PG2013 by francois girardin

PG2013 Published by the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Westminster The content of this book is ÂŠ University of Westminster ISBN: 978-0-9562793-8-5 First published 2013 Designed by FranĂ§ois Girardin Printed in London

Intro to PG2013

Masters

MAADM

Resonate

Edward Lancaster

Roxana Rakhshani

Elinor Taylor

Jing Wang.

MAARC

Fortune Chasi

Daria Gordina

Varunya Jarunyaroj

Liliya Kovachka

Hogun Lee

Daniel Mangabeira

Sebastian Mongillo

Tinusha Pereira

Hayley Pontremoli

Siriphong Saksurasub

Kazuma Sekino

Daria Seliutina

PHD

Isis Nunes Ferrera

Sarah Milne

100

Lilit Mnatsakanyan

102

Izis Salvador Pinto

104

Research

106

Experiemntal Practice

108

Alessandro Ayuso

110

Peter Barber

112

Anthony Boulanger

114

Julia Dwyer

116

Nasser Golzari

118

Sean Griffiths

120

Eric Guibert

122

Constance Lau

124

Andrei Martin

126

Will McLean

128

Kester Rattenbury

130

Gabby Shawcross

132

MACIG

Filip Visnjic

134

Zineb El Amraoui

Victoria Watson

136

Priyanka Bhattad

Andrew Yau

138

Liewu Fu

Kapani Nepuni Kayina

Expanded Territories

140

Jingyan Li

Roberto Bottazzi

142

Charity Mwaniki

Lindsay Bremner

144

Seyed Payami Hashemi Tari

Ben Stringer

146

Jing Xu

History & Cultural Studies

148

John Bold

150

Davide Deriu

152

David Dernie

154

William Firebrace

156

Josie Kane

158

Andrew Peckham

160

Ro Spankie

162

Christine Wall

164

Technical Studies

166

Will McLean

168

Mike Wilson

170

Staff

172

Sponsor

174

MAID

Ali Alavi

Stephany Augusti

Baiba Brezinska

Maria Constantinou

Stefania Controzorzi

Aleksandra Gutianskaja

Gresa Heta

Zivile Jureviciute

Valerie Mace

Nelcy Russi

Kateryna Shenderovska

Vane Tang

Vi Truong

Lina Vlasovaite

Marissa Walder

PG2013 Introduction

Welcome to PG2013

PG2013 is the catalogue that brings together the postgraduate achievements of the Department of Architecture. It sets out our ambition for a coherent postgraduate community in architecture overlapping with areas in the Built Environment and wider interests. Postgraduate studies and research in Architecture are expanding areas which go beyond the professional requirements of an Architect. Many practicing architects and related professionals, are encouraged to return to postgraduate study, while other former students of architecture, art and design subjects, cultural and critical studies may chose to divert into other areas of research and study. Such a rich mix of masters programmes and diverse range of PhD topics, is a reflection of staff whose own preoccupations whether in teaching or research, provide the critical framework in which these programmes operate. In Architecture we offer a wide range of Postgraduate study supported by a dedicated team of academics and support staff. Richard Difford coordinates the taught masters programmes and leads the MA Architecture and Digital Media. Samir Pandya leads the MA Cultural Identity and Globalisation, which continues to grow and move into new territories. Dusan Decermic, who took over the leadership of the MA Interior Design last year, concludes his first year as course leader and is moving the course on with new ideas and contributors.

Meanwhile the newest of our MA courses, the MA Architecture, coordinated by Dr Davide Deriu can celebrate its first set of graduates. Also contributing to the MA Architecture this year was Professor Lindsay Bremner. She supervises numbers of PhD students and is Research Director for the Department of Architecture. This catalogue is published to coincide with the PG2013 exhibition of studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work who have completed their Masters courses, and it provides an overview of each course, and a synopsis of the work of each individual students. This is a celebratory moment for each student and each one is to be congratulated with profound thanks to all teaching and support staff. Welcome to the exhibition and enjoy its creativity and innovation.

Professor Katharine Heron Director of Ambika P3 Head of the Department of Architecture

Window installation by architect Gordon Shrigley. A commission made possible by donation to the Department of Architecture.

In spring 2013 we collaborated with Sprovieri Gallery to restage The Happiest Man (illustrated here) by internationally acclaimed artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Russianborn, American-based artists, founders of Moscow’s conceptual art movement and pioneers of Installation art who collaborate on environments which fuse elements of the everyday with those of the conceptual. While their work is deeply rooted in the Soviet social and cultural context, it attains a universal significance. The Happiest Man was first created and staged in 2000 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and in Ambika P3 was widely reviewed and enjoyed by hundreds of visitors. Later in 2013 we are looking forward to a new exhibition of the work of Victor Burgin, a former teacher at the university (then PCL), and it is fitting that this exhibition is one of the celebrations of 175 years of the founding the institution. Burgin is Millard Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Professor Emeritus of History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz and is one of the most distinguished teaching artists of our time, whose crossdisciplinary work bridges media, culture and art. His photographic and video work is represented in many prestigious international public collections. Victor Burgin is the author of Thinking Photography, Between, The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity, In/ Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture, Shadowed.

In early 2014 we shall host ‘Polar Project’ a major exhibition by artist Elizabeth Ogilvie. Ogilvie is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art (part of Edinburgh University) where she’s involved in the ArtSpaceNature degree within Landscape Architecture. Ogilvie is a founder of CORE - a group of arts practitioners, academics and scientists producing creative research into climate change. CORE have been approached by Cambridge University and with them, Ogilvie plans to track icebergs in the Arctic using their satellite technology. This activity will provide a constant stream of data which Elizabeth will incorporate into a new large scale installation/artwork along with sculptural elements and footage filmed in Northern Greenland.

www.p3exhibitions.com 4

Masters Programmes

Introduction

Studying for an MA is a valuable opportunity. For some students, part way through their architectural education, it is a chance to specialise and develop their own design identity; for others, it is the first step towards a PhD and an academic career. But for all those engaged in masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s level study in the department of Architecture, an MA provides the context in which to reflect on their work as architects or designers and to enhance their design skills. The following pages feature work from four masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programmes: MA Architecture, MA Architecture and Digital Media, MA Cultural Identity and Globalisation, and MA Interior Design. Each course has its own individual character and subject-specific content but importantly all the courses are designed to support a variety of approaches to the thesis project. An exciting mix of people from different design and technical disciplines, and from many different cultural backgrounds, come together to study on our courses and each individual brings with them their own particular mix of interests and experience. The thesis allows each student to direct their research towards areas of study that will build on their previous education and can shape their future career.

The work has been organised by course with a short introduction by each of the course directors. Each section contains synopses of all this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis projects. These brief accounts provide a fascinating insight into the nature of research in architecture. Ranging from the intellectually challenging world of critical theory to the many exciting possibilities of research conducted both for, and also through design, every project presented here and in the accompanying exhibition, results from the dedication and hard work of all the students and staff involved.

Richard Difford Department of Architecture: Coordinator of Postgraduate Study

MASTERS PROGRAMMES

MA Architecture and Digital Media Course Tutors: Richard Difford, Ran Ankory, FranĂ§ois Girardin, Jon Goodbun, Dirk Lellau, Filip Visnjic. Students: Edward Lancaster, Jie Li, Samia Rahman, Roxana Rakhshani, Jariya Suksawatdi, Elinor Taylor, Magdalena Tym, Jing Wang.

Utilising new media technologies, physical computing and computational design, the MA Architecture and Digital Media offers the opportunity to form a critical understanding of the role played by these technologies in architecture. Students are encouraged to explore and incorporate emerging technologies and to demonstrate an imaginative use of digital media. By focussing on the potential both in the design process and in the fabric of architecture itself, the MA Architecture and Digital Media provides a context in which to learn programming and interactive design techniques; and to engage in exciting new research and innovative approaches to architectural design. The thesis project therefore brings together theory, design and technical skills as an integrated conceptual project. This year the staff and students of the MA Architecture and Digital Media also contributed to the hugely successful Resonate digital arts festival in Belgrade. The festival, organised by MA ADM tutor Filip Visnjic, hosted a number of talks by well known digital media artists and included a workshop run by Richard Difford and Anne-Laure Guiot exploring the creation of dynamic kaleidoscopic illusions in Processing.

Visiting Lecturers & Critics: www.maadm.org 8

Alessandro Ayuso, Miriam Dallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Igna, AnneLaure Guiot, Silviya Ilieva, David Scott

MA Architecture and Digital Media

RESONATE 2013 Digital Arts Festival in Belgrade

In March, for the second year running, the MA Architecture and Digital Media also took part in the hugely successful Resonate digital arts festival in Belgrade. One of the primary organisers of this event was MA Architecture and Digital Media tutor Filip Visnjic who saw many months of preparation and planning reach fruition in an exciting two days of presentations and workshops. The festival hosted a number of talks by well known digital media artists and included a workshop run by Richard Difford and AnneLaure Guiot exploring the creation of dynamic kaleidoscopic patterns in Processing: â&#x20AC;&#x153;It will create in an hour, what a thousand artists could not invent in the course of a year; and while it works with such unexampled rapidity, it works also with a corresponding beauty and precision.â&#x20AC;? David Brewster (inventor of the Kaleidoscope) Throughout history and in almost every culture, symmetry and repetition have always been considered fundamental to beauty. Symmetries surround us both in nature, and in art; and mirrors in particular have been constant source of inspiration. It should come as no surprise then that computational design is often deeply rooted in the machine-like nature of iterative and recursive patterns. Like the rich complexity of fractals or the endlessly fascinating dynamic of cellular automata, the reflected patterns created in the Kaleidoscope embody these symmetries in a way that is inherently spatial and which replicates the fragmented subjectivity of the digital age.

http://maadm.org/688 www.resonate.io/2013 10

Taking inspiration from this familiar philosophical toy, our workshop explored the possibility of creating dynamic kaleidoscopic patterns by combining the principles of the analogue Kaleidoscope with coded graphics created in Processing. Participants were instructed in scripting kaleidoscopic symmetries and guided in the creation of animated interactive graphics employing these principles.

DIGITAL KALEIDOSCOPE (Richard Difford and Anne-Laure Guiot)

MA Architecture and Digital Media

Edward Lancaster The elusive pursuit of clouds

Clouds surround us, not with vapor but with digital data, concrete and glass, steel and plastic. Clouds have become increasingly visible as metaphors in the structures of computing, art and architecture in the twentyfirst century. The dynamic complexities of clouds have come to embody a new perception of the world and its complexities both ecologically and sociologically. This is a world made possible by the scientific and mathematical pioneers of the twentieth century â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from whom we have inherited the techniques that underpin contemporary digital modeling and production, unknown to generations before. However, limitations still persist. The relationship between what can be drawn and represented with the assumed power of CAD and CGI, and what can be translated into a physical experience of matter, is not a fluid movement from one to the other. Ultimately a critique of the assumed truthfulness of simulations, this thesis explored this difficulty in translation through design research projects, working with the physical properties of gaseous matter (steam and fog), and contrasting or supporting these with simulations of fluid dynamics and particle algorithms. The problems that were encountered were set against a history from Baroque to Modernism, and theories of time and representation, from Henri Bergson to contemporary film theory. All of which reframed the questions asked not as contemporary questions but tied to history and the technology of representation.

MA Architecture and Digital Media

Roxana Rakhshani Biofeedback and Interactive Architecture

How can architecture be made more effective by being responsive to the internal functions of the human body? The term Biofeedback is “The use of electronic monitoring of a normally automatic bodily function in order to train someone to acquire voluntary control of that function”. This method is about awakening awareness of internal bodily functions in the users’ conscious mind; to improve the quality of their everyday lives or to treat their physiological and psychological problems. Biofeedback has been used as a basis of this project and has been analysed through a series of models and experiments in order to achieve an “Empathic Design” which encourages the user to interact with the surrounding environment for longer period of time. This interactive experience allows the user to focus on his/her body and control it, either to relax, or to stimulate specific kinds of reaction. Using interactive technologies combined with biofeedback can create an emphasis on the relationship between the Human and the Architecture, and make it more ‘biunivocal’. While occupants go about their daily lives, interactive architecture could help them become more aware of their own body. By its interactive features biofeedback can be used in this way, as a tool to fundamentally change solid, material and passive architecture and make it “alive”.

www.rakhshani.weebly.com 14

MA Architecture and Digital Media

Elinor Taylor Electronic Façade

The electric age is well established and we can perhaps begin to reflect on the effects of this technology in the changing nature of public and private façades. The current reliance on screen technology within the home and within the workplace through devices ranging from televisions to smart phones is unprecedented. Our ability to communicate is expanding exponentially and along with it the language of ornamentation and composition traditionally employed in architecture. Digital devices and electronics are now universally embedded in architecture. Controlled lighting, air conditioning and automatic doors, to list the most obvious, have all become standard public and private fittings. But it is not only the interiors of buildings that can support digital technology, the façade has also become electric – automated louvers, dynamic and interactive lighting are now relatively commonplace. This thesis explores the way standard building materials including acrylic, steel and glass can be employed using digital control systems - not just functionally, but ornamentally. Contextualising this in the wider history of architectural ornament, the thesis explores how the perception of surface and skin goes beyond basic structural requirements, and can become a dynamic spatial medium, responding to context, environment and the viewer.

MA Architecture and Digital Media

Jing Wang. Digital Performer

There are three roles in almost all kinds of art: ‘Composer’, ‘Performer’ and ‘Audience’. The ‘Performer’ in stable art, like sculpture, is usually an object, while in unstable art, like dance, it is often a human being. The inclusion of a human performer provides a level of unpredictability and freedom in these forms of art. Similarly, if we take a news channel on TV and a Google search to stand for mass media and personal media, the different characters of the ‘performer’ in the context of television and internet, leads to a very different audience interaction: passively watching and consuming the content provided by a creator, or taking part in and become part of it. As a result of developments in digital technologies, the boundary between stable media and unstable media, mass media and private media has, however, become blurred. In this thesis, I have explored the possibility of combining all of these modes in a single installation. In my final installation, Dancing Lines, I use digital technologies to take the key role as the ‘Performer’. The Digital Performer is a stable system, but in this installation it has an intrinsically unstable behaviour; it is selfgenerated, and can be watched, but inputs provided by microphones and other devices introduce further instability and allow the piece to become playful. This combination provides freedom to its audience: people can choose how to interact; they can walk around it, dancing with it, or just stand aside and watch quietly. Depending on how we interact with, or experience the performer, it can be either a passive media experience, or an interactive form of play, even a public event… The Digital Performer, as an alternative kind of art, it is able to provide a different kind of experience for each person, every time.

MA Architecture

Introduction

The Architecture MA course offers a flexible and responsive programme through which students can pursue advanced postgraduate studies. The course combines high-level investigations into historical/theoretical ideas with innovative design approaches, all set within a challenging intellectual environment. Staff who teach on the course are deeply immersed in the very latest developments in architectural history, theory and design research. The student body is extremely diverse in terms of backgrounds and nationalities, which makes the Architecture MA a truly international course based in the world-leading architectural milieu of London. The course is open to a whole spectrum of graduates in architecture and cognate design fields. It enables students to determine appropriate methodologies for research in architecture and design, and to use these techniques to formulate intellectual and creative work which investigates specific aspects or issues within the broad field of architecture. The range of optional and specialist modules offered allows students to develop their individual learning trajectories through the indepth study of specific subject areas, involving theoretical components as well as practical applications.

A series of theory-rich modules aims to stimulate students to analyse current trends in architecture, design theory and practice on the basis of their research and critical judgement, and use these insights to produce high quality written work in a scholarly manner. In parallel, a set of design-oriented activities encourages students to develop their artistic, aesthetic and intellectual vision through the use of different media, in order to produce individual proposals with a high level of spatial, material and formal resolution. The course is taught within a dynamic learning environment that comprises seminar-based sessions along with studio-based activities. These are integrated by a wide range of lectures, tutorials, site visits, research training sessions, and independent study periods. The course is part of the suite of MA courses in the Department of Architecture, which is consciously international in its educational thinking and academic links. The flexibility offered within the course is intended to provide students with further employability skills related to architectural practice and theory, and may also form a platform for continuing study with a career in academia or research.

