BENJAMIN CARTER COMMON GROUND
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METROPOLIS ARCHIVE CURATED PORTFOLIO
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_THE LOCUS 04
Theorist-architect Aldo Rossi posits the possibility of looking at the city as an arena of decisive and singular events whose defined forms pose a challenge to the urban phenomena surrounding them The Project of Autonomy - Pier Vittorio Aureli
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Extent of site-contiguous streets within the study territory Delineation of the study teritory grid Continuous street wall and urban monuments diagram Urban artefacts constituting the street wall
THE MANCHESTER GRIDIRON Girdled by a highly defined grid network of Manchester’s city core, the locus - i.e the specific qualities of the site - presents an ill-defined condition of scattered vacant sites and an inconstitent architectural character. Vestiges of the city grid remain latent in the tracts of vacant plots: a subliminal ordering device, in which lies a palimpsest for new urban form, and the potential for Instauratio Urbis - urban restoration.
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_URBAN ARTEFACTS THE WAREHOUSE AND OTHER URBAN MONUMENTS The prevailing architectural language of the study territory is defined by the warehouse-palazzo typology. The Italianate architecture of local urban artefacts creates a highly articulated street wall, manifesting the grid arrangement in elevation and in plan. 01 01 Plan of the study territory, [Grey: normative fabric. Black: notable urban artefacts] 02 The grid is apparent on the facades of the C18 warehouses of the study territory
Terminal vistas are established by extraordinary urban artefacts which defy the normative warehouse fabric through their vertical emphasis. These monuments occupy the terminus of the scenographic frame created by the linear street walls of the gridiron, these towers, chimneys, campaniles visually punctuate the peripheries of the study territory.
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_THE METROPOLIS ARCHIVE HOUSE OF THE CAPTIVE GENIUS LOCI 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’s genius loci - the sense of place - becomes an internal condition as its elements are brought together within the confines of the museum, the arbitrary adjacency of artefacts as a metaphor for the eclecticism contemporary city.
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Artefact - C20 building fragment Artefact - C18 building fragment Undercroft with fragment of City Tower Self-destruct city Mancunian repository, distilling the city
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01 oblique views are choreographed to follow the spatial sequence 02 the processional stair threads the section 03 visual enfilades evoke classical plans 04 raumplan permutations seek spatial fluidity
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_SPATIAL SUCCESSION THE RAUMPLAN VERSUS THE PALLADIAN PLAN A building for buildings must necessarily be of a scale proportional to the magnitude of the fragmented forms contained within. The Raumplan sectional arrangement, developed by Adolf Loos, stacks rooms with open contiguous borders to create spatially determined but unimpeded space through the section. This arrangement allows artefacts of varying scales to be contained in spaces commensurate to their own scale whilst creating an internal geography of sequential spaces connected by the processional stair.
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BLOOM STREET
RICHMOND STREET
REFUSE BAY
STORAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
LOADING BAY
ARTEFACT LIFT
PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
CONFERENCE
DOCUMENTATION
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CURATION OFFICE STOCKROOM
VOID
01 01 the processional stair pursues the spatial sequence 02 internal gestalt images 03 groundplan - cruciform circulatory plan
ADMINISTRATION
BOOKSHOP
_CLASSICIST ANALOGY THE SEARCH FOR FORMAL ARCHETYPES In counterpoint to the section, 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 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.
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VESTIBULE
TOILET
HYPOSTYLE HALL
LOCKERS
VESTIBULE
LIFT
VESTIBULE
TOILET
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PORTICO
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PEDESTRIANISED APRON
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_RAUMPLAN THE STAGGERED SECTION The plan and the section follow obverse planning logics, creating a spatial dichotomy reconciled by the grid, apparent in plan and section. The severity of the palladian plan paradigm becomes animated by the interplay of plan and section, consequently enabling new ways in which to view artefacts.
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principal artefact gallery longitudinal section A longitudinal section B transverse section
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_NEGOTIATING THE SECTION THE PROCESSIONAL STAIR 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 it offers.
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01 serial vision diagrams ascending the processional stair 02 spatial contiguity is threaded by the processional stair 03 the processional stair is aligned on axis with the portico and mezzanine
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parti diagram: capriccio arrangement of artefacts cabinet room: smaller artefacts are housed in pochĂŠ alcoves principal artefact gallery: large autonomous artefacts hypostyle hall: classical rigour is subverted by irregular staircase
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_ARTEFACT GALLERIES THE CITY IN CAPTIVITY 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 curated system. In this way, visual intensity is generated by unlikely and fantastical formal combinations.
