BETWEEN THE PYRAMID AND THE LABYRINTH M.Arch II Max Ochel
Increasingly the space in which we operate is digital. The Internet, primarily a tool for communication, ironically has allowed people to work in increasing isolation through reducing communication to linear forms. In the production of knowledge, where work takes the abstract form of language, numbers and information and is validated through communication and interaction, knowledge is acquired through the junction between conceptual understanding and the data of experience. Taking the metaphor of the ‘pyramid’ and the ‘labyrinth’ to represent concept and experience respectively, the project establishes a dialogue between the two, exploring the relationships of space and form, the digital and physical, and the ideal and the real, aiming to readdress the balance between work and life. Focused on the freelance worker, typically a demographic exploited through the home as a place of free labour, the project aims to create a different model of living; one that prioritises the richness of experience of the physical interior in order to facilitate and promote the interaction and communication inherent to the production of knowledge. Drawing on St Peter’s Seminary as both a model for communal living and as an artefact that casts a light on the cycle of society’s constructs of control, the project uses its excess of signs to structure a new interior. Traditionally the home has offered people a sanctuary; a coping method for the dissatisfactions of society. Taking the idea of ‘interiority’ as a form of escapism, as the ‘personal interior’ is traded for the ‘collective interior’, the proposed complex becomes the retreat, a heterotopia, a new interior created inside of the ‘global interior’, existing simultaneously yet distinct.
chapter I
HOME
Introduction Profile of a Knowledge Worker Analysis of My Own Living Conditions
6 8 10
St Peter’s Seminary A Model for Communal Living Abandonment
26 32 34
Between the Pyramid and the Labyrinth Personal Core Site Diagrams General Arrangement
38 40 50 60
chapter II
SITE
chapter III
PROGRAMME
chapter IV
INHABITATION
The Digital Management of Space Building Diagrams Construction
94 96 150
Ideation and Simulation
166
chapter V
REPRESENTATION
selected bibliography
178
chapter I
HOME
INTRODUCTION The Home as a Mode of Expression The inclination to express one’s identity through objects and ownership is a natural human motivation, examples of which can be found in many early, independently developed civilisations.1 Our possessions become extensions of the self. We use them to signal to ourselves and to others, who we are, who we want to be and where we want to belong. This tendency has been compounded by capitalism, with the prevailing model of living, the single family home, engineered to facilitate and encourage consumption.
1. Bauer, W.S., 2007, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, W. W. Norton & Company.
Capitalisation of the Private Sphere Based on the model of the nuclear family; one productive male (worker, paid), one re-productive female (homemaker, un-paid), and one or more children (dependants), the paradigm of the family home has proved one of the most powerful forms of societal control. It encourages obedience through providing a retreat of intimacy able to compensate the worker from the stresses of the ‘factory’; poor working conditions are far easier tolerated if one has a safe haven to return to each night. It provides the motivation to work, both in the necessity to provide for a financially dependent family and by encouraging the accumulation of possessions in which to furnish and decorate the home. It structures life, providing a tool for measuring achievement, one’s home and possessions becomes symbols of one’s status and success. The home becomes a vessel for containing and curating material acquisitions, a representation of one’s memories and aspirations. This housing typology has been promoted politically throughout western governments as the most desirable as it encourages the citizen’s primary role in society, to consume. It has thus prevailed as the model of housing most effective in sustaining a productive capitalist society, culturally reinforcing the desire to own. Changing Patterns of Work and Life Soaring house prices and shifts in the patterns and nature of work mean that for many this aspiration for home ownership is no longer possible, nor is it often desirable. The rental market in the UK caters for an increasingly significant proportion of young (under 40), educated workers.2 This reflects not only the current condition of the real estate market, but also that the habits and requirements of this demographic are not conducive with the conventional housing model. With increasing short term employment contracts and the burgeoning ‘gig economy’, commitment to stable accommodation is often undesirable, as one might need to relocate to adapt to the increasingly volatile labour market. In order to achieve in an increasingly competitive society, the once integral ideals of the home, stability and security are compromised in favour of mobility and flexibility.
6
2. Office for National Statistics, 2015, Private Rental Market Statistics, 2015-2016.
3. Hayden, D., 1982, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighbourhoods, and Cities, MIT Press.
The Home as a Site of Exploitation. At the same time, the accepted model of the home has set a dangerous precedent in the provision of free labour. Through the ideology of the domestic space as a space of retreat and intimacy unburdened by working relationships, all labour undertaken at home is not considered ‘work’, therefore is unpaid. This is why under capitalism there has traditionally been a distinct separation between the home and the workplace. Only activities that would happen within the workplace were recognised as ‘work’ and thus performed in exchange for a wage, while everything that would happen in the home would be considered non-work. This means that all reproductive labour (cooking, cleaning, childcare), traditionally accepted as the woman’s role, has always been exploited by capital for free.3 In the last few decades we have witnessed a shift in the nature of production that means that the place of ‘work’ can no longer be so easily confined to a specific space. As production in the western world is less and less focused on the creation of physical goods but rather on the generation of knowledge, services and social exchange, our work follows us wherever we go. Labour is no longer confined to the factory or the office but is performed everywhere, most particularly in the home. Many people, especially freelancers tend to work from home, thus the domestic space becomes the workplace. Freelancing work is inherently precarious and often unpaid so for many the model of domestic labour as an unpaid activity has become the model for work in general. Ironically, the home, a symbol of sanctuary and security has become a site of exploitation and enslavement. Digital Modes of Expression However, if the home can be a tool of exploitation, then it can also be a point of resistance, through the construction of new interiors, freed from the traditions and constraints of the ‘domestic’ space. As the digital realm increasingly offers aspects of what we once expected of the home, then space can be liberated from prescribed function and even from direct ownership. Through the many digital opportunities for expression; the output and exhibition of work, social media profiles, ability to comment on and discuss world events, the emphasis on personal expression in material form is lessened. This represents a movement away from the consumption of objects towards the consumption of information. Without the necessity of physical ownership in order to assert our identities we are free to pursue other (potentially more meaningful) avenues of expression, in creation, interaction and experience.
7
PROFILE OF A KNOWLEDGE WORKER
number of self employed workers 4.75 4.5
millions
4.25 4 3.75 3.5 3.25 3 1993
1997
2001
2004
2008
2012
2016
4. Office for National Statistics, 2016, Labour Force Survey.
freelancers and employees place of work
91.6%
freelancers employees
37.7% 31.5%
27.8%
5.3%
different places with home as a base
2.6% separate from home
own home
2.8%
0.4%
same ground or buildings as home 5. Office for National Statistics, 2016, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, April June, 2011.
