Foreword
I am delighted to introduce this publication for our first graduating cohort of Architecture students in 2015, on the year of our 170th birthday. Though our degree course only began in 2012, we have a long history of association with architectural education. Indeed in 1860, a poster for the then ‘Norwich Government School of Art’ declared that ‘A Special Course, including Mechanical, Architectural, and Engineering Drawing, is given in the Male Classes.’ Fortunately, we now have a more enlightened approach to those who can apply for our courses! For all our graduates we hope that learning is a lifelong activity, but for our Architecture graduates in particular, I am keenly aware that the formal training towards becoming an Architect is far from over. There will be a significant amount of education, both in a practice setting and in the classroom, before that happens. However, this is a moment for celebration, and this catalogue and show is a testament to the hard work of the students and staff, who I am very pleased to have as part of our NUA community. Well done, everyone!
Professor John Last Vice-Chancellor 2
It is a very exciting time for me as our first ever cohort of graduating Architecture students put together their final show and prepare portfolios for prospective employers. This year, I have watched the architecture course go from strength to strength. The Course Leader, Reenie Elliott, and I have welcomed Francois Girardin and Michael Lewis to our full-time academic staff team, where they have quickly become valued colleagues. Starting a new course is always exciting, but developing a degree course in Architecture at NUA was especially so, as it gave me the opportunity to enhance three-dimensional design provision in the University. Students and staff from all our courses have welcomed the opportunity to get involved and collaborate with Architecture colleagues – which has been to the creative benefit of all concerned. I am very proud of our first cohort of students, who have been the pioneers of a new wave of architectural education in Norwich. I hope you will find that our show and this publication demonstrate the commitment, hard work, creativity, and technical ability of our students and staff at NUA. Professor Hilary Carlisle Dean of Arts and Design
Introduction to the BA (Hons) Architecture degree
Myths and Manifestos This catalogue presents a series of architectural design projects by students on the BA (Hons) Architecture Degree Course at Norwich University of the Arts. This year, we have assembled an exciting array of architecture tutors from near and far to inspire, provoke, interrogate and inform our students. Our tutors have had extensive experience of design teaching on architecture courses in the UK and further afield. They have built and exhibited their projects widely, written manifestos and generated mythical architectures, winning many awards and accolades during their diverse and idiosyncratic careers in architecture. This catalogue accompanies the first final year Architecture degree exhibition. The students have generated their work alongside artists and film-makers; illustrators, animators and photographers; as well as graphics, games, fashion and textile designers. By studying Architecture in an Art School, students sample a wide variety of approaches and opinions on the contemporary visual, political and spatial
environments in which they operate. In the study of architecture, one may embark on whimsical journeys, make sublime discoveries, and concoct exquisite spectacles, while exploring urban spaces and rural landscapes. Architecture students are encouraged to become independent thinkers, raconteurs of the distant past or the near future; salvagers for sustainability; manipulators of materials; appropriators of spaces and sites; cultivators of collective architectures and disseminators of critical debate. Design, technology, cultural context, and representation are key to architecture. As students progress through the course, the design projects become more and more integrated with technology, cultural context, representation and professional studies. Drawing and making are key skills used to measure, record, specify, conceptualise, experiment and communicate. Students are expected to critically evaluate their written and design projects, and refine them as they go along. Most importantly, as students engage with unfolding spatial scenarios, they will always challenge assumptions about what architecture can be. Reenie (Karin) Elliott ARB RIBA Course Leader
Introduction to the BA (Hons) Architecture degree
Teaching Staff:
Reenie Elliott, Jim Curtis, Mark Baggeley
Visible – Invisible
This year, the year 3 design studios explored the relationships between power and visibility in the contested city of Belfast. We asked students to explore the contemporary city, and to consider how recent reversals in power had affected its architecture, its public spaces, and its occupants. We asked if these reversals had resulted in corresponding reversals in visibility.
We charted the shifting spatial conditions and spatial consequences of these relationships between power and visibility. Where political actions, events, movements, dialogues and discourses have emerged into the visible realm, we asked how these shifts in visibility are affecting their operations, and speculated on the hyper visible, as well as actions that remain in the shadows. Belfast was a test site where we challenged assumptions linking visibility with power in architectural discourse and in spatial design. The Design Studios mapped the visible spaces of the city, as represented in the media, and identified them geographically, spatially, and historically over time. We mapped these spaces of events against the invisible spaces, the hidden histories, the everyday, personalised and idiosyncratic spaces and geographies of the city. We identified forms of visual restriction and control, we recorded and invented a variety of means that may be deployed for escaping these.
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Students investigated the invisible spatial geographies of sectarian divisions, parade routes, peace walls, linen weavers, hidden rivers, market produce, film, theatre, music, poetry, literature, and information dissemination and control. We were equally fascinated by the campaign trails of politicians and dignitaries as the operations of the Broadcasting Ban. Within the super-visible spaces of the global media, we discerned hidden site-specific soundscapes and latent trajectories. We embarked on a series of adventures into the visible and the invisible, developing programs for display and camouflage, distraction and espionage, marching and smuggling, deploying agencies of the natural and the supernatural.
In the Institute for Censorship, we asked if architecture could play a role in conflict resolution. If you agree that a wall, a public space, or an observation tower can restrict, limit, suppress or condition visibility and behaviour, we asked what kind of architectural spaces can liberate visibility and encourage dialogue?
YEAR 3 DEGREE STUDENTS
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Laura Baldwin Bonfires in Belfast 2025: A Space for Exchange “Orangefest� is an attempt at reimagining a contentious parade event in Belfast. I have proposed an alternative theatre, providing street performers and pyrotechnics enthusiasts with performance areas and training facilities. My project visually connects the traditional theatre, the Grand Opera House, to urban spaces in the city centre.
The 12th of July is a controversial date in the Northern Irish calendar. It marks the Protestants’ triumph during the Battle of the Boyne. Celebrated by Northern Irish Protestants and Loyalists, the 12th is preceded by igniting towering beacons on the 11th July. The beacons, made from reclaimed materials, tower over the city, many as tall as 3 or 4 story buildings. The event is considered hostile by local Catholics and remains a cause of tension among the residents of Belfast. Riots are a common sight on July the12th, as members of the protestant Orange order take to the streets in a parade march accompanied by marching bands. In recent years the conflicted city has been subject to rebranding programmes, and attempts to calm the hostilities. Belfast City Council and other organisations have implemented schemes aimed at altering perceptions of, and promoting tourism through Belfast. The proposed theatre expands on this positive initiative by re-imagining the towering bonfires as spaces where street performers can perform this traditional ritual in more peaceful ways, focusing on spectacular pyrotechnics rather than political provocation. The project tackles the misuse of fire as it partially combusts in a spectacle event on the 11th. 6
Street performers take centre stage on the 12th, drawing the crowds to the site. The performers then move throughout the city, dispersing the crowds safely, and guiding them away from potentially hostile areas. Street performers often feature in Belfast events regardless of the occasion.
Throughout the rest of the year, the building remains a testament to performers, a positive addition to Northern Irish culture, now understood merely as a historical oddity. The fly tower storage system provides a library of sets, backdrops and equipment offering the large square an adaptable rehearsal area. My proposal envisions a situation where the conflicts are resolved, and the fire is used merely as a form of theatrical entertainment for tourists and pre-theatre urbanite flaneurs.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Precious Domingo The Love Hotel
“What makes you dislike the human race? It’s because after thousands of years of civilization, we still haven’t learnt how to love.” The city of Belfast has been divided for a long time due to the contrasting views of two communities. The city is calm and civilised, yet the walls that divide Belfast are still standing. Somehow, the citizens are still consumed by the dark shadows of The Troubles. Its current state offers a perfect reason to ignite the love that was once flowing freely through the city. Belfast just needs to believe in love again.
