MArch Academic Portfolio (2017-2019)

Portfoli o Harry George Thompson 201 7 - 2019

Co ntents

Introduction

01

01 - Stage V Semester I

03

Re-Imagining the Ringstrasse

02 - Stage V Semester II

27

Form-Mutation

03 - Stage VI Thesis

69

Killing Concept

04 - Linked Research

165

Testing Ground: The Nick

05 - Additional Modules

185

Tools for Thinking About Architecture Architecture and Construction

Bibliography

190

I nt ro d uc tion

This is an academic portfolio of my two years within the Master’s architecture degree. It covers every aspect of architectural design undertaken across the two years, with extracts from additional modules to highlight their engagement throughout.

I set out on this course with the ambition to reflect on and adapt the methodology of architectural design. Not limiting my focus to the designing of architectural form, my ambition saw me wanting to design the process of design itself. My three design projects - ReImagining the Ringstrasse, Form-Mutating, and Killing Concept express a strong developing narrative between them that highlights both my frustration and ambition for linear architectural design.

Another key developing focus of this degree has been representation. I had never really considered myself as having any form of personal style within architectural drawing, nor had I spent much time developing one. With a heavy introduction so much written theory in Stage V, it became paramount to be able to convey my developing personal philosophies clearly in a visual form.

The portfolio serves a purpose of personal reflection on the paths I have chosen over the course of this degree. As such, it is structured in chronological order for the base design modules, culminating in the installation of my Stage VI thesis: Killing Concept.

It has been fascinating to collate all work from the two years into a unified portfolio, and I believe it serves as a clear guide for the continuous development of my thinking, which will certainly not cease once this programme is over.

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Re-Imagining the Ringstrasse ARC8054 Architectural Design - Semester I Memory Against History

“...what people have lost subjectively in regard to consciousness is very simply the capability to imagine the totality as something that could be completely different.�

Ernst Bloch, Something’s Missing. (1988)

Memo ry Ag ain st Hi sto ry

Vienna has played an extensive assortment of roles throughout the rolling history of Europe, certain aspects of which could be realised as somewhat controversial. The city was undoubtedly centred as part of the core of developments in Modernism from the 1890s until the 1930s, which can be notably understood through the influential writings of Adolf Loos, mostly prompting the development of modernist architecture. Is it conceivable, however, that Vienna also possesses feelings of anxiety towards the darker side of her history; is there a true sense of repression instilled within the city?

The Memory Against History studio took the aforementioned painful uncertainties as being wholeheartedly true; that Vienna does indeed have repressed elements of her history that she no longer wishes to be associated with. Spending a week in Vienna as research for the design project, we sought out the areas of the city that possessed the greatest levels of repression, in an attempt to address the “something missing� (Bloch, 1988), avoiding the vengeful return of the repressed and to instead aim toward creating an architecture that can be called truly avant-garde.

We delved deep into the murky mind-set of the City of Dreams, and began to analyse the deceitful Potemkin façade that she conceals herself with. Using the powerful writings of Theodor Adorno, Adolf Loos and Sigmund Freud to influence our research we were able to engage with the city in a very unique way, aiming to get close to the Front, critically changing the way that we imagine, research and communicate our ideas and our designs.

5

“The injustice committed by all cheerful art, especially by entertainment, is probably an injustice to the dead; to accumulated speechless pain.�

Theodor Adorno, Black As An Ideal. (1970)

The studio began by cognitively mapping our experiences of Vienna, more specifically as a means of expressing the dark face of the city that she so profoundly attempts to conceal. This group exhibition presented each of us with our first opportunity to put on paper any thoughts we had about Vienna, or any projections of potentially dark futures for her.

Our research was presented as an experiential, freely-associating cognitive map of our gloomy interpretations and projections for Vienna. Utilising a small space within the school and employing resources and methods such as dim lighting, disruptive music and a lack of direction or curation, we were able to create a sense of real discomfort and isolation for the observers which allowed them to each make their own associations from the work presented (in a true Freudian manner), where they were then given an opportunity to leave feedback within the space.

The exhibition received largely positive feedback with regards to its ambitions. The lack of curation and formal presentation of the work encouraged a great deal of interaction, with the experiential exhibition being followed up by an open group discussion. While many responded saying that it wasn’t a pleasant or enjoyable experience, the overall reaction was ultimately as desired from the installation.

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The changing needs of nineteenth century Vienna, combined with the Austrian revolution of 1848, led to a shift in focus on the historic defences surrounding the inner city. Emperor Joseph II had developed much of the vacant glacis (open fire zone) as recreational space during his reign in the eighteenth century, however the 1848 revolution had redefined, both politically and militarily, the place of the glacis in the life of modern day Vienna.

In 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph I proclaimed his intention to open the military space to civilian use, and established a City Expansion Commission to plan and execute its development.

The Ringstrasse development commenced by continuing to express preceding Viennese values of dynastic neo-absolutism, however within a decade of the imperial decree of 1857, political developments had transformed the regime into a constitutional monarchy, and the liberals had taken the helm. As a consequence, the substance and meaning of the Ringstrasse program then changed, and thecontrast between the old inner city and the Ring area inevitably widened as a result. The construction of Gothic cathedrals, Baroqueimperial residences and the elegant palais of the aristocracy was exchanged for that of centres for constitutional government and higher culture, celebrating the triumph of constitutional law over imperial power.

The military gained favoured treatment in the first plans for the Ring, with the street designed as a broad artery totally surrounding the inner city to facilitate the swift movement of men and material to any point where needed. This could be considered as a crucial positive aspect of the Ring, accommodating vehicles in the city centre and adapting to the changing needs of a new technological world. The result, however, was a catastrophic failure of monumentally scaled beaux-arts imitations that were so spatially separated, accentuated by the colossal artery, that only a true sense of isolation and divergence was achieved. The Baroque planning methods previously used were inverted, placing focus on the street with the buildings standing secondary.

The area is an urban wasteland with sparsely situated buildings constructed in styles completely ignorant of their age. As a method of connecting the Innere Stadt to the suburbs, the Ring provides no more of a thoroughfare than the medieval glacis that preceded it.

9

“Whenever I stroll along the Ring, it always seems to me as if a modern Potemkin had wanted to carry out his orders here, as if he had wanted to persuade somebody that in coming to Vienna he had been transported into a city of nothing but aristocrats.�

Adolf Loos, Potemkin City. (1982)

“If we ceased to be ashamed, you would see how quickly we would acquire an architecture suited to our own times.”

Adolf Loos, Potemkin City. (1982)

The project commenced with an exercise of work which encouraged us to produce work instinctively, with reflection to follow. This gave us the opportunity to consider the areas of Vienna which struck us most as having the ‘something missing’ and allowed us to define our project brief.

The image to the left formed the result of this exercise, and began a thought process which would eventually culminate in a project brief. The drawing represents a progressively activist utopian vision for the Ringstrasse, greatly condensing the development and imposing a form of bolt-on architecture, much in the style of the visions for Newcastle from T. Dan Smith in the 1960s. The drawing aimed to confront the spatial isolation of the Ring, as a vision that would lead the area forward with a style more suited to modern times, while bringing the whole street (and the surrounding monumental buildings) down to a human scale.

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A

B

A

C

B

C

What then ensued was a conceptual mapping exercise. These were used to gain a critical understanding of the site history and the spatial practices that produced the very particular space of the Ring, then abstract historic references were employed to develop a new urban plan.

Remembering the Glacis (A) made implicit reference to the pathways used to cross the medieval glacis zone; Stamping the Innere Stadt (B) directly used the historic city centre as a base model for re-planning the Ring; Bolt-On Ringstrasse (C) made use of the excess space of isolation and alienation that is so strongly present in the Ringstrasse, and populated it through an extension of the constructed grid system.

This gave an opportunity to analyse the spatial failures of the Ring, and provided a strong base point for developing the project as an urban planning scheme. These mapping exercises could then be edited, combined and built on towards a final urban proposal.

At this point the project leaned towards a proposal which considers the history of the Ringstrasse and preceding glacis or open-fire zone, in either case interpreted as a barrier between the Innere Stadt and the surrounding suburbs.

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“When such features become themselves the cultural norm, they shed all such forms of negative affect and become available for other, more decorative uses.�

Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. (1984)

Above: Pen-drawn collages to investigate an imagined brutalist intervention on the Ringstrasse.

Right: Diagrams to explain the interpretation from historic glacis routes into proposed intervention sites.

To w e r s

Strata

Grain

Human Scale

Urban Landscape

The work of Sir Denys Lasdun (1914-2001) proved to be a hugely progressive step in refining the project away from any ironic tendencies. While he compliments and shows appreciation for the Brutalist style in comparison to most alternative architectural theory of the time (Curtis, 1994), his introducing greater consideration of an overall site context as well as a genuine engagement with formal classical orders reinforces his own architectural iteration as a far richer modus operandi.

Referring largely to his work done for the U.E.A. Campus, National Theatre, and London University schemes, he shows in each case a core aim to unify the complex and bring it back to a human scale, whilst also employing a high level of consideration of site context and history in his methodology.