8
first time buyer deposit requirements London
14
housing costs as % of income
12 United Kingdom
10 8 6 4 2 0% 1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
6. Council of Mortgage Lenders, 2016, UK Mortgage Statistics.
how Britain spends time in the home each day media usage* sleep employment housework (excluding childcare) social life socialising with friends and family hobbies childcare reading personal care cooking and washing up study unspecified washing clothes
14h7m 8h21m 2h54m 2h22m 1h22m 50m 30m 24m 24m 21m 20m 16m 14m 8m
*Translates to 8h41m of media usage in real time, achieved through simultaneous delivery across multiple devices. Only 3h40m of this period is devoted to television. 7. Office for National Statistics, 2016, The Time Use Survey, 2014-2015.
9
2015
ANALYSIS OF MY OWN LIVING CONDITIONS
PERSONAL INTERIOR ‘home’
The ‘interior’, an environment that by nature encloses that which it can control and excludes that which it cannot. An individual’s ‘personal interior’ can be defined by their own sphere of control. For most people this is their home. The interior offers an escape form the noise of the outside world; a mechanism vital to the maintenance of the human psyche.
scale 1:100
10
51.8 m2
28.9 m2
LIVING
28.9 m2
55.8%
KITCHEN
8.6 m2
16.6%
CIRCULATION
8.6 m2
16.6%
4.2 m2
8.1% 2.9%
55.8%
8.6 m2 16.6%
8.6 m2 16.6%
4.2 m2
BATHROOM STORAGE 8.1%
1.5 m2 2.9 %
scale 1:100
13
51.8 m2
1.5 m2
SPHERES OF CONTROL
influences and restrictions in a rented property Control of our environment provides security and comfort and enables privacy and intimacy. To diminish one’s control is to diminish the power of the domestic space as a space of refuge, as a sanctuary. Taking my own situation as a reference, my sphere of control is defined by my home’s physical boundaries, the walls; and accessed through thresholds, doors, corridors and stairs. There are however aspects within this interior which remain outside of my control. As it is a rented property I have no power to make any material changes to the building and should the landlord desire I can be evicted with just one month’s notice. Basic furnishings are included with the rent which although I am able to reposition, I cannot remove. The only elements of which I have full control over are the objects which I own, the people I choose to grant entry, and how I choose to inhabit the space.
personal control collective control political control financial control (global interior) owned object operable object scale 1:100
14
THE FAMILIAR AND THE GENERIC signs of precarity
The cheap, generic and abundantly available furnishings from Ikea offers an unsettling paradigm that undermines the perceived permanence of the domestic interior, highlighting the uncertainty of our existences through our dependence on mass produced commodities. Any move to a new dwelling warrants the inaugural trip to Ikea to fill out any deficit of space with additional storage solutions or potted plants. These products have no inherent value, are regularly disposed of before the end of their functional life, yet often make up a considerable proportion of domestic furnishing.
scale 1:100
16
flat as let
DOMESTICATED PRODUCTION
areas of focused knowledge working in the home Due to the nature of both mine and my partner’s work, our home has been used extensively as a space of production. The furniture has been arranged so as to accommodate multiple uses per room with different areas complementing different modes of working, where the boundaries between working space and living space are increasingly blurred.
scale 1:100
18
SPATIAL CONDITIONS
supporting different modes of working The different processes involved in the assimilation and production of information (internalisation, externalisation and socialisation) require very different conditions in order to support effective production.8 By considering rooms not through prescribed function but through the spatial quality of the environment, a different kind of flexibility is produced. One in which space can be interpreted and adapted to people’s changing needs over time.
8. Nonaka, I., Toyama, R. and Hirata, T., 2008, Managing Flow, A Process Theory of the Knowledge-Based Firm. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan
20
light/dark
open/enclosed
social/private
quiet/loud
dry/wet
hard/soft
hot/cold
together/apart
rural/urban
SEPARATION the corridor
With home ownership widely accepted as an investment, the house can be considered as an asset. We have accepted this reality of market defined housing as the norm, yet our current economic model makes mass ownership impossible in the long run. In a society where it is increasingly difficult to own, we need to look for alternative ways to assert our control over our environments outside of the conventional mechanisms of ownership. Cognitive control over a place does not just rely on ownership in a limited legal sense, but rather the agency of the inhabitant. Agency can be defined as the capacity of an actor (a person or other living entity) to act in any given environment. In my personal interior the aspect that affords me the most agency over my environment is the corridor. It offers the possibility of seclusion, facilitating choice and amplifying the degrees of difference between spaces. The corridor acts an interface between spaces, enabling a transition between different conditions, serving to both separate and connect. Free from prescribed activities, the corridor remains undefined, its only function to provide passage to different rooms. The blanking of context in transition allows for the separation of work and life, production and reproduction. The act of travelling through the intermediate space allows for moments of respite between activities, the brain to be liberated from focused thought through physical activity; the corridor acts as a process of disengaging with one space before entering another. This affords a degree of separation between spaces, allowing for the perception of change between rooms.
22
corridor
proximities
pathways
key transitions
chapter II
SITE
ST PETER’S SEMINARY Constructs of Control The modern condition can be thought of as being ‘interior’. Peter Sloterdijk uses the image of the Crystal Palace, to illustrate this condition; an all encompassing environment that appropriates and reproduces the outside world. Aspects that can be controlled are brought inside while those that cannot are excluded. He argues that through the processes of globalisation; centuries of technological advancement and discovery, the entirety of the developed world has been brought under one metaphorical roof, the ‘World Interior’.9 If the ‘World Interior’ can be seen as an effort to totally annihilate risk, then the ‘interior’ condition can be characterised by an overarching desire for control. St Peter’s Seminary represents an older ‘world interior’, the Catholic Church; an institution which has had one of the furthest reaching means of control in history. Through its scripture it provides a simplified narrative of morality, a means of regulating and defining people’s choices, exploiting the human desire to find meaning in life. The Church has been instrumental to society’s development, motivating colonisation and the expansion of Western Europe’s political and cultural influence worldwide. The teachings and interpretations have been used to manipulate man for better and for worse. Karl Marx posits religion as a tool of social control used to maintain an unequal status quo. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people... The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness”.10 The demise of St Peter’s Seminary is representative of the relative decline in power of the Church, a false sense perhaps of our reclamation of control, both physically and metaphysically. The new ‘world interior’; the internet, data, media, the market, is creating a new form of society, equally controlled and engrossed as those historically by the Church. Through Neoliberal economies we live in a world that is run by corporations and kept stable by politicians. Our complete saturation in information, with no ability to determine authenticity, has created a void of meaning, plunging the world into a state of loneliness. In his 2016 documentary HyperNormalisation, Adam Curtis argues that since the 1970s, governments, financiers, and technological utopians have given up on all of the complexities of the ‘real world’ and have instead constructed a simplified narrative, a ‘fake world’, in which all our desires and anxieties are constantly reflected back at us, set to confuse and therefore control the masses and maintain the current power structure.11 Democracy is, in fact, plutocracy, a farce, an anti-democratic system that serves corporate power structures at the expense of the other ninety-nine percent, yet the system is so totalising we can’t see anything beyond it.12
26
9. Sloterdijk, P., 2005, In the World Interior of Capital, For a Philosophical Theory of Globalisation, Cambridge MA: Polity Press.
