Lightness and Weight Unit 8 2019 - 2020
Michelle Lo 18001513 1 of 46
An Incomplete Monastery Thesis precis
A strategic infill is made to a 1980s, post-Modernist estate at York Place, named Plantation Wharf. The riverside site, at present, is as akin to an ‘incomplete monastery’. Insular residential units, like monastic cells, are housed in disparate buildings. Redevelopment plans have proposed to increase private housing without adding amenities, thus perpetuating the impermeable character of the site. The project aims to consolidate this disjointed urban fabric by introducing educational and public uses to the estate, in tandem with its regeneration. Reflecting on the significance of the claustral garth as the symbolic centre of the monastery, the project challenges the notion of domiciliary horti conclusi by unifying existing back gardens as a communal green. A connective cloister is introduced, enclosing new collective programmes around the pre-existing private ‘cells’.
Thesis drawing of Plantation Wharf, Battersea as an 'incomplete monastery', summarizing references from term 1 and my ambtions for the final project. 2 of 46
Riverside Regeneration in Wandsworth Urban context
View of Plantation Wharf from the riverside, looking west to Battersea Reach in the background. Source: Willy Barton.
Plantation Wharf
London (city)
Wandsworth (borough)
Wandsworth is a borough in southwest London, formed in 1965.
The River Thames forms the northern boundary of Wandsworth.
It is divided into 20 wards, 4 of which are bordered by the Thames (Thamesfield, Fairfield, St Mary’s Park and Queenstown).
A 6.4 km riverside route connects pedestrians and cyclists across the borough, from Putney (west) to Nine Elms (east).
St Mary’s Park (ward) A third of Wandsworth’s land area is occupied by residential use.1
Residential developments, 2000-2019 Residential developments, 2010-2015 River Thames
The riverside, previously occupied by public utility and heavy industry, is now characterised by new and refurbished residential developments.
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York Place, Battersea Urban context
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100 m
York Place, Battersea, Ordnance Survey, scale 1-4000. Source: Digimap. 4 of 46
York Place, 1860 - Present From industry to housing
An aerial photo from 1933 shows an imposing factory complex with a backdrop of low-rise terraced houses for workers. Source: Historic England.
1826 - 1884 Silk and glove manufactories
1884 - 1980 Saccharum works
1884 - 1980 Saccharum works, cont'd Š
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In 1980, York Place was redeveloped into two sites: a Homebase and Plantation Wharf, which are offices and apartments.
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Source: Bing Maps.
1980 - present Plantation Wharf and Homebase
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National Grid Map, 1950. Source: Digimap.
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National Grid Map, 1890. Source: Digimap.
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National Grid Map, 1860. Source: Digimap.
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Ordnance Survey, 2019. Source: Digimap. No
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In Transformation Ongoing redevelopment at York Place
Plantation Wharf The estate is undergoing piecemeal regeneration, beginning with the buildings facing York Place. Previous designs, which have not come to fruition, proposed to build loft extensions atop the existing buildings, increasing the provision of housing.
Homebase In contrast to Plantation Wharf, the Homebase site is undergoing a full-scale redevelopment. The existing retail warehouse is demolished and replaced by three residential towers, atop a podium building for the Royal Academy of Dance.
Ongoing construction works at the Homebase site, in front of Plantation Wharf. Source: Avanton.
Architect’s visual proposing new additions alongside some retained buildings at Plantation Wharf. Source: Harper Downie. 0
10 m
Site plan, documenting as-found conditions of York Place at the beginning of the project, not-to-scale. 6 of 46
Iconographic, Yet Insular Current site condition
A characterful Post-Modernist estate, renewed Against this tabula rasa development context, my project follows the practice of the former, engaging with the existing buildings to create new spaces, in hopes of doing more with less. The estate is profuse with character, its circular openings and metal ornaments trying to evoke a sense of the industrial past. I surveyed the site through photography, trying to extract the urban taxonomy of an ex post facto industrial historiography.
