Industrial Factory and Refab Lab Dundee A Refab Lab (Refabrication Laboratory) is a fully kitted fabrication workshop that gives everyone in the community from small children through to entrepreneurs and businesses, the capability to turn their ideas and concepts into reality. In its absolute form the Refab Lab enables anyone to make (almost) anything‌using only waste material. The Refab Lab treats the flow of waste in a post-capitalist society as a reproductive system whereby products become new products not through a cyclic process of production, but through a linear process of manipulation, addition and intervention: a hypothetical scenario where waste streams enter a metabolic continuum. Sustainability Agenda In architecture, sustainability is predominantly reduced to the scale of buildings. Although this is an essential part of the picture, one wonders if this is sufficient enough to meet EU leaders’ commitments to a 80-95% CO2 reduction by 2050. This project goes beyond the current minutia of sustainability in favour of a total waste project. As North Sea oil reserves decline a growing abundance of oilrigs approach the end of their design life. Should we send them to the smelters in India and China or should we imagine a more local, intelligent reuse of such valuable material? This project imagines the literal metabolism of oilrig platforms (Industrial Factory) and local waste material (Refab Lab). Through the deconstruction and reconstruction of redundant oilrig platforms the city acquires an industrial machine that contributes not only to the sustainability of the city but to the sustainability of the self.
Paul Feeney University of Dundee School of Architecture
Architecture & the Patternmaker A ‘Pattern Language’ introduces the idea of a fluid and generative framework to be used universally – enabling ordinary people to engage in, understand and share individual acts of building. The framework itself comprises a series of recurring ‘problems’ in the built environment and solutions taking the form of instructions called ‘patterns’. Each pattern provides a hypothesis for the best arrangement of the physical environment to solve each problem – linked in sequence so that each directly relates to the next; none can exist in isolation. The result of these carefully ordered individual acts comprise a cohesive whole, a language. This project uses the creative power of the architect in the role of an observer: watching, studying, researching, and finally hypothesising in the form of each pattern. Ultimately, the aim was to generate a powerful and sequential pattern language, the theory of which was compiled to form the book ‘Architecture & the Patternmaker’. Sustainability Agenda The project took the form of a pattern language for the adaptive re-use of industrial districts – in particular abandoned steelworks. This language evolved to form the book ‘Architecture & the Patternmaker’ which addresses all manner of sustainability issues. From soil contamination to corporate employment and local economics, this work has investigated various aspects of environmental, physical, cultural and sociological sustainability relating to this fascinating architectural arena in order to produce effective and deeply thought ‘realistic’ solutions to the urban realm. Judges’ comments: “This set of drawings re-thinks the architectural process in a very imaginative way. They prompt a passionate response. Finding beauty in the ordinary, the articulation of space, the rendering of solid against void and the orchestration of light and shadow demonstrate an intuitive understanding of the potential power of architecture. Well-established and conventional approaches are strongly challenged in these drawings and a strong and convincing new architectural voice emerges.”
Sam Wilson University of Dundee School of Architecture WINNER RIAS ROWAND ANDERSON SILVER MEDAL FOR BEST 5TH YEAR STUDENT
Fraying the Edge | A New Hospital for Venice ‘Fraying the Edge | A New Hospital for Venice’ is a project of fragmentation, distribution and construction: a proposition for the hard straight edge of the Fondamenta Nuove to the north of the Cannaregio. Evolving through a series of ‘Locks’ (small investigations capable of considerable architectural significance) and ‘Maps’ (drawn acts of investigation and inventions) the Hospital occupies the watery channel between Venice and Murano. Locked into the urban fabric of the Cannaregio, the project offers a sequence of wings as crafted spines to accommodate medical specialisms, walkways and bridges to meet the demands of emergency and trauma, latter-day Campos for gathering and orientation and discrete Cabinetti for surgery, pharmacy and pathology. This is an architecture of utility informed by the ‘Cloud’ of Venice where formal logic is rarely explicit, where institutions merge and emerge, and material and structure constantly create land. Sustainability Agenda The Hospital construct will be a cumulative project in response to the economic climate and the evolving technologies of medical science. The majority of structural components will be constructed offsite to ensure minimal disruption. Each wing is designed as a self-contained unit, allowing individual buildings to be shut down, sold off and reused as a means of ensuring the economic and programmatic sustainability. The roof structure allows for rainwater harvesting and subsequent storage thereby meeting the high demand for water in hospitals. The Hospital would provide a sustainable source of employment locally, whilst aiding the local economy by attracting medical staff and health tourism. The project aims to return to traditional methods of natural ventilation and lighting where operating suites and intensive care will be the only hermetically sealed spaces. The frayed form of the building ensures that each wing is provided with the maximum amount of light and air.
