Metropolis Archive by Benjamin Carter

METROPOLIS ARCHIVE _ BENJAMIN CARTER The House of The Captive Genius Loci

Atelier Common Ground Manchester School of Architecture

METROPOLIS-ARCHIVE

CONTENTS -

ATLAS

PROGRAMME

4 5 6 7 8 9

10 _ PROJECT PARTI 11 _ THE ARTEFACT

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THE TERRITORY THE LOCUS THE GRID PRIMARY URBAN ARTEFACTS THE WAREHOUSE THE STREET WALL

FORMULATION

RESOLUTION

SEQUENCE

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28 _ SERIAL VISION

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PALLADIAN PLAN AND THE RAUMPLAN PLAN PERMUTATIONS GROUNDPLAN URBAN GALLERIES CIVIC HALLS THE RAUMPLAN STACKED VOLUMES

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NEGOTIATING THE RAUMPLAN ARTEFACT GALLERIES SOCIETY OF ROOMS ENVELOPE CONSTRUCTION CLOSING THE STREET WALL FORMAL AUTONOMY ADAPTING THE WAREHOUSE STREET THRESHOLD SPATIAL SUCCESSION

ATLAS the territory

VESTIGIAL TERRITORY Girdled by the highly defined grid network of Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s city core, the study area presents an illdefined condition of scattered vacant sites and an incoherent architectural character. Vestiges of the city grid remain latent in the tracts of vacant plots, a subliminal palimpsest for urban intervention, primed for instauratio urbis.

The site, an unprepossesing quadrant of land, occupies one such location. The study area is circled by an entourage of impressive civic buildings around its perimeter, yet the quality of its architecture depreciates towards its core: the site situation.

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plan of central Manchester and the study area current Chorlton Street elevation the site within the vestiges of the urban grid illustrating the street condition: the study area

ATLAS the locus

PROFILE OF A PLACE A construct of mercantile city-building, the study area was laid out as a grid in the C18 to be speculatively developed for light industrial purposes: namely warehousing. Motivated by the construction of the Rochdale Canal bisecting the study area, the warehouse district prospered around this industrial datum.

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Bloom St, towards Crown Court Campanile, former site building to right of image Chorlton St, towards terminal aspect of Sackville st Building Richmond St, towards Crown Court chimney Chorlton St, towards Portland st, former site building to right of image Plan of the locus, study area marked in grey, site marked by crosshairs

IMAGES 01-04 SOURCE: MANCHESTER LOCAL IMAGE COLLECTION

ATLAS the grid

PROPERTIES OF THE GRID Within the confines of the study area, the grid adheres to a logic of regular longitudinal and lateral axes. Despite the vacuums created around the modernist towerin-field interventions of the mid C20, the original warehouse architecture defines the grid by constructing a salient street wall, establishing vertical artefacts as terminal vistas.

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exploded plan diagram of the Manchester grid as a collection of individual â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;matsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; view to the site - the modern city and the warehouse district axial views to salient urban artefacts the grid within the confines of the study area terminal vista: salient urban artefacts punctuate axial views

ATLAS primary urban artefacts

58 RICHMOND STREET Style _________ Constructed ___ Architect _____ Function ______ (defunct)

Hennebique system frame 1911 TE Smith + Son textile workshop/warehouse

Grade II listed 04 02

MINSHULL STREET CROWN COURT Style _________ Constructed ___ Architect _____ Function ______

Venetian Gothic 1867 Thomas Worthington courthouse (vital)

Grade II* listed

03 05

SACKVILLE STREET BUILDING Style _________ Constructed ___ Architect _____ Function ______

French Renaissance 1902/ 1957 Bradshaw Gass + Hope educational (vital)

Grade II listed

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58 Richmond St Minshull Street Crown Court Sackville Street Building Watts Warehouse Bloom Street Power Station Metropolis Archive site

01 7

WATTS WAREHOUSE Style _________ Constructed ___ Architect _____ Function ______

Eclectic Italianate 1856 Travis + Magnell warehouse (pathological)

Grade II* listed

BLOOM STREET POWER STATION Style _________ Constructed ___ Architect _____ Function ______ Grade II listed

Baroque 1901 unknown power station (defunct)

URBAN ARTEFACTS Terminal vistas, or artefacts occupying the end of the scenographic frame of the linear street, become monuments established by the cruciform arrangement of streets. These artefacts generate a collective formal taxonomy: a typology specific to the locus from which to draw reference for a new architecture.

