbanism, one ambition was to provide within the federation, a cooperative model for urban food production. Food is in a way a driver for social change. Food Industry is a highly powered financial investment driven by type and effecting the way we live. In modern day lifestyle food industry has expanded and become inclusive to food as a primary driver of work. The idea is to develop a food hub with a food factory with supporting studios and offices, part co-working space for food industry start-ups. The site is located in a highly institutionalized area, with healthcare setups and other institutions with high densities to gain support from a food hub which can be ideally located in this area. The more intriguing thing, in architectural terms, is the exploration of how systems of production (food) can be accommodated within one site in a well-connected urban area, while integrating space of consumptions, relating living facilities, recreations and services. It is one of the major challenges of the cooperative to achieve this complexity and diversity of spatial contents responding to the massiveness of the site. It is also testing the appropriate living and working density for the area, while being spatially adjacent to each other in terms of fully functional blocks.
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Dark Kitchens
“Deliveroo offers a unique twist: In addition to working with local eateries, it
Royal London hospital canteen
provides aspiring chefs with kitchen space to get small businesses off the ground. It then offers the food they make on Deliveroo” (Burke, 2018)3 “The world of ‘dark kitchens’ - fully-equipped commercial kitchens like you’d find attached to a restaurant, except with no restaurant or even a takeaway counter. Also known as virtual kitchens, they are dedicated solely to meeting the ever-growing hunger for
Deliveroo and Uber eats operating out of car parks
online delivery services, facilitated by the likes of third party delivery apps.”4 (Spinks, 2017)
3 May 4. Accessed May 5, 2018. http:// money.cnn.com/2018/05/04/technology/deliveroo-growth/index.html. 4 November 5. Accessed May 04, 2018. https://www.raconteur.net/sustainability/ the-dark-kitchens-that-are-rewriting-the-rulesfor-food-entrepreneurs. Fresh food market: Whitechapel road
Relating Institutions 34
Deeper grids, Deeper Floorplates, regular grids and tendency to extend accessibility
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Institutions and resturents around Whitechapel
Food Industry as a driver for urban change If we start to rethink about bringing industry back into the centre of city, food production can be an approach with huge potential to generate both social and economic values. This collective for food production structure would aim to provide food services for the key institutions within the area, and wider London. 35
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Flow of movement,Open spacees on Ground 36
Street fronts and edges
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Photoes and map for the site deivided into two parcels by Cavell Street
Food Incubator Site In terms of the vision for Whitechapel as a driver for cooperative urbanism, one ambition was to provide within the federation, a cooperative model for urban food production. The main physical potential for the chosen site for this industrial scale intervention lies in the massive size of the plate, proximity to major institutions and its location next to one major stakeholder, the Bart’s NHS trust hospital(The Royal London Hospital). This Cooperation in the area has the benefit of taking the advantage of reducing food miles between production and consumption. 37
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Working ground Considering the current complex circulation demands around the site, giving way to ambulances and street side parking areas, the project reacts to the surroundings with a well organised transportation cycle. The overlapping routes of transportation and the loading areas for the production turns the ground into a mobility network, based on the movement of meals and ingredients within and outside the site. Trucks and other delivery bikes and bicycles would support effective production spaces with good mobility in a well combined back street cycle of movement, thus releasing rest part of the ground as accessible retail and recreation spaces for events.
Ground Floor Plan 1. Supermarket 2. Housing 3. Retails 4. Rental Kitchen 5. Waste 6. Delivery 7. Institution Kichen 8. Workspaces 9. Visitors Hotel
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Spaces and Programmes The proposition aims to provide integrating space of consumptions, relating living facilities, recreations and services. It is one of the major challenges to achieve this complexity and diversity of spatial contents responding to the massiveness of the site.
At the same time,
the intention is to have integrating space of consumptions, relating living facilities, recreations and services.
A different sort of food incubation is the central structure both physically and conceptually.
Various type of kitchens, food loops and spaces for consumptions are organised as supportive parts for the production cycle, while achieving an accessible and vibrant urban environment.
