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Scott Sutherland Yearbook 2015
Scott Sutherland Yearbook 2015
FIFTYS EVENTEN Scott Sutherland Yearbook 2014/15
Scott Sutherland Yearbook 2014/15
Professor David McClean // Head of School The end of the academic year is always a time of reflection, but no more so than when, after 58 years, the School is about to move to a brand new bespoke building, and a new home. In 1957 Thomas Scott Sutherland gifted Garthdee House to the then Robert Gordon Institute of Technology to establish a distinct School of Architecture. This came one year before the watershed moment in British architectural education of the Oxford Conference of 1958, in which an elite group of gentlemen professionals, led by Sir Leslie Martin, formulated the blueprint for architectural education that was to endure for the remainder of the 20th century. The recommendations sought to reinforce the exclusive status of an elite profession, raise entry standards, and limit modes of study. Some 50 years later the educational agenda is widening access, varied modes of study, collaborative working, and the quest for professions with membership profiles that mirror those of the society they serve. How things change! Now fittingly a multi-disciplinary entity, the Scott Sutherland School’s time in its existing building has directly paralleled a period of rapid and continual change in education, both professionally and at a more generic ideological level. Of course, on the ground, much that we do in teaching, learning, and research endures, but any comparison of professional roles, functions, and attitudes over the last 50 years reveals seismic shifts that have impacted on educational provision. Every indication is that this will continue, and our move will provide us with a setting that will allow us to address ongoing change. Nevertheless, leaving a much loved building inevitably stimulates many emotions, and no more so than when its occupants share the passion for our built environment that we all have. Add to this the provenance of Garthdee House, and a heady mix of excitement, expectation, and nostalgia results.
Buildings harbour memories and, through these, exert a powerful force on our lived experience. In the words of the great playwright Tennessee Williams, ‘life is all memory’, an accretion of lived experience framed by the physical settings in which social interchange takes place. As such, buildings such as schools and dwellings can assume enormous importance in our lives, extending far beyond their physical presence. I know this to be true for many in relation to Garthdee House. Indeed, a school such as ours is both a place of learning and a home, and we can proudly reflect on the enduring allegiance that graduates and colleagues - many thousands of them - have for the Scott Sutherland School both as a place and an experience. Le Corbusier famously claimed that ‘the home should be the treasure chest of living’, and I would argue the Scott Sutherland School has provided great richness for many and, as we progress to a new chapter, will continue to do so. Amidst change, buildings can provide constancy, solidity, and a sense of permanence. But there are of course times when change is positive, offering new possibilities, challenging entrenched habits and accepted orthodoxies, and inviting fresh perspectives to be formed. For our School, such a time is now. As ever, the work of our students as illustrated in the pages of this Yearbook, stand as testimony to their abundant enthusiasm, energy and commitment. It would be remiss of me not to mention our other subjects whose outputs do not lend themselves so easily to publication in this format, but which are every bit as important to the School. Looking back over similar publications over the last six years, one sees a strength of consistency, and a sense of identity being communicated through the work. We will take this with us to grow further over the coming years. But for now, I invite you to enjoy the imagination and industry visible on these pages.
Publishers
Printers
Published by the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publisher.
J Thomson Colour Printer, Glasgow
ISBN 978-0-9562825-6-9
Cover images: Glaciären project by Blanka Borbely, Gabriel Wyderkiewicz, Amanda Vos.
Included in this publication ia a special insert celebrating Gray’s School of Art. Additional copies are available by contacting Penny Lewis on p.r.lewis@rgu.ac.uk
A New Beginning Scott Sutherland Yearbook 7
Holly Kennedy, Volha Druhakova // Editors This is the last SSS Yearbook to be produced at Garthdee House. By next year students will have spent a year in the new Riverside East building and will, no doubt, want to reflect on the qualities of their new home and its impact on their education and work. For now, we thought it would be worth reflecting on the particular qualities of the present or ‘old’ school building and the way in which students and staff have made use of it in recent years. During our time as students the Garthdee campus has changed beyond recognition. In the process we have lost a union bar in the city, but gained a number of new resources on site. As Year 6 students we are not just leaving the building, we are also leaving the school too. Looking back over the past 6 years it is interesting how much the school has also changed. Developments in the workshop (digital printing and laser cutters) and changes in the labs (the emergence of 3D modelling and BIM etc) have had a major impact on the work we produce and how it is presented. It feels as if architectural education has changed a lot, although we can’t quite agree on the nature of the change. Whether education is more or less radical, technologically driven or marketing-orientated are questions on which you might chose to make your own judgement based on the work in this year’s book. As we are moving to a new building, we thought it might be a good time to experiment with the format of the yearbook. We decided to go for a large square format so we could show work in a legible fashion. We hope you like it.
Contents 04 Scott’s Present, Past and Future 10 Competition entries 13 The Big Crit 2015 24 Architecture Part 1 25 Stage 1 Studio 28 Stage 2 Studio 34 Stage 3 Studio 42 Architectural Technology 49 Journeys 54 Essays on Modernism 58 Product Design 60 Architecture Masters 61 Stage 5 Studio 66 Stage 6 Studio 84 Electives 86 Dissertations 90 Sketchbook
Editorial Team Volha Druhakova // Editor Holly Kennedy // Editor J’ Stewart // Commissioning Shallom Okello // Commissioning Zisan Duniya // Design and Production Rob McCaughan // Design and Production Special Thanks to Penny Lewis Scott Sutherland School 2015
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A Working School Life in Scott Sutherland School’s ‘Old Building’
Volha Druhakova // Stage 6 After five years of study Volha Druhakova reflects on the very particular qualities of the present Scott Sutherland School building. It took me a while to actually understand the coding system for the rooms at the Scott Sutherland Building. Actually, it is very straightforward: S stands for Scott Sutherland School and A, B, or C corresponds to basement, ground and first floor respectively. This is followed by a room number, although sometimes not in order that you expect. Each of these numbered spaces have their own identity expressed in a variety of ways by those who think of the building as their own. There is SB42 or the big lecture theatre, SB36 - the long studio on the other side of the courtyard, the studio with glulam beams (SC 32), ‘Fergus’ (SB21) ‘ and ‘ the Old house’.
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The building is planned with all of the spaces off a central corridor, which closes in on itself forming four wings around central courtyard. New visitors can get easily lost if not familiar with organisation of the plan or the codes. The absence of a legible plan form and the difficulty in navigating the building can be considered a negative thing ; however, strangely, for those of us who studied or worked in there for many
3 1 Stairs in the south wing 2 Ground floor corridor South wing with student work and storage lockers along the walls 3 Stairs in the East wing
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separate spaces; larger as studios, smaller seminar rooms and yet smaller cellular staff offices.