10. Marx, K., 1843, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.
11. Curtis, A., 2016, [documentary] HyperNormalisation, London: BBC. 12. Mac Siacais, C., 2016, To Trump, Or Not To Trump?
13. Foucault, M., 1986, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.
14. Harrison, A., 2016, Blood, Ket, and Tears: What ‘The Sesh’ Can Tell Us About 2016. Thump, Vice Magazine.
15. Benjamin, W., 1935, Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century.
Escapism We romanticise the ruin and therefore the decline of the past, whilst also using these spaces as respite from our own existence. This is why St Peter’s Seminary found a second life in its abandoned state, where it received more interest and recognition than it ever had as a functioning building. In its abandoned state it offered an ‘exterior’ condition, a heterotopia,13 liberation from the rules and constraints of society. It is perhaps emblematic of how deeply unhappy we are as a society that escapism in its various forms constitutes such a significant proportion of our culture. Films, computer games, alcohol and drugs all offer forms of escape. This is fittingly illustrated by the one of 2016’s most prevalent online trends, the ‘sesh’ (session). The ‘sesh’ is an internet joke that documents the mindless excess of post-party drug and alcohol binges. “As a trend it signals a type of partying that is entirely removed from music, communality, and in some respects even fun.”14 It is essentially ‘club culture’ minus any of the culture, simply a celebration of self-annihilation, escapism at its purest. Traditionally the home has been able to compensate for the dissatisfactions of society; a coping method for the pressures of the world, the interior as an escape, a sanctuary, the construction of an ideal personal world. “The private citizen who in the counting-house took reality into account, required of the interior that it should maintain him in his illusions. This necessity was all the more pressing since he had no intention of adding social preoccupations to his business ones. In the creation of his private environment he suppressed them both. From this sprang the phantasmagorias of the interior. This represented the universe for the private citizen. In it he assembled the distant in space and in time. His drawing-room was a box in the world-theatre”.15 Collective Interior Now, with the disproportionate inflation of property prices to wages, home ownership is increasingly unattainable for a generation. As an alternative, modes of communal living that offer benefits of affordability and connection, whilst maintaining the ‘sanctuary’ of the home, are increasingly relevant. Aspects of personal expression habitually accounted for through objects can be catered for digitally, freeing up space. There is however no substitute for the expression of interaction, experience. There is no authenticity in the digital realm; the only thing that can be true is interaction, relative to the experience. Experience is always ‘real’, for it is subjective; it is experienced therefore ‘real’ to the subject. In many ways, history has shown that people crave a simplified narrative, through religion, entertainment, politics. This represents the desire to escape
27
from the noise of reality. The lack of a singular, uniting world vision provides the richness of the world yet also fragments society causing loneliness. The irony being that we are now more connected than ever before, yet the complete saturation of information, complexity and choice, alienates us from each other. The interior as heterotopia offers an escape from this noise. In the creation of larger and larger interiors, the need for the outside is compensated for through the emulation of exterior conditions, creating a simulated experience of the world. If the inherent nature of interior space is therefore ‘fake’, then what must be relied upon is the reality of experience, interaction. Drawing on St Peter’s Seminary as both a model for communal living and as an artefact that casts a light on the cycle of society’s constructs of control, the project uses its excess of signs to structure a new interior: an environment that values experience, interaction and communication, as well as supporting the prevailing digital means of production. Taking the idea of ‘interiority’ as a form of escapism, as the ‘personal interior’ is traded for the ‘collective interior’, the proposed complex becomes the retreat, a heterotopia, a new interior created inside of the ‘global interior’, existing simultaneously yet distinct.
28
1966
gold: destroyed building fabric 0
10m
2016
A MODEL FOR COMMUNAL LIVING a paradigm of privacy
The model of monastic life offers a programmatic transposition concerning the subversion of the ideas of control and non control in the domestic space. In a monastic situation, the monk gives up control of a substantial part of their life. They are fed on a communal basis, take showers at certain points and conform to a strict routine. It is a very segmented life in which many things that one may take for granted that they have control over they no longer have, but in doing so they are liberating space and time for other things, contemplation, prayer, work. The basic unit of reclusive life, the monk’s cell, becomes the foundation of private property. It is the “quintessential representation of interiority: it is here that the single body finds its proper space, the space in which it can take care of itself”.16 The cell is the embodiment of the monastic condition itself: “it is solitary yet communal, meditative yet laborious and silent yet socialised, as all of the monks live in the same condition”.17 In St Peter’s Seminary the main block’s design originates from the single cell, a 2.5m wide room that defines the structure of the entire building. The structure establishes the formality of the seminary community and the role of the individual student priest within it. The aim was to synthesise “two potentially conflicting principles: the autonomy of the priest (symbolised by the ‘cell’) and the social and religious structure (symbolised by the chapel and refectory)”.18
16 Aurelli, P.V., 2013, Less is Enough: On Architecture and Asceticism, Moscow: Strelka press. 17. Dogma, 2015, Living and Working: How To Live Together, MIT Architecture. 18. Watters, D.M., 2016, St Peter’s, Cardross: Birth, Death and Renewal, Edinburgh: Historic Environment.
personal control collective control institutional control political control scale 1:1000
32
ABANDONMENT
a break in the ‘global interior’ In an increasingly ‘interiorised’ society, ambitions to alleviate and control any forms of risk creates sterilised, synthetic environments. There exists a desire for the escape of this condition. This is why St Peter’s Seminary found a second life in its abandoned state, where it received more interest and recognition than it ever had as a functioning building. In its abandoned state it offered an ‘exterior’ condition, a heterotopia, liberation from the rules and constraints of society. In this state it had authenticity, the temporality and precarity of its existence increased its value. Any attempts to actively preserve this condition are oxymoronic in their nature. Through the acknowledgement of the building and the acceptance of responsibility it is brought back inside the sphere of control, inside the ‘global interior’.