First Floor Plan 1. Supermarket 2. Communal Kitchen 3. Housing 4. Rental Kitchen 5. Canteen 6. Workspaces 7. Visitors Hotel
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1 7 2
4 6
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Third Floor
Second Floor
First Floor
Ground Floor
Axonometric Diagram: showing all spaces of integration and overlap
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Canteen: sitting above Institution Kitchen acts as a threshold space
Phasing Because of the massiveness of the plot, phasing can help support the project for long term use within the cooperative model.
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Phase 1: Housing Institiution Kitchen and Canteen
Phase 2: Supermarket Rental Kitchen
Cross section Phase 1 : Housing, Institution Kitchen and Canteen Housing is the most important part to accumulate the capital. The tallest building on the plot provides all the facilities similar to a commercially-driven market apartment while having an advantage to be part of the cooperative community. All food incubation system on the site is supported by housing. Moreover, housing and nearby institutions will subsidize the canteen and institution kitchen. The institution kitchen, with a potential of serving around 5000 meals a day, has a canteen attached above it, bringing consumption of food within the site. The kitchen serves and delivers food within the federation of cooperatives including the hospital, schools across Whitechapel road, and other institutions. And the canteen is one of the crucial gathering space across the site for hospital visitors, staff, subscribed cooperative members as well as housing inhabitants. Phase 2 : Rental kitchen and Supermarket Nowadays Food industry is based on major delivery systems, like Deliveroo and Uber eats, which serve as a platform for many start-ups and established food giants. Instead of normal “dark kitchens� which spread across leftover informal spaces on city fringes, for the second phase, the vision is to provide at least 50 integrated rental kitchens within those production cores initially as food incubators for these start-ups to set up a base within the centre of the city along with collective workspaces. Meeting rooms and working desks could keep food businesses both production part and service part working in connection with each other. Supermarket, located visibly from the main street, can potentially cooperate with CO-OP food, in the way that associates within the wider community and can provide cheaper ingredients and raw materials for local needs.
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Section A 1. Workspaces 2. Canteen 3. Institution Kitchen 4. Loading Areas 5. Waste 6. Delivery 7. Rental Kitchen 8. Retails
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Project Info: Food Exchange Architects: New Convent Garden Market Year: May 2017 Location: London, UK
Canteen above Institution Kitchen
“Food Exchange brings together every possible flfavour of food entrepreneur under one roof. It’s where delicious food is made, written about, learned, photographed and talked about. If you work in food, there’s a home for you here.” 3(New Covent Garden) Food Exchange. (2018). Workspace, Kitchen Space and Food Culture Venue | Food Exchange. [online] Available at: https://www.foodexchange. london/?campaign=1060521285&content=251322333801&keyword=%2Bfood%2Bexchange&gclid=Cj0KCQjwz7rXBRD9ARIsABfBl83007K5a6zcyxg2HVXbPjaBroRwKcmddkhjthxA-jovY75hJnYXm6MaAtAcEALw_wcB [Accessed 6 May 2018].
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Institution Kitchen Unit
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Workspaces and Rental Kitchen
Rental Kitchen Unit
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Supermarket and Communal Kitchen : an engagement space
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Phase 3: Communal Kitchen Visitors Hotel
Phase 4: Workspaces as Rental Kitchen or Labs
Cross section Phase 3: Communal kitchen and visitors hotel The visitors’ hotel laid adjacent to the hospital, is supported by The NHS Bart’s trust hospital in order to provide facilities to patients and visitors who need place for short let living. The communal kitchen acts like a co-working environment for food production, serving the immediate community of the living quarters, including hospital visitors who either stay in the hotel or come daily visit and vertical apartment tenants. Phase 4: Workspace as rental kitchen or labs Workspace is designed as retrofitted model. On the 4th phase, if the rental kitchen is not be able to run profitably as expected, workspace on the small plot can be transformed into co-working spaces or labs which supports Whitechapel Med city. By doing so, equipment and facilities can be shared among production and working environment during various time periods, thus, reducing the start-up expense and further strengthening the system of collective production can fully take the advantage of the cooperative model.
