Architecture Also
This project investigates what architecture is and what architecture is also. This project is about redistributing the value in architecture. The value is in the process. The architecture is the process. I am interested in uncovering a network that sits within a place. The architecture being the nodes, existing – but not in isolation. The synthesis between the built form, process, and my considerations is the built outcome.
The value is in the process.
This project will be discussed through my process, that is as an integrated whole. My process was established in the first five weeks of major project. The process uses the hand-built to reiterate the idea of the material shaping the process, the process informing the architecture which then informs the architect.
This architecture looks closely at the existing and how much of the existing circumstance we can commandeer to fulfill the brief. I will discuss the instances that appear throughout my project to illustrate how I’ve taken the areas of interest to me and placed them in a much bigger conversation. What I consider to be architecture and what you should consider to be architecture also.
What I consider to be architecture and what you should consider to be architecture also.
This project manifests in a hospital, but not as we currently know it. The hospital, a known and undisputed civic place, necessarily formal, necessarily complex in its multiple paths of circulation, acts as a device for observations to be made of, and for a subjective conception to be cast upon.
This proposition exposes the inherent simplicity of all we require.
What does it mean to be sick? Not healthy. What does it mean to be healthy? Not sick. This binary simplification of the way we see health need extend itself. This proposition exposes the inherent simplicity of all we require. It all starts with a few simple things. We need good quality food and organic produce, sunlight for vitamin d, exercise for good physical and mental health, fresh water and air and meaningful connections with the people around us. A hand-built thought object was created from week’s one to four. Week one, a publication. Week two, a hanging mobile. Week three, a waste terrazzo tile. Week four, a light fitting.
This portion of the project manifested itself in Tom’s coffee shop. The coffee shop, comfortably intuitive, familiar to most established the testing ground for an idea that the place could by anything, but this could not be anywhere. I proposed that any space was capable of the framework, but no other space can replicate the connections that are formed within a place. It was at this point that the project which positioned itself within Tom’s Coffee Shop was projected into a much larger context, a hospital.
Material shaping the process, the process informing the architecture which then informs the architect. The thought object in the instance of the hospital is the awning. The awning becomes a typology for a new public health architecture. I will discuss how the awning shifts and engages the exact circumstance to reposition our perception of how we view health. The awning originated from Dom’s Nonna’s house. He visits his Nonna every couple of weeks only to come home with a truck load of hand-picked organic produce and pockets full of figs.
The awning, distinctive of a past time, a recognisable icon for all.
The awning, distinctive of a past time, a recognisable icon for all, sits comfortably on the front façade of Dom’s Nonna’s. What started as a simple metaphor of when ‘the awning is down, fresh produce is available’ developed into the iconic awning becoming the signifier for a new integrated public health architecture that populates our surrounds.
You can see it out the front of the Brunswick Baths.
You can see it out the front of Brunswick Baths. An awning striped flag flapping next to the Moreland city council flag gets the attention of those in need of a swim. Their outdoor pool remains to be one of the few saltwater pools located in the inner city. Once in, a glimpse of the awning on the bottom of the swimming pool reminds you to settle into the space, taking a few longer breaths. One in ten post boxes are wrapped to suggest that the occasional act of generosity isn’t enough, and we need to embody thoughtfulness through everything we do. Not turning to form as the answer but providing a 50c stamp highlights the inherent simplicity of remembering to connect with our loved ones, giving ourselves just as much fulfillment as the one receiving the message on the other end.
Small reminders peppered throughout the La Trobe Reading Room suggests a slowing down of the city. An invitation for one to take an unknown book off the shelf, perhaps instigating a new-found interest, outside of study and work.
The undoing of a hospital brief and a reconfiguring of it in the form of an awning in various circumstances highlights a shift in the way we view health. Reiterating the idea of the material shaping the process, the process informing the architecture which then informs the architect.
Hand-built thought objects.
I want to go into more detail about the hand-built objects and how they play a significant role in establishing another mode of practicing. I will explain these objects starting with the book and will then describe the process behind the making. The book.
What started as an investigation into the question of what architecture is and what architecture is also, manifested itself in the form of a publication. I identified the elements in architecture that continued to appear in the AIA Awards from 1989-2020. I categorised, abstracted and reassembled these elements in an attempt to suggest that innovation in this context follows a certain trajectory. When flicking through the book, I was inspired only to the extent of the available outcomes. There was no consideration of a layering that extended to my own milieu.
Finding out that concrete consisted of three parts aggregate, two parts sand and one part cement was new to me. The feedback in response to my research was “here we have an observation, so what is the proposition?”. It made me consider if something could still be architecture if all of these elements were reassembled in a way that was unfamiliar.
From observation to proposition, I made a hanging mobile. The mobile was created from brass scraps from a metal yard that were reimagined. The piece is able to intersect with itself and transform the space from within, evolving over time. The mobile is infinitely mutable, changing constantly. A question that arose during this exploration was, ‘how do aspects of architecture that we see as fixed, become dynamic? Tom’s coffee shop was a perfect way to explore this. You can see on the top left corner of the panel that Tom has a bench where he lays his elbow when he takes a break. Noticing this idiosyncrasy, I transformed the bench to accommodate this small gesture, creating a groove where his elbow leans. I propose that architecture should respond to the people that interact with it. The waste terrazzo tile.
The waste terrazzo tile pays homage to the idea of meeting over coffee. Using the tiles as plinths to place a coffee cup on. This hand-built item reiterates the idea of the material shaping the process, the process informing the architecture which then informs the architect. The process behind the making was as follows.