An impermeable site, lacking a public ingredient The Plantation Wharf estate is made up of many self-contained units, with the same tenant occupying a retail or office use (typically on the ground floor) and residential use, arranged over several floors. Even the outdoor courtyards are demarcated as parking spaces, clearly asserting ownership. This configuration gives the site an impermeable character, lacking in communal spaces where ownership and use are not so segregative.
0 Excerpts from my photo essay of Plantation Wharf, Battersea, surveying a taxonomy of ornamental openings found on the site that are meant to evoke its industrial past.
10 m
Site plan and section depicting the impermeable nature of Plantation Wharf. Even the outdoor courtyards are demarcated as parking spaces, clearly asserting ownership. 7 of 46
Infills and Openings Site observations
As I surveyed Plantation Wharf on foot, I found myself drawn to these openings, and the different ways that they were infilled. A glass box, which overhangs a threshold between the public riverside and the semi-enclosed courtyard at ground level, accommodates private living spaces for apartments above.
A glass box overhangs a threshold between the public riverside and the semi-enclosed courtyard at ground level.
Archway, filled, Molasses House.
Archway, voided, Calico House.
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A Depleted Emblem of ‘Community’ Site observations
Archway, filled, Molasses House.
The archway marks a potentially exciting intersection where different uses are overlaid, but like a depleted emblem of ‘community’, the experience of walking into the courtyard is underwhelming.
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2m
Section, archway entrance into Plantation Wharf, scale 1-100. 9 of 46
A Depleted Emblem of ‘Community’ Site observations
The site reads as isolated cells around a ‘junkspace’, with no connection between its parts. There is no definitive front or back. A civic ingredient is missing here - something of a collective nature, that could elevate the material ‘cohabitation’ of disparate parts, into ‘coexistence’ and confrontation around a public sphere.
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Elevation along Cotton Row, Plantation Wharf, scale 1-200. 10 of 46
Two Entrances Overlaid Term 1 intervention
The archway presents the opportunity for an infill, to ‘edit’ rather than ‘re-write’ the existing conditions of the site and introduce a civic dimension to repair a disjointed urban fabric.
Model of transcription, scale 1-20, plywood.
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Three iterations of Kapel van Kerselare Implanting a modern chapel onto a 15th-century site
In a rural Marian pilgrimage site in Oudenaarde, east Flanders, the original Kerselare chapel burned down in a fire in 1961. Across from the site of the ruins, a marquee was set up as an interim, makeshift chapel for fifteen hundred visitors in May 1962, during the annual pilgrimage. The following year, Juliaan Lampens designed a new chapel on the same site. The modern chapel is implanted onto a 15th-century pilgrimage site, juxtaposing old and new. Stone from the ruins of the old chapel was re-used to build a retaining wall for the sunken courtyard, from where pilgrims can observe the worship service through a glass wall.
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Original Kerselare chapel on fire, February 21, 1961.
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Pilgrims and the Tournai stone ruins of the old chapel.
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Makeshift marquee accommodated the annual pilgrimage in May, on a field northeast of the old chapel.
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The new chapel was built on the northeast site. Tournai stone from the ruins were re-used in the retaining walls
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Kapel van Kerselare, Juliaan Lampens, 1964.
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A Flemish Prototype Documenting Kerselare Chapel, Juliaan Lampens
Through simultaneously studying of a Flemish prototype, Juliaan Lampens’ Kapel van Kerselare, and documenting the Battersea site, irreducible architecture gestures from the former are extrapolated to the latter context.
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Excerpts from the ‘Collisions’ booklet. Reference and transcription placed side by side. 13 of 46
The Chapel Underneath an Archway Collisions between context and transcription
The Transcription project overlays an alternative spatial reality onto the archway, interrogating how moments extracted from the Kerselare chapel could be inhabited in a different context and create new tensions. 14 of 46
Elaborating Spaces Between Courtyard And House Site selection
Molasses Row at Plantation Wharf, Battersea.