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Section B 1. Workspaces 2. Engagement Space 3. Culinary School 4. Communal Kitchen 5. Supermarket 6. Event spaces 7. Housing 8. Retails
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Project Info:Wohnprojekt Wien Architects:Einszueins Architektur Year: May 2009 Location: Vienna, Austria
Communal Kitchen above Supermarket
“Beyond the communicative and sustainable architecture the project integrates many other ideas of sharing and social sustainability. Vehicle sharing with cars and cargo bikes, csa membership, shared ownership, supported apartments for people in need, cultural activities or a little shop as meeting point for the neighborhood are further contributions.”4
“Urbamonde - Wohnprojekt Wien”. 2013. Psh.Urbamonde.Org. https://psh.urbamonde.org/#/en/community/284. 4
Communal Kitchen Unit
Engagement space By overlooking the COOP supermarket, the communal kitchen can be easily accessed from vibrant environment of the raw material provider on the ground level. The classrooms for culinary education is attached above the kitchen and can be cross-subsidized by the Living Unit 48
educational cooperatives in the federation.
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Street View from Supermarket Entrance
Project Info:West Handyside Canopy Architects:Bennetts Associates Year: 2016 Location: King’s Cross, London
“The canopy has been restored and is used as an events space and to host weekly and seasonal markets. To date the space has hosted a range of events including the street food market KERB, the Canopy Market, as well as seasonal events.5 5 “WEST HANDYSIDE CANOPY”. 2018. Kingscross.Co.Uk. https://www. kingscross.co.uk/west-handyside-canopy.
Roof Diagram
A common roof The overlap of the different production, works, living spaces and the integrated spaces of consumption would lead to recreation and event spaces which support the food incubators to turn into a well serviced urban space from pure industrial scale production.
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Ongoing Process The overlap of the different production, works, living spaces and the integrated spaces of consumption would lead to recreation and event spaces which support the food incubators to turn into a well serviced urban space from pure industrial scale production. The cooperative model had been proved an influential approach through urban development processes, but the spatial form of cooperative urbanity could accommodate more possibilities through different architectural approaches. There was not really a fixed typology to be directly adapted onto the cooperative model, but rather a successful intervention required more complexity and specific spatial characters to be discussed within the topic.
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Model 1
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Model 2
Model 3
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Hospital Hospitality
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Aerial sketch
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Hospital Hospitality One of the many significant institutions of Whitechapel, the medical cluster containing the Royal London Hospital, the medical campus of Queen Mary University, several laboratories and research centres, serves in fact health facilities in other parts of London justifying the labelling of Whitechapel as a ‘medical hub’. For this medical hub, a need for the temporary living in this central city location emerges that caters the specific living requirements of a transient population.
The following pages reveal a thought experiment that responds this particular need
and speculates an architectural reflection upon a selected site that becomes a threshold space between the residential area and the medical hub in the site. Using the potential of this threshold, the speculation proceeds further with not only covering the temporary accommodation need in the site, but also promotes healthy living in this urban fragment by transforming the streets passing through the site as the main circulation of an accessible health centre with relevant facilities and healthy nutrition units. The project suggests a health and wellness centre merged with the streets on the ground level as a health hub for both the hospital and the neighbourhood to benefit. On the higher levels, three differing types of temporary accommodation suggest a sense of neighbourhood in a shared living environment through various configurations of floor layouts, common spaces and a related range of uses. Through a combination of porosity and transparency aimed to balance accessibility and security requirements, a perimeter block is proposed that also functions as a podium on top of which sits a range of residential spaces.
