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Newcastle University Stage 3 Architecture

ARC3001: Architectural Design

Academic portfolio Zeyad Hasanin 180268649 Studio 1: Remedial Housing

“Architecture is not about sculpture, it is about people. A good architect must love people or it doesn’t make sense.” - Ralph Erskine

Contents

Illustrated Reflective Essay

Charrette Week

Primer

Staging

Realization & Synthesis

Illustrated Cultural Bibliography

112

Bibliography

120

Reflective Report

“It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.”

Northumberland street, October 2019.

- William H Whyte.

and on March 2020 after COVID-19 Lockdown. Walking alone in a fancy street was not fun. It is people that make a space alive and safe.

Two years ago... During a visit to York Sculptural park, I stood by an exhibition titled “the garden of good and evil” by artist Alfredo Jaar. Beautiful grove of trees, with elegantly fabricated steel cells hidden in between - an installation about detention camps, its detainees, and their conditions, inspired by the Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “One square meter of prison”. While I was reading the information placard, a small family with two young children approached the installation. Almost spontaneously, the two kids ran towards the installation’s trees and boxes and started playing a hide-and-seek game with their parents. I automatically smiled.

The stark contrast between the dark, oppressive theme of the installation and the spontaneous happy reaction by these kids to it made me wonder about several things - whether people realize the politics behind the spaces they occupy and whether that affects their behaviour within it, or whether the built environment we inhabit can influence behaviour, for example. However, the main question that came to my mind at that moment was: what was it about these boxes and trees, which really interested these kids? Why did this space invite the kids to play, while some parks and plazas do not? In other words.

What makes a space alive?

The short answer, as I have come to realize, is people. However, people obviously do not go everywhere. If people do make spaces alive, what do they need to go and make a space alive? At the heart of this question was the presupposition that the essence of architecture is the human experience, which as it turns out is in itself an anti-modernistic stance –and a stance that does not fit well with the current tendencies to mechanize all previouslyhuman interactions, favouring cars and large-scale urban design, and an increasingly individualistic society which several theorists warn will diminish the sense of community and the need to connect (Sennett, 2012; Bauman, 2016). Such a trajectory leads -among other consequences- to lonely populations, with Britain being the loneliness capital of Europe and the health secretary calling that “a national shame” (Orr, 2014).

Garden of Good and Evil, Alfredo Jaar. [author]

Copenhagen Harbour. “Think about yourself sitting there with your girlfriend proposing and telling her what a wonderful life the two of you are going to have!” [Source: Gehl 2015]

My studio this year was Remedial Housing, where we proposed a new manifesto for designing houses differently. Since houses, and homes, are the most intimate and personal spaces for people, it was key focus of me to understand not only the person’s relation to his “home”, but also putting that in the context of the person’s relation with his community and his environment. The human experience is complex, and attempting to understand it requires different methods and viewpoints; and the same can be said for the idea of home – which I agree is not an architectural notion, but rather one of phenomenology, psychology, and sociology (Pallasmaa, 1994). I have explored how phenomenology and psychology can help designers understand the human experience in my dissertation, and have argued how better understanding can help designers in creating better designs – designs that people can actually enjoy and relate to.

Understanding the human-architecture relation in this manner can be seen as different layers to the same (complex) reality. If I am to explain my understanding of the human-house, then to me phenomenology describes how we experience our environment, how people define “home” and the meanings we associate with it - for example, as a refuge, a community, or nostalgia. These values can therefore be studied psychologically: how people interact with built environment, what makes it safe, how they interact with other people. On a broader layer still, sociologically thinking about architecture can provide wider context: how commodifying neighbourhoods strips them from socializing opportunities, or how the market and urban lifestyles disconnect human interactions, making people feel disconnected (Abrahamson, 2014). Throughout this year I have looked into different housing developments that, in addition to promoting sustainable architecture, also promote sustainable communities - both of which go hand in hand.

Source: Independent

Obviously, It would be absurd to think that the architecture on its own, needless to say a single project, will be able to eliminate society’s problems. As Minoru Yamasaki said, “Social ills can’t be cured by nice buildings: (Rimer, 1986). However, realizing these trends that affect the modern life will help us understand the needs of modern people and thereby design better architectural schemes in modern contexts. Putting all of that in mind, designers can tackle their designs on different levels, first the overall scale, marking relations and programs, and moving to the smaller scale of details, thinking of how the architecture can be tinkered to create different moments. My theory into practice essay was about the difference between axonometric and perspective drawings in representing architecture. While the axonometric provides an overall, scaled view that shows spatial relationships and parts together, perspective provides a single-point, human-centred view that can help situate the human experience in place and think about the specific moments of a building.

As issues such as loneliness and homelessness are becoming grave dangers to the populations of countries like the United Kingdom, it becomes crucial to rethink our priorities in the architecture profession and shift the focus from the flamboyancy of the inanimate to the intimacy of the living experience. Understanding how people act, live, socialize, and make use of their environments may well be more important than trying to show off ivory tower agendas in the architecture or compromising humane designs for the sake of profits. At the end of a working day people don’t normally think about grandiose designs that can be only seen from a helicopter or about the philosophical implications of de-constructivist architecture, but instead they think about coming home to a family and a enjoying a talk with a neighbour. It is crucial therefore, to build spaces that foster these relations and that actually care about the human scale -Spaces that create a sense of community.