House
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Conservatory
Garden
Office
Courtyard/ Carpark
Office
Garden
Conservatory
House
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Section across Molasses Row, Plantation Wharf, scale 1-150. 15 of 46
Tensions at the Infra-spaces Site speculation
Offices and private gardens sit in-between courtyard and house at Molasses Row. There is a latent social fabric between these thresholds, yet to be activated.
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Elevations along Cotton Row and Cinnamon Row, scale 1-250. 16 of 46
Claustral Garth as the Locus of Community Site strategy
Cell
Cloister
Garth
Eremitism
Church Cenobitism
Monastery as an extrusion of cenobitic and eremitic life.
In a Carthusian monastery, minimal private spaces are completed by more collective programmes. I consider the site in Battersea, in its present condition, as an incomplete monastery. Isolated ‘monk cells’ and gardens, configured around an open space, are missing a connective cloister, or elaborated public spaces like the church and garth.
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Plan, Certosa del Galluzzo, Florence. Source: Leo Michael. 17 of 46
A Locus of Community for York Place, Battersea Reconfiguration of the built fabric
Current plans are proposing to regenerate existing buildings of the Plantation Wharf estate, gradually increasing provision of private housing, but not adding amenities. This project aims to tackle the insular character of the estate, which is perpetuated by its ongoing development, by positioning the intervention as a new locus of community for York Place, Battersea. Reuse and renew The project emerges from the existing, rather than creating new spaces from scratch. Fragments, evocative of a more civic dimension, are then added onto a palimpsest of existing buildings, inserting public and educational uses that the estate is currently lacking. I built atop some of the existing walls, using them as a structural base rather than demolishing them completely.
As found, ground floor plan.
Demolition, ground floor plan.
1. The project extends a sense of collectivity to these in-between spaces of courtyard and house. Separations, between street, courtyard, workspace and garden, their ownership and use, become more varied and nuanced. 0
Addition, ground floor plan.
2. A covered walkway punctuated by educational and public spaces, connects pedestrians to Thames riverside path. Existing buildings along York Place are renewed and given active ground floor frontages.
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A Repositioned Frontage Contingencies against the developing context
At present, the riverbus pier can be accessed via a vehicular route that runs centrally through Plantation Wharf. Redevelopment of the Homebase site into high-rise towers will overtop the main entrance of Plantation Wharf at York Place. This further perpetuates its insular quality, obscuring access between York Road and the riverside. The project activates the fortified southeast corner of the estate, creating two new site entrances to assert a street presence towards Clapham Junction and York Road approaches. A sequence of public and educational spaces enlivens a car-free through route that connects to the riverside.
Riverbus pier Existing site entrance, accessed further along York Place, will be obstructed by the Homebase development.
Proposed intervention
York Road, towards Battersea
York Place
Proposed through route and permeable frontage, connecting to Clapham Junction and York Road.
Former Homebase site
Existing site entrance, obstructed by development New site entrances
Towards Clapham Junction
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A Fortified Corner Plantation Wharf, Battersea
Walking within the site, buildings of varied height and depth present introvertive frames and vistas, through glazed reflections or narrow alleyways. Approaching the site in Battersea on foot, walking northwards from Clapham Junction towards the river, Plantation Wharf first manifests itself as a fortified corner. One cannot enter here, nor see into the courtyards behind it.
The proposed corner entrance will replace Leeward House, framing a view.
Introvertive frames and vistas, Plantation Wharf.
A glimpse of Leeward House from York Road.
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A Conscious Denunciation ...of everything that happens around it
To break open this ‘fortified corner’, I referenced Hans van der Laan’s extension of St Benedictusberg Abbey, where a new entry sequence is introduced, alongside a church-space. The existing abbey is purged of its ornamental features, adopted to his austere taste.
1968 extension Van der Laan’s addition of a porter’s lodge, atrium and church created a semi-enclosed forecourt with Böhm’s abbey.