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Aerial image
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Whitechapel: The Medical Hub One of the many significant institutions of Whitechapel, the medical cluster has a wide catchment area in London that goes well beyond the immediate locale. The medical complex containing the Royal London Hospital, the medical campus of Queen Mary University, several laboratories and research centres, serves in fact health facilities in other parts of London justifying the labelling of Whitechapel as a ‘medical hub’. The patients, students, workers and researchers who use these medical facilities on a daily basis stay in the area temporarily; some for a couple of hours, some up to six months. As a result, a need for the temporary living in
Image from the site / Source: Google Maps
this central city location emerges that caters the specific living requirements of a transient population. The selected site for a temporary living complex is an approximately 1.3 hectare plot located between the medical campus and the main residential areas of the south of Whitechapel Road. The site holds a great potential to work as a threshold between these two different urban areas that is capable of providing temporary accommodation and promote health by transforming the streets passing through the site that are the frequently used mobility patterns as an accessible health centre with relevant facilities and healthy nutrition units. The project suggests a health and wellness centre
Empty hospital building within the site boundaries / Source: Google Maps
merged with the streets on the ground level as a health hub for both the hospital and the neighbourhood to benefit. On the higher levels, three differing types of temporary accommodation suggest a sense of neighbourhood in a shared living environment through various configurations of floor layouts, common spaces and a related range of uses.
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The site and the medical buildings nearby / Source: Google Maps
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The medical cluster of Whitechapel; The Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary University Medical Campus, Laboratories and Research Centres
Selected site, between the medical cluster and the residential area.
Selected site: current image.
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Healthy Living Instead of having a compact building that serves as a physical therapy and wellness centre within the medical complex, disassembling the functions of such facility and locating them on the ground floor according to the existing street pattern brings a more integrated environment for living, working and leisure. Through a combination of porosity and transparency aimed to balance accessibility and security requirements, a perimeter block is proposed that also functions as a podium on top of which sits a range of residential spaces.
The existing streets on the site
Earlier proposal for street patterns
Proposal for the ground level street patterns 60
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Health and Wellness Center
Blocks A + B / Temporary housing for hospital workers
Block C / Hotel for Scholars
Block D / Patient Hotel 61
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Spatial Experiments The ground level, a broken perimeter block that hosts a health and wellness centre that is well integrated to the urban pattern. The Diabetic Center in Copenhagen shows an example of how a broken perimeter type works with common spaces with above and within the block.
The linear type is common among hotels, which usually are laid out according to a diagram of double-loaded corridors serving batteries of identical rooms on either side. In relation to such rigid configuration that creates dark and unpleasant long corridors; by manipulating the section it is possible to achieve flexibility and hierarchy in linear forms while providing access to sunlight and ventilation. The figure on the right reflects the experiments done with the linear forms and how to step away from the repetitive understanding of room and a corridor layout, monotonous passages and enfilade of rooms towards hybridization in linearity by combining different functions and sizes of linear forms.
Project Info: Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen Architects: COWI A/S, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, Mikkelsen Architects, STED Landscape Year: 2017 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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An experiment on how to understand the linearity in temporary living and how to bring richness to linear forms in multiple scales.
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Experiments with the model In the design process, generative models with modular linear forms and the combination of many small units were built to understand how the linear forms engage with one another and with the immediate surroundings. The linearity has given the opportunities to capture spatial tools such as courtyards, passages and enclosure that provided a rich architectural language and to achieve porous, transparent yet secure ground floor that dissolves the health and wellness centre to the streets in a controlled and engaging way.
The mock-up models of the previous linear experiments with the space.
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ecterior skin
living units interstitial shared spaces
wellness centre outdoor common spaces
health and wellness centre 66
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The Layers of Hospitality Complex The ground level is a broken perimeter block with the health and wellness centre, and the units for temporary living are located linearly on top of a podium. The higher levels host three different types of temporary living catered to the existing different users of the site but also capable of adapting to a wider range of users: one type responds to the hospital workers who need a break after long shifts or work in the facilities for a limited period; another caters those patients undergoing long term treatments but who do not require hospitalisation, and allowing them accommodation with their families; the last one addresses the students and researchers who work or study at the university’s medical campus and laboratories. The understanding the conditions and the situations requiring temporary living differ among these types; to give an example, the scholars may need to visit the medical campus for conducting a research for months, whereas a nurse might use the temporary accommodation only for the days between their shifts. Another concern regarding the difference in temporary accommodation types is their spatial requirements in the shared and individual spaces, such as the arrangements of co-living and working spaces, the size and location of the core units and the circulation. In order to allow multiple recombinations and associations of spaces and activities, the living units are designed according to a modular system that defines an adaptable and changeable Left: An exploded diagram of the proposal Below: Common Spaces
structure in which the interstitial spaces between the units can be variously appropriated as extensions of the proper dwellings, in an overlap of intimate and common spaces that widens the latter’s scope from being solely used for circulation.
