BA show catalogue 2012

BA(Hons) Architecture 2011 • 2012

School of Art & Design Liverpool John Moores University

Contents

BA(Hons) Architecture

Autumn The Darwin Quest

1

Spring The Living Art Gallery

9

Parkour - Training Centre

17

The James Stirling Foundation

25

Talk : Design

33

When Alice met Joseph

45

A Student

Annie’s Box – Charles Darwin, his daughter and Human Evolution “perhaps a definition of a box could be as a kind of “forgotten game” a philosophical toy ... with poetic parts or magical moving parts.” Joseph Cornell, Diary, 1960.

The Darwin Quest

The Darwin Institute of Natural Evolution in Liverpool, is proposed as an outreach of the Darwin Centre at The British Museum London. In Liverpool The Institute will be a place of postgraduate student enquiry, meditation, scientific investigation, study, advanced research and also public accessibility.

Charles Darwin was a geologist, botanist and zoologist and a great radical writer and thinker of the 19th century and there will be space for the visible physical collections of Darwin’s diverse interests.

He challenged the status quo and establishment of the day with the great debate of science versus religion. He wrote The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origins of the Species.

The Client, The Institute of Natural Evolution seeks a bespoke handmade purpose made building, that is, not generic or standard. It should be geological, a part of the landscape. The client cites Carlo Scarpa, Peter Zumthor, Eric Parry, Benson & Forsyth, Frank Lloyd Wright, L. Kahn, Alvar Aalto, Zaha Hadid as exemplars. Your client respects the skills of physical model making and freehand drawing. Just like Darwin, you should use annotated note/sketchbooks for recording your evolutionary design journey.

Rob MacDonald

1

Hanging Hives Farhad Malek Hanging Hives is a prize and award winning project (EDUCATE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION) to address issues of the threatened honey bee population, a living creature that Charles Darwin would be well aware of.

The cross section relates to the cross section of the site, St James Quarry and the building faces south west. Malek uses elegant free hand drawings in his design process.

2

Hanging Hives Farhad Malek

3

Utopia of Human Evolution Thomas Stacey Utopia of Human Evolution explores geometrical, geological and mathematical forms. The proposal is an appropriate geo-morphological interpretation. Charles Darwin, (geologist amongst other things), would have appreciated this intepretation of human evolution.

The three renderings are evocative representations of interior spaces, showing textured material, light and shade.

4

Utopia of Human Evolution Thomas Stacey

5

Propaganda Print Works Christopher Grey Propaganda Print Works is a rationalist, modernist and highly ordered project. It is located at the North End of the site and is buried into the quarry wall.

The rising ramp is used very effectively to bring the occupants to the roof level.

6

Free Speech Centre Marcin Platnerz Free Speech Centre starts with a cleft in the sandstone as illustrated with a stone model.

The evolution of the design process is well illustrated with a series of three sketches and three models.

7

Importance of the Invisible Damien Graham Recycled Parkour Platform is a Utopian Floating Structure. The conceptual models explore accommodation space. The idea is that is that the traceurs climb to reach the point of escape and relax.

The floating living community would share space in the ‘floatel.’ We are reminded of Archigram and Walking Cities.

Participants Rachel Aaron Steven Anton John Atkinson Laura Baker David Banister Adam Brindley Matt Chan Brian Christopher Harry Conway Christina Cox Ruth Davidson Heather Done Alison Doran Philip Dudley Peter Edwards Jonathan Farrell John Finlayson Damien Graham Aynsley Gray Christopher Grey Richard Gwilt Stephanie Harrison Anna Hudson Gethin Hughes Kimberley Jarvis Affan Zakawan Johari James Kearns Joseph Kelly Dominic Kennedy Simone Khan Lucy Kinrade Panagiotis Konikkos

8

Kyle Lalor Daniel Lee Jon Mackereth Saheen Makkan Farhad Malek Heather Mason Jamie McAllister Matthew McGovern Abigail McGrahan Leah McKnight Adam Mokhtar Mohammed Muse Sakeena Nawaz Michael Noon Feidhlim O’Neill George Onisiforou Elizabeth Percival Marcin Platnerz Eleri Plews Jack Prescott Jonathan Radcliff Jonathan Rees Jamie Richards Caryl Rees Roberts Christie Sargent Emily Simpson Thomas Stacey Patrick Taft Emily Walkden Matthew Widdowson Natalie Wilson Paul Wood

