Bryony Simcox - Stage Three Architectural Portfolio

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Show:Store

Contents

Year Design Report reflective summary of Stage 3 achievements, work and interests

Show:Store drawing centre for the display and use of pencils in Newcastle

Thinking through Making a week of exploring the possibilities of material

Chamber central Edinburgh performance hall and musicians’ accommodation

Percepolis charette week interactive sensory installation

DIY Streets design and research improving the streets of Fenham

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Contents

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Year Design Report More than 970 days since arriving in Newcastle. 3 charettes and 10 design projects over the course of 3 years. Tangibly close to the completion of a degree in Architecture.

This is a moment to reflect upon what has been a simultaneously inspiring, exhausting, challenging and rewarding learning process in an incredible North East city.

In terms of design, the last year has challenged both my process of design development and the methods with which I represent these designs. My technical understanding has grown, to cover an awareness of global production and sustainability, whilst personal interests and themes have matured and blossomed through the dissertation and self-directed research.

Meeting a whole host of interesting like-minded individuals (both peers and tutors) has whet my appetite for exploring the globe and connecting with others, and yet most of all I have formed a self-assured confidence and belief in my own approach to architecture.

My studio was primarily concerned with spatial qualities and establishing material parameters, and used a process of abstraction to develop design strategies. In its first project, ‘Chamber’, with David McKenna and Laura Harty, the study of complimentary texts regarding spatial composition and musical composition informed an ‘incubator’ stage, a method that I struggled to grasp onto to begin with because of its lack of reference to site or even brief. On top of this frustrated start to the project, being acutely ill led to a real time constraint, which I worked around and ultimately presented a complete project, an example of the time management and efficiency that studying the course has gradually afforded me.

That being said, I really enjoyed the preferred working style of the studio tutors to simultaneously design and present at multiple scales. Exploring things both in acute detail and with a wider perspective informed a much better technical understanding in terms of material junctions and detailing (such as 1:20 studies) as well as largerscale mapping and site context. The main theme that I developed in Chamber was an idea of space as enclosure and wrapping, and structure and space working together.

The intensive ‘Thinking Through Making’ week resonated deeply with me as a reminder of my fascination for the tangible. It was great to use play and testing as unexpected variables in the design process, and I was forced to accept the restraints associated with certain medium and work with them. Creating a large-scale 1:1 drawing linked to the ‘Show:Store’ Incubator provided a strong basis for my Drawing Centre and pencil collection design, as the drawing itself was entirely in pencil. Standing and drawing at a real scale, making iterations and changes as I went along for three days, felt like This module sparked a fascination for public space and ownership of the city, and the such a natural way of working for me and will be a highlight of the year. way in which we can question power/consumption hierarchies of the built environment.

Since writing To Change Ourselves by Changing the City, an abbreviated version has been published in Melbourne-based urban design magazine Affix, whilst I also attended Coming back to the second semester with a fresh head having submitted the dissertation the SEEDS: Innovation through Temporary Use conference in Sheffield to report on the and grasping a better understanding of the studio’s design approach, ‘Show:Store’ global work presented. I am also working as a researcher and designer in co-production with Kati Blom and David McKenna began with the study trip to Portugal. This time with Newcastle University and sustainable journey charity Sustrans, developing abroad re-sparked my love for travel, and observing Lisbon and Porto through fresh alternative ways to engage with the public and create platforms for participation. eyes gave me an appreciation for all of the city and its people and culture, rather Writing and researching the dissertation was a brilliant experience in learning how to develop a narrative and viewpoint on a current architectural topic. The written piece looks at urbanism and the way in which the urban realm can be shaped by unorthodox planning and designing methods, focussing more closely on two examples of community-directed projects, ECOBox and Caravanserai.

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Year Design Report

than just the celebrated and intentionally designed parts. There was an elegant sensibility to a lot of the Portuguese architecture from designers such as Álvaro Siza that influenced my design intent and use of materials in the following project.

The project’s aim was to ‘explore the nature of spatial relations, sequences and formation in connection to a specific compendium which has to be given an architectural interpretation’. I really got into the idea of establishing the unique qualities of an object and applying them to a place, investigating brief-writing for the first time, whilst building on the idea of abstraction from the ‘Chamber’ scheme. The merit of developing an abstract design strategy is that an approach can be formulated to apply at any scale, be it a room detail or even a master plan, and understanding this negated my previous fear of what I considered ‘large’ buildings.