MA Architecture

Tapiwa Chasi Zimbabwe Teak: The Political Life of a Material and its Use in Interiors

This thesis investigates material issues with a focus on an African hardwood called Zambezi Teak. The project focuses on the economies and social politics of this type of wood and discusses the value of material in architecture. Extensive research into mechanized extraction and logistic processes has informed the research. The use of teak is also directly connected with political and legal frameworks, as well as cultural concerns and market conditions. In Zimbabwe, teak is a highly prestigious and popular material. It is used in high-end furniture for the wealthy with the average chair costing $400 and flooring at $50 per square meter. In a country where most people earn less than $1,200 dollar a year and the unemployment rate is at almost 80%, these goods are unattainable to most people. In my observation of the uses of this material, I was frustrated by its ubiquitous applications which I found for the most part tasteless and wasteful. Teak trees themselves take between 150 to 300 years to mature for harvest and it seems only obvious to me to that it should be used sparingly and also glorified. With this in mind, the thesis investigates the current architectural discourse on materials and their potential developments. In Zimbabwe, there is an attitude that may be directly linked to modernist theories of the 1950s and 1960s, which found a fertile ground in the emerging economies of Africa during mid-twentieth century. My research looked in particular at the work of Le Corbusier and how his attitude towards materials developed during that time.

This background allowed me to explore the Zimbabwean situation as an unfinished project that needs to be updated and assessed in order to evolve. The design process focuses on the haptic experience of architecture, and explores how natural materials can be used to signify areas of interaction or activity within a building. The aim is to map these spaces and design interventions using the waste wood from other teak products.

MA Architecture

Daria Gordina The re-use of oil platforms: Piper Alpha memorial

If and when oil and gas reserves of the North Sea run low, or the rigs become unprofitable to operate, the idea of alternative uses for some of the platforms will at once become relevant as the cost of dismantling the rigs is prohibitively high. The functionalities of the redesigned platforms can vary from an extreme hotel, a theme park or a leisure centre to a science laboratory, museum or a memorial. The latter presents greater interest for me as I have been exploring the phenomenon of memory and nostalgia in architecture. My additional consideration is that the process of oil and gas production in the seas is a dangerous operation in many ways and accidents such as fires, floods and oil spills as well as tragedies with human deaths happen often. After thorough research into this field I have decided to design a memorial dedicated to those who have died in accidents on oil platforms, and in the Piper Alpha tragedy in particular. This event happened on the 6th of July 1988 and is reportedly the worst offshore oil disaster in terms of loss of human lives and industry impact to date.

The proposed site for the memorial occupies a spot in the North Sea where the Piper Alpha platform was located before the disaster and where the offshore drilling of oil and gas is still carried on. The structure of the memorial symbolises the sequence of events on the day of the disaster twenty-five years ago. Its composition consists of a working platform, a wreck buoy that marks the remains of Piper Alpha, power-generating spar type buoys and cables between them, as well as the existing oil rig which is no longer in operation and is used as a public centre, museum and science. An important part of the structure is a memorial bridge, which is more than hundred meters long and has the names of all 167 victims carved on both sides. On one hand, the memorial is an imposing structure that is visible from a distance, for example from sea vessels and other platforms, as well as from airplanes. On the other hand, it is a unique functional space that can be reached from a shore by boat or helicopter.

MA Architecture

Varunya Yoon Jarunyaroj London Farm House Edible Architecture: A Road to Sustainable Life

Imagine the world in the year 2100: there are likely to be at least 10 billion people living on earth, which means the word population will increase by more than 40% from today. However, unfortunately, more than 80% of the land that is suitable for agriculture has already been in use at present. How will the humanity feed itself in the 22nd century? Since the world population has been relentlessly increasing, agriculture has industrialized itself from subsistence systems into a business that aims to produce as much as it could to feed as many people as possible. This process disregards nature. Moreover, the new way of agriculture also stands up on the unstable foundation which is soon to be collapsing because of its careless use of chemical substances, land and water resources, and technology, which, at the same time, generates beneficial outcomes but also brings priceless disadvantages. Parts of land are being degraded, natural water sources are being polluted, and many people are suffering from the global spread of diseases. Besides, the transformation of forests into agriculture fields has increasingly aggravated environmental issues such as global warming.

Is there a remedy for this problem? Humankind once lived as a part of nature. Men used to be included in the ecological system, on the top of the ecological pyramid; but, as time goes by, they have placed themselves above the system. It could be said that the way humans live nowadays has positioned them beyond the law of nature, and certainly this is the cause of many of the problems outlined above. I believe that, before it is too late, this environmental crisis should be promptly addressed. As an architect, I shall attempt to contribute to this crucial task with my work. The thesis investigates that idea that, in order to solve this issue efficiently, the world has to turn around and look back to the past before considering what needs to be done in future. Without a doubt, a big step in modern life style has to be taken, and architectural design can positively help to make that step secure and achievable.

MA Architecture

Kazuma Sekino Architecture Generated from the Boundary

Transparency, stratification, boundary: these are the key words that inform my thesis project. A concept variously developed by theorists such as Kepes and Rowe, transparency has often been mentioned as the result of design from a particular point of view. In order to explore the meaning of transparency and its use in architectural design, I have investigated the Royal Festival Hall, which was designed in such a way as to break down spatial and social barriers: the building is open to everyone. However, the design of this architecture is strongly connected with the concept of boundary. The thesis investigates this aspect with a focus on the space between the inside and outside of the building. The first phase of the project, or â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Photo-Sectionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, explores the view of the Royal Festival Hall from inside to outside. The second phase consists in developing a design method by investigating how stratification is derived from the idea of boundary. The third phase is to find out the specific point of view for the expression of transparency. Overall, the project considers boundary as design concept; stratification as design method; and transparency as the result of the design process. Through further development, this methodology has the potential to be flexibly used in different contexts, in relation to other buildings and places.

MA Architecture

Liliya Kovachka People’s Participation in the Design and Development of their Community Spaces

No other discipline is less autonomous in terms of its relationship with other cultural fields [than architecture]. Jeremy Till

The places where people unite and social activities take place are the ones with the greatest importance for a community. In my thesis, I am researching the role of the users, the people living in a particular community, in the design, development and future of their spaces. Some of the main concerns are: How involved are people in the design and development of their community spaces? What does user participation in public space design mean? How can the user be included in this process? What issues have influence? When seeking answers to the questions posed by people’s participation in a particular space, and related issues of identity and memory, it is crucial to explore their implementation in practice. The Kensal Rise Library Campaign is a positive example of community participation in the development of a local public space. In the fight to save their “local treasure” the campaigners have created a strong, united community with a symbolic new communal space – The Kensal Rise Pop-up Library. Using a variety of research approaches to the Kensal Rise life project, and exploring the symbolism and organisation of campaigns and protests, I have developed a methodology that aims to provide guidance for greater community participation in public space projects. In this particular case study, the design outcome has been a shelving unit for the back area of the Kensal Rise Popup Library. It has been made of wooden pallets and green recycling boxes. Another outcome of the project has been the increased community participation in the refurbishment and maintenance of their community space as well as a greater involvement in the campaign. 30

MA Architecture

Hogun Lee Translation from story into architecture

A number of popular stories have been translated into different artistic forms, including drawing. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Peach Blossom Springâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, written by the Chinese poet Tao Yang Ming in 400 A.D., is an interesting example that shows the merit of one outstanding narrative. The fable has long been considered to be inspirational and thus has been reproduced in hundreds of images depicting its magnificent scenery, events and characters. In translating the story into architecture, one of the main factors to consider is the different way in which people engage with these two forms of expression. It can be said that reading a text with only the sense of vision evolves into reading a story through spatial experience: the senses of sight, touch and smell are all involved in the translation from story to architecture. In this process, it is also essential that the formal frame of the text be reinterpreted and extended in architectural design so as to keep the particular identity of the architecture derived from the original story. After that, each significant element that constitutes the protagonistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey is represented in a different way according to the position of different people. Specific elements that feature in the story, such as for instance the stream, have been transposed according to the logic of the design process. Through proper arrangement, the mutual engagements with narrative and architecture can interact with one another and generate a new spatial experience.

MA Architecture

Daniel Mangabeira Brasília – A City Aesthetically Harmonic

Brasília was inaugurated in 1960 and, even though it was a relatively new city, in 1987 it had its original plan (Lucio Costa’s “Plano Piloto”) included by UNESCO in the list of World Heritage Sites. UNESCO’s brief about the city stated that: “Its creators intended that every element, from the layout of the residential and administrative districts […] to the symmetry of the buildings themselves, should be in harmony with the city’s overall design.” UNESCO used the term ‘harmony’ to define the aesthetic connections between the whole city and its parts, endorsing the inclusion of the city in the World Heritage list; but did not explain how harmony was manifested and through which ways this could be achieved. This word, which seems to be used unpretentiously, led me to wonder how Brasília could be considered to be aesthetically harmonious. UNESCO suggested that the architects of Brasília intended to create harmony between elements of the city and the overall design, but how does this really happen and how can this be explained in an urban context? Thus, my dissertation intended to critically probe the aesthetic harmony of the Plano Piloto, by discussing the issues that are involved in its architecture and urban design. The aesthetic meaning of harmony is discussed in relation to a range of spatial, functional and aesthetical issues that pertain to the modern city, such as architecture, music, scale, urban design, social and political environments. By critically analysing the Plano Piloto as an aesthetically harmonic city, this thesis probed the existing connection between one of the most important urban design contributions of the 20th century and what we understand by aesthetic harmony in architecture, which then led me to extend the discussion of harmony to the urban realm. 34

MA Architecture

Sebastian Mongillo Reinventing Utopia: Social Housing of the 1960s-70s and the Debate over their Future

Six social housing projects constructed in different parts of the world during the 1960s and 70s have been selected to understand the factors involved in the decay of this particular type of architecture. Social, economical, political and architectural factors have been researched and analyzed to discover their roles in terms of the failure of these utopian constructions, and ultimately identify the opportunity for a design response that reinvents or refurbishes each of these housing projects. By presenting controversial and sometimes ironic proposals, the idea behind the reinventions of the projects is to encourage a debate in which each project targets a different problem and a different approach through a critical design response. The objective is to communicate an understanding of the greater context, including, where relevant, the times and settings in which the projects were built and identify why they fell into decay. By identifying the relevant factors, each and every proposal aims at developing a narrative which is not only suitable considering the context of the individual projects but also socially, environmentally, politically and economically viable depending on the case involved. Sites

Projects

Corviale (Rome)

Formula 1 Corviale

Aillaud Towers (Paris)

The Solar Towers

Heygate Estate (London)

Urban Wild Forest

Ponte City (Johannesburg)

High-Rise Prison

Conjunto Residencial Villa Frei (Santiago)

Villa Frei Hill Park

Nagakin Capsule Hotel (Tokyo)

The Laundry Tower

Uban Wild Forest

Villa Frei Hill Park

MA Architecture

Tinusha Pereira Housing Type Customised for Goa

Goa is located in Western India, along the Arabian Sea coast, and has a tropical monsoon climate; an area of 3,702 sq.km and a population of approximately 1.45 million. Goa has a rich history of culture and housing. For centuries, there has been a continuous and gradual metamorphosis of housing, culture and lifestyles. Most of the land in Goa is under government forest and plantation, and approximately 5% of the land is under urban and rural settlements. Goa is still in the transforming phase and is still developing: it is not in the same wavelength with respect to the evolution of lifestyle in the western world. But due to globalisation and capitalism, the evolution of Goa has been suddenly altered in the 21st century, with drastic changes reflected in housing patterns. The rise of new apartment blocks has dramatically affected the local culture and lifestyle. The aim of my design thesis is to develop an intermediate housing layout in response to the rapidly changing lifestyles, with a view to enabling a more gradual metamorphosis of housing typology and related habitats.

MA Architecture

Hayley Pontremoli Religion’s influence on the Work of Ernest G. Trobridge

Ernest George Trobridge (1884-1942) was an architect who designed the majority of his buildings in Kingsbury, North West London. His buildings were often imaginative and quirky: they often appeared grand but were in reality very practical, making the best use of available space and local materials. They ranged from traditional thatched roof cottages to castle-like buildings with turrets and battlements. Trobridge was a dedicated religious man who incorporated the teachings of the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) into his work, and in particular the doctrine of correspondences. The Swedish scientist, theologian and mystic founded a religious system known as Swedenborgianism, ideas of which were incorporated in the Church of the New Jerusalem. Trobridge once said: ‘The philosophy of Swedenborg affects every detail of every structure [...] I now see that all my ordinary knowledge of architecture is but a trifle with what I know from the science of correspondences. I am convinced that this philosophy will soon completely change construction and will be the guide of the reinforced concrete engineers for which is a great safeguard.’ Although this inspiration was explicitly declared by Trobridge, it is not immediately evident in his designs. This thesis investigates this claim through research of primary documents and the analysis of selected buildings.

MA Architecture

Siriphong Saksurasub Sky Park: A New Urban Infrastructure for Bangkok

What kind of architecture can we design to reflect Bangkok, a city of chaos but still full of life? Since Bangkok was modernised, the city has grown substantially and has never been the same. The so-called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Venice of the Eastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; also disappeared since the role of the canals as the centre of living and working patterns in the past has been replaced by that of the road. Street life has subsequently grown along the road networks and finally become part of Bangkok culture. Today, street life truly represents a chaotic yet very lively aspect of the city at the same time. However, life on streets has been put at risk on account of being exposed to air pollution resulting from insufficient infrastructure and heavy traffic congestion. The aim of this project is therefore to reflect Bangkok by tackling its air pollution and raising the value of street life culture simultaneously. Accordingly, the Sky Park project aims to perform both as an instrument to clean the air and as a new urban infrastructure to help support, sustain and improve life on streets of Bangkok. The final design is a result of two main parts: research and design process. The first part engages with substantial research on the city, people and culture. The second part explores design approaches and strategies in order to accomplish the main objective. Ultimately, this thesis proposes a bold and radical yet rational design concept in the hope that its impact will raise public awareness of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s issues and cultural values as a whole.

MA Architecture

Daria Seliutina Contemporary Dance as Source of Inspiration for Architectural Space Making

Dance and architecture are two forms of art that share a special relationship. They define and use space as the main medium for creative interpretation. Dance involves the dynamics and movement of the human body, which is directed outwardly, while architecture also utilizes dynamics as inspiration but is ultimately expressed in a static state. My overall aim was to apply the spatial concept of dance to influence the design of architectural space. In the course of my research project I explored how dance can be an inspiring and insightful tool to influence architectural space in terms of its atmosphere, mood, emotion, and flow. At first glance dance and architecture might seem very different from one another, but upon further investigation one can find that they share a distinct commonality. While dance is a kinetic three-dimensional form of art and therefore also time-dependent in its expression, architecture is also threedimensional but usually static in its final form. This shared three-dimensionality shows all the features of these two fascinating arts while allowing us the opportunity to learn about their common attributes that can contribute to redefining an existing space. To consider dance as a method for carving space, I selected a car park structure in London as a case study for my design investigation. Being in close proximity to the ballet, theatre, and opera venues, I thought this was an appropriate subject through which to consider the merging of these two art forms. I wanted to investigate how this building could be converted into a more interesting and fascinating creative space, applying

contemporary dance as a tool based on the movement of bodies through space. I utilized graphics to record and analyse the dance two-dimensionally. Afterwards, I applied the analysed graphics to the existing space of the building and recorded it three-dimensionally, reflecting both its time and space properties. After completing my analysis and conducting further research, my final project proposes a strategy to modify the car park in a way that is influenced and converted by the dynamics and movement of dance.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation Staff supporting the course: Samir Pandya, Nasser Golzari, Shahed Saleem, Dr Tania Sengupta, Dr Clare Melhuish. Visiting Professor: Dr Lesley Lokko Students: Zineb El Amraoui, Priyanka Bhattad, Liewu Fu, Kapani Nepuni Kayina, Jingyan Li, Charity Mwaniki, Seyed Payami Hashemi Tari, Jing Xu.

