PORTFOLIO 3.1 Atelier: Continuity in Architecture Prepared by Anton Tkachuk Ba (Hons) Architecture Manchester School of Architecture Tutors: John Lee, Mike Daniels, Amy Pearce
The following pages include series of completed tasklets which helped with understanding of the site, formed a certain approach and led to the development of proposal.
Contents:
Tasklet 1: Skin Deep Tasklet 2: On Approach Tasklet 3: The Space Craft Tasklet 4: Editing The View Tasklet 5: Research and Rescue Tasklet 6: The Model City Tasklet 7: The Urban Detail Tasklet 8: Inhabiting The Square Tasklet 9: In Brief Tasklet 10: The Big Pebble Precedents Conceptual Plans and Section
Karlsruhe, Germany
Department Store and Office Building, LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei
TASKLET 1: SKIN DEEP “...the wall is a cultural object that directly interferes with our social and political understanding of the city.” ‘The Thickness of the Facade’, Pier Vittorio Aureli (in El Croquis 166 ‘Caruso St John: Form and Resistance’, 2013)
Fig. 1
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Fig. 2
Fig. 3 1. Plan 2. Section 3. Front Elevation 4. Model photographs 5. 3d model
Scale 1:20
1. Curved gable 2. Exposed precast concrete with sand coloration 3. Precast concrete slab 4. Glazing 5. Front face of commercial facilities (Glass)
Fig. 5
Oxford Road Station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 2: ON APPROACH “...vision is not only useful but it evokes our memories and experiences, those responsive emotions inside us which have the power to disturb the mind when aroused.” (Cullen, 1971)
Fig. 1-4 The steep slope forces to go down...
The tall wall on the left and the building on the right lead to stairs...
Stairs, trees and the railway line frame the view where part of the station is seen...
Until station becomes fully exposed
The small part of the site is exposed through window frames and doors...
Until the monument and the tower intrudes and site becomes fully exposed..
The slope and the curved wall of the cornerhouse leads down...
Then busy street and Palace theatre are open to the view.
The monument where the station can be fully seen...
Until the openness of the square makes you find shelter under the station’s roof.
Fig. 4-8
Fig. 8-12
Student castle acts like a beacon and draws attention to the site...
The pattern of the pavemnt and roundness of cornerhouse lead to... 3
1-4. Approach 1 (from Wakefield street) 4-8. Approach 2 (from Whitworth street) 8-12. Approach 3 (from station to Whitworth street)
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Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 3: THE SPACE CRAFT
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Fig. 1
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4
PROBLEMS OF THE SITE: 1) Lack of seating areas 2) Limited disabled access 3) Geometry of the public space is not defined and broken
Fig. 2
4) Unsafe and unwelcoming entrance during night hours 5) Old cinema building is not in use
PRECEDENT
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
1. Complex diagram 2. Pedestrian circulation 3. Traffic circulation 4. Space analysis 5-7. Shadow diagram 8. Location plan
Highline of New York was considered as an inspiration for the development of the public square of Oxford Road station. The idea of separating pedestrian acess from vehicular traffic became essential for resolving one of the major problems of the site.
SPACE CHARACTERISTICS Confined behind the historical Cornerhouse and bounded along
Fig. 5-7
Fig. 8
its entire perimeter by infrastructure links and service buildings, the Oxford road station public square uncomfortably nestles itself. Its main access point off Oxford Road gradually slopes up towards the station, creating an uneasy fluctuation in levels and thus posing difficulties for wheelchair users and heavy-luggage carriers. Its second, less welcoming access point is a set of concrete stairs. These stairs are overshadowed by the disregarded surrounding trees which tunnels one’s visionary scope towards the apex of the station, creating a high degree of enclosure. Standing arbitrarily in the heart of the square is the EU funded sculpture, contributing nothing to the site except visual noise and material mismatch.
The proposed site sits in an existing unused and
neglected area of behind the historic Corner House. By using a site so close to this historical building of Manchester, we are given certain scope to creatively design a building that evolves from the ‘genius loci’. It faces opposite the station and helps bind the newly created square.