A Student

The aim is to generate potential designs for a living art gallery. This gallery as a complex of functions is anticipated to act in parallel with the cycle of the Liverpool Arts Biennial which has become one of the largest artistic events in the country. The complex should provide accommodation working / studying space and exhibition space for thirty transitory artists, their works, influences, processes and continuing creativity. Invited artists will comprise of twenty four international and six national artists. These invited artists are expected to bring examples of their art work and influences with them for display and discussion which will form the contents of a library (kunstkammer) and the art galleries. Participating artists are expected to continue to create art during their stay, contributing to contemporary exhibitions and the Biennial in Liverpool with the designed complex acting as a creative catalyst for their work. Artists will then return to their countries of origin with experience and works of art influenced by the city and the complex. The living art gallery is assumed to have funding for twenty years, consequently 10 cycles of 30 artists. The site for the project is in the new creative quarter bounded by James Street, Jamaica Street and Watkinson Street. The existing warehouses on the site are unlisted consequently each scheme develops its own approach to the existing buildings.

Gary Brown

Living Art Gallery

9

Entropy and Art Thomas Stacey The aim was to develop a sub-cultural urban block for the arts. The design will incorporate the idea of a city, with the Forum (the square) at the centre, with the Marketplace (the gallery), the Town House (the living units), the Place of work (the studios), the Amphitheatre and the Baths surrounding it, this will turn this small part of the city into a microcosm for art.

10

Entropy and Art Thomas Stacey The creation of a “Living Art Gallery” forms a juxtaposition between the eternal presence of art and the fragile nature of life. The building should try to address this relationship creating a connection between time, space and life. Life is not living in an objective material world, but in a mental world in which our experiences, dreams and memories are fused into the past, present and future. Our mind’s ability to perceive and transcend time is what allows us to imagine and brings us to a state of heightened consciousness.

11

Conflict of Art Aynsley Grey Conflict + be contradictory, at variance + or in opposition; discord of action, feeling or effect + antagonism or opposition between ideas or interests.

Wall + an immaterial or intangible barrier, obstruction + enclosing through thing or mass + peace walls + an architectural feature resultant of conflict used to divide two sections of area or people with opposing views.

Propaganda + a political tool used in warfare as communication aimed at influencing emotion by the selective display of facts.

The galleries where art is viewed are generated around the backbone of inhabited walls. Printing presses and photographic darkrooms re-introduce skilled production methods for publication purposes.

12

The Adaptable Atelier Dominic Kennedy The ambition of the project is to explore notions of flexibility and adaptability in relation to the living working and exhibition of thirty artists and their works.

Adaptability is achieved through an efficiency of space so it can be used in a variety of ways. Flexibility is achieved by altering the physical nature of the building form. Modular flexible accommodation units are grouped into social streets to unite a group of artist. Modularity is also at the core of the gallery and studio system which forms the main block aligning with the new city commercial centre.

13

The Axis of Exchange Joseph Kelly Through generating a new centre of art commerce as an interchange to enhance connections to the docks and the commercial city centre in. By linking the fundamentals of the nomad and the container revolution, a new thoroughfare for the import and exchange of artwork can take place in this location within the city. The containers can also form an ‘axis of living’ through their ability to stack vertically: this can be combined with a grouped arrangement to form a common zone on each level for social interaction.

The vertical accommodation tower is complemented by the horizontal floating form of the gallery at ground level. The intersection of these forms creating the art / life axis of exchange.

14

International Dock Gallery John Finlayson The design for the international dock galleries is based on creating an experiential area in the city that symbolises the founding reasons of Liverpool’s historic success and also expresses how the city is developing for the future.

This is principally influenced by docking systems that connected land to water for the exchange of people and goods. The strategy focuses on three main points maritime structures, transferring goods and warehousing.