The overarching objective of the course is to produce graduates who are culturally sensitive designers. It does this by promoting design as the primary method for investigations into the dynamic relationship between architecture, cultural identity, and globalisation.

This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis projects include sites in the UK, China, India, and Iran. The projects differ in nature but are all linked by a critical enquiry into the ways in which architecture and cities reflect, activate, and circulate cultural meaning at various scales.

Design and text-based projects sited in London this year explored themes such as empowerment and exclusion, cosmopolitanism, hybridity, and exile. International sites were explored through a field trip to Berlin and Amsterdam, where seminal social housing projects and cultural institutes were visited and analysed. Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; exploration of these cities also involved socio-spatial mapping exercises, as well as collaboration with local architects and spatial designers. Other projects this year have included ethnographic studies of London-based diasporic communities, involving participant observation, interviews, and creative methods of engagement. This was done in order to firstly understand how communities construct and maintain their collective identity through trans-cultural and local networks, and secondly, to use this deep understanding to inform site-specific design proposals.

Critics: Professor Lindsay Bremner, Isis Nunez Ferrera, William Hunter, Dr Suzy Nelson, Dr Yara Sharif, Ben Stringer 46

Image: Kapani Nepuni Kayina

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Zineb El Amraoui THE WALL OF DESIRE

In the last 30 years, most European cities have seen a transition from the modern era to a new one generally known as Supermodernity or Late Capitalism. This period is characterised by the appearance of new kinds of environments called non-places that are generic and architectural synonyms of a loss of identity. They reflect notions of consumption and global capital, and have a generic design regardless of their location and cultural context. The thesis investigates the question of identity loss as manifested through a shopping mall, and more specifically Westfield Stratford City, East London. The study draws on interviews, social mapping, and the development of a theoretical framework inspired by texts such as ‘The Cultural Logic of late Capitalism. (Frederic Jameson), ‘Places and Non-places’ (Marc Augé), ‘Wealth of Nations’ (Adam Smith), and ‘Harvard Project on the City’ (Rem Koolhaas). The key creative piece for the Thesis is an installation called ‘The Wall of Desire’, a piece which is conceptually analogous to those screens designed to draw us from the outside to the inside of retail units (the final, and spatialised, link in the global supply chain). The wall intends to represent the aforementioned loss of identity by placing a foreign element at its entrance. This element, which finds itself in a contradictory context, shows the disordering and reversal of cultural references in contemporary society. Furthermore, the notion of loss is translated by the representation of a virtual sea (mimicking the ‘real’ one at Westfield) on the right hand side of the wall.

It questions the limits of the real and explores the notion of ‘desire’ promoted inside the shopping mall. More broadly, these ideas are accommodated and restricted by the use of a grid that reflects the Cartesian system generated by capitalism. On the left hand side of the wall, the grid is inclined and interrupted by the presence of a curve (drawn from the plan of Westfield) that subverts and disturbs the organised arrangement, symbolising all which / who are suppressed as a result of the presence of such spaces in the city.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Priyanka Bhattad Fragmented Memorial

The site of ‘The German Bakery’, at Koregaon Park in the city of Pune (India), a city which is home to a diverse and multicultural population, was bombed by terrorists on 13th February 2010. The German Bakery first opened in 1988 to serve an influx of foreigners visiting the nearby Osho Commune (an internationally acclaimed meditation resort). The increasing popularity of the neighbourhood of Koregaon Park as Pune’s foreign enclave, further led to the setup of a Jewish Chabad House (community centre) in 2001. The primary objective of the terror attack was to target foreigners visiting the city, seeing their presence as an erosion of local culture and amenities. This thesis explores the idea of a ‘living memorial’ at the site of the German Bakery blast. As historical memories and narratives can give terrorists what they see as ‘just cause’ to engage in violence, this project aims only to hint at the remains of a lost and scattered place culture, one shaped by internal identity as much as by the passage of time and assimilation. The project is thus defined by portraying the relationship between visual and spatial perceptions, and conceptual abstractions. Rather than attempt to engage the insurmountability of authentic representation, the key aim was to engage visitors via phenomenological strategies which evoke empathy and quite disorientation. In doing so, the project seeks to question any finality of representation (and therefore of identity).

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Liewu Fu Terminal Culture

Terminal life care is a new concept in China. This has led to the appearance of a relatively new building type: the hospice. Due to space restrictions, these buildings are located on the edge of cities, often in isolated multi-storey buildings, surrounded by car parks and inaccessible by public transport. The very fact that these buildings are proliferating marks a shift in the generational politics of the Chinese family. Traditionally, sons and daughters within Chinese families looked after their elderly parents, ill or not. Modern notions of family have now entered Chinese culture and more often, the elderly are placed in homes, exiled from the communities and cultures there are familiar with. This thesis proposes a design for a hospice that remains in the centre and within the historic core of Beijing (China) and close to the Forbidden City (a symbolically and conceptually charged location). The scheme looks to disperse and integrate the functions of the care home through, within, between and above the exiting dense fabric of the old town. It seeks to challenge the emerging socio-cultural trend by demonstrating that the elderly can remain at the heart of communities and be cared for. In addition, the scheme also seeks to accommodate the contemporary needs and desires of the younger generation. Ultimately, this project proposes a more complex cultural community, within which the lives of different groups are simultaneously intertwined and independent. The thesis was informed by face-to-face interviews in hospices located in England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and China, as well as voluntary work at the Trinity Hospice, London.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Kapani Nepuni Kayina Spatial Editing: Re-Defining Kohima Bazaar

After Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s independence from the British in 1947, the Naga people, a mongoloid tribal community, settled in the North Eastern part of Nagaland after which they were divided into different geographical groups abiding by different laws. The Naga people have since attempted to re-unite all Naga inhabited areas through the creation of the Naga National Council (NNC), a politically motivated rebel organisation. However, to date unification has not been achieved. Rather, increasing division within the rebels have led to corruption, extortion, a rise in crime rates and the emergence of local mafias. These mafia groups dictate law and taxation levels for every resident in Naga inhabited areas and the resultant power imbalance threatens to arrest and degrade the cultural, political, and economic development of the related areas and their peoples. This thesis focuses on the various power relationships between individuals, clans, tribes, mafias and councils in a cluster of four Markets in Kohima, Nagaland (the only Naga state in India). Crucially, it investigates how these relations are manifested and sustained in the built environment of the market. Extensive fieldwork was conducted, including site and cultural context analysis, social mappings, interviews, and observation. Following the research phase, the thesis design tries to subtly intervene within the built form of the market to create spaces of encounter and negotiation. The aim is to encourage dialogue between the traders, expose hidden and asymmetrical power relationships, and empower the traders. More generally, the design focuses on exploring architecture as a mediating force through the act of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;spatial editingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Jingyan Li The Biography of London

‘The image of London as a human body is striking and singular…London has also been envisaged in the form of a young man with his arms outstretched in a gesture of liberation… the figure is taken from a Roman bronze but it embodies the energy and exultation of a city continually expanding in great waves of progress and of confidence…The byways of the city resemble thin veins and its parks are like lungs. In the mist and rain of an urban autumn, the shining stones and cobbles of the older thoroughfares look as if they are bleeding.’ London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd Through an analysis of the history of London’s urban parks and green squares, and in particular the importance of their political and cultural context, a creative methodology is developed to activate some of London’s ‘forgotten spaces’, spaces neglected at boundary or border locations. The thesis asserts that the history of London’s green spaces can inform the way in which different kinds of contemporary green space can be used in London to reflect and negotiate contemporary London as a city of ‘differences’. The selected ‘forgotten spaces’ are located at the boundaries of the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith, and Fulham. The design representations are imaginative projections which explore how green space could affect the lives of individuals and communities who live ‘in-between’. The project used creative research and analytical methods drawn from the field of ethnography.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Charity Mwaniki Re-framing Identity through four lenses: Multisitedness within the UK Somali community

This thesis explores cultural identity within the Somali community in Britain through the investigation of four sites, namely the Degmo farm in Wales, the KAYD organisation, the Zihan restaurant, and a ‘Mafrish’ in London. Migration of the Somali people began in the early 20th Century, making it one of the first African migration groups to settle in Britain. Despite this, reflections on the community scholarly or otherwise - are relatively minimal and media accounts of the community have tended to be negative. This thesis examines the external re-imagining of the Somali community by the dominant host culture, that is, an exercise of ‘Othering’ and homogenising of the minority group. The design in informed by a contextual analysis based on Paul du Guy and Stuart Hall’s ‘circuit of culture’. This method of analysis aims to understand the Somali community through the particularity of the selected sites as well as how these local narratives then connect with global narratives. The design also draws on Dreyer Kruger’s notion of people having ‘multitude of relationships’, as well as John Tomlinson’s ideas about globalisation and culture.

The design aims to show the ways in which the idea of identity is particular and through the different sites is a continual process of transition and becoming so that (as Homi Bhabha states) hybridity functions as a third space. The design works to reveal complexities, contradictions and ambivalences through the representations of the cultural practices performed in the sites. Informed by the work of Maurice Halbwochs and Aby Warburg, collective memory is explored as a phenomenon which drives the process of socialisation and facilitates the learning of a cultural framework that an individual identifies with. The design offers an example of how an understanding of group cultural identity is irreducible to any fixed notion of community, but rather should be understood as involving multi-sited and inter-connected processes in a state of continual becoming.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Seyed Payami Hashemi Tari Dreamt public spaces in Tehran

Tehran has been the scene of struggles between people and authorities since its emergence. Thirty years after the Islamic revolution and subsequent ideological restrictions of a religious authority, the struggles are still ongoing. Central to this struggle is the role (and lack) of public spaces as sites of protest and throughout its history various attempts have been made to establish public spaces based on American or European models. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, the authorities expanded the city through privileging the car rather than public spaces for people. These changes pushed the activities and protest into private spaces. In 2009, during the presidential election, people occupied the length of Vali Asr, an 18km street connecting the south to the north of Tehran, demanding reformation and human rights. This design thesis uses ethnographic methodologies to inform a process of identifying locations for, and then designing, a series of public spaces along the length of Vali Asr Street. The strategic and creative proposals aim to subvert and reduce the density of excessive development and the resultant suppression of public protests. By extension, the spaces aim to promote dialogue, whether political or personal, and ranging between subjective concerns and collective movements.

The design project (heavily informed by Henri Lefebvreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theories on the production of space) includes a large representational mapping of Vali Asr Street which depicts the relationship between the dense development along the street and the proposed public spaces. This representation is a hybrid map which draws upon architectural drawings, texts, and images. To supplement the large map, smaller representations are used to historicise, contextualise and deepen the content of the large map. The map, ultimately, also represents a critical and at times highly (and unashamedly) subjective interpretation of the related issues.

MA Architecture, Cultural Identity & Globalisation

Jing Xu In-between Space

Beijing’s Dongcheng district in Beijing is known for its concentration of historic traditional Chinese courtyard houses. The traditional Chinese courtyard house dates back as early as the Western Zhou period, and has a history of over 2,000 years. It exhibits fundamental characteristics of Chinese architecture and serves as the template for most Chinese architectural styles. Housing in Beijing today has become one of the city’s biggest challenges due to Beijing’s population boom. The traditional Chinese courtyard house today is typically used to host multiple families and in a manner which is counter to its original intention. The has led to poor living conditions, and many courtyard houses are being demolished and replaced by modern apartment blocks to solve the problem of overcrowding. The design focuses on the concept of the ‘in-between’ in order to explore multiple ways (spatial, scale, aesthetic) to address the notion of tradition and change in the context of the Chinese courtyard house.

MA Interior Design Staff supporting the course: Dusan Decermic, Ian Chalk, Debby Kypers, Richard Difford, Aaron Kay, Mike Guy, Joe King

Embracing the material and intellectual complexities and contradictions magnified by the psychological agency inherent in the subject of interior design, our students, like wayfarers, are encouraged to trace their own paths through this ever changing palimpsest like topography, unearthing traces of history over and through which they weave in active, contemporary practices. Site visits to abandoned buildings and places, devoid of any tangible use or potential future are seen with fresh eyes and for us become environments full of new promise. Interiors are elusive by nature, conspiratorial and inviting, dark, brooding, but also strangely alluring.

Our thesis projects are exemplars of these manifold concerns, embracing ambitious conceptual strategies but also striving for delicate, intricate material renderings. As the static, indulgent “expert” gaze is augmented and supplanted by the contemporary democratic idiom of the omnipresent cinematic “measuring” of time and space, the course is immersed in these new responses through film and the animation components of the Case Study and Introduction to Design Computing modules.

This new territory, for too long ignored by more established disciplines is rightfully taking it’s place of engagement with serious academic study and investigation. Academically young at heart but seasoned in practice, Interior Design is poised to deliver new and exciting avenues of creative engagement. As a reflective example bearing these complexities, Retail and Making Interior Space modules are set up in this context and seen as both antagonists and attractors, offering professional vocational action and active intellectual reaction.

Critics: Alan Farlie, Reza Schuster, Nick Hockley, Dominique Phillips, Simhika Rao, Catriona Hunter 64

MA Interior Design

Ali Alavi ‘KATHA’ The art of storytelling

Transient spaces, time, memory and reflection are notions of design that have captivated me for some time. Dance, in its essence holds all these attributes. It is transient in nature and holds permanence through memory. Once the dance is over all that is left for the viewer is the reflection and memory of the dancer; her movements and the environment she created. Kathak is one such dance. Originated from the Indian subcontinent the word Kathak comes from the Sanskrit word ‘Katha’ which means to tell a story or the art of storytelling. Like Kathak, a space can be more than its function. Dance has a language. It has a rhythm, a cycle, history and origins. Kathak is also such a language. The attempt here is to break down this language in its various codes and deconstruct it in order to understand it. The various layers of such a language can be in its movements, space, music, history, form, discipline and structure. Using different materials and techniques, a series of models and drawings will be created that will break up the dance into spatial environments. At one point the dancer will be removed from the equation to analyse only the memories and shadows left behind. The spaces and environments created must also be transient in nature, like the dance it must be evocative yet subtle.

The mapping will result in a series of some successful and some failed attempts to break down the dance form. The project is not site specific and thus no site will be selected as it may restrict the design. From all this mapping I hope to achieve an installation space within a gallery. An installation like the dance is temporary, it is to be experienced while one walks around it and it should be able to convey and use the elements discovered during the mapping process and at the same time still hold the charm and subtle nuances of the dance itself. The project shall be a series of exploratory techniques using the principles of ‘Kathak’ but it may not be the final piece, just the point or ‘Sum’ that we arrive to. It is the journey and exploration of the narrative of the dance which shall hold true meaning.

MA Interior Design

Stephany Augusti Eco-mmunity

The subject of my Thesis project is Cyprus and its economic crisis. Proposing on a low cost construction technique, which is based in computerized software- the project, proposes a new model of approach, the numerous unfinished buildings caused mainly as a resulting consequence of the bad financial situation that a lot of Cypriots are into. This low cost technique is providing new affordable accommodation spaces, taking advantage at the same time of local materials such as timber, copper and local stone. Eco-mmunity = straightforward formula. Home seekers are educated appropriately in order to assembly the ‘Lego-like’ panels. The panels are produced with the use of a CNC router specifically designed, to provide comfortable and impressive, accommodation spaces. The idea of the project is applied firstly on a prototypical building and then it has the potential to continue to numerous others. Due to the harsh financial situations, the owner’s vision is not yet completed. As a result the only thing that exists at the construction site, are the concrete foundations, beams and columns. His desire to finish the building added to the fact of numerous young people who are looking for a cheap housing solution/ accommodation, drive me through the idea of creating a straight forward formula that involves both parts.

