GILLETT SUITE STORE Art & Architecture Summer School 2017
Marie Denise Abella Hani Ali Clem Birch-Carter Zuhra Bismel Sid English Rache George Harley Johnson George Manners Lawrence Ofori Sarpong Morola Oyefesobi Hannah Roniger Feride Tigli Nuria Yagoubi Dorothy Zhang Alberto Bautista Hernaez Isabella Yurtsever Tutors: Gregory Nordberg Ioana Vierita Gabriel Warshafsky Viktor Westerdahl.
INTRODUCTION A day in the abundant life of Gillett Square is likely to feature hula hoopers, skateboarders, boxers, old men playing dominoes, live jazz music, loud arguments between old friends, commuters passing through, and locals stopping to enjoy their lunch or simply pass the time. For the third consecutive year, the STORE London Summer School immersed students in this uniquely rich urban environment during a two-week collaborative design and construction project. The Square is at once our site, classroom and workshop. Students were challenged to identify patterns in the Square's perpetually shifting social and spatial dynamics. Their observations informed the design, construction and orchestration of a one-day celebration of Gillett Square in three acts, each animated by a creative collaborator, in a programme that is at once playful, inclusive and provocative. Through considered response to Square's shifting daily patterns, and in dialogue with our collaborators, students aimed to create distinct spatial qualities to match each act of the Gillett Suite:
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
PLAY
STORY-TELLING
MUSIC
An adventurous landscape, expanding on the Square’s resident Pop Up Playground to draw in a wider audience of children and parents.
An intimate enclosure, giving listeners a comfortable space to let their imaginations run free while listening to stories by the Hackney Pirates.
An acoustic soundstage, allowing the Guido Spannocchi Trio to project music across the square.
SITE CASTING
Simultaneously acquainting our students with casting techniques and the intimate topography of Gillett Square, we began the course by moulding impressions of selected corners and surfaces using fabric-reinforced Jesmonite. A non-toxic composite of minerals and acrylic resin, Jesmonite allowed us to quickly create robust, detailed casts. By experimenting with a range of reinforcing fibres, from fine cotton to synthetic wadding, and different mix ratios, students developed an understanding of a key material process that would allow the creation of large, lightweight shell structures for the final event. Students quickly learned the improved strength of curved, pleated or laminated casts, techniques for fixing substrates and the importance of allowing due curing time. At the same time, students keenly observed the textures of the Square's fabric, and began to experience the challenges of working directly in a public environment. The exercise resulted in a rich palette of found forms to reinterprete through design development.
above: casting a brick wall opposite, right: casting bollards opposite, below: reviewing assembled site casts
SITE DRAWING Alongside conventional notation in plan drawing, students recorded sketches of activity and movement by creating small-scale animated flip-books. Observations varied in scale and duration from covert gestures to traffic patterns. In the process, students became familiar with prevailing routes and territories, and traced relationships between the physical environment of the Square and related social dynamics. Key observations were transposed onto site plans to inform the layout and orientation of the final event architecture. As an introduction to orthographic drawing conventions, students were asked to draw our collection of site casts to scale in plan, elevation and section. Students went on to consider the inhabitation of these found forms at 1:20 and 1:50, playing with scale to generate a set of early conceptual proposals.
from top: plan and section of site cast, inhabited site cast at 1:50, plan proposal incorporating found forms from site casts opposite: site observation flickbooks, site mapping
SCHEME MODELLING Borrowing forms from earlier site casts, students were asked to individually develop scheme models in three phases, demonstrating how a limited set of forms could be re-oriented, re-arranged and re-adapted to create three distinct spatial experiences within the square: first expansive and playful, then secluded and comfortable for story-telling, before opening into a demonstrative, projecting stage arrangement for the culminating musical performance. These models, together with accompanying drawings and site observations were presented to a panel of critics, including the participating community groups and performers for our final event. Our collaborators' invaluable feedback encouraged students to keep in mind practicality and comfort of the end users of their designs. Models were documented through stop-motion animation, again compelling students to consider their proopsals as dynamic, time-based interventions. As well as defining an arrangement for each of the three phases, this encouraged students to consider the transitions as equal components of an overall performance. Group discussion identified an emerging set of forms and principles suitable for protoyping (see overleaf). Meanwhile, an overall masterplan and set of stage directions continued to develop in parallel, each iteration incorporating further understanding from our material tests..