scale 1:1000
34
chapter III
PROGRAMME
BETWEEN THE PYRAMID AND THE LABYRINTH The Dematerialisation of Architecture Through the rapid acceleration of our means of representation and communication, theory; writing and drawing, has been able to replace architecture as the primary medium of architectural thought. This is what Bernard Tschumi refers to as the ‘dematerialisation of architecture’.19 He argues that the true medium of architecture is not form but space, and identifies two opposing definitions of space in which he draws upon George Bataille’s metaphors of the ‘pyramid’ and the ‘labyrinth’ to illustrate. The Pyramid represents ideal space; the disembodied idea of space, where the subject is detached from the object. The Labyrinth represents real space; the space of sensation, where the subject and his/her materiality reacts with the materiality of the space, the Labyrinth is our limited experience of space.20 The fundamental paradox of architecture lies in the impossibility of questioning the nature of space (the Pyramid), whilst at the same time making or experiencing real space (the Labyrinth). This has to do with our perception of space, especially interior space, and how it relates to the object as a whole. It is the difference between the object; rife with meaning, architectural language, signs, representations, and our perception of the object; incomplete, biased, narrow. For Tschumi, the friction between pure space and pure experience does not present a limitation, or failure, of architecture, but rather an absolute condition of architecture, as knowledge is acquired through the junction and disjunction between conceptual understanding and the data of experience.21 The Dematerialisation of Production In the post-industrial society, where the production of information, services and knowledge has replaced the manufacture of goods as the primary economic engine, the worker is now synonymous with the product of their own labour and is thus both the subject and the object of capital’s generation of value. Productive labour takes the form of language and communication, relying on the workers themselves and their possible cooperation. What makes the individual productive is the accumulation of personal experience and perception, so in this sense, everything that contributes to the process of maintaining life and making it productive can be considered ‘work’. Thus, the house has become the infrastructure devoted to the reproduction of life and the city has become the factory.22 With digital forms of communication as the principle facilitator of this paradigmatic shift, we experience a dramatic acceleration of the processes of abstraction, demanding the constant reduction of our world to linguistic and numeric terms. The Internet, primarily a tool for communication,
38
19. Tschumi, B., 1975, The Architectural Paradox, in: Architecture and Disjunction, 1994, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
20. Hollier, D., 1989, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille, translated: Wing, B., Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
21. Dorgan, A.R., 1997, The Clearing and the Labyrinth, ACSA European Conference, Berlin.
22. Branzi, A., 2006, No-Stop City: Archizoom Associati, Orléans: Hyx.
23. Leach, N., 1999, The Anaesthetics of Architecture, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
ironically has allowed people to work in increasing isolation and has reduced our communication to linear forms. The virtual medium cannot yet offer all the advantages of the immediacy of the physical environment; “it cannot account for the richness of lived experience”.23 Just as architecture depends on the dialogue between the conceived and perceived, knowledge work too needs both. The Labyrinthine Interior Using the literal translation of this metaphor, the proposed interior resembles a labyrinth. Acting as a social condenser, the labyrinthine space enables exploration, immersion, spaces of sensory enjoyment and social engagement. By putting people into physical proximity with one another, they can benefit from all the richness of physical interaction. In this sense the building can be seen as the physical manifestation of our digital selves. As with St Peter’s Seminary, the construction of the collective interior begins with the individual’s ‘cell’.
39
A
A
0.
PERSONAL CORE
the sacrifice of space to regain control of time Derived from the monastic cell, the ‘personal core’ provides space for the most intimate of activities. It is the ‘home’ reduced to its key functions in terms of privacy, based on the idea that living together is only possible if there is always the opportunity to be alone.24 It is inward facing, providing an inner sanctum for each resident within the larger collective interior. While it is a dramatically reduced dwelling in terms of size, the features that it does provide are generously dimensioned. Requiring no commitment in terms scale 1:50 / 1:100
A.
24. Dogma, 2015, Living and Working: How To Live Together, MIT Architecture.
40
B
B
1.
of investment or maintenance, it is intended to be occupied on a temporary basis, likely ranging from a few weeks to a couple of years. It does not require any furnishings and all domestic labours (cooking, cleaning, laundry) are professionalised and provided as a service included within the rent. This removal of domestic labour reduces the capacity of the home as a possible site of exploitation and through this provides a form of gender equality, liberating residents from the expectations of the domestic space.
B.
41
3. 4.
2.
6. 5.
1.
CONSTRUCTION The personal cores are prefabricated in their entirety so that their construction can be more easily controlled, reducing costs, improving quality and simplifying the on site construction process. Built as a load bearing concrete cylinder, the each core is able to support subsequent cores, as well as providing structural support to adjoining towers and providing the principle support for the roof enclosure. scale 1:50
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 43
precast, steel reinforced concrete section lip for supporting adjacent structures interlocking ridge vertical service shaft external access panel for services maintenance insulation
STANDARD UNIT
DOUBLE UNIT
ACCESSIBILITY UNIT
scale 1:100
44
0.
1.
0.
1.
VARIATIONS
0.
Whilst the specification of each unit type stays largely the same, the variations in arrangement aims to accommodate a wider spectrum of needs. The double unit offers a second bedroom more suited to small families whilst the accessibility units, located only on the datum floor provides an accommodation option for those with reduced mobility. 45
20m
1,716 apartments: 68,640m2 communal facilities: 7,880m2 373 units per ha red: 40m2 apartment yellow: communal facilities blue: circulation scale 1:2000
0
2 floors
10m
16.6m
4 floors
1 floor 3 floors
0
0
0
14.3m
20m
100 units
average density for 100 units on a land area of 1 hectare with different numbers of floors
CAPACITY AND DENSITY In the proposed model of living space is offset against time, hence the necessity for high density. Based on a standard 8 x 5m 40m2 apartment, the site has been filled using minimum recommended space standards in order to gauge the maximum capacity of the site.
A density exercise using the proposed personal core living units has also been conducted in order to test the average density achievable over different number of floors. It shows the amount of floor space taken up by each arrangement and the average distances required between cores. 47
soft divisions of space
secured space
personal cores
communal facilities
SELF ORGANISATION While the complex aims to create variating spatial conditions within an open interior, each personal core is the same. With the reduced burden of excessive possessions residents are free to move between cores as they please. Different locations of cores allows for different relationships between them, with some cores located near main circulation routes, others in more intimate
clusters, and some as lone towers. The ability to move dwelling at any time creates the possibility for continual reorganisation, based on forming relationships, friendship groups, or desires to experience different aspects of the complex. As all of the accommodation is equal the definition of status from ownership/ wealth is eliminated. Instead people are defined through what 48
they do (work), and through who they are (interaction). This makes the development egalitarian; not all parts of the complex are the same, but everyone has an equal opportunity to inhabit any part. This represents a prevailing desire of the modern condition, absolute mobility.
49
cloisters St Peter’s Seminary is collection of signs referenced from other buildings and from monastic convention. The term ‘cloister’ originates from the Latin word ‘claustrum’, translating literally to ‘enclosure’. Within a monastery, the cloister serves as the barrier that separates and encloses internal life from the distractions of society. The Seminary has been taken as a model for communal living, with the new complex formed around the placement of two cloisters, enclosing and separating the localised internal conditions, as well as establishing an exterior within the interior and preserving St Peter’s ruin as a public space.
50
division and union The Seminary was constructed using two competing grids, with most of the site being dedicated to the training of priests and a small wing, separate from the other buildings, for the training of the sisters, based on a skewed grid. The purposeful division between genders is signified through the skewed geometry. From this I have extracted the ‘male’ and ‘female’ axes for the construction of the new complex. While the differing grids have been used to distinguish between building elements, they are nonhierarchical and have been brought to occupy the same space, representing a union of people and ideas, communication and knowledge, work and life.