The process will be divided in four phases. Firstly the young home seekers will be provided with specific construction materials, then they will be educated appropriately, the CNC router will be used for the cutting of the panels and finally they will build the owner’s apartments. In return the owner will be asked to sign a free five-year renting contract to those people. In that way the owner’s vision will be completed with the minimum possible cost and further more a number of young Cypriot people will be able to have a free place to live for a specific amount of years. This formula will be therefore applied to similar local and non-situations.

MA Interior Design

Baiba Brezinska â&#x20AC;&#x153;Acoustic Fingerprintsâ&#x20AC;?

Sound pollution is a common problem in ordinary flats at London. The aim of the project is to develop a unique solution for the problem - sound filtration and transformation system. The system eliminates noise pollution and transforms it in to sound. The improvement of sound reduces unnecessary stress for human body therefore creating healthier environment to live in. The developments process of unique system includes analyzing noise pollution at the site by recording and mapping the noise. Then grouping them by frequencies and decibel levels in order to understand what material would absorb the noises and what filtration method needs to be applied to transform the sound in to delightful, healing and balancing sound. The system is constructed of sound absorbing material level that also records the polluted noise. Then sophisticated coding system recognizes the noise and applies filter to transform noise into specific healing frequency. The frequency applied heals different parts of body depending what time of day it is and condition of human body. Afterwards it is recorded again and marched to prerecorded sound of instrumental music and played in the flat (the frequency matching the applied filter). The sounds can be altered to personal taste. The investigation outcome are presented and explained through set of data including diagrams, plans, sections, photos, written explanation, sound recordings and video. The purpose for different media is to describe projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s complexity by hearing and as well as feeling it.

MA Interior Design

Maria Constantinou Platoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Airport Agora

The original idea for the creation of a cultural platform in Athens city Airport came from my awareness of the lack of any recreational facilities in the building and in the surrounding area. The Airport is about an hour away from the city buzz and isolated from the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rich past and modern culture. Furthermore each year millions of travellers pass through the airport grounds, their time and attention can and should be effectively and purposefully captured. My investigation commenced with the idea that the platform could be a place for people to re discover the Ancient Athenian glory within a contemporary environment. This tookforth the idea that the proposed platform is called Platos Agora and it would become a place in which the traveller and local resident could re-establish an interaction with past and also present cultural activities. The study proceeded with the exploration of what the Ancient Athenian Agora role was in 200bc and what inspiration can be drawn from the fundamental strengths of the past within a contemporary idiom. The outcome was a network of cultural activities immersed into the existing airport building. Platoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Agora is open and accessible to all, creating an area for the local community to visit a cultural hub in the outskirts of the city and also for the traveller in transit to pass layover time experiencing Athenian culture. The product of the proposal is a creation of a cultural platform in which one defuses from the receptive overload of sounds and ocular overload of a busy airport.

MA Interior Design

Stefania Controzorzi Bathing in Light

Light is part of our life, because it enables us to see and, at the same time, it stimulates, informs, and excites us. No visual form could exist in the absence of light. The light conditions both the way we see our world and the way we feel. Whatever we are doing in our life, light plays a part. This thesis project is inspired by my interest in the vast range of different qualities of light, and the metaphysics of light in particular. Such is the essence found in everyday materials, forms, and spaces. Taking inspiration from the way light communicates with the space, this project investigates the relationship between light and dark environments, which leads to discover the secret potential of a derelict building. Situated on the east side of London, The Poplar Bath complex was, back in the twenties, a famous bath and swimming center. Today it can be seen as a special abandoned piece of architecture, with a great potential. The aim is to bring the memories of this derelict back to life as a contemporary reinterpretation of baths in light.

The research started by investigating the complex network of spaces and conditions, such as materiality, colors, texture, evoked atmospheres in order to give an initial framework. In this way the building becomes a filter set for the performance of light and dark environment in an artistic way, by offering facilities for artists working with light sculptures, as well as for the visitors by providing treatment rooms in light and also by setting up exhibitions in the galleries. By partially occupying the ruin body with installations, the main hall becomes a â&#x20AC;&#x153;cathedral of lightâ&#x20AC;?, which lets the intense light enter from the new roof and becomes an ephemeral piece of glass and metal structure. By contrast, the dark gallery, characterized by disorientating spaces and rough materials, focuses on installations of artists working with light sculpture. Not only the light becomes a tool to recreate a desired atmosphere in the exhibitions spaces but, at the same time, it serves as a therapeutic energy in the treatment room. Hence, the new interpretation of the contemporary bath.

MA Interior Design

Aleksandra Gutianskaja History Classroom Of The Future

In the beginning of the Thesis course I was inspired by the theme for my topic which I came up in the end of the first semester. My first, initially quite vague and broad, aspiration was to create a future school based on modern technology for education. Afterwards, I was immersed into this topic deeper and came out with the idea to design software for history subject which will be integrated into the classroom for History lessons. The software and the classroom are associated between each other to produce quality teaching and learning environment. My main focus in this thesis was to analyze education system in UK and to identify issues explaining why teenagers do not like to go to school and learn. Another focus was to find a solution how to motivate them to learn. I have identified the gaps in current curriculum and tried to adjust them in the classroom for History lessons. The history subject was chosen after careful research on the least favourite subject between teenagers. I have proposed improvements in teaching methods by adjusting school timetable and structuring virtual environment- software to motivate teenagers to learn a history subject. From the research about the education system, school structure and teaching methods of history lesson I could state, that education system and curricula have not been changed for many years.

Therefore the methods of teaching history do not appeal to a modern child. History is a complex subject containing many facts and dates which make it difficult to understand and memorize. Methods which are used currently for delivering resources are not capable to type all that important events into childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memory. The purpose of my thesis was to design a new adjusted timetable, future classroom and virtual environment - software for the history subject which will help to improve history lessons, methods of teaching and will motivate students to learn. Investigating more on these interests I pinned down a list of keywords creating a frame work and boundaries for my thesis project which I followed through the idea development and design process.

MA Interior Design

Gresa Heta Societies Loneliness

In my thesis, I explored and exploited how we are heading towards a very lonely future. We spend a lot of our time alone, disconnected from each other and the real world. Most of our time is spend interacting with technology than we do with each other, our daily life and our conscious mind is exposed to intense luring and dynamic information. We become so far from one another yet so near with just a click away. Advanced technology has offered us to stay â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;tuned inâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; with friends, family and the things we like. Our choices are not anymore limited as to what we can do and therefore our daily paths seem to get more complex. Our personal spaces have turned in to a virtual world as we become disconnected from one another in a well-connected world. Technology allows us to share the things we enjoy doing at a local or global scale, with that in mind one would assume that technology promotes social interaction at a local scale. For example, on public transport we seem to be so near into each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal spaces but there is no form of interaction with each other. In this instance, we become disconnected, as our daily routine is dynamically overloaded that we are to concentrate on our paths and give little thought to our surroundings. I am going to re-create my daily routine in a chronological order of events segregated in visuals that I hope to deliberately emphasize my daily-secluded routine in one space with a recreation of segments of a memory from my daily routine.

MA Interior Design

Zivile Jureviciute Prostiject

The sex industry and trafficking is a big problem in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life but I am proposing a concept which would look at this problem from a different angle: if you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fight them, then join them! Women become involved in prostitution for a variety of reasons such as homelessness, child sexual abuse, mental ill health, trauma, previous sexual violence, drug and alcohol misuse, money pressures and poverty. These factors, which serve to lead or force women into prostitution, should not be mistaken for the cause of prostitution itself, which is the demand from men to buy sex. If men were not prepared to buy sex, then prostitution would not work as survival behaviour. My main focus for this thesis is to create a cross-programmed space where two societies are able to mix. My research has discovered that sex workers have no choice but to work in the illegal environment as there are no legal facilities for them to practice their profession. This led me to look into the reasons why these facilities were not available and to attack the problem with submitting my own design proposal for a safe, secure, modern and professional environment for them to work in. My purpose is to propose a very high end space that could almost be used for other purposes. It will be a place that the only thing will remind you of the brothel will be the sex workers and not the physical design.

I felt it necessary to research how prostitution has established itself throughout our history and also how it has evolved in its journey throughout centuries. I also wanted to get a better understanding of what the current trends were in the modern prostitute scene, so that I could better design and adapt my design concept to fit the modern prostitution environment.

MA Interior Design

Valerie Mace Urban Interior - Practices in Urban Environments

London is a unique combination of nested interiors and the City of London and Southwark are historically considered to be Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original interiors. The City has prospered as a financial centre where recent urban developments that offer minimal interaction and emotional engagement have dramatically altered the urban landscape and occupancy. Few people live there and most experience the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interior as a series of temporal transient events. This phenomenon is now encroaching into neighbouring areas, notably Southwark, where sites near the Thames have been transformed by developpers, effectively creating the same social dilemma as in the City, where programmed and controlled codes of behaviour replace the idiosyncrasies of local public amenities. This thesis puts forward a method for identifying and transforming a site starting with a detailed analysis of existing sensory, behavioural and atmospheric conditions, synthesised and remapped to reveal desired design parameters used to reinstate individual emotional narratives. The outcome of the design is therefore an interpretation of these parameters as physical and sensory manifestations within the site. The environment becomes more sensitive to human perceptual and sensory needs, offers opportunities for personal and social engagement and allows people more choice in their behaviour and the way they experience their surroundings.

The site, More London in London Bridge, was chosen because of its unusual relationship with its surroundings as a privately managed estate with public access and because the space between buildings, the void, sits at the boundaries between inside and outside, private and public, enclosed and open space. So this thesis also challenges assumptions about the role of interior designers expected to confine their practice to environments inside buildings as well as the definition of an interior through spatial inversion, whereby the void between buildings becomes the urban interior.

MA Interior Design

Nelcy Russi Zambrano Winter Vertical Garden

The aim of this project thesis is to design an alternative place where people can enjoy green areas during winter and where social, recreational, cultural and relaxing spaces and activities will not be affected by the changes in weather. The location of these winter gardens is crucial to their purpose, as they will be placed in the gaps between buildings so as to provide an escape from urban life for the people who work and live in these buildings. Also they will be located nearby to parks so that people have an alternative green area to turn to in the event of weather changes. The winter garden is a family friendly project and will therefore be suitable and enjoyable for both adults and children. According with the requirements of the area that has been chosen for the initial project, this specific winter garden will contain; a library, work areas, cafe, nursery, playground, therapy room, open meeting areas and green areas with varied species of plants which will serve an aesthetic purpose and which will also be used in the cafĂŠ to prepare food and beverages. This will be a temporary project that will only be erected during the winter months, consequently it requires a practical, economic and fast construction system which is easy to install and dismount. Accordingly, systems such as ETFE Roof, FACIT home and green tiles have been chosen, as they meet the requirements for this project. The materials used will be stored or recycled to be used in the next winter season when a new Winter Vertical Garden is built.

The first Winter Vertical Garden will be located in the gap between two buildings in Vauxhall, this part of London is the focal point of a current proposal to recover the parks around this area. This therefore creates a realistic and true need for the Winter Vertical Garden project, as it will serve as a pleasant and exciting destination whilst the parks around this area are being improved. Once the reconstruction is over the Winter Vertical Gardens will be a beneficial addition to the area as it will be located close to the parks so that people are 5 to 10 minutes away from an alternative green area in the event of bad weather.

MA Interior Design

Kateryna Shenderovska Augmented Forest Interior

Nowadays ecological problem become one of the most important and complex problems of the world. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why it is significantly important to motivate people to respect the nature. One of the solutions which can be done is providing interesting and educational outdoor facilities. As a location I have decided to pick Epping Forest. It is an area of ancient woodland in south-east England, straddling the border between north-east Greater London and Essex. It is also a valuable and rich region for wildlife. The main idea of the project is to encourage people to come into the woods, to learn and to engage with the nature. The structure consists of the several bridges on different levels of the forest which can be reached by lifts, and three viewpoints in the middle that are also on the different levels. To make people feel as a part of the environment it was decided to make the structure partly responsive to different conditions. Some of the parts are responding on weather and has two positions: open and close. Also the structure of the viewpoints and several bridges consists of the hydraulic systems which are lifting up and down the whole structure. In such way it is responding on the sunset and sunrise. By implanting this structure into the habitat of forest I have wanted to create a beautiful journey and participating public to learn and to appreciate the nature. The main goal was to design an educational, interesting, encouraging and inspiring outdoor experience for the whole family.

MA Interior Design

Vane Tang Re-Sampling Soho Discovering The Layers Of The Urban Interior

As any work of art, architecture interior is composed of various elements layered to achieve a cohesive whole. Thus architecture is sometimes referred to as an ‘inhabited art’. As architects and interior designers, we are trained to see form, but in reality all humans have a perception of form when encountering architecture, that is, if by form we are referring to the physical manifestation of the setting – volume. The urban interior achieves its volume through spatial layers, a series of spaces, layered one behind the other, each distinct from the other while still permitting the gaze to see into each spatial division. Layered space creates the feeling of distinction between two or more spaces while simultaneously joining them. It is a simultaneous quality of the visual penetration of different spaces in a series while still achieving a sense of separation that defines this layered space. Achieving layered space relies on the proper balance of permitting the eye to advance and to be resisted by solids. My thesis looks at Soho as an interior set in the urban environment, the pockets of the London streets as rooms within a giant room. My aim is to use photography as a basis to frame a part of Soho and to strip and reveal the layers; both visible and invisible that makes up that particular “picture”.

MA Interior Design

Vi Truong Vietnamese Culture Festival

My thesis is about cultural layering which is based on a research about Vietnamese immigrants in London. On the layer of British city there are also layers of different cultures. Among these, in some parts of London such as Hackney, Lewisham , the layer of Vietnamese culture increases than the others. The perception and memory about homeland of the first generation is also clear while the next generations are not familiar with the culture. A street festival on Deptford High Street is to revive the cultural spirit for the first generations and also connect the first, second and third generations with Vietnamese culture. The festival is considered a ‘light’ which projects cultural layers orderly basic assumptions, norms and values, patterns of behavior, system and institution, explicit culture on the perception of Vietnamese community in London. The closer layers, the deeper shadow on them. The street together with natural elements( sky, sunshine, rain, sun, moon, stars) are considered an environment for the festival. The layers of Vietnamese culture (history, geography, customs, rituals) contained in the program of festival are overlay onto an urban planning as the street. This would be a fantastic layering. Using Deptford High Street (‘land’), Douglas Way and Giffin Street (‘water’) for the festival. Deptford High Street is a bustling street with some Vietnamese mini-stores and restaurants, a weekly market on Wednesday and Saturday. Exploring the street view to analyze how to design exhibition, installation and kid’s playground, such as filling in the gap between 2 buildings, widening the space by horizontal lines, navigating people by elements installed on the street. 90

MA Interior Design

Lina Vlasovaite Invisible Architecture

We start to explore the senses when our lives start in our motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s womb. We have senses such as the tactile touch of our motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body and hearing which become much more developed once we are born. What is the reality of senses? Are our experiences and feelings real? Does everybody respond to sensory stimuli in the same way? If that is the case then Synaesthesia- the condition of mixing senses, becomes an interesting experimental design language. During my thesis I discovered the condition of mixing senses which provided the initial idea of my project. Feeling, seeing, smelling, listening all interlinked with a strong influence to the way we use them to respond to our everyday surroundings. I wanted to think differently about the environment which surrounds us, to separate the senses, navigate with my feelings and to make my senses work in a different way. Part of the project is a sensory survey in terms of the architecture and environments which surround us. According to my own experience and records on three sites I wanted to translate existing buildings into a sensory plan, to translate three senses as temperature (tactile), noise (auditory), light (sight) in a different language, to visualise them through interpretation of my feelings. I tried to distinguish perception versus reality- my experience in those environments, versus what the reality is. I explored three sites most relevant to each sense I wanted to test: St Bartholomew Church, ICE Library - Institution of Civil Engineers and Greenwich tunnel. Moreover I navigated myself through each site using just one of the senses and recorded the experience. It started with a couple of keywords, feelings, moods about the atmosphere, and feelings as blind or deaf person. As the main participant in this survey, 92

I explored the sites I have chosen blind folded and without hearing anything. The very delicate feelings were very intense; I wanted to feel the materials, and the real touch of the each building. How can I compare my perception with the real world? I had different impressions in each building; the feelings when navigating myself separately with each sense are much stronger and effective. Tactile, fragrances and hearing became much more sophisticated. To realise my different poetic ideas of the emotional response to the feelings at each site I created a film installation. In this installation I translated the feelings I encountered at each site and included this as part of my portfolio submission. I have also created scales and diagrams for the data I recorded and assimilated it to the realistic data found by electronic equipment. The results are unexpected as data of perception significantly differs from the data recorded by equipment. In exploring the connection between architecture and the human experience I found a better way to understand the environment in which we live and to create new interiors which align themselves to our senses. I also learnt how to acknowledge and translate architectural drawings into sensory plans. Moreover, I discovered how each material at each particular site absorbed the temperature, the way sound reflects off different materials giving life to the space and how a single ray of the light can reveal the true beauty of colours and materials.