Vehicles can now enter the site and park if
necessary under the new platform. By separating vehicles from the main public domain, the site becomes less cluttered and more appealing as the ‘welcome mat’ to Manchester. This optimises the aforementioned congregational area.
Re-purposing the old cinema as the new en-
trance to the station provided the opportunity to creatively and thoughtfully create something architectural. By entirely opening out the cinema, we were able to design a new staircase onto the platform and into the outdoor café area. The cinema captured the zeitgeist of the 1980’s onwards and it was therefore important to know the memories of the place in order to comprehend its importance.
The challenging levels prior to our proposal
proved difficulties for wheelchair users approaching the station. By repurposing the old cinema building as the main entry point to the station, we are able to add elevators towards the station, and thus solving the aforementioned hindrances. The station will now be more user friendly and accessible to all.
Through the division of the site into different
areas, we were able to create a central public square bounded by the station, the new building site and the existing north and south facing walls. The central square provides the public and commuters a generous area to linger and congregate within, in a comfortable and composed fashion away from the busyness of Oxford Road and the station itself.
Rather than simply ‘removing’ an existing
business from the site – the café – we decided to extend the platform to the very perimeter of the site limitations and raise the café up a level onto the platform. By doing this, we have provided a more pleasurable and serene environment to eat and drink, whilst users and comfortably gaze over the hustle and bustle of Oxford road.
In re-appropriating the disused greenery
for the building plot, we aim to ‘give it back’ through the use of planters either side of the station. Not only will they be visually attractive, but they will help contribute to the absence of greenery around the extended site. They additionally conceal the voids that they sit in front of which give a source of natural lighting to the car park below, but also provide an acoustic connection between the platform users and the vehicles.
The ramp further enhances disability access to the station when passing through the site access and café area, down a slight gradient towards the public square, and lastly up another ramp to the station itself. The public square is recessed a single step in order to distinguish a hierarchy and to evidently define the assorted areas of the proposal.
M ainly an informal site, with the main circulation
path going to and from the station in a triangulated pattern. A steady influx of people to the cafe and to an extent the central zone of the site, show an opportunity for improving upon this public space so it is not merely bypassed.
S trategy diagram for creating a public square
outside of the station. This will be achieved via the raised first floor platform levelling the topography of the site, along with our new site boundary opposite the station creating a sense of enclosure.
The 1st floor platform (Light Blue) extends to its main
entry point at the old cinema, providing intriguing views to the street below and alternately for pedestrians looking up from whitworth Street. This will be enhanced by having Java cafe (Dark Blue) provide additional seating on top of the platform.
Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 4: EDITING THE VIEW
Mass as a ground.
Mass as a frame.
In this view the figure of the Palace hotel is presented by two separate masses, which act as a “ground” . Attention of the viewer to the main figure is drawn by the outlines of the mass and direction of slopes.
The mass stresses on natural framing of the station, which happened unintentionally on site, where framing was created by trees on the right and tall wall of the platform on the left.
Mass as a figure.
Mass as a guideline.
Mass becomes a “figure” and puts the Palace hotel on the background, however, in the current view they blend together creating a single “figure” , which dominates the square.
Mass serves as a guideline to guide people to the station, ans also “softens” the view by distracting from the tall “figure” represented by the Student Castle building
A series of diagrams and masses were created in order to analyse and build the relationship of the form and different approaches to the site. Diagrams and masses focus on the idea of “figure” and “ground” and its interpretations that can be created on the site of Oxford Road station.
