R O YA L C O L L E G E O F A R T
UNIVERSIT Y PROJECTS
UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
CASTRA LOGICA In 2016, Amazon opened a new 100,000m2 fulfilment centre in a field outside Coalville, Leicestershire. The centre currently employs 900 permanent staff, but over each autumn hires an additional 2,000 people to cover the Christmas rush. As a result of the distance workers travel and the nature of shift work, there are limited chances to form community. This project asks whether architecture can provide spaces outside work and the home to restore dignity and agency to the workers at Amazon BHX2, Coalville. The proposal takes the form of a huge pub, a traditional English leisure activity, but expands it across the landscape in the form of a camp, a logistical endeavour. An infrastructure of paths links four permanent buildings, while the rest of the camp is assembled and rearranged according to the expansion and contraction of the warehouse workforce. The resulting facility has a looseness that allows for different forms of collective life.
TOWER OF FULFILMENT The architectural language of industrialisation is one of repetition and standardisation. ‘Fulfilment’ warehouses for companies such as Amazon are often made of a very few basic components in order to remain flexible for the complex processes inside. This series of casts takes the idea of a repeated component and asks whether it could create unique spaces with their own meanings and rituals. The defunct half of a Roman arch must work together with its neighbours to form different structural configurations.
IMAGE OF THE GLOBE From Earthrise to the Blue Marble and Google Earth, seeing our planet from the outside has been a powerful tool, and creates many subjective images under the guise of an objective truth. This model-making task takes the tradition of map projection - flattening the globe - and translates it to a three-dimensional structural expression of globalisation. Each node where the structure touches the ground translates to a ‘world city.’
DROWNED WORLD Much of Canvey Island in Essex lies below mean sea level. As the result of disasters such as the 1953 North Sea Flood, the island is protected by 14.2km of concrete seawall, designed to withstand a 1-in-1000 year flood event. However, the wall is showing signs of deterioration, and the town sacrifices a positive relationship with the estuary in return for a dubious sense of safety. This project explores an alternative landscape strategy for Canvey, one which prepares it for a renewed interdependence with the water. New flood-resilient housing provides a way to maintain the community on the island but allow for different ways of living.
D.A.I.S.I Cutting-edge digital manufacture meets good old-fashioned tinkering in the courtyard of Titus Salt’s wool mill in the World Heritage town of Saltaire. Based around a huge storage grid – D.A.I.S.I, the ‘Dismantled And In Storage Index’ – this community hackspace accumulates unwanted technology and enables people to re-use it to create new things or repair devices. The hackspace is based around two ‘spines’ of component storage that also incorporate tool walls, screens, benches, and doorways into the domains of the Residents - technical staff on hand to help.
O M I A R C H I T E C TS
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
N I C K W I L LSO N A R C H I T E C TS
H O LY T R I N I T Y P L AT T Built in 1845, this unusual terracotta church in South Manchester is one of only three in the UK. OMI Architects were appointed to reconfigure the 20th Century ancillary buildings to the rear of the sanctuary, to better allow for the church’s various children’s groups and midweek meetings. The proposal features an enlarged ‘breakout’ space which can be partitioned off to form meeting rooms for kids groups, a skylight facing onto the church’s east window, and improved kitchen, office and toilet facilities. I was heavily involved with this project through the planning, tender and construction stages, producing drawings and reports, meeting with the client and design team, and working on an NBS specification for traditional tender.
REVISION
ONE GREEN GATE 86.450
90
80
100
50
442.5
86.450
240
350
86.350
210
100
86.000 86.900
300
This 497-unit PRS apartment scheme was completed in 2015 by Renaker Group, a joint contractor-developer. I was involved in producing detailed construction and general arrangement drawings, particularly the roof package. Later, a revised planning application was submitted for the courtyard and foyer area, requiring new drawings and 3D views. This project offered a good opportunity to experience a live construction site and see the immediate relationship between drawing and building.
52.5
85.600
BLOCK
NOTE: SUBCONTRA STRUCTURAL RELEVENT ST
DE 52.5
612.5
PROJECT DRAWING DATE JOB NO.
GORE STREET PRS OMI was appointed to help ECP Car Parks develop this prominent site in central Salford. The scheme comprises a mixed-use development of 11 townhouses, 260 apartments, commercial space and amenities for residents such as a gym and restaurant. My work involved modelling the site and its surroundings to help realise initial ideas, working with directors and project architects to develop the design. I assisted with a full planning application and later began work on the Level 2 BIM model for construction.
27 BL AC KFRIARS ROAD OMI Architects were commissioned in March 2016 to propose development options for the conversion of a Victorian office building into apartments following a previous planning consent. The design team reconfigured the internal layout, added a new two-storey zinc-clad element to the rear, and created an attic flat with dormer windows. I helped develop the design through a combination of drawing and CAD modelling in order to assess the impact on the street and allow the quantity surveyor to proceed with a cost plan.
NICK WILLSON ARCHITECTS This small London studio focusses on building high quality bespoke homes to Passivhaus standards, often in rural and suburban environments. Over the course of a four-week internship, I assisted the director and architects through 1:5 detail modelling, sketching and research for projects and competitions.
OTHER WORK
A T E L I E R L A J U N T A N A ‘ 17 I undertook this 7-day workshop with architects and model-makers Atelier La Juntana in northern Spain, under the theme of Model-Making In The Digital Age. The purpose was to develop traditional making techniques and skills, celebrating the role of hand-craft in an age of digital manufacture and 3D printing. Techniques covered included woodworking, mould-making and casting, ceramics, engraving, etching, paper embossing and screen printing.
WA L K I N G T H E [ AU G M E N T E D ] C I T Y My Masters dissertation focused on psychogeography and the ways walking in cities has been disrupted by GPS and location-based games. A new way of exploring cities on foot was revealed by the advent of ‘augmented reality’ games such as Pokémon GO in 2016. Access to layers of digital information prompted walkers to stray from the usual paths, often with entertaining results. My study explored the ways ‘augmented walking’ might resonate with the Situationist ideas of the flâneur and dérive. I undertook a series of walks in Bromley town centre in Greater London to try and understand what these games offer people in terms of opportunities for participation in urban environments. The dissertation achieved a Distinction.
INTENTIONS This group exhibition was a collaboration between ADS10 at the Royal College of Art and CAMPO gallery in Rome. Each student created a physical model corresponding to a Radical Italian project from the FRAC Centre in Orléans. The models and drawings were exhibited in the Walter Knoll Showroom in Clerkenwell in June 2018. My model, based on UFO’s Project for Florence University, consisted of a five tiered hollow ‘mountain building’, reflecting the enlarged mountain at the heart of the UFO drawings.
D R AW I N G I am passionate about hand-drawing and see sketching as an irreplaceable aspect of architecture. I spend much of my free time drawing or creating quick digital paintings using a graphics tablet. Sometimes the subject is from life, sometimes it is imaginary.
CORINA THOMAS corina.l.thomas@gmail.com 07985 914573 www.corinathomas.com/architecture