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years, it adds to the feeling of being at home and distinguishes its residents from outsiders. Corridors are quite dark and fairly narrow, however it is usually the case that any suitable wall or corner is taken over by the students to display work, or simply store work such as enormous models of cities or skyscrapers (the lack of storage does not need explaining). There is also a fragment
of a space frame and scaled casts of the classical orders displayed on the walls around stairs. It adds to the atmosphere of the place and registers the potential of the multiple functionality of circulation spaces. This architecture school is a place of work. Following the conventional 1950s planning of educational facilities, it consists of many different
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Studios Each architecture year has its own studio, and so different years are quite isolated from each other; it feels a bit like trespassing to go into somebody else’s studio. At some point one of my projects was to design an architecture school. We speculated on the possibility of all years to be together in one space and to learn from each other. During that project we tried to formulate what would be the ideal architecture school in terms of circulation, work, presentation and learning spaces and the first point of departure was of course our own building, identifying what worked and what didn’t. In the end about half of us ended up designing something similar to the current school, so it is probably all right. Studios accommodate activities such as dayto-day self or lecturer-assisted study (drawing, work on computers, model making); storing work using any available corner, a patch of wall, floor or someone else’s desk; displaying work -from pinning up sketches in progress to completed presentations printed on large format paper or projected on the pull-down screens; crits and reviews, discussions - in groups and more private ones; having breakfast, lunch and dinner (unofficially), because students often stay in studio from 8am till 10 pm. All of the above would involve using various drawing media and
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STUDIOS WORK HARD. It is expressed in the photographs, as in real life we get used to all the amount of activity and stuff around and stop noticing it. Offices Staff offices, rooms of nice proportions with tall ceilings and large windows, are usually shared between 3 or 4 people and distinguished by better organisation. They even manage to subdivide them to create small meeting areas. Offices contain a wealth of interesting things including thematic selection of periodicals, books, works of architecture and art, previous generations of students work, memorabilia etc. all kept in the most popular storage solution -wall shelving. Walking into any of the staff offices is a learning experience in itself -they are containers of ideas. The preparation to the move involved a major clearance of offices, the activity which was always thought about, but never actually happened, but hopefully this aspect of tutor’s offices will remain. How do you transfer culture from one place to another? Probably with material carriers: physical things, which embody culture. Maybe the new building does not need dedicated storage space (also the case with digital one), because things get forgotten in there and so lose their purpose. Labs, lecture theatres and pin-up spaces Review and exhibition spaces, lecture theatres, seminar rooms, computer labs are all learning spaces. Reviews happen in studios and the whole school is literally an ongoing exhibition. Once a year studios get a real makeover for the End of Year Show, when everything is transformed for the celebration of achievement and hard work. The most important events such as the Big Crit and open days happen in what is considered the best presentation space: the old house, where the architectural qualities of the place adds a special value to the event. I can’t imagine the Big Crit anywhere else really, but it may change when the school moves. Two lecture theatres are also used for presentations (usually full) and for the lectures (rather empty), and surely everyone is familiar with the situation when the technical side of things does not quite work. The manner of presentation is becoming more and more towards the digital, and so is the methods of production of work. In recent years there was constant demand to increase quantity of computer workstations in the school, resulting in more rooms adopted as computer labs. Some students don’t even use the studio anymore. Is there a need for seminar rooms as this mode of teaching can happen online? The separation of physically produced part of work from its digital component creates problems and the pre-digital age building could not be easily adapted to avoid this. However, I believe that it is important for an architecture school not to substitute studios for computer labs, but to integrate both; as now all students have their own laptop alongside a sketchpad and a cutting mat. Having both studios and labs requires more space, but perhaps the enormous studios of new building will provide some answers.
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5 1 Makeshift review space (Stage 5/6 Unit 2 studio) 2 Arrangement of permanent review/exhibition space within the studio (Stage 3 studio) 3 Smart organisation of workplace so everyone has their own space (Stage 3) 4 Office with small meeting area made by subdividing the room with shelving units 5 Small office
Workshops Intermittently the workshop in the basement become the most important place for every student. Here is the chance to have your project built. It can be at a variety of different scales from 1:1 for the product design to contour Scott Sutherland School 2015
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models. Around studio deadlines the workshop becomes a place of hectic activity, filled with noise, dust and queues of people. Again, CAD-CAM is taking over conventional tools, faster than the workshop can respond. A building For an architecture student there is another use of the building: as a learning tool itself. When we need to look closer at precast concrete construction elements, arrangement of saw tooth rooflights , prefabricated concrete panels, Crittall metal windows, example of well-proportioned steel stairs, terrazzo flooring, light conditions in south facing spaces or courtyard planning - we can easily find them just a few steps from the studio. This will be true for the new building as well, only there students will learn different things. The way we use building does not only depend on the type of activity undertaken, it is also an expression of certain culture created by several generations of users. This culture is probably the most important thing to retain when moving to a new place. 1
1 Opening of an exhibition in the Old Hall 2 Studio arranged for reviews 3 One of the computer labs 4 Workshop 5 Drawings (based on the drawings provided by the RGU Estates Department)
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equipment, cutting and gluing card, paper, wood, casting concrete (definitely unofficially), using the pull down sockets to get access to mains electricity (we greeted their installation, finally after much struggle, with cheers), producing various smells, lots of rubbish, trip hazards, etc. Because of multitude of activities now and again studios need rearranging to accommodate presentations, exhibitions, or different number of students. So everything is temporary, shifting; one rarely has their own desk for a long period of time, sometimes not at all. This is quite a strong issue amongst students: without exception everyone longs for their own part of space, untouchable and unchallenged, the space that can be customised and individualised. And if complete with additional storage space close at hand –it’s dream come true! However, I noticed that it is a question of a smart approach to the organisation of space, rather than not having enough space; studios prove to be flexible. 8
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Ground floor plan
First floor plan
North Elevation
East Elevation
South Elevation
Basement floor plan
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West Elevation
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Competitions
Look Again Festival information hub design
Scott Sutherland School Students // Stages 2-5 The students were set a brief to design a new temporary structure for the city’s Castlegate to act as the festival hub and information point for Look Again 2016. The students were asked to use recycled and low cost material for the hub.
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The winner was Lucy Fisher with “Mirror pavilion”. “Aberdeenshire Map” by Andy McDonagh and Kyle Scott and Pallet Pavilion by Calum Ward & Vicky Mitchell were runners up.
1 1 Mirror Pavilion Lucy Fisher 2 Pallet Pavilion Calum Ward & Vicky Mitchell 3 Viewpoint Pavilion Kirsten Macfarlane & Karen Reid & Emily Fawdon 4 Aurora Pavilion Thomas Perritt & Sophie Houston 5 Aberdeenshire map Andy McDonagh & Kyle Scott
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120 Hours Preserving Pyramiden Blanka Borbely, Gabriel Wyderkiewicz, Amanda Vos // Stage 3 120 Hours is an international student competition set up by The Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The title of the competition comes from the time allowed for the full competition process from conception to completion. Frozen in time, Glaciären drapes its protective form around the abandoned Pyramiden. A rarity in this area of the world, the history of this once pulsing but ill-fated community must be brought back to life. To play to the town’s strengths we turned to the landscape to find the answers in order to preserve this piece of history, a structure that can dwell for thousands of years – a glacier. The aim for this piece was to be able to protect the town from the harshness of the extreme environment it lies in, whilst reflecting the arctic landscape. The Glassier will harvest the inconsistent sunlight it receives through fibre optic technology so it can act as a beacon of the north. Highlighting the monument, the piece will be seen from miles away and can be explored by visitors touring Svalbard.
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1 Site plan 2 Setting in the landscape 3 Concept
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Competitions
Big Crit Poster Poster Design Competition 10-17.03.2015
Winning entry: Natali Hristova
1 32 1 Natali Hristova 2 Kimberly Smith 3 David Jones 4 Xanthe Bodington
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The Big Crit 2015 A Recap of the Big Crit Zisan Duniya // Stage 6 Unit 2 The 7th edition of The Big Crit was an unforgettable experience for many people who were present. It is an annual student review show which highlights some of the best works that have emerged throughout the year. The event also provides an opportunity for students to meet and interact with a panel of highly respected architects and professionals. This year that panel was made up of Harbinger Singh Birdi, Heinz Richardson, Adam Khan, Alan Dunlop, Cecilie Andersson and Ben Addy. One of the presentations being delivered by the Stage 5 students on the ‘Future of Norway’ was called the Northern Verge. They were asking this question ‘Could Norway’s and by implication Scotland’s economy flourish without oil?’ After the presentation Cecilie Andersson, who was very familiar with the context, commended the students on being able to carry out projects that were presently relevant to the Norwegian context. Another presentation, which was delivered by the Stage 6 students, ignited questions from Ben Addy and Heinz Richardson about the effects of densification in contemporary urban cities. This presentation was titled ‘Denburn Masterplan’ and it proposed to create green spaces and building typologies capable of merging the unconnected layers of Aberdeen’s city centre. At the end of the presentations everyone assembled to reflect on the broader issues that had been discussed during the day. A few students were also awarded gifts for their spectacular presentations. The colourful event was nicely brought to a close with a cocktail event hosted by 57’10 and the Build Our Nation committee.
