MS A BA ARCH
Christina Lipcheva Manchester School of Architecture BA(Hons) Architecture Class of 2014 39 Viscount St Manchester M14 5UH 00447926650064 00359879043134 ch.lipcheva@gmail.com issuu.com/christinalipcheva
CONTENTS 4-11
Fashion Factory 12-17
Pomona Seeds 18-21
Spatial Anachronisms 22-25
Forest Fission 26-29
Ironbridge Whitewater 30-37
Other Work
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PRINT FACTORY 3D Printing Factory Current Final Year Project
The third year design studio project introduces studio ateliers which students select to work within for the duration of the year. The atelier selection informs the topic of enquiry and a critical approach to a city territory. Students develop group agendas and an individual approach that become the foundation of their year long studio project. The project presents the challenge of imagining, questioning and developing a project agenda and programme that engages contemporary urban transformations and urban characteristics and brings academic rigour and critique to bear on the student’s own position within the discipline of architecture. In the Continuity in Architecture atelier, we are interested in the qualities of place that have persisted, and we prefer a reading of history that stresses the permanence of tradition as the subject of architecture. Tradition in architecture in this context is the embodied meaning of buildings and cities produced by centuries of lived experience. Our topic of inquiry are the ways in which contemporary transformation in our preoccupation with novelty connect to and shape the contemporary city of persistent artefacts. We recognise that the most successful cities have adapted urban patterns and buildings to uses never imagined by their original creators, and we savour the enthusiasm of architects working within existing structures and urban fabric to produce a responsive architecture of narrative, space, intervention, and detail. 5
The project aims to preserve and develop place identity by expressing the integration of artefact and novelty in materials and technology on both physical and programmatic level. Materials and technology are essential in preserving and developing the identity of a place - they are the physical, visual, most direct, instantaneous translation of the meaning of identity in an urban territory. However, in their common architectural meaning they are also inert and passive - a sensory presence, an environment or building elements which is simply a backdrop for human activities. There is another relationship between people and materials and technology that also preserves and develops place identity. It happens under 6
the conditions when materials and technology become an activity. Textiles are a part of Manchester’s industrial history and although the city is not anymore a “cottonpolis� textiles are still present in its industry and in its traditions and crafts. During the Industrial Revolution, textiles were a novelty, in the technology of their production. Manchester was the birthplace of the novel methods in fabricating, dying, processing textiles. Today, we are in the dawn of a Third Industrial revolution of 3D printing that presents textiles as a different kind of novelty and translates their artefact traditions in new materials and technology.
The materials and technology investigation of our urban territory started with a holistic analysis of all the buildings in our urban territory. We categorized materials and technology into three categories (facade materials, main structural assemblies and roof assemblies) and identified the types within each category that were present in our site. This methodology lead to a wholesome understanding of the urban territory.
Analysis of the data gathered through it lead to the undertaking of our second methodology - the serial analysis of materials and technology. The first methodology showed us the spread, distribution, dominance and grouping of the material and technology categories which lead to a sequential analysis that aimed to understand by sequential comparison the differences and similarities of the types of each category.
The two methodologies combined contribute to a holistic understanding of the materials and technologies present in our urban area and to the relationship between them, thus giving us an understanding of the material and technological expression of artefact and novelty and the relationship between the two. 7
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POMONA SEEDS Urban Agriculture Year I Design Studio Project
Pomona Island is the largest area of undeveloped brownfield land along the River Irwell which runs through the heart of Greater Manchester and it is one of the most important topographical features of conurbation. The river also forms the administrative boundaries between Manchester, Salford and Trafford and has long been treated as an edge of periphery rather than as a heart or spline. The project, set in the year 2020, aims at reconnecting Pomona island and explores the river as a valuable resource for the exploration of sustainable models of urban development, “green infrastructure�, bio-diversity, flood mitigation, pedestrian and cycle linkages, recreation and education. The project includes the development of a group masterplan for the island and an individual proposal for a specific area that explore the themes of reconnection and sustainability as well as the potentials of flooding, the introduction of biodiveristy through wetlands and urban agriculture.
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The focus of Pomona Seeds proposal masterplan project is to allow the site to become a productive landscape for the growing of produce for and by the local community and it explores the potential of new technologies and new social models in the establishment of sustainable urban agricultural systems.
RE-CONNECT The development of the masterplan started with an extensive research into the contemporary, historical and visual connection of Pomona Island with the immediate urban context as well as with the larger scale of Greater Manchester, as a border area of Manchester, Salford and Trafford.
This research lead to the layering of many analytical maps and the production of three dimensional models that explored various uses, topographical features, qualitative and quantitative physical characteristics and linkages.
The project draws inspiration from Bernard Tchumi’s masterplan for Park de la Villette, France 14
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The individual project focuses on a specific area, strategically determined form the masterplan, that provides opportunities for exploring the theme of reconnection to local communities. The site’s function and occupation will restore a sense of ownership and identity to the site
The project presents a a small building which relates to the urban agriculture scenario the group masterplan has adopted and the overreaching theme of reconnection. It comprises of an apple orchard that gives the opportunity to local residents to actively engage with growing, and cultivating fruit, as well as producing related food products and brew cider. It also has a small healthy eating and educational facility, series of classroms to experience and learn about the productive landscape.