“In this vision the individual building is thought of as an intensified part of its surroundings.�

William Curtis, Denys Lasdun: Architecture, City, Landscape. (1994)

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“You need to explore it as a pedestrian explores the city, using its footpaths and open spaces so as to understand, and enjoy its organisation and features.�

Denys Lasdun, A Sense of Place and Time. (1966)

Top: Interpretation of Baroque planning methods incorporating the Spine intervention.

Bottom: Perspective view by Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna with proposed megaform intervention.

Right: Series of vignettes to show perspective scale of the Spine.

The Potemkin City - Vienna’s Innere Stadt, Ringstrassse and Suburb

Having spent the previous two years working in architectural practice, the return to academic studies proved to be a personally exciting yet somewhat daunting prospect. This curious variance was further exaggerated through the unique engagement with the Memory Against History studio, which, by involving a key immersion into various pieces of architectural theory, gave me an entirely new perspective on the customary design project. Having had little exposure to much in the way of architectural philosophy and theory prior to the start of this semester, this studio gave me an opportunity to explore a side of architecture that was truly new to me. While this may have sometimes proved to be slightly uncomfortable, it had been a fantastic learning experience that has definitely influenced the way in which I think about architecture and design.

I thoroughly appreciated studying the work of Adolf Loos, whose informal writing style translates as more of a discussion or dialogue, rather than a composed essay. While some of his ideas may seem out-dated in modern society, he poses some crucially poignant concepts that were at the core of developing modern architecture. His use of analogy and rhetoric proves invaluable in his persuasive writing, and this became another somewhat subconscious developing focus for me within my architectural studies.

I could see a style of representation beginning to form with my work. At this point it would have been hard to reflect on how much I recognised that as something not so project-specific, but the use of high contrast thick black lines had become an aesthetic style that I enjoyed drawing with. I felt confident that I had been able to manipulate this personal style to clearly convey my ideas where possible, perhaps more so in the hand drawings than in the computer-aided.

Through my own initial misapprehension of the term, this semester had encouraged me to unequivocally re-evaluate the classification of radical architecture. Insisting that Re-Imagining the Ringstrasse should be considered a radical proposal, I then strived to develop my understanding of the term. Where I would have previously considered the expression simply as resulting in a proposal very different to the original context, for instance the introduction of the Brutalist style into the project, it then became evident that in order to achieve this accolade of being radical, such a proposal would need to unreservedly disrupt and redefine the ‘normal’ function of the context. Following this project in reflection, I felt gratified knowing that the Spine would indeed be considered a radical proposal for Vienna’s Ringstrasse.

25

Form-Mutating ARC8054 Architectural Design - Semester II Detailing Experiences

Detailin g Experi en c es

In the 60s and 70s Vienna played host to the emergence of several experimental architects, whose innovative perceptions on materials, structures and atmospheres enabled them to create a series of truly unconventional architectural pieces.

Since then, however, most traces of this experimental era of Viennese architecture have sadly been lost throughout the city.

The Detailing Experiences studio set out to propose individual extensions to three existing museums in Vienna, dedicated to the lost fringe work of these experimental architects.

We focussed on aligning ourselves with the distinctive philosophies of these architect-protagonists from the very beginning of this studio, so that we could employ their way of thinking throughout the entire design process. The resulting conceptions sought to celebrate this lost era of avant-garde that has since been absent in the architecture of Vienna.

29

Vien n a A lb ert i n a

The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt of Vienna, housing one of the largest graphic and print collections in the world.

Initially constructed as the court construction office in 1776, the building sits on the Augustinian Bastion, one of the oldest segments of the medieval fortifications that lined the preRingstrasse glacis zone. The building has since been through a multitude of transitions, serving as a private palace for the majority of it’s inhabitable life.

The collage shown to the left was conceived as an initial study of the site, expressing my early observation that the preceding private aesthetic of the Habsburg palace has left the Albertina with only a glimpse of public facade, leaving the remainder of its contents both past and present - hidden deep beneath the surface, under a potemkin façade of ornamental grandeur.

As the chosen site for this project, the museum sits within a dense historic district of Vienna, providing another excitingly intricate opportunity to integrate another radical proposal into the very heart of the City of Dreams.

31

In the late 60s and 70s, Wolf D. Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky led the charge for Coop Himmelb(l)au as a dominant force of architectural experimentation in modern Vienna.

Sternly focussed on prioritising the experience of architecture over the aesthetic, they excelled in their ideas of “creating architecture with fantasy, as buoyant and variable as clouds.” (Himmelb(l)au, 1968) Their early projects act as clear expressions of their innovative philosophies in architectural theory: The Cloud (1968) is suggestive of their advances in technology, using air as a building material to create truly changeable space; The House with the Flying Roof (1973) reflects their attitude to architecture as an action and a process, not merely as an object; Soul Flipper (1969) clearly demonstrates their interest in the human experience of architecture.

“We want architecture that has more. Architecture that bleeds, that exhausts, that whirls, and even breaks.”

Coop Himmelb(l)au, Architecture Must Blaze. (1980)

35

“The flame is a perfect paradigm for mutation of form.”

Wolf D. Prix, On The Edge. (1991)

The project that deserved further personal investigation was the Hot Flat, a city apartment building for five to ten families.

As an overall project, the Hot Flat seemed far less actionist in its philosophy and leaning more toward a tangible - yet somewhat insipid - architectural design.

The aspect that grabbed my curiosity was the communal balcony, piercing through the building like a burning arrow. The flames form a roof over the court below, and carve through the individual apartments to permit a unique spatial differentiation.

We are here presented with a crucial Himmelb(l)au philosophy that founded the driving concept of this studio project: the mutated form of the flame defines the spatial arrangement of the apartments, yet this form relies on an element of control from which to begin its mutation.

37

With the prevailing concept of mutated form as a driving force for the project design, the next step was to determine how to interact with the existing site and translate the concept into a tangible architecture.

To truly progress with the relationship between control and mutation, I needed to fully identify the elements of control; the initial starting point from which the resulting self-determined form would grow. To this end, I focussed on the other key philosophies of Coop Himmelb(l)au from the same era, deriving into three core elements of control:

- Action & Process: creating an architecture that is more than just a single finished entity, and is to some degree self-governing.

- Pneumatic Architecture: creating an architecture with fantasy, being unafraid to make a radical statement within the surrounding context.

- Emotion Translation: creating an architecture that engages with, and is responsive to, the public presence within the building.

The collage opposite was drawn to represent these philosophies graphically, and begins to explore how they might interact with the existing museum.

39

Still interacting directly with the existing Albertina museum, I began to devise a new build extension on the adjacent Albertinaplatz.

Further investigating the relationship between control and form, I established a system of rules for determining the mass form of the proposed extension.

To truly understand both the possibilities and limitations of control on the form-mutation it was essential that any rules created were adhered to fully. This presented a unique yet controversial methodology for a rigid form of architectural design.

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Hyg ro mo rphic Mu tat i o n

To further express the concept of mutation and the Himmelb(l)au philosophy of action and process, I began to examine various means for enabling a continuous physical change within the design.

The hygromorphic properties of timber - the way in which it expands through the absorption of moisture - provided an opportunity to create mutating elements on a wide variety of scales; from a roof that continually breaths in and out to individual doors and panels closing and opening; all dependent on the relative humidity of the timber within the space.

In order to ensure the timber in this hygromorphic cycle maintained a continuous increase in saturation to reach maximum expansion, the humidity within the building needs to be retained as much as possible.

The design includes the provision of water storage tanks, both visible and underground, which will be constantly collecting rainwater, surface run-off and condensate from the steam which they themselves will produce.

Through this continuous cycle, moisture can be held within the space to control the humidity in the air, while still allowing the air/ water to be continually circulating through the system.

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In order to enable the spatial design through a stringent system of rules, I needed to ensure a similar system of detailing was in place that could be applied by adapting to the resulting forms.

The design of the hygromorphic timber roof construction required further study into the use of tensile structures.

I therefore began my detail development by considering precedents of gridshell structures, specifically that of Frei Otto’s Multihalle in Mannheim and the Weald & Downland Gridshell of Cullinan Architects. These provided some key initial insight into tensile structures that significantly aided in informing the design of the hygromorphic roof.

The area of greatest exploration was how to transfer the structural concept from something so intentionally rigid into a framework that continually moves and mutates.

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Ground Floor Plan, Original Scale 1:100

5m

The drawing opposite was my final ground floor plan for the resulting museum design, and the following pages will show more of the drawings and models used for the presentation.

When selecting artwork to exhibit in the proposed extension, the work of German painter and photographer Sigmar Polke proved to be a fantastic paradigm for the conceptual relationship between control and mutation.

His canvas paint-based work in Untitled (Triptych) expresses this wonderfully. He here overlaid an illustrated half-tone grid on transparent fabric, and proceeded to pour quantities of red, green & white paints onto the canvas, tilting the frame to enable the liquid paint to flow and drip across the surface in a somewhat disorderly manner.

While such a technique is characteristic of many of his pieces, the Triptych can be translated as the greatest analogy of Control// Mutation. The half-tone grid provides a rigorous structure that influences the path of the flowing paint which, alongside the intentionally visible wooden stretchers behind the transparent fabric, clearly expresses a defined relationship between a rigorous ordering pattern and the countervailing chaotic flow of the paints.