One of my greatest frustrations was with the requirement to produce what seemed like vast amounts, but I gradually learnt to be selective and confident enough to assess tutors’ numerous suggestions before attempting them all. Clarity, precision, and succinctness emerged as core values, and continually reflecting on work through both a research journal and a learning journal as documentation tools confirmed and reiterated the approach I was taking in my Drawing Centre design.

The degree has been an incredible learning curve and a chance to explore aspects of architecture that I previously hasn’t even considered. The richness of physical things has inspired me, and I have certainly loved making models by hand, as well as hand-drawing and even using the skill of book-binding to produce both the research journal and the portfolio. Theoretical research has had a heavy influence on me too, especially as my work is often described as ‘overly rich’.

Reading and investigating the approaches of other architects has contributed to my ability to develop logical hierarchies of design ideas and succinct explanations.

The future holds new challenges, but I will enter it with a valuable skill-set and better understanding of the world and its buildings as a result of my degree here at Newcastle.

Images pages 2/3 and 5: all taken on Portugal study trip, February 2015 Image page 4: working on 1:1 pencil drawing in ‘Thinking Through Making’ week

Year Design Report

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Show:Store

S h o w S t o r e

Site as a canvas

City walls drawing pavilion Incubator proposal

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the Compendium

Pencil Marks and Pencil Making A symbol of creative energy and a connectedness of simple components, the pencil is an ancient mark-making tool that possesses an elegant, tactile quality.

With the first graphite found in 1564 in Cumbria, the origins of the pencil began locally but now span the globe, with timber sourced in North America, fabrication occurring in Germany, and the best graphite mined in Sri Lanka.

Described as ‘one of the most important creative tools in human hands’, pencils can be used to create art or become the artistic subjects themselves. The chosen Show:Store compendium includes writing, technical, sketching and specialist pencils, as well as historic artefacts such as collectible stationery paraphernalia, tools from the mining industry and original pencil drawings from local artistic figures such as Thomas Bewick.

Addressing the display and archival of this compendium, and the creation of space to use pencils in, resulted in the manifestation of the Show:Store building as a Drawing Centre.

Principles regarding the composition of pencil drawings and a pencil itself informed the design strategy, resulting in a scheme which emulates the interactive and tangible nature of pencils, encouraging users to re-engage with both the city and the act of drawing.

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Graphite Stick

A drawing tool A solid block that wears away with use A fragment of earth-bound material

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Storage Device

A human-scale enclosure A collection of 63 rolls of paper (amounting to the length of the original city walls) A block of cast lead, a reminder of graphite’s precursor as a drawing material

City Wall Fragments and Original Route

A 13th century Medieval defensive wall A ‘line’ around the city that has loosened over time, smudging and crumbling like a fragile pencil mark A fragment of the past that has been destroyed and added to, and is often ignored or overlooked

“The architect should act like an archaeologist, observing and revealing what is already visible but not necessarily appreciated� - Bo Bardi

Old/New Junction

Cantilevered steps users up from the way and on to the level of the city

draw path lower wall

Observation

Rather than bridging the gap between two city wall fragments, the cantilevered form acts as a city viewing platform and moment for pause

Interaction

Thick, crumbled city wall forms elevated walkway between object storage and drawing cabin

Creative Space

Object Specificity

Graphite stick sits in a lead block and rolls of paper are stored in a metal box of similar proportions to adjacent city walls

A simple getaway space for drawing and mark-making is provided by this linear, bench-lined enclosure composed of strips of charred timber and one-way glass

Drawing Pavilion Long Section (scale 1:200)

The Incubator

Drawing Pavilion

This concept-stage structure took inspiration from the idea of a ‘carbon copy’ and the primal replication technique of stone rubbing with graphite, paper and a textured surface. This stage allowed key design strategies to emerge and be tested:

reveal a forgotten city structure play with linearity create opportunities to draw and observe

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Show:Store

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Context

Places of Drawing in Newcastle

1 Great North Museum Archive and historic artefacts 2 Hatton Gallery Selection of 14th-21st century fine art exhibitions 3 Laing Art Gallery Historic regional artworks and artefacts 4 Vane Gallery Representing range of contemporary UK and international artists 5 Newcastle Arts Centre Art supplies and various drawing classes 6 Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art International exhibitions