01 02

location plan - the locus general site plan - the grid

ATLAS the warehouse

URBAN INTERLOCUTORS

LANCASTER HOUSE

ASIA HOUSE

58 RICHMOND STREET

italiante baroque palazzo typology corner turret noble facade glazed rear tower and bay facade arrangement tripartite elevation janus face elevation treatment

palazzo typology rusticated base noble, baroque facade tripartite primary elevation glazed side elevations faience brick side elevation hovel and teagle arrangement plan segregated public and private internal screened corridor janus face elevation treatment

hennebique concrete system sloped roof responding to rights to light gradated colouration pilastered facade hemispherical upstand on cornice

The warehouse, being the predominant normative type of the study area establishes a prevailing architectural langauge for a new architecture to enter in dialogue. The warehouse typology, exhbiting common traits determined by their programme, is defined by a duality of ostentation and pragmatism. The Janus face arrangement of the noble, palazzo facade counterposed by rear or flanking glazed elevations generates a simultaneously planar and articulated architecture: features of a Mancunian typology.

The clustering of warehouses in the study area generates a strong architectural genius loci, capable of acting as a host form for new, internal programmes.

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CENTRAL HOUSE

ALBERT HOUSE

INDIA HOUSE

scottish baronial style corner tourelle mansard roof salient dormers

ornamented noble facade art nouveau detailing stepped back profile from street tripartite elevation terracotta facing

palazzo typology rusticated base noble, baroque facade tripartite primary elevation heavily glazed south elevation mansard roof faience brick rear elevation janus face elevation treatment

16 Chorlton Street 40 Chorlton Street 14 Chorlton Street Watts Warehouse

ORIENT HOUSE

LLOYD’S HOUSE

SEVENDALE HOUSE

noble facade eclectic detailing and moulding oriel windows within classical column bays heavily glazed secondary elevations infill ‘domino’ rear block janus face elevational treatment

repetitive pilasters delineate street wall level stringcourse datum corner turret on Lloyd st elevation hovel and teagle arrangement removed crane attics crane loading bays on every floor

steel frame and concrete slab external terracotta and brick oriel window within structural bays distinguished internal/external character noble Jacobean facades to primary streets glazed secondary elevations janus faced elevational treatment tripartite primary elevations

ATLAS the street wall

02 9

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existing elevation - Bloom Street existing elevation - Richmond Street warehouse typology exploits full site footprint delineating a salient street wall condition Chorlton Street wall - the long street is a succession of rooms, terminated by notable urban artefacts

BOUNDARY CONDITION

The street wall, an urban geographic condition generated by the exploitation of the entire site footprint and a direct vertical extrusion of such sets the warehouse district apart from the modernist city. The urban intensity of the proximate street wall creates external rooms defined by the warehouse facades. Spatial enclosure becomes the urban typological trait of the warehouse district.

PROGRAMME project parti

HOUSE OF THE CAPTIVE GENIUS LOCI OBSOLESCENCE: Analogous to the ouroboros, the self devouring snake, the city exists in a state of perpetual self-annihilation and resurrection. Acts of destructive acupuncture sweep away the fabric of the city to be replaced by a contemporary equivalent, the predecessor is consigned to memory. This project proposes the modification of urban transfiguration to reclaim the obsolete form of the city, demolition becomes a transitional incident rather than a lethal coup de grĂ˘ce. City form is retained and concentrated in the house of the captive genius loci - The Metropolis Archive

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the city as an ouroboros: the self-devouring entity distilling the city: an archive of Greater Manchester demolition of Fort Ardwick demolition of the maths tower demolition of the Deansgate Hotel

IMAGES 03-05 SOURCE: MANCHESTER LOCAL IMAGE COLLECTION

PROGRAMME the artefact

HOW IS A BUILDING LIKE A CITY? The city is the ultimate data, a physical index of information dimished by demolition of the material intelligence embodied in architecture. The Metropolis Archive project proposes to abstract urban artefacts as a method of closer study. As a miniaturised analogy of the city itself, the archive is constituted by individual urban artefacts within the collective body of the vessel: the Metropolis Archive. The city becomes an internal condition as its elements are brought together within the confines of the museum, the aleatory adjacency of artefacts as a metaphor for the eclecticism contemporary city.