Laura Barr Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)
Drifting City | Venezia Venice, Italy By 2100 sea levels are predicted to rise by as much as 1.4m. Venice would be almost completely flooded.1 Venice is the second most internationally visited city in the world flooded with over 20 million tourists each year but only 60,000 permanent residents.2 ‘Drifting City’ explores radical ways in which to adapt and sustain the city of Venice by moving across scales and allowing lagoon-scale strategies to inform detailed architectural proposals. A lagoon-scale framework for the project is based upon the soundings of Venice transformed by a process of drifting. A drifted surveyor’s chain becomes an armature for new proposals embedded with the characteristics of Venice. Five functionally diverse test projects – from a flood refuge within an abandoned church, to an isolated lagoon laboratory – engage the framework, responding to globally relevant issues within the unique context of the Venetian Lagoon at the scale of institution and dwelling. ‘Drifting City’ does not seek to ‘solve’ Venice rather, it represents the development of a conceptual approach to a city at once disconcertingly ethereal and stubbornly preserved: an architecture of radical intervention with the potential to sustain it without destroying it in the process. Vemeer, Martin and Stefan Rahmstorf. “Global Sea Level Linked to Global Temperature”, Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2009.
1
Scheppe, Wolfgang. Migropolis: Venice / Atlas of a Global Situation, Hatje Cantz: Venice, 518.
2
Sustainability Agenda ‘Drifting City’ seeks a sustainable future for Venice, a city delicately poised on the brink of inundation by the sea. A lagoon scale strategy of varied programs proposes a combination of adaptation and new intervention to simultaneously protect and harness the Venetian lagoon. Five test projects range in approach; adapting existing spaces, (re)collecting public artworks as a catalyst for new communities, salvaging the fabric of the city for re-use and profit and prospecting for new sources of energy and income in the natural resources of the lagoon. At an architectural scale the projects are finely tuned to the delicate ecological context of the lagoon. The inevitable damp of Venice is embraced and exploited; the fragile fabric of the city is reinvigorated or recycled; floating structures avoid intrusive on-site construction and deep foundations; and layered shells and canopies passively regulate sheltered inhabitable environments responsibly minimising unnecessary energy consumption.
Ben Watson Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)
Burrell Collection Gallery Glasgow A corner gallery in Glasgow city centre for seven objects from the Burrell Collection. Through the typological research of corner buildings in Glasgow city centre, the design of the art gallery was developed with an understanding of influential elements pertaining to corner buildings such as slopes and the character of facing streets. Sustainability Agenda Even within the midst of a dense urban context, the site offers good solar access and airflow as it is situated on the top of the hill. Rooms such as the Burrell Collection room located on the north side are orientated to maximize the use of day lighting for the exhibition spaces. The greenhouse to the south side supports the internal environment by ventilating heated air throughout the building during winter. Additionally, the series of rooms from the corner space to the greenhouse link green spaces and create opportunities for people to feel refreshed within the city centre. In Praise of Shadow Dublin, Republic of Ireland An exploration into the experience of darkness in the urban context to reconsider the positive effects of darkness on our senses, culture and communication. In modern society, darkness often indicates crime, fear and danger. These elements of darkness are evident in the context of Dublin as a modernized city. However, in James Joyce’s novel ‘Dubliners’, darkness is redefined through the descriptions of the beauty of life with darkness in Dublin. I considered this concept of darkness as one of the significant characters of Dublin’s culture and explored the spatial relationships associated with darkness. Sustainability Agenda The slits between buildings give a sense of a ‘journey of darkness’ through the urban context. At the same time, these slits condition the internal environment by allowing natural day lighting and air to permeate through the blocks. The slits and the camera obscura tower channel heated air to ventilate the space.