MA Interior Design

Marissa Walder A host company

The Knowledge Marketplace (KM) is a host company who bring together expertise & knowledge within an environment designed to trigger & facilitate serendipitous connections. It is free to register & visit the lounges where a number of refreshments, meeting & work spaces are also free of charge. They ask in return for users to be open to unexpected & valuable encounters and to share their knowledge & talents by joining an open network of skilled specialists & craftspeople KM work in partnership with the best Coworking companies to ensure that physical space can be provided for all forms of work activities all over the UK. In addition to this they also identify vocational training courses of every description within educational centres. This creates an open system, self regulated by users. The collective volunteering of information strengthens the circular exchange between the customer & the provider feeding into the social capital. The online profile locator allows users to build their own profile & find skilled individuals or businesses from all disciplines for current or prospective projects or just advice & knowhow on a particular problem. This software platform also enables the booking of meeting & work spaces. The GPS application is designed to locate members & identify when they may be open to make a connection within mainline stations, where areas can be utilised to meet & make face-to-face contact.

KM is located within the heart of the concourse of Waterloo Station. Not only does this best reflect the agile & transitional nature of the thesis concept, it also symbolises the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Knowmadicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; nature of the Knowledge worker. The mainline station is also logistically & environmentally suited - The station lounges are the interface between the virtual & physical realm of work, strategically placed between the world of work & home. Strategically embedded into the scheme are a number of elements that encourage encounters. The blocking of mobile phone signals within the initial waiting area allows visitors to be engaged in the moment. The journey connecting each of the work spaces is open & transparent allowing users to see & be seen. A variety of pause zones are provided with various degrees of privacy depending on the task in hand.

PHD

Introduction The department has considerable experience and expertise in supervising PHD studies. It welcomes applications where staff interests overlaps with an applicant’s research proposal.

Recent PHD completions are:

Current Students are:

Abeer Al-Saud (2012)

Noha Al-ahmadi

The Implications of Culture on Architectural Form in London’s Immigrant

Voice of the Vernacular: Forgotten Buildings of Saudi Arabia

Supervisors: Murray Fraser, Samir Pandya,

Supervisors: Lindsay Bremner, Christine Wall.

Douglas Spencer (2012)

Nasser Golzari

Open Sites: The Inseperable Variations of Architecture and Control

The Role of Architectural Technology and Cultural Identity in Sustainability

Supervisors: Murray Fraser, David Cunningham.

Supervisors: Mike Wilson, Murray Fraser

Jon Goodbun (2011) The Architecture of the Extended Mind: Towards a Critical Urban Ecology Supervisors: Murray Fraser, David Cunningham. Tania Sengupta (2011) Producing the Province: colonial Governance and Spatial Cultures in District Headquarter Towns of Eastern India 1786-c.1900 Supervisors: Murray Fraser, Samir Pandya. Burin Tharavichitkun (2012) Rethinking Thai Architecture and Cultural Identity Supervisors: Murray Fraser, Ben Stringer.

Claire Harper Density, Productivity and Propinquity: Defining a spatial model of density for the design of higher-density urban housing in London. Supervisors: Jeremy Till, Peter Barber Junha Jang A Cross-Cultural Study of Architectural Production in Korea and the West Supervisors: Samir Pandya, Murray Fraser. Gwyn Lloyd Jones A Tale of Four Cities: Frank Lloyd-Wright’s European and Middle Eastern Tour: 1909-57; Supervisors: Kester Rattenbury, Murray Fraser

Starting in September 2013:

Sarah Milne (see page 98) Dining with the Drapers: the Draper Company Dinner Book as a Map of the City of London Supervisors: John Bold, Lindsay Bremner, Lilit Mnatsakanyan (see page 100) Digital applications of ancient Armenianstone carving for rural housing in Shikahogh. Supervisors: Lindsay Bremner, Constance Lau Isis Paola Nunes Ferrera (see page 96) Creativity and Scarcity in the Built Environment: Informal Settlements and Socio-spatial Change Supervisors: Jeremy Till, Jon Goodbun Izis Salvador Pinto (see page 102) Study of Moveable and Deployable Structures using ETFE Cushions. Supervisors: Lindsay Bremner, Will McLean, Ben Morris

May Al Jamea Towards a socio-culturally sustainable design of a contemporary Saudi house: with special reference to the eastern region. Supervisors: Lindsay Bremner, Christine Wall Malen Hult Ecologies of Affect and Spatial Form Supervisors: Jon Goodbun, Victoria Watson, Lindsay Bremner Samra Kahn Development of the Sethi havelis in Peshawar from 1820s to 1920s; architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to the social economic and cultural influences. Supervisors: John Bold, Davide Deriu, Lindsay Bremner Emilia Siandou Modern Architecture in Cyprus and Heritage Supervisors: John Bold, Panayiota Pyla, Lindsay Bremner John Walter (AHRC Studentship) Alien Sex Club Supervisors: Adam Eldridge, Victoria Watson and Francis Ray White

For further information about PHD study at the University of Westminster visit: westminster.ac.uk/courses/research-degrees

PHD STUDIES

Isis Nunes Ferrera Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment: Informal Settlements and Socio-spatial Change

This PhD research is concerned with how scarcity in the built environment is constructed in informal settlements of the Global South, and how conditions emerging within its limits gives way to particular socio-spatial phenomena and influence the emergence of self-organisation and creative strategies from a non-expert perspective. At the same time, this research deconstructs these emerging tactics in a diagrammatic way to generate a critical study of their potential for socio-spatial change that goes beyond the everyday survival. Informal settlements in the global south, as different and varied as they are, are continuously attached to images and notions of poverty and deprivation, but also to dynamic processes of transformation, productivity and social organisation. In the midst of this integrated, versatile and many times resilient strategies, it cannot be denied that situations of precariousness and slow accumulation of resources are a common feature in informal settlements and that these shape the way that the built environment is constantly produced and reproduced. Even though we can ascertain that these processes exist, very little is in the literature that documents how these processes actually shape the built environment and instigate the individual and collective social practices that emerge under these circumstances. For this purpose, this research makes the case for assemblage theory as a conceptual and analytical approach for understanding and visualising, firstly, the various linkages between grounded scarcity (processes, territory and practices) and the distributive, discursive and socio-material nature of scarcity, and secondly, the threshold where scarcity Supervisors: Jeremy Till, Jon Goodbun

reinforces or opens possibilities for change through agency. The research then utilises a series of diagrams or â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;scarcity assemblagesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that are both analytical and projective and that aim to illustrate how spaces are shaped under conditions of scarcity, and how to identify the possibilities for change or creative intervention.

Tracing Scarcity in the Built Environment, Isis Nunez Ferrera

PHD STUDIES

Sarah Milne Dining with the Draper’s: The Draper’s Company Dinner Book as a Map of the City of London

For over 500 years Livery Company halls have physically punctuated almost every important thorough-fare in the City of London. In turn City business and governance have also revolved around the rhythmic corporate calendar of meeting, greeting and eating - activities inseparable from such influential city spaces. And yet far from purpose-built, City Companies had progressively appropriated urban mansion houses or opportunistically followed halls out of defunct monasteries. This process of haphazard acquisition birthed embryonic property portfolios and networks that, in the reign of Elizabeth I, quickly and distinctively matured. However, this period of rapid growth and change presents an especial challenge to scholars due to the fragmentary nature of the remaining evidence escaping the Great Fire of London in 1666.It is in this context that I aim to re-map the pre-fire City of London through the feasts of the Drapers’ Company. My research is driven by a rare textual survival entitled the ‘Dinner Book’, which presents the only significant accounts of feasting in the City for the Elizabethan period. The Dinner Book’s comprehensibility is remarkable, correlating all constituent parts for forty years of feasting in one volume, and exposing urban environments

Supervisors: John Bold, Lindsay Bremner

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both more particular and more porous than is often assumed. Carefully examining such coherent and continuous evidence, alongside similarly detailed Company minute books, can reveal something of the nuanced spatial and cultural story of dining in these halls, necessarily nestled in the wider cityscape. But, as with the hall itself, the significance of this book stretches far beyond the confines of the Drapers Company alone. In placing the Dinner Book firmly within key contexts of the historical city and its wider influence, the potential presented by the document is in the use of the feast as a vehicle to explore the development of the Elizabethan city and its dynamic arteries. Plunging further into the Drapers’ archives, the Dinner Book will act as the hinge-point for an interrogation of how recent scholarship of culinary history and established theories of the social production of space meet within the context of the City.”

The Dinner Book, 1564-1602 (Drapersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Company Archive, DB1)

PHD STUDIES

Lilit Mnatsakanyan Digital applications of ancient Armenian stone carving for rural housing in Shikahogh

Can ancient stone carving techniques be translated into a digital medium and how can they be used to address the needs of rural Shikahogh? The aim of this thesis is to investigate the possibilities of bringing together the long established stone masonry tradition in Armenia, the Shikahogh village in Syunik province in Armenia with modern digital applications. Hence the challenge is to utilize the ancient carving techniques on the platform of the digital applications whilst addressing the real needs of the villagers. The information about the ancient stone carving methods is extremely limited, few written manuscripts and instruction manuals have survived from around 5th Century BC. However modern interpretations of the techniques are currently used in Armenia, as well as the physical manifestations of these methods in manmade caves and Khachkars (traditional carved stones). These will provide basis for the study. The development site Shikahogh is vastly under-researched, information is scarce, especially around the various recent activities of controversial nature (a mining site, a new built road and the one in the pipeline, etc.). The village is the real world framework, the experimental ground, where the prototypes of any architectural assemblages will be tested and installed. The role of the digital application element will shape alongside the research development of the stone masonry techniques and pinpointing the Shikahogh site specific requirements after the initial fieldwork.

Supervisors; Lindsay Bremner, Constance Lau.

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01. From Analogue to Digital Stone Patterns.

02. Garni Monastery Cave.

PHD STUDIES

Izis Salvador Pinto Study of movable and deployable structures using ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) cushions

The ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) cushion is a lightweight cladding system for buildings. This material was the result of a research program to develop an insulating material for the space industry that was resistant to friction and abrasion, immune to radiation and extremely effective at both high and low temperatures. Furthermore, the raw material is not a petrochemical derivative and is recyclable. For twenty five years ETFE has been used in numerous buildings and public spaces but usually as static and fixed structures. The research will investigate how the lightweight properties of pneumatic structures could be utilised for deployable or movable structures. The movement or folding of pneumatic ETFE cushions could create open and flexible spaces. The combination of pneumatic, lightweight and deployable structures will be the basis of this research and will create new construction possibilities.

Supervisors : Lindsay Bremner, Will McLean, Ben Morris

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RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

The School of Architecture and the Built Environment supports a lively, diverse research culture and critical debate and is internationally recognised for the quality of its research. It attracts a wide range of PHD students, encourages research through scholarship, consultancy and design and supports a number of interdisciplinary research clusters, centres, projects and groups. These include the School-wide London Research Cluster and the Global Itineraries Research Cluster, ProBE, SCIBE and four research groups within architecture – Experimental Practice (EXP), History and Cultural Studies, Technical Studies and Expanded Territories. A fifth to bring together scholars in Interior Architecture is under discussion. Staff and students at the University of Westminster were shortlisted for three out of four categories in the 2012 RIBA President’s Awards for Research: Silviya Ilieva for Outstanding Master’s Degree Thesis, Jon Goodbun and Nick Beech for Outstanding PhD Thesis and James Madge for Outstanding University-located Research (posthumously).

During 2012/13, the school appointed or hosted a number of visiting scholars. These included Visiting Professors Leon van Schaik of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Professor Michael Sorkin of City College New York. Professor van Schaik’s appointment will build on the relationship developed during his previous period as a Visiting Professor, during which time he provided valuable support to the development of the department’s research profile. Association with Professor Sorkin will benefit the school by exposure of staff and students to his extensive architecture and urban design practice in Asia and South East Asia, and in debates about sustainable cities. Professor Ayse Sentürer from Istanbul Technical University visited the architecture department as part of the ongoing Erasmus Teaching Mobility Scheme and Clare Hamman was appointed Visiting Research Fellow and is currently working towards digitising Supercrits 5 - 7 (Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York; Leon Krier: Poundbury; and Michael Wilford: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart). Professor Lindsay Bremner Research Director for the Department of Architecture.

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EVENTS

In 2012/13, the department hosted a number of lecture series, seminars and symposia that contributed to this culture. As well as the popular ‘Technical Studies Series’ organised by Will McLean and Pete SIlver and the ‘History and Theory Series’ organised by John Bold each year, this included a number of once off events. Lindsay Bremner and Kate Heron organised a series of panel discussions in Ambika P3 in parallel with the 2012 British Council’s International Architecture and Design Showcase entitled ‘Design Diplomacy,’ on the agency of design in brokering global relationships. A series of six evening lectures entitled ‘Critical Humanitarianism’ was organised by Camilla Wilkinson to raise some of the difficult ethical and political questions about humanitarian work and its relation to power and a symposium entitled ‘The Making of Modern Ankara: Space, Politics, Representation’ was organised by Dr Davide Deriu in conjunction with SOAS Seminars on Turkey. This brought together leading scholars from the UK and Turkey and was accompanied by an exhibition by the Ankara Institute of Architects.

well attended panel discussion on Architectural Zines and the University hosted a two day conference for the Humanities in the Research Area (HERA) funded Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment (SCIBE) research project entitled ‘Within the Limits of Scarcity: Rethinking Space, City and Practices.’ This was organised by PHD student, Isis Paola Nunes Ferrera and brought together an international group of PHD students and leading keynote speakers.

The Expanded Territories Research Group organized a seminar entitled ‘Geological London’ for the London Research Cluster and the department contributed to the inaugural seminar of the School-wide Global Itineraries Research Cluster entitled ‘Capital Cities in a Globalised World’. Former student and member of the PAPER collective, Nina Shen-Poblete organised a

Further information about research in the department is detailed on our website: www.openresearchwestminster.org

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Introduction

The Research Centre for Experimental Practice (EXP) was set up in 2003 to support, document and generate major experimental design projects which have acted or act as laboratories for the architectural profession, including built and un-built design projects, books, exhibitions and other forms of practice. Its first projects were the Archigram Archival Project and the Supercrit Series. The former made the works of the hugely influential architectural group Archigram available online for academic and public study for the first time. The project was funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and was led by Dr Kester Rattenbury and carried out with collaborative support from the surviving members of Archigram or their heirs See <http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/> The Supercrit Series brought some of the world’s most influential architects back to the school to debate their most famous projects with a panel of international critics, students and the public. Supercrits have featured Cedric Price (The Potteries Thinkbelt), Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (Learning From Las Vegas), Richard Rogers (The Pompidou Centre), Bernard Tschumi (Parc de la Villette), Rem Koolhaas (Delirious New York), and Leon Krier (Poundbury). Events 1-4 are published as books by Routledge and 5-7 the will shortly be available on line.