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is an artistically-diverse city with a rich heritage of learning, creating and drawing. The Show:Store brief was developed in accordance with this local setting, offering a place to buy artistic supplies, access historic artefacts or documents, partake in drawing lessons, and view art from local practitioners or further afield. The site, adjacent to the 1904 Laing Art Gallery and occupying the original location of the City Library, provides a chance to reconnect the pedestrian thoroughfare of Northumberland Street and the modern library with the gallery and open public space, which is currently separated by the busy John Dobson Street.

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Laing Gallery

Original Library & show:Store site

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Modern public places often lack visually coherent patterns, and ‘The Image of The City’ has been a welcome reminder about conserving the ‘legibility’ of a cityscape:

‘a landscape whose every rock tells a story may make difficult the creation of fresh stories’ - Kevin Lynch

Interaction with adjacent buildings

Working with directionality

Front, back and entrance points

Changing heights

Material transitions

Line - John Dobson Street

Tangible traces

City Composition

Smudge - Changing facade treatment

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Site Strategy

Connecting public space

Allowing access to the Show:Store building at both pavement level and the higher platform adjoining the Bewick Court residential block bridges two currently detached public outdoor spaces, whilst visual connections are made East to West between the Laing (a place of drawing) and the Library (a place of writing). Material treatments are used to reveal the building’s internal purposes, and the roofline attempts to bridge the scale of the modest buildings to the South, in juxtaposition to the overpowering 21-storey Bewick Court.

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Show:Store

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John Dobson street level Laing Wall as a “canvas�

Working with directionality of the street

pragmatic approach

Addressing the brief and technicalities

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Show:Store

Supporting columns

Roof terrace Connection to Bewick Court

Site response

In-situ concrete

External access

Structural shell

Central public area

Top-lit drawing studios Double-height library

Concrete block

Pierced gallery volume

Horizontal louvres (+ rainscreen) Fire protected stairs at ends

Drawing studio diffuse north light Subterranean pencil factory

Display + viewing spaces

Spatial progression

Solar strategy

Solid + void circulation

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‘I have always understood drawing to be the materialisation of the continually mutable process, the movements, rhythms, and partially comprehended ruminations of the mind’ - yves bonefoy

Ground

Laing Gallery brick wall remains exposed as a ‘canvas’

Hatch Shade

Concrete block provides structural stability as well as indentations for passageways and display or storage spaces

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Show:Store

Metal cladding screen provides light control and point of facade interest

Erasure

Cafe, gallery and drawing cabin spaces all form pierced volumes that break the facade and penetrate into the Laing Gallery

Design Strategy

The Drawing Centre

The Drawing Centre houses a compendium of ‘pencil-marks and pencil-making’, and as such is fascinated by processes (of drawing marks, of making pencils, of leaving traces). The process of drawing becomes a metaphor for this building’s section, whereby traces, layers, lines, and hatching translate to structural elements, surface treatments, and tectonic articulation.

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-1 Sub Ground Pencil manufacture

The subterranean level hosts a working pencil production line. This cavernous double height space is lit and viewed by a pavement-level window, adding a sense of drama to the manufacturing process and emulating the raw environment of graphite when mined, deep underground.

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Show:Store

Block with recessed shelving and cupboards for conservation equipment

Plant Paper Archive

Pencil Manufacture Conservation

Toilets Toilets

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0 Ground

Building opens out

Upon access from street level, the main compositional themes are exposed within the ground floor entrance space - the Laing brick wall, the central concrete block, the timber gallery volume and the gridded facade screen, with the main stairway traversing the void between.

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Ground Plan (scale 1:200)

1 First

Gallery into the Laing In addition to public and private study spaces, the first floor creates a connection with the existing ‘Northern Spirit’ exhibition space of the Laing Art Gallery.

The Show:Store gallery is a timber-lined volume containing selected artworks as well as offering views towards the city and into the adjacent building.

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Show:Store

Block with recessed shelving and cupboards for conservation equipment

Office

Staffroom Office

Research Room

Gallery

Interactive seminar and study space

First Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

2 second

Connection to raised level

Acting as a secondary public access point, the Bewick Court raised platform provides a spill-out cafe and planting area for the Drawing Centre, as well as a vantage point and sketching spot to observe the building as a composition in itself.