The resulting design is a paradigm of the relationship between control, form and mutation. Set out through a devised system of rules, with a mutating spatial and physical experience, the building is in a continuous state of change. This made it a particularly interesting project to tangibly resolve, with technical details in place that could allow such change to occur.

49

First Floor Plan, Original Scale 1:200

10m

Roof Plan, Original Scale 1:200

10m

Long Section B Extracts, Original Scale 1:100

5m

Long Section B, Original Scale 1:100

10m

Section C Extracts, Original Scale 1:100

2.5m

Section C, Original Scale 1:100

10m

Detail Model: Interaction Between Proposed Extension and Existing Museum

Wolf is the proud owner of a season ticket to the new Albertina in Vienna...

Architecture must blaze!

This is Wolf.

... but what lies in store for him there?

Let's find out.

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Mu tatio n Represen tat i o n

One of the greatest challenges for this project lay in the representation of the final building in its continually mutating form; the customary architectural drawings used in the presentation were quite unsuccessful in expressing the changing nature of the design.

The drawings needed to show temporal change graphically, rather than relying on verbal or written explanation. One method employed to tackle this challenge was the use of a comic-style storyboard of a visitor’s journey through the new museum, which accompanied the previously shown plans and sections whilst also informing their style of representation.

The next few pages exhibit an extract from the storyboard in several phases of the building’s hygromorphic cycle.

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30 days remaining...

New roof.

Interesting.

Wolf arrives in the Albertina.

What's with all the water?

Descending from the bridge, he begins to explore the new extension on Albertinaplatz.

Where's all the steam coming from?!

Wolf nervously descends another level...

98

There he finds a collection of seemingly trivial artwork...

... some engulfed in steam...

... and some hidden in dark alcoves behind closed doors.

... some stood over beds of copper...

Wolf leaves, feeling intrigued And slightly puzzled...

Is the paint moving...?

Perhaps it's just the steam.

99

Two weeks later...

Let's see what's changed today!

Does something seem different?

let's try this again!

Another two weeks on...

Wolf returns to theAnd albertina.

Wolf's back again!

I wonder what else has changed?

Was this water always here?

Was this always this heavy?

There's The air seems now even thicker morethan steam... before...

As he explores, it becomes clear...

Meanwhile the steam continues to rise...

Is it lighter down here now?

Has the water gone down?

... and down below.

100 102

Wolf The again proceeds water has spread Throughout downstairs. the Lower Level...

... And His favourite door won't even open!

... the artwork has become truly engulfed in steam ...

Ha! Amazing!

The roof vents above have now opened...

... And The steamy air slowly Starts to drain from the museum.

Wolf leaves, happy knowing that this is indeed not biEdermeier.

Powerful!

Sensual! tangible!

The building begins to reset.

The End.

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1 2 3

4

5

6

7

8 9 10 11 12

13

14

15

16

17 18 19

Fi rst Floor & Ro o f Co n n ec tio n Detail Original Scale 1:25

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12

Rift-sawn 400mm segmented timber lath ETFE film with keder connection 120 mm PIR thermal insulation 30 mm impact-sound sheet resilient layer Cast in-situ concrete steps 70 mm calcium-sulphate wearing screed on separating layer Sheet copper vent grating with concrete edge beam Steel pinned join, powder coated 400 mm reinforced concrete wall 50 mm multifoil thermal insulation Vapour barrier with bitumen undercoat 120 mm tamped concrete in shuttered layers

Ground Flo o r & Drain ag e Detail Original Scale 1:25

13 14 15

16 17 18 19

300 mm reinforced concrete slab Floor duct within lean concrete for water in-flow nozzles Welded sheet copper lining up to min. 150 mm above water 210 mm granular filler layer around heat source pipes Aluminium drainage channel set to fall to water storage Gravel layer over drainage channel Sheet copper vent grating

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This semester proved to be another particularly interesting course of study. The Detailing Experiences studio led me to engage with a truly unique method of design which, while proving as no easy task, had been an immensely intriguing direction for review.

Imposing a strict system of rules as a strategy for design seemed primarily counter-intuitive, as a method of almost reverse engineering a floor plan to resolve it later on. The process undertaken, studying the relationship between control and mutated form, has been an incredibly compelling subject for the semester, though ultimately has led to a final proposal which could still benefit from further resolution.

Representation has been a key focus this semester for two reasons: firstly, it has been an engaging studio for developing further on my own drawing language that was started in the preceding semester; and secondly it was a unique consideration for me to produce drawings that expressed the mutating nature of the design.

Looking back, I am once again happy with the work produced across the semester. In my eyes, the proposal has achieved the radical accolade that I originally sought after, completely reinventing the Albertina from a conservative tourist destination into a continuously mutating architectural experience that would thus remain engaging to the public of Vienna as well as their celebrated tourism industry.

Not only that, I am also satisfied to have chosen such a distinctive direction of study for the semester: re-defining the basic design process; resolving a building to intentionally move and mutate; and experimenting with a personally untested style of representation.

I have learned a great deal in the last five months, and I hope to develop on this further in the next stages.

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Killing Concept ARC8060 Architectural Design - Thesis Detoxicated Practices

Detoxicated Prac t i c es

Intoxication may be understood as a loss of conscious control; as an excitation or exhilaration but also a poisoning; as losing oneself to an act, an event, person or place; as an experience of intensities that risk an overwhelming of context and self.

Diverse forms of intoxication drive our economy and our culture, what we produce and what we consume; they fuel speculation, risk-taking and innovation; and they are monetized in the experience economy.

The Detoxicated Practices studio built on this understanding of intoxication in architectural practice, and the wider economy as a whole. Through analytical reading of our own personal methods of architectural practice, we set out to reach propositional and generative design projects that could emerge from rethought practices.

The studio aimed to explore the formation of architectural design practices and their impacts on our world, and how we can reshape these practices to become less ‘toxic’ but no less intoxicating. We hoped to restructure the way we practice, both now and in the future.

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P ri mer

Our Primer saw us in a phase of intensive studio-based reading and discussion. Through our continuous dialogue, we developed our understanding of neoliberal society, and began to study the way it is reflected in architecture.

The Stack development on Pilgrim Street had opened earlier in the year, and proved to be a worthy case study for us to apply our developing theories.

We held a group exhibition in the Newbridge Project in the adjacent Carliol House, and led our guests through the site of Stack on our route down from the university.

The following spreads show our group exhibition, followed by my personal study undertaken as part of it. The text was read aloud as the backing audio for a pen-drawn animation that broke the container development down into individual base components.

73

GC3 / GC6 / GC7

“If there is to be a new urbanism, it will not be based on the twin fantasies of order and omnipotence; it will be the staging of uncertainty; it will no longer be concerned with the arrangement of more or less permanent objects but with the irrigation of territories with potential...”

Rem Koolhaas, What Ever Happened to Urbanism? (1995)

‘Potential.’ In his short writing titled What Ever Happened to Urbanism, Rem Koolhaas invites the idea of architecture as consumer; exploiting and exhausting the potentials that are generated by urbanism. But how do we perceive the potential of a city?

By its very nature, the city is a continually progressive entity, one where there is no final result, only a continuous succession of phases. This seems obvious, with the vast majority of cities worldwide presenting as a complex catalogue of historic inputs culminating in a unique tapestry of architectural styles, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that total designs and ‘urban strategy plans’ are being employed to control the direction of the city’s progression.

The potential of any portion of the city must therefore relate to the progression forward, the formulation of both buildings and spaces existing in an equality of sustained debate, a truly useful dialect. In terms of these more rigid development plans however, the potential seems to lie almost entirely in the possible financial returns of any given site.

STACK provides an interesting example of this observation. The development has a 5-year lease, and so in order to maximize the financial returns, or potential, of the site, the development needed to be constructed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

By studying the layers of the construction and breaking them down into smaller individual components, we can begin to see how the project declares a clear focus on the ease of construction and future deconstruction; in essence, a focus on the progression of the site.

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GC2 / GC4

Poten t i a l

This initial inquiry conjured up so many questions. What actually is potential? What is my potential? What is my potential as an architect? What is the potential of architecture itself? My hypotheses questioned it as a relationship between inputs into an object and a specific outcome for it.

The personal frustration with the term potential started to grow as we moved away from Stack after Primer. More and more each day, potential is becoming just another word swapped into the representation of a development site to describe the financial priorities of a city’s progression. This seemed so reductive, focussing far too much attention on single potentials for output, ignorant of the limitless alternative potentials that could be prioritised instead.

Designating a single potential in this way leaves the output as predetermined, and thus any inputs will inherently be altered in order to reach that wrongly desired potential in financial returns.

This means that the potential of the city is changing, reducing and becoming lost. This reductive approach to potential is what still drives me to establish my own relationship with the term, and to develop a practice that allows the limitless alternative potentials to be considered.

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GC2 / GC4

The Poten tial o f the Drawi n g

Attempting to analogise with contemporary architectural practice, I decided to focus on the potential of the architectural drawing.

An exercise was undertaken in a school review, where I laid a series of my own drawings out in front of a group of fellow architecture students. A variety of drawings were used, from detail sections to general arrangement plans and perspective sketches. I then asked each member of the group to analyse a drawing and try to identify where their potentials lie. What was it that each of the drawings was trying to achieve?