My client, the Irish band “The Script” have requested my architectural skills to design a vessel that will allow people like themselves, to share and experience love. They desire a facility that will allow the broken hearted to let go of the pain and give love another chance. In addition, they wish for a capsule that will accommodate those who have newly discovered love, as well as spatial scenarios that can allow old couples to rekindle their passion for each other. In one of their songs, they assert, “If hate’s a poison, then love’s the cure”. This was what drove my proposal to replace the tired old Travelodge Hotel in the city with an interactive hotel, “The Love Hotel”.
Schedule of Accommodation:
Balloon launch pad Love letter writing workshops and wind machines Pottery and hugs Candlelit dining Picnic meadows and serenades Rose garden Snuggling spaces and floral alcoves Illuminated follies Departures and arrivals lounges Love parade wardrobing area Musical musing Amusement arcade Tango terraces Tunnel of love Boating lake “Going back to the corner Where I first saw you Gonna camp in my sleeping bag I’m not gonna move” “Some try to hand me money, they don’t understand I’m not broke – I’m just a broken-hearted man” “If you’re standing with your suitcase But you can’t step on the train Everything’s the way that you left it I still haven’t slept yet” Lyrics by “The Script”, a Belfast serenade.
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BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Dan Garrett The Repository: A History of Belfast in Fifty Objects.
The difference between what’s visible and what’s invisible is who’s there to witness it or to be witnessed. The concealed and often relentless act of media manufacture manifests a path of ongoing celebrated procedures seen only between facades of open empathy. On the one side, media manufacture can be a dirty place, where tricks are played and devilish techniques roam free. But coinciding to force a balance upon this faction is a state of publicly recognised media materials. These are so readily available that we take them for granted. Newspapers, broadcasters, and the media share a dark and deviant undercroft where critical or complex events are put to one side to leave space for the most eye-catching stories of an ever worsening tomorrow. Belfast is no exception, for years obscured from the public eye, its troubles imprinting statutes of negativity throughout its divisories. The broadcasting ban brought us stories detailing the devastation, but not the stories of the opposing sides or the stories of those whose lives were dedicated to counteracting the violence, or secretly counteracting the ban.
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The Repository addresses this imbalance of power by eliminating the partitions between meaningful objects and those who may have evidence of violent acts, nostalgic memories, heroic deeds or shameful moments. These objects may be displayed, collected, exhibited and acquired for critique by establishing a place to drop them off, a postbox or deposit box interface. By allowing these objects to be delivered anonymously, the tendancy to amnesia is resisted.
Over time, interfaces throughout the Repository become slowly saturated by artefacts symbolic of The Troubles, each explaining the course of events in their very own way. Windows become filtered with remnants, forming unadjusted artefacts into transversed shadows, to oscillate between floor and ceiling. Each artefact has two stories to tell: a story for public display and another of media secrecy. Walls displaying censored material echo the memories housed within the artefacts they exhibit, breathing fresh air onto cold topics, while disclosing new agendas amongst those which have already been exhumed.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Holly Keatley The Destroyer and Consumer of Film.
I chose two characters, Liam Neeson, an Irish actor, (visible character) and a camera man (invisible character) to help me to navigate the fictional representations of Irish history in Film. I then designed an Institute of Censorship, focusing on film classification. Looking at the history of Belfast and The Troubles, I researched how film was affected by the ‘Broadcasting Ban’, an initiative introduced to “protect the public of Belfast mentally from the visuals of unacceptable media”. My Film Classification Centre is located right in the centre of Belfast near the famous Europa Hotel. It was a prime target during The Troubles, as it accommodated journalists and politicians from all over the world. It was the most bombed hotel in the world, being attacked 28 times. It still stands today. The film classification centre became ‘The Destroyer of Film’ with extreme measures: incinerators throughout the building, with operatives and censors, burn any material they deem as unacceptable viewing. There are weekly burning rituals where the public gathers around the square and watch as the destroying takes place. It creates a very surreal and supernatural effect, as the smoke rises through glazed fire compartments from the incinerators. My research report on the use of surrealist techniques in architecture informed my speculation on the effects I wanted to create with incinerators. These strange juxtapositions and material expressions of subconscious processes would illuminate the desires and motives of the Consumer and the Destroyer of Film.
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As the public enjoys the festival atmosphere, films are being projected from my other building opposite the ‘Destroyer of Film’. This is the ‘Consumer of Film’. It has the opposite views, and believes that the public should make decisions about what they want to watch. This ‘Consumer of Film’ building also projects films and imagery onto the ‘Destroyer of Film’, and they both project films all around the square on the surrounding buildings for the public to view and enjoy. Around the two buildings there is a virtual “ring of steel” set up as a security measure by the police. The term is derived from the “ring of steel” that was in place during The Troubles, where the centre of Belfast would be cut off at night. This “ring of steel”, rather then implementing a curfew, connects the two buildings using the surrounding rooftops. Film Festival-goers inhabit miniature cinemas, each one catering for different genres of film.
Different activities take place on the rooftops and around the site as the seasons change. Hot Tub Cinemas, Deck Chair Cinemas, Santa’s Grotto, firework displays, bonfires and scary mazes abound. The only thing that doesn’t change is the incinerator, endlessly burning it’s way through documents, rendering obsolete any speculative creations, and sanitizing public rituals of viewing.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Inna Marx Urban Oasis: The Transformation Rooms.
In the Institute for Censorship, we asked if architecture could play a role in conflict resolution. If you agree that a wall, a public space, or an observation tower can restrict, limit, supress or condition visibility and behaviour, we asked what kind of architectural spaces can liberate visibility and encourage dialogue? My brief set in a city of conflicts, attempts to draw the two sectarian sides together. Visible and invisible characters of northern Irish nationality influenced my proposal. My two characters were a pilot (invisible) and George Best the famous footballer (visible).
As I researched George Best, I discovered that they’d named the airport after him. More importantly he’d bequeathed a legacy to the youth of Belfast, in the form of a large sum of money, to be spent for their benefit, by the George Best Foundation.
My manifesto aims is to help the youth of Belfast stay out of trouble. So in order to do this, the sports club aims to rejuvenate a public square in the city centre of Belfast. We will provide an inspiring multifunctional space where youngsters can participate in football, swimming, saunas, plunge pools, steam rooms, flower baths, court games, sky gardens, and cafes within a safe environment. It will give them the opportunity to integrate socially, whilst creating a focus for the mind, and a chance to learn new skills and stay out of trouble. I hope that the legacy of my project will be that it will help to merge the cracks of the divided city.
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The space has been designed with flexibility in mind, allowing the occupants to define how they use their surroundings. The language enables youths to play and socialise as they would on the street. An elevated street is an essential component of my proposal. Although it enables young people to socialise freely, key workers would have the ability to unknowingly watch over them to ensure they are safe. The Transformation Rooms are a series of pet architectures, beach huts, and mini changing rooms elevated above the roofscape. Tired after a long day at school, children can lounge in the pools or relax on the rooftop meadows. Guardian angels of Belfast will hover over these rooftop Transformation Rooms.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Jesso Mathew The Queen and “the Leprechaun”
President Michael D. Higgins’ state visit to the United Kingdom, in April 2014, was the first state visit of a President of Ireland to the United Kingdom. The visit came three years after the first state visit by a British monarch to Ireland following its independence. Higgins and his wife Sabina were welcomed by Queen Elizabeth II on 8th April at Windsor Castle on the first day of a four-day visit, and held a formal meeting with the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. My design proposal was to create an informal dining experience between the Queen and the Irish President known locally as the Leprechaun, and their guests. The dining experience is replicated with the menu that was prepared on the day President Higgins visited Windsor Castle. The dignitaries will be served a 3-course meal followed by a round of golf along the rooftops around my site. The informality of the golf course, where the Queen may be accompanied by her corgis, allows for banter, chit chat, and lighthearted camaraderie. Both Heads of State, it is hoped, will respond well to the relaxed atmosphere before returning to my banqueting hall for their formal meal. The most important decisions about the future of these island states, will probably be made when they play a round of golf.