Natsuka Muto Mackintosh School of Architecture
Reimagining Red Road Glasgow This proposal explores an alternative future for the residential tower block. Through examining trends in living and the development of the high-rise as a typology, the re-imagination of the tower block as a vertical suburbia is proposed, where units of space can be sold off on a vertical street, allowing for the endless expansion and adaptation of the structural frame of the high rise for new forms of living. Sustainability Agenda The Red Road tower blocks cost £160 million to build, and it will cost a further £60 million to demolish and re-develop the site. Through radical alteration and adaptation as opposed to wholesale demolition, a stigmatised building typology may find a new lease of life. Centro Da Literatura Lisboa Lisbon, Portugal The project proposes a new Literature Centre and Library as a response to the lack of recognition of Lisbon’s poets and writers and the high levels of illiteracy in Portugal. The proposal creates a monument that celebrates Lisbon’s literary past whilst exploring how literacy can have a positive influence on how we move through the built environment. The notion of monumentality is explored as both a physical manifestation through the inclusion of a tower, as well as an architectural experience drawing on narratives found in Portuguese literature. Sustainability Agenda Social Sustainability: Over the past century Lisbon’s city centre has becoming increasingly deserted of people and institutions that have been forced to the suburbs by Lisbon’s rent control problem. The Centro da Literatura seeks to reverse this trend and revitalise an area of the city centre by creating an active institution that engages the public with Portuguese literature. Physical Sustainability: The building is orientated so as to maximise natural light yet minimise direct exposure to the harsh Portuguese sun. The facade is modulated to allow indirect light into the space, creating ideal reading spaces and protecting the literature within. Concrete is used for its thermal mass and to provide a haptically engaging experience.
Philip Zoechbauer Mackintosh School of Architecture
Urban Narratives – The East End Library and Archive Glasgow In the creation of a completely new settlement for 100,000 people in the East End of Glasgow, issues of place making and culture are inevitably raised. The Library and Archive is part of a wider ambition of creating a completely new settlement in the East End of Glasgow. The focus of the Library was simply to create a space for books. The Archive proposes the creation of a living archive that captures the spirit of the times as an on-going record of culture. Each person in the new settlement is given a depository box to store everyday objects and documents of importance to them. Once a person dies or moves out of the settlement the depository box becomes historical and accordingly it is moved into permanent storage in the historical section of the archive. The collection of records can be mapped and interpreted over time, giving an insight into the life of the city. Sustainability Agenda Sustainability could be described as the capacity to endure. The carefully considered programme of both the Library and Archive means that the community will hold the proposal in high regard. The selected palette of heavy materials complements this and gives the design a feeling of permanence in the new settlement. Both proposals set a framework in which to house books, objects and documents. This is the outcome of a strong concept, which sets the parameters for function but allows an ease of movement and changeability within the spaces. The nature of the spaces is defined but the programme and use remain flexible thus giving the proposal the ability to endure time and change.
Jennifer Jarman Scott Sutherland School of Architecture
Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre The Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre consists of six boat shed forms, which stretch out over the water on piles, linked by a stone walkway with floating timber jetties. The centre is clad in charred Siberian larch battens allowing views out over the surrounding bay. Building one provides information and the remaining five buildings are each planned around one of the five senses. Exhibits such as fishing vessels, video/sound clips, poetry, artwork, fishing equipment and sea debris are included to appeal to particular senses in order to build up an authentic fishing experience for visitors. Aberdeen Silver Square Hotel The Aberdeen Silver Square Hotel is part of a proposal to open up the surrounding site to the general public by creating a large urban square with areas for people to relax surrounded by a perforated block typology. The two buildings contain hotel accommodation, serviced apartments, retail units, office space, restaurants, and a gymnasium and ticket booth. The façade is wrapped in fibre cement panels to connect with the silver tones of the Granite City. Sustainability Agenda The sustainability agenda of the projects focuses on the idea of creating passive architecture with a reduced carbon footprint through the removal of an additional specific heat source. This is achieved in the Aberdeen scheme through the employment of a Community or District Heating Scheme, which allows the proposed buildings to be connected to a new central boiler plant that heats a significant number of buildings through a network of well-insulated underground pipes along Union Street. In order to reduce wasted energy, the system includes combined heat and power (CHP). This system transforms previously wasted energy into heating and hot water for the nearby buildings. The Peterhead scheme includes industrial warehouse forms that are appropriate for the industrial location and for the fishing process itself. As with the surrounding warehouses, the Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre is unheated which adds to the authenticity of the visitors’ fishing experience. Judges’ comments: “The evolution of the design approach here is beautifully and seductively simple. The play of light on materials and the rendering of textures is compellingly communicated. While the architecture is inherently responsive and appropriate, the expression and communication is powerful and convincing.”