15

Infinite Critical Corridor Sakeena Nawaz The scheme develops distinctively individual accommodation and studio spaces around a social corridor nicknamed the ‘critical corridor’. This critical corridor is a private social/display space for the artists to critically test their works amongst their peers. The influence for three dimensional interlocking spatial arrangements developed from Le Corbusier’s interlocking accommodation units in the Unité d’Habitation.

Participants Rachel Aaron John Finlayson Aynsley Grey Stephanie Harrison Joseph Kelly Dominic Kennedy Lucy Kinrade Jamie McAllister Sakeena Nawaz Caryl Roberts Thomas Stacey

16

The paradox and challenge of the project is that the very essence of parkour is freedom. It was born in Lisses, a dull suburb of Paris, about 18 years ago, invented by two teenage boys, Sebastian Foucan and David Belle, who were literally kicking their heels with boredom.

Parkour Training Centre

The term Parkour is derived from the French word parcours-a type of obstacle course. Parkour is about the story of underground culture, or at least one way of telling it. Something spontaneous springs up on the streets, unplanned, unpredictable, unstructured. It could be a new dance, a musical genera or a street game. It happened to jazz, soul, punk and rap poetry. To football and basketball.

To graffiti art. To break-dancing and skateboarding. To any number of street fashions. So called Traceurs, the term given to practitioners of the movement, challenge the cultural norms of sedentary lifestyles in order to test the body’s complex athletic capabilities. What makes Parkour of great significance to architectural discourse are the spaces that Traceurs choose to situate their activities within.

Although Parkour can be practised in any type of environment it has a growing reputation as an activity associated with the urban terrain. How can we design for both urban order, structure, freedom and anarchy ? Can extreme urban sport be architecturally inspirational?

Robert MacDonald & Michael Otchie

17

Recycled Parkour Platform Jack Prescott Recycled Parkour Platform is a Utopian Floating Structure. The conceptual models explore accommodation space.

The idea is that is that the traceurs climb to reach the point of escape and relax.

The floating living community would share space in the ‘floatel.’ We are reminded of Archigram and Walking Cities.

18

Recycled Parkour Platform Jack Prescott The hull of the ‘floatel is made of recycled building blocks and the blocks can be manipulated with a floating crane.

A spectacular view of the Liverpool Waterfront, ‘floatel’, Echo Arena and tugboat !

19

Parkour Float Kyle Lalor Set against the Birkenhead Docks, the Parkour Academy is visible and stands out from its surroundings. It has a significant presence, inviting new users, spectators and the curious to enter. The intension was to design for urban order, structure, freedom and anarchy!

20

Parkour Float Kyle Lalor Traceurs train to be able to identify and utilize alternate, more efficient paths.

Parkour can be practiced anywhere, but areas dense with obstacles offer many training opportunities.

21

Cantilever Parkour Adam Brindley The Cantilever Parkour offers an educational escape for anti-social children between the ages of 11 and 16.

The architecture will allow the children to learn from the freedom of movement, permitting them to relate the philosophy of Parkour to life experiences and their education.

22

Cantilever Parkour Adam Brindley Here, Will Alsop sets good architectural precedents; his buildings are fun and raised on piloties and relevant in terms of the industrial history of the site.

23

Parkour Valley Philip Dudley Parkour Valley is about playing in a New Urban Jungle. Parkour and Free Running; past, present and future. An International Parkour and Free Running Academy.

The cross section is responsive to the needs of the traceurs and environmental orientation.

Participants John Atkinson Adam Brindley Matt Chan Mohammed Chaudhary Philip Dudley Affan Johari Simone Khan Kyle Lalor Abigail McGrahan George Onisiforou Jack Prescott Lyndsey Sannwald Christie Sargent Paul Wood

24

The Stirling Foundation and Archive will be an architecture foundation and, at its heart, a repository for sketches, drawings, models, photographs and other media representative of the career of James Stirling. There are many close associations between Stirling and Liverpool, and these manifested themselves as references made within numerous built projects throughout his career. His articulation of form and use of materials allude to such references, but are modified both with considerable sensitivity and, on occasion, humour.