It was particularly interesting that, despite the fact that the definition of potential relies on a single specific outcome, a drawing can be seen to have more than one potential determined for it.

The sketchbook scans shown opposite were not only helpful in determining the constructibility of their proposed form, but they also defined the building layout in plan while also developing the experiential aspects of the design.

Condensing the exercise, I needed to take a step back and ask: ‘what is the potential of the architectural drawing?’ My preceding hypothesis for potential was the relationship between inputs and a specific directed output. As such, the inputs would be the conceived design idea and the spatial arrangement of lines on a page. The outputs must be the visual conveying of the idea, or a visual interpretation of thought. When considering the purpose of the drawing in this way, the drawing itself can begin to be recognised as a tool for translation; drawings are used in architecture to translate thought into visual expression.

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GC3 / GC7

The architectural drawing, in a traditional view, is a tool used to achieve the ultimate built work. While the drawing of a different kind of artist can be considered as the final piece of artwork, the architectural drawing serves a specific function. Whether it is translation to another architect, a contractor, or a client, it enables a process of design dialogue between separate entities.

Walter Benjamin distinguishes the task of the translator from that of the poet, relating it to the direction of the former toward an intended language at its totality. Comparable to his portrayed poetry, architecture in any sense begins with the cognitive formulation of a design, aiming solely toward ‘specific linguistic contextual aspects.’ (Benjamin, 1923) Yet the physical act of drawing itself, possessing a target language for direction, is fundamentally an act of translation. If the poetry of architecture, the original internal design intent of the architect, requires this translation before any form of dialogue can take place, it would suggest that this preceding poetic language is so distinctively personal that it cannot be understood directly by anyone other than that individual architect. Any form of conveyance, be it through drawing or spoken word, must be recognised as a translation originating from this truly individual language of architectural poetry.

“The task of the translator consists in finding the particular intention toward the target language which produces in that language the echo of the original.”

Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator. (1923)

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GC2 / GC3

At this point I was desperately trying to continue development of my own philosophy on potential, using the drawing as an analogous method of reflection and critique.

The previous discreet exercise was hugely beneficial, however this is not the only way in which drawings are used in architecture. The study was rather heavily biased toward descriptive presentational drawings, ignorant of crucial alternative potential in drawings of other means.

Another exercise occurred, as I handed out small pieces of card around the studio. Each contained the first half of an instruction for a drawing, and required the instruction completing. By attempting to fulfil the completed instructions, I hoped to get a broader understanding of how architects use drawings in practice.

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Copyright: All rights reserved. This drawing must not b

Only the original drawing should be relied upon. Contra suppliers must verify all dimensions on site before com shop drawings.

All shop drawings to be submitted to the architect / inte fabrication.

This drawing is to be read in conjunction with the archit specification, bills of quantities / schedules, structural, m and all discrepancies are to be reported to the architect

Do not scale from this drawing. Dimensions are in milli

NOTES

All Bolts to be M10 All Washers to be M10 with 36mm diame All Nuts to be M10 Self Locking.

36

18

1488

3279

2065

2579

108°

450

450

1776

635

700

220

635

C0

Issue For Constuction

MIN 100

FROM GROUND

rev amendments

Newcastle Univeristy Archite project

Testing Ground Blakehope Nick, Kielder For client

Kielder Forestry Commision drawing title

Secton BB drawing status

FOR CONSTRUCTIO

0

0.5

1

scale

date

draw

1:10 @ A1 1:20 @ A3

26.06.18

DD

job no.

drawing no.

2018

A-500-002

The A rt o f [the] Drawi n g

This line of questioning fuelled my writing for our Linked Research document for Testing Ground, shown in greater detail in Section 04 of this portfolio.

The essay uses the unique perspective of a live build project to analyse the role of the drawing in architecture. Looking at several stages within the design and construction project, it attempts to analogise with the drawings used directly, helping to clarify their purpose at each stage.

Largely supported by the writings of Robin Evans (1997) and Walter Benjamin (1923), the essay sought to consider the process of translation, the poetry of architecture, and the presence of dialogue within design.

It raised a valuable study for the thesis: the study of the drawing as process. Architects use drawings throughout their work, even when working in isolation. This began to question the role of the drawing purely as translation. It raised questions on the difference between the translation and the original intent, and I began to reflect on the inaccessible nature of an architect’s internal poetry.

“... a translation, instead of imitating the sense of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s way of meaning, thus making both the original and the translation recognisable as fragments of a greater language...”

Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator. (1923)

“... architecture... is brought into existence through drawing. The subject-matter will exist after the drawing, not before it.”

Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building. (1986)

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630

QUESTIONS THOUGHTS

ISSUE â„– 1

DETOXICATED PRACTICES

Harry: In the world of contemporary architecture, with such a distinct duality of theory and practice, how would you define the potential of your current alternative academic approach in developing an innovative praxis?

Alongside our individual developing work, we began a collective endeavour to formulate a series of informal questions which could unify the studio ethos.

6 Questions 30 Thoughts was the result. Each of us would ask a question - around architectural practice, our thesis or wider social issues - and the other five studio members would write a brief critical response. I will attempt to include my personal question from each iteration to indicate my thought processes of the time.

This particular question should be obvious in its formation. I only really had one question in mind at this point in my thesis: what is potential? Having undertaken two exercises to study the potential of drawing, I was keen to analogise with a different focus while still developing my understanding of the term itself.

The replies were wildly different, but truly fascinating. By not providing a definition of the term, each studio member was able to interpret the question in their own individual ways. Ultimately, however, it became more clear that assigning anything (including your own thesis) with one individual potential proves to be a reductive exercise, as if there was only ever one relational possibility for each thesis.

We concluded with six iterative booklets. These had been hugely generative all the way through our thesis development, and proved a valuable resource for consolidating a strong studio collective ethos during our final weeks.

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Drawin g as P ro c ess

My ignorance of process drawing was perhaps exacerbated by the huge reliance on CAD in contemporary architectural practice; the digitally-produced drawing is almost always presented as a squeakyclean attempt at representational perfection. However, the architect does in fact use drawings for different means prior to this, and in this instance it is most often executed without digital aid.

The analogous study therefore required further reflection, and then a second attempt. To this end, I began to consider the etymology of potential, and subsequently on Aristotle’s principle of potentiality, or dunamis. In his Metaphysics, potentiality is defined by its contrast to a prior actuality, an ability that exists for the sake of its active exercise. Such a notion was introduced to counter the Megarian school of thought, whose actualism stated that a housebuilder is not a house-builder if she is not building a house in this precise moment. (Witt, 2003) How could we possibly define people, and therefore anything, in such a way? An expert house-builder would still be undeniably recognised as a house-builder even when she is resting at home, or asleep. Aristotle came to defend reality with potentiality. With such a way of being, substances can be freely deemed to exist in this state without involving the specific active exercise. Potentiality identifies that there has to be some surplus to things, a reality that is not fully expressed in any given moment.

I decided to revisit some work of mine done in my first year at university. Not simply replicating the exact same drawings from that time, but producing new drawings of the same design intent using my current personal ability. While the two drawings produced, shown opposite, could both be perceived as an attempt at a final/ perfect representation, I really aimed to reflect on them as if they were only produced for myself alone, not as translation for any external recipient.

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Reflection on the drawing itself doesn’t feel unfamiliar as an activity; this is the general procedure undertaken at every traditional crit or pin-up. However, I was trying to theoretically limit the recipient to the architect author alone. Even then, the purpose of the drawing as substance is the same as in process, producing a form of critbased dialogue with yourself. By extrapolating the pre-conceived idea into another substance, the drawing, we allow the introduction of a dialogue back and forth. This isn’t just a dialogue that happens upon reflection on a ‘finished’ drawing however; the process of drawing runs as a continuous dialogue all the way through the drawing’s production. The process of drawing provides a constant interrogation of the building design in relation to all knowledge currently possessed by the architect. It seems comparable to the crit-for-one reflection on the drawing as substance, but on a much smaller and more fluid scale. By constantly interrogating the forms produced ‘in progress’ on the drawing in relation to my prior knowledge, I was able to constantly adapt the drawing during its production, through aspects of geometry, structure and representation, to produce my own translation of the same design intent that was initially conceived six years ago.

If the actuality of the drawing, and the actuality of the process of drawing, lies in dialogue and reflection to reveal alternative processional potentials, then the potentiality of the drawing and the process, in the first place, must lie in its ability to instigate that dialogue.

It goes deeper than this. If the drawing is required, fundamentally as an act of translation, before dialogue can take place, then this would suggest that the whole reality of the design intent is inaccessible from anyone, including the architect author who conceived it.

If the intent, the personal poetry of the architect, is inaccessible without an attempted translation, perhaps there could be an alternative method of access that would not be as reductive as the drawing? A method that would allow closer access to the poetry without providing an inherent difference between intent and translation. This gave me such an intriguing avenue for exploration.

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Extract from personal Reflective Dialogue notebook

The Poten tial o f My St u d i es

At this point in the thesis I was heavily indulged within my reflective writing. Following my applied studies of potential, I undertook a painfully long task of identifying the potential of my studies. This took place over the Christmas period, as an attempt to maintain momentum with the thesis while I was away from the university.