51
labyrinth The inherent nature of interior space is labyrinthine. It cannot be perceived as a whole; our view of it is always subjective, narrow and biased. The labyrinth is immersive, and embodies experience. Using the literal translation of this metaphor, the building resembles a labyrinth, aiming to act as a social condenser through creating a space of exploration. Spaces merge together with soft thresholds, engaging people in activities as they pass through them. The spaces range from completely open to completely enclosed, with the use of dead ends to provide a level of seclusion even within a densely occupied space.
52
frame History has shown that people crave a simplified narrative, through religion, entertainment, politics. This represents the desire to escape from the noise of reality. Building on the idea of the interior as a form of escapism, the complex assumes a defensive structure, establishing a hard boundary between inside and out, control and entropy. The internal environment is one that values experience, interaction and communication, as well as supporting the prevailing digital means of production. The established boundary is both the embodiment of the prevalent conditions, mobility, up-rootedness, precarity, as well as the frame holding it.
53
1.
PROGRAMME This project proposes an institution aimed at supporting the changing living and working habits which can be characterised by the freelance worker, brought about by the shifting means of production. Recognising the utmost need for mobility stemming from the increasing precarity of work, the complex provides living, working and social spaces within a self-contained community focused on knowledge production. With an increase in digital work and of those working from home, negative patterns of working, job insecurity, risk of isolation and exploitation have also increased. This project seeks to combine the benefits of communal living and shared works spaces, to provide a healthier balance of life and work. 0
100m
datum 1. level 0: negotiating the varied topography of the site, a continous plane establishes the new ‘ground’. density The proposed complex accommodates approximately 1,000 people over a land area of 4.6 hectares, giving an average density 56% higher than Islington, the densest borough in the UK. Proposed: 217 people per ha Islington: 139 people per ha 56
1. 2.
2. 1.
accommodation 1. personal core, male axis: personal living accommodation providing a private space with double bed, bathroom and kitchenette, plus provides the primary structure for the enclosure. 2. personal core, female axis: identical to male however does not provide support to the roof, instead heights vary creating space for internal roof gardens and planting.
labyrinth 1. male tower: 10 x 10m semi-open communal space, providing focal point between personal cores and containing communal kitchen and social spaces. 2. female towers: 5 x 5m and 7.5 x 7.5m rooms, ranging from completely open to completely enclosed, providing various different spatial conditions for both work and recreation.
57
3. 7.
4.
3. 8.
6.
3.
3. 9.
5. 1.
4. 2. 1.
2.
circulation 1. entrance ramp: providing access to cloister and St Peter’s Seminary ruin. 2. stair core: containing lift and providing access to the exterior plus fire escape. 3. atrium circulation: ramped walkways on primary floors providing universal access. 4. labyrinth circulation: walkways linking towers and negotiating floor level changes.
0
100m
3.
3.
large programme 1. administration offices 2. storage for personal possessions 3. corridor: breakout space 4. gymnasium and swimming pool 5. school, nursery 6. auditorium 7. crypt: event space 8. courtyard 9. library 10.car pool 58
10.
1.
1.
cloister 1. cloister: walkways provided at two levels connecting different sides of the complex, whilst serving to frame the internalised exterior landscape and provide separation between public and collective domains
secured space 1. 10 x 8m rooms with external balconies providing secure spaces distinct from the interior ‘labyrinth’, including: conventional office/studio spaces, meeting rooms, computer suites, workshops, serviced food points/ restaurants, bars, bakeries, grocers, doctors surgery, dentist, laundry services.
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0
50m
scale 1:1000
scale 1:1000
scale 1:1000
scale 1:2000
ST PETER’S SEMINARY RUINS an enclosed exterior
The remains of the Seminary and surrounding landscape enclosed within the complex will become a relative exterior. Not exterior in the sense of diminished societal convention, but exterior in the sense of outside, uncurated, wild. Through the proximity of the proposed development, the more destructive forms of use that characterised the site during the 1990s will be discouraged. The clearing of the site in 2015, stripping away all of the debris and hazardous material, left just the concrete frames of the former buildings. Structurally sound, and without risk of falling debris, the structures can be left to be reclaimed by the woods. Access to the upper levels will not be restored, but otherwise people will be free to roam the site unrestricted. Some level of maintenance will be essential in order to ensure the continued stability of the structures, but a light touch will be taken. Only elements that threaten the structural integrity of the structures will be intervened with, allowing a new phase in the site’s life, the structures as landscape. Full public access will be facilitated by routes through the enclosing boundary, thus completing the site’s three hundred year cycle of ownership from being privatised, to institutional, to abandoned, to public once again.
0
10m
70
THE PYRAMID the ruin
Liberated from all utilitarian notions of function, the ruin of St Peter’s Seminary represents the physical embodiment of ideal space, the Pyramid. The building, no longer associated with any specific use, is just architecture existing in autonomy, with no exterior justification of industry or economy.
THE LABYRINTH the interior
The Labyrinth is inherently interior. Typified by the oscillating spatial experience of disorientation and reorientation, one never knows whether one is inside or not, since one cannot grasp it with one look. It enables knowledge to be constructed only through the lived experience of it. As an architectural strategy, the introduction of a labyrinth offers the potential to shift control of a space based on who knows its plan.
THE CLEARING the void
A clearing is characterised by a central space of visibility and vulnerability surrounded by a dense space of refuge. The spatial dialogue between the surveyor and the surveyed defines the clearing as an inverted panopticon, where those in the centre are the focus of the ubiquitous surrounding gaze. The Clearing is the spatial negative of the Pyramid. Conceptual void as opposed to conceptual solid. When considered in relation to the logic of visualization, it becomes the experiential negative of the Labyrinth.
scale 1:2000
72
CRYPT
basement
Occupying the large void between the datum floor and the ground, the ‘Crypt’ offers a network of spaces, free from defined programme, suitable for events, performances, exhibitions, installations and parties. 0
10m
74
SERVICE FLOOR level -0.5
Located just beneath the datum floor, the service sub floor allows for the horizontal travel of all services throughout the complex. Services are then brought up vertically to serve each tower and connected to the main service route located underneath the outer circulation atrium. 75
DATUM level 0
The artificial ground of the complex, the ‘datum’ floor provides a continuous field connecting the various building elements. Floor level changes are accomodated by both steps and ramps enabling full accessibility for building inhabitants and building servicing. 0
10m
76
0
4m
77
PRIMARY FLOOR level 1
0
10m
78
SECONDARY FLOOR level 1.5
79
PRIMARY FLOOR level 2
The primary floors, set at 5m intervals, house the principle horizontal circulation within the Labyrinth, connecting personal cores, towers and communal spaces, as well as establishing the range of spaces inbetween. Due to the circulation running through these floors, spaces are typically open, promoting informal working arrangements and socialisation. 0
10m
80
0
4m
SECONDARY FLOOR level 2.5
2.5m above the preceding floor and connected at various points, the secondary floors contain a series of enclosed and semi enclosed spaces suited for more intimate activities. Through the creation of dead ends, a certain level of seclusion can be achieved even within the densely occupied interior. 0
10m
82
0
4m
PRIMARY FLOOR level 3
0
10m
84
SECONDARY FLOOR level 3.5
85
PRIMARY FLOOR level 4
0
10m
86
SECONDARY FLOOR level 4.5
87
ROOF level 5
Enclosing the whole complex into a single, continuous interior, the roof offers an artificial sky. A barrier between the elements, maintaining the desired internal conditions. 0
10m
88
90
COSTING It is acknowledged that the proposed complex is a significant development and would require a large amount of investment to achieve. With the principle idea being the offsetting of space against time, the density of the project provides its feasibility. With the average rent of a 1 bedroom flat in the UK currently ÂŁ1,116 pcm it is imaginable that the proposed complex offers the potential for profit for a large developer.25 While it is expected that the rental price of accommodation within the complex would be comparable to the market defined mean, residents would get a vastly different experience for their money.
