IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas

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IMAGINE

Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas

07 April - 30 June 2013


Imagine - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas Emerging from the context of architecture, the drawing has evolved from a set of basic constructive instructions to an independent tool for the expression of utopias. When liberated from convention, fictional architecture becomes an idea, drawing and visualising it is a testing ground for concepts in their purest and most concentrated form.

With essays by William Firebrace, Marcos Cruz, Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Neil Spiller and the exhibition curators, Elke and Florian Frotscher, the catalogue explores the power of the architectural drawing as an art form in its own right.

This exhibition explores the self-sufficiency of architectural notation, offering a key-hole view into the world of ideas and allowing a glimpse of the shape which the architecture of the future may take.

For further information on the exhibition and its content please write to: exhibition@frotscher.co.uk


IMAGINE

FICTIONAL ARCHITECTURE AND THE LIBERATION OF IDEAS ELKE FROTSCHER FLORIAN FROTSCHER

BIN MATAR HOUSE, MUHARRAQ, KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN


Published to accompany the exhibition IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas 07 April - 30 June 2013 Bin Matar House, Muharraq Kingdom of Bahrain A project by the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture and Research The moral rights of the contributors have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Project initiation and production: Shaikh Ebrahim Center Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa Melissa Enders-Bhatia Mariyana Veles Curation, Coordination, Project Management, Exhibition Design, Catalogue Editing and Graphic Design: Elke Frotscher Alexandra Ehrenfeuchter Florian Frotscher Edition 03 (Editions 01 and 02 printed in Bahrain) Cover Illustration: ‘Entrance Sequence’ by Michael Dean, 2011 For further information on the exhibition and its content please write to: exhibition@frotscher.co.uk

SPRING OFCULTURE .ORG


CONTENTS 6

CURATORS’ PREFACE Elke Frotscher, Florian Frotscher

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FOREWORD Melissa Enders-Bhatia

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PAUL’S GREAT BREADTH William Firebrace

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LATERAL DESIGN AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEW ARCHITECTURAL CRAFTING CULTURE Marcos Cruz

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PARADISE CITY THE MAGICAL ARCHITECTURE IN DRAWING DRAWINGS Neil Spiller

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ARCHITECTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ANTHROPOCENE AGE . . . Simon Herron + Susanne Isa

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EXHIBITION OBJECTS

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EXHIBITION DESIGN

110

OBJECT CREDITS

116

LIST OF LENDERS

117

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


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Elke Frotscher, Florian Frotscher London, March 2013

CURATORS’ PREFACE It all began with a walk around London’s Frieze Art Fair in 2011. Since then, the notion of an exhibition showcasing architectural drawings as art forms in their own right - displaying fictional architecture and its ability to explore new formal languages, create spatial concepts and generate atmospheres - had been percolating between the curator of Bin Matar House, Melissa Enders-Bhatia and London-based architect and designer Elke Frotscher. Almost a year to the day, the idea was forged to exhibit a series of artworks conceived by architects that navigate the boundary between architectural notation and artistic expression. ‘IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas’ presents close to 100 works by more than 30 artists, as part of Bahrain’s Spring of Culture 2013. It became evident that leading architectural schools are well-suited to examining the relationship between architectural and artistic drawing, as the conceptual think tanks of the architectural profession where drawings emerge from the context of constructive architecture and become an independent tool for the expression of utopias. Based on this notion, Frotscher collaborated with some of the UK’s leading

architecture schools, namely The Bartlett School of Architecture, The University of Westminster, The University of Greenwich and Oxford Brookes University. Having reviewed hundreds of projects, drawings and images for the exhibition, she became aware that these schools consistently nurture the greatest free-thinking talent in the field of architecture. While the outstanding architectural drawings and projects shown use a wide range of media and reflect an equally diverse approach to the profession, none of the works aim to influence the built environment and instead communicate what has merely been imagined; they have evolved into complex notational systems produced to convey an idea rather than a form. At the same time, although independent from construction, the works share a high level of craftsmanship that sets them apart from a merely hinted expression of an idea. The drawings show tremendous precision, in craft as well as in thought. It is this field between intuition and precision, between the independence of the architectural drawing and its link back to the craft that the exhibition aims to explore.


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Melissa Enders-Bhatia Bahrain, March 2013

FOREWORD Through its annual program of exhibitions at the Bin Matar House, the Shaikh Ebrahim Center seeks to promote both local artists and provide a varied selection of events showcasing a broad range of visual arts, ranging from sculpture to painting, photography to installation, and from architecture to design.

objects find their greatest sense of personal expression and liberty to explore fictional domains. Prior to entering the world of real architecture, where illustrative and technical drawings dominate, architecture students are free to create utopian and imaginary projects. Join me in exploring their worlds.

This year, the Shaikh Ebrahim Center is pleased to present, ‘IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas’ as part of its program of exhibitions and the annual Spring of Culture Festival. With this show, the center continues its series of exhibitions focusing on the world of architecture and design which started with the 2010 exhibition of Zaha Hadid’s design objects at the Bin Matar House - the first in the Gulf Region - and continued with Moosa Silwadi’s 2011 display of Knot Constructions.

Melissa Enders-Bhatia is the Head of Art & Exhibitions at the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture and Research.

‘IMAGINE – Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas’ focuses on architectural drawings on the verge of artistic self expression. In the thesis projects of final year graduate students at some of Europe’s leading architecture schools, these drawings and three dimensional


10 William Firebrace,

London, March 2013

PAUL’S GREAT BREADTH ‘Sometimes’, wrote Paul Klee, ‘I dream of a work of really great breadth, ranging through the whole region of element, object, meaning and style’. Klee was speaking of the work of the artist. But element, object, meaning and style are a good starting point for any drawing. Forms Architectural drawings come in any number of forms. There are those notorious quick sketches in which the architect encapsulates his or her great idea in a few dashed lines, like the sketch of the Crystal Palace on the back of the envelope by Joseph Paxton, the few lines delineating the Einstein tower by Eric Mendelsohn, or the wonderful idle doodles by Cedric Price, hiding as much as they reveal. There is the serious technical drawing, showing all the pieces drawn in immaculate detail, all precisely notated, an ordered, carefully considered world with no pretentions to prettiness, but aesthetically rather undervalued. There is the simple plan and section showing the balance between material and void, a functional and elegant type of drawing dependent on various line weights and a rather minimalist feel. There are axonometrics (exploded or otherwise), worms-eye views, birds-eye views, cut-aways, fold-outs. And there are what used to be called Beaux Arts drawings - magnificent, beautiful perspectives and aerial views of the elements of grand schemes, often more concerned with atmosphere than precision, intended to flatter and seduce the client, or to impress the humble populace, showing in the most favourable light the imagined architectural value of the project. These, and others too numerous to list, create an ever-expanding taxonomy of the forms and possibilities of architectural drawing. Style All these drawing types have a quality of representation; they stand in for an object which might exist in the future, which is expected to be constructed. The drawings would normally be considered subservient to this actual object, which follows on from the drawing - the real building or urban project. But there are also architectural drawings which

are not content merely to serve, but boldly make a bid for independence, for existing in their own right; not as mere forerunners of a constructed architecture, but as architecture in themselves. In architectural schools drawings are thought of partly as a kind of training, preparation for drawings the student will make later in their professional life, but also partly as having their own life. The purpose of such drawings is not to stand in for the real project, for this will never be constructed; the drawing is itself the project. Freed from the need to merely represent, the more adventurous of such drawings have followed their own path, experimented with techniques derived from the art world - cartoons, engineering fetishes, adverts, graffiti, multiple layers of representation, utopian or dystopian, wilful, mechanical, melancholic, erotic, lyrical, atmospheric, puzzling, pop, cinematic, theatrical, banal... It is when architectural drawings experiment and take risks, cease to worry about exact meaning and become playful with the rules of representation, become subversive in their relationship to the built world, that they become fascinating. Hand Until comparatively recently, architectural drawings were all evolved laboriously by hand, but now of course they are mostly produced digitally, with the machine and its software taking a large part of the load. Most hand-drawings involved the use of simple machines, all those adjustable T-squares, parallel motions, retractable pencil leads, sets of fiddly pens of varying width, which have mostly now vanished. Those sketches of Cedric Price, which are instantly recognisable as being by him, were produced by a common drawing instrument, using a technique anyone could master. Mastery lay not in the instrument, but the way it was used. Hand drawings do have a quality of being individual, since the hand which draws them belongs to someone in particular; it shakes, it pushes the pen at a different pressure, faster or slower, at this angle or that. There has recently been a considerable revival of interest in hand-drawings, partly as a reaction to the uniformity of the digital, partly as an investigation of the beauty of the fluid lines produced by the hand direct from inspiration. There are certain hand


drawings produced in studios, which appear to have an illustrational style, concerned not with portraying spaces in a conventional way but as extended doodles, almost making the architecture up as the pen crosses the paper. There is a quality, a style, in hand-drawings, which the computer, however ingenious, can never capture. Machine But to simply follow this line that the hand is better than the machine would be technophobic and retrograde; the architectural hand-drawing is today unlikely to be much more than an exception. We live in the period of the architectural drawing, in the age of mechanical reproduction. Just as the development of digital photography means that anyone can take a high quality photograph regardless of their technical skill, so today (almost) anyone can produce an architectural drawing, apparently of considerable complexity but without necessarily very much individual imagination. Online games such as Minecraft allow the user, even if completely lacking in formal draughting skill, to design buildings from a predetermined set of elements – with certain surprises such as dangerous zombies and wandering farmyard animals. There is little room for individuality in such games, but the results are surprisingly convincing. It would be tempting to say of current architectural drawings that the machine has made them all too much the same. This is sometimes the impression gained from architecture shows, a feeling of an endlessly repeating déjà vu. But the statement is only partially true, the machine is ever dependent on the person using it; individuality always works its way into the digitally produced drawing, into its style in the way it portrays elements and objects, and thus into its meaning. Digital individuality emerges in unexpected ways, sometimes by asserting the abstract rigour of the elements, exaggerating their mechanical quality; sometimes by becoming playful, with flashes of colour, combinations of different types of representation, layers of volumes and objects, imaginative spatial effects; sometimes by producing a vision so distinctive that the inner quality of the work is revealed through the otherwise

