3.0 Performing Arts
12/11/15 - 15/03/16 3.1 Brief
Millenium Dance 2000 Theatre School was founded as an organisation in September 1997. It grew rapidly, moving into the Further Education sector in 2002. By 2008 the school had established a cohort of 150 full time students. As a result it became necessary to relocate from its original premises to a larger building near Woolwich Arsenal, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is now named Millenium Performing Arts (MPA). The building that the school is now based in is a 1930’s wing of the old Woolwich Polytechnic. Originally founded in 1891 as the Uk’s second ever polytechnic college, this institution eventually evolved into Greenwich University, itself now relocated. The urban block in the immediate surrounds of the MPA site is the outcome of 100 years of occupation by the polytechnic and contains purpose built workshops, lecture halls and teaching facilities, most of which now lie semi-abandoned and in a state of disrepair. At present the MPA school operates its premises on a minimal budget, seeking to channel any profits back into teaching and support for its students. In order to facilitate the particular needs of dance and performance a number of specialist areas such as dance studios and music rooms have been cut and carved into the original spaces of the building in a pragmatic and utilitarian manner. Beyond these zones, much of the 1930’s construction is failing; there are endemic problems of damp and cold bridging, with the steel patent glazing in a poor condition and an archaic heating system. [continued...] UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // BA Interior Architecture & Design // Stage 3 // 2015-2016
3.1 Brief (continued)
Despite the fact that the building configuration is not ideal for a dance school user, MPA trains students to the highest standards of knowledge and understanding of Dance and Musical Theatre performance. Their education involves a thorough repertoire of study from the great classics to the innovative work of the latest choreographers and directors. Each genre is led by professionals of the highest calibre with significant performance and teaching careers in their specific individual fields. As a result, the students and graduates are not only very proficient performers but are exceptionally confident individuals with a strong grasp of the wider artistic context for their work. MPA currently delivers Professional Diplomas in partnership with Trinity College London and has recently validated a new BA degree award in partnership with the University for the Creative Arts. They have a consistently high ratio of applications to places (currently 10 – 1) enabling the College to select students with outstanding talent. Many of the college’s students are funded through the Dance and Drama Awards (DaDA) scheme for talented students from a disadvantaged background.
3.2 Mission
The following is the MPA mission statement, which lies at the heart of the school ethos.
“Theatre, as a profession, is a way of life” This school will provide an outstanding opportunity for young performers of the new millennium. Success in Dance and Theatre begins with a creative, inspired and disciplined staff, in a progressive environment where everyone can realize their true potential. We will be a leading, award-winning Professional Performing Arts provider, known for high calibre students and staff. Our graduating artists will be committed to upholding the professionalism of the industry. As articulate, team players dedicated to maintaining high-level practical skills, they will be world class performers. Our graduates are fully developed, relevant, highly employable individuals, who will inspire and influence the future of the profession. Our courses aim to: - Provide study which meets the standards and requirements of students who wish to pursue a career in musical theatre/dance. - Develop talents in versatility, creativity and performance. - Achieve a professional level of technical excellence and artistry. - Through the practice, develop a kinetic intelligence and understanding of varied dance techniques, singing and acting as art forms. - Create the thinking artist through contextual and related studies On graduation our students will be able to: - Demonstrate substantially extended creative achievement and personal professional growth in all subjects. - Use the body expressively to communicate to an audience through the language of dance, music and the spoken word. - Develop a knowledge and understanding of body movements and vocal skills and how to undertake performance related activities of advanced and complex nature safely and without injury. - Articulate an understanding of dance, singing and acting in relation to other art forms. - Work confidently both independently and collaboratively in a number of different contexts. - Critically evaluate own work and the work of others. - Demonstrate the ability to compete equally and immediately in the profession.