25. Zoopla, 2017, Current asking rents in UK, http:// www.zoopla.co.uk/market/ uk.
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chapter IV
INHABITATION
THE DIGITAL MANAGEMENT OF SPACE Interfacing Real and Ideal Space To make communal living possible, a system of social management is necessary. St Peter’s Seminary had the strict doctrine of the Catholic Church, which provided a hierarchy of order and prescribed routine and conduct. In a collective living situation where each individual’s motivations are their own, a more flexible mode of organisation is required, one which places power of control firmly with the individual, yet recognises the importance of the collective. In the Labyrinth, knowledge of the space defines one’s control over it. A digital interface available on each inhabitant’s phone or laptop will enable them to effectively manage their environment and potential for social interaction. It will provide access to an interactive representation of the interior, updated in real time, showing the use and availability of spaces, plus the location and movement of other inhabitants (In respect of privacy, options for anonymity will be incorporated). Inhabitants will be able to book certain spaces within the collective interior for their own personal use, providing the benefits of intimacy and privacy that the private home affords, without the necessity for direct ownership. Within these spaces, inhabitants will have full control over environmental factors such as lighting, heating, ventilation and media. This digital, social engineering is nothing new, but rather a condition that is already widespread in our society. Look towards Tinder, Hinge, Find My Friends, plus many more. Through the compression of all these aspects into one confined physical space, it renders the condition explicit. The interface serves as a link between the conceived and experienced space, the digital and the physical, the ideal and the real, the Pyramid and the Labyrinth.
scale 1:500
94
SERVICES
ENCLOSURE
CIRCULATION
LARGE PROGRAMME
FEMALE AXIS
MALE AXIS
CRYPT 97
CRYPT The term ‘crypt’ originates from the Ancient Greek word ‘krypto’ indicative of the verb to ‘conceal’, or to ‘hide’. It also developed as an alternative form of the Latin for ‘vault’ and came to refer to the ritual rooms found underneath church buildings as well as for a place for storing important and/or sacred items. Free from any definitive programme, the Crypt is the truest form of the interior as labyrinth. It provides a subterranean space for events and recreation. 99
HETEROTOPIA Heterotopias can be defined as sites which are embedded in aspects of our lives which somehow mirror or distort our perception of other spaces. According to Michel Foucault, their role is “to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory”.26 As Peter Sloterdijk argues, if the ‘global interior’ is already in place, then there is no longer any real ‘exterior’, as there is nothing left that is completely unknown. 27 Therefore, any sense of exteriority is only simulated, but perhaps enough to satisfy human desires for escape. In this sense it is paradoxical to try and consciously create an ‘exterior’, therefore to escape the global interior requires the construction of another interior, an interior inside of the global interior. Through maintaining distinct separation from the external world the Crypt offers this type of escape. Without the penetration of natural light there is no awareness of day or night, reducing the perception of time. The intermediate service floor provides an acoustic buffer, reducing noise interference from both inside and out. Conceived as a hedonistic retreat, the Crypt offers residents of the collective interior a perpetual heterotopia; a space of liberation and sensory stimulation. 100
26. Foucault, M., 1986, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. 27. Sloterdijk, P., 2005, In the World Interior of Capital, For a Philosophical Theory of Globalisation, Cambridge MA: Polity Press.
101
MALE AXIS The Male axis (based on a 10 x 10m grid) derives the outer frame of the complex and contains the primary structural elements that support the glazed roof. 103
STRUCTURE The towers are constructed from reinforced concrete waffle slabs, cast in situ. Designed as load bearing structures the personal cores replace columns where included. The possible arrangements of towers and personal cores is shown. 104
scale 1:200
105
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3.
2. 1.
MALE TOWER Containing communal kitchen facilities in a double height space, the male towers provide a gathering point between accommodation units and other interior spaces, suited for informal working activities and socialisation. scale 1:100
107
1. 2. 3. 4.
reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ electrical service tray communal kitchen, with vertical service risers radiant heating wall, warm water system
4.
2. 1. 3.
SECURED STUDIO Many different facilities can be accommodated in the outer frame of the complex. Secured working spaces are provided for those that need a stable working environment that is contained and can be controlled. Office/studio space is provided for small businesses, which in turns provides a framework for production that can support and be supported by freelance workers. As well as communal facilities such as computer suites, workshops, meeting rooms, serviced food points/restaurants, bars, bakeries, grocers, doctors surgery, dentist, laundry services. scale 1:100
109
1. 2. 3. 4.
reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ electrical service tray cold bridging insulation switchable privacy smart glass
4.
2. 1. 3.
FOOD POINT Derived from monastic precedent, the idea of relinquishing control of some things in order to regain absolute control of others is drawn upon. In the proposed collective interior residents sacrifice personal space and possessions in order to regain control of their time. Through the provision of meals, included as a service within the rent, the unpaid domestic labour of cooking is eradicated, liberating more time for productive labour or active recreation. scale 1:100
111
1. 2. 3. 4.
reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ electrical service tray cold bridging insulation kitchen, with vertical service risers
FEMALE AXIS Each unit is arranged for vertical circulation, an autonomous structure, arranged in clusters, not organised as one huge building and opposed to the philosophy of the BĂźrolandschaft movement; the complex functions as a city, a collection of independent but interconnected spaces. 113
STRUCTURE Two principle sizes for the towers (5 x 5m and 7.5 x 7.5m) provide variating interior spaces ranging from completely open to completely enclosed. scale 1:200
115
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1.
FEMALE TOWER Inhabitants will be able to book certain spaces within the collective interior for their own personal use, providing the benefits of intimacy and privacy that the private home affords without the necessity for direct ownership. Within these spaces, inhabitants will have full control over environmental factors such as lighting, heating, ventilation and media. scale 1:100
117
1. 2. 3. 4.
reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ electrical service tray underfloor heating warm water system vertical service risers
4.
1.
3. 1. 2.