Stirling Foundation and Archive

The SF+A will promote and conserve the architectural legacy of Liverpool, whilst nurturing contemporary design talent in the city and wider region. It will also include facilities for research and the study of Stirling’s architecture, and spaces for pop-up exhibitions and incubator units for symbiotic start-up enterprises.

Thematic rituals to be explored include, but are not limited to: exhibiting; archiving; retrieving; observing; reading; researching / drawing / writing / studying; working; and socialising.

The site is a predominantly vacant brownfield plot at the junction of Slater Street and Duke Street, and is bounded by Parr Street and the gable of existing buildings to the other two edges. The existing structures on the site may be integrated into design propositions, as appropriate.

Charlie Smith

25

Motion of Change Damien Graham By way of flux / motion, conservation / evolution, this is an interchangeable microcosm of the influences and interests of Stirling.

The project juxtaposes unorthodox programmes that are a reflection of Stirling himself, and wraps the archive and galleries into a spiralling promenade.

Mapping and overlaying changing geometries on the site over its history depicts the metamorphosis that has occurred on that space over time, and structures volumetric massing. The permeability of spaces is as varied and complex as the programme, both creating richness and diversity in their occupation. “If shock can no longer be produced by the succession and juxtaposition of facades, maybe it can be achieved by the juxtaposition of events that take place behind these facades in these spaces.�

Bernard Tschumi

26

The Future of the Library Laura Baker With the rise of electronic devices comes in turn the demise of tradition and antiquity.

Objects such as books, tape players and VCRs become useless items provoking mere nostalgia. With the need for books less in demand, we must question ourselves if this is a future we wish to aspire to, to be part of digital libraries where computers and e-books replace physical copies. Is it fundamental that in order to progress, that tradition must be forgotten? Or is there an alternative, where we can preserve and incorporate our libraries into the modern day without the use of technology?

27

Ballet Mechanique Steven Anton Stirling became famous for his use of axonometric projection and the technique was essential to his architecture. The history and theory of axonometric projection is explored as a means of providing a link between the language of Stirling’s architecture and a wider body of architectural theory. Organic form is seldom in equilibrium. In “Growth and Form”, Darcy Thompson sets out a physical theory of evolution: “A deal of evolution is involved in keeping due proportion between surface area and mass.” This tension between surface and mass drives the form of the project.

28

Archive-Graduate Incubator Patrick Taft In addition to accommodating an Archive and exhibiting Stirling’s built work, the foundation houses graduate start-ups. It is a reflection of the character and working disciplines of Stirling himself, who lived and worked with like-minded individuals.

One could suggest that this openness is what inspired his work - this is supported by the referencing of others’ work which is substantially present in Stirling’s work.

Studies identified a desire line across the site, which manifested as a pedestrian ‘street’ bisecting the massing of the block, which facilitates engagement which the Archive and Graduate gallery spaces.

“I think I was impressed by the scale of the docks and the architecture of the docks which is very monumental yet not formal it’s (kind of) vernacular monumental architecture.”

James Stirling

29

Inhabited Wall / Poetic Void Eleri Plews Inspiration has focussed on the influences upon Stirling during his education and early career. He was introduced to a variety of literature and poetry, in particular W. H. Auden, which formed the key thematic and conceptual explorations. The rhythm and structure of verse was abstracted into an organisational grid, which was extruded into three-dimensional form.

30

Docking Stirling Saheen Makkan The project is composed of a juxtaposition of solids and voids interpreted at a range of scales through maps of the city. The towers are reflections of the solids in time, Listed Buildings and the voids are of the docks. The red sandstone tower is a representation of the old dock suggesting the core of Liverpool and the Archive.

Archive / Gallery Brian Christopher James Stirling endeavoured to include the latest advances in materials and construction technology within his projects.

This became a catalyst for research and thematic interpretation, which examined coral exoskeleton that is the basis for a new method of producing cement. The resulting design incorporates layers and voids as the primary focal point for gallery /archive spaces.

31

Manifestation of the Grid Matthew Widdowson Rather than permanently separating Stirling’s work from the Canadian archive, this is a proposal to trade and share it thereby re-vitalising a historic trading route and the Canada Dock. The transportable, adaptable (nomadic) archive and exhibition is an ever changing manifestation of the grid, alongside student exhibition spaces, library, and a public route across the site to invigorate it.