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2 1 Stage 3, Belmont Street project 2 Heinz Richardson, Opening Remarks 3 57’10 Cocktail Event 4 The Big Crit Panel, Closing Remarks
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A Brief History A school and a building Holly Kennedy // Stage 6 The Scott Sutherland School’s current home at Garthdee House was opened in 1953. However, classes in architecture were first offered at Robert Gordons College in 1883 and for about 70 years architecture students studied at Gray’s School of Art at the Schoolhill campus. The architecture course was delivered mainly through evening classes and took five years, at the end of which students were not offered an Art School diploma. When the Aberdeen Society of Architects was formed in 1898 they began to take a greater interest in the organisation of the architectural education, stipulating a minimum age of 16 for new architectural apprentices. Aspiring architects of the nineteenth century had to endure conditions which would likely shock today’s students. In the early twentieth century the architecture course was taught by Robert Gordon’s Technical College, and classes were held in poor quality buildings that had been erected in the College Grounds at Schoolhill. In 1911 and 1926 classes in these buildings were disrupted by large fires. In 1919 the Aberdeen Journal published an article on Christmas Day describing the buildings as “ugly corrugated iron sheds unsuitable for permanent purposes”. At the outbreak of World War One a partnership between the course and Aberdeen Society of Architects and with advice from the Architectural Association in London a “Scheme of Architectural Study” (1914) was produced. The scheme detailed a diploma course consisting of 2 years full time study and a minimum 3 year apprenticeship. This was enough to secure further RIBA accreditation for the college. In 1922 the school also secured RIBA accreditation for the Post Diploma course providing students with exemption from all of their final RIBA examination except Professional Practice. The Architecture department was later moved to the upper levels of the newly extended Gray’s building in 1930, but staff and students battled for years, before and after the World Wars, with overcrowding. The school faced a dramatic increase in students from 20 to 67 between 1945-1946. By 1948 fulltime students could no longer be guaranteed a drawing space in their final year, often having to vacate the studio for other classes. The history of our current home, Garthdee House, stretches back to 1870. It was designed by William Smith, who was also the architect of Balmoral Castle and constructed four villas on the old Pitfodels Estate including Garthdee and Norwood Houses. It was a family home to Tommy Scott Sutherland and land on the estate and later the house was offered to the Architecture department
by the Sutherlands. It was while drawings were being drawn up for this temporary building, the decision was made to instead give the school the entire house. Tommy Scott Sutherland had entered the school in 1916, and graduated with a Post-Diploma in 1923. At the time he did not stand out among his peers, the Head of Gray’s said; “Congratulations, Thomas. Ye’ll go far, I’m thinking. But no as an artist. My assessments o’ you is ten per cent art and ninety per cent business”. It was perhaps fitting then, that while Tommy Scott Sutherland had given the school the house, it was in fact his own practice which was awarded the contract to carry out the initial extension. When the new school first opened Garthdee House housed an office for the Head of School, lecture rooms, library and post-grad studios. However an extension was built to house staff offices, further studios and a building construction laboratory. The studios, on both the ground and first floors benefitted from large expanses of south facing glazing to help light the drawing boards for the students and beautiful parquet floors. The rooms are now used to as Master’s studios on the first floor, and the main computer lab on the ground floor. The student’s first moving into the building would find a very different
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school than the modern campus we see today. Garthdee was still very rural and students had a long commute to get to class by tram. They would have found cattle grazing in the future site of Gray’s and Tattie fields for the local schools growing where we now would see Riverside East. It was in contrast to the bustling city centre the students may have been used to – where smells from the nearby bakery would drift in the windows and art students could be heard though the walls as they tapped away at granite sculptures. Despite the break in the connection with the Art School, the architectural staff were convinced that their students would be inspired by the beautiful surroundings. The school officially opened in summer 1957; it was less than 10 years until the school felt the need to expand further, due to the
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ever rising number of students. The second phase of expansion extended the school in an “L” shape south from Garthdee house, adding the Lecture halls SB42 and SC21, allowing teaching to take a different style than that which would have been possible in the rooms of the old house. This also provided the last of the studios in use today, along with further classrooms and laboratories for the Built Environment courses. The style of this extension was distinct from that of the original extension, using angled high level roof lights to bring sunlight down into the studio spaces. While the connection with Gray’s was temporarily cut, the art school followed the architects to the Garthdee campus in 1967, shortly
before the final phase of phase of construction for Scott Sutherland School was completed. This final phase consisted of the current entrance lobby entrance and a connection to the original studios and a southern wing to fully surround the courtyard space. Most of these spaces are now occupied by the Graphic Design courses of the Art School, and not Scott Sutherland Courses. Very little work was then undertaken in the school after the 1970s; the construction of the business school in 1998 and subsequent additions provided a striking contrast to the aging architecture building.
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Memories Memorable Experiences within the Scott Sutherland Building 1950s to 2015 Shalom Okello // Stage 6 Many staff and students can recollect a number of experiences they have had within the Scott Sutherland building from the 1950s to 2015; memories from a time when the School of Architecture shared the building with other departments. A few of these memories have been revisited and are detailed below, drawing from the work of Fiddes’ commemorative book (2008). 1950s As an architecture student, Norman Marr recalls moving to Garthdee House in 1957 and being able to walk through the library, which went from the drawing room to the dining room of Garthdee House. He was able to view the surrounding landscape with lawns and occasional monkey puzzle trees but he was not permitted to walk on the grounds. Past photographs illustrate the opening of the Scott Sutherland Building in 1957 with Tommy and Georgina Scott Sutherland and other notable figures standing outside the building. Other photographs include staff and diploma students from 1958/59 within a new studio, see image 1. 1960s In 1961, Iain Ramsay recalls passing through the enhance hall of Garthdee House to attend an architectural open day exhibition. Later, as a student, he remembers glancing out of studio SC17 and seeing the construction of ‘sandy’ foundations for the new building extension to Garthdee House. Marr recalls the extension having centrally heated wood floors, the library being relocated upstairs painted black and dark red whilst the lecture rooms on the ground floor had black paint. Approximately six new studios were created with views to the lawns whilst the drawing room became a common room for staff and students. Dining rooms for staff and students were on the western grounds of Garthdee House; these were originally stables and a coach house. Dennis Urquhart, an appointed lecturer, recalls staff supervising labs for research and the exhibiting of ‘materials and methods of construction’ in the basement of the original building. Ramsay remembers the proposed studios had ideal working spaces for each student, particularly light levels, which applied to all departments in the school. He spent up to 50hrs a week there and many of these involved drawing in the studio and participating in drawing competitions with students in the lower years of the architectural course on Mondays throughout the academic year. Furthermore, as a student from 1964 – 1970, John Donald recalls seeing cows grazing outside Garthdee House which had a terrace and lawn extending to the riverbank. 18
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1970s In 1970, Brogden was appointed as an architectural studio tutor and lecturer and recalls Garthdee House accommodating the Scott Sutherland Library from the mid-1970s to 1998 in the Garthdee drawing room before relocating to the new Georgina Scott Sutherland Library. The original Scott Sutherland Library included 200 volumes of antiquarian books that were related to architecture and which were donated by partners from the Jenkins and Marr practice in Aberdeen (Fiddes 2008). He recollects second year students completing model making and the photographing of models which were exhibited for RIBA in studios C17 to 10 C22 in 1970s. In addition to this, students spent 60% of the course in studios. Urquhart also recalls the annual cricket match between staff and architectural students on the Garthdee grounds. 1980s Ramsay recollects first year students attending graphic design classes from 7am to draw professionally in black and white with minimum colour. Brogden recalls tutorial weeks, known as ‘t weeks’, that enabled students to apply what they learned in taught lectures in small lecture rooms within Garthdee House to studio projects. Robin Webster, the new head of school, remembers his first appearance in the ‘criticism room’ in Garthdee House, with a hot drink and bun when food was not permitted, according to Brogden. Webster also recalls unusual events that occurred on the first day of the ‘Winter School’ during January 1985. Students were welcomed by a ‘timber structure’ constructed by Stuart Duncan, between the Scott Sutherland School and the Gray’s School of
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Art buildings and ‘melamine foil’ balloons being manufactured by staff and released on the Garthdee grounds, (see image 2). Unfortunately, the balloons were traced by Aberdeen airport’s radar and found by railway workers following obstructions to both services, (Fiddes 2008).