mechanical drawing. But ultimately the individuality of such drawings is not derived from graphic effects, which are easily and rapidly imitated, but from the distinctiveness of thinking behind the project, and quietly asserting its own quality. It is when the interior quality of the project becomes incorporated within the drawing, becomes its own style, that drawing gains the strength to stand for itself. Afterlife The death of the architectural drawing, like the death of the architect, has been much predicted, but drawings remain obstinately alive with little sign of the last rites being required. Perhaps the better drawings currently produced in architectural schools are the last wonderful decadent flourish of what has now gone, following in the Beaux Arts tradition and the graphic flourishes of the AA in the seventies and eighties, attempting to keep alive an imagination and inventiveness which has always inspired the actual world. Certain architectural schools, confronted with a choice between the confinement and uncertainty of a traditional profession at a time of economic recession and the need to encourage optimism, experiment and individual design flair, have chosen the latter. They then inevitably become detached from the world outside and exist only in a self-created comfort zone. What might emerge after the drawings currently produced by such schools? Films and animations have suggested themselves, substituting the old static world of the drawing for other notions yet to be fully explored in architecture such as time, sequence, change, sudden cuts backwards and forwards, sounds, narratives. It is by moving on from the drawing to other media which are just beginning to make themselves shown, and which are themselves a kind of constructed world, that the future of architectural representation, in its many forms and styles, now lies. William Firebrace, AA dipl. Prof (De) is MArch course leader at the Department of Architecture, University of Westminster. He is also the author of ‘Marseille Mix’ and ‘Things Worth Seeing’.


12 Marcos Cruz,

London, March 2013

LATERAL DESIGN AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEW ARCHITECTURAL CRAFTING CULTURE 1 There are various types of architects today, many of whom are involved in work that is not strictly related to the building industry, such as film, web design, advertising, interactive design, journalism and publishing. As a result, contemporary architectural education is promoting more differentiated learning paths that enable architects to develop new modes of practice.2 There are also many changes occurring in the profession that have to be understood outside the traditional disciplinary boundaries, and we, as architects, are thus forced to rethink our field in both professional and educational terms. Not just the way in which we understand our own human body in the natural and built habitat, but also how the profession is exposed to advances in science and art. New tools and working methodologies are increasingly significant to architecture due to their inevitable technical, yet also cultural and aesthetic implications. Contemporary architectural education is shifting towards a more research-driven culture (including what is considered research-bydesign). This means that in a school like the Bartlett, staff and students are involved in specific design agendas that go beyond the learning of basic knowledge and skills. There is a greater cross-disciplinary involvement of the architecture school with other parts of the university, which in turn encourages undergraduate and postgraduate courses to develop conjoint research projects with other departments, including Planning, Energy, Environment, Engineering, along with collaborations with external offices and industries. Also more and more links between academia, professional practice and the construction industry are emerging. A great advantage of this approach is that it not only brings the academic production, often criticised for its self-indulgent and overtly eccentric mannerisms, closer to the ‘needs’ of the outer world, but also helps schools to push the boundaries of the traditional architectural practice in both realistic and speculative ways. A further benefit of this shift towards a far deeper research-lead teaching culture is the fact that a lot of future innovation in architecture probably lies in the interface between different disciplines, which does not imply losing

architecture’s disciplinary integrity, but indeed strengthens it via a more inclusive design discourses. In the end, architecture schools will be using these new research methodologies as a vital instrument to develop more resource-efficient design in the future, and find new ways to confront the environmental, social and cultural challenges of our times. Key to this development is to maintain and foster the studio culture in architecture schools as a basic pre-condition from where students learn the shared experience of design. There are academics that argue this to be a model of the past, but it has been proven too often that the idea of the old atelier, as opposed to the office, is a much more enjoyable, and certainly more enriching way in which architecture students develop a true culture of dialogue and teamwork. This allows them (within necessarily competitive surroundings) to recognise their own artistic strengths and also engage with a wider community of experts and critics, particularly when they are proactive in exposing their work through international competitions, exhibitions and publications, as many students at the Bartlett do. But different from the environment of the atelier, the contemporary studio is intertwined with a world-wide network of experts, geeks and aficionados who share their techniques and interests in a constant flow of information. In response to the increasingly available and fast-changing media, a new sense of crafting is emerging in architecture schools that is allowing for a creative and critical response to this changing world. Through elaborate drawings and models, students are able to push the boundaries of language and code. They come across as medieval artisans who ‘sculpt’ artefacts and drawings with great care until they achieve the highest level of rigour and precision. With close proximity between designer and production, layer-by-layer the complexity and sophistication of the work is unravelled, making it unique. Regardless of being hand-made or digitally crafted (or using increasingly mixed techniques), this contemporary sense of crafting still requires mastery of the medium. It is a means of expressing and communicating inner


thoughts and meanings that transcend the functional dimension of the work. But architectural crafting implies a level of ‘risk’ due to the unpredictability of its results and the potentially hybrid procedures that are mostly free of protocols. It is a process of individual discovery and interrogation. Many academic institutions, however, discourage such a ‘risk-taking’ approach as they are either still hostage to a prevailing modernist heritage, or simply constrained by new prescriptive teaching methods that are associated with a reductive use of parametric design. Either way, ‘risk’ is a quintessential factor of stepping into unexplored territories where ‘mistakes’ and ‘failure’ are a necessary and accepted condition. In this context, it is worth mentioning Edward de Bono who speaks of the importance of Lateral Thinking in creative problem solving.3 Likewise, design through crafting is a process of Lateral Design, which is a way to unearth new paths in an increasingly complex world. It implies working methods that are non-linear and do not seek obvious and conventional outcomes. The notion of ‘lateral’ implies thinking ‘out of the box’ and more synthetic action that is prone to generating creative ideas across a variety of disciplines by exploring intuitive, rather than free-flowing design possibilities. Hence, architectural crafting implies an inherently experimental work ethos that is empirical and relies on a multiplicity of divergent thinking modes. At the same time, we should not think of this new crafting culture in experimental terms without also seeing it as having inherently experiential potential. I am referring to work that is in both conceptually and phenomenologically multi-layered and where the body is back in the centre of our preoccupations; work that is not the result of a thin, one-line thinking process, but rather the construct of deeply embodied experiences. Analogous to what is understood in psychological terms as a system where sensory and emotional awareness precedes cognitive perception, the spatial experience of buildings should precede conceptual design, and, consequently, the crafting of models and draw-

ings precede the theoretical interpretation of it.4 In summary, I believe that new forms of practice are emerging in contemporary academia which are revitalising the long-standing values of architectural crafting as a powerful tool to explore Lateral Design mechanisms. This is being developed in the context of design studios that are hugely networked and where a new research-driven culture is promoting new cross-disciplinary methodologies. Highly skilled students are embracing new forms of expression and thought through their experimental design agendas. This in turn is leading to a surge in highly original, innovative and multi-layered work that is thought-provoking, visionary and certainly a much needed point of reflection about how our future built environment is evolving. Marcos Cruz is the Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His varied teaching activity as a researcher, tutor and critic has been carried out at numerous academic institutions, with key appointments at University College London, University of Westminster in London and University of California Los Angeles. Cruz is also co-founder of the experimental London-based practice marcosandmarjan. He is also author of several publications, including ‘Interfaces/Intrafaces’ (SpringerWienNewYork 2005), AD - Neoplasmatic Design (Wiley 2008) and forthcoming ‘The Inhabitable Flesh of Architecture’ (Ashgate 2013). 1 2

3 4

This text is based on an article which I published in Archithese ‘ Universitäre Räume’ in March 2010. I am here clearly differentiating practice from profession - the former implying more individually driven forms of activity, the latter being a more prescribed vocational framework that is set by the professional bodies of architecture. De Bono, Edward. The Use of Lateral Thinking, Cape Publishing, 1967 Note that in Year 1 History classes at the Bartlett students are taken around London by Professor Adrian Forty in a conscious attempt to experience buildings before they begin to interpret and conceptualise them.


14 Neil Spiller,

London, March 2013

Paradise City The Magical Architecture in Drawing Drawings ‘I remember one vivid winter’s day at Versailles … Everything gazed at me with mysterious questioning eyes. And then I realised that every corner of the place, every column, every window possessed a spirit, an impenetrable soul. I looked around at the marble heroes, motionless in the lucid air beneath the frozen rays of that winter sun which pours down on us without love … At that moment I grew aware of the mystery which urges men to create certain forms. And the creation appeared more extraordinary than the creators …’ 1

lost its lifeblood – ARCHITECTURE. What is architecture and can it be held within a drawing/model as well as a building? Architecture is the “mother of all Arts.” It is a synthesis of poetry, fine art, sculpture, it flows over time like music and its spaces have establishing vignettes, oscillate across the scales (from macro to micro) and they have denouement like film or prose. One could go on. Above all architecture is the manipulation of space – in all its manifestations. Space can be imagined and space can be graphically represented.

This memory of de Chirico’s sudden epiphany at Versailles and his realisation that architecture is wonderfully enigmatic, and silently fecund with magical metaphysics is absolutely crucial to what we understand architecture to be. The best architectural drawings and models can also have this stand-alone beauty. One thinks of Piranesi, Libeskind, some of Rossi’s and many others.