“An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation, it is the means of every human act... The axis is the regulator of architecture... Arrangement is the grading of axes and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions.”

Le Corbusier

Participants Steven Anton Laura Baker Brian Christopher Alison Doran Jonathan Farrell Damien Graham Saheen Makkan Matthew McGovern Marcin Platnerz Eleri Plews Patrick Taft Matthew Widdowson Natalie Wilson

32

An examination of advances in the area of design illustrated in the TED Talks Global Forum projected to a future condition of architectural scenarios is the genesis of this CDP. Design ideas disseminated through this forum provokes the student to formulate a personal theoretical proposition to underpin the project.

Through a process of research and analytical dialogue the formulation of architectural ideas, consolidation of a brief and the condition of ‘place’ is defined.

Talk: Design a paradigm of a future green utopia?

Studio Design Position -Imagination is encouraged through the setting of the projects in the year 2050.

By developing their own design manifesto, the aim is to sharpen research in what is personally meaningful, the students’ position is validated as a platform for invention particularly in the formulation of their projects brief.

-As environmental change becomes the essential accelerated background, their projects develop an incisive, responsive and clear focus to an architecture of permanence or impermanence, harnessing solar and thermal energy.

The environmental agenda with the recycling of structural frame and building materials and the application of technical solutions is defined at the outset as are the setting of services, disable and fire regulation criteria.

-The Conceptual Model, the first task, attempts to see through the nebulae, connecting the heart, the brain, the arm and the finger tip to release creative energy. Models are the vehicle to interrogate the generation of space, rather than the representation of the final object.

Gladys Masey

Tina Modotti

33

1

The Genesis Project Re-Plicating the Machine

Peter Edwards The Genesis experiment aims to facilitate the need for the extended growth of humanity by exploring the sea as an inahabitable entity.

By readdressing our relationship to nature, the environment industry and the driving ‘machines’ in society by utilizing a symbol of them, Genesis changes the way we perceive problems of our continued development by subverting predominant ‘modulistic’ ideas with human freedom and movement.

34

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Liverpool’s Saving Grace Feidhlim O’Neill How do we feed a city?

A response to statistical data that 80% of the UK’s food is imported and that 8 food superpowers control what a population of 62,218,761 eat. The Search for an AgrITecture” is an attempt to create a sustainable community located at Orell Park, Liverpool, in response to climate change and oil price increases that will cripple the logistical systems that bring food into the City.

36

Resurgence

Adam Mokhtar

By the side of the Qara Mountains, in Egypt, at the setting of an ancient fort built by escaping Nubian slaves, the urgent threat of desertification with its associated problems is scientifically investigated and studied to model future possible patterns of survival.

The ruins of the fort, original setting of an ancient Christian Coptic Religion with its underground well, are intimately embraced by a new responsive architecture.

37

Digital Flux Richard Gwilt A response to the idea that ‘programming is the... closest approximation to thinking about thinking’ Seymour Paper.

The ambition is to explore the digital environment in a facility dedicate to schools in the deprived community of Stanley Dock, Liverpool. Articulating access within the Tobacco Warehouse and twinning a response to the old Grain Silo, the architecture makes contact experiencing the water through a pedestrian bridge, over the dock.

Ethnopomological Hermitage Nikole Domeney “Apples are like languages... each representing a tiny universe; a culture rooted in time and place, unique and irreplaceable”. And just like languages are dying out all over the world, this urban floating apple orchard in Princess Dock, produces cider, a seed bank repository, also providing a setting to learn near extinct languages. It may be a reminder that in a world of darkness there is still an ambition to reignite a trembling environment.

38

An Ambiguous Edge Michael Noon A Fusion Energy plant is configured in a sensitive urban location by the bank wall 13 metres over The Tiber in Rome, echoing the 18th century floating mills that existed along the river and working within the flux of everyday life, it aims to respond to a 50% demand of energy predicted by 2050.