1990s The ‘Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment: a Commemorative History’ archive contains photos of staff using the library for Christmas parties in the 1990s. Felicity Tait was a student of the Architectural Technology HND from 1992 – 1994, and recalls moving from class to class at a ‘fast-pace’ throughout the day due to the nature of the course, an indication that the building facilities were fully utilized. David Thomson, a graduate from the BSc in Quantity Surveying 1998 recalls up to 300 students inspecting the early construction of the new campus causing frustration to the site officers. By 1999, Chris Andrews was a student on the BSc Architectural Technology and recalls technicians being located in the basement where they had been based since the 1960s. 2000 – 2015 The 5710 Architectural Society co-president Duncan Henderson, a year six student, recalls running for presidency in 2013/2014 by actively promoting campaigns with posters throughout the school, and participating in question-time with year one to six students in room SB24. Furthermore, in 2014/2015 he organized with his team, numerous lectures with prominent visiting professionals from across the country, followed by the traditional ‘cheese and wine’ social event in the canteen basement. These forthcoming lectures and competitions between students were advertised widely using posters around the school on a weekly basis. Staff and students been have fortunate to have had so many memories in the Scott Sutherland School of Architeture and Built Environment building and will no doubt continue to have more as the 2014/2015 academic year draws to an end.
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New Building Studio: Room with a View J’ Steward // Stage 6 J’ Steward looks at the new building and discusses how new studio spaces might influence the design process. The article is illustrated with photographs of the building under construction, trying to capture the qualities which should show even if the spaces are unfinished. Any move from the comfort of home into a relatively unknown space or place is a destabilising moment; but one that holds the potential for something new or redefined to emerge. This summer the Scott Sutherland School will move from Garthdee House to a brand new building at Riverside East. The opportunities abound for introducing ways and means of proceeding and learning that result from observation and reflection on the years spent at the current learning space. What Reyner Banham, the architectural historian, calls a “mode of designing” is an attitude that can be an impersonation or a presence. Design is often overlooked when working within the habits and traditions of a discipline established some 600 years ago. There has been a minimal input from Scott Sutherland staff and students in the design of the new building and a compensatory student competition for furniture and staff input on fixtures and fittings, has failed to fully explore the possibilities present in this moment. The nature of the design process and its relationship to built form is often overlooked. However, this does not detract from the opportunities inherent in the act of physically occupying a new space. Observations, even unconscious ones, will make their presence known by comparison. What was, and is or could be, simply becomes evident. Is this the moment to reshuffle the physical and intellectual furniture or to re-evaluate and
restructure how to proceed? ‘How’ is the essence of Architecture. It is the process of moving through space and place; the experience of our constructed reality. The embodiment of this “how” and therefore of architecture resides firmly in studio. Studio is the natural habitat of the architectin-training and has been compared to a tribal long house with its inward looking rituals. Some believe that studio culture promotes an outdated preference for product over process or expertise and image over integration. Sometimes “what” is produced can end up dominating the “how” or the process by which it was developed. Team building Scott Sutherland School 2015
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can be excellent and creativity heightened in such a culture; but does it best prepare students for the awaiting professional global habitat? The new studios which will be occupied by students in September 2015 are positioned on the south edge of a building that forms part of a series of campus pavilions set amid a rich 57 acres of natural parkland. These pavilions sit above the tree line enabling views to the river and landscape beyond. The “crit” review rituals and studio culture are a powerful force in an architect’s gestation. The attitudes that are developed in studio go on to form the attitude of those that make the built environment as we know; budding architects emerge from its womb-like confines. In this new place will studio culture remain stubbornly clinging to the past or will it allow new life to be breathed into it and its processes? The new building spans five floors providing the same generous floor area for studios that is currently in use. Floor 1 is a purpose built printing and workshop spaces with IT. Floor 2 provides the entry point from within the main Riverside East building. It has a dedicated exhibition/display space and an open plan flexible studio for architectural technology students. Floor 3 accommodates faculty along with post graduate research and IT. There is also the “base” room for construction and built environment. Floor 4 holds the studio for architecture stages 1, 2 and 3 (RIBA part 1) and a seminar room. Floor 5 studio is for architecture stages 5 and 6 (RIBA part 2). How will faculty members contribute to the valuing of sustainable time, work and life values? How will the school involve students in scheduling decisions and encourage optimism and confidence? Studio interactions are key formative principles, opportunities to be seized. How will staff encourage discussion and participation in reviews? How could review be broadened out? The new open plan studios will have 2 meter high storage with display boards running along the circulation area between staff and student spaces. Could this possibly be a supporting interactive zone that lies between desk reviews and formal pin ups? Each student is to be allocated a new desk with under desk locker and mobile display screen 22
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(2100x1190) that discretely spans the desk width (designed to allow adjacent screens to sit at 900 if so desired). Screens are important for review and reflection; another critical element of studio culture. Considering that construction of this complex new building has been photographically recorded step by step by the company Multivista. Those videos have been recorded about the operating of the building for staff training and reference. And considering the array of computer technology and soft wear currently available for students shows just how the business of architecture is changing. As architecture is moving steadily towards more and more collaboration between those mastering specialisations and end user complexities. The
repositioning of the new building in close physical proximity to other disciplines invites existing relative isolation to be addressed. So how will faculty members encourage interdisciplinary collaboration? How can lectures, now set to take place in the theatres of Riverside East and the Health and Social Care building, cross existing boundaries? The official completion date is 22 May; staff and equipment will move in during June, ready for the 2015 October semester. Will staff and students embrace the innate opportunity of this step into the relative unknown? Will the studio culture grow into its potential and lay the foundations for the next phase of “how” and of Architecture?