Indeed, as our world sails headlong into culturally, demographically, ecologically and technologically uncharted waters, we badly need our ability to speculate about the future of our discipline and its centrality to society. This is not utopian and it is not something that the prevailing capitalist mentality often encourages and this is short-sighted and could potentially cost us our whole discipline. Our era will be seen as being responsible for the blossoming of the virtual word and the beginning of a sustainable world (or the beginning of the end of the world).

What drives some architects to make drawings/models of architectures that are clientless and therefore unbuilt or currently unbuildable? Firstly the commercial world of architecture is a world of value engineering, of committee consent and limited material palette – a world that is highly legislated and therefore often normative and often having

A good architectural drawing is about, on one level, what one leaves out. A very good architect over the years develops a series of personal


protocols, idiosyncrasies and ‘tweezes’ that have connected histories and evolutionary metamorphosis from one drawing to the next. This is of course also true for buildings as much as it is true for drawings. Unit 16 under the guidance of Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, now based at the University of Greenwich, has a unique take on the future of architectural design and its discourses. It is an approach born out of a deep interest in a cluster of preoccupations. These include the United States, or rather its ‘fly-over’ states and its dysfunctional politics, exclusions and myths and segregations. Other preoccupations are the Cold War, contemporary art practice, the history of the future, aliens and space flight. On one hand, Unit 16’s work rejoices in a world of Robbie the Robot, 1950’s cheesecaked gingham poses and the hardware that was imagined, at the time, to sustain them – nuclear silos, cold war airbases, mad dictators, space races, hot lines and Presidential dictates that hid aliens, assassins and secret death dealing machines. On the other hand the Unit loves the mediocre – as it constitutes most of our world. Its ongoing schemes, for its “Wonder Acres” project has

built a land of mixed and hybrid programmes for a world of hip rock loving pensioners, drive-in this and thats – instant cities composed for the delectation of petrolheads, oil, tarmac and chrome fetishists and much, much more. On a third hand as everything is possible in Unit 16, the Unit is concerned with weights and measures – why do we always resort to the standard way of describing things? Why not use, for example, a cucumber, a Lincoln Continental, Lady Gaga, a mechanical dog, or a plastic Jesus. Welcome to this wonderful world. This day you will be with me in Paradise. Neil Spiller, Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory, is Dean of the School of Architecture Design and Construction, University of Greenwich

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De Chirico On Mystery and Creation, Paris, 1913


16 Simon Herron and Susanne Isa,

London, March 2013

ARCHITECTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ANTHROPOCENE AGE . . . Don’t you get that curious and unnerving feeling that we are all somehow unwittingly working for Google? Increasingly we inhabit a world living vicariously through the encrypted pseudo personalities of our on screen in-world micro personas . . . unconsciously drifting through hypertext paradigms. A world in which we practice living our life, detached, seamlessly switching through various mediated context specific selves Instant Messaging, Twittering, curiously making ourselves up as we go along.

Lucerne Dry Lake, CA, Southern California Rocket Association [SCRA] Susanne Isa, 2006

‘Crazy silhouettes of twisted steel from piles of broken masonry, memorials to the chaos of the old town. A fine building in ruins and we turn away sadly. But we should be thankful for much of the destruction – challenging opportunity confronts us.’ Ralph Tubs Ground Zero: Consider the image presented above, good even tonal lighting, balanced contrast, clearly defined shadow structure, a scene of simple domesticity or perhaps romantic abandonment an inside outside architecture? Table and chair, carefully aligned, all the basic equipment needs of the absent protagonist hard wired into the ether. An uncompromised staged landscape; Workbench assorted tools, various small wires and pieces of equipment. Distant technical vistas skillfully arranged as a contemporary still life of the near future.

Mashing of context, deliciously devoid of any true content, enacting genres, adopting alternate personalities, role-playing, outsourcing our emotions, whilst exhibiting those of others. Wondering, whose personality is this anyhow? A fragmented psychosis, unconsciously and collectively dreamt up, left over from some discarded marketing campaign? With such shared interrelated experiences, a world in which everyone is so profoundly involved, the self becomes somewhat shapeless and hard to pin down. Boundaries have traditionally defined the physical geographical limits of the tribe. The machines and technologies of mass observation and communication blur and dissolve our Cartesian certainty. This detached observer systematically distanced outside of the frame of experience. So what happens to the total social construct? What remains of the physical self? What are our hardware needs? Professor Paul Crutzen, atmospheric chemist first posited in 2000, that planetary systems had changed significantly, to the extent that we were now living in the beginning of a new and fundamental different geological epoch defined for the first time by the activities of mankind, the period of the Antropocene. Framed within this uncertain context collectively we have explored the bewildering utopian dreams of the 20th Century, from the counter cul-


ture of the 50’s and 60’s through the nihilistic disillusionment of Punk, the ambivalence of Generation X to the Anti–Globalization alliance and environmental activism of 10:10? The Salon of Lost Content [The Refuge of Misfits]: The collection of works within this exhibition represents a cross sectional slice through, a considerable body of work developed over the last twenty years, within our design studios at the Bartlett [UNITSIXTEEN] University of Westminster [DS14] and most recently our move to the University of Greenwich [UNITSIXTEEN]. Within each of these studios’ we have consistently invited students to cast a critical gaze over the emerging trends in contemporary life of the near future. Focusing on the fractured and blurred margins of the world unfolding around us, of strange unnatural wonder, whilst remaining equally cautious of an over reliance on outdated paradigms to provide convenient answers. On Drawing: Drawing is a skill traditionally that all architects have to acquire to communicate with a client, engineer and builder. Drawings made for a client are to enable them to appreciate and understand how the architect intends to manifest in built form their needs and aspirations, in response to a particular brief and budget on a given site. Drawings produced for the builder enable them to understand in technical terms how the built form is to be achieved and to what technical standard and finish. There is a long history to the making of these kinds of marks on paper for conveying this type of information through to the whole building information modelling BIM. The drawings presented within this exhibition have a different reader in mind. Less understood these drawings are essentially private. The imagined reader is the author along with other architects and critics alike. Raw, incredibly personal, these works are not pictured or imagined illustrations of fully formed ideas or projects. They are the first speculative glimpses, driven by a complex machine code of cyphers, a private

haptic language of invention, raw fundamental data sets, laying bare, the scripted genetic code of the author. Drawings are considered simultaneously as both tools of practice and as sites of construction. Tactile, independent surfaces to be assembled with consideration to their particular processes of manufacture, their spatial geometries and syntax, a combination of actual and implied scales, the playful interplay of unexpected material relationships. Drawings imagined within this active real-time speculative space, work as filters, collating and testing unexpected relationships. Considers possibilities of dynamic motion, part hard conditioned facts, framed against half-truths and myths. The building site is part paper, part transferred references, an elaborate interwoven fluid field shifting through time and space. Drawings should contain a combination of architectural and nonarchitectural scales. Drawings are framed as ‘hybrids’, x% fact, x% fiction, with the precise alchemical ratio to be determined by the author. These constructions are physical entities, with a corresponding mass with measurable densities. They are transformative, evolving surfaces in flux, containing the traces and histories of their manufacturer. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp proposed that by simply choosing an ‘Ordinary Article Of Life’ [Urinal], ‘Displacing its Context’ [hardware store to art gallery] so that its usual significance and meaning disappears, then by creating a ‘New Title’ [Fountain] and ‘Point Of View’ [Art], created ‘New Thoughts and New Meaning’, a powerful transformative tool. Subject + Object + Space: Through this critical re-examination, re-appraisal, ‘New Thoughts’ are created for both architectural objects and spaces. ‘Displacement’ further removes an object from its familiar context, destabilizing its meaning and function. With this, there needs to be an adjustment of the pro-


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spective positions of both reader and narrator. Transformations may be imperceptible or dramatic. Transformations may be merely implied, suggested or imagined. Something impermanent could be in a constant state of flux. Discarded discredited or simply retired technologies or ideologies. To be out of date is to be dislocated in time and space. Whilst reading these drawings consider these thoughts: Something local, as seen on TV, something at a junction, popular, transient, expendable, cheap, mass produced, audacious, witty, gimmicky, romantic, leftovers, loose ends, the invisible, customised, luxury, plastic, abandoned, incomplete, unmade, misunderstood, inefficient, broken, forgotten, misplaced, bespoke, out of place, matter of fact . . . Consider the structure of the composition, cropped and close up, the stylization of the image. You may choose to physically cut and edit them. Or you may choose to manipulate the images digitally. Consider trying a combination of physical cutting and digital manipulation. Fieldworks: We have traversed the unfolding backlands of America, reframed against the unfolding landscapes of post-industrial England, in the shadow of Empire. ‘This is not a Gateway’ [2010-11] explored the consequences of the failure of an over dominant industry on its host city. Detroit Michigan, motor city USA was taken as a model, a city with a self inflicted dependency culture running deep into the zeitgeist of its past and future. London’s own dependency on an over extended service sector was pictured against imagined banking failures, mass civil unrest, leading to unprecedented urban flight, abandoned London falls

into protracted decline. Nostalgia for the future [2011-12] explored the emerging territories of Stratford City and the Westfield center, proposing alternative Olympic legacies, a fresh new world of dreams. Returning to the heart of the metropolis this year, to focus on the boundaries between wealth and power at the center of the ‘CommonWealth’. Trafalgar Square the centre of study. Conceived originally as a public space by John Nash, Sir Charles Barry, most recently remodeled by Sir Norman Foster. A complex paradoxical landscape, surrounded by the symbols of lost tribes, failed ideologies and faded power.‘Restoration’ [2012-13] is a collective call to challenge, to re imagine the utility and function of institutions, rejecting traditions and proposing new futures. Simon is Academic Leader in Architectural Technology at the University of Greenwich and postgraduate design studio tutor to Diploma Unit 16 with Susanne Isa. Previously, he has been a Senior College Teaching Fellow at the Bartlett UCL, has taught at University of Westminster, Sci-Arc Los Angeles and at the Architectural Association London. Public lectures include, the Prague Society of Architects [1990], The Arnofini Gallery Bristol [1991], Moscow School of Architecture [1992], Staedelschule Frankfurt [1995], Urban Flash Taipei [1999], SciArc Los Angeles [2004], Pecha-Kucha, Future Cities programme at the Barbican Centre London [2006] and Wonder Acres, Chicago Institute of Arts [2009]. He worked for Michael Hopkins Architects before joining Ron Herron Associates, where he became a partner in 1989.