Artefacts are abstracted from their original location in order to allow them to be scrutinised as sources of information on the city or artistic objects in isolation.

The museum becomes a site of deracination, the displacement of urban artefacts from their source into the archive counterposes architectural epochs and allows parallel study with other forms.

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Manchester college - Chorlton Street Kantorowich building - University of Manchester urban artefacts of the locus overlapping fields of view: orbiting the artefact John Soane Musuem: observation is part of the act

FORMULATION palladian plan and the raumplan

The genesis of the project is predicated on the combination of the palladian (classical) plan and the raumplan (fluid) spatial arrangement synthesised with the grid of the urban locus.

VILLA MULLER loos

VILLA ROTUNDA palladio

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processional stair negotiates spatial sequence spatial continuity in the shifted section diagrammatic representation of the rigid classical plan the internal plan is derived from the city gridiron the archetypes of the palladian plan and raumplan are fused against the grid of the locus to formulate a composite spatial disposition of classical plasticity

THE CITY AS AN INTERNAL CONDITION

Reacting to the local planform, the project plan is derived from the gridiron street pattern. Employing the grid as a generative device reconciled with the palazzo-warehouse typology the museum plan becomes a fractal of the locus, a fragment of the city. Combined with the scale of artefacts on display, the resultant dialogue between the Palladian plan and the spatially unpredictable Raumplan disposition becomes the definitive exchange of the architecture of the Metropolis Archive.

FORMULATION plan permutations

01 02 03

THE PALLADIAN PLAN The palladian plan arrangement internalises the city grid and produces a classical tripartite arrangement with a central axial processional route along which a ceremonial staircase is aligned. Two frontal cores and an abstracted entrance portico produce a noble facade evocative of the warehouse typology.

permutation 1 permutation 2 permutation 2

RICHMOND STREET

BLOOM STREET

FORMULATION groundplan

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19 08 24

18 06 07 08

GROUNDPLAN 15

The grid is the progenitor of the groundplan, a rational structural system adheres to the grid logic and establishes a classical hierarchy to the plan.

The groundplan follows a cruciform circulatory logic around the intersection of three vestibules at a central stair hall, initiating the spatial sequence aligned to the processional staircase. The four divided quadrants of the cruciform plan are allocated to ancilliary functions, with the main axis evoking the archetypal â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;naveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; space of the ecclesiastical typology. The nave is aligned to the primary entrance, which adopts the form of a highly abstract classical portico, at once recognising the prevailing Italianate language of the study area, and reconciling that architecture with the present period.

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01 02 03 04

05 06

Illustrated by the diagrams above, the central stair hall is considered an aedicular form, a fractal form or a building within a building. The autonomy of the circulatory spaces from the gallery spaces is an evocation of the warehouse typology and is accentuated by the insertion of the processional staircase as an absolute artefact.

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GROUNDPLAN 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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PEDESTRIANISED ZONE

Portico Foyer Locker/cloakroom Toilets Disabled WC Storage Passenger lift Access stair Vestibule Bookshop Counter Administration Stair hall Publication office Curatorial office Conference chamber Stockroom Artefact documentation studio Photography studio Freight lift Service riser Loading bay Refuse bay Dry riser inlet

SPECIFICATION 01 02

typical pier plan at ground level pier plan at junction to wall

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220/ 100/ 70mm anthracite glazed brick on grey mortar 60mm ventilated cavity and 5mm vapour barrier 120mm kingspan rigid board insulation Ancon thermally broken masonry tie 1000/ 300mm reinforced concrete pier 60mm kingspan rigid board insulation 140mm kingspan rigid board insulation 200mm in situ concrete wall 30mm internal concrete precast panel and service zone