Oxford Road Station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 5: RESEARCH AND RESCUE Investigation into the nature of the site of Oxford Road station
1833
1850
esidential housing consisted of unplanned, opportunistic, speculative buildings on the space available around and between the factories and mills. By the 1840s, there were 13 factories surrounding the district, it was also prone to smoke pollution from chimneys. However , this was not the only area of poor housing in Manchester, and it was not by any means the worst. The Irish settled here because this was one of the districts where cheap accomodation was being built, when they began to arrive in increasing numbers in the early 1820. The area also had the advantage that a large number of unskilled employment opening were to be found in the surrounding factories and mills.
y 1861, Little Ireland was almost empty of private residents, except along the front of Oxford Road and in a few houses along New Wakefield Street. They had been squeezed out by a combination of forces- the expansion of industrial and commercial premises anxious to take advantage of a site so close to a major canal, road and railway, and the sealing up of the cellars by the police in the late 1840 to check the spread of disease, especially endermic cholera. In fact, the outbreaks of 1832 and 1849 in Manchester left this area relatively unaffected. Ironically the gentrification of this part of inner Manchester has now made parts of the district the site of the most luxirious and expensive housing in the region.
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1. Urban ladscape 2. Public buildings 3. Business 4. Factories
STUDENT CASTLE
CORNERHOUSE
PALACE HOTEL
Architect: Stephen Hodder Contemporary style-resemblance to the mathematics tower, Manchester
Built for John Shaw (furniture store) Victorian style
Architect: Alfred Waterhouse Ecletic style, French renaissance accent with Baroque features.
1. Kingspan insulated panels. Contrast between panels and windows(horizontal and vertical) 2. Unusual chromatics (blue, purple and grey) 3. Long curtain wall elements
1. Masonry base. Pilasters 2. Tower in the style of a minaret. Corbelled masonry. 3. Paired and triple windows. Pediments. Red brick with sandstone.
1. Natural ladscape 2. Valley 3. Built environment 4. Rivers and canals
B
1. Agricultural boundaries 2. Roads 3. New infrastructure 4. River and canals
1. English Gothic architecture. Lancet windows. 2. Bold massing. red brick and dark red terracota cladding. 3. Baroque details such as the baroque “cupola�.
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Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Information and images by: 1. Laura Pascale, Monty Dobney, Iustina Nicolae, Steven Msowoya. 2. Laura Dirzyte, Claire Greenland, Zhivka Ivanova, Asha Pandit.
Research of the historic past was included to understand the the site and its conditions during the formation of Little Ireland. The housing properties were maintainde badly and failed to provide appropriate living conditions, therefore the site was considered to be the one of the worst places to live. Moreover, in order to introduce the building to the site it is essential to know how the buildings adjacent to the site may affect the decisions on choosing the appropraite material. Therefore analysis of the key buildings, their materials and styles was included.
Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 5: RESEARCH AND RESCUE 250 years of transport infrastructure. Forms of transport around Oxfor Road station and the evolution of them.
HISTOMAP A.D 0% 1750
50
100
1850
1905
1920
First Bridge. Turnpike Trust- 1755
HORSES
1800
First horse drawn omnibuses - 1824
1850
CYCLISTS OMNIBUSES
Earliest proposal for construction of rails - 1872
This map portrays the earliest infrastructure of Little Ireland. The canals were widely used to support the mills
Continued factory expansion was a catalyst for construction over the canals, and industrial expansion resulted in the addition of a second platform.
Further railway expansion along with the addition of the electric tramline. Mills are still prominant, and there is the addition of the iconic refuge assurance company.
Gained permission to lay trainlines - 1877
1900
First electric tramways - 1902
1930
1960
2000
Manchester Plan - 1945
1950
CARS
2000
BUSES Oxford Road plan - 2014 Electric tramline has been removed
Construction on the present day, Oxford Road station, including railway expansion and the development of another platform.
Present Day - The approach from Oxford Road to the station has been modified to include a roundabout and fragmented car parking.
Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 6: THE MODEL CITY Series of massing models exploring possible iterations of future proposal
OBVIOUS
CHALLENGING
WILDLY RADICAL
The set of models reflects on the idea of the Palace Hotel framed by two separate masses.
The set of models includes different interpretations on the idea of mass becoming a dominant “figure” on the square, but also keeping the presence of the Palace Hotel tower on the background.