Archigram Magazine, 1964 From the private collection of Ron Herron, loaned by Ron Herron Archive

Archigram Magazine, 1970 From the private collection of Ron Herron, loaned by Ron Herron Archive



IMAGINE EXHIBITION OBJECTS


22 Martin Tang, 2012

THE MANUAL OF ETERNAL AUTUMNAL MICRO-CLIMATES FOR KYOTO The Manual of Eternal Autumnal Micro-Climates for Kyoto researches into applicable traditions, materials, and technologies for a sustainable master plan that is forever and only Autumn. ‘The City of Thousand Autumns’ is a 19.16 km2 energy hub for Kyoto, aimed to create eternal

autumn micro-climates to engage in a carbon neutral biomass energy system. A thousand Origami Cranes float above the City, passively shielding and supplementing the Japanese landscape from extreme weather while more importantly cultivating one season only.

The New [Food] Temple of a Thousand Buddha Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm

1000 Origami Cranes Guarding the City from Extreme Weather Conditions Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm


The city’s landscape presents a checkered landscape of sugar-rich maple tree towers. Collectively, the maple trees contribute to the urban albedo while providing a free biomass energy source.

The city’s maple sap is harvested and boiled to make maple syrup, filling the city with a nostalgic warmth and smell of Autumn. A banquet is held every month to remind ourselves the importance of Autumn.

The Lake of Boiling Maple Syrup: Filling the City with a Nostalgic Warmth and Smell of Autumn Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm

The Chandelier of Chrysanthemum Tea and The Pumpkin Pie Baking House Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm


24

The Great Salmon Hunt Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm


Imagining Kyoto as the City of a Thousand Autumns Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm


26 Tanya Simeonova Okpa, 2011

LEA VALLEY BIOTOPE PAVILION The main project space proposed in Lea Valley Biotope Pavilion will contain a three-dimensional interactive model of the valley’s ecosystems. Here, all collected data could be viewed, analysed and stored to inform future biodiversity projects, for instance natural habitat recovery in the Olympic zone after the 2012 games or connecting wildlife passages to adjacent green areas. The walls are designed to be inhabited by bats, songbirds and insects. The pavilion houses symbolically and actually ecosystems of the Lea Valley. The structure reflects the seasonal changes and works as a sundial offering vistas with spectacular sunset lighting at specific times of the year.

Internal View Digital painting, 59.41cm x 42.0cm

Building Skin Details


Birds’ Wall Detail Digital painting, 59.41cm x 42.0cm


28 Benjamin Kirk, 2011

LONDON WITHOUT BEES: ARCHITECTURE TO POLLINATE A WILTING CITY What would happen if, as the worst predictions suggest, there were no bees in London? How would flowers be pollinated? Here a headquarters in Kew Gardens releases millions of delicate floating inseminators, like artificial spores, across the city. Locally, in places like Victoria Park in Hackney, small repair and collection points work constantly to recycle the proxy bees: architecture to pollinate a wilting city. Without the common honeybee, London’s gardens would be unrecognisable. We would miss their familiar buzz on a summers day, we

BENJAMIN KIRK DS_16 UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

Satellite Pollinator Release Facility, Victoria Park, London

would miss their delicious honey. Less obviously, we would miss their pollination, which allows plants to reproduce and flower in such vivid colours. The honeybee’s form is no accident. She is a conspiracy of the pollen bearing plant world, her architecture so specific to the task. In response to the honeybee’s extinction, man must conceive a way to pollinate London’s parks and gardens, learning from her specficity through biomimicry. Firstly the ‘Garden Pollination Device’ fertilises London’s back gardens, shimmering like a garden chandelier as the light passes through

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View from the Cafe up Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm

the statically-charged perspex and acetate covered in pollen. It is designed as a flat pack product available off-the-shelf which the garden enthusiast can assemble themselves. It is suspended from the four corners of the typical London terrace back garden with tension wires, with the device hung in the middle, and predominantly relies on passive wind movement, and the vertical movement of the counter-weighted acetate tentacles, to accidentally brush past the anthers of one garden flower onto another’s stigma. Further, a London-Wide Pollination Strategy is conceived, with delicate latex pollination devices projected into the London skies from a headquarters in Kew Gardens, and carried by the prevailing wind to the required destination. Once the pollination is complete, the proxy bees are recycled at local ‘Satellite Pollinator Release Facilities’ which strategically proliferate London. These ‘Release Facilities’ act both as workshops to recycle and reproduce the latex pollinators, and as a wind harvester, increasing the flow of air through the main funnel. This is achieved via side injection wind inlets and garden wind cowls, in order to project the proxy bees into the skies. Intentionally prosaic in external appearance, the facility in Victoria Park seamlessly merges into the urban fabric, its simple copper mesh cladding enveloping the workshop. Internally, the facility reveals a magical full height workshop with the spectacle of the ‘release’ seducing the visitor.


Looking down the Funnel Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


30 Yinfang Wang, 2010

SYNTHETIC POLIS This project explores an architectural scenario with political concerns in 2030s, an era of singularity where information and computing technology has altered our everyday life to extend our mind beyond the biological limitation. It manipulates the idea of semantic web4 as an applicational interface, which reconfigure personal realities through real world objects and an immersive experience as a dynamic whole. Our perception of daily objects are transformed into data on the web. The user’s personal data and memories are used to define and simulate the characteristics of the virtual objects. The physical environment becomes holographic information. We are able to record our perception, store, retrieve and process these holographic information by operating user interface. Spatial experiences are reprogrammed by open source and interface. It is no longer commanded by keyboard or mouse but by our cognition system.

Landscape of Singularity Animation, digital print, 90.0cm x 42.0cm


Interactive Reality Animation, digital print, 90.0cm x 42.0cm


32 Emily Pavlatou, 2009

THE BIRD FACTORY The Bird Factory is a sanctuary for urban songbirds, located on a disused industrial site in East London. Utilising the historically layered building waste, the project intends to question the very definition of waste and to challenge the reuse of construction materials in interesting and innovative ways. Through a process of model making, utilising traditional craft in combination with digital techniques, the Bird Factory emerges as a series of structures in which birds may breed, live and be heard. Human visitors may enter the sanctuary to study and appreciate the animals at specially designed instances, while enjoying the unconventional covered and exposed surroundings. The faรงade of the original Victorian factory building is retained along the street front, while the adjacent pedestrian walkway is lined with a 12m high occupied hedge structure, providing a shield from the surrounding urban noise as well as a haven for visitors, human or bird alike.

The Occupied Hedge Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


Inside the Oculus Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


34 Harry Grocott, 2011

INTEGRATED IRRIGATION: BIORESEARCH LABORATORY AND EXHIBITION GREENHOUSE Picture a growing, evolving, ever changing structure; a beacon and catalyst for the spread of greenery and foliage across Venice. This project proposes a Bioresearch Laboratory for the engineering of resilient, colourful plant life that will transform the currently grey San Marco District into a thriving garden. Along with a laboratory, this intervention will provide a hydroponic greenhouse tower, giving the structure and nutrients required for new plants to thrive. The idea of symbiosis has inspired the project on many levels, leading to a new structure that integrates with an existing. The laboratory will allow visitors to view the process behind the conception of the plants, while the vertical greenhouse will display the adapted plant life in all its glory.


Engineered Flower Computer generated image, 42.0cm x 29.7cm


36 Sarish Younis, 2010

VENETIAN PIGMENT CHROMATOGRAPHY Constructing celebratory spaces through exploration of Venetian pigments and historical artistic and architectural connections of Venice, the West and Istanbul, the East. This exploration project articulates the colours of Venice through digital methodology that is driven from the poetics of Venice in collaboration with contemporary functions of sustainable pigment scientific investigation laboratory. The programme is elaborated by sculpting the course of ink making and celebrations of colours of life through the existing iconic architecture of Venice, the St Marks Campanile. St Marks Square is a place which is filled with exuberance, opulence, sculpture, and colours, where as the campanile is completely contradictory to its context. Therefore, the architectural formation inspiration are driven from elaborative patterns, ornamentations, and core influences of domes which links both Venice and the East together whilst creating functional spaces that provide sublime spatiality and atmosphere in contemporary context of Venice.

The dome is formed by the vertical tessellation of tiers of cross and round arches, as the tier moves upwards the dimentions of the arches decreases in scale. The stacking forms both curvature and pointy arching and enclosure space.

The dome is formed by the vertical tessellation of tiers of cross and round arches, as the tier moves upwards the dimentions of the arches decreases in scale. The stacking forms both curvature and pointy arching and enclosure space.


East to West Doming Study Computer generated drawing, 5 sheets 29.7cm x 42.0cm


38 Helena Howard, 2011

CELEBRATORY SPACESTHE PILGRIMAGE OF AN ARTISAN FISHERMAN Undulating weaving walkways and overhead tensile meshes greet the sleepy fishermen of Torcello, Venice as they moor their small wooden fishing boats each morning at dawn. The building facilitates the fishermen’s opportunities to find the greatest bounty of fish, and nourish Torcello’s increasing population of inhabitants both economically and physically. Through a 1.5km series of bridges, the building connects the island to the open sea, punctuated at regular intervals by equipment maintenance stores, fishing platforms, a celebratory pavilion and finally an energyproducing algae farm. The proposal’s form is primarily concerned with exploring biological contrasts between firm, defined forms such as fish skeletons, and the fragility of abandoned fishing nets with their delicate threads connecting methodically to become a strong piece of fishing equipment. Annually, the fishing pavilion provides a venue for costumed revellers, both native and international, to celebrate and reflect on the achievements of Torcello’s heroes- its artisan fisherman.