My Space A competition to design a piece of furniture for the new building
David Jebb, Andrew McDonagh // Stage 5 The key issue for the studios in the new building is the acoustic and visual separation of the large space. With this in mind, we designed a screen for crits that can be separated into its constituent parts so that each part retains a function of its own. For example, the plinth element can be used for display as well as seating and storage on a day to day basis. We designed the surface of the screen to be drilled with a grid of 5mm holes in a similar manner to a peg board with acoustic insulation behind to dampen the noise of the studio. In order to pin up on this surface we propose using a system of pegboard hooks and bulldog clips. The design is intended to use the “open desk� method of construction using CNC routing and screw-less construction of approximately eight sheets of plywood. This also allows for onsite digital manufacturing and self-assembly. 1 1 Exploded axonometric 2 Screen 3 Bench 4 Box 5 Shelving unit 6 Screen completed with plinth
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Stage 1 Studio Graeme McRobbie During Stage 1 students undertake a number of projects both in groups and individually to investigate process, physical, perceptual and performance criteria in relation to design, architectural ethos and building elements. The initial first semester individual project encourages students to explore the city of Aberdeen and sketch a space or place that encompasses an atmosphere. These spaces are then further studied in groups, with students presenting this atmosphere using the skills and talents they have brought with them to university. Students progress into larger groups developing an understanding of model making, prototyping and graphical presentation through the creation of an architectural ‘game’. Individually students work on core skills such as orthographic drawing throughout the semester. The final first semester project allows students to demonstrate their skills in the design of a ‘city room’. A generic Aberdeen house and garden provides the context for students to create their own brief for a ‘space’ in the garden. Students create the users and their need for this additional space, which in turn creates numerous unique schemes. Semester two begins with an interpretive model of a place in Aberdeen using the work of contemporary artists as inspiration. Later in larger groups students conduct an in depth analysis of the site for their final project, entitled A House for 2 Professors. The challenging site on the Garthdee campus encourages students to consider the use and function of the finished house resulting in designs which fully engage with the topography and context.
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Stage 1 Studio
Jill Flemming
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A House for Two Professors A modern brick house on the university campus for two professors visiting twice a week. The house must consist of at least one level change and also provide a crit space for up to thirty students. My design focuses on views on the side of the house, in particular the south views of the river. The main feature of my design is the cantilevered balcony facing south allowing light to flood into the open plan top floor. 2 1 North Elevation 2 Perspective of Living Room 3 Section CC 4 East Elevation 5 Floor Plan
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Stage One Studio
Sophia Rusinova A House for Two Professors In this project we had to develop a building, specifically a house, in a given context. The users for the project are the two visiting Architecture Professors - Neil Gillespie and Alan Dunlop, who travel to the School from their homes and practices each week and required general living and sleeping accommodation and a gallery/workshop space for informal workshops of up to thirty students. My approach to this project started from developing the site landscape and examining all the views sun movement, shadows and etc. For me the landscape design is inseparable from other aspects of architectural design - they supplement each other. The shape of the house is inspired by the landscape layout. Moreover, I felt that the site needed a more creative touch. The initial idea I had was to create an area of inspiration that includes the surrounding, the building exterior and interior. And my effort was to combine them in harmony. This project is concentrated around a tree in the middle of the site I have, which was the starting point of the design and the reason to create a small closed beautiful space within the building, around which everything curves as centre of the area, that serve for inspiration and joy, which each person dealing with architecture needs in my opinion. Also I had a little deeper research of materials so that I could create a warm feeling, because in our brief we were practically asked for brick work, so I added pieces of wood, green and metal. Also I chose colours that would match the surrounding area each season.
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1 Plan 2 Section BB 3 South Elevation
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Craig Mackenzie A House for Two Professors My brief was as follows: Design a house on a chosen site within the university campus to accommodate two visiting professors. The design must employ at least one level change. Primary building material for the project was to be brick. A crit area was to be incorporated into the design and hold up to thirty students.
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1 Perspective of Living Room 2 Section BB 3 Site Plan 4 Living Room/Crit Space 5 Kitchen 6 Floor Plan
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Stage 2 Studio Gillian Wishart This year the Stage 2 Semester 1 Design Studio project was a collaboration with Developing Mountain biking in Scotland (DMBinS) and the Forestry commission. The aim was to kick start a drive to realise a regional mountain biking centre for the North east of Scotland – the only region that lacks such a facility. The project culminated in a public exhibition of all the schemes which launched a public meeting. The cycling fraternity are now taking the project forward with support from DMBinS. In semester two, in stark contrast to the landscape project of semester one, students tackled an urban infill project. The question under consideration was: “How might we re-make a slice of Elmont Street today, such that it has meaning for today’s society, and speaks a contemporary language that is understood by the eighteenth century street?” Design studio was supported directly by the design philosophy module. The early stages of the project saw the students applying their understanding of Figure Ground theory (introduced by Silvia Bassanese, and explored through texts by Pier Vittorio Aurelli, Colin Rowe and Wayne Copper) to the character and spatial qualities of Belmont Street in the historic centre of Aberdeen. Students were asked to develop strategies and approaches to designing within the street from this analysis, and were free to select their own plot on the west side of Belmont Street. All projects asked for consideration of the complex section to the gardens, and addressed issues of “front and back” or “front and front” to the street and gardens. The result has been a rich variety of projects consciously considering the relationship of the contemporary individual unit and façade to the street, and a greater awareness of how theory and practice of architecture inform each other. 28
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Stage 2 Studio
James Mackenzie 1
A Mountain Biking Centre, Kirkhill Forest The structure, at heart, is simply post and beam. Taking precedent from CEBRA’s RebildPorten the ground floor building is braced and given extra support by diagonal timber members – referencing the immediate landscape. The cafe’s structure gives a more slender appearance by using steelties to brace it. The ‘flat’ roofs will be angled slighlty in order to capture rainwater to be used in all buildings. By using Cross Laminated Timber columns the structure uses a renewable source material which sequesters carbon during growth. 1 Site Section 2 Part Elevation- Changing facilities 3 Section through Cafe 4 Ground Floor Plan 5 Model Image 2
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Stage Two Studio
Johanna Kleesattel Infill Belmont Street The focus of this project was to design a contemporary infill for Belmont Street located in the centre of Aberdeen with regards to its urban context and characteristics of the site. In order to relate to the historical development of the street, the building is composed of two main areas which provoke two different movements of circulation and it celebrates changing atmospheres of light exposures.
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1 Back Elevation 2 Street Elevation View 3 Gallery Image 4 Plans 5 Long Section
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Debora Dimitrova Infill Belmont Street
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Stepping for the first time onto Belmont Street, one can clearly notice that it is a place offering a wide variety of shops, galleries, restaurants and mainly bars which. However, it seem as one whole volume because of the unclear boundaries between the buildings, both physically and functionally. For this project I chose the worst organized, in my opinion, plot Number 9, which currently houses a bar and a hotel underneath, with the objective to make it planned better, look contemporary and attract people to go in by standing out from the rest of the buildings.
1 Exterior View on Belmont Street 2 Cross Section 3 Site Plan 4 Bar Interior 5 Belmont Street Elevation
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Stage Two Studio
Stuart Campbell Infill Belmont Street Through studying the context of Aberdeen, specifically Belmont Street, designing a piece of contemporary architecture became more about the consideration and investigation of the existing and previous buildings. With this in mind, the design developed into connecting the inner city to Union Terrace Gardens, creating an open space that relates back to Belmont Street’s sub-urban history.