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The idea of visibility and invisibility is approached in my choice of material used for cladding, e.g. the use of thin sheets of translucent marble.
Another aspect of my project concerns espionage, brought into focus by these events. The latest technology has been used for decades in order for countries to spy on each other. With the troubled history of Ireland, and due to the distinguished guests present at this event, espionage plays a crucial part in this project. Secret agents spy on this event. The act of reciprocal espionage establishes different scenarios that can consider how uses of technology have changed. Spys crawl between the roof trusses to record and spy on the event. Corgis are monitored in The Crown Bar by Her Majesty’s secret service. The Leprechaun brings his racehorse for her majesty, consolidating a shared hobby. Corgi kennels, stables and helipads are also provided. The rituals and ceremonies have a legacy: red rose canopies will grow on the site long after the Queen has left Ireland, while bowers of shamrocks will flower every spring.
All food served at the banquet is grown here: Cattle pastures are provided for Beef Bourgignon, paddy fields for rice and vanilla pods. These flavour the “Vanilla Bombe” desert prepared specially for the Irish President.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Mary-Beth McGuire Northern Irish Prison Archive
“The Troubles” conflict in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century, in which over 3,600 people were killed and thousands more injured, have had a very significant impact on the city of Belfast. Although the numbers of active participants in the conflict were few, its effects were felt across society. Memories of these terrible events have remained resilient, especially in areas affected directly by the conflict, with nearly two per cent of the population of Northern Ireland having been killed or injured though political violence.
Belfast City Council have commissioned an archive which will document The Troubles, telling the lives of its participants as well as its victims.
The archive will focus on the lives of prisoners in the Maze prison. It will also offer prisoners a forum in which to speak of their experiences of life inside the H block. The archive itself acts as a documentation centre for Bobby Sands photographs and ‘film footage’ revealing artefacts and documents hither to censored by the Broadcasting ban and all the men who lost their lives in the hunger strike of 1981, as well as the thousands of innocent civilians from both sides who lost their lives through no fault of their own. The building will also house a television studio/auditorium area, where ex-prisoners will have the opportunities to talk about their stint behind bars, and recall the harsh or poignant reality of life in the Maze. The archive will be open to the general public, and viewing in the auditorium will be free of charge, seating 200 viewers at any one time.
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BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Edward Mitchem The Juniper Network
The current global economic and environmental situation sees an ever more pressing need for sustainable architecture. The contemporary city has become a hub of trade, industry and the corporate. As a result of this shift, the efficiency of our usage of natural resources has decreased. Our society generates a vast accumulation of waste (particularly through industrial trade). An appreciation of food, water and energy should be, and largely is, at the forefront of our political and social agenda.
The Garden City, a nineteenth century social movement, re-imagined the importance and romanticism of nature after its denigration following the Industrial Revolution. The Garden City attempted to develop a sustainable community whose politics advocated the proper utilisation of available natural resources which had hitherto be rejected by the city. Belfast, the site of this project, is historically relevant for it’s two major trades in linen and shipping, post- Industrial Revolution. As a City once particularly reliant on it’s industry, Belfast’s current configuration opposes the ideals of the Garden City movement. The following proposal seeks to rectify this, by intensifying plant growth in the City.
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For centuries, the two associated but distinct practices of botany and distillation have been used in the creation of Gin (or Geneva as it was known) since it’s origin in 16th century Holland. Botanicals are imported from all over the world and used in the distillation process. A London Dry Gin is defined by it’s use of citrus peel and alcohol content (not it’s location). Whilst historically intertwined, botany and distillation are seldom practiced in the same place. Through the Juniper Network, the synthesis of these two trades counteracts the accumulation of waste, and within this architectural proposal, these two industries function in an equilibrium in which one industry’s waste serves the other and visa versa.
Positioning both a distillery and greenhouses within the same site, the otherwise wasted energy from the distillery, through the use of heat recovery, grey water distribution, ventilation etc., is repurposed to create artificial climates within the greenhouses. These climates allow for botanicals found only in some of the most remote, un-inhabitable places on the planet to be grown and used in the distillation process. In line with the values of the Garden City movement, my project addresses the implications of sustainable industrial politics and culturalenvironmental ideals. The Juniper Network will re-invigorate the centre of a historic city and provide fragrant botanic gardens for it’s occupants.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Ryan Ortiz Butcher – Exposed – Parasite
The project began with an exploration of the duality between a butcher and an amputee; the relationship between flesh and prosthetics – and the discovery of the organic within the synthetic. By drawing the visual ideas of this hybrid, compositions of dynamic qualities were conceived. Through a process of interpretation, rather than literal reproduction, the drawings start to evoke certain architectural spaces. The architecture becomes the body of the idea; one that combines the graphic representation of ‘flesh and metal’. Inspired by the character of the ‘butcher’, a material study was conducted, exploring the transformation process of architecture and the city: ‘Belfast cut ups’ was born. I conceived of the city as a neglected body, arteries undone by its lack of flow, areas laid to waste as ‘rotting meat’. A timelapse sequence documents the process of degradation and reveals the visual changes on the contours and figure of the meat. The process of documenting the changes through time was then applied as a way of interrogating the site. The land of Belfast, if seen as a single cut of meat, has changed dramatically over time, as shown in a ‘time-lapse’ sequence of the figure-ground plan of the city. Seeing the buildings that have populated the site as ‘slices’ from the overall land, the project aims to restore the ‘land of Belfast’ by utilising unoccupied spaces of the site and superimposing a structure that envelopes the city. The city is no longer a divided space but a single entity.
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Mimicking the actions of an urban surgeon, the peacekeeping forces restrict the flow to certain areas. A media frenzy descends upon the city, relishing its seams of woe. Like a parasite, it attaches itself to the blood stream.
The parasite is a media facility, an organism that also reunifies the city. It invades its host through incision and by occupying the interstices. A symbiotic relationship is created as the parasite relies on its host for its structure; feeding from its erosion and regenerating them as its own. The parasite becomes a butcher that survives from the limbs of its host.
In return, it produces reports on the current state of its host and provides it with a place for meditation and reflection. It allows it’s host to return to health, then falls away to seek sustenance elsewhere. My project attempts to retain some fragments of this Media Parasite and expose it’s skeletal bones.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Aylin Ozdemir The Riot Simulation Zone
My main focus for this project was on journalists who are sent to hazardous places such as warzones or rioting areas to broadcast and report incidents that are taking place. Northern Ireland is known to be one of the hotspots for urban violence since The Troubles and many protests have taken place in different areas. Belfast is one of the locations in which a protest has often led to a riot, such as the Flag protest, bonfire night, or the annual Orange Parade. Journalists who report on current events can sometimes be endangered by the outcome of unsafe zones or riots, as they might not be adequately prepared to take action in unseen circumstances. In this project, I begin by analysing the flag protest and riot, by mapping out the protest route and the positions of each individual participant, and objects used as a weapon during the riot that took place in Belfast.
The idea for this project was to design a space for journalists to train them for contested spaces, and to teach them the skills needed to effectively broadcast using minimal equipment in such situations. This ‘Riot Simulation Zone’ is accompanied by a skeletal TV broadcasting space, situated on Amelia street in Belfast.