The Act of Casting a Fishing Net Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 21.0cm


The Pilgrimage of an Artisan Fisherman - Torcello, Venice Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


40 James Redman, 2011

THE ETERNAL CITY ‘The Eternal City’ is a self-contained community within an iceberg on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. The city exists in a delicate balance: hydro-power has to be created to keep the ice frozen and thus the structure afloat. ‘The Eternal City’ explores the notion of creating a distinct boundary to an urban environment by ‘folding’ the city components to give a ceiling, walls and contained weather system within the iceberg.

Equatorial Isometric Digital painting, 60.0cm x 137.2cm


Equatorial Section Digital painting, 60.0cm x 80.0cm


42 Gillian Lambert, 2006

HOUSE AT GALLIONS REACH Preliminary investigations explored the intangible ephemeral qualities of sky and atmosphere, and a series of experiments evolved in an intuitive mode of inquiry. The Sky Ceiling is an installation that physically reimagines the upper surface of an internal space. A dynamic chandelier reacts against the monotony of the suspended ceiling grid, responding to internal weather conditions. Threads project into space cast through needles held in position with lead weights, the tile emits flickering light, casting shadows and reflections with shifting depths. The Laboratory is a collection or living manual, the contents of which become a resource which formulates an approach, rethinking on alternative scales to address the architectural implications of the work. The house at Gallions Reach lies beyond the protection of the Tidal Barrier, the site is open to the mouth of the Thames Estuary. Part imaginary, dreamlike visions are drawn and tested, evolving into spaces potent with atmosphere. The elements are considered as plausible materials; spaces become blurred as rain falls from the ceiling into the well below, pockets of bright daylight are hidden amongst the dark stormy shadows, and the light breeze in the air is filtered through the walls. The interiors celebrate the unpredictable and dynamic nature of the external conditions.

Long Section: Ramps, Platforms and Staircases Explore the Varied Environments Computer generated image, 120.0cm x 60.0cm

Site Works: Ongoing Computer generated image, 60.0cm x 60.0cm


Entrance Elevation: Shifting and Dancing in the Breeze Computer generated image, 60.0cm x 60.0cm


44 Christopher Leung, 1994

REDCOATS IN SOHO LONDON The frequent ‘red coat’ visitor to Soho in London, the occasional ‘red coat’ and the rare sighting of the opportunist ‘red coat’ are the subject of this project. To map their movement, an observation study was made to place the frequency of visits in space and time on a map of Soho in London. The ‘sensing network’ display panels visualise the routes taken by redcoats and suggest how they may be modified by four architectural ideas for interventions. Each ‘learn card’ represents one of the four sites. The ‘Urban derive’1 was adopted as a method to make temporal-spatial maps of the district of Soho. Each derive was guided by people wearing visible red garments such as red coats, red jackets and red rain guards. By walking through London’s West-end over a period of weeks, a pattern of preferred routes taken by the randomly sampled ‘redcoat’ wearer was compiled. These were found to cross a network ‘hot-spots’, each of these became a site of architectural intervention, the project’s output. 1 In ‘Society and Spectacle’ by Guy Debord, 1965, Paris

‘Sense-net’ a Nervous System for Soho Drawing, bound into volume with 28 pages including cover, 59.4cm x 42,0cm


‘Sensing Network’ Display Panels - Learn Card 1 Master printed circuit board (pcb) layout


46 Sun W Hwang, 2010

THE WEATHER FIELD The weather is natural phenomena which constructs daily circumstances. It is generally believed as meteorological changes, atmospheric conditions and other physical or non physical conditions surrounding us. However, consider the landscape created by weather, weather is the one critical element in built environments, it deals with light, rain, snow and clouds. This project discusses about the Weather Field which curates weather elements as architectural components and exhibition materials like museum. By curating weather, the relationship between weather and architecture will be explained through series of spatial quality, temporary landscape and different physical changes. Therefore the project Weather Field can position architecture in more sophisticated aspect of landscape.

Perspective, The Wind Wall Ink on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


Site Plan, The Weather Institute Ink and photo collage on paper, 59.4cm x 84.1cm


48 Julian Busch, 2007

TRAVELLING WITHOUT MOVING LUXOR FOOD MARKET The basic idea of this project derives from the film Babette’s feast, which deals with the subject of food and how food brings the world to one place through different kinds of ingredients and ways of preparation. This narrative lead to the proposal of an international food market in Luxor, Egypt, a place which plays an important role as a junction for transport in Egypt, one where tourism and agriculture form the largest parts of the economy. The market provides a space where different kinds of food from all over the world

Collage 3a Paper collage, 84.0cm x 57.7cm

are brought together in one place, yet still are kept within an environment similar to the one at their place of origin. The basic design of the market encompasses five zones of different micro-climates, each of them mirroring one of the Earth’s five main inhabited climate zones. These areas serve as a space for storage and trade of food as well as a place for communication about the food, e.g. through the exchange of recipes. The market is planned around Luxor’s main train station, where five openly accessible

storage towers are placed along the train platforms. Each of the towers represents one of the five climate zones. Taking into account the scarceness of resources such as energy, the towers generate the respective micro climates through the use of energy efficient passive cooling systems. Their particular design triggers thermodynamic processes, which with humidifying devices facilitate Passive Downdraft Evaporation Cooling; a technology commonly used in hot, dry climates. Based on this layout, the food can be kept in an environment which is most suitable.


Collage 2a Paper collage, 84.0cm x 65.7cm


50 Yumi Saito, 2004

CAPACITOR, LEA VALLEY, LONDON A series of man-powered flying structures populate a group of drifting park landscapes, traversing and grazing the Lea Valley. These lighter-than-air structures are powered by pleasure generated from the work and labour of the users. The structure consists of series of inflatable tubes filled with pressured helium. It obtains buoyancy through helium gas and hot air. It harvests energy from human power and heat generated within the gymnasium in the structure. When it needs external resources, it hovers over the local energy hub and absorb residual heat from microclimate of Lea Valley, such as chemical factories and house holds. Helium supported, they are lowered and raised by the capture and release of heat generated from the perspiration of their users. Excess heat is released through the perimeter sweat glands, and the structures encourage delirious speculative play, where the pursuit of pure pleasure is their function. Other elements suspended and drag: free-fall bogies, filigree machines, exoskeletal apparatuses, primary-drive vessels and collaborating assemblies.

‘The dream of flight is perhaps as old as man himself, and there can be few who have never dreamed of flight in one way or another, taking to the like a soaring bird or a floating cloud’ ‘The Zeppelin: The History of German Airships from 1900 to 1937’ by Christopher Chant, 2000 The Puller; Amphibious Vehicle Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


Reincarnation Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


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Free Fall Bogie Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


View from Below Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


54 Jonathan Schofield, 2010

CREATIVE EVOLUTION SILVERTOWN SHIP BREAKING YARD ‘What we do depends on who we are; but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we do, and that we are creating ourselves continually.’ Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson, 1907 Since the closure of the Royal Docks, Silvertown in East London went from being part of the largest dock in the world to a place of memory. Silvertown Ship Breaking Yard will not only provide the local inhabitants with highly skilled jobs but through the creative process of breaking, playing and reconstructing recycled ship elements, a new communal identity will be established. The community experiment and test new forms of architecture using the ‘Trawler Jig’ where ship elements are suspended and repositioned through a winch-and-pulley system, constructing their ‘desired’ architecture using hybrid details. Through this highly skilled and evolutionary process, the lives of the inhabitants are enriched with their creative potential achieved.

12.8m Trawler Jig in ‘Play’ Position Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


Series of Reconfigurations Photographic collage, 59.4cm x 42.0cm


56 Jörg Majer, 2006

GULLIVER Gulliver is an association ‘dedicated to the increase and interpretation of information through excavation and construction.’ The ultimate aim of our efforts is to reconstruct what is known as the ‘Gulliver Plateau’ in its entirety. Since the foundation of modern science, fragmental evidence of the plateau is continually tested, recorded and re-positioned.

Ear 3 Drawing, 59.4cm x 42.0cm

Collar Evidence Collage, 29.0cm x 19.0cm

Finger Evidence Collage, 110.0cm x 88.0cm


Finger Evidence 2 Collage, 23.7cm x 29.7cm


58 Dijan Malla, 2010

COLLEGE OF FAITH & REASON, RUSSELL SQUARE, LONDON Informed by the fusion of the arts, sciences and spirituality in the late seventeenth-century England, the College of Faith and Reason facilitates academic research amidst an eclectic and allegorical collection. The architecture works playfully with the occupants’ preconceptions of the relationship between private and communal spaces, engaging all the senses as a means to encourage and increase communication and collaboration.

Section through St Barts, Pencil, pen and ink on glicee print , 59.4cm x 42.0cm


Section Through a Dome – Preliminary Investigation Pencil, pen and ink on paper, 59.4cm x 96.0cm


60 Thomas Impiglia, 2011

RUDERAL INSTRUMENTS The rooftop of Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles is transformed into the site of experiments and investigations for the integration of the natural environment with the urban, specifically looking at the influence of nature on educational spaces. Le Corbusier designed a small kindergarten atop the roof of this building as an empty concrete box, the very same form of most classrooms to date across the globe. Isolation from nature and all its elements has a proven negative physical, cognitive, and emotional effect on humans, especially that of children within the classroom. This project questions the general disregard of our essential need for natural exposure in education by transforming the Corbusian austere space into a dynamic learning environment, fusing the human-built architecture with natural ecologies. These new spaces are formed through the use of bespoke mechanical spatial instruments designed to grow a vast array of edible plants for consumption, indigenous animal habitat and the filtration of the building’s polluted internal air.