The tiles were picked up from Max and Al’s bathroom renovation in Coburg as well as me knocking on a building site door two houses down asking if they had any waste material. Then came the 30-minute conversation with Steve, who was responsible for the concrete seating outside of Tom’s. Finding out that concrete consisted of three parts aggregate, two parts sand and one part cement was new to me. Making the molds for the tiles, I needed a circular saw. My friend Harry, who is a jeweler, has a studio in Brunswick. I borrowed the circ saw and some screws and made my mold, blunting a few screws in the process. A trip to Fulton’s in Alphintgton at the crack of dawn supplied
me with sample bags of aggregate and sand. At this point I was thinking of putting used coffee grounds in the terrazzo, the guys at Fulton’s directed me next door to reground, a small business that collects used coffee grounds for composting, worm farms and making soap. I not only left with aggregate and sand but a big bag of coffee grounds. I was fortunate enough to snag some chicken wire whilst at dinner that night, the final thing in preparation for the casting.
Design should be of a space, not on it.
Changing into some overalls, lent to me by my dad’s oldest childhood friend, I got to work. Placing the tiles at the bottom of the mold, mixing up the concrete to a consistency that I had no idea was going to work, I poured it in, sandwiched chicken wire in between and set it aside. Left with hands that were mildly burning. A day before taking apart the mold, I walked two doors down to where they’re doing the renovation, with the concrete mold in hand and asked the concreter if he thought it looked dry. Without realising, I entered yet another 20-minute conversation about concrete and left with a fluoro green solution, likened to ‘sugar water’ which I learnt was what was used to expose the top of concrete. This process is the architecture;the most significant and meaningful aspect of my major project. The matrix of people, conversation, material, knowledge, manipulation and emotion encapsulates why and what I’m doing. Allowing the information, experience and knowledge that has been gathered to act as a narrative which informs the process of making, then informing the architecture and finally informing me, as the architect. I propose architecture’s order to be inspire, do, consider. The light.
The light fitting uses clay is from my friend’s parent’s property in Limestone. It is an example of being inspired by the surrounding, that is, responding to the environment as it is and taking cues from it rather than circumscribing what exists so to assert one’s own design on the space. This project understands design to be of a space rather than on it.
The awning.
The one-to-one awning was explored at a one-to-one scale through the making of a seat turned swing. The awning is relevant to the architecture because rather than seeking out materials that conform to the idea, the material informs the idea. Instead of predicting the space through interpretation of what we think that space is, it questions the notion of “why aren’t we inspired by the space? And why don’t we learn to be within”.
Annika Lammers
This was born out of my considerations regarding the AIA awards in which we see pieces of architecture judged straight after their completion. I imagined if the built forms were judged ten years after their completion. How much more would an architect build upon the design, in response to, inspired by and so to facilitate the genuine interaction between the built form and the people occupying it.
I now imagine a public health architecture in ten years time. I now imagine a public health architecture in ten years-time. Could we transform what I perceive to be a linear process from concept design to built outcome into a process that is cyclical? This cyclical process would, like the awning, see a space continue to be molded and layered beyond the point that we deem as complete. The concept of a hand over would be abolished. Shifting the value and attention toward the upkeep and maintenance of public health architecture would do just that, upkeep and maintain public health. The process behind the making of the swing was as follows: I got my hands on an awning in Gisborne. An early start to fit in a walk near Macedon meant that we were there by 9am. Lugging the awnings into my little i20, we spotted a for sale sign across the road, a house selling chicken and duck eggs. We met Jenny. A fifty (or so) year old woman, kindly letting us in and in no time showing us her centrifuge operation for making honey, gifting us blue duck eggs, presenting her current Master of Fine Arts proposal and lastly inviting us to her final exhibition on September 1st. We then dropped into the local Gisborne butcher, buying a free range chook and learning of their 40-year family-owned business. Voicing my concerns on the way home, about how I was going to build this chair, my friend Harry who was in the back seat mentioned he had a sewing awl. I dropped him home in return for the tool. Wrapping myself in this awning, whilst attempting to sew and then flip it inside out, had me nearly in tears. Not to mention the attempts to hang it up in a tree to photograph the awning in a ‘circumstance’.
Consistently attempting to move from my small-scale coffee intervention, presented at week five, to a larger scale civic space sent me in to a questioning of why I was doing what I was doing. It was at this point I attended the funeral of my mum’s business partner, who she described as a gp practicing conventional medicine in an unconventional way, I found myself unknowingly speaking to the person who founded the national institute of integrative medicine that I reached out to long before starting my major project, to see if I could chat to their research team about merging my interest in both health and architecture. What ended up with a two-hour long conversation with Avni about many things, including the impact that architecture can have on health, left me with an answer of the importance of this project. For the last week and a half, I have been considering my project. This project was in essence, ‘completed’ two weeks ago as the fabric panel was sent to print. I have used this time to continue to layer upon the project, manipulate, illustrate, map and create a publication. The publication delivering me back to where I first began this project, with the book.
This process came from mebut isnolongermyown. Finding myself positioned with where I began and reintegrating my learnings back into this project shows that this process came from me but is no longer my own. The proposition in use, is, in of itself, form for a mode of practice rather than a personal project. It extends itself far beyond me, beyond this major project and places itself in a much larger conversation within the profession. It proposes another way of practicing and reminds one that we are humans in the world before we are architects and that we should act accordingly. A book that I read recently by Emanuel Cheraskin stated in the introduction that “every new idea goes through three phases: ridicule, discussion and general acceptance”. By doing this project it now occupies a place within the discursive realm. Situating itself within the discipline with the objective of shifting our understanding of what architecture is and what architecture is also.