The experience is generated from the positions of each individual person, and the directions in which the Molotov cocktails and stones were thrown, simulated here, sometimes in miniature. The accommodation of various access walkways has the same intention as a maze. Spaces that resemble bunkers can be occupied by journalists, offering them protection from the projectiles. All around them, the projectiles, car 24
explosions and effects simulate the same events as a riot. This includes incident rooms set up to monitor simulation of car explosions, throwing Molotov cocktails and other objects that can be used as a weapon during a riot. In addition there’s an acoustic room, a hostage refuge, and spaces similar to chambers. This proposal will offer an advantage to many journalists from across the world as they will go through an experience of a real life situation. The plan is to give them the required training to reduce the effects of dangerous situations in contested spaces and permit the free flow of media information.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Mark Potkins On Neutral Ground
Located in central Belfast, Blackstaff Square has many through routes and good public access. The concept for my project began with a rigorous investigative mapping exercise where I discovered many invisible aspects of the city. By researching and discovering the troubles of Belfast and the dispute that raged between loyalists and nationalists, I uncovered the need for a neutral ground between both parties. My proposal envisions a shared space for expression, now that the Broadcasting Ban has been lifted on Belfast. The aim of my design is to promote tolerance from both parties, so that this space can be enjoyed, valued and safely inhabited by the wider community of Belfast. Interpreting The Troubles of Belfast, which mainly occurred between 1969-1971, the project aims to benefit the community as a whole. It takes into account its context by altering the current loyalist’s parade route via Blackstaff Square. A mix of steel and concrete columns represents a forest and a mid-way transition between surrounding buildings. Open inner glass walls aim to erase borders between the inside of the building and the external path going through.
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Promoting a mutual respect for each other and each other’s views, and hoping to dispel anger amongst the community, I have created a place for the exchange and interchange of information. The facility will allow both sides of the sectarian divide to exhibit censored or banned images, while offering spaces for discussion, peaceful protests and an extensive exhibition space. Hoping to bring a feeling of peacefulness, nostalgia, resolve and closure for visitors, the space welcomes natural light and breathability so as to avoid being in any way intimidating. .
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Richard Rabulan Media Confessors & Moving Statues
This project is focused around the act of ‘confession’. It is the act that many religions describe as the acknowledgement of ones sins or wrongs. My project seeks conflict resolution and a space for people to interact and share their statements with architectures public. Certain experiences can teach individuals about the past and change their perspectives, while others are just expressions of individuals who prefer to keep their secrets hidden.
Everyone has different reasons to confess. In my project, sculpture represents the motivations for confessions, and also acts as another medium for confession. Statues are triggered by pressure plates and motion censors to move and create a supernatural ‘apparition’; This is based on the “Moving Statues” phenomenon in Ballinspittle, Ireland (1985). Statues of the Virgin Mary were reported to move spontaneously. People who witnessed an apparition may experience thoughts of higher being, and may turn to religion, elevating these sightings to create a veritable media frenzy. Hundreds of Irish journalists and religious fanatics toured the country to record these phenomena, seeking to find a way to explain or refute the mythology surrounding the events. Thousands of people whispered secret confessions into grottos at all hours of the day and night.
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For the Catholic Church, the intent of confession is to provide healing for the soul as well as to regain the grace of God, lost by sin. A journalist is not unlike a priest in that he listens to confessions, judges them, and speculates on remedial action, or an appropriate ‘sentence’. The interview establishes a similar dichotomy, with the interviewee behaving as a confessor. My architectural program offers a place for these characters to declare their Manifestos. It can be simplified into two simple terms ‘visible and invisible’; ‘aerial and terrestrial’. One makes their journey towards the acknowledgement of mistakes while the other listens in silence. However, in order to reunite Belfast, confessions will not be just an act for religious people. Anyone is allowed to express their thoughts and statements through the many different spaces for confession offered in the program. Each individual’s needs has a corresponding way to confess. I believe that by making confessions available for everyone and without it being censored, the program can remove the walls that divide Belfast and unite people towards learning from each other. Journalists adopt the role of the listening silent priest, while those they interview spill out their sins in the pages of my newspaper.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Matthew Reeve The Colony: A haven for honey bees in Belfast Honey bee numbers are dwindling. The UK, USA and Europe have lost a third of their honey bee colonies every year since 2006. This is a massive problem, because one in three mouthfuls we eat are pollinated by bees. The ideal response to this issue is urban beekeeping. With this in mind, Belfast will be home to the United Kingdom’s first Honey Festival. This comprises a purpose built facility for the production, sale, consumption and celebration of honey and bee made products. The facility accommodates educational areas, a honey production facility, urban beekeeping, rooftop gardens, a cafÊ for the sampling of honey based recipes, retail areas and a small scale television studio. Visitors to the facility will be able to get up close to the beekeeping and honey production process, even taking part in it themselves. Being located within the heart of Belfast’s centre, the building will act as a hive of activity, allowing people of different religions, ethnicities, class and beliefs to come together to appreciate the importance of pollinators and the joy they can bring to all.
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A large focus of the project was to encourage the reintroduction of green spaces to the urban environment. The project makes use of the usually wasted areas such as rooftops, abandoned lots, derelict buildings and building facades to provide a plentiful supply of food for pollinators all year round. The historical plantation of Ulster is recreated, botanic Gardens are re-invigorated, and fragrant orchards abound. The colonisers in this case, however, are miniature beings, a dying species whose survival depends on us taking care of them better.
This ideal not only drove the function of the building but also influenced its form and materiality. The building will make good use of natural materials such as timber, combined with organics and honey as part of the buildings construction. Whether a person is experiencing the building from afar or from within, they are constantly reminded of our connection with nature and pollinators, and the important part they play in our day to day lives
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BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Tamsyn Rootsey Freeman NOISE: NOrthern Irish Space Exploration
Northern Ireland is entering the space race. The project begins with a series of interstellar illusions, originating from a mayday call-out in the far Basmorial sector of our galaxy. Robert Cappa, the astronaut, makes contact with an astronomer, Paul Moron, to notify him of the pulsar disruption from a black hole in the galaxy. He requests back up from the European Space Agency located in central Belfast. The built environment of Belfast is highly territorial and constitutes one of earths’ most contested cities. Lingering hardship has a stigmatic hold on the population of this area, obscuring the focus of global media. There is a fundamental level of negative negotiation across a wide range of boundaries. Through a series of constructed illusions, we will form the integrated space mayday situation room and the observation post of an astronomer. A facility built from the theoretical diagram of a black hole is the basis for our site strategy for a scientific facility and training spaces, while a propaganda facility will hold the base for information updates in scientific research. Our training spaces for the decoy space race present heuristic experiments and situations.
By reconfiguring urban spaces, we will form a vehicle for changing perceptions of surveillance. The theoretical diagram will enable one to approach and circulate the facility. While on the one hand, we will provide training in space procedures, we will concurrently offer specialist intergalactic espionage and observation procedure testing. A research facility, training facility and living quarters for the space race conglomerate organisation team will offer means of protection, integrating competing espionage tactics and strategies from our allies overseas. 32
The scientific research facility will gather and analyse information for the endeavours that will be practiced in nearby training spaces, connecting to the public with a form of interactive digital display and distraction strategy. A communication project will stimulate the senses, by means of illusory interaction. We will reveal an informative ethereal propaganda campaign on the facilities’ progress as it is constructed. An aquatic retreat for submerged training enveloped in transformative / shifting / revealing landscapes will constitute the most contentious of the spaces. Shifting paths and socio-spatial rehearsals allow relationships to be reconfigured and new spatial dynamics to emerge within the facility. A space for the training of decoy astronauts will provide experiences that can be transformative, including floating techniques, breathing kits, and associated submersible inspection apparatus. Programmed decoy spaces and the perception of those spaces have the potential to become harbingers of security and interstellar information.