Source: NPR

Charrette week

Healthy High Streets

Under the theme of healthy high streets we measuring ground porosity, during our charrette week we studied high streets, what makes them healthy, and how we can measure special metrics and present the results. High streets are rapidly changing and facing different and new challenges, from increasing vacancy to harder last mile logistics and substituting all human interaction. We looked into the Gateshead Councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s metrics for healthy streets, and thought of new metrics and criteria to measure in Coateswarth High street in Newcastle.

Our investigation focused on the varying porosities of ground surfaces and their water absorbing capacity, which aids in the prevention of flooding overground and the overuse of infrastructure. With the increased prevalence of sever weather in the UK and abroad due to climate change most must be done to protect communities from flooding. This has especially impacted struggling high streets. Whilst improved infrastructure is the primary defence, smaller scale interventions are of growing importance.

To measure the new metrics weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re devising we had to make an instrument or process to capture data. Our ideas were revolving around social engagement and how to grab peoples attention and persuade them into participating with us in the stand. Using the idea of gamification, an initial idea was to create a big jigsaw puzzle, on which people can write if they wish, and whose pieces join together to form a social message for the community. The jigsaw puzzle would be an attention grabbing intervention.

Later we adapted the idea into a manual tetris game that allows inhabitants of the street to experiment with the type of ground material they would like to see on the street after knowing about its porosity benefits.

After we introduce them to our research and different types of materials and their porosities, participants tell us if they have experience with porosity and flooding, and we asked them to choose a material that they would like to see more on their street. Children and younger youth were more attracted to our stand and parents would be interested to have a conversation as the children made their casts..

The participants would choose a type of material (clay, plaster, etc.) and then mix it with other materials that help in creating a more healthy street and more sustainable ground (trees, grass, gravel, etc.). they would then cast their mixture into a jigsaw slab and join in a communal jigsaw game to raise awareness of the ground porosity issue.

The stall was a good start of the year as I saw how a dilapidated corner of a high-street can be active if there is something going on (in this case, our charette groups). For Charette Stall during the exhibition, we presented the casts participants did as well as posters about ground porosities and porous materials, which gave me an insight to a sustainable aspect I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t thought about before. Our Charette Stall during the exhibition, including posters about ground porosities.

Primer Our Studio, Remedial Housing, aimed at developing a new and different housing approach, questioning the norms and assumptions embedded within new developments that create standardized and generic housing. In preparing our Manifesto, we visited Great Park, Newcastle to study it. Our elemental approach to studying the site helped me realize the impact that even minor details on site like trees, bike racks, or balconies have on the overall natural and built environment and its effects on inhabitants and that they have to be well considered in relation with their context. While visiting Great Park it was the first time I realize that buildings can actually look nice but feel lonely and dissociated, and afterwards I realized that was a living example of a focus on buildings rather than human scale.

Image: Our Manifesto for doing housing differently [photo: George Spendlove].

Great Park Study We visited Great Park, a new housing development northeast of Newcastle, to be our case study on which to base our new manifesto for housing developments. Although the housing units seemed architecturally pleasant and amiable, there seemed to be major issues on a more urban scale. The main issues I found with the site is its lack of usable and sociable space, the lack of facilities and shops on site, and given the long roads and expanses of the neighbourhood, this meant residents needed to travel by car to get to the nearest market to fetch even a jug of milk.

At such a scale, even a fully passivhaus development will rely heavily on cars and fuels for circulation. Therefore our manifesto had to tackle climate crisis issues on different levels, the house level and the urban level as well.

The spaces between the housing units did not encourage any social interaction or activities. There are no public spaces nearby houses to foster gathering and for interactions to develop.

Isolated houses in a network of roads. House edges do not provide any opportunity to stand or gather. Car use is essential for travel - and streets are not safe for child play.

Green space seems to be hastily placed on site at the middle of asphalt - “oh, here is a patch of grass. Enjoy.”

Based on our readings, we were to develop a manifesto that calls to the revision of housing development procedures and standards and priorities. Each member of the studio was assigned a specific element which he had to analyse and evaluate the site according to. Having been assigned the ‘tree’, analysing the site by focusing on trees was a challenge and a new way to study sites. I looked into the providers of the trees for Great park and how they grow the trees and plant them on site. I later looked back into my Charrette week studying of porosity then researched different systems of planting trees in urban settings, and how sustainable and effective they were. My research lead me to GreenBlue Urban, which manufactures Rootspace systems for efficient tree planting and providing maximum soil volume, providing natural and free soil space underground for trees to maximize root growth and therefore tree growth and nutrition increases. Increased leaf canopy size, more shadows, and biodiversity and ecological benefits were some pay offs by bigger and healthier trees. Sustainable and healthy root and shoot growth also mean less replacement of trees and that trees can have the potential to grow their full size without being removed, increasing worth over time.