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220/ 100/ 70mm anthracite glazed brick on grey mortar 60mm ventilated cavity and 5mm vapour barrier 120mm kingspan rigid board insulation Ancon thermally broken masonry tie 1000/ 300mm reinforced concrete pier anodised aluminium inlet with bronze outer finish thermally broken door jamb with bronze finish intumescent coating internal dry riser access outlet dry riser cabinet

FORMULATION urban galleries

VAULT

UNDERCROFT

PORTICO

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-01

GROUND

LOWER PIANO NOBILE

UPPER PIANO NOBILE +02

+01

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05 09 13

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06 13

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04 16

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12 09

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06 12 04

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08 01

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lecture theatre passenger lift toilets pump/motor room closed climate repository artefact repository plant freight lift electrical riser armature workshop vault restoration workshop archaeology gallery access stair

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lecture theatre passenger lift toilets temporary gallery exhibition preparation/gallery extension freight lift and electrical riser restoration workshop/store vault repository viewing gallery lecture theatre antechamber/function room processional staircase plant void over gallery

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Portico Foyer Cloakroom/lockers Toilets vestibules passenger lift information desk administration offices/conference room loading bay refuse bay access stair photography studio/ documentation centre stockroom/storage bookshop processional stair

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processional stair hypostyle hall lower hall cabinet chamber mezzanine passenger lift access stair circulatory staircase service plenum plant storage freight lift and electrical riser exhibition preparation bay doors over Bloom st

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processional stair hypostyle hall void over gallery access stair circulatory stair upper hall (main gallery) exhibition preparation ceiling mounted loading crane freight lift and electrical riser

lecture theatre

vault repository viewing gallery

photography studio

mezzanine

hypostyle hall

FORMULATION civic halls

archive

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processional stair library antechamber library reading room library stacks window carrels controlled stair access to archive rare books room librarianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office city reading room access stair toilets passenger lift freight lift and electrical riser architectural drawing gallery cartographic gallery balcony over upper hall storage void over gallery

library reading room

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processional stair long gallery antechamber long gallery city viewing portal library upper deck void over library void over gallery upper viewing deck photographic galleries passenger lift freight lift and electrical riser access stair

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processional stair upper halls antechamber C20 gallery crown court campanile viewing portal belvedere gallery/ function room city room passenger lift access stair event space/ large lecture hall/ gallery overspill retractable bar toilets freight lift and electrical riser catering void over gallery

long gallery

C20 gallery

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skylight over processional stair double height gallery passenger lfit overrun freight lift and electrical riser storage internal plant room sunken plant well (external) ladder access to roof

roof plan

FORMULATION the raumplan

03 17

THE CEILING AS THE PRIMARY ARTICULATOR OF SPACE The palladian plan paradigm becomes animated by the interplay of plan and section. The raumplan arrangement of varied sectional scales is employed to accomodate the differing scale of artefacts in the main galleries. The structural framework of the grid is shifted in section to produce an internal geography of rooms, obverse in disposition to the plan, the grid apparatus enables the two anthithetical arrangements to be reconciled within a single coherent form.

01 02

03 04

raumplan arrangement determined by the scale of artefacts contained within the archive reflected plan of main galleries: coffered ceiling as a framework for mechanical apparatus (cranes, lighting) persectival transverse detail section opting for a fluid spatial arrangement: first and second raumplan iterations

FORMULATION stacked volumes

RECONCILING THE PLAN WITH THE SECTION The raumplan establishes a spatial fluidity punctuated by implicit thresholds of level changes and the ceiling as a spatial delineator. The raumplan satisfies the spatial requirements of the artefacts on display whilst threading together the museological programme from the building base to the building top.

As a device to materialise the succession of space the processional staircase becomes an independent object to mediate between plan and section. Established as an absolute object by its distinct colouration and oblique trajectory relative to the salient perpendicularity of the grid the staircase permits an experiential reading of the raumplan. Visitors to the archive are able to levitate by virtue of the spatial gymnastics of the processional stair which vaults the raumplan.