By adding more dynamism and chaos to the site, this set of models questions the problem of “clastered” view and interprets it as a positive feature.
The set of wildly radical models was largerly inspired by Nakagin tower in Tokyo by Kisho Kurokawa. Although modular volumes seem to be chaotic, they create dynamic feeling to the mass and a feeling of depth.
The mass from the wildly radical set of models was considered to be the most promising and was taken forward for future interpretations and development.
Biblioteca di Brera
Milan, Italy
TASKLET 7: THE URBAN DETAIL
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1. Urban detail 2. Location and route diagram 3. Statue of Napoleon framed by the archway of the entrance 1. Shelter Provides shelter for the user of the urban detail. 2. Framing The detail on the wall frames the sculpture in front of it creating a composition. 3. Mass emphasis Gives vertical emphasis and emphasises the mass of the ceiling. 4. Foundation of the monument Serves as a support for the back of the user.
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Scale 1:10
Campo Sant Apponal
Venice, Italy
TASKLET 8: INHABITING THE SQUARE
Fig. 2
Fig. 1
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I am sitting in the middle of the square on the step and leaning against the old Venetian well. Cloudy. 13 o’clock. My view
is focusing on the facades of the buildings which form perfectly squared campo. On the left is the church, windows are shattered in some places. The square fills with people from time to time. They use square to take a small breaking after strolling the narrow labyrinths of Venice, coordinate themselves on the map and continue to the main piazzas. Sound of steps on the pavement stone, conversations on different languages, murmuring of doves. The paint and render of facades is stained and decays, however it has its own charm. People appear from almost invisible passage on my left and dissapear in the long and narrow corridor to the right of me. I can hear pleasant voice of the lady coming from the church entrance. She is standing next to another person. Both dresserd in traditional Venitian masquerade costumes and invite people to take a photo with them. Now all the people have passed and I am alone on the campo again. The big tall figure of the church dominates over other buildings of the square. The facade is simple with only 5 big windows and seems a bit flat. The columns that are extruded from the facade continue to the top where statues of saints are placed. The monuments cage with columns and finished with spires on top. Suddenly square became deserted, even people in masquerade costumes left, and I felt I need to go too...
Fig. 5
Fig. 4 1. Axonometric view of 3d model 2. View from one of the entrances 3. Woman and man, dressed in masquerade clothes 4. Diagrams 5. Location plan
1. Popular areas 2. Circulation route 3. Shops and church
Utopian Community Estate
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 9: IN BRIEF
Rooftop Terrace Roof 2-3 p appartment
2-3 p appartment
Loft
Loft Communal
2-3 p appartment
2-3 p appartment
Loft
Loft
Botanical garden/ greenhouse
3rd level
Residential
Space
Area m²
People
Requirements
Lobby
315
150
Reception/Box office
15
2-3
Link between inside of the building and outside square
Cinema/Conference room
330
160
Underground carpark
645
150
Boundary between station’s carpark and estate’s carpark should be clearly indicated
Private atrium
251
50
Can be acessed only by residents
Roof terrace
370
70
Can be acessed only by residents safe for children’s activities
Botanical garden/greenhouse
91
30
Should have direct access to the kitchen, in order to use fresh produce
Loft appartment with 2 floors (2)
140
5-6
Family appartment (4)
87
4-5
Studio appartment (4)
84
2-3
Balconies
15-32
varies
Restaurant
161
40
Kitchen
41
4-5
Corridors (3)
22.5
Lift halls
14
Corridor 2nd level Botanical garden/ greenhouse family appartment
family appartment
2-3 p appartment
2-3 p appartment
Residential
Corridor 1st level family appartment
Restaurant
family appartment
Residential/ Leisure
Botanical garden/ greenhouse
Accomodation:
Kitchen Atrium
Lift Fire Stairs
Stairs Lobby
Cinema/ Conference hall
Stairs
Mezanine Lift Fire Stairs Services Ground level
Underground carpark
Should have visual connection from the public staircase leading to the station
Plant room Underground level
Fig. 1
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All of the appartments should include private balcony or at least a small ledge
Direct access to botanical garden Provide acces to appartments on a current floor Provide acces to all floors
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Fig. 3
T
he program of the estate is placed inside the volume, which became the result of connecting 14 modular units. The top floors of the estate form the accomodation represented by appartments and condominiums on the upper floors. All the appartments are connected by a series of corridors, which in their place form atrium on the mezanine level. The communal area is represented by the rooftop garden where playground areas for children are provided. Leisure facilities such as Botanical garden and Restaurant on Mezanine level, as well as Cinema on the Ground level are accessible by both: public and residents. Two elevator cores direct vertical circulation throughout the estate.