Having recently engaged with a philosophical approach to considering potentiality, I was so motivated to keep up with this thought-intensive thesis development. I was totally captured by Robert Pirsig’s Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and had begun to engage with the ontological writings of Graham Harman.

I had borrowed Circus Philosophicus from the university library to read while I was away for Christmas, and was sat with it open on my desk when I came to writing this piece.

This particular reflection proposed breaking my current methods of study into three core strands: philosophical reading and research; analogous application of theory to practice; and the written reflection pieces themselves. I then proceeded to systematically address each strand individually, attempting to identify their actuality and subsequent potentiality.

After a long and cumbersome effort, the reflection concluded with actualities of each strand involving a form of dialogue: between myself and a theorist text; between myself and my studio peers; or between myself and my own written translated reflections. As such, the associated potential of each strand must relate to its ability to instigate such dialogue.

Immediately after concluding the piece, I was tired, bored, and considering it wildly anticlimactic. In hindsight, however, I see it as a crucial moment that reinforced the importance of dialogue (or relation) within my thesis. Such an importance would only prove to be maintained as my studies then led me into Circus Philosophicus and the thinking of Object-Oriented Ontology.

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“...any literal description, literal perception, or literal causal interaction with the thing does not give us that thing directly, but only a translation of it.�

Graham Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology. (2018)

Objec t-Orien ted On to lo gy

My reflections on the inaccessible poetry of architecture, and a development on Aristotle’s writings on substance, somewhat inevitably led me to the philosophical school of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). OOO holds, rather obviously, a fundamental theory based on the entire cosmos being made up of objects. I am an object; you are an object; if you were to read these words aloud, the sound created would also be an object. Not only that, but every object deserves equal priority for consideration within this philosophy. Human beings deserve no higher place within contemporary thought than an insect or a blade of grass.

OOO emerges from a materialist line of thought traceable to Aristotle, though it is inherently a realist philosophy. It does not hold the theory that objects only exist as they are perceived by the human senses, nor that reality exists primarily as a mental construct. In some senses this is how OOO contrasts the mainstream of continental philosophy. OOO takes it a step higher than my considered inaccessible poetry of architecture, posing that any object holds its own autonomous reality, withheld from direct access by other objects.

The self-titled book on the subject by Graham Harman, who founded the movement in the late 2000s, provides a suggested object-based theory of everything. Through the criticism of four false assumptions behind a semi-fictional scientific character’s statement around string theory being ‘the only game in town’, Harman poses that such a theory of everything is not found within the sciences, but in philosophy. More specifically, it is found within Object-Oriented Ontology.

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The four false assumptions provide a firm metaphysical standing point for philosophy holding more possibility than science for a theory of ‘everything.’ Assumption 1: everything that exists must be physical. Although religion is not itself physical, nor the belief in immaterial gods and souls, this surely does not exclude them from a theory of everything. Assumption 2: everything that exists must be basic and simple. This would suggest that any object can seem to have independent features, but ultimately receives all of its properties from those of its components. OOO refutes this as smallism, and shows how new qualities can appear through emergence. Assumption 3: everything that exists must be real. This directly excludes the realities of fiction. OOO holds that Sherlock Holmes, or the pure fictions created by artists such as Beethoven and Picasso, deserves as much a place in a theory of everything as the undeniable scientific realities of Newton and Einstein.

Assumption 4: everything that exists must be able to be stated accurately in literal propositional language. It would be easy to assume this is true, that nothing can be real unless we are able to refer to it in an accurate prose statement that conveys the literal properties of the thing in question. But OOO holds that literal language is always an oversimplification, since objects are never just bundles of literal properties. The reality of things, in their inwardness, is always withheld rather than directly accessible, so any attempt to grasp that reality by direct and literal means will inevitably misfire.

This withholding of any object’s reality is a key principle of OOO. If I were to ask you: ‘what is a hammer?’ You would most likely respond with either what it is made of, or how it is used. Yet these do not access the reality of the hammer, as an object, instead attempting to provide literal knowledge and truth of its qualities. Yet an object is always more than its pieces and less than its effects. Harman therefore denotes those two reductive designations as undermining and overmining, respectively, both openly rejected by OOO.

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“If I turn an apple in my hand, then toss and catch it repeatedly, I see a constantly shifting parade of different qualities. But never do I think that to myself that it is a different thing each time its qualities change.�

Graham Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology. (2018)

Undermining provides us with an object solely through its constituent pieces. Our societal dominance of scientific truth would hold that every object constitutes varying combinations of the same smallest basic element. Ever since the pre-Socratic era, there has been a pervasive effort to identify such an element: water, air, atoms, or even tiny two-dimensional strings. However, if we were only able to define an object by its unique buildup of any element, how could it account for emergence? Objects have qualities beyond their constituent pieces. If I lost a limb would I no longer be me? If the temperature of the earth rose by a degree, would we still exist on the same planet? If we define objects by their component qualities alone, any changes in properties would cause the formation of a new object, superseding its quality-defined predecessor.

Against overmining, Harman employs Aristotle’s potentiality. If we are only able to define an object by its effects and its relations, then how can we account for change? If I were defined by my relational properties within a system- as a master’s student in architecture, for instance - then how could I be the same object when such relations change? If I were defined by my relations alone then I would stop being me as soon as I concluded this course, and would instead be a newly formed object.

When we consider any object, we should be clear that there that there must be some surplus in things that is both deeper than its effects and shallower than its constituent pieces. We cannot define an object through overmining or undermining, nor a combination of both. Instead, we must access the reality of an object through non-literal means.

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“It has been known for some time that there is no way to make a perfect translation of a metaphor into prose meaning, just as there is no way to depict our three-dimensional planet perfectly on a twodimensional map.�

Graham Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology. (2018)

Drawin g an d Meta ph o r

Harman calls on the metaphor as a means of greater conveyance of an object’s qualities than any literal descriptive statement. He makes use of a metaphor by Spanish poet López Pico that says the cypress is ‘like the ghost of a dead flame.’ This provides an indirect access to the object, the cypress, which allows for a greater relation to its reality. You are able to feel more of the sensual qualities than if hearing about the cypress in terms of its width, height, colour and climactic requirements. The metaphor directly counters the rational undermining and overmining of literal prose statements.

This shouldn’t feel like a revolutionary thought; writers and poets have been using metaphors for centuries in order to provide a more sensual description of a subject within their work. However, it’s important to say here that the metaphor is so much more than merely superficial poetic language. It’s not only a writer’s scene that can be depicted in this way, but also an object; more importantly, the design intent of an architect. I began to dwell on the consideration of metaphor within architectural drawings.

If we consider this intent as an object, as OOO inherently does, then we would agree that its reality would be inaccessible directly.

Any attempt to access it literally would therefore result in a misfire.

This intrinsically happens in architecture, and two drawings from my Stage V work will help illustrate it in action.

The two drawings shown on the following spread were produced as part of the same design project; each a translation of the same poetic intent. It should be abundantly clear that one is less literal, therefore more metaphorical, in its nature. The plan drawing conveys none of the explosive, mutating nature of the design that the collage is able to. The collage could even be compared to a metaphorical statement: ‘the Albertina extension is like an eruption of molten wax.’ The two would be similar, if not the same, in what they translate or indirectly access from the original design intent, yet this is a familiar step in architectural design projects that ultimately leads to their literal demise.

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Drawing and Metaphor: Metaphorical/Poetic Intent

Drawing and Metaphor: Reductive Literal Translation

Banal arrow diagrams in architecture

Architects have a tendency to latch onto a metaphor as a design concept, and use it to literally translate a single quality into an architectural form, making a link between the initial collage and the final design plan exposes this. The design took just one aspect of the metaphor, the molten nature of the erupted wax, and adopt that into a slowly moving physical property, a move that is undeniably literal. This is such a prominent process in contemporary architectural practice, be it in the free-flowing nature of an adjacent river being ‘conceptually’ integrated by the introduction of a curved roof to the design, or a connection to nature being a crucial ‘concept’ that results in the introduction of a green wall to an atrium.

So much of this demise tends toward this mythical architectural concept. Ever since our very first years in architectural education, we are taught the essential importance of the concept in design, so much so that it’s now just inherent in our thinking when we engage with any design project from the beginning. However, limiting the whole of the original intention down to only one quality as ‘concept’ neglects so many other potentials for any given design.

It undermines or overmines the design, as an object, to define it literally by its pieces or by its effects.

A subsequent driver for my following weeks was an essay titled ‘Killing Simplicity’ by Mark Foster Gage. In it, Foster Gage calls out architecture being increasingly justified by its relations and not by its own particular and autonomous qualities. (Foster Gage, 2015) He argues that the architectural attitude of ‘form follows function’ has ultimately led form to become a functioning object, or a tool. As such, architects of the past century have been implicit in making architectural form invisible to the consciousness of its users.

Architecture has surrendered its historic ambitions and tumbled into abject relational problem-solving.

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Tran sm ed i a l e

In February we had a studio trip to Transmediale Festival in Berlin.

The week was very insightful, a worthy trip to broaden our horizons with the engagement of lectures, discussions and workshops on topics that ran so closely with our studio.