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3.3 UCA Role
For your major project we will be examining the feasibility and potential for a major refurbishment and reworking of the MPA building to meet their future educational needs. You will identify a series of potential functional narratives and briefing concerns that map directly onto MPA’s requirements and deepen the creative and performative potential of the immediate locality of the scheme. These will lead you to proposing a series of vibrant interventions into the existing building fabric; facilitating the insertion of cross programmatic spaces, and forms of community engagement activity. It is hoped and intended that your proposals will provide a datum of experimental ideas for a future realworld redevelopment; exploring potential users, design concepts, fabrication methods and final branded outcomes for the scheme. In this way, the work that you do may directly inform, supplement and expand on that being codified in parallel into MPA’s ongoing facilities, teaching and management strategies.
3.4 Overlapping Elements
Programmed space often acts to edit specific human activity. Such territories in a building are often clearly defined and singular in operation. In order to ensure that all of MPA’s requirements are achieved whilst the potential of their building is maximised, opportunities should be sought out for zones within the building to afford or facilitate multiple overlapping functions and uses. Carefully consider what cross-programmatic spatial operations might function as a series of mutually beneficial intersecting uses. These must include: a public performance space - dedicated to promote and champion the school’s art - to act as an incubator for local performance start-ups and raise the profile of the area a studio venue or venues available for hire - to function as critical dance, performance and music teaching studios throughout the school teaching programmes - to be affordable for use by the local creative community, the local SME business base and not-for-profit organisations as year round workshops, dance classes and or exhibitions. These could provide a local hub; to cover anything from 20 to 300 attendees and be equipped with appropriate visual communication/projection surfaces or equipment. a free-to-use library/work space and networking area - to facilitate the school’s library, visual resources and digital learning requirements - to help dance, performance and other local entrepreneurs develop relationships and provide them with comfortable small meetings and one to one discussion spaces. office spaces - for the ongoing management and running of the school student den - a student support and relaxation space, administered and run by the student body a ground floor cafe, canteen, and possible bar (potentially utilising the roof) - to service events, offer refreshments, allow week round facilities for the staff, students and local community; to generate catchment of incidental passing visitors; run in partnership with an outsourced events and catering management company storage - including adaptable design approaches to allow efficient modulation and operation of the overlapping programmes and safe storage of stock, stage sets, costumes and equipment.
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3.5 Requirements
The final proposals for the MPA building should imbue and represent a sense of the creative and idiosyncratic talent which abounds in within the school at present. They will provide affordable space for organisations to deliver a range of exciting performative and kinetic, physical programmes. They will need to nuture and support the existing student body, mission ethos and identity of the college, whilst reaching out to extend its agenda into appropriate contexts of your selection. Equally, they must protect the future of the organisation and extend its outreach capabilities by establishing a robust and efficient commercial and economic operation that maximises the potential value of the school facilities. The building is a complex series of layers that do and will need to operate in parallel; so flexibility of use and layout is key. Your suggestions for the Thomas Street site will need to deliver excellent value for money through innovative design and use of materials. They should allow for changes in programme over time and for these to co-exist or their boundaries to blur and overlap in flexible territories. Consider how these can be formed through careful manipulation of architectural elements; lighting, adaptable partitions, acoustic control/isolation, mobile or fixed elements, platforms, public and private boundaries and seasonal opportunities. Client requirements to consider when developing your designs include: DDA access and WC facilities at ground floor Reception desk and entrance area Audition space Lecture/seminar rooms (3 no.) Singing and drama rooms (3 no.) Dance Studios (4 - 5 no.) Student Lounge & Kitchenette CafĂŠ / Canteen / Bar space Performance/event space (publicly accessible) Store room / Costume Wardrobe / Stage Set storage spaces AV and technician support and store area Student changing rooms, shower rooms and toilets Staff changing and toilets Staff Room and Kitchen Staff offices (assess during survey) Meeting room(s) Counselling room Massage and treatment room Free weights and body tuning room Fire escapes Library / TV & digital learning space Keep your eyes and ears peeled during the site visit and ask questions - the above list is far from an exhaustive itemisation of what is a very complex and multi-faceted brief !!!