Calum Paterson Scott Sutherland School of Architecture COMMENDED RIAS ROWAND ANDERSON SILVER MEDAL FOR BEST 5TH YEAR STUDENT
Dandelionopolis Singapore: Food Waste Infratecture Inspired by the lifecycle of a dandelion, including its wind-aided seed dispersal, Dandelionopolis (pods + towers) is an urban strategy dedicated to recycling the country’s food waste through active public participation. The proposal envisions the construction of decentralised anaerobic digesters contained within 160 metre high towers situated in 30 locations throughout the towns of Singapore. Food waste can be converted to electricity and bio-fertiliser through anaerobic digestion, making it a very promising source of clean energy. This is especially significant when considering the exceptional predicament of Singapore’s complete dependency on imported energy. In this vein the project seeks to emphasise the benefits of waste as a resource. The project also postulates Singapore’s empty, overcast night sky as a new realm for waste transportation in lieu of a starscape. This project seeks the renewal of the existing recycling infrastructure both in social and aesthetic dimensions. Sustainability Agenda The closed loop system of material use is the most efficient means of maximising benefit from a material’s lifecycle. Cradle to cradle instead of cradle to grave. Imagine if we managed to recycle all of the food waste that was produced in Singapore in 2010. This would generate enough energy to power 70% of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats, which accommodate 80% of the Singaporean population. Food waste recycling currently exists in isolation. Food waste recycling has to become part of a holistic, conscious and cooperative effort from all parties within the city to produce energy. Regional strategy, local strategy and individual strategy must be addressed to alter existing perceptions, and to teach the value of new systems for processing domestic waste. Using trucks to transport food waste to a large-scale centralised plant for processing is not viable within this system because the trucks are powered by fossil fuels. Therefore it is proposed that the food waste recycling infrastructure would be designed to mimic the growth patterns of fast-developing urban areas.
Yoon Chi Ming University of Strathclyde
Ariadne’s Thread: the Edinburgh Book Labyrinth Concerned by the uncertain future of the printed book in a digital age, a group of Edinburgh’s citizens establish a labyrinthine network of spaces in which books and the liturgy of reading are celebrated. This network is made manifest by discrete architectural additions of various scales, hidden amongst the existing cityscape. Book dropboxes, meeting places and literary markers are concealed across the UNESCO City of Literature; follies that enrich further the intricacy of Edinburgh’s urban texture. At the centre of this labyrinth is a motif commonly associated with gardens and libraries, a ‘Garden of Books’. Hidden behind the Royal Mile in a sequence of abandoned courtyards containing a collection of Edinburgh’s books, a book-making workshop, a reading room (within a disused medieval church), and an intricate landscape garden of terraces through which runs a narrow thread of water, its source a derelict medieval wellhead located on the Royal Mile. Sustainability Agenda These proposals suggest how new literary facilities might be integrated within a historic city in an economically, socially, environmentally and culturally sustainable manner. Disused spaces such as the medieval church on the site are converted for public use, and the network of city-wide additions encourage the public to participate in Edinburgh’s literary traditions. The proposals use currently ruined ground and do not require the demolition of any existing buildings. The landscaping incorporates water management systems and meadow-like planting that is suited to cool, dark climates to create a sequence of new courtyard gardens within the Old Town. The large collection building is sunk into the hillside and utilises passive methods for reducing the exacting environmental criteria for preserving and reading books. The architectural language of the proposals might be described as ‘petrified Hi-tech’; the building is formed as a collection of steel, glass and concrete components, composed together through basic trabeated structures of horizontal beams and lintels. Judges’ comments: “The complexity of the response to this challenge is beautifully considered and explored through these drawings. The designed components emerge from the drawn context, highlighted through the application of a variety of techniques, through contrast and the subtle use of colour. Plans, sections, elevations and perspectives are superbly rendered in drawings which generate a convincing cumulative narrative. These drawings are evocative of process and thereby go well beyond simple notions of well-drawn buildings – they are truly architectural.”
John Kennedy University of Strathclyde WINNER RIAS DRAWING AWARD
The work featured in this book formed part of a public exhibition displayed in the Lighthouse, Glasgow from 31st July until 5th October 2012. A+DS and the RIAS would like to thank all of the students who took part in this year’s competition.