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Show:Store

Block with dark corridor through to the library Shop

Store

Toilets

Toilets

Cafe Kitchen Library

Second Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

3 third

Drawing spaces

Progressing from the lower manufacturing and research rooms, users are provided spaces to work under tuition and alone at drawing skills. Two large top-lit teaching studios sit alongside a temporary gallery space, whilst the individual cabins take inspiration from the secluded atmosphere of the incubator scheme.

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Block with entranceways into individual drawing cabins Temporary Gallery

Store

Drawing Studio

Drawing Studio

Cabin

Cabin

Cabin

Library Mezzanine

Third Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

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Intimate setting Emulating the progression of raw-torefined and scaleless-to-precise which can be found in the process of drawing and pencil making, the top floor displays the permanent pencil exhibits which possess an intricate, minuscule quality. The ‘paper room’ reinforces that intimacy, as a space carved out for a single person to sit and draw. The drawing canvas is a continuous roll of paper that falls through a void to the basement, completing a drawing cycle spanning the entire height of the building.

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Show:Store

Block with small alcoves displaying collection objects

Store

Toilets Paper Room

Permanent Exhibits

Terrace

Fourth Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

Cross Section into Laing (scale 1:100)

Cast in-situ concrete forms the central block of the construction, with concrete floors spanning across and braced by a series of columns. The drawing cabin is an independent timber frame structure that appears separated from the main spaces. The Laing Gallery wall is exposed internally, and a lightweight structure forms the top floor wall above the roofline of the Laing.

Curtain wall structural glazing forms the facade, screened by a suspended metal mesh on the lower floors, with timber louvres at the top floor.

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design Development Modelling and Manipulation

Testing processes for the proposed Show:Store design involved repetitive model-making, iterative plan development, and experimental testing. There is an intimation between person and the pencil (as object-cum-artefact) that occurs in the Drawing Centre itself that the design process attempted to emulate, through direct mapping, thinking, writing, and sketching.

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Show:Store

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Taking inspiration from the tactile and evocative nature of raw materials (as explored in the incubator), themes of rock, void, paper, wood and graphite were established. These elements were developed as exterior treatments, internal linings, and massing components.

Establishing a simple strategy, the idea of store/private spaces as solid volumes, with a central ‘void’ space where all public activity and display occurs emerged. Vertical or linear elements as solar screening and privacy devices also became a framing device for the void.

Acting as the introduction to the building, the west facade became a composition of layered elements as well as an indication of the internal spatial organisation. A series of screens, treated surfaces and protruding volumes were arranged to address the scale and articulation of the surrounding site.

Texture composition

Material Qualities

Textures and junctions found on study trip to Porto and Lisbon, February 2015 - old with new, screening devices, ancient stonework, protruding volumes and seamless concrete

Solid and void

Manipulating the facade

Material junctions

Tactile qualities and connections

Returning to the object collection, an elementary observation was one about the physical nature of drawing devices; the way in which the graphite of a pencil has a weight and a messiness about it, and that the connection of the wooden casing around the graphite is almost seamless. The detailing of the Drawing Centre takes inspiration from these pencil qualities, particularly in the facade, which is a buildings’ face to the city. Different materials also symbolise functions within the building - with exposed concrete used in service and ‘solid’ (and thus private) spaces, and timber used as a lining to the key creative and public spaces; the library, gallery, and drawing cabins.

The Jerwood Space Pencil storage

A fundamental precedent was this extension by Munkenbeck + Partners which is designed to appear lighter than the main volume of the existing brick building. A large glazed space sits atop a corten box, whilst timber shutters provide a semi-enclosed corridor space and create light control.

Drawing cabin

Piercing the block

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Initial facade proposal

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Extensive studies and facade composition development looked at the interplay of different treatments, surfaces and coverings, returning to the theme of pencils as simple connected materials with rich qualities.