act i: play
act ii: story-telling
act iii: music
top left: drawing from site casts right & top right: masterplan development through modelling bottom right: stop motion animation workshop below: assembly drawings
TIMBER PROTOTYPING In order to scale up some of the ideas explored through models, students were introduced to a range of techniques for working with timber. Using thin plywood strips, we rapidly prototyped lightweight dynamic structures, including a pop-up tunnel, a geodesic dome and a variety of seats. The fragility of the individual strips compelled students to work carefully and deliberately with properties of tension and compression to create resilient structures. In parallel, we developed a modular softwood framework based on early development models. Site testing of this irregular polyhedral structure saw children immediately adopt it as a climbing frame, while its geometry would allow it to sit stably on multiple faces, allowing for re-orientation between acts. The softwood polyhedron became the organising module for our scheme. As well as a set of mobile structures in their own right, this geometrical framework became our armature for bending stripwood forms and draping Jesmonite casts (see below).
left: pop-up play tunnel top: storyteller’s chair under construction above: stripwood prototypes, from left, hyperbolic experiment, storyteller’s lectern, storyteller’s lectern
JESMONITE CASTING Moving on from our initial site casts, students used their understanding of the material to develop their own formwork, with a view to testing forms explored in concept models. We experimented with varied fabric reinforcements, draping, applying and dying the cast pieces. The structural advantages of smoothly draped curves, with multiple bunches, ridges and pleats quickly became clear. Using the triangular sides of our softwood polyhedra as a supporting framework, we cast a series of draped Jesmonite components. With each cast, the mix and technique were refined and perfected.
above: dyed Jesmonite test top right: stripwood armature middle right: armature for play tunnel right: play tunnel setting
fabric-reinforced Jesmonite casting process, from left: measuring, mixing, impregnating fabric, draping, fixing.
GILLETT SUITE
12:00
After two weeks of intensive design, prototyping and construction, the event architecture of the Gillett Suite was at last complete: a set of 12 polyhedra in three sizes, three stripwood seating cocoons and a storyteller's chair. Polyhedra were clad in places with panels of draped Jesmonite and fabric, allowing them to form enclosure, seating and a backdrop respectively in each successive arrangement. Students were on hand to set out and manoeuver their creations through sequences planned and rehearsed through models. First a landscape of scattered climbing frames, tunnels and caves augmented the Square's own set of play furniture. Children hid within, ran through and climbed on our polyhedra.
13:00
For the next act, the polyhedra were brought together in the centre of the Square, distanced from the predominant sources of noise around the perimeter. Jesmonite shells faced outwards, with fabric sides on the floor to create a comfortable seating area, framing our stripwood cocoons. An intimate, comfortable but stimulating environment allowed imagination to run free as stories written by young students of the Hackney Pirates were performed. In the final act, the three largest polyhedra shifted to the edge of the Square to form a bandshell. Their parabolic Jesmonite shells aimed to help our acoustic jazz trio to project their sound into the Square, where the remaining smaller polyhedra punctuated the audience.
16:00
Finally, as the Suite came to a close, we cleared the Square. Each item of the Gillett Suite was adopted by a local resident and taken home, leaving the Square clear for the next cycle to begin.
18:00
19:00
20:00
ACT I
PLAY
with the Pop Up Playground
ACT II
STORY-TELLING with the Hackney Pirates
ACT III
MUSIC
with the Guido Spannocchi Trio
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO:
With special thanks to the Cripplegate Foundation, in collaboration with Islington Council, who generously provided sponsorship for scholarship places through the Islington Community Chest. .
With special thanks to RIVA, who generously provided sponsorship funding for scholarship places on this year’s STORE Summer School.
With special thanks to Jesmonite, who supplied their products to the summer school free of charge.
The Cripplegate Foundation is an endowed charity which makes grants in Islington and part of the City of London. The Foundation spends c£1.6m a year, using its own funds and those administered on behalf of others. Grants are given to organisations, and support individual residents through Islington Council’s Resident Support Scheme.