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SPACIAL ANACHRONISMS Various Small Scale Interventions Year I Design Studio Project
The Northern Quarter is an urban area that has undergone dramatic change as the traditional textile industries declined. The area was gradually occupied by alternative urban cultures, slowly embraced as part of the branding of the city. The piecemeal redevelopment has left numerous gap sites which scale and condition does not encourage use. Reflecting on the cultural mix and urban context of the quarter, these projects investigate the potential of distinct sites, all accidental spaces, to be recolonised or occupied, whether permanently or temporarily, through small scale strategies or interventions. The varying scale, context and characteristics of the sites provides the opportunity to explore a range of relationships between the human and the urban, the private and the public, interior and exterior, threshold and boundary. The aim of the projects is to develop interventions or strategies for each site which promote the recolonisation or re-appropriation of the space. The proposals reinvent or transform the relationship of the space to the human scale, and offer an exciting, innovative and responsive both to the site and to the wider urban and cultural context of the Northern Quarter. They explore concepts of architecture and landscape in a contemporary urban context and consider the role of architecture and landscape design as an agent of regeneration and urban reinvention.
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IN TENSION
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During the first semester of the first year at Manchester School of Architecture we were asked to consider and reconsider the relationshhip between a body, our body and the built environment around you. The projects developed our new found awareness of the human body within space and an exploration of the way in which people occupy spaces, investing them with human meaning or programme.
The projects involve the exploration of themes such as movement and stasis, intimacy and sociability, enclosure and exposure, comfort and discomfort, structure and chaos, to the small but portable architectural scale and the larger scale extended landscape located within a series of sites in Northern Quarter, Manchester. 21
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FOREST FISSION Single Space Micro Pavilion Year II Design Studio Project
Forest Fission is a proposal for a pavilion project realized as a collaboration between Manchester School of Architecture and The National Trust. The site of the project is Duhnam Massey, a 300 acre deer park located ten miles southwest of Manchester, containing an Eduardian house and gardens. Four specific sites within the gardens were chosen by the client for the construction of temporary pavilions that would compliment and enhance the experience of the place during the winter months. The structures had to respond to the site’s historical and natural characteristics as well as robust climate during the winter. The Forest Fission pavilion is a proposal is designed as both a functional space that would offer a sheltered place for rest to the visitors, highlight and frame views of the gardens and at the same time as an sculptural response to the qualities of the surrounding landscape. The design process for this project was greatly influenced by the natural qualities of the site and its recreational use as well as the programme of the brief. As a consequence the process had much to do with research on small scale organic architectural structures/sculptures along with examples of other design fields. It also involved a closer observation of nature itself and its cyclical changes, as well as the linear sequential experience of the users.
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The project brief required the designing of a micro passive-pavilion that responds to the site, provides shelter from environmental conditions and is fully accessible. The pavilion had to have an educational or informative function with regard to the history or nature of Duhnam Massey. The concept was inspired by the organic forms and material qualities already present at the site and the form was influenced by the layered, curved anatomy of the tree trunk that is revealed to its full beauty and complexity in the, otherwise considered as imperfection, tree knot. The Forest Fission Pavilion draws upon the layered qualities of wood and explodes them vertically in a “fission-like� reaction. It then takes the negative of this form to create complex carved interiors, contrasted with the regular boxed exterior. The main purpose of the pavilion is to re-establish the intricate architecture of nature and reconnect with it; thus, blending with the surroundings to an extent that allows it not to interfere with the visitor’s experience of Duhnam Massey gardens but at the same time to support and enhance this experience. The structure of the pavilion was determined by its concept. The cost was an important criteria and a design challenge as funds were raised by the students. The design was significantly changed, without altering the concept, due to the initial great expenditure of material when plywood layers were stacked without spacing to achieve the height of the pavilion. 24
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IRONBRIDGE WHITEWATER Whitewater Canoe Kayak Centre Year II Design Studio Project
The Ironbridge White Water centre project aims to provide a gathering place and social hub for people practicing various water sports along the river Severn. The design of the building is based on thorough site investigation and analysis, user requirements research as well a dedication to sustainable and ecological solutions. The project’s brief outlined a number of aspects to be considered, among which the ones of greater significance were the environmental (physical, topographic, climatic, etc) conditions of the site, the more subjective sensory and sequential experiences of it, as well as the profi needs of canoe kayak racers and the dimensional requirements of users with mobility issues and the minimization of the environmental impacts of the building. Ironbridge is a small town located on the steep sides of the river Severn’s gorge, rich in both historical and natural context. It is a famous tourist destination and a city under the protection of UNESCO. The extensive investigation of this rich site context lead to a proposal that explores local materials and masonry traditions, taking the sustainability approach of ecocultural architecture. The site is a managed and processed landscape that has a cultivated, stable ecosystems and the project aims to preserve and sustain them, without causing any disruptions. Its focus is on vernacular, traditional forms and building techniques that are closely linked to craft skills and to people, providing an opportunity for it to be a project realized by the local community. 27
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OTHER WORK
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Exploration and documentation of Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach as part of the Manchester School of Architecture Events Programme developed under Continuity in Architecture Studio. 33
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Part of the MSA Events Programme, the Tatton Park event explores the park and Edwardian house, looking for traces of history and trying to understand how the place looked and functioned during the time of its original use as a residential estate. The watercolour above depicts the sensory architectural experience of the kitchen room when it was functioning. 35
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Structural Case Study Projects
Bowali Visitor Centre Kakadu National Park Australia Glenn Murcott & Troppo Architects 1994
Minnaert Building Utrecht The Netherlands Neutelings Riedijk 1994-97
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