The common spaces in the complex are usually located on the ground level where they intersect with the urban context through the mobility patterns, or on the roof surface of the podium with communal gardens and shared amenities for temporary living. 67
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The Health and Wellness Centre The healthcare and wellness centre and the temporary living complex in the project respond to a particular need in the area. The centre provides a gymnasium, pool and spa centre, exercise rooms, therapy gardens along with individual treatment cubicles, cerebral palsy rooms and nursing rooms for the medical complex, at the same time it serves to the urban context as a health and sports hub.
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The axonometric drawing of the health and wellness centre on the ground level.
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Ground level plan.
The plan for linear accommodation units in different levels.
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Cooperatives in Living Complex It is possible to speculate that for this kind of diversified residential proposals that are quite integrated with the immediate surrounding can gain more value through cooperatives. The cooperative system provides financial and spatially shared settings in a way that actually delivers a use value with a generational understanding of an investment rather than gaining instant income within a couple of years. Through cooperatives, it is also possible to form a community that is based on democratic decision making that manages the financial resources and the human capital in a balanced way to encourage people to participate and be involved in all steps of the cooperative process. In this proposal, the variety in the living units and the programme allows certain features of the complex to subsidise others; for instance, the temporary living for the students and the patients could subsidise the housing for the hospital workers which includes the nurses, technicians etc.; or in another case, the health and wellness centre could be a subsidising element for the living units above. A development process can be envisioned with multiple phases that construct the income generator programmes first. In the following years, the cooperative could build the housing for the hospital staff to be subsidised by the other facilities in a way that establishes a collective living environment with shared spaces that serve to the complex itself and the institutions of Whitechapel.
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Section showing the cross-subsidization between the units.
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Unit types The multiplicity in living arrangements requires being more flexible and more adaptable to different layouts. For instance, the units assigned for the hospital workers provide flexible spaces for social encounters and individual spaces in different sizes. On another building, the layout of the patient hotel allows accommodating the patients along with their families in specifically designed units that are in close proximity of the hospital and can be supervised by the medical team. In the design process, testing with a number spatial configuration for the diversity in the profile of the dwellers caters a mixed community. Regardless of the temporariness of the residency, the common activities such as the communal gardens, shared amenities, batteries and libraries these different groups of people share could achieve a sense of neighbourhood through occupying the same space, using the same equipment and resources.
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Different unit arrangements
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A fragment of rooms and the elevation
Elevation drawing
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Section showing the living units in different layouts.
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Semi-courtyards facing the urban patterns of Whitechapel and hosting shared spaces for the dwellers.
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Cross section
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4 Cooperative Urbanity
Fabrication School
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Concept sketch
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Fabrication School As we densify central city environments there is a need for them to be well provided and serviced. In deprived neighbourhoods where state and market has minimal impact, institutions often step in to take over this role. One way this is done is by putting institutions back in the centre of residential neighbourhoods and making them accessible. This project explores how you make a school a more approachable scene of collaboration by extending its boundaries both spatially and by involving different stakeholders.
We acknowledge the potential of a school in relation to the system of value generation,
by considering them as spaces not disconnected from the economic system of production, but an important part of the process through the propagation of knowledge. Our project then, discusses the relation between financial value and use value and how urban interventions can relate to both concepts. We propose to amplify the urban impact of an education facility by establishing a set of relations with new means of material production.