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Exposed concrete wall

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Continuous fine mesh screen obscuring concrete wall fenestration

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3 Curtain wall glazing with wider aluminium mesh 4

Protruding timber volume with glazed end

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Large angled vertical louvres

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Street Elevation and Long Section (scale 1:500) along John Dobson Street from Bewick Court to Newcastle Building Society

The Drawing Centre Facade (scale 1:200)

smooth concrete walls with small chamfered windows, structural glazing with metal mesh screen and protruding volumes, top floor timber louvres and roof balcony

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Thinking Through Making

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Final exhibition

Drawing and cast pieces presented after five intensive days

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Thinking Through Making

Material exploration

Drawing, making and experimenting Taking a step back from the world of architectural design, the ‘Thinking Through Making’ week looked at both representation and the way in which the production of work can change design in itself. A key portion of this time was dedicated to the production of a 1:1 large scale drawing (left), which was hugely beneficial to the development of the incubator stage of the ‘Show:Store’ scheme as it directly engaged with the ‘Show:Store’ subject matter of pencils.

In addition to the drawing enquiry, Amy Linford introduced the theoretical implications of casting, using fabric and plaster testing to create ‘rules’ for construction. There was an element of unpredictability and messiness about the process which directly inspired the use of rougher or more abstracted modelling processes later in ‘Show:Store’ with the Drawing Centre concept designs.

Representing the engineering stance on material exploration, Steve Webb delivered a workshop concerned with ‘design by constraint’, attacking the idea that a beautiful object is at the expense of a functional one. Using suspended string structures dipped in plaster, which are then left to set before rotating and (hopefully) standing under tension, he reinforced the important link behind form-finding and structural logic.

Thinking Through Making

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Laboratory setting

Slow-evolving process

Process photography

Dynamic chemistries

Workshop with Professor Rachel Armstrong to explore the computational properties of the natural world and the development of ‘living’ architecture

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Thinking Through Making

Documentation

Iteration

Temporality

Environment

Repetition and variation

3D drawing using Hydroscopy

The lively matter (salt crystals dyed with food colouring) in this testing process possesses an affinity for water which encourages its penetration through an interface (olive oil) and thus spontaneous drawing activity which can then be photographed.

The change of matter in space

Mark and medium interact in this experiment with active gel, suggesting the use of substance performance as a new drawing practice. The methodology was a refreshing approach to traditional design or representation work, instead imagining new architectures.

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Chamber

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Slipping from one space into another Articulation and openings collage Incubator proposal

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Chamber

the Composer

Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Composer Simon Jeffes conceived of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra as a celebration of randomness, spontaneity and surprise, a musical ensemble which uses themes and orchestration usually associated with disparate geographical locations and cultural styles. Each track has an idiosyncratic inspiration and a bizarrely specific title, and it is said that ‘dissolving the otherwise insuperable barriers of time and space was, and still is, an important function of the magic contained in his music’.

Top images from left:

Musical notation for ‘Playera’ by Sarasate, violin detail, composer Simon Jeffes, musical ensemble ‘Penguin Cafe Orchestra’

Bottom images from left:

(All Junya Ishigami + Associates studio.)

Variations on traditional typologies for elderly homes, project for Kanagawa Institute of Technology campus cafeteria, house for a young couple in Tokyo

the Architect

Junya Ishigami and Associates

Ishigami combines reality with surprise in his surrealist take on Japanese minimalism, creating spaces that allow people, furniture, and nature to overtake and inhabit the space as they wish: ‘I want to create a new kind of space with very ambiguous borderlines, and avoid the abstraction that is characteristic of diagrams; a diagram compresses and abbreviates information. Rather than distilling information, I try to keep it all present’.

Chamber

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‘The interest is not just in the physical characteristics of objects; it’s in how the material qualities of things can influence deeper thoughts about life and use, relating to more profound and perhaps even metaphysical aspects of architecture, to how we experience things.’- Sheila o’Donnell Overlap

Addition and subtraction of two existing objects creates an interplay of interstitial moments where surfaces and volumes overlap

Continuity

The wax provides a seamless surface treatment to a series of separated elements and architectural moments

Connection

Wire, indentations, thread and wax all explored as methods to pierce or surround a solid component

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Chamber

The Incubator Distilled concept

The description of the composition process in terms of Simon Jeffes’ music and Junya Ishigami’s architecture inspired a series of models, and drawing. The incubator drawing (left) explored an imagined setting for musical performance, where passageways for sound, sight and circulation create audio and visual surprise. The collage (page 44) looks at articulation as a continuous or connected element, imitating the “dissolved barriers” of Simon Jeffes’ music.

surprise and spontaneity ambiguous borderlines seamlessness

Chamber

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No audio transmissions from rehearsal space

Visual connections from audience foyer

Structure and surface

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Chamber

Design Strategy

Continuity and discontinuity Taking the abstraction of the incubator and applying it in a literal, structured sense, the design consists of separated spaces that are somehow connected. Isolated rooms are containers for various types of activity, defined by levels of audio and visual privacy, and connected or linked by the overlap of openings, linings, and borders.