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3.6 Communities
Your proposals will focus on introducing spatial interventions that facilitate the building’s heightened occupation and specific performance requirements. These must address and meet the requirements of three co-incident but distinct communities: Educate (permanent territory) The educators will be permanent daily residents of the MPA space. They are the staff and faculty whom manage and teach within the building, as well as any embedded local agents or entrepreneurs who are accommodated within the reworked space. Express (temporal and performative overlaps) The expressors will be the temporary and semi-temporary inhabitants of the MPA space. They will be acting on the space itself, occupying it as a student body and modulating it to certain performance, hire or workshop needs. Engage (fleeting moments) The engagers will be transitory guests and diurnal visitors to the space, perhaps recurring; in search of knowledge, experience, nourishment or recreation. We will refer directly to these three categories of occupant and their overlaps and intersections throughout the major project. You should individually define and interrogate specific and appropriate actors within each in order to inform and focus your design agenda. As you finalise your proposals you should explore how the spatialities that you create inform novel interactions and meetings between your communities that intensify the performative and learning ethos at the heart of MPA.
3.7 Parameters
Scale of proposals: - Building scale interventions / insertions with detailed human scale elements Project outcomes: - Identification, justification and brief based itemisation of idiosyncratic communities and activities appropriate to MPA’s agenda within the wider context of Woolwich and the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
- A clear cross-programmatic strategy for the functional, economic, commercial and branding operation of the MPA space to satisfy the above. - Three fully designed and detailed spatial insertions into or adaptations of MPA’s existing building on Thomas Street that facilitate the above. - An ongoing temporal narrative for modulation and adaptive use of these proposals. - A series of high quality physical prototype test pieces that demonstrate iterative design failure and improvement of a key element of the above.
3.8 Staff/Guests
The project will be run by Sam McElhinney (MA Course Leader) and assisted by David Di Duca, visiting design tutor. Technical support will be provided by Chris Settle and Ben Westacott when required. During the course of the unit we will be joined by key guests for crit reviews. Their identities will be revealed in due course.
[continued...] UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // BA Interior Architecture & Design // Stage 3 // 2015-2016
3.9 Duration
The project will run from the 12/11/2015 until the final crit on 15/03/2016. Summary Dates: Site Visit: 12/11/2015 Interim Crits: 10/12/2015 21/01/2016 11/02/2016 Final Crit: 15/03/2016 Portfolio Hand-in: 05/04/2016
3.10 Assessment
Completion of the Major project will contribute 60% towards the grade for the BA Interior Architecture and Design Stage 3 ‘Projects 05’ unit (CIAD 6011). Assessment will be carried out at the point of final portfolio submission on 05/04/2016. Feedback will be verbal and written at formative stages and written at the summative stage for this project. Assessment Criteria: - Ability to formulate a project proposal that is clearly grounded in research of the contextual issues relating to the site and the client. - Ability to coordinate the various cultural, technological, social and formal considerations in the production of a complex interior design project. - Quality of visual, verbal and other communicative methods and techniques and their appropriateness to the project aims and the audiences that it seeks to address.
3.11 Project Stages
i] Stage 1: Appraisal and Ideas (Term 1, W08-W11) In reference to the project brief, identify the project objectives and explore the business case for the integration of multiple programmes within the site. Examine the available site information and assimilate any survey materials. Supplement this by making visits and surveys of the site and its context. Develop a range of relevant information that will inform your design process. Establish a clear understanding of the network of stakeholders, funders and client bodies in the real world. Identify potential opportunities for their engagement in a design process. Clearly demonstrate extensive knowledge of the communities Educate-Express-Engage. Select key characters from them that you are intending to design your interventions for. Conduct focused research and analysis on these in order to inform your design process. Define innovative programmatic briefs that satisfy the communities and context that you are designing for. Draw these up in presentable format for review; illustrated with site information, diagrams and contextual mappings where appropriate. Prepare an outline design based on the briefing information. Identify outline proposals in plan, section and elevation for a series of insertions into the existing building fabric. Illustrate how these conform to a considered space plan with focus on the elements that will achieve cross-programmatic outcomes. Prepare physical and computer based models to develop and test materials, scales, massing, forms and deployability of your proposals. Establish a presentational language and descriptive approach appropriate to your methodological process and proposals. Proposed Stage 1 Workshops: Site Analysis, Materials, Massing/form, Kit of Parts
[continued...] UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // BA Interior Architecture & Design // Stage 3 // 2015-2016