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EXP members have produced a number of experimental design projects and won a number of design nominations and awards over the course of 2012/2013. Nasser Golzari and Yara Sharif of Golzari NG Architect’s work for The Palestinian Centre for Architectural Conservation (Riwaq) in Birzeit, Palestine, was one of ten short listed projects for the prestigious Aga Kahn Award in 2013. Andrei Martin of PLP Architecture won the Big Urban Projects Category of the 2012 MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Awards. Sean Griffiths of FAT Architects’ Riverside One Apartment Block in Middlesbrough Riverside was nominated for a 2013 RIBA Regional Award and Peter Barber of Peter Barber Architects was nominated for a 2013 Index Award in the Community Category for the Spring Gardens Hostel. Claire Harper (PHD student) and James Perry (RIBA Part III, 2012) were conceptual submissions winners of the 2012 Peabody 150 Homes for 150 Years Competition. Nasser Golzari of Golzari NG Architects and the Palestine Regeneration Team designed the Palestine Sunbird Pavilion as part of the 2012 British Council’s International Architecture and Design Showcase.

Anthony Boulanger (AY Architects) and Gabby Shawcross (Studio of Cinematic Architecture) and University of Westminster student teams won commissions in the Mayor of London’s ‘Wonder Series of Incredible Installations’ competition, for small works aimed at dressing up the city during the Olympic and Paralympic Games - ‘House of Flags,’ (AY Architects), ‘London Dresser,’ (SOCA), ‘Streetscape Carousels’ (Studio PUP) and ‘Aurora’ (Jamie Parson and Lemma Redda).

EXP Researchers Featured: Alessandro Ayuso, Andrei Martin, Andrew Yau, Anthony Boulanger, Cnstance Lau, Eric Guibert, Filip Visnjic, Gappy Shawcroee, Julia Dwyer, Kester Rattenbury, Nasser Golzari, Peer Barber, Sean Griffiths, Victoria Watson, Will McLean.

Two graduates of Westminster’s Master of Architecture (MArch) RIBA Part II course, Sebastian Kite and Will Laslett, showcased their solo exhibition Lichtspiel in Berlin and Rebecca Gregory, Emma McDowell and Eddie Blake (Class of 2012) designed and installed ‘Mirrors of Awareness’ as part of the 2012 London Festival of Architecture in collaboration with Metropolitan Workshop. Nina Shen-Poblete (DS14, 2012) was selected from twenty-five entries as one of six architecture graduates in BD’s Class of 2012. James Kirk (DS17, 2012) won the Lifelines competition for ‘Active Ageing and Intergenerational Dialogue through the Eyes of Architectural Students’ and Johnny Killock (also DS17, 2012) was awarded joint first prize in Designing for Adaptable Futures (DAF). He also became the first University of Westminster student to receive a prize at the United Nations, after coming 3rd in the individual category in the 2012 Integrated Communities: A Society for All Ages Student Design Competition.

For further information contact Dr Kester Rattenbury at: k.rattenbury@westminster.ac.uk

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Alessandro Ayuso

The primary vector for my current research is my doctoral thesis entitled “Body Agents, Deploying New Figures for Design”, which is being pursued through the Bartlett School of Architecture’s PhD by Design Programme. The architectural question at the core of this thesis stems from a recognition of the loss of a figural presence in contemporary design. The research question is: How can human figures— one of the most fundamental sources for analogies in western architecture— be reincorporated into architecture to address neglected aspects of embodied agency for present-day architects and inhabitants of architecture? To posit an answer I am identifying past design practices in which figures played an integral role, and I am also creating new figures— through animation, fabrication, and narrative writing— that appear in my own design work. These ‘Body Agents’ are hybrids that convey visceral, provocative, and particularly subjective (even emotional) qualities into designs. Two forthcoming publications work as ancillary offshoots of this research. One is a paper recently presented at the IDEA Conference hosted by the University of Montreal. The paper, entitled “Figural Provocations for a Digital Age: Walter Pichler’s House for the Torso”, examines a pivotal work by the Austrian artist-architect.

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The paper describes how Pichler’s sculptures act as tectonic ornaments in their setting, and argues that Pichler’s designs offer a figurallybased architectural approach with overlooked aspects that speak to a contentious posthuman subjectivity. The other writing is a book chapter entitled “Edification of the PostHuman Baroque by a Digital-Age Putto”, in The Material Imagination, to be published by Ashgate Publishing. In this chapter, narratives that take the viewpoint of an ornamental figure who has witnessed both the Baroque and our own era catalyse questions regarding the empathetic nature of material representation through digital media.

Full-scale Body Agent Construction, Alessandro Ayuso.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Peter Barber Facilities for the Homeless: Spring Gardens, Lewisham, 2009 and Redbridge Welcome Centre, Ilford, 2011

Spring Gardens, Lewisham (2009) and the Redbridge Welcome Centre, Ilford (2011) are two homeless facilities by Peter Barber Architects that move from the idea of homeless shelters as maintenance to homeless shelters as recovery and aim at integrating the homeless back into society. The design of the buildings addressed questions of how to deinstitutionalise facilities for the homeless and provide for the emotional aspects of home as well as the basics of food and shelter. They also aimed to encourage relationships between the homeless and the wider community and to incorporate the experience of being homeless into the design process. Research involved site visits, analysis of existing hostels and discussions with clients, hostel staff and residents. Conceptual design strategies drew on the writings of Walter Benjamin and Jane Jacobs, both buildings conceived around internal streets and as multi-levelled landscapes for inhabitation. Key urban design moves were established early on in design processes and remained consistent throughout their evolution. Extensive physical model making, three-dimensional sketching and other forms of visualisation tested design options and refined the overall configuration of the buildings in terms of accessibility, circulation, lighting, and general functional viability. Many exploratory physical models for each scheme were constructed with the same logics as real construction operations would be on site. The projects have been widely published and favourably reviewed widely in the architectural and popular media. Spring Gardens has been nominated for a 2013 Index Award in the Community Category.

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01. Spring Gardens, Lewisham, 2009, Peter Barber Architects, Photo Morley Von Sternberg.

02. Redbridge Welcome Centre, Ilford, 2011, Peter Barber Architects, Photo Morley Von Sternberg.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Anthony Boulanger Montpelier Community Nursery (AY-Architects)

Montpelier Community Nursery is a small building in Kentish Town, London designed for Camden Community Nurseries. The project has wide reach as a model for participatory design processes in dense urban neighbourhoods. Boulanger was involved in all stages of the project, generating community awareness, bringing together different groups and parties to participate in its design, fundraising, designing, supervising the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s construction and recording and disseminating the process. The new building was designed around a flexible play space opening onto a wooded outdoor play area that forms part of a community garden. The park landscape became a central part of the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s indoor/outdoor play space, to promote healthy exercise and natural play. Daylight is brought into the building through strip windows located within the roof that have a north-south orientation, spanning the floor plan diagonally. Deep overhangs allow passive solar heat gain during times of the year as needed, but block out high summer sun. The superstructure is made of a prefabricated solid timber panel system, which facilitated an efficient building sequence. The project was recorded and disseminated through film, photographic documentation and exhibition, a children-focused workshop and a collaborative project of site visits with local primary school children. It has been favourably reviewed in the Architects Journal and shortlisted for a 2013 RIBA Regional Award.

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EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Julia Dwyer The Homerton Tree (with Sue Ridge)

The Homerton Tree is a collaborative artwork by Julia Dwyer and Sue Ridge installed in the delivery unit of the new Perinatal Unit of Homerton University Hospital. It is part of a collection of artworks, ‘The Other Side of Waiting,’ developed by Taking Place, a group of women artists, architects and academics who have been engaged in feminist spatial practices (spatial interventions, event making, writing and performative conference contributions) since 2001. The project comprised the felling of a London Plane tree followed by the installation of a twopart permanent artwork in the delivery unit of the new Perinatal Unit of Homerton University Hospital. The tree predated the hospital and was due to be felled for the construction of the new Perinatal Unit. It provided an important connection to the hospital’s past and to the experience of birthing in the hospital. It was translated into the ‘Homerton Tree Window’ (1100 x 1070mm), a digitally produced image held in glass installed in the main corridor of the new unit, and ‘Measure’ (2400 x 280 x 40mm), a wall mounted piece installed in the entrance to the new building. The latter piece was crafted from the plane tree’s salvaged trunk and used a number of different materials and techniques to represent the diversity of measures and measuring methods essential to the daily operation of the unit.

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Homerton Tree Window, Julia Dwyer and Sue Ridge.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Nasser Golzari

This paper is an extract from ongoing designled research undertaken by the authors since 2007. It attempts via ‘live’ projects, to explore alter¬native ways to enact critical architectural practice and spatial change within the current Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It provides insight into how, using limited resources, possibilities for change can be cultivated by tapping informal networks and engaging local communities in active roles rather than just as passive bystanders. Old historic centres were intentionally selected for the research. These were seen as areas of potential that were being left to decline and fade away, despite their obvious cultural and social value. The design-led research introduced a process of navigating between text/narrative, social mapping and design, where each informed and complimented the other. Journeys, events and discussions provided the source material for research findings and design proposals. This led to involvement of the authors in the Palestinian heritage NGO, Riwaq’s ‘50 Villages’ project to rehabilitate the services, infrastructure and living conditions in 50 historic villages in the West Bank and Gaza. The work was exhibited at Riwaq’s 3rd Biennale in Ramallah and the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. It resulted in the formation of the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) <http://www.palestineregenerationproject. com>, and the Gaza Green Living Coalition, both initiatives of the authors through which to continue the work. The project to revitalise the historic centre of Birzeit discussed in the paper was short listed for a 2013 Aga Khan Award. Golzari, N. and Sharif, Y. ‘Reclaiming space and identity: heritage-led regeneration in Palestine.’ The Journal of Architecture vol. 16, no.1, 2011, pp. 121-144. ISSN: 13602365 (Print), 1466-4410 (Online). DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2011.547022 118

The renovated Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Museum and its court yard in Birzeit, photograph Yara Sharif

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Sean Griffiths The Museum of Copying, 2012

The Museum of Copying was an exhibition conceived and executed by Sean Griffiths of FAT Architecture for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. In response to curator David Chipperfield’s theme, ‘Common Ground,’ it explored ideas of the copy as a way of establishing common ground between diverse publics over time. This represented a significant moment into themes that have been present in FAT’s work for the past 15 years that ask: Can copying be a creative technique in architecture? What potential does the figural section hold for architecture? How have photocopying, digital media and computer aided manufacture extended the repertoire of creative replication in architecture? These challenge the idea of the copy as inauthentic pastiche and propose ways of understanding and using it in more productive ways. FATs contribution to the Museum, ‘Villa Rotunda Redux’ is a replica of Palladio’s Villa Rotunda. Designing it involved close examination of the original and abstraction of essential information from it. This was then translated into two abstracted quarters using new fabrication techniques. One quarter was made as a polystyrene mould, the other, a foam cast. These were arranged diagonally across from one another, displaying not only the properties of their original, but also the process of their fabrication. This produced an iteration of the Villa Rotunda that was at once recognizable, yet utterly transformed and original.

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Villa Rotunda Redux, Venice Architecture Biennale, 2012, FAT Architecture, Photograph, Nico Saieh

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Eric Guibert Belonging to the landscape: between two houses

This project aims to connect those who experience it to a breath-taking countryside and wildlife throughout the seasons. It translates the sustainability and flexibility of old buildings to our time. The design not only gives views of the surroundings but physically engages its natural processes. One is not only looking at, but belong to the landscape. The old cottage is extended with a second little house. Under one roof, they are separated by a gap that is glazed to form a loggia. Ambiguously, the whole building can be read as one dwelling or two. This arrangement creates a long wall that divides the short dry meadow and the cool and lush slopes going down to the river behind. The loggia is a window framing one biotope from the other, by contrast celebrating both. It is a room open to the southerly aspect in the summer and closed in the winter to form a winter garden. As well as other rooms at ground floor it can flexibly adapt to different uses. Each house can be used by separate families or function together as one. The site and its history indicated three research questions: Can the actions of producing and burning wood for heating be designed to become aesthetic moments that engage us physically with the land and the seasons? How can the cottage typology be used and extended to further its flexibility and yet provide privacy? How can the building celebrate the landscape and weather both inside and out? My methodology is based on physical experience. With the client, we test building locations in situ and place furniture to enact possible activities; we take part in processing the wood to engage directly with the land and its cycles. We make clay models. We monitor the first phase renovation as a prototype to refine the second phase extension.

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View from the South East of the renovated house in October, Eric Guibert.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Constance Lau Design by Means of Archival Research: Exploring the Notion of Multiple Interpretations

This research explores the role of archival research in the design process, and especially in relation to the notion of multiple interpretations. The argument further establishes that architectural design can be informed by an innovative working method of archival research that is precise and exploits the potential afforded by multiple interpretations that are apparent and latent in archives. More importantly, archival research highlights specific issues concerning site studies, authorship, conservation in relation to use, as well as presentation of the subject matter, and consequently demonstrates the significance of these issues to architectural design. The interest in multiple interpretations is also explored in conjunction with the notion of allegory. This method develops Peter Bürger’s theory on ‘nonorganic’ works of art, which includes a study of Walter Benjamin’s analysis of Baroque allegory. This is explored alongside an Elizabethan portrait and its use of didactic allegory to yield different readings radiating from, and referring to a single source. Hence the qualities and differences in didactic and dialectical allegory are exploited to address specific issues raised by archival research in the design proposal. This method changes the tenor of the artwork and gives it contingent meaning specific to the recipient’s contexts. Significantly, the arguments for multiple interpretations is consistent with the differentiated, nuanced and embedded meanings residing within the portrait, which are raised in the process of archival research,

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and constitutes a method which may also be used to inform architectural design. Specific issues raised in this process include new ways to explore the architectural site, considerations with regard to questioning and defining the role of the architect, attention to the process and effects of building conservation, and lastly, the integration of design ideas with the presentation of the architectural project. This results in the creation of new, richer and more complex experiences in architectural production and discourse.

More than Remains, The Echoing Cedar.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Andrei Martin N+ Masterplan, Ningbo China, 2011

N+ is a masterplan for a new quarter for the fashion industry for the Chinese city of Ningbo, a seaport city in Zhejiang province, Eastern China. At its core it functions as an education and research and development platform for Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fashion industry, giving exposure to local design talent and access to global brands and expertise. N+ was a design response to questions of how to support Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transition from a manufacturing base to a design powerhouse, how to enable new forms of engagement between brands and consumers and how can to encourage creativity, sociability and experimentation through urban design. The masterplan proposes four districts: the Campus, Hutong, High Rise and Cultural Districts, each of which cater to the diverse needs of international brands in a single setting. It launched a new real estate concept and architectural typology, the Brand Embassy, and encouraged brands to curate events, activities and experiences using strategic spaces within the master plan known as Content Boxes. The project was informed by research undertaken by PLP Architecture regarding the evolution of luxury brand presence in China. It has been widely disseminated in the architectural and design media and won the Big Urban Projects Category of the MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Awards in 2012.