Penetrating and overlapping volumes

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Musicians rehearse

Rehearsal room can be viewed by the public upon entrance but somehow audibly separated, creating tension and surprise

Performance occurs

Curved wall reflects sound back to performers, in contrast to traditional concert space concept

Enter and observe

Entering ‘backstage’ and observing rehearsal before performance as a reminder that the building is a residence as well as a public space, challenging performer and audience interaction

Programmatic Connections

for a city centre performance space and music hall

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Chamber

‘Dissolving the otherwise insuperable barriers of time and space was, and still is, an important function of the magic contained in his (simon Jeffes’) music.’

- Robert Sandall

Isolation and connection Re-engaging with overlooked ideas of ceiling, floor and window, and the way in which simple architectural elements can interact. This concept for a room is ‘insulated’ for acoustic purposes by a thick wall, which is then pierced and inhabited by window seats for visual/spatial interaction.

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Context

Creative and performance space in Edinburgh Chamber looks to provide accommodation for four music students in the centre of the historic Edinburgh old town, a topographically exciting neighbourhood of layered building functions and styles. The city hosts a strong cultural scene, with events including the International Festival, the Fringe, and the Jazz and Blues festival, all of which demand settings for performance. The Chamber Music School and Centre design would compliment existing venues around the city, and offer an events space with close proximity to a major transport link (Waverley train station), tourist destination (the Royal Mile) and exhibition spaces (City Art Centre and Fruitmarket Gallery).

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Chamber

Site Tensions

Constrained box

Dense city centre site is defined by structures on all sides

Connection of space

Steep alleyways traverse streets at split levels

The Royal Mile

Cockburn Street

Market Street Edinburgh Waverley

Unravelled cityscape

Overlapping heights and topographic variation within Old Town

Chamber

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Box within a box

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Chamber

Entrances as subtraction

Piercing the box

Linings overlap

Unravelling the layers

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Site Plan (scale 1:1000)

Chamber

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-1 Sub Ground Musicians’ facilities

Protected below street level, the recording and rehearsal spaces are accessed from the rear (service) wall of the main hall, whilst visual connections are made up to the entrance foyer through a long thin window at the top of the rehearsal room wall, maintaining connections between the public/private spaces.

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Chamber

Sub-ground Plan (scale 1:200)

Chamber

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0 Ground

Public performance Accessed by a large outdoor performance space on Market Street, the ground floor hosts both service spaces and the main hall. The ‘thick’ walls are articulated through dropped ceiling heights and offer passageways up to the hall, in contrast to the generous volume of the foyer with its large window into the main performance space.

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Chamber

Ground Plan (scale 1:200)

Chamber

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0.5 intermediate

Spontaneous side

As a reminder of the ‘idiosyncratic moments’ described in Simon Jeffes’ music, the lower access point for the residential part of the building is a sudden doorway hidden at the base of Anchor Close, with a narrow passageway through the ‘thick’ exterior wall. A stair leads down to the public portion, or up into the progressively more private quarters.

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Chamber

Intermediate Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

Chamber

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1 first

Communal living space The main private entrance, midway along Anchor Close, leads to a light-filled elevated passageway with views into the main hall and access to a private outdoor space at the end. A key public view down into the hall is provided from the Close, which is matched by a window on the opposing side of the hall in the living space.

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Chamber

First Floor Plan (scale 1:200)

Chamber

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Cross Section (scale 1:100)

A cast in-situ concrete structure prevents the transmition of sound through mass, whilst the concert hall features internal sound absorbers behind the timber cladding to provide isolation.

Concrete is left exposed in the overlap moments of the ‘thick’ walls, and detailing appears connected through flush windows andw lighting to ceiling continuations between spaces. The external form is wrapped in smooth pre-cast concrete cladding and a warm deck flat roof.