RootSpace Systems The Rootspace system is an interlocking system of underground support that provides fresh ventilated air and adequate soil for trees to grow to full size. Benefits provided by trees with a RSS are generally greater than those from traditional trees. This is because the leaf area of trees with adequate rooting volume are proportionally larger than for street trees with the same trunk diameter. Benefits of sustainable soil systems include larger canopies, longer living trees (requiring less replacement), storm water absorption, less particulate levels in soil and air, and even less crime rates (Greenblue Urban, 2018).

Right: Analysis and introduction of the GreenBlue Urban Rootspace System, poster presented during primer.

Exhibition

For our primer exhibition we presented our Manifesto to the other studios and held a “protest” to demand change in housing regulations in front of Newcastle’s civic centre. At the stall we presented our posters, models and analysis of different elements as well as exemplars of successful, sustainable, and sociable housing.

Image: Group photos

Manifesto

Our Manifesto was to be the basis to develop our individual projects in the following stage. The manifesto to me was more about the community than the house on its own, emphasizing integration, meaningful public space, and localization and accessibility. The climate crisis was ingrained in the manifesto so that approaching it was not merely ticking off boxes but providing a holistic approach that balances the large scale alongside the smaller scale.

Image: Group photos

During primer stage I have made use of my extracurricular readings, such as University of Pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Designing cities MOOC or Jan Gehlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cities for people to learn about exemplars and successful public spaces and housing schemes, which are referenced in the bibliography.

Staging For staging our aim was setting up a brief, applying our manifesto points for our housing projects on our site in Cruddas Park, Newcastle. Working with such a big scale required a better understanding of the urban level and of public spaces, how they are used, and how they can be enhanced. I started from the big scale, planning programme and relations in context and forming a hierarchy within the project, so at this stage the specific type of dwellings was not resolved, and I had to revise my programme proposals several times to make sure it is actually adding activity to the centre rather than draining it. Whereupon my readings deemed more helpful when designing on a big scale, my dissertation was more helpful at a later stage as it helped me think about key moments while designing the internal layouts of specific buildings.

Cruddas Park dR n a l or m t s We

Civic Centre

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Cruddas Park

St James Station

Newcastle Eagles Arena

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Cruddas Park

Context Our site is Cruddas Park tower and shopping centre at Elswick, Newcastle. Originally built in the 1960’s modernistic era and refurbished recently in 2008. The tower and centre, despite being renewed a couple of times, still face problems regarding the construction, management, and neighbourhood of the centre. The site borders the Newcastle Eagles Basketball arena and the Cruddas Towers, built also in the 1960’s.

Monolithic Plinth The site consists of a three-storey concrete shopping centre with an integrated twenty-three storey concrete residential tower. The body of the centre is monolithic, closed off to public, and lacks an inviting facade. A car park is provided underneath the shopping centre with entrances directly into it from the middle.

Lack of Programme Although the centre hosts a campus for the Newcastle College and a library, there seems to be a total lack of programme on site and several plots are unoccupied. Given the scale and accessibility of the centre, the demographics of the tower, and the orientation of the shops, as most are inward-facing or on the southern facade that oversees an unused green space, it made sense that the centre lacks any activity.

Physical Obstacles To the south of the centre lies a neglected and unused empty green space and brown field, which despite its potential is only used as a lonely footpath for the towers’ residents to Westmorland Road. The topography of the site and the existing structures create physical obstacles that make the whole block inaccessible and uninviting. The human scale is neglected.

Maintenance Despite its renovation, the tower still faces problems of heating, fire safety, and maintenance.

Image Source: Chronicle Live

Demographics The majority of residents are single males, and there are no children at all on site. Making the site hospitable to bring new demographics on site will be essential

Data Source: Street Check

There is a variety of activities, facilities, and services around the site, however the whole neighbourhood seemed to suffer from the same ill: lack of social opportunities or sociable space.

Image Source: Charlie Barrat

Precedent Studies

The artificial landscape elegantly resolves the problem of the required width of a seaside promenade by having the form expand to larger areas with benches and places to relax. The design also includes a variety of access points to the sand. (Cilento, 2010).

Marmalade Lane

Tour Bois le Pretre

The safe area created by the car-free strategy implemented allows for child play and cross-interaction between residents, as well as the personalization of the houses. The developmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sustainability strategy include wet underfloor heating, air pumps planted on site, and prefabricated closed timber panels installed using a fabric-first approach. High ceilings and large windows make rooms feel large and bright. Light, open-plan living areas let residents use the space as they like.

Image Source: Mole Architects

Providing different layouts of flats will help bring new demographics into the site, making it more integrated and adding more opportunity for activities as younger generations and smaller families come on site. In addition, retrofitting the tower may include providing common rooms at intervals on its floors.

Image Source: Inhabitat.com

During the MOOC, different examples and methods of providing program and activity into a site were explained.

Image Source: Hack 2014

A. How spatial patterns can promote personal communication: mixed use buildings are active 24/7. The Rockridge Market Hall, in Oakland, California, combines shopping, offices, and housing at the top. Each of the upper floor uses has a separate lobby and entrance. The ground level adds life to the streets, providing convenient environment for those who live and work there.