The existing Swanlea secondary school, located adjacent to Whitechapel station and
bound by the new cross rail extension, is taken as our test site. Its reach is expanded by allowing it to additionally function as a vocational school and tying it together with spaces of production- a fabrication hub, working spaces and spaces of exhibition- where what is being produced can be displayed and retailed.
To enable this process we define a short term future scenario in which the COOP
Bank decides to associate with the Swanlea School in order to promote a new set of values. Additional to these two main stakeholders, a production cooperative would be established to manage the fabrication lab and a retail cooperative related to sale activities. This organization defines a continuous process in which secondary and vocational education is articulated with working environment (including finances, design and fabrication) and with retail spaces.
Through the cooperative model of procurement we’re able to envision a scenario where
larger parcels of land can be developed simultaneously. This allows the economic and political organization of four stakeholders to translate into a continuous building that attaches to the existing school and extends to the areas proposed by the master plan as previously discrete sites of intervention. The idea of a cooperative organization, meaning that each part of the system can develop in a way which could not have been possible alone is taken as the main concept of spatial organization. So spaces of interaction linking the different activities are established all through the proposal.
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Aerial overview of Swanlea secondary school and proposed intervention
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The Existing Sites/ The discrete parcels proposed for development by the master plan are disconnected from the existing school by the cross rail extension
Proposed Site/ Through a cooperative model we are able to look at a single large parcel that includes the school in its area of intervention
Navigating the rail line/ Connection between the sites on either side of the cross rail is achieved through a system of overlapping and interlocking volumes across plan and section
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1.
2. 1. Project Info: Seattle Central Library Architects: OMA, LMN Year: 2004 Location: Seattle, WA, United States 2. Project Info: Embajada de Holanda en BerlĂn Architects: OMA, Rem Koolhaas Year: 1997-2003 Location: BerlĂn, Alemania
An introverted section creates less points of contact with its surroundings
An extroverted section, that is enabled by this larger parcel of land, allows for more points of contact
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Potential of the Threshold/ Circulation becomes an informal expandable space, serving as a gradient to the formal spaces enclosed within
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Process models/ Study models showing progression of spatial strategies for the site 87
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Cross subsidization diagram/ Articulation of the set of buildings - The Swanlea secondary school, the new wing of classrooms, the fabrication hub and the exhibition spaces- and the process of cross subsidization between these individual stakeholders 89
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Spatial arrangement
The intervention proposes a set of buildings,
each one with its own specific logic, and a continuous device of connection and circulation that allows us to read all these intervention as one continuous building. The existing school is expanded to have a linear more accessible wing of classrooms, meeting rooms and laboratories that locates parallel to Durward Street and defines a gradient between the school and the street. This linear block bounds an elevated interior street that passes over the cross rail and connects to the fabrication hub.
The fabrication hub is organized as a big
shed around four main workshops- Wood, Metal, 3D printing Plastic, and Textile. These workshops are suspended in an interstitial space that functions as an undefined area that can be used for co-working as well as an expansion of each of the workshops. This space also allows the different workshops to connect to each other and to establish informal associations. The fabrication hub bridges over Durward Street to lead to the fourth building of the complex, which houses the exhibition and retail spaces that allow the products being fabricated to be communicated to a wider audience.
This fourth and last building is organized as
a linear block with double and triple height exhibition and retail spaces that cascades from the fabrication hub down to Durward Street, with extensive office spaces contained above. These offices while housing the large cooperative bodies involved can also be rented out to cross subsidize the rest of the campus.
Ground Floor Plan/ 1. Swanlea Secondary and Vocational School 2. Class room wing extension 3. Interior street 4. Durward street 5. Crossrail 6. Fabrication hub 7. Exhibition and offices 90
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The Continuous Building
Through these buildings a continuous strip of
circulation is established. The circulation becomes a space in itself, functioning as negotiated territory that is able to accommodate a range of spatial variation to host a variety of activities. In this sense the concept of threshold, as a tool for establishing a gradient between the urban realm and the different levels of privacy necessary for more formal activities becomes an essential spatial device.