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1 Building on Belmont Street 2 Cafe 3 Plan 4 Street 5 Front Elevation
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Agata Chomicz
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Infill Belmont Street The project challenges the figural, corridor-like character of Belmont Street by breaking the continuous entity of existing built fabric and creating a “centre of gravity�. It explores the potential of juxtaposition formed between radically geometric form and traditional, additive granite architecture, the ability to revitalize deteriorated bits of public space and the impact of said geometry on internal atmosphere. 1 Sketch 2 Section 3 Building on Belmont Street 4 Plan 5 Staircase
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Stage 3 Studio Neil Lamb The aim of this design studio is to explore and develop students’ skills in the relationship to design and making. This is done through two discreetly different projects, one per semester. The majority of work by architects involves working with existing buildings in established settings. This was an important driving force behind the work done by third year students. The theme of adaptive reuse was explored through the redevelopment of the Gray’s School of Art building located on the Robert Gordon University campus. The building, which was designed by local architect D.M.A. Shewan and completed in 1968, has a timeless elegance which is the result of good design and a magnificent site. High quality modernist buildings are a rarity in Britain and even more so in the North-East of Scotland, this building has a local as well as national importance. Such a brief demonstrates a significant shift in attitudes to the re-use of buildings cultural significance. This studio developed strategies to retain the building and show how it could be retained to have a significant role in the future of the University. The proposal was to refurbish the Gray’s building and create a new Conference and Exhibition Centre for the Robert Gordon University. The building would also house the offices of the RGU Foundation and the Centre for Northern Culture and Design and residential accommodation for guests. In the second semester students designed a new, purpose-built public building in a challenging part of the city of Aberdeen. The brief was for a new city block in the established community of Torry; students had to realise their project balancing a range of complex social and technical issues. The user was placed at the heart of the design process and students investigated how the building could house vulnerable people in the heart of the community. Aberdeen City has highlighted the Torry neighbourhood as one of the priority areas for its Community Regeneration Strategy. The scenario for this project is that a number of public bodies: Police, Scottish Enterprise and a Local Housing Association have come together to instigate a mixed development brief on the strategically placed Victoria Road. The building scenario stated that it would be financed by public money and a housing association and therefore durability, long life and low running costs were important, there was a high emphasis on sustainability. The building would be made of durable heavyweight construction utilising either concrete or steel frame, with solid floors, a hung pre-cast concrete façade and a durable roof (slate, metal or single ply membrane). The building envelope would be fully insulated to a high standard and would aim to develop an appropriate system to complement the elegant Granite facades of the established city.
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Stage 3 Studio
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Gray’s School of Art adaptive re-use Gray’s is a building of unique character within Britain, and to dismiss it as a copy of Mies’ iconic Crown Hall is unfair. Gray’s is a proper interpretation of the International Style, as its strong relationship with its site proves. The vast volumes composed of steel and glass have totally clear spans, allowing large open spaces orientated around a central courtyard. In order to centuate the courtyard, the south facade of the main block houses a double height atrium off which the large exhibition spaces and various offices are accessed. The best examples of the International Style respond to their context in terms of materials and craft, I therefore created a
material contrast between the public and private parts of the building. The atrium exposes and renews the concrete ceilings and mezzanine floors combined with exposed structural elements. The atrium houses the staircase which has a series of large intermediate landings that are hung from the steelwork in the roof via elegant steelwork and provide areas for informal meetings. The flooring is granite and the corridor walls are panelled with locally sourced Douglas fir. In contrast the exhibition spaces are pure white and have highly polished concrete floors.
1 Sketch of Grays 2 Exhibition Space 3 Opening 4 Atrium Space 5 Entrance
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Stage Three Studio
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Blanka Borbely The Future of Gray’s Our task for this project was the adaptive reuse of the Gray’s School of Art building, located on the Robert Gordon University campus. We were asked to consider its cultural significance and to convert it into a Cultural and Exhibition Centre. Today, the qualities of the Gray’s School of Art building that once gave it an elegant and fine impression are lost due to bad maintenance and cluttered interior spaces. I aimed to re-introduce the building’s transparency, lightness and balance by creating spatial continuity both inside and out. My main focus was on social areas. What makes them successful? Could they encourage people to connect more with the architecture of the building? I was interested in creating inviting, lively communal areas and intended to find out how to influence users to explore spaces. The dining area became a meeting point and is therefore a crucial element of the design. The courtyard is also a key component, and together they form a meeting point for visitors to eat, talk and relax. The dining area connects main functions such as the exhibition spaces and the main lecture theatre.
It is also strongly related to the main circulation routes and other social spaces, such as the Café and the Courtyard. It is therefore not a separate room dedicated merely for eating, but acts also as a social hub. The existing facade is set back from the exposed steel structure for environmental reasons. The dining area’s pivoting doors can be opened during nice days in order to merge inside and outside areas completely.
1 Main Section 2 Furniture Design 3 Exterior Decking view 4 Exterior Decking view 5 Interior Space
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Julija Lebedinec Urban Regeneration, Victoria Road The biggest challenge while designing the new mixed use development, including sheltered housing, on Victoria Road was to create a pleasant for living, sensitive to the context building which would become a part of the area’s regeneration project and would gain enough support from Torry’s sprawling community to be able to last and not to be demolished in a longer timespan. To achieve that, the whole ground floor was dedicated for the public use (including skatepark, cafe, shops and skateboard workshop) lifting the residential spaces from the ground and turning each U-shaped floor in opposite direction creating private external and internal communal spaces for its residents.
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1 Street Elevation 2 Section 3 Communal Space 4 Plan
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Stage Three Studio
James Dalley Sober Living Environment
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This scheme proposes an architectural response to combat the problem of drug and alcohol addiction in Aberdeen. The creation of a sober living environment provides an interim between rehabilitation and the return to a former life. The architectural intention is to take the aspects of rural rehabilitation centres and implement their feeling in an urban setting by studying their
connection to nature and therapeutic space. The building attempts to integrate ex-patients back into society by allocating spaces to grow and sell produce, by using the roof terraces and public space. This social message aims to instil the philosophy of being rewarded through one’s own efforts and may be implied as a therapy program extending from rehab.
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1 Axonometric 2 Internal View 3 External View 4 Street Section 5 South Elevation
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Docho Georgiev Urban Renewal, Torry
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Taking inspiration from Jahn Gehl’s book ‘Life between Buildings’ this project is an exploration of how architecture can trigger social interaction in an specific urban environment. Being located on a site that has the potential to reconnect Victoria Road in Torry and a pedestrianized lane, my proposal used this attribute to develop a form that would serve a new open market in Torry. 1 First Floor Plan 2 Key Section 3 Key Elevation 4 Model Image 5 Interior View
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Stage Three Studio
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Calum Ward Urban Renewal, Torry The overall arrangement of the building sees the commercial units on the ground floor accessed through a loggia space that acts as a threshold for the user entering the building. The sheltered housing occupies the three floors above and is adjusted as the form of the building steps in to respect the church to the side. On the floors of sheltered housing, users enter each floor onto their own ‘communal corridor’, a generous space that is easily accessible directly from their door of their flat. This space allows constant interaction between the residents both directly and by chance, such as moments looking through ones kitchen window, down the voids created in the floor and being allowed a glance at communal space as they make their way up the stairwell.
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The facades of the building consist of a multilayering effect where individual elements; pre-cast concrete panels, recessed photographically printed panels and winter gardens come together to create a whole. Subtle relationships can be noticed against the surrounding buildings where the projecting horizontal rails step down with the projecting granite course of the tenement and the colour of the panels reflect the granite used within the area. Its prominence and strength is achieved by their composition and the elements are arranged in order to create a sense of human scale in a relatively large urban block.
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1 Site Plan 2 Part Elevation with Detail Section and Plan 3 Section 4 View from Back 5 Model Image 4 40
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Neil Mair
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Renewal on Victoria Road This project sees the creation of a mixed use development which houses retail units, a police station, and sheltered housing accommodation on the strategically placed Victoria Road in Torry, Aberdeen. From the outset I wanted to create a plan of clarity for what seemed a very complex site, such that its clearly articulated functional zones would have an effect not only in plan but in the overall form of the building. I was therefore interested in how plan arrangements could be transposed through different levels of the building to create a recognisable language which was easy to understand for the occupants. I was also interested in the creation of a ‘street-like’ element which ran
through the middle of the site, creating a division in the plan and forming a threshold between the public realm and entrance to the building. This ultimately resulted in a building form and facade which was directly informed by the internal uses and structural arrangement, forming a distinctive ABA form made up of three key segments.