In this way, the design serves different levels, as the upper level is fit for any citygoer to meander along the path, and the bottom curves pour into a wooded board walk for runners and beach-goers.

Lacaton and Vassal are famous for retrofitting existing structures and transforming them instead of demolishing. The scale of their projects, the relative simplicity of the extensions, and their huge impact on the interior layouts and exterior looks of a building inspired me to adapt and retrofit the tower and plinth on site in a similar manner.

Marmalade Lane, in Cambridge, UK, was my case study for the field trip. The Development consists of a mix of houses and flats that share a pedestrianized lane and a common house. The architects allowed residents to choose their own house layouts and materials, and the whole developments functions as a cohousing community with shared gardens, workshops, and storage spaces.

Image Source: Archdaily

The form of this promenade helped me resolve the difference of heights found on site between the plinth and the green space, by integrating both into a walkway that can host activities on both top and below.

Benidorm Seafront

B. Retrofitting areas to be walkable: First, organizing arterial streets as more pedestrian friendly boulevard, adding new infield development at fronts on them. Then higher density development people living above the shops. And as the streets become more bicycle and pedestrian friendly, the number of people that find their way there will grow. And the centre will prosper. Developers and merchants have been discovering that walkable commercial areas also make good economic sense (Hack, 2014)

Designing Cities MOOC

Design Decisions:: Creating a co-housing scheme with social spaces, retrofitting the existing tower and plinth, integrating the topography into the design, and creating a variety of programmes on site. A hierarchy of public-private spaces is needed. 31

Field Trip

Photo: Mole Architects

Marmalade lane is located in Orchard Park, an urban extension to north Cambridge built from the early 2000s but the site was left derelict after the 2008 recession meant the sale of the site fell through. It is Cambridgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first co-housing development by Architects Mole, it consists of 42 custom-build and community-led houses, with shared spaces and communal facilities, it was designed to foster community spirit and sustainable living which were important to the co-housing members. The site includes spaces such as shared gardens as the focal space of the community, with areas for growing food, play, socialising and quiet contemplation, and a flexible â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;common houseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; with a play room, guest bedrooms, laundry facilities, meeting rooms, and a large hall and kitchen for shared meals and parties, plus workshop and gym. Each house is unique to its residences with brick, type of doors and layout all being customised for each house. The following pages are excerpts from our case study found in the appendix. 32

PROGRAMME

FIGURE 3: MASSING LAYOUT OF MARMALADE LANE

FIGURE 1: CIRCULATION AROUND AND THROUGH MARMALADE LANE

PEOPLE AT THE HEART OF THE PROCESS

CREATING SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES

STORAGE SPACES

Marmalade Lane is one of 21 cohousing communities in the UK. Homes are arranged in terraces which front existing streets and create a new one – Marmalade Lane – ensuring the development look outwards as well as in. The terraces enclose the large shared garden with an open aspect to the south to maximize sunlight.

Homes are arranged in terraces which front existing streets and create a new one – Marmalade Lane – ensuring the development look outwards as well as in. The terraces enclose the large shared garden with an open aspect to the south to maximize sunlight.

CENTRAL SOCIAL SPACES

RESIDENTIAL BLOCKS

FIGURE 2: VISUAL CONNECTION TO THE OPEN SPACES

PEDESTRIANISED LANE 34

STRUCTURAL STRATEGY

FIGURE 4: FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNITY CENTRE SPACES

FIGURE 5: CLOSED TIMBER PANEL FRAME

(SOURCE: HTTPS://WWW.ELLIOTTWOOD.CO.UK/)

COMMON HOUSE SPACES

CROSS LAMINATED TIMBER

An admired attribute of the common spaces if the existence of irregular spaces that can be furnished in different manners and offer a functionally flexible part of the interior.

TOWN and its partner Trivselhus worked together to deliver the 42 Swedish high performance closed panel timber walls, which were prefabricated in Sweden. Preinstalled triple glazed windows and an air tight structural system make the houses very efficient energy wise.

Whenever possible the architects installed roof lights to provide natural lighting and atmosphere in the spaces. In addition, buildings on the site have spaces that can be accessed from the inside as well as others (storages, boat storage) that can be accessed from the outside. FIGURE 6: AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMPS IN FRONT OF HOUSES

(SOURCE: MOLE ARCHITECTS)

FIGURE 7: TRIPLE GLAZED STANDARD WINDOWS

(SOURCE: INSTINCTIVELY GREEN)

FIGURE 11: PERSONALIZED HOUSES (SOURCE: THE TELEGRAPH)

ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

FIGURE 12: DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS OF HOUSES

(SOURCE: JONNY ANSTEAD , TOWN)

COMMUNITY ROLE IN SUSTAINABILITY

MECHANICAL VENTILATION AND LIGHTING

The contained floor plan dimensions of the houses (min. 5.8 max 7.2) allows for a visually connected internal space, while the timber frame structure and prefabricated segments allow for an open plan layout. This configuration allows for natural ventilation and air flow; when the double windows are closed (usually to block noise from the nearby highway), the Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Regulation system can ventilate and condition the interior spaces. The contained area of houses and flats allows for natural lighting throughout the interior. The common hall in the community space is 11 metres long and the natural light is not enough, so the big roof light provides natural light and connection to the sky,