It also gave me a week to really reflect on my current thesis position, with the overriding ambition to have an abstract declaration fully formed in my head when I returned.

I spent the week again heavily indulged in my reflective writing within my notebook. I was desperate to counter the reductive force of concept-based design that seems so prevalent in contemporary architecture. I was adamant that a solution lay in the study of dialogue in design, as well as in the use of drawings in translating poetic meaning without literal reduction.

I spent my time trying to determine how I might combine these lines of thought into a strong and coherent thesis declaration.

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Killin g Con c ept

What appears time and time again is the importance of dialogue in design. Whether it’s through drawing, presentation, discussion or reflection, the dialogue persists as an absolutely vital component for my practice. The architectural ‘concept’ drastically simplifies any dialogue by reducing the subject, the design, down to one single relational quality. It undermines and overmines the design to provide a literal definition in terms of its pieces or its effects.

I wanted to use dialogue between objects to step away from the simplistic nature of the concept and towards a more autonomous form of design-object. Graham Harman provides a myth of a giant Ferris Wheel, eternally revolving, allowing objects within the cars to relate to other objects in the world outside in sequence; the relation developed serves as a newly formed object that could be held in the car of another greater wheel. (Harman, 2010) The ambition was, as a starting point at least, to take this myth and use the principles to develop an instrument that collides objects together in possibly unexpected dialogue, capturing any emergent qualities created. I proposed using two carousel projectors to replicate the revolving nature of Harman’s wheel. With each slide housing an object to put forward for dialogue, they would be presented in a way where they could interact with both each other and the world around them. These objects would not be prescribed to induce specific relations to other specific objects, so the emergent outcomes could never be predicted. Some of the objects would never even relate to others, so they will pass by the lamp and around the carousel unaffected, waiting to come to the light again and attempt another interaction with another object or circumstance.

This instrument would directly oppose the force of the concept; instead of reducing a design down to a single relational quality, it would build on these singular qualities using dialogue. Through a continual process of projection and potential emergent relation, the design would attempt to stray far from the realm of duomined arrow diagrams into the potential world of the autonomous designobject. In other words, this instrument was intended for killing concept in architecture.

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The drawings shown opposite were the first ‘concept sketches’ that emerged from the instrument. I had two carousel projectors set up behind me at my desk, projecting over my left shoulder.

What fascinated me was the blurring between images, as objects, as they joined together. It became really difficult to distinguish between projection A, projection B, and the projection surface beneath. Ultimately, a new object had been formed, and I was beginning to see how this new object could have qualities beyond either of its constituent predecessors.

The difficulty now lay in how to interpret these newly formed objects. I needed to develop my methodology for detecting these emergent qualities, and how I might then direct them towards formal architectural design.

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What followed was weeks of machine programming, learning how to encode a system with the projectors that could ultimately work together towards architectural design.

A brief consideration of Alan Turing’s Oracle, or ‘super-Turing’, machine. Such an idea would be the fundamental basis for a computer stronger than any currently in existence, one that could almost equate to the creativity of the human mind. The superTuring model had four key components that I took an interest in: 1.

A Series of Machines; 2. Learning and Adaptivity; 3. Randomness; and 4. Rich Information. (Redd et al, 2017) As such, I began constructing my first physical component of the machine, to interconnect with the projectors. The result was the Irrationality Inducer, with a turning dial that would randomise which projectors would change slide, and in which direction those would change. It removed my entire control over the slides selected for dialogue, but ultimately I was still there to determine when the changes should stop and when the dialogue should be subsequently translated.

With the Irrationality Inducer installed within the instrument, I began to produce more drawings while continually considering how to translate them into architectural form.

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Projector Dialogue Drawing A

Projector Dialogue Drawing B

OOO already has a few advocates within architectural practice. Tom Wiscombe preaches for a flat ontology of architecture (Wiscombe, 2014), and Mark Foster Gage calls for a rejection of architecture’s rational justification. (Foster Gage, 2015) Yet both have produced in practice what appear simply as forms of purely irrational design.

Where there is no need to convey understanding, they have used it as a chance to generate arbitrary formal designs. Foster Gage proposed a design for the Helsinki Guggenheim, with an ornamental facade generated entirely from recycled digital objects randomly selected from the internet. Wiscombe rather literally interprets an object-oriented analogy of the sack (objects within a sack are objects within an object), applying a form of external skin to his building designs which alludes to, but does not fully reveal, the contents of the objects within.

While admirable in their efforts, both appear to have translated OOO into literal, architectural, and ironically conceptual terms.

In architectural terms, an object-building is one that rejects its context, whereas a building conceived as an object in OOO terms simply means that it cannot be understood by its external relations – including its relation to context. Yet this does not inherently lead to a solution of entire contextual separation and irrationality.

The instrument should therefore take heavy consideration of site context within its processes, but manipulate the perceptions and information in non-literal methods.

At this point I designated the project site as Stack, referencing our previous study at Primer. I began to then collect data from the site and wider context, in terms of audio and film photography, some for slides and some for other forms. Such data could then be used in the instrument as inputs.

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I needed to start programming the instrument, determining how each projector would relate, where they would project, what they would project.

I began intensively designing, both theoretically and physically, how the instrument components might work together, and what they might produce. While many of the ideas were a bit arbitrary, becoming more of a contraption than a philosophical machine, this process was hugely beneficial for determining the processes that occur. It helped define where chaos should be induced, and even started suggesting how some of the outputs could be translated into architectural design.

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GC1

I then had a more tangible instrument design mentally constructed, and began to focus on translating between different media. I had slide photography, general photography, audio, video and drawings at my disposal within the instrument. How could I make these interact more? How could I generate alternative forms of media from the instrument?

The flow map shown opposite indicates the relational system of the instrument as it was at this time. It involved a series of inputs, a series of projectors, and a series of speakers, and showed how each of the dialogues that was generated could be captured and translated through different means.

There were several avenues explored now, some that were dropped rather quickly, some that remained within the instrument to the very end. The instrument began converting photographs into a series of collages. It began extruding these collages into threedimensional forms based on their levels of shading. The instrument began overlaying multiple audio tracks, using text editing software and a dictation function to create an abstract hybrid text. It began converting my drawings into a form of white noise, with the pitch depending on the position of ink on the paper.

Each of these objects, processes and translations could be manipulated to relate back and forth with each other. The output of one could define the process of another. However, the question still remained of how to encode this for architectural design. The instrument was hugely generative of all sorts of artistic forms, but the difficulty lay in translating that into a design without reverting to the literal means of concept derivation.

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Bert Bielefeld, ‘Design Map’ in Basics Architectural Design. (2013)

Basics A rchitec tu ral D esi g n

In order to encode the instrument for architectural design, I first needed a simplistic decoding of the process. Basics Architectural Design (Bielefeld, 2013) provides such a decoding. A widely popular text within the undergraduate studies in architecture, it provides a clear and definitive way to ‘design architecture well.’ The book’s first section breaks architectural design down to four fundamental components: context, function, form, and material & structure.

The design map proved to be everything I was trying to fight within formal design, providing architects with means to design for literal and rational justifications. I wanted to take the entire structure of this design map and completely rework it non-literally, under the critical questioning eye of OOO.

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I began filtering the decoded design process into the instrument, and produced individual flow maps to reflect how each of the four foci could be addressed and manipulated.

This was really beneficial in determining the use of different mediums within the instrument, given that architects will generally use different drawings and different modes of representation for the differing aspects of their designs.

I decoded the functions to within the four key foci, and which components would be used in which focus. It presented a clearer path with divided avenues for design. However, the looming question still remained: how do you turn this into architectural design?

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A n Objec t-Orien ted L an g uage o f Architec t u re

As a way of encoding the instrument back into non-literal architectural design, I had to decide what it was ultimately going to produce. The beauty of the instrument was not only in the individual productions on each of the decoded avenues, it was more wonderfully located in the relations between.

Having read John Summerson’s The Classical Language of Architecture, I found myself curiously considering the relation between components. The diameter of the column affects its height, it affects the spacing between columns, it affects where any arch might sit between them. It wasn’t the formal output that I was interested in, but the almost musical composition that occurs to generate them.

I proposed the idea of an Object-Oriented Language of Architecture. Through it, the instrument would be able to generate five compositions, which would relate and interlink as the inputs moved throughout. The five compositions were Facade, Mass, Programme, Circulation and Detail.

Not providing literal proposals for each, but an output that could be interpreted under each heading, the instrument can strive towards non-literal architectural design.

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A rtist Explo rat i o n s

Alongside the theoretical development of the instrument, I needed to develop the aesthetic of the final installation.

I found the work of contemporary British artist Mike Nelson absolutely brilliant. His piece Towards a Lexicon of Phenomena and Information Association proved particularly insightful. As part of a series, the object generated was to provide a lexicon towards understanding a fictional island world.

The Black Art Barbecue holds an ominous and somewhat disturbing presence. Taking the form of an artist’s studio desk, the objects laid out across the counter leaves the impression that the artist at hand (who may have left mere seconds ago), was delving into a form of voodoo or black magic. The space is dimly lit by a single lamp under the desk, with the discreet shadow of an insect waiting underneath to provide that final sense of creeping dread.