Fusing a programme of a Cryoplant and the Public Roman Bath, they exist suspended over the fluvial void and in axis with the ancient Thermal Baths of Diocletian in the City.

Minamisanriku Christopher Grey With clear perception of Japanese traditions and symbolic references of the ideogram of Ma: gate and sun, and further influenced by the typology of the watch tower and land fortifications, this project attempts to create a memorial to the victims of the 2011 Japanese Tsunami.

Encompassing an early warning system facility and celebrating the Town Hall debating chamber as the gravitational space of cultural and historical significance at the boundary between land and sea.

39

Future of Freedom Xperimental Theatre Jonathan Rees “The spectators should be engulfed and physically affected by the performance, creating a layout to act as a vortex, constantly shifting shape so people would be trapped and powerless�. Antonin Artaud Reality descends deeper into the virtual. Freedom from this servitude will gradually become harder however, in a theatre where one is ensnared by a separate interpretation of reality. one may, if only temporarily, escape.

40

The Literacy Pharmacy Heather Mason The North West has the highest rates of anti-depressant prescriptions in the UK along with the highest level of hospital admissions for depression and anxiety at 55% and 29% above national average.

Through a process of literature therapy, supported by a library, poetry and philosophy sessions are held in reading courtyards overlooking Salthouse Dock.

A translucent wall of light at day time signals a welcoming gesture to enter, transforming night time into a luminous experience.

School of Fish Gethin Hughes Marine scientists have predicted the total collapse of all edible fish species in the oceans by 2050.

A collaborative facility between The Mersey Basin Campaign, Greenpeace working together with the fishing industry is proposed in Canning Dock. A fish market, restaurant and cookery school sit side by side with a research and campaign headquarters, attracting pedestrian route to the waterfront, Dock Road visibility and maritime access to the sea.

41

Mining Mushrooms Farhad Malek The cultivation of mushroom mycelium for nutritious and medicinal purposes as well as research on its associated applications as casting material is the focus of this project. Located in a mining area of The Forest of Dean. Readapting an existing 300 metres long tunnel with two ventilating shafts, this project explores contrasting environments, whereby the subterranean sensorial experience of mushroom cultivation at commercial levels is vertically inversed with the tree tops cafe and lookout providing sensorial release.

Alzheimer’s Art Centre Chiristina Cox Through the practice of art therapy as a dual experience that benefits both an Alzheimer’s patient and the public symbiotically, the relationship with the quotidian reality for an Alzheimer’s patient is retained. On a different level, a space engaging with the public will integrate the reality of living with Alzheimer’s into society. Attempted by juxtaposing public and private circulation patterns of movement towards the waterfront where visible and auditive contact is enhanced.

42

The Secret Salt Spa

Harry Conway

Located in Venice in an ancient salt works warehouse, a therapeutic treatment thermae nestles within the retained periphery wall of the old building, its rhythmical window modulation echoing the spatial organization of the new intervention with various salt concentration pools, medical consulting rooms and massage areas. Angles of vision connect with major city landmarks form the classically inspired central water piscina.

Water gardens define and enhance the elemental quality of the enveloping wall.

School of Fish The Polymerorum

Gethin Hughes

Panagiotis Konikkos Eleven gyres in five oceans are now contaminated with plastics severely affecting marine life ecosystems and threatening the food chain. Located in Sao Miguel Island in The Azores Archipelago in close proximity to the North Atlantic gyre, one of the worst polluted environments, it focuses on international scientific research to cleanse-mine and monitor plastic pollution, accommodating educational and advertising campaigns.

43

Participants Harry Conway Christina Cox Nikole Domeney Peter Edwards Christopher Grey Richard Gwilt Gethin Hughes Panagiotis Konikkos Farhad Malek Heather Mason Adam Mokhtar Michael Noon Feidhlim O’Neill Jonathan Rees

44

The literary world that surrounds Alice, particularly, Alice in Wonderland and Looking Through the Glass Mirror, has been an endless source of inspiration / provocation in the realms of creative cultural engagement since their publication.