FIGURE 8: HOUSE GROUND PLAN (SOURCE: ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL)

FIGURE 9: MVHR SYSTEM AND LIGHTING DIAGRAM FIGURE 13: PERSONALIZED HOUSES (SOURCE: TOMPION PLATT)

FIGURE 10: DAYLIGHTING SECTION OF COMMON HALL

FIGURE 10: PERSONALIZED HOUSES (SOURCE: SUSSEX COHOUSING)

Marmalade’s Lane utilizes the feeling of community to promote the sustainability of the neighbourhood. The architects offered clients and users the freedom to choose their personalized houses and homes; the social spaces offer a sense of inclusivity and belonging. The limited caraccessible spaces promote the usage of cycles, and each house has bicycle racks fitted in front of it. The green spaces and garden, in addition to creating the sense of community, also help in advocating biodiversity and environmentallysustainable behaviour. Shared spaces like laundries help decrease water usage.

Wesley House

Cambridge Mosque

Wesley House is a community of Methodist scholars and students at the heart of the University city of Cambridge. Their building featured a repetitive facade with different materials interlocked together.

First eco-friendly mosque in Europe, the mosque is naturally lit all year round by large skylights in the roof. The columns, or ‘trees’, reach up to support the roof in an interlaced octagonal lattice vault structure evocative of English gothic fan vaulting, famously used at the nearby King’s College Chapel

Kettle’s Yard A small house with a remarkable collection of modern art, hosting modern and contemporary art exhibitions.

Central Arcade Cambridge’s main shopping centre - retains the traditional typology but with contemporary materials - its modern yet does not feel different from the older city outside.

The house included extensions and architectural details that interested me alongside the art.

Design that suits the human senses of seeing, talking, seeing, and walking. Social and public distances that allow communication and feelings of warmth (Gehl, 2011).

DESIGN BRIEF Following my precedent and analysis studies, I based my brief for Cruddas Park on Five Main themes, which may be seen as the interaction between our Manifesto and our site. The five themes complement each other towards creating a safe social space. For example, a humane scale design will necessary be walkable and connected, a connected neighbourhood will foster a sense of community, and a localized and walkable neighbourhood will be more sustainable.

Making use of the existing built structures and natural ecology. “The term “urban renewal” has become synonymous with top-down grand projects that destroy more than they create and end up being more trouble than they are worth to all but the few who profit from them. (Hill, 2020) as well as implementing sustainable design and maintenance aiming at longevity in design.

Providing the space and needed facilities to engage with the community in the cohousing to foster a sense of belonging in an age where loneliness and abandonment are the “greatest fear in our individualist age” (Querol, 2016). , as well as the opportunity to personalize houses for personal taste. If people feel they belong to the community, they will preserve it.

Encouraging walking and localized services and shops to minimize traffic and fuel usage, and connecting the site via paths that make it accessible even for disabled people. Surveys suggest that more than half of Americans would like to live in a place where they could walk to the important places, but they can’t find a place that meets those needs (Hack, 2014).

Creating social opportunities to meet and connect with neighbours frequently making it more possible to make acquaintances, connecting the site with the neighbourhood, and physically connecting the site to make it easily accessible and inviting

Based on our case studies and readings, we needed to formulate four themes for our brief: programme, ecology, economy, and social sustainability. I decided to instate a cohousing development, . In addition, more diverse dwelling units will make more opportunities for new demographics, like younger people and smaller families, to move into the site and make it more lively and integrated. To facilitate this, the tower will be retrofitted and extended and its internal layout modified to diversify the flats available.

PROCESS WORK Circulation on my project: cars are pushed to the periphery while walk-able pathways connect the different nodes of the site.

Social Opportunities: different spaces can connect different people together. The podium can function as an outlet that provides local services and leisure for the wider neighbourhood, while the community centre, park, and playground serve the narrower population of the towers and the new housing. The idea is to make these spaces hospitable and provide meaning and programme into them. For example, the terraced landscape to the south can function as a sight-seeing platform overlooking the river. Utopian view - a fully accessible plaza with a community house in the middle.

Keeping the tower, but providing a hierarchy for social opportunities and making use of topography and green space

Breaking up the tower, and different layouts for the new housing units. At this point I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t decided whether to create houses or apartment blocks.

Major design proposals: breaking up the plinth and retrofitting it alongside the tower, new housing, and landscaping the site. The focus was to create spaces first that can function appropriately to human scale and at suitable dimensions and distances - enough space for activity but not too much to feel diminished in.

TERRACED PARK

DWELLINGS LAYOUT

SHOP FRONT

REDUCE - REUSE - RECYCLE

Making use of the existing topography, connecting the two sides of the site, and providing a space to sit and stand.

Shared space in between, allowing residents to meet and pass by others more often. A safe space that is overlooked by windows, suitable for child play.