Hyper-Plan atop the Unite d’habitation, Marseilles Digital modelling/rendering and drawing, 150.0cm x 50.0cm

Nest and Filter Digital modelling/rendering and drawing, 114.5cm x 43.0cm


beard 2.0


62 Sara Shafiei, 2007

MAGICIANS’ THEATRE The project attempts to portray how magic and illusion can become an inherent part of the architectural design, which foregrounds the engagement of the user in the building. The proposal begins by exploring how Harry Houdini’s ‘Vanishing Elephant’ trick is manifested within Albrecht Dürer’s ‘cone of light and vision’ to merge showmanship, optics and illusion. The resultant building, a Theatre for Magicians, is located in the National Botanical Gardens in Rome.

Model, Magicians’ Theatre Laser cut watercolour paper


Sectional Model, Magicians’ Theatre Laser cut watercolour paper, pencil and ink, 72.0cm x 52.0cm


64 James Redman, 2010

RECORDING OF THE FORGOTTEN FOSSIL This project is split between sites of Highgate Cemetery and the northern entrance to the Venetian lagoon. Fuelled by phytoplankton barbs, a series of tidal frames act as casting chambers for the trapping of sedimentary matter. Fossilisation and ornamentation of sediment becomes a direct recording device for the tidal differences within the lagoon, a series of events translated into the southern corner of Highgate Cemetery. Displays of the fluctuating fossils seek an alternative transcript within the cemetery, where their suggestive decoration impacts the temporal balance of moisture and decay.

Sediment Casing Pencil on paper, 56.5cm x 76.5cm


Barometer Data Pencil on paper, 56.5cm x 76.5cm


66 Adis Dobardzic, 2012

UNITED NATIONS, STRATFORD CITY The landscape of the United Nations Stratford City begins as an empty and sterile landscape consisting of a multifunctional grid and a number of permanent buildings, which begins to continuously change as the state of world politics begins to fluctuate. Over time new structures arise, populating the formerly sparse landscape when political tension accumulates and the need for new resources grows. The landscape starts to return to original state as political tensions become resolved. As this process is repeated many times, some structures may become abandoned while others develop into more complex and efficient buildings. The Secretariat, the hub of the United Nations and one of the permanent buildings is highly flexible, interactive and in a constant state of flux. The building expresses the current state of politics through its many elements, such as walls that transform their shape into forms that create hostile atmosphere, much like world politics. Meanwhile spaces adapt its acoustics or alter their capacity and intimacy to suit the need of the discussion. The permanent architecture on site sets out a template for future structures which evolve and interact with the occupants and the public.

Evolving Landscape Pencil and collage on paper, 59.4cm x 42.0cm

Secretariat Floor Plan Pencil and collage on paper, 59.4cm x 84.1cm


Bureaucratic Maze Pencil and collage on paper, 42.0cm x 59.4cm


68 Nicki Whetstone, 2012

UNIVERSITY OF THURROCK - THE IMAGINARIUM In order to investigate the superstructure aesthetic, it seemed apposite to embrace the ‘superstudio’ approach in drawing representation. This drawing language explores varying permutations of form and suggests possible physical interactions with the landscape and surrounding area should the grid continue indefinitely. It could then progress to more specific drawing investigations into variations of the grid and potential landscaping options for the immediate site. The illustrious superstudio movement was defined by it‘s mantra of ‘a life without objects’. As has been previously discussed, the imaginarium embodies the very opposite of this statement whilst simultaneously supporting the pure superstudio form. The coalescence of these opposing conditions is perhaps most fascinating to express graphically, in the fusion of two very disparate drawing language.

university of thurrock|roofscape _An Absurd Amalgamation of the Pure Expansive Grid and the Enchantingly Intricate Imaginarium Within

Roofscape Fine liner pens on cartridge paper


The Imaginarium Fine liner pens on cartridge paper, 101.6cm x 137.2cm


70 Kevin Kelly, 2010

SPATIAL EPISODES OF HERMETIC VIRTUE The Oxford English Dictionary defines behaviour as: “the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others.” How can behaviour exist in a world with only the hermit; a world devoid of ‘another’? Could an architecture be created that would act as the ‘other’ and what could that architecture look like? Upon reading ‘A Journey Around my Room’ and ‘A Rebours’, two novels centred around hermits who retreated into their own minds, I began to wonder what a world which existed solely inside the mind might look like. The world inside his mind is a realm where he can indulge limitlessly in the behaviour of his choice - with focus on behaviours like hedonism, narcissism and control amongst others. I began designing spaces around specific behaviours, but in a way where the behaviour was nurtured and magnified. In doing so I became aware the spaces were for me - I was the hermit, and the fragments were the architecture of spaces in my mind. My drawings became a medium through which I could share these spaces.

Weeping Oreads Black ink on paper, 29.7cm x 42.0cm

Foyer of Narcissism Black ink on paper, 29.7cm x 42.0cm


Memory Theatre Black ink on paper, 69.0cm x 48.0cm


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Temple of Narcissism - Section Black ink on paper, 200.0cm x 65.0cm


74 Meor Haris Kamarul Bahrin, 2010

COMMON-WASTE MARKET, KENSINGTON, BOROUGH OF CHELSEA Excessive fermentation of organic waste through anaerobic process that result superfluous gas burning in creating an extra steam to heat the turbine system. The burning only occurred in late evening as a part from the sequential waste to power cycle.

Methane Generator Station, Kensington, Borough of Chelsea A complete Line Structure in Embellishing the Partially Clad Waste Transporting Apparatus Ink on paper, 76.5cm x 57.0cm


Methane Generator Interior, Kensington, Borough of Chelsea Embellishment of Anagram - Anamorphic images of Polemical Architecture Body Ink on paper, 76.6cm x 57.0cm


76

ENGINEER’S PALACE, CANVEY ISLAND, ESSEX

Engineer’s Test and Simulation Palace, Canvey Island, Essex Ink on paper, consisting of 9 A1 panels, 252.3cm x 178.2cm



78 Tim Norman, 2008

THE COSMIC HOUSE ‘The Cosmic House’ is a study of relationships. In particular it is a study of the relationships we have with the cosmos. The Project imagines two scenarios. The first projects the solar system scaled relative to the body across London, and charts the planets orbits, swerves and collisions through the city. A drawing machine is designed to both partake in and observe the Transit of Venus through the National Gallery. The Second, imagines a glass sphere around an observers body, onto which the spaces and objects of a tea break are plotted using astronomical coordinates, onto a developable (unfoldable) surface, in this case a cylinder. The drawing, when unfolded, collapses multiple times and viewpoints into one perceivable instant, describing the entire event from teacup approach to the first sip simultaneously against the backdrop of the stars. A single viewpoint, with a quantum of temporal vanishing points. Both projects are cited within the mechanics of perspective drawing.

Earth Making a Cup of Tea, A Celestial Map of Pencil on paper, 150.0cm x 75.0cm


Earth Observing the Transit of Venus Through the National Gallery, London Pencil on paper, 114.0cm x 224.0cm


80 Michael Dean, 2011

THE WATCHER’S HOUSE The proposal for a National Trust Warden’s seasonal residence at Blakeney Point investigates the possibilities of responsive architectural systems which might actively engage with the perpetually animate ecological and geographical processes of explicitly active natural environments. Through a process of rythm-analytical investigation and speculation the project reveals the extraordinary intricacy of the site’s spatial and temporal composition; the specificities of its myriad cyclical and linear component systems and the complex networks of association by which they constitute the defining material, ecological, biological and phenomenological characteristics of its whole. The details of individual conditions and their multifarious relations acquire and project distinct scales; particular measures of space and time which establish the conceptual and material framework of narrative structures from within which a highly tuned, sensitive and site specific architecture emerges.

Bathroom Detail, Plan Pencil on paper, 73.0cm x 40.0cm


Dining Room Landscape - Plan Study Pencil on paper, 72.5cm x 53.2cm


82


Entrance Sequence Pencil on paper, 76.0cm x 44.5cm


84 Pernilla Ohrstedt, 2009

NATIONAL IDENTITY REGISTER ‘The NIR data-scape grid is - like the frown slice of the face - biometrically anonymous, an identity no-man’s-land but a vertical section through the spaces at the heart of the building reveals a register of key biometric identifiers. Navel, hair, thumbprint, iris, retina and tears. Tear fluid actually contain no biometric information in it self but brings with them biometric traces as they pass from the visceral to via the actual into the virtual.’

NIR Anatomical Section Collage, 96.0cm x 64.0cm

Eros Navel / NIR Scanning Kiosk Collage, 48.1cm x 65.6cm


Exploded Site View through Eros Navel Collage, 59.2cm x 83.9cm


86 Nicholas Szczepaniak, 2009

A DEFENSIVE ARCHITECTURE This thesis is intended to expose unexpected readings of the built environment in the future if we don’t take more drastic steps to deal with climate change. The work is deliberately allegorical and provocative. Set in the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, the project envisages a set of militarised coastal defence towers that perform multiple functions:

on the face of the towers expand and contract, while hundreds of tensile trunks are sporadically activated, casting water on to the heated facades to produce steam. An empty watchtower at the top of each tower gives them the impression that the fragile landscape below is constantly being surveyed.

and used to encourage the growth of natural defence mechanisms against flooding in order to protect the erosion of fragile coastline areas and our most important cities. Over time, sand is collected at the base of each tower to form a spit across the mouth of the estuary, absorbing energy from the waves.