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N+ Masterplan, Ningbo China, 2011, Andrei Martin

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Will McLean

A School Book, illustrates the unique collaboration between Bruce and Will McLean and North Ayshire Council (NAC), Scotland in the design of new environments for primary education. Initiated in 1995 the Dalry Primary School was a collaboration between North Ayshire County’s Education Authority and Technical Services Department, arts consultancy Ginkgo Projects and Bruce and Will McLean who acted as external consultants to the local authority. It has been lauded for its concept of ‘embedded intelligence’ and widely disseminated as the most revolutionary school building ever constructed in Scotland. A School Book documents the project, completed and opened in 2007, and proceeding prototype designs for schools in Lawthorn, (North Ayrshire) South Shields and Essex. This includes experimental research studies, which saw the McLean’s working with artists, writers, photographers and engineers in the exploration and design of new environments for learning. The research process involved the participation of the design team in a series of workshops with staff and students of the Dalry school and the production of several reports for the local authority, excerpts of which are reproduced in the book. A major exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery (University of Edinburgh) included a 1:1 steel prototype of seven pedagogic typologies. The book, co-authored and edited by Will McLean charts and documents the design process through drawings and photographs. This includes a series of essays by Will McLean, some of which were previously published as part of McLean’s Nuggets, a bi-monthly column featured in 30 issues of Architectural Design (AD) magazine from 2005-2010. Bruce and Will McLean

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recently presented the Dalry School project at the The Decorated School Network International Conference 2013, Prendergast Hilly Fields College, London <http://www. thedecoratedschool.blogspot.co.uk/>. McLean, B. and McLean, W. (ed.). A School Book, with Introduction and essays by McLean, W. London: Bibliotheque McLean. 192 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9558868-7-4 (Due for publication October 2013)

Dalry Primary School, North Ayshire, Scotland, Bruce McLean and Will McLean with David Watts of North Ayrshire Council, 2007

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Kester Rattenbury

The Supercrit series of events and publications brought some of the world’s greatest architects back into the studio to present one of their most influential projects to a panel of international critics and a studio audience for critical debate, as though they were students presenting their work at a student crit. The events were recorded, carefully edited, illustrated, annotated and discussed in accompanying essays and published Supercrits 1-4 were published in book form, and Supercrits 5-7 are under development as digital publications. These fuse several forms of common architectural discourse the student crit, the contemporary critical review, the edited transcript - and then treat the resulting material as highly academic subject matter, with meticulous editing, careful footnoting (which developed an academic argument, suggested further references or simply explained arcane terms) and extensive picture research, accompanying essays, bibliographies, appendices etc.

Rattenbury, K. and Hardingham, S. (eds.) Supercrit # 3: Richard Rogers: The Pompidou Centre, and Rattenbury, K. ‘Preview,’ pp. 15-22. London: Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-45786-6 Hardingham, S. and Rattenbury, K. (eds.) Supercrit # 4: Bernard Tschumi: Parc de la Villette and ‘Preview,’ pp. 13-15. London: Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-457878-0 Rattenbury, K., Hamman, C. and Visnjic, F. Supercrit # 5: Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York. Rattenbury, K., Hamman, C. and Visnjic, F. Supercrit # 6: Leon Krier: Poundbury. Rattenbury, K., Hamman, C. and Visnjic, F. Supercrit # 7: Michael Wilford: Staatsgaleria, Stuttgart.

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Supercrit #5: Rem Koolhhaas: Delirious New York

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Gabby Shawcross

Gabby Shawcross is one of a new generation of architects exploring time-based approaches to place-making and investigating how timebased media might be incorporated into architectural design and experience. His design projects are playful experiments at the intersection of architecture, sculpture, live performance, the moving image and digital installation that explore the following research questions: How can architectural environments convey an embodied experience of time? How can cinematic concepts be used in architectural design and place-making? What technologies are appropriate to building performative spatial experiences into everyday life and urban space? While embracing new technological possibilities, they question the dominance of high technology in time-based architecture, instead looking for appropriate technological solutions that build performative spatial experiences into everyday life and urban space.

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Scroll, Bloomberg Visitor Experience Installation, New York, 2012, Gabby Shawcross, SOCA.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Filip Visnjic

Filip Visnjic is editor-in-chief of the blog Creative Applications Network, one of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most authoritative, widely read online digital art blogs. The site reports innovation across the field and catalogues projects, tools and platforms relevant to the intersection of art, media, design and technology. CAN (Creative Applications Network) is also known for uncovering and contextualising noteworthy work featured on the festival and gallery circuit, executed within the commercial realm or developed as academic research. Since 2012, Visnjic has organised and cocurated Resonate an annual event in Belgrade, Serbia. The three day Resonate festival gives a regional European public an overview of the current situation in the fields of music, visual arts and digital culture. Guest artists, lecturers and other participants are chose to represent the cutting edge of the contemporary creative industry in Europe and is attended by visitors from Europe, Asia and North America, with worldwide press coverage.

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Resonate festival belgrade 2013

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Victoria Watson Air Grid and Atrium Building

Air Grid and the Atrium Building is part of an ongoing research program investigating aspects of colour, line and drawing in architecture through the creation of innovative structures. Air Grid is a three-dimensional lattice structure made from coloured thread that is suspended in a support armature made from 1/8 inch foam-board. These give rise to unusual visual experiences, seemingly disrupting familiar habits of perception and plausibly encouraging a new sensibility to emerge. The feasibility of manifesting Air Grid experience at an architectural scale is the inspiration behind this research. Air Grid and the Atrium Building addresses the question of whether the process of making and experiencing Air Grid at the small scale of the human body serve as a model for creating Air Grid at the larger scale of a medium size building.

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Atrium Building, the North Screen, Close-up, Victoria Watson.

EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE (EXP)

Andrew Yau Messina Waterfront Masterplan and Polycenter, 2012

This project was a competition winning design for a masterplan and cultural centre for Messina, Sicily undertaken by Urban Future Organisation in association with urban consultants Camerana and Associates and Favero e Milan Engineering, with Yau as design director. The project addressed a number of critical questions facing historic Mediterranean coastal cities. These included: How can sustainable social and economic urban development be stimulated in balance with the sea and natural environment? How can sustainable social and economic urban development be stimulated without undermining a cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic identity? How can existing urban culture and ways of life be enhanced? How can a Mediterranean climate be maximized for day lighting, ventilation and energy harvesting? The core of the research and design approach was the development of intensive feedback mechanisms between small design practices and large consulting firms. This involved design coordination between information and computational tools on numerous platforms. The exchange of professional knowledge and experience was complex in the communication and testing of design iterations. Analogue, written and sketch information were the common ground among team members, where design was constantly interrogated between manual and digital processes. This made use of advanced and extensive 3D physical modelling and visualisation using Studio Max, Rhino and Maya, and their testing out against local conditions.

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01. Messina Polycenter, Andrew Yau, Urban Future Organisation

02. Massina Masterplan, Andrew Yau, Urban Future Organisation

EXPANDED TERRITORIES

Introduction

Expanded Territories is a loose alignment of researchers, scholars and designers working on architecture in an expanded field. This refers not only to questions of scale (larger than architecture / smaller than architecture), but also to questions of site, methodology and disciplinary boundaries. Expanded Territories probes areas normally considered beyond the realm of architecture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the underwater, the underground, the ocean, the air, the informal, the interior etc. as fertile grounds for architectural research and speculation. Expanded Territories is engaged in research led practice and produces hybrid work, between architecture and landscape architecture, interior architecture, visual studies, critical studies, urban studies, philosophy, politics, cultural studies, science studies and geography.

Select recent publications include Lindsay Bremner, Mobile Johannesburg, in M. Mostafavi (ed.), In the Life of Cities, 207-221. Zurich: Lars Muller and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2012; Lindsay Bremner, Featured Graphic: Taxi hand signals in Johannesburg, forthcoming in Environment and Planning A, 45, June 2013; Lindsay Bremner, The Political Life of Rising Acid Mine Water, forthcoming in Urban Forum, 2013; Lindsay Bremner, Towards a Minor Global Architecture, forthcoming in Social Dynamics, 2013. Ben Stringer and Jane McAllister, The Flourescent Heart of Magaluf, forthcoming in Photography and Culture, 2014. Expanded Territories Researchers Featured: Roberto Bottazzi, Lindsay Bremner, Ben Stringer

The group is co-ordinated by Lindsay Bremner and includes Roberto Bottazi, Davide Deriu, Julia Dwyer, Samir Pandya, Ro Spankie and Ben Stringer.

For further information contact Lindsay Bremner at: bremnel@westminster.ac.uk 140

EXPANDED TERRITORIES

Roberto Bottazzi 35 Degrees, 2012

Digital media promote pervasiveness, dynamism, customisation and atomisation of individuals and experiences de facto pulverising previously stable categories. If fragments are all we get to experience, is there any possibility to reconcile the singular to the whole, the local and global, the visible and invisible? 35 Degrees was an installation completed in 2012 which utilised Augmented Reality [AR] technology to speculate how urbanism could begin to deal with these emergent issues. Selected out of more than 120 entries for the Chattanooga ‘Site Unseen’ - the first AR outdoor art festival - 35 Degrees imagines to cut a section through the earth exactly on the 35th parallel. This straightforward geometrical operation forms a 35-metre diameter ring on which all the cities sharing the same latitude as Chattanooga are then marked. Out of a simple, primitive gesture an iconic space emerges, a ring; a close shape connecting 21 cities around the world only by virtue of their geographical location disregarding their cultural, political, and economic differences. Within the space formed, each of the countries represented is mapped against 10 categories ranging from elementary needs [accessibility to water] to the immaterial world of digital technologies [number of cell phones per habitant]. Pakistan’s connection to mobile communication sits next to South Korea’s extraordinary technological infrastructure and we can appreciate at a single glance the global distribution of renewable water across the 35th parallel.

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A Real Urbanism of Data 35 Degrees displays geography and data both analytically and experientially. Every single location on the planet could have its own ring; endlessly repeated, yet every time unique because of its location: in the information age unity does not mean uniformity. The installation merges the micro scale of human economies to macro interactions of global geography through a gradient reconciling previously fragmented scales; from the material to the intangible.

35 Degrees: Global Data as an Urban Experience, Roberto Bottazzi.

EXPANDED TERRITORIES

Lindsay Bremner

This work extends Bremner’s book on the post-apartheid transformation of the city of Johannesburg, Writing the City into Being: Essays on Johannesburg 1998-2008 (Johannesburg: Fourthwall Books, 2010). It explores what new relations between the body and the city, fear and desire, living and dying have emerged in post-apartheid Johannesburg and how modes of city making are negotiating or responding to these. Research focused on urban conditions and sites of intense mobility and flux: inner city suburbs, the taxi industry and the HIV aids epidemic. It investigated formal and informal city making responses to these conditions. This was undertaken through internet based research, site visits and discussions with local stakeholders, architects and urban designers. It concludes with some provisional remarks about the city as a grotesque body, drawing from the writings of Michel Bakhtin. The paper is based on a presentation at ‘In the Life of Cities: Parallel Lives of the Urban,’ Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 3 - 4 May, 2011 <http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=NEdk5xfmbvw>.The image, developed for the paper, is a portrayal of Johannesburg taxi routes and ranks and the hand signals used by commuters to hail taxis. This aligns the body, mobility and urban space in new ways.

Bremner, L. J. ‘Mobile Johannesburg,’ in M. Mostafavi (ed.), In the Life of Cities, 207-221. Zurich: Lars Muller and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2012. Bremner, L. J. ‘Featured Graphic: Taxi hand signals in Johannesburg,’ Accepted for publication in Environment and Planning A 45, 2013. ISSN 0308-518X (print) 1472-3409 (online), DOI: 10.1068/a45679.

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Newtown Johannesburg, Photo Lindsay Bremner.

Taxi hand signals in Johannesburg, Lindsay Bremner.

EXPANDED TERRITORIES

Ben Stringer Guided by the lights in Palma and Magaluf (with Jane McAllister)

To travel 10 kilometres around the bay of Palma, from the historic alleys and squares of Mallorca’s urbane and sophisticated capital, Palma de Mallorca, to the ‘notorious’ beach resort of Magaluf, is apparently to traverse a giant cultural and class divide. Our work examines the very different modes of tourism that have developed in these two places. We use photography as a means of understanding the contrasting relationships with urban spaces that these two kinds of tourism have, and as a way of critiquing the ways their respective behavioural patterns are represented in media such as guide books, TV documentaries and internet chatrooms.

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Polish Girls, Magaluf, Ben Stringer and Jane McAllister.

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Introduction

The History and Cultural Studies group includes scholars engaged in a wide range of research into architectural history and theory. These explore the ‘what, why, how, and for whom?’ of architectural and building custom and practice, and the various changing meanings and interpretations which have been placed upon them both in the past and in contemporary culture. Members of the group have conducted ground breaking research in a number of key areas, hosted symposia and conferences, edited journals, curated exhibitions and published books, book chapters and and journal articles. The group is co-ordinated by John Bold and includes Nick Beech, Davide Deriu, Richard Difford, William Firebrace, Jon Goodbun, Josie Kane, Andrew Peckham, Julian Williams, Victoria Watson and others. In the spring semester each year, the group hosts the History and Theory Open Lectures series. Recent speakers have included Deborah Howard, Professor of Architectural History at the University of Cambridge, John Minnis, historian with English Heritage, Emma Cheatle, architect and educator and Mark Wilson Jones, architect and architectural historian.

Select recent publications include: John Bold, Sustaining Heritage in South-East Europe: Working with the Council of Europe, 2003-10, The Historic Environment, 4 (1), April 2013, 75-86; John Bold, 2013, Walter Sickert and the image of Camden Town, The British Art Journal, 13 (3), 2013, 91-96; Davide Deriu, Picturing Modern Ankara: New Turkey in Western Imagination, forthcoming in the Journal of Architecture, 2013; Davide Deriu, Krystallia Kamvasinou and Eugénie Shinkle (eds.), Emerging Landscapes: Beyond Production and Representation. Farnham, Ashgate, forthcoming in 2013; David Dernie, The Symbolist Interior and Crystal Imagination, forthcoming in Architecture Research Quarterly 17 (1/2), 2013; David Dernie, Elevating Mallarmé’s Shipwreck, forthcoming in Buildings 3 (2) 2013; William Firebrace, Aquarius in Question, Cabinet, 48, 2013, 30-38;

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Josie Kane, Edwardian Amusement Parks: The Pleasure Garden Reborn? In J. Conlin (Ed.), The Pleasure Garden, from Vauxhall to Coney Island, 217-245. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013;

History and Cultural Studies Researchers Featured: Andrew Peckham, Christine Wall, David Dernie, Davide Deriu, John Bold, Josie Kane, Ro Spankie, William Firebrace

Josie Kane, British Amusement Parks. Farnham: Ashgate, forthcoming in 2013; Andrew Peckham, Cataloguing Architecture: the Library of the Architect in Literatures, in Sas Mays (ed.) Libraries and Archives. London, Routledge, forthcoming in 2013; Andrew Peckham and Torsten Schmiedeknecht (eds.), The Rationalist Reader. London: Routledge, forthcoming 2013; Ro Spankie, Drawing out the Censorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Room, forthcoming in IDEA Journal, 2013; Christine Wall, An Architecture of Parts: Architects, Building Workers and Industrialisation in Britain 1940-1970. London: Routledge, forthcoming in 2013.