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longitudinal section A-A [stair hall] longitudinal section B-B [upper hall] longitudinal section C-C [lower hall] transverse section D-D [frontal core] transverse section E-E [raumplan] undercroft - a fragment of City Tower dissected axonometric - circulatory route

RESOLUTION negotiating the raumplan

AUTONOMY OF CIRCULATION Circulation along the processional stair is spatially independent from the gallery spaces. From the stair, visitors are able to discern the raumplan arrangement of spaces and various halls simultaneously from the advantaged positions offered by the spatial projections made by the stair.

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Tesserae colouration as an inference of the bas relief Acute striation is an abstraction of the loom: a Manchester emblem Switchback section of processional staircase Switchback section situated The Red Stair as an autonomous insertion into the archive.

RESOLUTION artefact galleries

UPPER HALL

LOWER HALL

THE CABINET ROOM

The noble room of the Metropolis Archive, occupying four storeys the upper hall is reserved for the most monumental urban artefacts.

Traversing the section and a level change the lower hall accommodates a wider range of scales with smaller artefacts contained within alcove cabinets.

The alcove cabinets can be modified by adjusting shelf height to accommodate changing displays and the arrival of new artefacts.

ARTEFACTS IN CAPRICCIO The arbitrary capriccio style of artefacts within the archive becomes an analogy for the city, wherein architectural adjacency is determined by changes over time and not by a regimented system. In this way, visual intensity is generated by unlikely and fantastical formal combinations.

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the capriccio arrangement of artefacts artefacts and spectators inhabit the raumplan visual superimposition creates a miniature city of artefacts a guide gives a tour to visiting students an artefact is scrutinised by a visitor the gallery is occupied by artefacts and visitors alike

RESOLUTION society of rooms

03 21

LECTURE THEATRE

REFERENCE LIBRARY

CARTOGRAPHIC GALLERY

Flanked by the foundations of the two frontal cores, the intimate, 72 capacity, lecture theatre is enveloping and evocative of a cave.

The library and reading room recognises the English panelled library archetype, with alcoves and carrels in north facing windows for isolated study.

One of two twin galleries mirrored on the library level, the cartographic library displays urban schemes, masterplans and maps from Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history.

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a visiting professor lectures on Hilberseimer the curation team discuss an upcoming exhibition a visitor studies the Manchester 1945 plan view of the library reading room view from a hidden balcony in the cartographic gallery

RESOLUTION envelope construction

01 detail 01

02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

02 detail 02

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SPECIFICATION 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

precast concrete sawtooth panels 70mm anthracite engineering brick coping 5mm roof membrane and bituminous roof seal 700mm railing with harness attachment 30mm paving slabs on 40mm sand levelling layer 140mm Kingspan rigid board insulation thermally broken steel bracket 400mm reinforced concrete column 60mm ventilated cavity 10mm steel flashing, DPM and vapour barrier Ancon thermally broken masonry tie 30mm blanched internal concrete precast panel

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220/ 100/ 70mm anthracite engineering brick on grey mortar 140mm Kingspan rigid board insulation steel flashing with end dam weep pistol engineering brick thermally broken steel bracket 710mm reinforced concrete column 30mm internal concrete precast panel

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steel flashing with end dam 60mm screed with underfloor heating over 120mm rigid board insulation gutter 40mm sealing compound continuous tanking membrane + DPM internal reinforcement bar aggregate under pavement substrate 600/ 850mm contiguous piled wall cap water stop perforated drain below frost line drainage channel cavity internal tanking membrane + DPM 100mm rigid board insulation precast concrete panel internal finish

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200mm cavity flashing and drainage channel to pump 60mm screed with underfloor heating over 120mm rigid board insulation Bentonite matting Ă&#x2DC; 700mm contiguous piled wall Ă&#x2DC; 400mm piles at 700mm centres 500mm compacted hardcore + sand binding layer

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35 36 detail 04

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STRUCTURAL SYSTEM The body of the archive is considered as a concrete ribcage under a carapace of brick. The shell of brick sheathes gradually decremental concrete piers which manifest the tectonics of load accumulation, becoming attenuated towards the top of the building, and stepping out to form butresses at street level, articulating the street wall. The body of the archive is bracketed by a two frontal cores and a rear core bracing the longitudinal beams, whilst lateral forces are resisted by the piers.