3.11 Project Stages (cont...)
ii] Stage 2: Design Development (Term 2, W01-W03) Develop the design in further detail to assess required insertions, connections and alterations to the existing building fabric. Clearly define where and how existing systems, structures and services will require alteration to facilitate or support your proposals. Assess and selectively manipulate materiality, flexibility and deployability of design elements to satisfy and contribute to the potential dynamic nature of your proposals’ programmatic functions. Demonstrate a design approach that meets the specific nature of your communities brief. Proposed Stage 2 Workshops: Lighting, Deployability, Structure
iii] Stage 3 : Technical Design (Term 2, W04-W06) Select three key programmatic driven elements of your design to be technically developed to a high quality and resolution. Research the materiality, construction techniques, productive methods (including modularisation) and the economic and functional implications of these for their programmatic deployment. Investigate the potential for local makers or suppliers to inform the fabrication of the proposals. Apply this knowledge to to develop and exquisitely detail your proposals to a realisable level. Clearly identify the fundamental aspects of your solutions that require physical testing and experimentation. Construct a series of full scale prototyping assemblages to examine and rigorously document the success and failures of these solutions. Proposed Stage 3 Workshops: Detailing, Prototyping
iv] Stage 4: Specialist Design (Term 2, W07-W11) Complete a comprehensive set of design presentation information that includes scale drawings, 3D representations, views, detailed sections and axonometric drawings, functional diagrams and a curated design diary. Produce a final film based presentation that acts as a personal ‘ident’ film and describes all aspects of the project; from community identification, to design development processes, to insertion and functional operation, to appropriate branding. Finalise a sequence of prototypes that describes the specialisation and gradual improvement of a key series of elements in physical form. Present the entire project in a professional and competent manner for final review.
v] Portfolio Completion (Term 2, W11 - Term 3, W03) In the three week period following the final review, time will be provided to focus on reviewing, extending and completing the all previous design projects and compiling them into an A2 portfolio format ready for final submission. vi] Portfolio Submission (Term 3, W01) The submission of final portfolios will be on Monday 13/04/2015. A desk will be provided for submission between 14:00 and 15:00. No submissions will be accepted outside of this time slot. Students are advised that late submissions will not be accepted and will be considered as non-submission. [continued...] UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // BA Interior Architecture & Design // Stage 3 // 2015-2016
3.12 Deliverables
At the commencement of each Stage a clear set of deliverable requirements and a checklist will be issued. The following only provides an indicative overview of the required minimum that these will result in at the conclusion of the project. Diary (A final collation of information into a printed and bound presentation quality A5 design diary at a minimum of four pages per day) i) Detailed and precise drawn site records of location (plans, sections, elevations, details of frames, balustrades, columns, doors or furniture); demonstrating clear understanding of site constraints, setting out an approach to the site including parts of the building in which interventions are made. ii) collated other site evidence and precedent studies (photographs, postcards, artwork, stickers, tickets) iii) collated press/other information as an edited representation of the research work carried out into the Educate-Express-Engage communities iv) Design Development: edited representation including concept development, precedent analysis, sequential working model records, basic diagrams to explain main design moves. v) exploration of branding and identity for your MPA proposals vi) intensive examination of sample materials and collated information on their required construction buildup vii) technical prototype sketches, screenshots, test model photos viii) 3D collage layered drawing design sketches, screenshots, fabrication photos
Strategic ix) All contextual analysis deliverables completed as follows: 1 A2 page focussing on MPA agenda and context 1 A2 page on selected Educate-Express-Engage characters 1 A2 page of programmatic requirement data & relationships diagrams 1 A2 1:500 CAD context plan with the interior proposal clearly represented (with key access and programmatic movement clearly mapped) 1 A2 annotated existing building drawings at 1:200 (plans and key section) 1 A2 of selected site photos carefully keyed to existing drawings set 1 A2 of carefully selected and annotated precedent studies x) Full, completed, carefully annotated and keyed GA drawing set of your final proposals to be 1:100 on A2 sheets. Must include: Ground, First, Second Floor plans (including context) One long and one lateral section (including context) Front and rear elevations (including context) xi) A2 communication of an appropriate MPA community and commercial branding strategy or identity applied to the local context (elevation or perspective) xii) Project Synopsis: a written summary of your project (between 500 -800 words) with a concise sequential structure that covers the development of the work from the brief development and research stage through to the final proposals. This should clearly explain what constitutes the main focus of your proposals.