1 First Floor Plan 2 North Elevation, Rear 3 Section 4 Loggia 5 Communal Area
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Architectural Technology
Stage 4 - Harbour Expansion for Aberdeen
Jonathan Scott Tahar Kouider, Huda Salman, Simon Leeman, David Wilson and Andrew Brown At this stage the projects are to focus on a key infrastructure project – particularly the new Harbour Expansion for Aberdeen. As part of a sustainable and diverse future economy, Aberdeen is seeking to develop the new harbour alongside existing and developing ferry services to the Islands, Scandinavia and, in future, further afield. As such, the project will incorporate a terminal facility to cater for international visitors. This project is a signature project and should be treated as architecturally significant, highly secure and functional. Additionally, as with the rest of the harbour proposals the projects should contribute towards a low carbon ideology – In particular all proposals should aim to achieve ‘zero carbon’ ratings. A standing arrangement is that a BREEAM and/or similar rating of excellence should also be achieved too for all building types within the development. The terminal was to cater for the excellent transport links and incorporate not only the disembarkment of visitors but links into town such as Trains, Buses and Cars (with the proposed links to the AWPR).
A Montage of Works by AT Students 1 Sean Buchanan, Site Plan 2 Connor Gray, jack Mechanism 3 Ben Orr, Building Section
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Architectural Technology
Scott Crighton Aberdeen Harbour Expansion 1 Location Plan 2 Exterior Night View 3 Interior View Marine Operations Center 4 Interior View 5 Plans 6 Exterior View
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Architectural Technology
Peter Adamson
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1 Aberdeen Harbour Expansion 1 Interior Visualisation 2 POD Details 3 POD Detailed Section 4 Exploded Isometric 5 Exterior View, Showing the Solar Shading Mechanism
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Connor Gray Aberdeen Harbour Expansion 1 3D External Drainage Detail 2 Exploded Detail, Intermediate Floors 3 Axonometric, Jack Mechanism 4 Building Section
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Architectural Technology
Garry Bisset Aberdeen Harbour Expansion 1 Floor Plan 2 Structural Detail 3 Building Section 4 Interior Visualisation
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Robert Lucas Marine Operations Center 1 Hydraulic System 2 Environmental Strategy Diagram 3 Exterior View, PTFE project Aberdeen Harbour Expansion 4 Exterior View, Harbour Expansion
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Scott SutherlandSchool School 2015 2015 47 47 Scott Sutherland
creative office solution
maximising
workplace efficiency through design
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Scott Sutherland School 2015
Tel: 01224 680111
www.active-interiors.com
Journeys Shanghai and Suzhou
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Ehsan Ghavimi // Stage 6 Once upon a time in 2014, a group of architecture students left behind their humble granite surroundings and set out to explore the world’s most densely populated potential superpower, China. The students’ Masters project involved developing a masterplan proposal for a new city accommodating one million people on the outskirts of Suzhou, China. The aim of their trip was simple: visit Shanghai and Suzhou to experience thousands of years of culture and architectural tradition in just under two weeks. In the last 30 years, Shanghai’s financial district, Pudong, has experienced a vertical explosion. It’s difficult to take your eyes off the piercing skyline as you navigate between buildings, avoiding the stream of oncoming traffic and the cries of determined street vendors. It’s delightful. Pudong feels like Manhattan’s long-lost Chinese cousin. Although Pudong is impressive in scale, the copy-pasted nature of much of the architecture throughout the rest of the city feels inauthentic. Suzhou is often described as the ‘Venice of the East’. This conjures up images of gondolas gracefully gliding through narrow canals. In Suzhou, there are no gondolas in sight. However, the joy of constant interaction with the water’s edge brings the city to life. A patchwork of canals of varying sizes creates a sense of stillness and movement about the city. Narrow canals of a human scale are inhabited by drifting canal boats and brave swimmers. Wider, industrial canals accommodate large boats and high-speed vessels, creating a real sense of movement and energy about the city. Although Suzhou suffers from sections of copy-pasted architecture, beautiful moments occur when traditional low-rise buildings meet the water’s edge.
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1 Market Canals, Suzhou 2 Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Shanghai 3 A typical Market Street 4 World Financial Center, Shanghai
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Journeys
Barcelona, Spain Sinclair Young // Stage 6 Selecting a destination for our annual study trip is often the result of a particular theme which runs through the studio unit. This year was no exception with the aim to study a city which has experienced large scale expansion in order to understand the implications of the expansion at a micro and macro level. Barcelona was the chosen as the destination which utilised a grid to facilitate its expansion which was echoed in the resultant stage five master plan for the Aberdeen city bypass. By visiting the city it allowed us to experience the contrast between the planned expansion of the city and that of its historical centre. The contrast is heightened through the diverse range of architectural styles which have responded to the cultural and economic demands faced by the city throughout its history. The diverse range of buildings from the Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi to the Porta Fira Towers by Toyo Ito demonstrated how the cities continued development has created a majestic city. The knowledge gained as a result of the study trip reinforces the importance of experiencing architecture first hand in order to further develop the not only the individuals knowledge but also that of the unit as a whole.
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1 Barcelona Pavilion, Mies Van Der Rohe 2 Montju誰c Communications Tower, Santiago Calatrava 3 Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi
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Oslo and Stavanger, Norway
Tokyo, Japan
Amy Kennedy // Stage 6
James Nicol // Stage 6
In November, Unit 1 went on a study trip to Norway to visit the busy cosmopolitan capital City of Oslo, before travelling to the west coast to visit the much slower paced City of Stavanger.
Sabin Maguregui, Fajar Rezandi and myself entered into a competition held by Forum8, a Japanese software company, to draft a proposal for the redevelopment of a 1 kilometre square area of waterfront to provide a desirable destination for Japan’s 2020 Olympics, hosted in Tokyo. Amar Bennadji, who is familiar with Forum8’s UC WinRoad gave us regular guidance throughout the process, and accompanied us to Tokyo, where he too was presenting material on Virtual Reality and the possibility for Educational applications.
As a unit we selected a number of buildings and places that we wished to visit, compiling a fully packed itinerary for the five day trip. On the first day our visits ranged from the Contemporary Art Museum; Astrup Fearnley Museet designed by architect Renzo Piano, to a major seafront transformation development in the area of Tjuvholmen, described as an architecturally cutting-edge urbanisation development. As well as being gifted with a visit and tour around the Snøhetta’s office, an international architects practice. Following this on our second day, after gaining an insight into Snøhetta, we were given a very insightful tour of the Oslo Opera House, one of Snøhetta’s most iconic designs. A new landmark of the city which each of us could truly admire. Other visits included Oslo City Hall and the National Museum of Art. After a packed few days in the international city of Oslo, we moved onto the next stage of our study trip and flew to Stavanger. It was here we began to see a true insight into Norwegian architecture. Beginning with a trip to the Lantern Pavilion by AWP/Atelier Oslo chosen to promote Norwegian’s innovative, timber architecture. Overall the trip to Norway was very insightful to our unit, as well as a great socialable event out-with the often manic studio environment.
Our submission focused on providing a more pedestrian friendly atmosphere by concealing the heavy infrastructure that moved rail and vehicular traffic across the site. We also proposed the addition of sinuous towers that acted as a local landmark, a terminus to transport links and accommodation to the staff and athletes frequenting the neighbouring venues during the Olympics. It was important to us that the features we proposed had continued relevance, so we proposed that the tower could easily be converted to provided housing and facilities for new residents post-Olympics with minimal effort. A slower paced tram was also proposed for the site, to provide access between the transport nodes and each of the venues. After presenting to a panel of judges in Toyko, we were presented with a judge’s special prize for sustainability.