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1:50 Section through structural pier 1:20 Parapet detail 1:20 Junction wall/intermediate floor 1:20 Junction wall/ground 1:20 Junction foundation/ground Exploded structural axonometric

RESOLUTION closing the street wall

INSTAURATIO URBIS

The site represents an incomplete datum within the study area, by closing the street wall the archive recovers the historical genius loci of the study area. The evocation of the warehouse in scale, massing and typology establishes the archive as site-specific archetype, a form determined by a critical reading of site and history to generate a contextual and contemporary form.

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closing the Richmond Street wall Richmond Street elevation closing the Bloom Street wall Bloom Street elevation morphology isometric Bloom Street contextualised elevation Richmond Street contextualised elevation

RESOLUTION formal autonomy

RHYMING STRATEGY The architecture of the Metropolis Archive seeks to recognise the architecture of the locus without indescriminately appropriating its properties. An abstraction of the typological features of the warehouse instead elicits a rhyming strategy vis รก vis the context, whereby the genealogy of the architecture is comparable, but not directly continuous.

01 01-04 05 06 07

Metropolis-Archive responds to the massing and morphology of the locus [site model: atelier CG] indirect reference: recognising the datum the street wall is punctuated by the archive new street condition along Chorlton Street

RESOLUTION adapting the warehouse

TRANSFERRING TYPOLOGY

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Articulated window aedicule Hierarchical ordering of vertical and horizontal Secondary entrance from Richmond Street Staff entrance from Richmond Street Noble facade to Chorlton Street, abstracted portico within tripartite arrangement as an evocation of the warehouse typology

The transferral of the warehouse typology and the realisation of the programme to house urban artefacts yields the answer to the adage, how is a building like a city? In containing and representing city artefacts the archive seeks to embody and perpetuate the genius loci in a contemporary manner.

RESOLUTION street threshold

PORTICO DETAILS

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07 08 09 10 11 12 13

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01 02 03 04 05

aspect to processional stair from mezzanine integrated banquette on mezzanine level portico plan - portico and mezzanine form one threshold device the pre-eminence of the red stair in the foyer Chorlton Street elevation of the portico

03 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13

bronzed frame critall glazing aluminium flashing detail thermally broken bracket fixing 30mm precast concrete panel and ventilation gap 100mm kingspan rigid board insulation reinforced concrete beam, profiled to create banquette underfloor heating with screed and polished concrete finish 40mm rigid board insulation thermally broken bracket fixing with tray to expel water ingress concrete precast lintel with drip profile 2400/ 800mm bronze doors anodised aluminium door hinge exposed ceiling mounted lighting

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2400/ 800mm bronze doors 30mm sandstone cap in situ reinforced concrete column steel bracket fixed to internal column/door 140mm kingspan rigid board insulation anodised aluminium door hinge 40mm security door in bronze 1200/ 200mm external precast concrete portico columns 30mm sandstone cap

RESOLUTION spatial succession

VISUAL ENFILADES The raumplan arrangement subverts the classical, linear enfilade to create spontaneous spatial/visual sequences across spaces. The scenographic qualities of the raumplan are enhanced by the repetition of the grid and in turn enhance the setting of the artefacts when viewed through superimposed framing devices.

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visual enfilade pierces the section - oblique and diagonal views are choreographed to follow the spatial sequence the raumplan creates a continuous punctuated space centred around the stair aspect across the long gallery towards the warehouse district aspect from access stair towards cabinet chamber across mezzanine aspect from cartographic gallery into upper artefact hall aspect towards the city reading room

SEQUENCE serial ascent

01 ARCHAEOLOGY GALLERY

PHANTOMIC PROJECTION Lola roams the Metropolis Archive and its multitudinous halls.

SEQUENCE serial ascent

02 UNDERCROFT

SEQUENCE serial ascent

03 VIEW INTO THE VAULT

SEQUENCE serial ascent

04 GROUND DATUM

SEQUENCE serial ascent

05 HYPOSTYLE HALL

SEQUENCE serial ascent

06 MEZZANINE

SEQUENCE serial ascent

07 PIANO NOBILE

SEQUENCE serial ascent

08 INHABITED BEAM

SEQUENCE serial ascent

09 DRIVEN VOID

SEQUENCE serial ascent

10 TERMINUS