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3.12 Deliverables (cont...)
Presentational xiii) A final A1/A0, 1:20, technically detailed and spatially descriptive presentation CAD section through the existing building and your proposals; demonstrating your approach to insertion, materiality, construction and deployable functions in occupation and operation. All elements must be carefully annotated and the section must be keyed to the plan. xiv) 1 A1/A2 final, presentation quality exploded axonometric or isometric drawing of the entirety of your proposals. Key areas and elements should be annotated. xv) One A1/A2 drawing, annotated, keyed and labelled to demonstrate careful design and and detailing of one element of your insertion proposals to a level suitable for fabrication. This should give clear description of the material and functional properties and use of the element. xvi) A physical exhibit quality prototype of all or part of the above and appropriate development prototype sequences, carefully photographed and presented on an annotated A2 sheet. xvii) A beautiful exhibit quality A2 size final 3D collage layered drawing construction that conveys a clear sense of the materiality and spatial aspirations of your proposals in occupation and use. xviii) Three presentation quality A3 perspective views presented on A2 sheets to convey a clear sense of identity, material and spatial experience. These should include internal view perspectives exploring light qualities and materiality. These can be hand drawn, photomontages, computer renders, photoshop compositions or any combination. Professional xvi) The above deliverables are to be presented to a professional standard in an A2 card portfolio or kraftfolio. It is essential that this is done in a coherent manner with an appropriate and carefully considered graphic or visual style. Care should be taken to sequence the work in a clear developmental or explanatory order.
- Heavy ring bound portfolios should be avoided - Plastic sleeves must not be used to hold drawings. - Tracing paper and other non standard drawing materials sheets should be appropriately mounted on a heavyweight white A2 paper background - Names must be provided on the cover of the portfolio - Drawings should be keyed and labelled in a discrete and uniform way. - Annotations must be carefully composed using an appropriate typeface.
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3.13 Lear ning Aims
The aims of this unit are: A1: To refine the research, critical thinking, and decision making skills needed in the development of design processes and coherent concepts, which can inform design proposals in response to self-initiated briefs. A2: To develop the ability to design creative, appropriate and complex interior architecture and design projects, resolving construction and detail by synthesising knowledge and understanding gained across the three years of the course. A3: To enhance employability skills by developing confidence in communicating and presenting design proposals effectively and professionally using a range of techniques targeted to particular audiences.
3.14 Lear ning Outcomes
On satisfactory completion of this unit you will be able to: LO1: Formulate clear self-initiated design agendas, briefs and propositions underpinned by systematic investigation, analysis and critical evaluation of broad and unpredictable contexts. LO2: Creatively generate and rigorously develop appropriate complex interior architecture and design proposals that respond to coherent concepts, and satisfy spatial; programmatic; aesthetic; technical; environmental; and relevant regulatory requirements as well as user/s needs. LO3: Resolve design proposals in detail in all their relevant structural; technical; material; and environmental aspects and in a range of different scales. LO4: Produce a comprehensive set of evidence that effectively communicate design processes and proposals using a range of techniques and applying conventions appropriate to the intended project aims and audience/s.
[ends] UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // BA Interior Architecture & Design // Stage 3 // 2015-2016