More permeable shop front, shorter distances to walk. Trees help provide a sense of transition and human scale.

Connection - Preservation

Sense of community - pedestrianism - connection

Human scale - pedestrianism

Preservation

Realization In Realization and Synthesis I started moving from larger into smaller scale and designing specific elements. However, I was still stuck at a specific scale, therefore I started asking myself â&#x20AC;&#x153;how would I act or live in such a space, or how would a child act here?â&#x20AC;? To start thinking about how inhabitants will use the space then tracing over - starting to think in perspective rather than strictly in axonometric or in plan as influenced by my theory into practice essay. At the same time I started making integrating technology and sustainability strategies into my design and brief; however I can see now there was more potential to implement more sustainable measures and systems in my project. In this stage I realized the importance of technical and professional knowledge to complement theoretical knowledge, as the former turned out essential for realizing the specific details needed at the human experience level I intend to explore. In addition, I started trying new representation methods and software, but kept using hand drawings to maintain the dynamic style of thinking by hand.

Thinking Through Making Week

During the thinking through making week, I attempted to model a prototype for the extension of the tower I intend to add onto Cruddas Tower. I used a cast slab and added columns underneath as support -inspired by Lacaton and Vassalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tour Bois le pretre- and columns that divide the extension into a winter garden and balcony. The choice of materials was rather crude, and later I researched other systems to add extensions, such as steel with a creed on it.

Precedent Studies Goldsmith Street

Located in Leeds, phase three of this “design that tackles loneliness” aims to reinstate multi-generational living, which is still the norm in much of the world. As the developers’ website states: “You have to look beyond the building itself, to how the wider place works to bring to community together and encourage interactions.” The district is designed with a network of inter-linked green spaces suitable for child play and adults to get together. Also features are two areas of public realm connected by cycle paths and pedestrian routes. Fully one-quarter of the site is communal space: a small landscaped space in the centre of the terraces and ‘ginnels’, semi-private alleyways to the rear of back gardens, which, in the words of architect Annalie Riches, are a way for residents to ‘meet neighbours, for their kids to get to know each other, making friends’ (Boughton, 2019).

In addition to fitting well with my stances on housing, CITU’s climate innovation district also integrates sustainable architecture, with houses designed to passivhaus standard, provided with photovoltaic power, mechanical ventilation, and maximizing solar gain, all while using modular prefabricated timber panels. The sleek use of Fibrecement as cladding for houses showed me how versatile the material is, which inspired me upon our visit to the district to use it in my project.

As the design was from the start aimed at creating the social opportunities I am aiming for, I analysed the layout of Goldsmith street and adapt it to my proposal.

For passivhaus exemplars for buildings other than dwellings, I looked at the UK’s largest passivhaus certified project. “The fundamentals of construction are not significantly different for a Passivhaus building of this scale when compared to any other Building Regulation compliant building; the key is in the detailing”. The architects had focused on correct amount of insulation, airtightness layers, and limiting uncontrolled air ventilation.

Climate Innovation District

One of the most energy efficient housing built in the UK, Goldsmith Street in Norwich meets the exact German Passivhaus standards – translating into a 70% reduction in fuel bills for tenants. The Architects proposed streets rather than apartment block slabs - whereas planning regulations usually require 21 meters between facing homes, the houses on this terrace are just 14 meters apart – arguing that this new neighbourhood can be as humanely scaled while fitting more homes (Wainwright, 2019.)

Image Source: Tim Crocker

Image Source: Archdaily

Image Source: CIBSE Journal

Image Source: CITU

Renovation project for the main public square in Naberezhnye Chelny, a Soviet city built in the late 1970’s around the famous Kamaz truck factory, is a fresh take on the role of public space in the single-industry city. The architects relocated of the central axis to the edge of the square, to an existing row of densely planted trees. Thus, providing visitors protection from the elements and connecting them directly to nearby neighbourhoods. To intensify activity on the promenade, they designed a series of pavilions to be placed along the way (Gonzalez, 2020).

The project makes use of ten air handling units to manage ventilation especially in summer time, with a ground-to-air heat exchanger system that tempers the fresh air handled by these units.

However, the human scale seems still not well considered, the square is massively wide, and despite providing views, there is no activity to watch from the seating areas– they are not used unlike the auditorium provided.

Although the project’s scale was dissimilar to mine, it helped me understand the requirements for passivhaus design and that they do not differ that much with scale.

The square’s spatial layout is helpful., And despite needing better adaptation of the human scale, shows lively transformation of unused land, similar to our site.

University of Leicester’s Centre for Medicine

Azatlyk Square

Design Decisions: prefabricated timber houses with different types, facing gardens to create social opportunities, adapting my buildings to be passivhaus and integrate mechanical ventilation and heating, 55

Site Map 1:500

Site Concept

Massing models for initial proposals for the podium and tower. As the podium is the landmark of the site, it was a good place to start to determine the relation between my project and its context.

Section A-A 1:200

Podium Concept

Opening up the form by making new paths between the road and the green space through the centre

To create a continues street front on Park road an extension to the podium is built.