What appealed to me about both installations was the enchanting allusion to something beyond what is immediately present. The seemingly disparate objects of the Lexicon of Phenomena allude to an entire world outside of our own, and the Black Art Barbecue is suggestive of a symbolic ritual study just stumbled upon.

While the instrument was already developing heavily in its appearance based on its functional nature, this alluding aesthetic was something I wanted to create as part of the installation. I wanted people to wander into the space and feel the presence of something greater than what is physically present.

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GC3

The drawing above is the result of one composition of the ObjectOriented Language. Mirroring the initially drawn dialogue between projections, then tracing over the resultant drawing, allowed me to geometrically abstract the forms produced into drawings such as the one above.

The next few spreads highlight a selection of the process occurring within the instrument, and the resulting output generated. By not declaring their literal purpose, we are able to interpret them ourselves theatrically. It does not tell you what the object is, but what the object could be.

GC1 / GC3

“Both the classical and recent theories appeal to ‘potential’ as a disingenuous way of equating the actual with the relational… To define a thing as potential is to view it solely from the outside, in terms of the effects it might one day have on other things…”

Graham Harman, Circus Philosophicus. (2010)

Ki l l i ng Co n cept Fin al In stall at i o n

Killing Concept is an instrument, a philosophical design machine that employs the thinking of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) to question the linear processes of formal architectural design.

OOO holds that the entire cosmos is made up of objects. I am an object; you are an object; if you were to read these words aloud, the sound created would be an object in its own right. Not only that, but every object deserves equal priority for consideration within this philosophy. Human beings deserve no higher place within contemporary thought than an insect or a blade of grass.

We live in a world of ‘post truth’, ‘perception management’ and ‘fake news.’ Reality has subsequently become an irrelevant consideration, malleable and easily manipulated by those in power.

Our societal antidote to such dangerous perceived relativism is a rational priority of truth and knowledge. It demands that we are able to understand the world around us, able to declare in literal prose statements what any object is. Yet this is only ever achievable by declaring what that object is made of, or what that object does.

If I were to ask you ‘what is a hammer?’ You would likely respond with either what it is made from, or how it is used.

Yet these cannot be justifiable terms for defining an object. If I myself were defined only by my constituent parts, and I lost my hand, I must become an entirely new object. Such a definition would neglect the phenomenon of emergence. If I were defined only by my effects, as an architectural student for instance, then I would become a new object when I finish this degree. That definition would neglect the notion of potentiality. An object is thus shallower than its constituent parts and deeper than its effects.

The concept is guilty of luring architecture down this same neglectful path of truth and knowledge. It attempts to convey literal understanding of a design, as an object. Yet as with the hammer, truth and knowledge of an architectural form are impossible to obtain, and the concept merely reduces the design down to single relational qualities in a vain and reductive gesture.

It has caused architecture to surrender its enchanting ambition and join the futile production of knowledge and truth. It neglects limitless alternative potentials within architectural design.

This is the fundamental basis for Killing Concept. It attempts to address the reductive literal nature of concept-led design, through a reflection on potential within the design of architectural form.

Potential is no singular objective and quantifiable value, but a powerful relationship between an object and a certain achievable outcome. It is a force that cannot be determined without a prior actuality; it emerges in the presence of relation, or dialogue. The instrument does not define objects as potentials, but simply recognises that every object has the potential to affect other things in certain ways.

Graham Harman tells a myth of an indestructible Ferris wheel, miles in diameter, which circles constantly through the air and below the ground. Each compartment holds a different object, which could be anything from an artist painting to a block of plutonium. As the wheel circles slowly around, it passes different objects within caverns underground; some of the objects within the caverns react to those in the compartments as they pass, and some pass by unaffected. The plutonium would most likely kill any living thing it comes near, though inanimate objects would mostly be unharmed. The painting of the artist could change in mood if she passed a cavern of crying kittens, or an orchestra playing her favourite childhood rhyme. With seemingly limitless objects in motion, there are seemingly limitless relations and therefore seemingly limitless emergent qualities to be generated by this continuous dialogue.

OOO holds that the danger to thought is not relativism, but idealism. The antidote is therefore not found in truth or knowledge, but in reality. Killing Concept places architecture under the critical lens of OOO, interrogating the reality of a design, as an object. It understands that literal access to the design is impossible without reducing it to its constituent parts or its effects. It uses the phenomenon of emergence and of potentiality to counter such reduction, employing non-literal and indirect means to allow closer access to the reality of an architectural form.

In architectural terms, an object-building is one that rejects its context, whereas a building conceived as an object in OOO terms simply means that it cannot be understood by its external relations – including its relation to context. Yet this does not inherently lead to a solution of entire contextual separation and irrationality. The instrument takes heavy consideration of site context within its processes, but manipulates the perceptions and information in non-literal forms of dialogue.

Killing Concept does not provide a singular concrete form, but a compositional system of relations between its objects and processes. The individual outputs can take the form of drawings, or models, or poems, or collages, each translated from and relating to the other objects placed into the instrument. It generates an Object-Oriented Language of architecture. The outputs can relate to you, or to each other, to drive the design of architectural form.

Killing Concept evaluates architectural form as object. It strives to reject the literal reduction of concept-based design, directly refusing to provide any literal statement of design intent. It seeks to re-enchant the practice of formal architectural design.

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Welcome to...

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Tactile Translation - Output: Facade

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Dialogue β: Projector E visually displays the audio based dialogue within the Programme composition process of the OOL. Four audio sources merge into a single poetic text translation.

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Projector A: ‘Coleman’ + Speaker I

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Projector E: Dialogue β

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Dialogue α: Projectors A & B overlay slide images over the concrete wall projection surface. Resulting dialogue translated via photograph.

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Projector B: ‘Kellett’ + Speaker II

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Tactile Translation - Output: Detail

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Irrationality Inducer: Connected to Projectors A, B, C & D

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Tactile Translation - Output: Circulation

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Projector C: ‘Thompson’ + Speaker III

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Projector D: ‘Guariento’ + Speaker IV

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Dialogue γ: Projectors C & D overlay slide images over a paper projection surface. Resulting dialogue is translated via pen drawings tracing the interaction.

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Object-Oriented Language (OOL): Five booklets containing composition processes of the Object-Oriented Language in Architecture. Records and connects the dialogues of the instrument.

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‘Reflective Dialogue’ Booklet

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Instrument Outputs

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To the left is a map of the entire instrument. Not in its physical installation, but in the exact processes and relations that occur within. With such a map to clearly indicate how each input is eventually translated into one of the five compositions, it becomes so evident how a single change within the instrument can impact every output that is generated.

The map does not show purely how one composition is formed, but it shows the generation of the Object-Oriented Language through moments of dialogue within the instrument.

The final spreads now show some photographs of the final installation, as it was set up during the exams.

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Refl ec t i o n

These last two years have been such an enlightening, yet partly exhausting experience. I’ve been able to have such an interesting time delving into corners of architectural study that I previously would never have expected. Not only that, but I have found myself feeling quite comfortably at home within these areas of architecture that I previously wouldn’t have given much consideration.

Ultimately I was very happy and confident with the final installation of Killing Concept, and I feel like this is the case because it had addressed a frustration with the design process, not a building design itself. It had intensively questioned my personal practices, and the wider practices of architecture and society as a whole.

Such an approach was so exciting to me, not because I would take the instrument to work with me when I had finished, but because it had shown how we are able to critically reflect on our practices and completely alter our linear existing processes. It showed how the practice of architecture is capable of change, and I am excited to get out there and make some of that change happen.

This was ultimately my ambition for my time in the Master’s degree, however. Having two years of experience within practice beforehand, I felt comfortable knowing that I had held responsibilities within all stages of a design project, and was even able to run one myself. I wanted to return to university to try and question what kind of architect I wanted to be on my own, if ever I had such an opportunity.

Opening up to philosophy within my design practices has really set me up strongly for particular work after the degree. Such an approach to architecture provides no concrete solutions, no definitive answers for ‘how to design well’, but instead encourages a truly rigorous line of questioning on one’s personal practices and the world around them. I firmly believe that without such questioning, architecture will inevitably recede into the background with no place within progressive society.

I find it almost funny that I ended up concluding my Stage VI thesis in the same room I started my Stage V symposium in. It really just emphasises how much of a single developing thread I have been working on for the two years. I do not see it as three separate design projects, but as a single thesis study that culminated in a reflection on all three. Killing Concept is built upon my entire time in the undergraduate degree, in the masters degree, and in working practice all together.

One thing I’ve taken such an interest in is the presence and benefits of dialogue within architectural practice. Dialogue and emergence; potentials cannot be revealed without a form of questioning within my practices. Too often today, we are defined by what we are doing in the moment, which neglects the notion that limitless other potentials still exist, lying in waiting to be realised.

At the end of Stage V, I had been dissatisfied with the products of my design process from each semester. I had seriously enjoyed the unique methodology for design in each case, but was ultimately disappointed when I had to stand up and present the resulting final design. Part of me thought it was purely down to time, maybe if I’d have had another few weeks I could have produced a design I was happy with. However, in reflection now, I think I was more personally driven to design the medium of design, rather than design a product itself. I therefore wanted an opportunity to delve into this further, critically reflecting on this dissatisfaction within my personal design practices.