Concluding the operations, NOISE will be cloaked in judicious cover of an industrial or bucolic nature. This will extend as camouflage over the city, which will form a decoy, to buffer and discourage surrounding authorities and distant territories away from the knowledge that Belfast is joining the space race, and plans to win it. Over and out.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Matthew Sawyer Manifesto For Music, Not Marching.
Music is a pivotal component in the cultural identity of Ireland. Politically hijacked, music is used as a weapon to divide communities. Belfast’s marching season shows how the interstices of the city play host to this acoustic aggression. My institute censors the politicisation of music in a form of dÊtournement, and aims to retune Belfast attitudes towards a future where the cultural relevance of political music is merely a historical curiosity. The image shows a large roof structure providing protection to open air walkways and terraces. Alexander Calder’s mobiles provided inspiration, and we see spaces suspended above one another, creating three-dimensional situations. My institute takes the form of a concert hall. I envision a location where music can be enjoyed, without the political provocation that accompanies music during the marching season. That is what I mean by political hijacking. The concert hall is a product of conceptual contextualism. Cultural triangulation mappings were used to generate the building plan. The building was generated entirely from its local context, giving the building an intrinsic intellectual and physical connection to its place. A musical landscape is created as bands, musicians and dance troupes all occupy a series of elevated terraces, outdoor rehearsal spaces, and pathways that meander through shared spaces. Sectarian divisions are set aside. Clubs and groups now have shared access to the same practice spaces, establishing a musical common ground.
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The walkways are the main means of circulation through the building, and these have an elevated position and indeed importance. The circulation routes have become more than simply a means of moving from one space to another. The walkways are in themselves an experience. Overlooking performance terraces, the walkways act as a viewing platform for inhabitants to engage with local performers and musicians. The dynamic relationship between performer and audience is explored with moving platforms. Musicians move through the space, mimicking the motion of the parades, however, the audience is empowered and can filter and move through the project as they see fit.
Situationist ideas of the derive are evident, and an architecture for pure acoustic pleasure is constructed.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Priyanka Shah Censored Spaces: A Taxi Hub
The recent troubles of Belfast have passed, but have the stories been forgotten? Have the hidden heroes of the city been overlooked? Perhaps, the invisible and the visible become confused and the differences estranged. Could the worlds of the understood and unseen be unified? The proximity of those worlds are witnessed every day. Can the overlooked and unseen be rendered visible again? The taxi drivers of Belfast have long been the silent heroes of the city, safely transporting civilians from places they call their ‘sanctuaries’, to locations that could not even be visited by anyone on foot or private vehicle. These taxis were trusted and relied upon during ‘The Troubles’, in the late 20th century, to transport the occupants of the city through dangerous zones. The Falls Road, the Shankill Road, riot flashpoints, peace walls, bonfires and parades, car bombs and incendiary devices: all represented an imminent danger for the taxi drivers precious human cargo. They provided the public with confidence and reassurance, yet these brave men were only seen as reflections in the rear view mirror, or by faceless voices emanating from the backs of their heads. Now it is 2098, and in the receding pale light of the 100th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast has flooded. Cars are all electric, so it is time to remember these modest heroic figures.
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The invisible taxi hubs will be lifted onto higher grounds, a true visionary experience combining the surreal and tangible. Elevated from the rest of Belfast and the last point of residency before the flooded urban landscape to the west, The Taxi Living Pods offer another urban refuge, a place dedicated to past generations of taxi drivers.
Glass windscreen facades interrupt the divide between car and home, creating a fluid transition between work-space and personal living space for the occupant. While the living pods embody isolation and segregation, they are tied together by small umbilical cord like chutes, transporting resources and food from pod to pod. Expressing the power of agreement and union that is evoked in the contemporary city of Belfast, Taxi Hub is a lifeline in the next wave of urban unrest. They shine like lighthouses above the troubled waters of rising sea levels, a world made mostly of water.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Joseph Stancer The [food] Exchange
In the city, buildings have become the public faces of corporations, industries, trades, or social and cultural activities. The [Food] Exchange seeks to reveal itself as an embodiment representing many invisibles. It appraises the spatial and symbolic interactions that might be made between one event and another, or one facility and another. This constitutes a reversal in terms of both power and visibility.
The virtual world which exists in the digital infrastructures of the internet and online food ordering systems are made available for all to inspect, thereby becoming decensored communication zones to the public. A co-operative collaboration between the failing supermarket business and the ‘agri-business’, the [Food] Exchange seeks to give local farmers, growers and tradesmen more control over supply chains. In the formerly contested city of Belfast, my proposal seeks to imagine a shared city, by permeating boundaries that once existed between sectarian identities.
As these identities change and evolve, this space for exchange might tackle issues such as unemployment, energy security and food poverty. A subverted programme emerges, as anti-capitalist protesters become aware of secret collusions. The project is un-masked as the manifestation of a contentious marketing ploy by the supermarket. Chance design tactics such as collage and mappings collide with regimented pre-existing frameworks to forge an anarchic depiction of a machine.
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My proposal is inspired by research into ways that postmodern theories might be retroactively applied to functionalist architecture. Decorated shed or duck? In Belfast, these distinctions start to shift. The barely visible claims greater potency and meaning than the blinding lights of Las Vegas. Over time, what originated as a corporate paradigm is overthrown, and the community take over this ‘machine for selling’ in uniquely transparent ways.
Nineteenth century industrial processes which once existed on this very site, such as linen weaving looms, were powered by waterwheels in the Blackstaff river. All these histories are now rendered invisible.
In my proposal, the city reverts to a contemporary form of pastoralism. Urban agriculture is encouraged. Consumers are able to interact with the production processes and network more with producers. This instills a greater awareness of what they consume, and a more honest idea of where it all comes from. Surrounding sites begin to be cultivated, activating an artificial ecosystem. A series of discreetly interlinked services, such as tasting kitchens and bars, and veg-box ‘click and collect’ services infiltrate the daily rituals of the city centre.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Arpan Sunuwar Heston Blumenthal’s Belfast Restaurant Laboratory
The work started with 3 sets of collages exploring three themes. All were various constructions derived from processes of visible and invisible proportions. We then proceeded to explain our collages, using a graphic technique we adopted from one of the many presented by Edgar Tufte in his seminal books ‘Visual Explanations’, ‘Beautiful Evidence’ and ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’. This led to my decision to choose characters to kick-start my narrative project. I focused on a TV Chef that inhabited the visible sphere, and a cameraman that remained invisible. Focusing on the main visible character of the project, I needed to choose a specific chef that would be fitting to create the most exciting meals, and so I decided on Heston Blumenthal as my chef character. The Tufte - influenced overlay drawings I produced were reused to focus on a manifesto: I chose mine to be “food”. I explored the construction and display of gustatory delights, as invented by Heston: snail porridge, butternut bavarois, ginger scallops, and the ultimate mashed potato. In term 2, we started to make technical drawings and I introduced material usages suitable to Hestons’ mode of operation. Exploring the provision of hidden TV camera crews and locations, I started to design secret spaces inside the building, creating secret doors, gates, and windows between them. Thus, a series of visible and invisible interfaces were attached to each of Hestons culinary functions.
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Technical drawings in close up at 1:5 and 1:20 scales show how it all operates. Laboratories, kitchens and seating areas intertwine along a series of bridges and towers. The restaurant is a media setting. Cold stores, laboratory fume cupboards, and furniture arrangements suggest an embellishment of Hestons’ ‘Fat Duck’ formula.