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Plans, alterations and additions to St. Benedictusberg Abbey between 1921-86, not-to-scale.
1968
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1986
Before and after Van der Laan’s alterations. The staircase turret in the original court has been stripped away, stained glasss replaced by plain, pointed arches by lintels. Source: Richard Padovan. 21 of 46
Entry Sequence, Transcribed Furthering the Transcription exercise
St Benedictusberg Abbey, Vaals
York Place, Battersea
Furthering the practice of transcription, developed in term 1, the entry sequence of Van der Laan’s church is transplanted to the courtyard in Battersea at 1-1 scale. Galleries, transcribed from St. Benedict’s Abbey to the site, forms a cloister between the courtyard and cells.
New through route 22 of 46
Less is Enough
Fragments evocative of Van der Laan
The transcription of Van der Laan was only a first move. My first speculation of a ‘light approach’ had been material – to interpret the Van der Laan precedent as a lightweight timber structure, as a way to interrogate its impact on existing buildings. Close-up photographs of the model suggest a more sensitive gesture – to distill the intervention into a few successful moments – an approach where, less is enough.
The screen, the cloister, and the ‘artificial outside’. Model, scale 1-200, card. 23 of 46
Ground Floor, Proposed General arrangement and programme
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York Place entrance
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Cotton Row entrance
Library 18
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Lobby
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WC
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Lift and stair
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Admin office
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Courtyard
CafĂŠ 17 16
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Forecourt
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WC
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Lift and stair
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Fridge and freezer
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Kitchen
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CafĂŠ
15 Forum 14.
Courtyard
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Refurbished cell
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Walled garden
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Communal green
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Forecourt Ground floor plan, demolition and addition, scale 1-500.
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Ground floor plan, proposed, scale 1-250. 24 of 46
Pedestrian Through Route to the Riverside Activating the York Place frontage
Square Rigger Row is one of Plantation Wharf’s office buildings that sits along York Place. It is modified to establish a new site entrance at York Place and a pedestrian through route. Connectivity between York Place and the Thames riverside path is enhanced, in parallel with the area’s regeneration. Riverbus pier
The existing facade of Square Rigger Row is impermeable.
York Place 0
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Permeable through routes at ground floor.
A screen that reveals activities behind it. Concept model of the Van der Laan transcription, scale 1-200, card. 25 of 46
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The facade is activated as an extrovertive screen that frames activities within.
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Ground floor plan, demolition, scale 1-250.
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First Floor, Proposed General arrangement and programme
Library 1.
Workstations
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WC
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Lift and stair
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Collaborative Room
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Store
Tower 6.
Loggia
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Lift and stair
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Collaborative Room
Forum
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Walled garden
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New cells
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First floor plan, demolition and addition, scale 1-500.
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First floor plan, proposed, scale 1-250. 28 of 46
Cotton Row Section, Proposed Reuse, demolition, addition
Studio
Forum
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Cloister
Walled Garden
Shared Green
Conservatory
House
1m Construction detail section, propoosed, 76 Cotton Row, scale 1-50. 29 of 46
Implicit Modes of Separation Gartenstadt Falkenberg,, Bruno Taut
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Boundaries are marked by plinth-like terraces and planting, instead of walls. There is a sense of physical connection via visual connection in the ‘in-between’ spaces of the houses. The organization of plots imply a series of public, shared and private landscapes in between the houses.
Plan and section of Gartenstadtweg. 30 of 46
Implicit Modes of Separation Gartenstadt Falkenberg,, Bruno Taut
Through a sectional model, I developed the thresholds between the courtyard, studios and existing back gardens.
The offices form a thicket of brick between carpark and private gardens, which are separated by walls from plot to plot.
Courtyard/ Carpark
Office
Garden
House
Sectional perspective across Molasses Row, existing. 31 of 46
Implicit Modes of Separation Gartenstadt Falkenberg,, Bruno Taut
The use of colour alludes to Taut’s Gartenstadt Falkenberg, where standardised houses were complemented by inventive facade compositions of windows and coloured stucco.