When I leave here in a few weeks, looking for new work outside of academia, I know what I will be looking for in a practice to complete the rest of my education. I need a practice that engages with such dialogue. A practice that constantly reflects on and adapts its own practices in architecture and design. I have an underpinning ambition to engage with further research in the field, but it will ultimately require further reflection on architectural practice before I can contemplate in which direction.

Stage VI gave me such an opportunity with the Detoxicated Practices studio. I spent weeks writing copiously, delving into a discussion with myself as a method of investigation that proved fruitful time and time again. The engagement with various theoretical texts, particularly the writings on Object-Oriented Ontology, shows how we can use thinking outside of the field of architecture to question our own practices, and propose radical alternatives. Not only that, but it shows that such questioning, reflection and adaptation is incredibly necessary in the world today.

The last two years have done exactly what I wanted from them, they have helped me realise what kind of architect I would like to be. The reflection does not stop here. I am excited to take my thinking to the world of working practice, to see how such alternative potentials can affect the direction of architecture as a whole.

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The Nick ARC8068 Linked Research Testing Ground

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450

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108°

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In tro du c t i o n

Testing Ground is a Newcastle University Linked Research project in partnership with Kielder Art & Architecture. It is a live build project where a team of architecture students design and physically construct an artwork or architectural form. Located in rural Northumberland, it posed the challenge of environmental and social sustainability within the delicate surrounding ecology. The project provided the opportunity to acquire invaluable practical insights and skills, to be a testing ground for the practical application of theoretical knowledge acquired during architectural studies.

Situated within the environment of an architecture school, Testing Ground provides a complete contrast to the normal systems and practices that govern the lives of the students. In individual studio projects, personal designs, thoughts and ideas are paramount, as ultimately, the student has complete agency over their output. In this project, working as a group of seven, decisions had to be made collectively not personally. This was particularly challenging at the design stage where conflicting opinions would come into play; it was a hard lesson to learn as a group that sometimes personal design opinions would have to be discarded for the greater good.

The lesson in compromise was a hard one at first but ultimately necessary to master in order to actually achieve a complete project.

Once at the stage of detailed design and construction, working as a group became a much more streamlined process; there were are certain number of tasks to be completed and these were allotted appropriately. The process of self-governance as a group was something that was not only alien to the university world but also to working life, where our time in practice saw us each answering to a higher authority in the office, with them dictating the terms. The live build dynamic required the whole group to assume higher levels of responsibility.

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GC1 / GC6 / GC7

Co mmu n ity En g agem en t

From the beginning of the project there was a strong intention to keep the values of the community at the centre of the design.

Taking cues from the local organisations that formed the client base, including the Kielder Water & Forest Park Development Trust, Revitalising Redesdale, and the Forestry Commission, the aim “to celebrate, conserve and enhance Redesdale’s rich cultural heritage, landscape and wildlife� was adopted.

However, as outsiders to the community the team remained somewhat detached from these important values and there was a danger of addressing them at a superficial level. As the project proceeded, communication with the community was to be paramount in aiding the understanding of the site and project and informing the design.

While architects plan physical structures which communities use, it is the inhabitants who build communities. As such, when designing a project for the community, it is vital to become involved with the local ambitions, values and ideas to ensure that we design something that helps them to build their own communities in line with their own vision.

Throughout this project the design team endeavoured to keep the community values at the core of the design and relished in the process of drawing inspiration from conversations with the community, discussing their feedback and ideas and marrying their interests with architectural design ideas.

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GC5 / GC6 / GC10

S ite S peci f i c i t y

The site of the project was Blakehope Nick, the highest point along the Kielder Forest Drive: a 12-mile unsealed road, which connects Kielder Castle to the west and Blakehopeburnhaugh on the A68 to the east. It is located close to the Scottish border, in the north of Kielder Water & Forest Park and in close proximity to the Northumberland National Park.

When implementing an architectural project the site is inevitably influential: the ground conditions will dictate which foundations one can use; the wind and snow loading affect the structure; existing structures on the site affect building positioning as will the existing access routes. However, when designing The Nick the site took on a new level of importance. Having no in-depth functional brief, the site itself was crucial in dictating not just the form of the design, but what the design should be. As such, it aimed to harness the quintessentially unique attributes of the site. There were many sidetracks and tangents, routes of conceptual exploration, but ultimately the design objective was to focus on a few strong themes and implement a simple provocative project where the site could be celebrated and enhanced.

Throughout the process, the group was eager to create a design with a real sense of place: visually, formally, materially and structurally. The beauty of the wilderness location was essential to preserve and, if possible, to augment.

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GC8 / GC9 / GC11

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The A rt o f [The] Drawi n g

“We have witnessed, over the past fifteen years, what we think of as a rediscovery of the architectural drawing. This rediscovery has made drawings more consumable... less concerned with their relation to what they represent than with their own constitution.”

Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building. (1986)

In his 1986 essay, ‘Translations from Drawing to Building,’ Robin Evans discusses the role that the drawing possesses in architecture. He begins the piece by raising the notion that architects might seem to labour under a ‘peculiar disadvantage’, never working directly with the ultimate object of their thought and instead always working through an intervening medium: the architectural drawing. This live build project, having made extensive use of a variety of drawings throughout, not only presented the opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the role of drawing in architecture, but provided a truly unique opportunity to directly contradict such a notion by allowing the chance to work with the object of thought first hand.

What this study hopes to achieve, by considering a selection of drawings produced specifically for this design project, is to develop an understanding of how the architect uses drawings in their work. This greater comprehension can ensure that the architectural drawing is able to be used to its full potential, both now and in any future practice. The title for this piece is intentionally spliced; it is not only the drawing as substance that plays a vital role in the progression of an architectural design project, but also the process of drawing itself.

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GC3 / GC6

Due to the remote location of the site, 6 miles to the nearest main road, we placed heavy emphasis on processes of prefabrication in design.

With a resolved technical design, we spent several weeks in the workshop constructing each of the individual components of The Nick: notching beams; counter-sinking screw holes; creating pilot drill holes for alignment on site; assembling the frames for cladding bays.

When each of these components was in a concluded state, we were ready to begin our work on site. The following pages show a selection of construction photographs from our time on site, followed by the finished design.

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Additional Modules ARC8051 Tools for Thinking About Architecture ARC8061 Architecture and Construction

U to p i a n Am b ition ARC 8051 To o ls Fo r Thin kin g A bo u t A rchitec tu re: Essay

The world is an ever-changing place. Cities and settlements across the globe are in a constant state of development, where “there is no final result, only a continuous succession of phases.” (Lynch, 1960) We, as designers at the forefront of the desired progressive notion of urbanism in modern cities, are incessantly striving for the next ‘phase’ of development in a utopian-derived sequence.

Whether this is a deliberate or sub-conscious outlook, to refute would be sheer ignorance of the dirty little secret of the architect, that “deep down all architecture, no matter how naïve and implausible, claims to make the world a better place.” (Koolhaas, 2004) That being said, could it be the case that our economicallysubjugated contemporary culture has shifted the role of the architect into that of banal replication of the dominant modes of production, to such an harsh degree that said utopian influences have been principally disregarded?

This study discusses how utopian ambitions have influenced the design and development of cities as steadily-continuing entities, possessing a sense of urban progression, and illustrates how such ambitions are still present (yet plausibly imperceptible) in contemporary architecture and urban design. How does one define utopia? Employing a plethora of theoretical definitions, the study is able to instigate the foundation of a rudimentary designation for utopia, which facilitates the undertaking of this study.

This study endeavours to express that utopian ambition, the fundamental aim of reaching a projected present-future and higher order, is more in the conscious mind than might be wholly recognised or comprehended. Through the use and critique of my own illustrations, I hope to personally embellish this recognition.

Attempting to construct a tangible manifesto of utopian principles through the analysis and critique of celebrated historic models, the study aims to critically engage with contemporary architecture and urbanism in a way that forces such direction toward Utopia to reveal itself. Even where it may have been previously unconsidered, and even further where it has been downright rejected.

Through the extraction of such principles as Aesthetics, Dwelling and Radical Urbanism, the study engages with contemporary architecture – in the form of Denys Lasdun and Rem Koolhaas – in an attempt to prove that utopian consciousness is as present as ever in today’s society.

For full study and associated citations, refer to original submission.

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Fo rm - M u tating ARC 8061 A rchitec tu re an d Co n stru c tio n : Case St u dy

This case study sees a contractual consideration of my previous Form-Mutating project from Stage V. Evaluating it as a live construction project, it draws on client priorities and constraints, and reflects on any legal issues that could possibly arise.

The study draws focus on the site constraints of the proposed extension, from the monuments currently sited on the Albertinaplatz to the physical interaction of the concrete bridge with the existing Albertina. Due to the intense heritage conservation presence in Vienna’s Innere Stadt, becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, extreme consideration must be taken to ensure that no vital historic elements are damaged Heavy diligence is also given to the mutating roof design. As a bespoke radical proposal, it will demand a large amount of focus within the design team, as well as involving a large amount of risk.

A strict framework of design consultants should be considered from the very initial stages of the RIBA Plan of Work, to ensure that the technical design is fully integrated and not simply adjusted in hindsight.

For full study and associated citations, refer to original submission.

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