Protected musical spaces as richly textured enclosures

Material palette as a junction of domestic, functional and formal

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relation to site

Mark et St ree

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Unravelled box on the complex street hor

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Viewed and accessed from a multitude of angles and levels, the Performance Venue and Music School has both a privacy requirement and a need to face the city. A minimal concrete-clad facade reveals little about the concert hall within, maintaining an air of surprise upon entry and displaying a refined articulation in the context of the varied elevation of Market Street. Portions of the exterior hint at the logic of overlapping volumes within, whereby cutaway spaces are formed at the main entrance and the Anchor Close musicians’ door, and the fenestration proportions indicate both public and private functions of music venue and accommodation, with a large window into the foyer at street level drawing visitors towards the performance courtyard and public entrance.

Main Hall

Building Net (scale 1:500)

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Chamber

Market Street Elevation (scale 1:500)

Chamber

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Residential

Kitchen Living space

Performance

Main concert hall

Technical Section (scale 1:50)

The complex brief forced a series of spatial sequences that are at once suitable to each individual function and also relate to one another.

The ‘box within a box’ concept is manifested through two thick walls that can be inhabited (such as in the living space, with seating and kitchen units) and protect the main hall from the busy street. These concrete walls are left exposed; ‘revealing’ the structure, whilst internal spatial overlaps of timber cladding, carpet and terrazzo tiles act as continuous elements through different spaces, and play with material qualities associated with public and private, functional and formal.

To the foyer To the street

Outdoor music space

Precedent connections

Linking design strategyies with existing architectural designs

Box within a box

Entrances as subtraction

The main auditorium is ‘pierced’ by square apertures, offering views in from the corridor

A monolithic form is cut away to provide a covered undercroft and main entrance space

Piercing the box

Linings overlap

Two concrete layers connected through openings form an intermediate zone for services and utility spaces in this home

Materials ‘dissolve’ between furniture and structure, creating a continuous wall treatment

Bijlmer Park Theatre, Paul de Ruiter

Casa Poli, Pezo von Ellrichshausen

New Walsall Art Gallery, Caruso St John

Skogskyrkogarden complex, Gunnar Asplund

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‘He (Gottfried Semper) shrinks the 3d separating layer to an incorporeal surface skin, textile, clothing, coating’ - Andrea deplazes

Material tectonic

Overlap moments

The Performance Venue and Music School plays with themes of seamlessness, separation and continuity through its use of layers and linings. On the left (main hall detail), the pendant lights almost form a suspended ‘ceiling‘ which aligns with the window looking in from the private entranceway.

Additionally, the foyer detail illustrates a connection to the exterior, where windows sit flush to the facade creating a homogeneous external skin as well as a recessed ledge internally.

The scheme was heavily influenced by the Raumplan concept developed by Adolf Loos, where spaces are structured as a series of stepped areas or “interconnected continual spaces” in relation to different functions. His Villa Müller in Prague displays parallels with the Chamber scheme, as a simple form and facade containing rich and complex interiors using materials related to use: marble cladding for the public areas and wood for the private rooms.

Technical Details (scale 1:50)

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Chamber

1:20 Model

Exploring key spatial and visual connections between foyer, main performance hall, and musicians’ residence and providing a visualisation tool for internal perspectives

Chamber

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Percepolis

p e r c e p o l i s

Sensory confusion

An installation to intrigue, delight and overwhelm

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Percepolis

Compression

Northumberland Street

p.m.

The Gate entertainment centre

Overload

Football riots

Common haunt

Quayside markets

‘A city of Contrasts’

Charette Week ‘Percepolis’ project

Conducted as part of a collaborative mixed-year group, Percepolis (= perception + cities) aimed to explore the specificity of place in relation to the current genericism of architecture, looking more specifically at the city of Newcastle as an interactive installation.

The project provoked questions about how our senses act as mediators in a world of both over-stimulation and over-familiarity, and how we can subvert those innate processes.

‘Characteristic poles’ (left) were established in the city, each of which linked to site use or timeframe, and were then translated as a series of sensory processes within an installation. Using unsubscribed acts of motion and coercion, the ‘perceptual pavilion’ which was installed in a gallery space within the Architecture building activated perception and changed engagement with a familiar space.