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elevated reading room: antechamber to the reference library subterranean lecture theatre cartographic gallery projects over the principal artefact gallery parti diagram: artefacts and spectators inhabit the raumplan
_CIVIC HALLS THE PLAN IS A SOCIETY OF ROOMS Within the stack of principal galleries, smaller articulated rooms slot into the section as projections into space. Evoking noble archetypes such as the baronial hall or English panelled library these civic halls are dedicated to documenting and recording the city in two dimensional artefacts.
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01 noble facade: portico and tripartite elevation evoke palazzo warehouse typology 02 features of an abstracted typology: regularity rationalises differentiated bays 03 warehouses of the study area
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_EVOKING THE LOCAL TYPOLOGY THE WAREHOUSE AS A FORMAL ANTECEDENT 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.
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Bloom Street elevation Richmond Street elevation establishing a typological tension closing the Bloom Street wall closing the Richmond Street wall Chorlton Street elevation
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_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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ROOF/PIER
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ROOF/PIER
PIER/INTERMEDIATE FLOOR
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PIER/INTERMEDIATE FLOOR
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PIER/GROUND
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SPECIFICATION 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
precast concrete sawtooth panels
70mm anthracite engineering brick coping
30mm paving slabs on 40mm levelling layer 140mm Kingspan rigid board insulation under DPM thermally broken steel bracket 220/ 100/ 70mm anthracite engineering brick on grey mortar 60mm ventilated cavity Ancon thermally broken masonry tie 400mm reinforced concrete column
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400mm reinforced concrete column 220/ 100/ 70mm anthracite engineering brick on grey mortar steel flashing with end dam pistol engineering brick 30mm internal concrete precast panel
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steel flashing with end dam gutter 600/ 850mm contiguous pile wall cap aggregate under paving substrate internal tanking membrane and DPM perforated drain below frost line drainage channel cavity
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Ă˜ 700mm contiguous piled wall Ă˜ 400mm piles at 700mm centres
200mm cavity drainage channel leading to pump 60mm screed with underfloor heating over 120mm rigid board insulation
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FOUNDATION/WALL FOUNDATION/WALL
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_STRUCTURAL SYSTEM BUTTRESSES OF CONCRETE, CARAPACE OF BRICK
01 section of structural pier 02 expanded details of structural pier 03 internal detailing: the processional stair
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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.
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pier decrements plan: pier attenuation towards building top external buttresses delineate the street wall ‘radiator’ facade references vertical alignments of local fenestration glazing is rationalised within structural bays on building flanks, referencing the warehouse typology ground floor pier detail, brick carapace over concrete ribs
_REINFORCING THE GENIUS LOCI RECONCILIATION WITH THE STUDY AREA The project, contrariwise to its programme, seeks to project an external expression of permanence. By inflecting the architecture of the Metropolis Archive to that of the locus, (in doing so recognising the genius loci), the project can achieve a semblance of longevity by engaging in an act of urban interlocution with its context.
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_METROPOLIS ARCHIVE YEAR THREE - COMMON GROUND
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_HEATON HALL YEAR TWO - FINAL PROJECT
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acropolitan condition: hilltop cluster of classical buildings exploded plan: evoking the classical plan section through campus of buildings raised clerestories indicate significant spaces within the campus contemporary loggia acts as a liminal threshold to the hall colonnade cafe replaces the already demolished conservatory cafe Heaton Hall plan with addition of the new classical campus elevational rhythm of columns references existing colonnades
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_THE LANGUAGE OF CLASSICISM HEATON HALL: AN ARCHITECTURAL INTERPRETATION A project driven by the desire to create a harmonious ensemble of buildings, divided by programme, mediating between the internal hermetic condition of Heaton Hall and the open verdure of the eponymous park. The resulting study became an investigation into the language of classicism, how to fashion a building representative of modern construction yet reconciling the two architectures; involving the abstraction of the principle of trabeation, the selective application of ornamentation, a judicious use of materiality, and a plan determined by the Palladian villa whilst negotiating with the particularities of site.
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