For further information contact John Bold at: J.A.Bold@westminster.ac.uk

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

John Bold

This group of London-based research outputs builds upon research carried out over many years on London, most notably on Greenwich, on which the author is the internationally acknowledged expert. The outputs are authoritative, based on deep and groundbreaking archival research as well as long experience and familiarity with the architecture of London as a whole, and Greenwich in particular. Discovering London’s Buildings takes an historical and thematic approach to London’s building types: houses, flats, commercial, governmental and so on. It includes twelve walks discussing significant buildings in the City, Westminster, South Bank, Greenwich etc. The book takes an innovative approach in questioning how we see London, through depictions and through walking through it. This aspect is further developed in the journal article on Bird’s-Eye Views, which looks at the history of panoramic views of the capital. Building on the major monograph on Greenwich published in 2000, the Greenwich essay, prepared for the major exhibition held at the National Maritime Museum, considers the ways in which the site, and the related river, have been experienced and depicted since the seventeenth century. Bold, J. and Hinchcliffe, T., Discovering London’s Buildings London, Frances Lincoln, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-7112-2918-1. ‘Bird’s-Eye Views: From Hollar to the London Eye’. Aerial Views of Metropolitan London, special issue of The London Journal, vol. 35, no. 3, November 2010, pp. 225-35. ISSN: 0305-8034. DOI: 10. 1179/174963210X12814015170115 ‘The Later History of Greenwich: A River Landscape and Architectural Statement.’ In S. Doran (ed.) Royal River - Power, Pageantry and the Thames. London, Scala and Royal Museums Greenwich, 2012, pp. 114-20. ISBN 978-1-85759-700-4.

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Cabin in Royal Charles Ward, Royal Hospital for Seamen, Greenwich (Illustrated London News 22nd April 1865).

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Davide Deriu

This paper is based on research that Deriu began to undertake while teaching as a Visiting Assistant Professor at METU, Ankara, prior to joining the University of Westminster. It was then substantially developed thanks to a prestigious Early-Career Fellowship awarded by the AHRC in 2011-2012. In his research, Deriu examined an uncharted body of sources in order to establish how imagery produced by various authors and artists forged the symbolic place of Ankara in Western imagination; and how this, in turn, informed the cross-cultural perceptions of ‘New Turkey’ in the Republican period. Deriu presented the early stages of this research to a seminar at SOAS (March 2008), and at two international conferences in Porto (10th International Conference of Utopian Studies Society/ Europe, July 2009) and Guimarães (1st EAHN International Meeting, June 2010). The peer-reviewed journal article further evolved from papers that were presented during the Fellowship period, first to a research seminar at METU, Ankara (April 2012), and later at a specialist conference session in Prague (11th International Conference on Urban History, September 2012). A version of the paper was also presented at the symposium ‘The Making of Modern Ankara: Space, Politics, Representation’ (November 2012), which Deriu organised at the University of Westminster in collaboration with Professor Benjamin Fortna of SOAS. This international and interdisciplinary event contributed to reassess the rise and development of the Turkish capital within a wider and geo-political context. Deriu, D. ‘Picturing Modern Ankara: “New Turkey” in Western imagination.’ Forthcoming in Journal of Architecture, 2013.

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Image credit: VEKAM Archives

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

David Dernie

This journal article and collage series discusses collage as a means to explore spatial ideas. It concerns the practice of drawing-as-research, the spatiality of drawing and the nature of paper. It questions the homogeneity of digital tools in contemporary practice. It is introduced with a discussion of architectural representation and space with a historical trajectory. It questions an understanding of space-as-geometry and discusses the potential role of non-perspectival drawings and nondigital drawing in current practice. The collage studies focus on the late nineteenth century. Working in the tradition of the collage novel, and with original engravings from the popular French newspaper Le Grande Illustré (1904), the collages work with the thematic structure and spatiality of Stéphane Mallarmé’s revolutionary poem Un Coup de Dés written a few years earlier. In the paper the spatial and thematic content of Mallarmé’s poem are visualised for the first time. The conclusions of this study concern the role of non-digital drawings in the profession, and the potential of creative paper technologies to engage the material imagination at the early stages of a design process. It opens new ground as a study of the spatiality of text, the relationship between dramaturgy and architecture and on the nature of topological drawings. The collage series will be submitted for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2013, and will also be elaborated with a Greek colleague for an exhibition, ‘Shipwreck’ in Athens, also in 2013.

Dernie, D. ‘Elevating Mallarmé’s Shipwreck.’ Buildings vol. 3, no. 2, 2013. ISSN: 2075-5309.

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Paper collage comprised of original engravings from La Grande Illustre (1904): A Commonplace Elevation Pours Out Absence

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

William Firebrace

There is a considerable written history to the North German Backstein churches, much of course in the German language. The background research for this article involved a series of visits to the Baltic towns in the years 2007-11, visiting and recording impressions of these churches, and then a considerable reading of German sources, particularly those of the mid-twentieth century when opinions of German culture were in a state of flux. This fairly straightforward research on buildings with a standard architectural history is then given a twist by examining the buildings through games theory, particularly that of Huizinga and Cortazar, and considering the churches a-historically as a sequence of architectural pieces relating to the twists and turns of German culture. This builds the research techniques into the mode of writing. Firebrace, W. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hop Rayuela Backstein.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; AA Files 64, April 2012, pp. 149-163. ISBN 978-1-907896-12-5.

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Lubeck Cathedral, Photo Wilhelm Castelli.

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Josie Kane

The amusement parks which first appeared in England at the turn of the twentieth century represent a startlingly novel and complex phenomenon, combining fantasy architecture, new technology, ersatz danger, spectacle and consumption in a new mass experience. Though drawing on a diverse range of existing leisure practices, the particular entertainment formula they offered marked a radical departure in terms of visual, experiential and cultural meanings. The huge, socially mixed crowds that flocked to the new parks did so purely in the pursuit of pleasure, which the amusement parks commodified in exhilarating new guises. Between 1906 and 1939, nearly 40 major amusement parks operated across Britain. By the outbreak of the Second World War, millions of people visited these sites each year. The amusement park had become a defining element in the architectural psychological pleasurescape of Britain.This book considers the relationship between popular modernity, pleasure and the amusement park landscape in Britain from 1900-1939. It argues that the amusement parks were understood as a new and distinct expression of modern times, which redefined the concept of public pleasure for mass audiences. Focusing on three sites – Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Dreamland in Margate and Southend’s Kursaal – the book contextualises their development with references to the wider amusement park world. The meanings of these sites are explored through a detailed examination of the spatial and architectural form taken by rides and other buildings. The rollercoaster – a defining symbol of the amusement park – is given particular focus, as is the extent to which discourses of class, gender and national identity were expressed through the design of these parks. Kane, J. The Architecture of Pleasure: British Amusement Parks 1900-1939. Farnham, Ashgate, September 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4094-1075-1 158

The Topsy-Turvy Railway, Crystal Palace, Sydenham c1905, Postcard, Private Collection.

Gigantic Wheel, Earlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Court, London 1908, Postcard, Private Collection.

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Andrew Peckham

This book is the culmination of a longstanding theoretical and pedagogic interest in the fortunes of rationalism in twentieth century architecture, a subject touched on in the editors’ previous book Rationalist Traces (2007). The editing of the Reader, which is a comparative anthology of key texts from the two periods, the 20s and 30s and post-war during the 60s and 70s (different in kind from conventional chronological surveys), was informed by an investigative perspective which takes issue with received opinion about the status of rationalism in the architecture of both periods (unaddressed in previous publications). Extensive collaborative research by both editors drawing on specialist knowledge and advice in the European countries concerned, has been collected together and re-formulated (in the editors’ introduction and the books thematic sections) exploiting available sources in English, but also less well-known and untranslated material. The editors have been directly involved in selecting, translating and editing the texts that form the two documentary sections of the Reader, as also liaising with specialist translators, publishers, archives, and the Dutch architect/critic Henk Engel and German architectural historian, professor Thilo Hilpert, who provide introductions to the two periods.

These are set in a wider historical frame with reference to nineteenth century architectural theory, and in a postscript are retrospectively updated by protagonists like Leon Krier and practicing architects such as Hans van der Heijden. Now that the historical experience of many young architects (and students) is confined to ‘masters’ and ‘iconic buildings’ located somewhere in the flux of modernity, the Reader demonstrates that, while the architectural culture of different periods is distinct, concepts such as Rationalism (or its significant ‘other’ Functionalism) undergo parallel transformations.

Professor Nicholas Bullock from Cambridge University contributes a linking piece focused on French experience post-war (informed by his on-going research into the period).

Peckham, A. and Schmiedeknecht, T. (Eds.) The Rationalist Reader: architecture and rationalism in Western Europe 1920-1940 / 1960-1990. London: Routledge, 2013. 160

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Ro Spankie

This paper is part of a wider investigation into the creation of interior space and draws from Spankie’s doctoral research. Asking if the psychoanalytic tenet of the ‘first house’ could function as, an albeit unconscious, design generator in the arrangement of interiors, the article uses the Royal College of Physicians, London, as a case study, considering in particular a panelled room known as the Censors’ Room that is said to have originated from the physician’s first house.

Awarded ‘A’ ranking by ERA: Excellence in Research for Australia, the journal recognises and promotes interior design / interior architecture as a research activity relevant to its field where the definition of research includes research about design, research for design as well as through design. Spankie was invited to give an earlier version of the paper to the MA Architectural History Programme, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. March 2012.

The research has two main components: firstly a measured survey of the existing Censors’ Room in Denys Lasdun’s Royal College of Physicians, Regent’s Park and recording of the New Fellows Ceremony. Speculative drawings were then created of the previous versions of the Censors’ Room based on research in the Royal College of Physicians Archive, the Lasdun Archive and the RIBA Library and drawings collection, referencing a wide range of materials including inventories, a scrapbook and oral history. The second component involved historical and theoretical reflection comparing the drawings created to the historical narrative. The article speculates that the gap between the two descriptions exposes an unconscious memory or trace of the physician’s ‘first house’ and that the exercise offers a useful analogy to interiority both as an intellectual construct and in the challenges it sets up in terms of representation.

Spankie, R. ‘Drawing out the Censors’ Room.’ Accepted for publication in IDEA Journal, 2013.

The article is published in the IDEA JOURNAL. Launched in 1999, the IDEA (Interior Design / Interior Architecture Educators Association) JOURNAL is an international refereed journal dedicated to the publication of interior design/interior architecture research.

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Developed Surface of the Censorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Room at the Royal College of Physicians, Ro Spankie

HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Christine Wall

An Architecture of Parts describes post war reconstruction from a new perspective: the changing relationship between architects and building workers. It considers individual, as well as collective, interactions with technical change using multi-disciplinary methodology to include technical archives, oral history and visual material to describe the construction process. The social aspects of production and the changes in working life for architects and building workers alike are examined, in particular the effect on the building process of introducing dimensionally co-ordinated components. It concludes, through an investigation of architectural approaches to industrialisation, that the structures and ideas underpinning this period of rapid industrial change were revolutionary in their commitment to a complete transformation of the building process. The research underpinning the book revealed a dearth of documentation and analysis of activities at the level of the building site. This in turn provided the impetus for a two year Leverhulme Trust funded project, Constructing Post-War Britain: building workers’ stories 1940-70 on which I was Principal Investigator. The main aim was to find and record the experiences of building workers employed on five case study sites, contextualise these in the light of existing documentary evidence and identify

Leverhulme Trust funded project Constructing Post War Britain: building workers stories 1950-70 (with Linda Clarke). Wall, C. ‘An architecture of parts’: architects, building workers and industrialisation in Britain 1940-1970. London: Routledge, 2013, pp.240 ISBN: 978-0-415-63794-7

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Concrete workers on the corner of the Queen Elizabeth Hall c.1964, Photograph Rod Bond.

TECHNICAL STUDIES

Introduction

The Technical Studies group consists of scholars and practitioners in the fields of architecture and engineering engaged in the implementation and study of the technologies of architecture. Specific areas of identified interest include a-typical construction technologies, the innovative and efficient use of materials, human comfort and the environmental envelope, systems building design, computational tools in architecture, interaction design in the built environment, day-lighting and acoustics. Research outputs include authored and edited books, regular journal and magazine articles and on-going practice driven research into the history and on-going technological development of architecture. The group is co-ordinated by Will McLean and includes Peter Barber, Scott Batty, Richard Difford, John-Paul Frazer, Andrew Whiting, Francois Giradin, Antonio Passaro, Peter Silver, Michael Wilson and others. Each year, the open Technical Studies Lecture Series invites and documents talks from leading thinkers and practitioners in architecture, engineering and related disciplines.

Select recent publications include: Mike Wilson et al., Aircraft noise, overheating and poor air quality in classrooms in London primary schools, Building and Environment 52, June 2012, 129-141;Will McLean (ed.); Dante Bini: Building With Air. London; Bibliotheque McLean, forthcoming in 2013; Peter Silver, Will McLean and Peter Evans, Structural Engineering for Architects: The Handbook. London: Laurence King, forthcoming in 2014.

Technical Studies Researchers Featured: Will McLean, Pete Silver, and Mike Wilson For further information contact Will McLean at W.F.Mclean@westminster.ac.uk 166

TECHNICAL STUDIES

Will Mclean

Italian architect Dante Bini (1933-) has dedicated his professional life to the development of automated construction technologies. In 1964, in Crespellano, Northern Italy he successfully constructed a 12 m diameter, 6 m high hemispherical concrete shell structure in three hours, using the unique pneumatic formwork of a giant low-pressure balloon. Thin shell concrete structures are structurally efficient and can enclose huge volumes with a small amount of material. However, the fabrication of the necessary formwork needed to traditionally construct these shells had previously required a large, skilled workforce and corresponding amounts of construction materials. Bini’s inflatable formwork or Pneumoform eradicated the need for such a large site team, reducing material use and speeding up the construction process. Originally contacting Dante Bini in relation to an article about pneumatic structures led to a lengthy dialogue between McLean and the architect. McLean agreed to publish an English translation of Bini’s book, A cavallo di un soffio d’aria. L’architettura autoformante. This was introduced and substantially reedited by McLean following a field trip to Northern Italy, where McLean visited Bini’s original thin shell structures accompanied by the architect. Bini entrusted McLean with his personal photographic archive, including a substantial amount of previously unpublished photo-documentation. This is re-produced for the first time in Building with Air.

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The book represents the first English language record of Bini’s research and built projects, which previously has been only available in technical and trade journals, magazines and newspapers. Building with Air also features the first large scale publication of the domed villa in Sardinia that Bini designed and built for film director Michelangelo Antonioni and actress Monica Vitti. Extensively researched by Italian architect Lucio Fontana, the book publishes an essay by Fontana accompanied by original and previously unpublished photography of this unique and highly unusual house. McLean, W. (ed.). Dante Bini: Building with Air. London: Bibliotheque McLean, 2013. 160 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9558868-4-3

Binishell construction, Castelfranco, Italy 1966, Photograph Dante Bini: Building With Air.

TECHNICAL STUDIES

Mike Wilson

The focus of daylighting design is the comfort and happiness of users. People respond in many different ways to light, and experience it in terms of what is recognised and felt, not as photometric values. So good design is subtle and multi-faceted. It is a concern for the human body’s dependence on daylight, for what gives joy and interest, for the creation of ‘place’, for a building’s effect on its surroundings. A focus on people is essential to the creation of buildings that are sustainable within the natural world. This book provides architects, lighting specialists, and anyone else working daylight into design, with all the tools needed to incorporate this most fundamental element of architecture. It includes: an overview of current practice of daylighting in architecture and urban planning; a review of recent research on daylighting and what this means to the practitioner; a global vision of architectural lighting which is linked to the climates of the world and which integrates view, sunlight, diffuse skylight and electric lighting; up-to-date tools for design in practice; delivery of information in a variety of ways for interdisciplinary readers: graphics, mathematics, text, photographs and in-depth illustrations; new research on view, reflected sunlight and daylight factors; a clear structure: eleven chapters covering different aspects of lighting; a set of worksheets giving step-by-step examples of calculations and design procedures for use in practice, and a collection of algorithms and equations for reference by specialists and software designers. This book should trigger creative thought. It recognizes that good lighting design needs both knowledge and imagination. Tregenza, P. and Wilson, M. Daylighting: Architecture and Lighting Design. London: Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-4192-5700-4 170

Daylighting: Architecture and Lighting Design, Peter Tregenza and Michael Wilson.

Staff in the Department of Architecture

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Department of Architecture

CREATIVE ENERGY

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