The exhibition began with a narrow walkway of decreasing height and width, dimly lit to under-stimulate the senses. The main space which followed was both confusing and overwhelming; a pitch black room filled with black balloons across the floor. Sensor-activated spotlights (which the group learnt to programme and design throughout the week) shone upon the presence of someone walking past, and then activated a sound recording ‘harvested’ from a location within the city.

The entire piece acted as a microcosm of the Newcastle streets, each with their own characteristics. and unusual sensory qualities which often go unnoticed.

Expansion

Town Moor

a.m.

Eldon Square shopping centre

Underwhelm

Empty St. James Park

Secret hangout

Old town alleyways

Percepolis

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Lighting installation

Planning and research

Entire room set-up

29th September until 3rd October: Intensive designing, testing, learning, installing and creating

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Percepolis

Thursday - Friday

Wednesday - Friday

Tuesday - Thursday

Monday - Wednesday

Collaborative chronological process

Wednesday - Friday

Sound installation

Electronic programming

Final installation piece

The exhibition involved a darkened room with limited entrance numbers. Audience were given minimal background information, and instead invited to enter and explore the sensory space which employed spatial, aural and visual tactics.

Collaborative, iterative working

The democratic process and unplanned outcome gave the project a sense of apprehension as well as latent potential energy. Major challenges revolved around available resources and also the use of unknown technology involving electronics in particular.

1000 Black balloons

A last-minute decision involved the ordering of 1000 black balloons; an element introduced to the installation room as “something unpredictable and without reference�, and the shape and texture of which contributed to the sensory confusion of Percepolis.

Percepolis

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DIY Streets

s t

r

D i y e e t s

Sensory mapping

Subverting the idea of community engagement through alternative activities

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DIY Streets

Fenham Hall Drive Street observation location Street event location

Improving the streetscape

Promoting sustainable journeys

Working under an Economic and Social Research Council grant for ‘co-production’ as a researcher and designer, this 10-week placement (March and June/July) looks at taking research from Newcastle University and applying it to a live project with a Sustrans, charity promoting sustainable, enjoyable and safer journeys. Sustrans’ project in question (part of their ‘DIY Streets’ scheme) focuses on Fenham Hall Drive in Newcastle, a busy main road that provides key amenities and transport links to the local school, and looks to improve the safety and quality of the street as both a journey and a destination.

Being site to numerous local schools, a public library, food shops and also swimming baths, Fenham Hall Drive has the potential to develop into a more enjoyable and much improved place to be, and Sustrans are conducting ‘community engagement’ in order to both establish the desires of the local people for the street, and inform them of the changes planned.

The research and design work at Newcastle University sets out to challenge traditional methods of engaging with the community, with the hope of gathering more ‘true’ opinions or creative ideas from the public. A series of 1:1 mobile street furniture (‘modules’) were designed, constructed and put into place on the street as a direct way of testing potential future typologies. This furniture (bench, table, planter) was then used in both a street party consultation weekend, and also left for a day and watched from afar to see how they would be used in a more ‘natural’ setting where people are given no explanation of their use.

DIY Streets

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Furniture-making process Reclaimed pallets were sourced and reinstated as a series of bench, table and planter, complete with green perspex surface treatment and castors for mobility.

The making process lasted almost a week and adopted a trial-and-error approach.

Active street ‘event’ A street party was held involving a host of informative engagement activities; the mobile furniture was left to explore, there was a seed planting workshop, and a ‘sensory mapping’ exercise involving a 3D model of the site with ambiguous material objects that could stimulate play and discussion

Passive street observation The street furniture was also left in a different location, nearer the schools and for a full working day without the direct interaction of the street party. This allowed systematic observation of the street’s users as their actions were observed from afar.

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DIY Streets

Imaginary scenarios for design

The intended outcome is that the new engagement methodologies proposed by Newcastle University inform the future approach of Sustrans, and shape the direction of the Fenham Hall Drive project. When people were afforded the chance to discuss and propose ideas in a more creative manner, they became more ambitious in their aspirations for the street and took on more ownership of their locality. The sense of open-ended community participation is a key motivation for DIY Streets.

DIY Streets

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Bryony Simcox b r y o n y. s i m c o x @ h o t m a i l . c o m 07849 613361 @bryonysimcox

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