Staff give advice to organisations on project development and management, premises, other sources of funding and local networks. The Foundation meets all applicants and all funded projects are visited. All grants are monitored to assess the impact they have on peoples’ lives and ensure that funding is well spent.
The Foundation uses its detailed local knowledge to identify needs, to develop new ways of tackling poverty, and to contribute to the wider policy debate about disadvantage and inequality.
Because the Foundation operates in a small geographical area, its work differs from many trusts. Organisations and residents are brought together to pool their resources and develop new projects.
RIVA aims to offer visual education for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. RIVA has been set up as a charity to promote Artists Residencies, giving participants the opportunity to experience directly the creative process and to produce high quality artwork themselves.
Individuals will have the opportunity to develop new strategies for making, understanding and appreciating art.
It will offer direct experience of creating artworks both individually or collectively and will work towards enabling the participants to achieve their creative, personal and intellectual potential.
We are extremely grateful to Hackney Co-operative Developments (HCD) for their continued support, for facilitating the summer school, providing us with a classroom to shelter from the rain, and for assisting in the realisation of the event.
HCD is a local community economic development agency with a membership open for all those who subscribe to its co-operative goals and values. HCD works within our local community to explore ideas and opportunities to create a sustainable environment for Hackney’s communities to flourish. HCD supports the creation and growth of co-operatives and social enterprises through programmes such as the Pioneering Social Enterprise in Hackney initiative and uses its agency role to network and connect organisations so that the movement can work together to grow the locally-owned social economy in the borough.
AND PARTICULAR GRATITUDE TO: Iris Abols for leading our stop motion animation workshop and for event photography.
Frederik Petersen for event photography.
Octavia Hiscock Ransom for graphic design.
Keyo, Renata and all the volunteers with the Pop Up Playground.
Clarissa Carlyon, Anja Beinroth and Donovan More at HCD for their support throughout the planning and execution of the school and final event.
The Guido Spannocchi Trio . Lily Eastwood, Tank Green and Amelia Sweetland from Hackney Pirates
Ryon O’Connor for filming.
HCD provides affordable workspace to a range of social and ethical organisations, local start-ups, cultural entrepreneurs and creative professionals, playing an important role in Hackney’s business ecosystem and ongoing urban regeneration. Gillett Square is run by HCD as a unique community-led public space in the heart of Dalston, East London, where an incredibly diverse range of people can meet on common ground. Its programming of community and cultural events plays a key role in the socially cohesive regeneration of this rapidly changing area of Dalston, and at the same time works to retain its diversity and showcase its creativity.
STORE STORE is an association of artists, architects and designers located in London. Founded in 2011, STORE has hosted and curated events and exhibitions, organised, designed and built projects, and delivered a range of educational programs. STORE is a non-profit social enterprise based in Hackney, where we recently became one of the first 15 businesses to be awarded the social enterprise mark award by the Mayor of Hackney. We have run education programmes in Hong Kong, London and Warsaw. We also organise and facilitate one-day workshops at various schools across the UK. Participants in STORE Schools spend a two week period engaged in a live project, where they are involved in processes of design, fabrication, and installation of new work, operating as part of a team of experienced tutors and craftsmen. Our summer school courses are designed for students from all backgrounds and disciplines who want to become involved in the creative industries. The rapid pace of technological, social and economic change pose great challenges for creative practitioners of every kind. In order to take advantage of new ideas and technology to create and disseminate work, it will be vital for the next generation of artists, architects and spatial practitioners to be able to collaborate, to work between disciplines, to operate independently and act unconventionally. STORE Schools offer participating students the opportunity to develop an independent and ambitious vision for their own future practice. We immerse our students in an active social environment, working in dialogue with local individuals and community groups to realise projects and events which can be experienced and enjoyed by the general public. Working alongside leading young practitioners in fine art, architecture, film-making and sculpture, in a non-hierarchical and collaborative environment, we aim to empower our students with the confidence, knowledge and skills to intervene effectively in the public sphere.
STORE Schools & Projects C.I.C. Company Number 08902577 http://www.storeprojects.org/ school@storeprojects.org