Adding a new storey to provide more space for existing shops and college and for new programme

Extending the eastern side of the tower to create a more diverse set of flats for new demographics intended to come on site.

A plaza that connects the existing building to the new extension is added.

Creating a more inviting promenade that connects the project to the shop front, emphasizing soft edges and space for interaction.

More permeable facade with windows

First Floor Plan 1:200

Promenade

Newcastle College

An extension to the podium is added here to continue the streetscape of the houses and add a plaza (See Cruddas Park Homes)

New Walkway New entrance with dropped head height

Second Floor Plan 1:200

Promenade

Newcastle College

Mezzanine

Escalators

An extension to the podium is added here to continue the streetscape of the houses and add a plaza

New Walkway

Second Floor Plan 1:200

Promenade

Retrofitted Flats

Wind Turbines

Extensions An extension to the podium is added here to continue the streetscape of the houses and add a plaza

New Walkway

1:200 Section

Early Perspectives

Grass area, early on, I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t resolved the relation between the centre and the remaining the site, so at this stage, the green space is still an empty patch of grass

View from edge of site towards new housing units

View from the new walkway towards the river Tyne. The promenade that connects the podium and the green space was key to resolve at the next step.

Space between houses, still not resolved at this stage as well. In addition to the promenade, I started thinking about these smaller spaces before designing the housing units.

Shop Front

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I really like how being close to the other houses and connected to the site never makes us feel isolated - you can always see people coming and walking by, and the kids actually enjoy seeing their friends coming closer through the windows.â&#x20AC;? 72

Initial Concept

Life, spaces, buildings -in that order

While designing the layout of the houses and their orientation, I maintained their relation with the podium as well with the wider neighbourhood context. Connecting the different nodes and access points of the site (podium, car parks, and Westmorland road), I placed the community centre in the centre of the green space.

Promenade “The shopping centre has different facilities and is just a minute’s walk from our home - whenever we need something we can be sure that we don’t need a 10 minute walk or a car drive and even the kids are safe enough to bring stuff sometime.. Even the common house is nicely close, at the end of the day I can meet with a friend or two and enjoy a cup of tea while not being worried about my children.”

Initial Concept

Section B-B 1:200

Lime stone - creating a contrasting tone with the remaining colour palette on site and providing an elegant finish to the interior of the shopping centre; the limestone touches on the external brick facade on the ground floor.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coming back to cruddas park at the end of the day and going down these stairs you can almost always see people. Its a nice scene to watch - the kids playing and the few people just chatting along, Even neighbours from the towers enjoy using this pathway because it offers you things to watch and listen to while walking through it.â&#x20AC;?

Initial Concept

To make the centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facade more open and inviting, I have changed windows sizes and locations.

Orienting the common house towards the north to make use of the sun path in the design of the programme. This meant that the more social spaces would be south-facing

Pushing the form to the inside creates a unique form for the common areas and increases window and light areas in the common hall.

The east facing facade is aligned parallel to the dwellings to connect the centre with the houses and allow for a better designed pathway in the middle.

To reconcile the geometry of the centre, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve merged the faĂ§ades into a semicircular shape that functions as external stairs.

For a bit more variety of spaces, a terrace is introduced.

Final Form

Ground Floor

First Floor

Roof

Community Centre - East Elevation

East Elevation

South Elevation

Reading room - even in this recluse space, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re never sealed off from the patterns f life

Cladding the centre in Fibrecement following a horizontal pattern similar to the podium. The blue colour is from the existing colour palette on site.

Common Hall Mechanical ventilation,

windows

for Process Work: Windows

Interior Cladding: Magnesium Oxide (MgO) boards

Natural oak flooring with underground heating. Timber has a soft atmosphere suitable for a social space 90

Thinking in perspective

Initial Concept

Section C-C 1:50

Social Space

Process work: threshold and house entrances

According to Jan Gehl, seeing and hearing people encourages other people to come to a place, but a place should provide something - safe seating, obstacles that children can jump around, people walking or gardening (Gehl, 2011). William Whyte famously said: “what attracts other people most, is other people” (Whyte, 2001)..

Facade Variations and reiterations: the residents will be able to choose the style of their façades Fibre cement cladding is versatile and elegant, making it a suitable for a varying choice of styles as residents can choose their house’s façades and doors. It is also very durable and has no risk of mould, cracking, or shrinking upon instalment and is inflammable and fire resistant.

Windows

Big gliding windows that could open to the pathways outside, extending the room into the outside.

Spatial layout of houses and the window design allow residents to watch activities outside - keeping an eye on children playing for example

Bungalow

Bungalow master bedroom

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3 Bed House

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4 Bed House

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Street Front

The Colour palette is inspired by the dominant colours on site: white and blue. Yellow and Light Brown are a tonal contrast adding distinctiveness to the site while still being hospitable to the surrounding typology

Street view, four meter wide to maximize pedestrian freedom

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Terraced Landscape, a social meeting space - suitable for sightseeing or a conversation

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Cultural Bibliography

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Representation Skills

Collage Workshop During this workshop we attempted 1- collage of random mix of provided images, 2- colour paper collage of my own face 3- collage about architecture in Newcastle. Making collages required hands-on trying of different images, colours, and layouts, had to play around with different papers and images to see what works better and where does it work better. The tutor summarized the creative process to me saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait for inspiration to come to you, go look after it.â&#x20AC;?