The principle role of the towers is to act as an environmental warning device. The architecture is alive, dramatizing shifts in environmental conditions; breathing, creaking, groaning, sweating and crying when stressed. Air-bags

Across the estuary, a bed of salt marshes provides a natural form of flood defence and habitats for wildlife. Due to rising water levels and adverse weather conditions, the salt marshes are quickly deteriorating. The proposal suggests how megastructures can be integrated

Internally, the towers serve as a vast repository for mankind’s most valuable asset; knowledge. The architecture is a knowledge ark, which protects books from culminative and catastrophic deterioration.

Plaza Pool View looking at The Big Door Glicee print, 59.4cm x 84.1cm

Front Elevation Collage, 59.4cm x 84.1cm

Book Wall Collage, 29.7cm x 42.0cm


The Ten Towers Computer generated image, 118.9cm x 84.1cm


88 Luke Chandresinghe, 2004

THE INSTITUTE OF IDEAS Ideas begin their protected life in the storage vessel after numerous tests, examinations and tribunals. They are carefully prepared for preservation before they start their twenty year protected life. The storage vessel comprises of twenty chambers of ideas on each floor. There are twenty stories in each vessel, one for each year the idea is protected. Protected ideas rise vertically at the rate of one storey each year until it reaches the top of the storage tower at the twentieth floor. On the expiry date of the patent in its twentieth year, the patent is located, released and transferred to the expiration vessel where it can then be finally blown and dispersed across the terrain. The surrounding landscape a junkyard, market and forum for discussion of old ideas where intellectual scavengers steal, recycle, sell and buy expired inventions. This is the place where invention die and is reborn.

Night Flight Plan 1:100 Ink and print on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


20th Floor Plate Plan Collage, print and ink on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm


90 Jinhyuk Ko, 2010

THE SHIP OF FOOLS The project starts by questioning the boundaries between normality and abnormality in the human mental condition. Situating the thesis into our context of the ‘Common Wealth’, wealth can be defined as ‘health’ meaning ‘Spiritual Health’. In this context, the hypothesis interrogates whether the ‘Common spiritual Health’ can be achieved by blurring the boundaries between mental normality and abnormality. Directed by Milos Forman in 1975, the film One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (adapted from Ken Kesey’s novel) supports the hypothesis by depicting the collapse society’s established system of the mental institution. It tackles the question concerning one’s madness and the devices of discipline within the institution. Similar concepts are found in Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The system of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether, which shows the blurred boundary between the insane and the normal by introducing a satirical “system of soothing”. To understand the boundaries, there are some fundamental questions to be asked, such as ‘What is the madness?’, ‘What are the qualities of mental illnesses?’, ‘What are the differences between the insane

and the normal’ and ‘Where is the clear division between both sides?’. Based on these questions, the project attempts to find the possibilities of architectural gestures that deconstruct the systems that divide the insane and the normal. Michel Foucault suggests historical and philosophical insights to investigate the process of how ‘madness’ was turned into a target excluded by society, and is classified as a ‘disease’ which has to be medically treated. That is to say, Foucault argues that madness was silenced by Reason, losing its power to signify the limits of social order and to point to the truth. Foucault’s main idea of deconstructing this boundary backs up the social position of the project. This project investigates certain qualities of the mental ‘abnormality’, especially melancholia and hysteria, and intersects with its architectural possibilities. In the process of the investigation, the geometry of particular artists, Giorgio de Chirico, Caspar David Friedrich, Hans Bellmer and Francis Bacon, and the relations between the artists and the mental ‘abnormality’ is emerged.

Freud’s Head in the Hall Collage, 59.4cm x 89.1cm


The Sectional Drawing of the Head Collage, 4 x 84.1cm x 118.9cm



IMAGINE EXHIBITION DESIGN


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LOOK TO THE FUTURE - RESPECT THE PAST The exhibition design for ‘IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas’ aims to link the avant-garde of architectural thinking to the history of the building that is hosting the exhibition. Bin Matar House - Memory of the Place is an impressive structure, meticulously maintained, re-constructed and extended by a new gallery space to form the home of one of the Gulf Region’s leading contemporary art galleries. In this space, exhibiting architectural depiction as artworks obliges the design of the exhibition to communicate and link back to the building in a harmonious and respectful way. By making use of the entire space that is available, walls as well as floors, and by allowing for various routes through the exhibition, the goal is to allow for a non-didactic and un-directed view of the artworks as well as to raise the awareness for the magnificence of the building itself, with its simple, elegant geometry and beautiful materiality a piece of art in its own right. Rather than hanging artworks on every available inch of wall space, only the two main walls of the large room are to be filled with works. In the corridor leading up to the main space and in the smaller room, large-format wooden frames containing artworks are proposed to stand back-to-back on the floor or to lean against the walls complemented by showcases in the same width to exhibit models and sketch books. The frames and plinths follow the formats of the archways and doors of Bin Matar House and form a link between the exhibition content and the geometry of the building.

View of Entrance Corridor


Top View Perspective


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Populating the space much in the same way as the visitors, the frames provoke an interaction of the user with the artwork as well as with the building, as they get into the way of routes usually open to pass through but also establish visual connections between the individual spaces of the gallery. The artwork claims a space between the architecture and its user in a loose analogy to the exhibits, which claim their place between art and purpose. With the possible reference to stalls on the souq, the large artwork-frames are modular and confined to only few different sizes, whilst containing a plethora of individual takes on architectural expression and artistic ideas. With the approach to populate the walls as well as the floors of Bin Matar House, the exhibition attempts to transform the entire space to create a panoptic view into the think tanks of some of the most forward-thinking and -acting schools in Europe. By linking the materiality of the exhibition frames back to the teak wood used in the ceiling structures and door- and window frames of the existing building, the exhibition design aims to break out of the austerity of the “white cube�-gallery and to continue the bridging between the past and the present which the reconstruction of Bin Matar House has so convincingly started.

View of Main Gallery


Bird’s View Perspective

View from Stair


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IMAGINE CREDITS


112 Note: This list gives details of the objects included in the exhibition IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas at Bin Matar House from April to May 2013. The list is organised alphabetically by artists’ last name and is correct at the time of going to print.

OBJECT CREDITS BAHRIN , MEOR HARIS KAMARUL

CHANDRESINGHE, LUKE

Common-Waste Market, Kensington, Chelsea, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16

The Institutes of Ideas, 2004 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16

Methane Generator Station, Kensington, Borough of Chelsea A complete Line Structure in Embellishing the Partially Clad Waste Transporting Apparatus Drawing, ink on paper, 76.6cm x 57.0cm

Night Flight Plan 1:100 Ink and print on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013

Methane Generator Interior, Kensington, Borough of Chelsea Embellishment of Anagram - Anamorphic images of Polemical Architecture Body Drawing, ink on paper, 76.6cm x 57.0cm The Holland House Point Overlooking Across the Sports Field to The Market from Holland House Drawing, graphite on paper, 76.6cm x 57.0cm Engineer’s Palace, Canvey Island, Essex, 2011 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 Engineer’s Test and Simulation Palace, Canvey Island, Essex Drawing, ink on paper, (9 no. panels at 75.7cm x 56.0cm) 252.3cm x 178.2cm Simulation Place and Hydrological Model, Canvey Island, Essex Drawing, graphite on paper, 75.7cm x 56.0cm Land Trading Apparatus Drawing, graphite on paper, 76.2cm x 56.0cm BUSCH, JULIAN Travelling Without Moving, Luxor Food Market, 2007 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger, Unit 10

20th Floor Plate Plan Collage, print and ink on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 DEAN, MICHAEL The Watcher’s House, 2011 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 Dining Room Landscape - Plan Study Pencil on paper, 72.5cm x 53.2cm Main Entrance - Plan Study Pencil on paper, 40.4cm x 58.2cm Bathroom Detail, Plan Pencil on paper, 73.0cm x 40.0cm Entrance Sequence Pencil on paper, 76.0cm x 44.5cm Record’s Chamber Perspective Study Pencil on paper, 39.0cm x 60.5cm Composite Landscape Study, Plan Detail Pencil on paper, 47.5cm x 69.8cm Living Room Landscape, Plan Study Pencil on paper, 73.0cm x 50.0cm DOBARDZIC, ADIS

Collage 2a Paper collage, photo print, 84.0cm x 65.7cm Reprodction 2013

United Nations, Stratford City, 2012 University of Greenwich Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16

Collage 3a Paper collage, photo print, 84.0cm x 57.7cm Reproduction 2013

Evolving Landscape Sketch, pencil and collage on paper, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Secretariat Floor Plan Drawing, pencil and collage on paper, 59.4cm x 84.1cm, Reproduction 2013

Bureaucratic Maze Sketch, pencil and collage on paper, 59.4cm x 42.0cm, Reproduction 2013 GROCOTT, HARRY Integrated Irrigation: Bioresearch Laboratory and Exhibition Greenhouse, 2011 Oxford Brookes University Justin Lau and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, Unit E Engineerd Flower Computer generated drawing, 42.0cm x 29.7cm Reproduction 2013 HOWARD, HELENA Celebratory Spaces - The Pilgrimage of an Artisan Fisherman, 2011 Oxford Brookes University Justin Lau and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, Unit E The Pilgrimage of an Artisan Fisherman - Torcello, Venice Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 The Act of Casting a Fishing Net, 2011 Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 21.0cm Reproduction 2013 ‘Inside the Belly of the Whale’ - Developing the Celebratory Pavilion Form Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 21.0cm, Reproduction 2013 HWANG, SUN W The Weather Field, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 Perspective, The Wind Wall Drawing, ink on paper, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Site Plan, The Weather Institute Drawing, ink and photo collage on paper, 59.4cm x 84.1cm IMPIGLIA, THOMAS Ruderal Instruments, 2011 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Bob Sheil and Emanuel Vercruysse, Unit 23