Services
1. Adjacency diagram 2. Program division 3. Accomodation schedule 4-7. Development diagrams: 4. Public 5. Private 6. Communal 7. Circulation Fig. 4
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Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
PRECEDENTS HOMES FOR CHANGE
HABITAT 67
THE BARBICAN
Andy Ince & Paul Harrison Hulme, Manchester, UK
Moshe Safdie Montreal, Canada
Chamberlin, Powell and Bon London, UK
Search for the examples of communal living in Manchester led to Homes for Change housing cooperative in Hulme.
Homes for change is a housing cooperative where residents are both tenant and landlord. During site visit the main focus wasn’t the architecture of the building, but the communal organisation and understanding essential needs for communal living. In Homes for Change flats, that range from 1-4 bedroom appartments organized around main courtyard. One half of the courtyard is occupied by parking lots, while the other is dedicated to gardening and children playground. All the appartments are connected by a series of walkways, which create a close network of neighbours and a real sense of community.
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urther observations of modular systems and Nakagin Capsule Hotel in Tokyo led to Moshe Safdie and his Habitat 67 designed for the World Exposition of 1967.”Habitat 67 was originally intended as an experimental solution for high quality housing in dense urban environments” (Archdaily, 2013). Given the fact that the site of Oxford road station is contained within a small volume an experimentation with prefabricated modular units can lead to reduction in housing costs and allow for a new housing typolog, that could integrate the qualities of suburban home into an urban living. Therefore the attention was drawn to the organisational strategy of modular units and their connection with communal and public facilities.
A
lesson for the current housing crysis in UK can be learned from London’s past and especially from one of the most ambitious housing estates in the world- The Barbican. The main point of interest was focused again around the idea of exclusive communal living , separation of public and private sectors, but more importantly what makes the estate one of the popular locations to live in. Barbican Estate was presented by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as exclusive and safe place for living. From the inside the estate is a landscape full of plazas and gardens, but from outside it seems inpenetrable. The intention was to create series of undefined thresholds that discourage passers by from wandering in. The aesthetic ideas used in Barbican can be applied to Oxford Road station site. If to look at the Golden Lane house- it is filled with textures and plants and even in the overcast day the building feels dynamic and alive. Moreover ribbons of cantilevered balconies are softened by the flowers cascading down the facade, almost like hanging gardens.
Utopian Community Estate
Manchester, UK
TASKLET 10: THE BIG PEBBLE The restaurant of the Utopian Community Estate is a unique space, where fresh sustainable ingredients are directly sourced from the conservatory adjacent the restaurant.
Oxford Road Station
Manchester, UK
UTOPIAN COMMUNITY ESTATE: CONCEPTUAL PLANS
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Scale 1:200
1. Basement level 2. Ground level 3. Mezanine level 4. First floor 5. Second floor 6. Third floor
1. Carpark 2. Plantroom 3. Storage 4. Reception 5. Learning facility/offices 6. Restaurant
7. Conservatory 8. Atrium 9. Appartment 10. Appartment 11. Private balcony 12. Corridor
13. Lifts and fire stairs
Oxford road station
Manchester, UK
UTOPIAN COMMUNITY ESTATE: CONCEPTUAL SECTIONS
Scale 1:1000
UTOPIAN COMMUNITY ESTATE: LOCATION AND SITE PLANS
Scale 1:500