Following Hestons’ lead, I started to explore a theme of supernatural architecture and cookery. One of his dishes involves a dish that you eat from a shell, while listening through headphones to the recorded sounds of the sea. To achieve such supernatural effects in my architecture and its surrounding landscape, people are shrouded in mist and echoing sounds of the sea, while pools inside extend into a new park outside of the building. This architectural and urban design strategy was derived not only from this one dish, but also in response to Heston Blumenthals’ extensive use of dry ice for effect in his cookery. His TV friendly dishes offer a vast array of spectacle, atmosphere and delights that my architecture attempts to capture.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 3
Tereza Trovoada Institute of Censorship: Printing Headquarters There is nothing new about newspapers. To appreciate the primordial method of media communication that is newsprint, we must first comprehend the dynamics involved through its process.
The art of printing was a breakthrough in the world of communication. The ability to mass-produce manuscripts effectively allowed the dissemination of information, images and dialogue. This consequently improved the exchange of news between communities.
During the 1970’s, the contested city of Belfast acted as both theatre and stage. The media recorded riots, conflicts, and the effects of segregation. These events made headlines all over the world. Newspapers were one of the major methods of media communication that effectively exposed everyday riots and desperate violent crimes. Very young ‘paper-boys’ sold and delivered newspapers. Paper selling stands were everywhere, constantly feeding the city’s inhabitants with the latest breaking news. Newsprint acted as a visible form of exposure, a kind of graphic display documenting the cyclical history of events. By addressing the invisible aspects of the newspaper distribution process, this project interrogates each stage of the process, from the printing to the delivery of papers, inspecting all the activities that take place. Starting with the delivery of paper at the print-works, I then track the unrolling of paper, to the inking, folding, cutting, stapling, staking, delivery and finally the consuming of such venerable documents. This might otherwise be known as the ‘readers experience’. 42
As time passes, the news editing industry becomes more and more mechanized, and digital technologies flourish. Fewer papers are printed, due to the lack of profit they can offer. The newspaper has little to offer that is up-to-the-minute breaking news, compared to the speedier process of providing online news copy. It’s also easier to collect immediate public responses and feedback to news that is readily accessed online. However, should we let the art of printing fade away? Should the beauty of its process also be forgotten? Should the experience of early morning reading by the café table be just a nostalgic memory? And the memories of their calls, those euphoric paperboys competing for custom, should their voices remain forever in the past? A sensation as simple as the flicking of newsprint pages will soon be lost to contemporary culture and an invisible activity in the urban landscape. This projects aims to emphasise the invisible aspects involved in the printing of newspapers, and hopes for the continued appreciation of their tactile presence in our everyday lives. This project listens to the haunting voices and faces of paper-boys and the sounds of newspapers thudding to the ground to line the newspapers stands again, as clarion calls for the evenings latest editions, bringing topical chatter to Belfast tables at dinnertime.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 2 Students: James Appleby, Rujena Begum, James Faustino, Chris Gilby, George Gooch; Halima Haruna, Daniel Holbeche-Smith, Blair Luther-Veitch, Ollie Mcarthur Tring, Jack Mcbride, James Potter, Andrea Radford, Jay Rayner, Thomas Roberts, Rafael Viegas Ramos and Kit Wong.
Introduction to 2nd year: Hybrid Programmes. Year 2 provides an introduction to the process of abstraction and spatial discipline; through a series of exercises that introduce spatial concepts such as Surface, Frame, Open plan, Enclosure and Tension. Student produce and reflect on a series of multi layered compositions from which they develop ideas, concepts and spatial proposals. The first term lead to the development of a Wikihouse: an opensource timber prefabrication technique that allows self build and that introduces the students to digital representation and manufacturing. The second and third term concentrates on the design of an architectural project at the scale of the community. By projecting a mixed use building the students are considering the impact of programming and planning within the architectural process. Through a workshop they analysed how contemporary housing might be conceived, developed, researched and integrated with a secondary programme that they need to invent and investigate. Emphasis is on the spatial, social, sustainable and structural opportunity provided by hybrid programmes.
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An important part of the ouput in second year is the emphasis on the vertical dimension. Most project have a narrow footprint and consequently have to raise vertically. This gives the students the opportunity to reflect on the notion of project and programme; hybridizing and crossprogramming of functions that include the private, minimal, residential highdensity and more public and communal activities and lifestyles. These constraints produce tensions between the social, economic, cultural and political qualities and narratives of the projects and between the sensual and the practical needs and desires of the body and of the community.
The spatial expression of both individuality and the civic, of solitude and co-existence is resolved into designs through these contrasts and contradictions. This friction between the domestic and spectacular generates and materializes itself through its planned contexts, its mixed programme and between the ground, water and sky.
Typology Exercise: Works from Kit Wong, James Potter, James Appleby, Andrea Radford, Christpher Gilby, Blair Luter-Veitch
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 2
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Drawings by: left: James Potter; right: George Gooch.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 2
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Drawings by: left: Kit Wong; right:Thomas Roberts.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 2
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Drawings by: left: Christopher Gilby; right:Rafael Ramos.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 1 Students: Remy Bennett-Abbiss, Nicholas Cassidy, Jake Cruse, Conner Day; Anton Elson, Jordan French, James Grace, Bertie Hipkin, Callum Hyde, Christopher Keevan, Matthew Lowen, Serene Nemer, Isaac Read, Samuel Roe, Kiera Schneider, Joshua Smith, Konrad Timmann, Matthew Tyreman and Daniel Walford.
Introduction to 1st year: Trades and Myths. The overarching theme for year one has been developing strong narratives for design with an emphasis on making and craftsmanship. Students were encouraged to explore a wide range of representation, from various physical modelling techniques to manual and digital graphic projections. We began the year with a Homemaking project that asked students to explore various constructs that define our notion of ‘home’ and investigate these themes via technical drawing. We carried this analytical thinking into a Forgery project that asked each student to deconstruct and emulate the drawing methodology of a selected architect. The conceptual approach of each architect and their language of representation were studied and challenged in a house for an invented collector and their selection of objects, situated on a small plot on the river Wensum.
The primary design project for the year started in term two with an investigation into the Trades and Myths of Norwich. The investigations began with a close observation and analysis of a chosen urban site in the centre of the city.
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Students then selected either brewing, baking, or weaving as a trade. This study of a physical process was layered with supernatural, espionage, or smuggling as a mythological framework to guide the process of design. The proposals developed through dedicated, yet playful, explorations of the intersections between truth and fiction, material and immaterial, while maintaining a focused critical engagement with specific urban conditions.
These projects were carried into the final term with Trading Places, which required a more focused and sophisticated approach to an already defined programme and brief. The matrix of trades and myths allowed a wide range of avenues for exploration and interrogation within the rich history of Norwich, manifesting in a series of considered narratives and architectural proposals
Drawing by Daniel Walford.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 1
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Drawings by: left: Anton Elson; right: Bertie Hipkin.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 1
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Drawings by: left: Christopher Keevan; right: Jordan French and Jake Cruse.
BA (Hons) Architecture Year 1
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Drawings by: left: Christopher Keevan; right from top: Callum Hyde, Nicholas Cassidy, Kiera Schneider.
Lectures
Events
Facilities
In November, third years went on a field trip to Belfast, while years one and two headed to Santiago de Compostela. Both groups visited examples of contemporary and historical architecture, equipped with sound maps and texts on architectural history and contemporary cultural conjecture.
This year, we have expanded our facilities to offer students of Architecture four dedicated drawing studios complete with drawing boards, access to 3D workshops and digital fabrication facilities, and extended our library collection. We continue to run a series of design, collage, model-making and construction technology drawing workshops, and have intensified our architectural design programmes for years one, two and three. We will move into a new dedicated Architecture building in September 2015 designed by Award winning Hudson Architects.