Hyper-Plan atop the Unite d’habitation, Marseilles Digital modelling/rendering and drawing, 150.0cm x 50.0cm Reproduction 2013

The Sectional Drawing of the Head - 1 of 4 Collage, 118.9cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013

‘Sense- net’ a nervous System for Soho Sketchbook, drawings and collages on paper, 61.0cm x 42.0cm

Nest and Filter Digital modelling/rendering and drawing, 114.5cm x 43.0cm Reproduction 2013

The Sectional Drawing of the Head - 2 of 4 Collage, 118.9cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013

MAJER, JÖRG

KELLY, KEVIN

The Sectional Drawing of the Head - 3 of 4 Collage, 118.9cm x 84.1cm, Reproduction 2013

Spatial Episodes of Hermetic Virtue, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Michael Wihart and Uwe Schmidt-Hess, Unit 24 Temple of Narcissism - Section Black ink on paper, 200.0cm x 65.0cm Memory Theatre Black ink on paper, 69.0cm x 48.0cm Reproduction 2013 Foyer of Narcissism Black ink on paper, 42.0cm x 29.7cm

The Sectional Drawing of the Head - 4 of 4 Collage, 118.9cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013 The Melancholic Object 3d print model, 40cm x 10cm x 10cm

Gulliver, 2006 Bartlett School of Architecture Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 Finger Evidence Collage, 110.0cm x 88.0cm Reproduction 2013 Collar Evidence Collage, 29.0cm x 19.0cm Reproduction 2013

Freud’s Head 3d print model, 40cm x 10cm x 10cm

Finger Evidence 2 Collage, 23.7cm x 29.7cm Reproduction 2013

LAMBERT, GILLIAN

Ear 3 Drawing, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

Weeping Oreads Black ink on paper, 42.0cm x 29.7cm

House at Gallions Reach, 2006 University of Westminster Susanne Isa, Unit 14

KIRK, BENJAMIN

Long Section: Ramps, Platforms and Staircases Explore the Varied Environments Computer generated image, 120cm x 60cm Reproduction 2013

MALLA, DIJAN

Site Works: Ongoing Computer generated image, 60cm x 60cm Reproduction 2013

Section Through a Dome - Preliminary Investigation Sketch drawing, pencil pen and ink on paper, 59.4cm x 96.0cm

View from the Cafe up Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

Entrance Elevation: Shifting and Dancing in the Breeze Computer generated image, 60cm x 60cm Reproduction 2013

NORMAN, TIM

Latex Pols Latex models, 15.0cm x15.0cm x 15.0cm Reproduction 2013

LEUNG, CHRISTOPHER

The Cosmic House 2009 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Neil Spiller and Phil Watson, Unit 19

Redcoats in Soho, London, 1994 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, 4 (undergraduate)

Earth Observing the Transit of Venus through the National Gallery, London Drawing, pencil on paper, 114.0cm x 224.0cm

‘Sensing Network’ Display Panels Four electronic ‘Learn Cards’ for animated LED visualisation, 140.0cm x 23.0cm x 4.0cm

Earth Making a Cup of Tea, a Celestial Map of Drawing, pencil on paper, 150.0 x 75.0cm

London without Bees: Architecture to Pollinate a Wilting City, 2011 University of Westminster Professor Murray Fraser and Anthony Boulanger, Unit 16 Satellite Pollinator Release Facility, Looking down the Funnel Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

KO, JINHYUK The Ship of Fools, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 Freud’s Head in the Hall Collage, 89.1cm x 59.4cm, Reproduction 2013

College of Faith & Reason, Russell Square, London, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture Jonathan Hill, Unit 12


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OHRSTEDT, PERNILLA

Equatorial Isometric Computer generated image, 137.2cm x 60.0cm Reproduction 2013

SHAFIEI, SARA

Exploded Site View through Eros Navel Computer generated drawing, 59.2cm x 83.9cm Reproduction 2013

Recordings of the Forgotten Fossil, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Neil Spiller and Phil Watson, Unit 1

Sectional Model 2.5 dimensional drawing, laser cut watercolour paper, pencil and ink, 72.0cm x 52.0cm

NIR Anatomical Section Computer generated drawing, 96.0cm x 64.0cm Reproduction 2013

Barometer Data Drawing, pencil on paper, 56.5cm x 76.5cm

SZCZEPANIAK, NICHOLAS

National Identity Register, 2009 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16

Eros Navel / NIR Scanning Kiosk Computer generated drawing, 48.1cm x 65.6cm Reproduction 2013 OKPA, TANYA SIMEONOVA Lea Valley Biotope Pavilion, 2011 University of Westminster Susanne Isa, Unit 14 Birds’ Wall Detail Computer generated image, 42.0cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 Internal View Computer generated image, 42.0cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 PAVLATOU, EMILY The Bird Factory, 2009 University of Westminster Professor Murray Fraser and Anthony Boulanger, Unit 16 The Occupied Hedge Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm

Sediment Casing Drawing, pencil on paper, 56.5cm x 76.5cm

A Defensive Architecture, 2009 University of Westminster Susanne Isa, Unit 14

SAITO, YUMI

Front Elevation Collage, 59.4cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013

Capacitor, Lea Valley, London, 2004 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Simon Herron and Susanne Isa, Unit 16 The Puller, Amphibious Vehicle Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 Reincarnation Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 Free Fall Bogie Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 View from Below Collage, 84.1cm x 59.4cm Reproduction 2013 SCHOFIELD, JONATHAN

Inside the Oculus Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm

Creative Evolution - Silvertown Ship Breaking Yard, 2010 University of Westminster William Firebrace and Gabby Shawcross, Unit 17

REDMAN, JAMES

12.8m Trawler Jig in ‘Play’ Position Computer generated image, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

The Eternal City, 2011 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger, Unit 10 Equatorial Section Computer generated image, 80.0cm x 60.0cm Reproduction 2013

Magicians’ Theatre, 2007 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Dr Marcos Cruz and Dr Marjan Colletti, Unit 20

Series of Reconfigurations, 2010 Photographic collage, 59.4cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

Plan Collage, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Plaza Pool View looking at The Big Door Collage, 59.4cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013 Tensile Trunks Model Photograph, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Book Wall Collage, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 The Ten Towers Sketch, ink on paper, 118.9cm x 84.1cm Reproduction 2013 TANG, MARTIN The Manual of Eternal Autumnal Micro-Climates for Kyoto, 2012 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger, Unit 10 Imagining Kyoto as the City of a Thousand Autumns Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013 The Great Salmon Hunt Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013


The New [Food] Temple of a Thousand Buddha Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013

East to West Doming Study 2 of 5 Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

The Lake of Boiling Maple Syrup: Filling the City with a Nostalgic Warmth and Smell of Autumn Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013

East to West Doming Study 3 of 5 Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

The Chandelier of Chrysanthemum Tea and The Pumpkin Pie Baking House Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013 1000 Origami Cranes Guarding the City from Extreme Weather Conditions Computer generated drawing, 101.6cm x 137.2cm Reproduction 2013 WANG, YINFANG Synthetic Polis, 2010 Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Nic Clear, March Architectural Design Landscape of Singularity Animation, digital print, 90.0cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Interactive Reality Animation, digital print, 90.0cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 WHETSTONE, NICKI University of Thurrock, 2012 University of Westminster Gordon Shrigley, Unit 14 The Imaginarium Drawing, fine liner pens on cartridge paper, 101.6cm x 137.2cm YOUNIS, SARISH Venetian Pigment Chromatography, 2010 Oxford Brookes University Justin Lau and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, Unit E East to West Doming Study 1 of 5 Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013

East to West Doming Study 4 of 5 Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Section and Plans of the Venetian Pigment Chromatography Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013 Pigment Shop Elevation View Computer generated drawing, 29.7cm x 42.0cm Reproduction 2013


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LIST OF LENDERS Bartlett School of Architecture The Bartlett UCL Faculty of the Built Environment Wates House 22 Gordon Street London WC1H 0QB United Kingdom T: +44 (0) 207 679 7504 architecture@ucl.ac.uk www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture Oxford Brookes University School of Architecture Headington Campus Gipsy Lane Oxford OX3 0BP United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1865 483200 www.architecture.brookes.ac.uk

University of Greenwich School of Architecture, Design and Construction Mansion Site Avery Hill Campus Bexley Road Eltham London SE9 2PQ United Kingdom T: +44 (0) 208 331 9100 www.gre.ac.uk/schools/adc University of Westminster Architecture and The Built Environment 35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS United Kingdom T: +44 (0)20 7911 5000 www.westminster.ac.uk


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our initial thanks are due to the lending artists whose generosity has enabled us to bring together an outstanding array of artworks. We are extremely grateful to the creators and owners of these drawings and objects, many of whom have agreed to part with true treasures for the loan period. The creation of an exhibition such as “IMAGINE - Fictional Architecture and the Liberation of Ideas� and its accompanying publication is a lengthy and complex enterprise in which the organisers rely upon a wide variety of people. We are especially grateful to our distinguished contributors of essays for bringing both varied expertise and heartening enthusiasm to the project. IMAGINE has come to fruition only with the help of a wide range of supporters from the institutions where the artworks were created, namely The Bartlett School of Architecture,

The University of Greenwich, The University of Westminster and Oxford Brookes University. We are indebted to Marcos Cruz, William Firebrace, Murray Fraser and Justin Lau for enriching the selection of objects and works chosen for display, and especially to Simon Herron and Susanne Isa for their unfailing curatorial support throughout the project. Their introductions to their many former students added to the success of the show. In addition, our particular thanks go to Tom Lorton and Amarasri Songcharoen of Seam Design for their assistance and for allowing us to use their very desirable office space, and to Eva Tiedemann for her inspiration when naming the project. And finally, we would like to thank Sam Evans for turning some of our initially cryptic texts into English.


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