Crafting Architecture In this workshop we experimented with random objects, trying to break them up and form them again into different things. The task was a test for creativity as well as ability to playing around with objects and seeing relations. I was given a chair and imagined it as a double chair with a drawer Similarly, this workshop taught me to start playing with things and then ideas shall come along.

Making use of some free time to watch Photoshop tutorials, adding more experience in collaging, editing, and tinkering with images for my presentations.

Photoshop collages

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Hand drawing portraits and perspectives as a way of dynamic training and sketching experience.

Hand drawings

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Reading and Theory Reading

Commentary

Arguing that cities are now built to serve cars and large scale modernistic monuments, Jan Gehl argues that cities should be designed to the human scale and senses - slower speed, smaller scale, and shorter distances.

Similarly to his previous book, Gehl here speaks about the conditions under which spaces between buildings come to life on the city level as well as street level.

One of the first books written about the relationship between human behaviour and the built environment, this book attempts to explain what makes urban spaces lively and interesting and what

With more than a billion children living in cities, this new report from planning and built environment firm Arup argues that children should be central to good urban planning, advocating “interventions at the neighbourhood scale” to improve the everyday lives of the whole of a city’s young population.

Quotes

“Life, space, building.. in this order”

“The establishment of a social structure and corresponding physical structure with communal spaces at various levels permits movement from small group and spaces toward larger ones and from more private to the gradually more public spaces, giving a greater feeling of security and ... belonging”

“What attracts people most, it appears, is other people”

“the environment in which [children] live has to be considered a key determinant of their health, behaviour and development. This affects not just their childhood but the rest of their adult life.”

“Nothing happens nothing happens nothing happens ...”

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because because

“People tend to sit where there places to sit”

In this book different exemplars of social housing are shown with discussions about the professional and social implications and in each chapter.

A textbook on the topic, this book opened my eyes to new fields and relations regarding the way people interact with the built environment; what makes environments safe, how people feel attached to a specific place, and how human behaviour affects climate change.

An attempt to link architecture with evolutionary psychology to explain specific behaviours people have towards the built environment, including walking next to walls and recognizing faces in buildings; however, the book seems to lack the scientific rigour needed.

This pocket guide to architecture and mental health listed 10 elements that can be adapted to have a positive health effect, including light, user control, encouraging activity, and contact with nature.

Steven Holl’s phenomenology is based on how architecture is not a still photo, but we experience architecture through moving, further deepening my view that the key essence of the architecture and the architectural experience is the human experience, senses, and scale.

“While we are all different, there are certain aspects of the human condition that we all have in common. We all eat, we all drink, and we all experience a broadly similarly range of emotions ... there are many elements to building design that will universally affect how people feel within a space”

A set of lectures by Zumthor covering different architectural aspects, not a specific way of thinking or method to do architecture but rather a cultural discourse.

“Perhaps, our homes of adulthood are only an unconscious search for the lost home of childhood.”

“There is power in the ordinary things of everyday life. We only have to look at them long enough to see it.”

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Reading and Theory In Search of the Human Scale In this talk, Jan Gehl speaks about how “we learn in school of architecture to move around the objects.. and.. Bingo!! This is a good city.” Saying that “architecture is the interplay between life and form.” The feet and eyes were the two things which all the cities were built about and all the dimensions were rather small, geared to the senses of homo sapiens City planners in the old days walked around and did it one by one, now the city planners moved around in aeroplanes and started to do everything from above so it looks nice. The problem in this development that the place where people were where they lived their live where kids were supposed to play and old people to get around, the people’s spaces and scale was completely neglected (Brasilia syndrome).

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Designing cities - University of Pennsylvania MOOC

Why glass towers are bad for city life In this talk Justin Davidson criticizes the “window swept glass-walled open space”, in which office workers hurry through from the metro to their cubicles but spend too little time within. How glass, despite its benefits, is just a texture-less and inanimate material that makes all cities look the same. Glass has a limited ability to be expressive, and when you use materials that have local significance, you prevent cities from all looking the same. All other materials have the ability to absorb infusions of history and memory and project it into the present.

During the first semester I followed an online MOOC via coursera named “Designing Cities”, run by the University of Pennsylvania school of architecture. The course went through different city development approaches (traditional, modern, green, systems), and contemporary issues that face cities in the new century.

During the course’s duration I had to undergo some studies of different types and city designing systems. This helped me understand how each different part of the city is organized and what are the underlying themes behind that; a key skill for our studio aimed at developing a new way of doing housing.

During the MOOC, different examples and methods of providing program and activity into a site were explained. A. How spatial patterns can promote personal communication: mixed use buildings are active 24/7. The Rockridge Market Hall, in Oakland, California, combines shopping, offices, and housing at the top. Each of the upper floor uses has a separate lobby and entrance. The ground level adds life to the streets, providing convenient environment for those who live and work there.

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