BATH HOUSE As part of the agenda to stimulate social interaction, communal bath houses have been included. These spaces work in contrast to the confined bathrooms of the personal cores based on the idea that you can have more if you are willing to share. The bath houses are located to benefit from views across the site, providing spaces of relaxation and pleasure. scale 1:100
119
1. 2. 3. 4.
reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ reinforced concrete support beam bath, 400mm depth shower
LARGE PROGRAMME Large programme that cannot be accommodated within the Labyrinth matrix have been placed on key site lines relating to the ruin of St Peter’s. These spaces offer relief from the density of the interior and provide anchoring reference points within the complex. 121
AUDITORIUM Built as a bridge like structure, the central, large reinforced concrete arches allow for the clear span of the auditorium space without adding excessive floor depth. The ends of the arches are buttressed by adjacent structure in order to provide additional lateral support. 0
4m
122
1. auditorium, 185 person capacity (including 8 wheelchair spaces) 2. datum floor 3. event space (crypt) 4. open air internal atrium 5. circulation
5.
4.
2. 1.
3.
CIRCULATION Balustrades are used as a navigational system to help signify where the circulation routes are. They are identified with a highlight colour and are pronounced, set out from the columns so as to be visible from multiple angles. 125
0
5m
EXITS The stair cores mediate the interior’s relationship with the outside. The passage through a condensed space before leaving the interior accentuates the contrast in conditions. scale 1:2000
128
ESCAPE Accommodation has been layed out to ensure minimum safe escape distances are achieved in compliance with Building Regulations Part B and M. scale 1:2000
129
black: stair core blue: 30m escape distance (residential) light blue: 45m escape distance (non residential)
number of people*: 485 time taken to escape: 2:26
0
0.309
0.431
0.719
experienced density (people per m2) 130
1.075
2.174
*the simulation was conducted assuming an occupancy of 300 persons dispersed around the interior plus 185 persons representing the auditorium at full capacity
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4
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3
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2
ANALYSIS
1.5
Using crowd simulation software, Oasys MassMotion, the circulation routes have been tested, analysed and developed, specifically in relation to the safe evacuation of the building. After initial testing, pinch points in key circulation and escape routes have been identified and the design reiterated with passages widened where needed. The proximity of stair cores, and availability of adequate circulation insured the evacuation of the building within the safe time limit as stipulated in Building Regulation Part B. scale 1:2500
1
131
0.
ENCLOSURE The ‘big roof’: a single continuous enclosure, symbolic of the ‘world interior’. It is a network, supported by of all the constitutive parts, not independent but collective. 133
4.
1.
2. 3.
1. 2. 3. 4.
composite beam, 380mm steel I beam with reinforced concrete, cast in situ steel reinforcement roof light, 18mm structural glazing steel mullion at 2000mm centres
VENTILATION Using a passive ventilation strategy the large atrium spaces utilise natural air buoyancy and the stack effect to maintain the circulation of air. Air flows in from the facades via floor level vents, is warmed by heat gains from office equipment, body heat and solar gains, then passes into the atrium via ceiling level vents. After being further heated in the atrium, largely due to solar gains, air then leaves the building via high level vents. Vents increase in size towards the top of building, with the largest vents situated at the top of male towers, utilising their height above the enclosure to expel waste air. The natural ventilation strategy is facilitated through the division of the complex into blocks, increasing the enclosure’s surface area and maintaining the interior spaces’ access to the outside. scale 1:500
137
SERVICES Treating each tower as an autonomous ‘building’ within the ‘city’, services are brought up independently allowing for the greatest flexibility of space. All horizontal travel of services is accommodated within the dedicated service sub floor located directly below the datum level. 139
MALE TOWER
Acknowledging the difficulty of heating a large open space, rather than trying to heat the air, the thermal mass of the concrete cores will be utilised to help distribute heat through the use of a radiant heating system. Hot water tubing built into the outer layer of the personal core wall during factory construction will provide the primary heating for the open space within the Labyrinth. As each panel is individually operable, this allows the heating of spaces to be tailored to occupant’s needs. The quick response time of this heating method working with the digitally managed smart system to deliver heating on demand. 140
cyan: wet services magenta: dry services
SECURED SPACES
With the location of the data rooms below the main circulation atrium, the proximity allows waste heat to be piped vertically to provide space heating to the secured rooms in the perimeter frame. Electrical services are also brought up vertically through the service risers, with cable trays embedded in the floor slabs at the edge of each room allowing horizontal distribution. Additional wet and dry service risers serve the kitchens for the food points, which are vertically stacked.
scale 1:200
141
FEMALE TOWER
Complete control of the room’s environment is afforded to the inhabitants through under floor radiant heating and digital smart system. Well insulated walls and double glazed windows allow for different internal conditions to be maintained. 142
cyan: wet services magenta: dry services
BATH HOUSE
A grey water recycling system utilises the waste water run off from the showers and baths to flush toilets in the lower sections of the building. Storage tanks underneath the raised floor of the bath house facilitate this. scale 1:200
143
cyan: wet services magenta: dry services scale 1:2500
SERVICES SITE The primary building services run the perimeter of the complex underneath the main circulation atrium. Extracted heat from the data rooms is used to heat the open interior spaces. Other heating and energy requirements are generated on site through a combined heat and power system (CHP), utilising waste biomass from local sawmills. Waste water and sewage is channelled down the hill to the treatment plant located at the edge of Cardross. 0
60km
145
circle: site cyan: major sawmill magenta: panel mill orange: paper mill green: woodland cover
0
15.5
31
46.5 daylight factor (%)
scale 1:500
62
77.5
93
5.5
5
4.5
4
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3
2.5
2
LIGHTING
daylight factor assessment Using environmental analysis software, DIVA for Rhino, the daylight factor has been calculated across all floors in order to establish the level of artificial lighting that will be needed to supplement the natural lighting. The analysis shows that some spaces will need to be artificially lit at all times during the day, however, through a strategy of decreasing density towards the top of the building, many of the open, circulation spaces can be naturally lit by maintaining their exposure to the glazed roof. In order to be comfortably illuminated for working, a daylight factor of 5% or above is generally considered adequate. scale 1:2500
1.5
1
147
0
0
4m
scale 1:500
STRUCTURE concrete frame
With the structure of the entire complex being predominantly reinforced concrete cast in situ, this will be the most significant stage of the construction process. Several cranes will work circularly around the site, allowing concrete to set in one part of the complex as others are constructed. The stacked floor plans will allow formwork to be moved up vertically. The prefabricated personal cores will aid construction through providing immediate structural support from which to build from. 0
10m
151
A.
0
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C.
B.
154
10.
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12.
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13. 14. 1.
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DETAIL A
1. reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ 2. steel reinforcement 3. composite end beam, 380mm steel I beam 4. switchable privacy smart glass 5. electrical services tray 6. 12mm plasterboard 7. concrete wall, cast in situ 8. multilateral louvered ventilator 9. roof light, 18mm structural glazing 10. steel mullion at 2000mm centres 11. green roof 12. protective layer + waterproof membrane 13. thermal insulation 150mm 14. vapour barrier
scale 1:20
155
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5.
7.