The historic city of Norwich has been a remarkable setting from which to embark on an architectural education for our students, and we are now participating enthusiastically in constructing a series of events for the Festival of Architecture in Norwich and Norfolk in 2015. Will Alsop will be our keynote speaker, and we will be exhibiting student work at the Castle. We will also run a series of walks and a screening of film clips.
In December, we participated in an interdisciplinary event, where students could learn digital weaving skills, engage in debate with art historians, walk the medeival halls of the city or discover Lasdun in the Ziggurat at the University of East Anglia. Students are also encouraged to attend art exhibitions, interdisciplinary practice presentations and research lectures in order to offer them insights into the art and design disciplines in their broadest context. The course enhances employability by ensuring familiarity with industry standard equipment and technical resources along with softer skills in preparing design project presentations to a variety of audiences. 60
2014/2015 NUA
2014/2015 NUA
Santiago de compostela Vigo Braga Porto
November 5th to 10th. 2014
Fieldtrip: Galicia
Fieldtrip: Belfast
March 7th to 12th. 2015
Š Christian Richters
2014/2015 NUA Design Lectures
Site Visit Ian Carson Arch. Process Contracts Schedules
Professional studies Monday Jan 16th 14:00 - 17:00 Monday April 21th 14:00 - 17:00 @NUAarchitecture
Lectures
Design & Technology
The Technical Studies teaching at Norwich University of the Arts is coordinated by Reenie Elliott and Franรงois Girardin. Technical Tutors included: Simon England, Reenie Elliott, Michael Lewis and Mark Bagguley. It has been designed as a linear progression from first year through to final year BA. Spatial exploration and spatial experience are at the heart of architectural design and the emphasis on integrated architectural and technical design reflects this. Design projects are constructed to enable students to learn through architectural, social, technological and cultural precedents, and to use their learning to challenge preconceptions. These preconceptions about communities, users, spatial rituals, architectural style, and programme of use are constantly reviewed and reinvented through analytical processes and spatial investigations. The course begins by encouraging observation and analysis through drawing and exploration of the built environment of Norwich. This leads students towards speculation, intervention, proposition and the ability to decipher and codify their own personal manifesto for architecture. We examine the importance of atmosphere and setting that architecture mediates in private and public spaces, along with contributions made by weather, smartcraft and settlement to the design and construction of contemporary architectures. 62
Technology explores structure, construction, environment and detailing. We also investigate the broader purposes of technology to improve the way we live and to determine the urban or rural experience, while considering the needs of people and the wider community. We investigate the challenges and opportunities of nature, science and technology in designing the urban and rural environments of tomorrow. Students offer insights into global issues of migration, conservation, tourism, transport, housing, light industry, climate, sustainability and environment, all of which are instrumental in preparing them to be the next generation of architects at the frontiers of design.
St Paul’s Old Ford Church Bow, London
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2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
External walls Simon England
Internal Partition Simon England Framing Cavity Lining/ Finish Framed opening
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Window drips. Secondary weather Channels 5 Flashings 2 Lintels Appropriateness of opening type 6 Terminology
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Foundations Simon England
8
9 8
9
Threshold between inside and outside Ground levels, inside to outside Continuity of breathing membrane
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Thursday January 21st 10:00 11:00
Thursday January 14th 10:00 11:00
Thursday January 28th 10:00 11:00 5
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2
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Cut-away section through north elevation and entrance deck
Section through wall and floor of Ark.
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Roofings Simon England
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9 10 80 80 90 90 100 100 110 110 120 120
Slope Guttering Upstand/ parapet Flashings, Capping5 Cold or warm deck construction?
Stairs Simon England
5
8
Joist type Beams, columns or cantilevers Joint type, metal or wood Flooring boards Balustrade detail
3
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140
Suspended Floors Simon England 11
Means of support Head space Handrail design Relationship to design Potential other uses Comfort of use
130 130
Christchurch Tower, City of London
nodnoL ,esuoH neerG notgniweN
Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall
4
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140 150 150
Thursday February 05th 10:00 11:00
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Thursday February 12th 10:00 11:00
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Thursday Feebruary 19th 10:00 11:00
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2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures Cut-away section through west corner showing roof and wall construction
Lighting Simon England
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures 27
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Composite dwgs. Simon England
illuminance day & artificial lighting 7 passive solar collection renewable energy
Composite Model Simon England
10
8
7
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Thursday February 26th 10:00 11:00
Thursday March 05th 10:00 11:00
Thursday March 12th 10:00 11:00
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liated edaçaf yawa-tuC 931
Exploded view of summerhouse
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Lectures
Technology
Integrated Design Technology and Practice In this project, which runs in parallel with the 3rd year design project ‘Exploration and Proposition’, students are encouraged to develop strategic methodologies and detailed design processes, particularly in terms of environmental, structural, construction design and professional practice. This furthers their understanding of their future role as an architect within the contemporary context of emerging technologies. They are expected to cultivate their understanding of practice, environment, structure and construction, and develop sensitivity towards the appropriate use of materials and construction techniques in a specific cultural, social, historical, and professional context. Their technical and architectural skills are now brought together, by integrating technical and environmental aspects in the design work and by establishing material properties and detailing as a primary tool through which conceptual factors are transferred into built form.
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Students engage with professional practice activities associated with architecture to provide them with a contextual overview of the profession of architecture as well as helping to define their personal development and aspirations within it. This ranges from brief writing, budget costing, consideration of an appropriate team of consultants for the design and execution of an architectural project in a specific context. They are also introduced to basic statutory requirements, in the planning and development process. A series of lectures, presentations, site visits and studio workshops is supplemented by a series of evening lectures from architectural and related professional practitioners.
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Lighting Reenie Elliott
2014/2015 NUA Yr2 Technology lectures
Environment Maek Bagguley
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Thursday March 19th 10:00 11:00
Thursday April 09th 10:00 11:00
Friday April 10th 10:00 13:00
2014/2015 NUA IDTPP Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Mark Bagguley
Heating Mark Bagguley
Cladding 02
Friday April 17th 10:00 13:00
Friday April 17th 10:00 13:00
Friday April 24th 10:00 13:00
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Structure
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Mark Bagguley
Quantity Survey Mark Baxter
Reenie Elliott
Friday May 1st 10:00 13:00
Friday May 08th 10:00 13:00
Friday May 15th 10:00 13:00
Passive Ventilation
Cladding Reenie Elliott
2014/2015 NUA Technology lectures
Reenie Elliott
Cladding 03
Lectures
Cultural Context
Our cultural context programme is run by Reenie Elliott and had expanded to include Fine Art and Architectural Theory, Social Practices, Film and Cultural History, and Urban Contextual Theories. Third years undertook a series of Seminars in architectural theory, using theory as a lens through which to consider a building, city or project. Seminars in Architecture and Constructivism, Surrealism, Contextualism, Feminism, Postmodernism and Post Colonialism, were supported by lectures from Professor Hilary Carlisle, Dr. Krystof Fjalkowski, Professor Anthony Hudson, Dr. Tania Sengupta of UCL, and an evening research seminar with Professor Wendy Pullan from the University of Cambridge. We asked students in year two to consider how cities are represented in films, and how these representations might compare with architectural design projects from the same period, demonstrating how methodologies from each discipline might inform the other. Movement, rhythm, sequencing, structure, space and time as depicted in films are transformed to construct inventive architectural spatial sequences. Programmatic influences have also emerged, as students develop social, political, aesthetic and ecological agendas; both formally and spatially. Filmic dream sequences, landscapes of luxury, commodification and gentrification are critically examined and embellished architecturally.
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Following film, some design experiments have attempted to construct architectural spaces that are fragmented, distorted and reflected in time and location. In other investigations, cinematic processes have dictated modes of viewing: subjective and universal trajectories have generated urban and architectural experiences contextually, using establishing shots, or dramatic tilt, pan and zoom techniques.