When Alice met Joseph

The objective of the project was to instigate a design journey to reconcile the imaginary world of Alice into the mysterious physical world of Joseph : When Alice Liddell meets Joseph Williamson. The preserve of the imagination was explored in its fullest sense: from sources drawn from the literary and visual worlds into the realms of physical spatial architectural investigations. Students were invited to respond through their own interpretation of the subject.

The impetus for the project began in earnest by a visit to the exhibition Alice in Wonderland at Tate Liverpool where a compelling series of diverse range of works were inspired by the writings of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

The extent of the Williamson Tunnels is the result of a number of excavations conducted by Joseph Williamson around two hundred years ago.

The mystery of the works resonates equally with Williamson’s logic for the creation of the tunnels fuelling possibilities for imaginative re-interpretation. This was the ‘site’ where the dynamics of the existing railway cutting, the existing network of ‘underground’ tunnels and the original residence of Williamson, all provided the setting for an urban intervention.

Philip Lo

45

Illusionarium

Emily Simpson

The Magician’s Circle - is a resource where the art of magic is practised , rehearsed, performed and ultimately preserved. The design takes full advantage of the mystery of the Williamson Tunnels as a ‘secret world’ that serves as a counterpoint to the openness of the public domain. A folding planar skin has been developed to form an intriguing journey that leads from the street into the depths of the tunnel. The faceted geometric patterns create an interplay of light and shadows adding to the mystery of the world of illusions.

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A Sanctuary

Liz Percival

Alice’s ‘journey’ served to inspire the provision of a temporary safe place of wonderment for children. Those who have been displaced from the family unit, can regain confidence, seek security and experience a different kind of reality - perhaps that of a fantasy world. A network of multi-level gardens mediate between the accommodation facilities and the communal resource where eating and informal reading can take place, whilst the high level galleried links permit commanding views down into gardens and the city beyond.

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Philocentrum

Mohamed Muse

The Philocentrum is a resource that supports the possibilities of other ‘Parallel Universes’. The existing Lime Street railway track within the site, is integrated as a dramatic physical and symbolic threshold for the Philocentrum.

Akin to Alice’s falling down the hole, the journey via the bridge mediates between the world of science and philosophy, where workshops, study, seminar and library facilities are provided as a journeyed series of destinations.

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Alice Archive

Leah McKnight

CREATING VOLUMES

An initial enquiry into visual illusion was undertaken by composing and interlacing panels with varying degrees of opacity, resulting in the manipulation of volumes as a means to generate spatial depth. By exploring these, space through voids or changes induced by transparency of the materials, contributed to a range of illusory spaces, where the volumes and perceived characteristics constantly change. The building’s form adopts permeable and non-permeable materials that further augment the theme.

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Linear Orchestration

Anna Hudson

Through an interpretative analytical enquiry based on Deems Taylor’s musical score of Through the Looking Glass, visual rhythmic sequences were extracted and appropriated as design mechanisms to articulate the orchestral rehearsal facility. The result of the rhythmic study served to explore the relationship between the solid and void elements within the building, often generating the diffusion and intermingling of spaces both visually and sonically.

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AuctionHouse

Jamie Richards

The project relies in the schism provided by the existing site in order to differentiate the private world of the auctioneers and the theatricality of the public auction house and associated facilities. The objects of desire are paraded across the bridge as a ritualised event prior to the bidding process. Additional facilities within the building promote and induce a heightened sense of euphoria as one anticipates being entangled in the bidding game.

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BricksxBricks

James Kearns

The scheme has its premise that rubble deposited in the Williamson tunnels can be re-appropriated towards the manufacturing of bricks. This achieves two key objectives: firstly, to reveal the raw presence of the crafted tunnels as resources for the manufacturing process, and thereby extending the network of tunnels as a live gallery to the existing visitor’s centre and secondly, to provide an educational catalyst to promote the process. This symbolically brings to surface, the benevolent spirit of Williamson.

Participants David Banister Ruth Davidson Heather Done Anna Hudson Kimberley Jarvis James Kearnes Daniel Lee Jon Mackereth Leah McKnight Mohamed Muse Elizabeth Percival Jamie Richards Emily Simpson Emily Walkden

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Architecture

School of Art & Design

Liverpool John Moores University

ISBN 978-0-9568958-3-7