Collage view from hall to back gardens, overlaying civic, educational and domestic uses.
Section across Molasses Row, in-progress, not-to-scale. 0
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A Junction between New and Existing Found fabric analysis
Tectonic studies of the existing fabric began with drawing the live-work studios along Cotton Row in detail, as I intended to use some of these existing walls as a structural base, upon which an additional storey will be built. I drew in section across 76 Cotton Row at various scales, to understand the continuations as well as subtle shifts in materiality and structure, between house, conservatory, back garden, and office. For example, blue-stained timber windows are used for the houses, while the offices are fitted simply with metal frames, but also painted blue to match those of the houses.
Arched window and eave detail, 76 Cotton Row. Elevation and construction detail section through studio, 76 Cotton Row, not-to-scale. Live-work studio, 76 Cotton Row
Cotton Row elevation, existing, scale 1-150.
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A Junction between New and Existing Model, scale 1-50
To develop the architectural language of the forum, I did some tests with a 1-50 model. The starting point is a column, beam and corbel connection that forms the base for the additional storey. At ground level, the model shows a retained workspace in one of the existing rooms, and a walled garden with its roof removed, which serves as an entrance and intermediate space to the new ‘cell’ above. I tried to express variations in function and privacy through abstracted facades and figures.
Model of column, beam and corbel, scale 1-50, foamboard.
Model of existing building and new cells, courtyard view, scale 1-50, foamboard.
Model of existing building and new cells, garden view, scale 1-50, foamboard.
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A Junction between New and Existing Model, scale 1-50
The roof form and facade aims to maintain a dialogue with the existing buildings across the courtyard, which has gables and circular windows on the upper storey.
Cinnamon Row elevation, existing, scale 1-150.
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The new cells abstracts and sustains a dialogue with the existing workspaces.
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To Reuse and Reinvent the Existing Tectonic thesis
Between material honesty and fakery The choice of materials for the new intervention acknowledges the mnemonic purpose that brick serves for the existing buildings. The estate, developed in the 1980s, was built with timber joist floors and concrete block walls. The use of facing brickwork, in addition to blue metalwork and pre-cast concrete details (mimicking stone), is ornamental, inscribing onto the estate a material memory of wharfside industrial buildings. The new structure, which bears directly onto existing walls, has to be considerably lightweight. A hybrid of timber and steel is selected to that end. This is then externally clad with a mix of brick and brick slips. Brick, used in both ‘honest’ and ‘deceptive’ moments, serves various, sometimes contradictory purposes: • Timber columns partially clad with brick, uses the phenomenal ‘weight’ of masonry to delineate formal spaces, but only at ground level. At the top of these columns, where the timber soffit is raised on double beams, the timber-steel connection joint is left exposed. •
The junction exudes the appearance of a lightly floating facade sitting on a precast concrete corbel, offset from the existing walls. The cloister, the new rooms, and the existing walls are in dialogue with each other but perceived as entities unto their own. There is honesty in the playful details and displacements, revealing how the new does not fully integrate with the existing.
•
As well as being visually interesting, exposed connections are easy to inspect for structural integrity, which makes the building more durable.
What first appears as masonry piers when one walks under the cloister, gradually reveals itself through an exposed timber-steel junction that can be viewed from afar.
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Dimensioning the Cloister Structural Notes
Referencing Van der Laan’s ‘wall-frames’, the cloister is dimensioned as 3 brick-widths wide and 2 brick-widths deep. Slender timber posts borrow the gravitas of brick masonry to demarcate public space..
Problem: The gable roof is likely to spread at the middle valley. Solution: The roofs are tied from valley to valley with a steel frame, along the front and back walls. Steel I-beams (200 x 100) are connected using fin plates to steel posts that run down to the pier structure.