This circulation also works as a space in
which the continuous process of A- financial value, in relation mainly to fabrication and retailing activities and B- use value in the sense of education and skills development are made visible. This articulation between profit activities and non-financially led activities are formulated and linked in the organization of the continuous building.
The interaction between the different activities
of the several stakeholders is enhanced through the process of overlapping and interlocking allowing for synergic processes that maximize the use of the facilities avoiding redundancy in the spaces needed for each stakeholder. For instance meeting rooms, classrooms, seminar halls, open co-working spaces, exterior spaces, etc can be shared avoiding the cost of building the same facility for each stakeholder and maximizing the timetables in which the facilities are in use, and establishing an extended daily timetable for the entire facility.
The ensuing system is conceived of as an
extroverted building that heightens the impact of a local institution and help in creating links between existing neighbourhoods and new urban developments. It is envisioned to run through a new model of governance involving the local community, coop school and coop bank as primary stakeholders to allow the district to directly benefit from this new mode of production and have a voice in the direction of its growth.
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Interior View Process model
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Spatial Studies/ Process models showing interior system of bridging, overlapping and interlocking
3. 3. Project Info: Fun Palace Architects: Cedric Price Year: 1959–1961 Location: Stratford East, London, England
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Site impressions
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Cross section
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Appendix
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Food incubators/ process drawings One of the main challenges throughout the design and research process was to fully exploit the plot at this massive scale with a set of interventions ambitious enough to project greater influence into surrounding urban areas. The initial approach was to establish certain temporary living facilities and kitchens to serve as the threshold in between the hospital and wider living environments. But as the exploration process went forward, the quantum of devices to be delivered led to the reading of development potentials within the wider context. As one of the main social and spatial elements, kitchens were extracted from the living facilities and scaled up to be understood as collective production space on an urban level. With this industrial scale of food incubators, diverse forms of business models, either market-driven or rather cooperative as mainly proposed, were explored collectively, aiming to achieve both crosssubsidization as well as facilities and resource pooling.
The cooperative model had been proved an influential approach through urban
development processes, but the spatial form of cooperative urbanity could accommodate more possibilities through different architectural approaches. There was not really a fixed typology to be directly adapted onto the cooperative model, but rather a successful intervention required more complexity and specific spatial characters to be discussed within the topic. Whether or not the design process as research could reach a certain level of generality to provide certain typical diagrams to define or just describe the potentially successful space for cooperatives, there would be an ongoing discussion about what challenges and opportunities this cooperative model between state and market can bring to urban development processes.
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Conceptual mind map
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Diagram of ground level movenment and limitations
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Typological approaches in plans and corresponding sections
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Further developed morphological approaches
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Kitchen Units and site models details in process
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Overlapping spatial approaches on sections
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Hospital Hospitality/ Process During the form generating process, the potential of the linearity has been tested, under which the combination of the linearity and combinations of other typologies such as a perimeter block or a high rise point block, the linearity and courtyards, and the directionality of the linear as well as the relations with the urban ground were tested in different stages.
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Fabrication School/ Process During
the
process
of
spatial
resolution, we went through a series of five conceptual studies: 1.The
Articulated
Plinth,
2.The
Suspended Volumes, 3.The Self Produced
Building,
within
Building
a
4.Buildings and
5.The
Continuous Building. With the main challenge being one of how to achieve continuity over the cross rail and extend the boundaries of the institution to have more of a dialogue with its context
Site diagram analysis
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Acknowledgements We would like to thank all those who have contributed in one way or another to this research. We have had interesting discussions concerning the relationship between spatial strategies, governance and urban processes.
We are very grateful for the guidance we have received
from our tutors in this research about Cooperative Urbanity. Jorge; for always asking us key questions that clarified so much about our thought experiments and leading us to a better direction, Elena; for your passionate input, for not conforming to the norms, for seeing our strengths and weaknesses and for always encouraging us to push the boundaries, and Francesco; for helping us broaden our repertoire, and for your immense contributions in structuring our proposals to explain our ideas clearly.
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