14. 13. 12. 11. 4. 10. 9.
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DETAIL B
1. reinforced concrete slab, cast in situ 2. steel reinforcement 3. polish finish concrete 60mm 4. reinforced concrete arch, cast in situ 5. reinforced concrete slab, 0.5% slope 6. double glazed window 7. thermal insulation 80mm 8. concrete wall, cast in situ 9. acoustic insulation 180mm 10. 12mm plyboard + 12mm plasterboard 11. suspended plasterboard ceiling 12. recessed lighting strip 13. acoustic insulation 160mm 14. thermal insulation 150mm
scale 1:20
156
10.
3.
4. 5.
2. 1.
6. 7. 8. 9.
DETAIL C
1. reinforced concrete waffle slab, cast in situ 2. steel reinforcement 3. impact sound insulation 40mm 4. 60mm sand and cement screed with underfloor heating , paint finish 5. reinforced concrete column, 400x800mm, cast in situ 6. electrical service riser 7. concrete wall, cast in situ 8. thermal insulation 80mm 9. 12mm plasterboard 10. electrical services tray
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chapter V
REPRESENTATION
IDEATION AND SIMULATION Representation To understand the Labyrinth the experience of exploration is integral. Using a game engine to facilitate the inhabitation of the interior, control of the experience is shifted from the curation by the creator to the viewer. A progression of the perspective projection, the interactive environment allows the subjectivity of the gaze; the gaze being our visual access to the model space, which in turn depends on projection. The interactive projection does not restrict the model space to a two-dimensional plane but enables the user to move around, orbit and zoom in and out, gaining access to every aspect of its spatiality.28 This means that for the first time there is the possibility of visually inhabiting the design space, the ideal space, that of the Pyramid. In contrast to the abstraction of orthographic projection that remains detached, separate from the object, the gaze is never objective. It encapsulates the notion of the interior as labyrinth; the subjectivity of immersion and with it the problem of perceiving the architectural object. Working between these two oppositions of representation, the abstraction of orthographic projection is further expressed through the use of line. Materiality is purposefully absent from the drawings, intended to accentuate the contrast between representational modes. Although explicitly simulated, the interactive environment offers the closest representation of a ‘real’ experience of space. While still bound to being an idealised vision of the design intention, the medium begins to offer the ability of merging experience and conception through the occupation of the design space. The nature of the interior condition is inherently artificial. It is modulated, desirable external conditions reproduced in a controlled manner; a simulation. The simulation of the designed space through the medium of the game engine reflects this trait of the interior.
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28. Jovanovic, D., 2016, Fictions: A Speculative Account of Design Mediums, in: Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture, London: The Bartlett School of Architecture.
“The nature of the Labyrinth is such that it entertains dreams that includes the dream of the Pyramid.� (Tschumi, 1975)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, R., 2016, Architecture of Preservation: On Neoliberal Time, Architecture and the Neoliberal Turn, EAHN Conference, Dublin. Adams, R., 2014, Invisible Machines: Toward a Theory of Interiorization, Leeds Beckett University, AHRA. Adams, R., 2015, Machines and Metaphors: Towards a Theory of Interior, Leeds Beckett University, AHRA. Arata, I., 2007, City Demolition Industry Inc., South Atlantic Quarterly, Duke University Press. Allen, L., and Pearson, L., 2016, Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture, UCL Press, London. Allen, S., 2009, Notations and Diagrams: Mapping the Intangible, in: Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representaion, 41-67. London: Routledge. Aurelli, P.V., 2011, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Boano, C., and Muzzonigro, A., 2013, Dwell the threshold: Encountering Otherness, Planum, The Journal of Urbanism. Bose, S., Self, J., and Williams, F., 2016, Home Economics, British Pavillion, Venice Biennale 2016, British Council. Curtis, A., 2016, [documentary] HyperNormalisation, London: BBC. Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F., 2003, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, London, Continuum, Harvard (18th ed.) Dogma, 2013, 11 Projects, London: Architectural Association. Eggers, D., 2013, The Circle, New York: Vintage Books. Eisenman, E., 1986, an Architecture of Absence, Architectural Association, London. Eisenman, P., 2001, Diagram Diaries. London: Thames & Hudson. Evans, R., 1997, Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays, Architectural Association, London. Foucault, M., 2007, The Order of Things, (1970), London: Routledge. Foucault, M., 1986, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, London: Routledge. Griffith Winton, A., 2013, Inhabited Space: Critical Theories and the Domestic Interior, London and New York, Bloomsbury Press. Hollier, D., 1989, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille, translated: Wing, B., Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Jarzombek, M., 2010, Corridor Spaces, Critical Inquiry 36, University of Chicago Press. Kauffman, L., 1987, Self Reference and Recurring Forms, Academic Press Inc, London. Koolhaas, R., and Mau, B., 1995, S,M,L,XL, The Monacelli Press. Koolhaas, R., 1995, The Generic City, New York, The Monacelli Press. Koolhass, R., 2002, Junkspace, October issue 100, Mitt Press. Kopp, A., 1970, Town and Revolution: Soviet Architecture and City Planning 1917-1935, Thames and Hudson, London. Leach, N., 1999, The Anaesthetics of Architecture, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 178
Maycroft, M., 2004, The Objectness of Everyday Life: Disburdenment or Engagement?, Geoforum, Special Section on Material Geographies. Meachem, J., 2005, Googleplex; A new campus community, Clivewilkinson.com Rendell, J., 2012, The Setting and the Social Condenser: Transitional Objects in Architecture and Psychoanalysis’, Architecture as Cultural Artefact, Routledge, London. Shuai-Ping, K., 2011, Ruin as a Paradigm of Spatial Conception, Journal of Environment & Art, NO.9, pp109-124. Sloterdijk, P., 2005, The Crystal Palace, Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals: Fur eine philosophische Theorie der Globalisierung (In the Global Inner Space of Capital: For a Philosophical Theory of Globalization), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, chapter 33, pp. 265-276. Sloterdijk, P., 2005, In the World Interior of Capital, For a Philosophical Theory of Globalisation, Cambridge MA: Polity Press. Stoppani, T., 2014, Relational Architecture: Dense Voids and Violent Laughters, Field Journal: Urban Blind Spots. Tschumi, B., 1975, The Architectural Paradox, in: Architecture and Disjunction, 1994, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Tschumi, B., 1981, The Manhattan Transcripts, Architectural Design, London. Tschumi, B., 1999, Architecture In/Between, New York: The Monacelli Press. Vertov, D., 1923, The Council of Three, in: Annete Michelson (ed.), Kinoeye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992) Vidler, A., 2006, What is a Diagram, Anyway?, in: Peter Eisenman: Feints, edited by Silvio Cassarà. Milan: Skira. Watters, D.M., 2016, St Peter’s, Cardross: Birth, Death and Renewal, Edinburgh: Historic Environment. Whiteman, J., 1986, Notes on Architecture and the Concept of Fiction, Architecture Association, London.
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