Problem: The courtyard facade could topple over the cantilever. The existing wall, made of brick, is not good with tension or load reversal, and tends to spread large loads at 45°. Solution: The timber beams are bolted through a steel post (100 x 100) that sits in the cavity of the existing wall. Vertical downforce counters uplift, taking tension out of compression.
Accoya® glulam post-to-beam connection with expressed steel column cap. There are practical as well as architectural implications of exposing the timber-to-steel connection. As wlel as being visually interesting, exposed connections are easy to inspect for structural integrity, which makes a buildiing more durable.
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Problem: Running the timber beams through the wall could cause thermal bridging, by making a connection between the inner and outer leaves. Solution: The beams bear onto a precast concrete padstone that caps the outer leaf as a corbel.
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The timber post sit in a steel shoe, 150 mm above the concrete base. Weepholes at the bottom of the shoe guides moisture out of the timber and prevents rotting at the base.
Tectonic reference, precision fabricated steel helmets fitted onto glue-laminated timber columns, Bullitt Center, Miller Hull. Source: John Stamets.
Axonometric fabrication sequence of the cloister structure. 37 of 46
Fabrication Sequence
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Excess walls and roofs are removed from existing buildings.
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Some doorways are blocked up, while some windows are converted to doorways .
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Concrete foundations are cast for the piers. Glue-laminated timber columns sit on galvanised steel T- blade post shoes that are bolted down onto concrete.
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The timber columns are clad with brick.
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Double glue-laminated timber beams sit on the exposed steel column caps.
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At the existing wall, the beams are bolted through a steel windpost, directing vertical load to the ground. On the outer face, the beams rest on a precast concrete corbel.
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A steel frame braces and resists roof spreading.
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Cross-laminated timber ceiling panels secured to wide-flange beams with steel bolts.
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Walls finished with brick slips. Floor and wall build-up, timber frame. Roof build-up, standing seam rubber warm roof.
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Sectional perspective showing thresholds in between forum, garden and house. 39 of 46
Infilling Between Old and New A palimpsestic ground
Existing patchwork of concrete and pavers at the courtyard. Fragments of the old, filled in with the new.
Timber column, sitting on a concrete plinth that is cast amidst paved ground.
Timber column, clad with brick.
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From Separation to Connection Reusing brick from dismantled walls, to form connective paths
Existing fabric is studied using construction drawings from the planning archive. Found surfaces and materiality are carefully considered, in view of reuse.
Brick garden walls that separate the plots are dismantled, leaving only a low parapet. Salvaged bricks are reused as pavers, connecting across the gardens to join existing paths.
Stone ledges that demarcate private lawns are broken up, allowing gardens to spill out onto the footpaths, softening boundaries of where one plot ends, and another begins. 41 of 46
A Porous ‘Back’ Reuse, demolition, addition
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Existing windows with an arch lintel are cut into doorways that mark entrances into cells.
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Some adjacent doorways between garden and courtyard, originally separated by walls between plots, now form larger, shared entrances.
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Ground floor plan and section A-A, scale 1-100.
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2m 42 of 46
A Porous ‘Back’ Reuse, demolition, addition
1.
Some cells on the ground level are retained, as well as introducing new ones at the upper level.
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Existing walls, now enclosing external stair gardens to cells, are rendered white on the inner leaf, celebrating the original roofline.
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A collaged view from an existing balcony at Cotton Row, looking onto the shared green. 43 of 46
A Civic ‘Front’ Reuse, demolition, addition
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A cloister of brick-clad piers demarcate the public rooms.
2.
The new cells appear as a lightly floating facade, offset from the existing walls on one end, and raised on double beams over the masonry piers on the other.
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A concealed gutter, running along the valley, projects into the forum facade as a blue steel gargoyle.
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Inside, the cells are finished warmly by exposed cross-laminated timber roof panels, notched against steel beams.
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A collaged view of the forum.
First floor plan and section B-B, scale 1-100.
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