Films have also been used as a form of historical research or social documentary, by providing access to celluloid archives of the past, and re-configuring the ghosts of long forgotten cinematic urban landscapes. These constructions of architecture and media have allowed our students to develop their abilities in architectural design with ambition and criticality in equal measure.
In year one, students are encouraged to establish a coherent design, technical and making ethos, and simultaneously study architectural history in a chronological survey format, so as to interpret contemporary architecture and urbanism through a historical lens, while establishing a foundation in architectural representation. The social context of architecture is examined both through design projects and texts, which engage with key principles borrowed from other disciplines, such as sociology, cultural geography, and art theory. Social and cultural texts are examined, analysed and positioned in relation to historical and contemporary movements in architecture. Students are encouraged to develop the necessary critical skills to evaluate, debate and challenge contemporary socio-cultural and architectural theories.
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
Surrealism & Architecture
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
Postcolonialism
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
Dr. Tania Sengupta
Contextualism
2014/2015 NUA Culture Context lectures
Prof. Anthony Hudson
Prof. Jane Rendell
NUA 2014/2015 Research Seminars
2014/2015 NUA Film Screening
2014/2015 NUA Film Screening
November 5th to 10th. 2014
November 5th to 10th. 2014
Constructivism Reenie Elliott
Postmodernism Prof. Hilary Carlisle
Dr. Krzysztof Fijalkowski
Centre for Urban Conflicts Research Dr Wendy Pullan University of Cambridge Thursday April 16th. 2015
Tati: Playtime
Feminism
Celluloid Cities
Lectures
Evening Lectures
Our series of evening lectures was designed to provide an overview of the architectural process and profession, from the important practicalities of costing and ecologically responsible design to the theoretical arguments of leading architectural thinkers and writers. In addition, there was a dedicated group of lectures focused on the conceptual themes of year three dissertations, including a lecture on Postcolonialism + Architecture by Dr. Tania Sengupta, Contextualism by Anthony Hudson, and Feminism by Jane Rendell. We also screened a TATE lecture by Bernard Tschumi and Beatriz Colomina on Contested Territories to explore representation of divided cities and relationship between media and architecture. We began the series with a lecture from quantity surveyor Mark Baxter of REAL Consulting to provide a foundation for the role of architecture within the design team and set the challenge for constructive collaboration. Next, we held a screening of Ila Beka & Louise Lemoine’s film Koolhaas Houselife, which follows the daily routines of a cleaner through The House in Bordeaux by Rem Koolhaas/OMA to illustrate the frequently under-considered elements and users of architecture. To introduce the leading performance standard for sustainable design, Sarah Lewis presented a lecture on PassivHaus principles and considerations.
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In addition to this programme, students had a regular lecture series on building technology and structure from the core teaching team of architects and other design professionals. Industry groups such as the Concrete Centre, TRADA (timber), TATA (Steel) and the Brick Association also gave lectures and demonstrations. Students were also inducted and familiarised with the 3D workshops, learning woodworking, metalworking, and casting. Regular presentations on design, precedent studies and on graphic communication further developed students’ vocabulary of architectural representation, from manual technical drawing to book-binding and various digital modelling programs. Overall, the aim of our lecture series was to provide a comprehensive overview of the diverse and challenging roles and responsibilities of an architect.
2014/2015 NUA Design Lectures
Prof. Jane Rendell
University College London
2014 NUA Architecture Evening Lecture Series
Ila Beka & Louise Lemoine Koolhaas HouseLife
Gender and Architecture
18:30, Tuesday 28 October 2014 Monastery Presentation Room, NUA NUA staff/students free @NUAarchitecture
Tuesday March 3rd 18:30 - 20:00 @NUAarchitecture
2015 NUA Architecture Evening Lecture Series
Sarah Lewis
An Introduction to Passive House 18:30, Tuesday 21 April 2015 Monastery Presentation Room, NUA NUA staff/students free @NUAarchitecture
Nature and Artifice Reenie Elliott
While seemingly opposed to one another, nature and artifice start to merge under closer scrutiny. How much of nature is artificial? How much of the artificial is derived from our own nature? This lecture presents a study of the binary oppositions within technology between the ‘artificial’ and the ‘natural’, and how they are perceived in some late 20th Century architectural projects. We will explore a range of architectural examples and arguments, from ‘the dark satanic mills’ of the Industrial Revolution and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Darwin and reductive technologies.
Tuesday Jan 14th 10:00 - 11.:00 @NUAarchitecture
2014 NUA Architecture Evening Lecture Series
Bernard Tshumi + Beatriz Colomina Contested Territories 18:30, Tuesday 4 November 2014 Monastery Presentation Room, NUA NUA staff/students free @NUAarchitecture
2014/2015 NUA Design Lectures
2014/2015 NUA Design Lectures
Elaine Toogood Arch.
Simon Hay RIBA
Concrete Centre
2013/2014 NUA Design Lectures
Brick Association
Process Qualities Constraints Composites
History Materials Constraints Concepts
Monday Jan 26th 10:00 - 12:00 @NUAarchitecture
Wednesday Feb 04 14:00 - 17:00 @NUAarchitecture
2015 NUA Architecture Evening Lecture Series
Hudson Architects Architecture and Contextualism 18:30, Tuesday 20 January 2015 Monastery Presentation Room, NUA NUA staff/students free @NUAarchitecture
2014/2015 NUA Design Lectures
Trada: Timber Elizabeth Turner Process Qualities Constraints Composites Tuesday Jan 14st 15:00 - 18:00 @NUAarchitecture
Staff in Architecture
Thanks to:
Course Leader:
Evening lecture series:
Reenie Elliott RIBA ARB Yr3 coordinator
Dr Tania Sengupta
Course Team:
Mark Baxter
Michael Lewis Yr1 Coordinator
Dr. Wendy Pullan
Franรงois Girardin DPLG Yr2 Coordinator
Sarah Lewis
Visiting Prof. Anthony Hudson Elaine Toogod
Jim Curtis RSA
Elizabeth Turner
John Norman RIBA ARB
Simon Hay RIBA
Simon England ARB Mark Bagguley RIBA ARB
Thanks to our Architectural, education, library, and other advisors including: Tim Giles
Thanks to:
Chris and Elspeth Cross
Phil Archer
Prof. Teresa Stoppani
Anna Bird
Prof. George Henderson
John Boursnell
Alan Atlee
Martin Bradley
Louisa Milsome
Nicola Deans
Angela Tubb
Anita Hallett
Prof. Neil Powell
Will Teather
Catherine McWalter
Fran Wall
Jane Askew Gerry Riches
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We had inspiring design critiques with invited architects and distinguished guests including:
Visiting Artists:
Esther Rivas Androver
Nicky Deeley
Francesco Belfiore
Andrew Friend
Rob Bellman
Des Byrne Michael Chadwick Prof. Hilary Carlisle Alan Conisbee Milo Ayden DeLuca Charles Emberson
Thanks for the Opportunity of the Site Visits to: Iain Carson from Carson Architect Ron Plunz and Rebecca Dean from Alumno Developments
Dr. Kryzsztof Fjalkowski
Invaluable Buildings tours and discussion have been offered by:
Jane McAllister
Jim Fitzpatrick Editor of the Irish News
Toby Neilson
Carmen Alvarez Veleiro from Universida de Vigo
Harriet Posner
Clive Want from Archant, Thorpe Print Centre
Alan Sylvester John Thorberry Catalogue design: Franรงois Girardin Bertie Hipkins Catalogue editing: Reenie Elliott James Appleby
Catalogue kindly sponsored by:
Barron and Smith Architects
LSI Architects
Hudson Architects
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