1 Oslo Opera House - Lobby, Snohetta 2 Forum8 Competition entry, RGU
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Winter Habitat Justin Ponthenier, Adrian Galeazzi and Diwan Corre We are three second year architecture students in Grenoble city (France). Finding that architecture study is too theoretical without enough practice, we decided to do something real with our hands. We had the personal initiative to build a minimal habitat designed for winter. However, the goal was mostly to build it, to live in it and test it during one season. This implies that the habitat had to provide the minimal comfort for a human to be able to eat, wash and sleep. However, with a student’s budget, it was impossible for us to buy all the materials for the construction. We decided then, to explore and visit some abandoned warehouses in order to find construction materials, which we could recycle for our project. The search for materials was an important part of the project, and it influenced the design of the cabin, a lot. The construction took place in our garden, but it was not the final destination. The goal was to prefabricate it and move it on the roof of an abandoned warehouse in Grenoble. The design then also included a method of easy, quiet and quick transportation. The details of the fitting were carefully thought through to ensure tightness against the cold and also intruders. We finally lifted the cabin onto the roof of the warehouse. We were not allowed to be there, so all the operations took place at night. We took two complete nights to lift the complete structure. Then we equipped the habitat with the appliances needed for heat, cooking and washing. Little by little the cabin became a real place to live. We lived four months, spending more than two days every week without trouble, improving day by day the living habitat. After the season ended, we disassembled it on the roof in one night for a new place. This project was a really good experience for us. Not only the handmade aspect, but also the low budget taught us a lot about the building world. To build something we designed at a small scale was really motivating and exciting. It is something we recommend to everybody because it taught us a lot more than we expected.
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(Justin Ponthenier was an exchange student at RGU this year).
2 1 Interior View 2 Exterior View Photos: www.jimphotographie.com
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Journeys
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Modernism Essays
BOAC
1970
Glasgow
Architects: Gillespie, Kidd & Coia Lukas Vegys // Stage 5 Many of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia ‘s best known designs are churches, so it can be quite interesting to explore some of their less typical work such as the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) offices. Completed in 1970, it came to being a year after Jack Coia, the sole surviving architect of the partnership, was awarded RIBA Royal Gold Medal. One of the practice’s last commissions in Scotland it was built when the post-war construction boom was coming to an end and some of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia’s earlier experimental buildings were subject to criticism. It is sited in a prime location in Glasgow, it can appear at odds with the surrounding Victorian architecture, however through clever design and detailing it complements its neighbours without compromising its own character.
Metzstein and MacMillan shared a similar view on the way architecture comes about as MacMillan himself has once remarked that, “If I had grown up in Slamannan, our architecture would have lacked the scale, ambition, and urban legibility [as our work in Glasgow achieved].” Thus it can be said that perhaps it is Glasgow itself that has had most influence upon their design, working in connection and with an understanding of their surroundings they produced a building which belongs. The essence of the building is effectively described in the RIAS Quarterly 2012: “The tall ground floor is distinct from the copper clad upper floors, the fenestration’s regularity accorded with the palazzo formula dominant in the street and the height mediated effectively between disparate neighbours. The building is, as intended, both physically and metaphorically permanent, timeless, a responsive addition to an evolving Victorian streetscape.”
The minds behind the design of the BOAC were Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein; despite the absence of their names on the plaque, they were the somewhat anonymous driving force within the practice. They saw themselves as wanting to “strengthen the vocabulary of modernism wherever it was necessary.” Metzstein is quoted as saying that “it is important to realise that buildings and cities are mutually interactive and the city does not consist of plots with buildings that sit on those plots.”
The classical language of the street prevails in the elevation; from the double height recessed ground floor containing the shop front to the false perspective windows which give it a sense of depth and grandeur, likening itself to its historical neighbours. One may expect to see a flush treatment of the windows more closely associated with the modernist style, however, the seemingly classical treatment of the windows is translated into a more modernist approach. This is evidenced by the increased density and simplicity of the façade that can be likened to the efficient, streamlined form of the fuselage of a jetliner.
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Andrew Melville Hall St. Andrews
1964
Architect: James Stirling Gavin Douglas // Stage 5 ‘The Battleship’ as it is known by the locals, refers to Andrew Melville Hall, a halls of residence constructed during the St. Andrews University expansion in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The architect, James Stirling, skilfully crafted a building that encompassed his then present design beliefs, but also initiated the progression towards his later, more mature style. Located on the North Haugh, the building was designed to be part of a continuous building programme that was to stretch over 6/7 years. The final outcome which would have consisted of 4 identically separate buildings, with the capacity to house 1000 students; was never fully realised and only one of the units was constructed. The geographical location of the site meant that Stirling had to re-address his hierarchy of importance, a system that he used to “grade elements in order of importance”. Which had and organisational problems; now placed structure and construction as a priority. The construction and aesthetic of the building saw Stirling move away from his favoured bricks to the more fashionable concrete. It is important to remember that this change in his work was not a symbolic rejection of his previous work but was essential to the extraordinary circumstances the site presented. Andrew Melville Hall became a melting point for the set of architectural aims and beliefs that Stirling worked to, as he believed that these were important to the evolution of design. These defining characteristics focused mainly around economy, organisation and sociological ideas. The design for St. Andrews comprises of: a communal block, located at the main entrance, which houses the shared facilities, two wings of student accommodation, set at angles to the communal block and glazed promenade which unites the three elements together.
Stirling was working in an exciting era of British architecture; he was working alongside people like the Smithsons and Robert Matthew, who were primarily concerned with the social programme, which sought to create a more equal and fairer society. Stirling, although working in parallel with his contemporaries at times chose to explore a slightly different route, where he openly expressed that “Architects should design fine buildings, not attempt to remake society”. This resulted in a greater sense of freedom and abstraction in his architecture. His early work speaks loudly of European modernist influences, in particularly Le Corbusier, where Stirling firmly believed that “modern architecture buildings: the communal block, the student dormitories and the glazed promenade. Scott Sutherland School 2015
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Modernism Essays
George Square
1963
Edinburgh
Architects: Robert Matthew, John-Marchall Partnership David Jebb // Stage 5 The Edinburgh University developments in George Square are known to have been a source of contention. On first impressions George Square looks like a stereotypical 1960s scheme with sweeping acts of unsympathetic redevelopment. However, University records suggest that it was a much more considered approach. The need for expansion and integration of the University was discussed by the Court and the Senate before 1939. If it wasn’t for the Second World War the expansion may have come to fruition earlier and therefore would not have become the important modernist pieces they are today.
unrelated development alongside the existing University buildings. Additionally it meant that as a University estate it would be easier to maintain and control and with the majority of the square in the possession of the University, it would mean minimal expense and displacement of population. There was also the potential for further opportunities of expansion or links with proposed facilities such as Pollock Halls. Holden’s proposals were included in the overall plan prepared for Edinburgh in 1948 by Sir Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumsted. The Town Council then attached conditions to the University plan that they must also provide an alternative scheme that did not make alterations to the building facades.
It was at this point that Basil Spence was appointed, with Robert Matthew as the internal advisor to the University. After a year Spence submitted his report which received unanimous approval. A statement from the University claimed that it was “not in any way in reproducing the existing 18th century domestic architecture, yet is entirely in harmony with it so that the general character of the square may be maintained.”
1 North elevation of David Hume Tower 2 Detail of horizontal members
In 1944 a ‘Post-War Development Committee’ was formed to envisage a major development southwards between Old College and the Meadows. The committee’s aim was to strategically determine the best course of action, the University was still considering a number of possibilities. These included devlopment to the south of Old College; to the east of South Bridge; or a complete move to the Kings Buildings’ site. The latter didn’t have support from the University as it would have resulted in the abandonment of the Old College and four hundred years of being “an institution built into the life of the city.” that we know today. Holden observed that to the east of the Old College “there was a large number of densely populated slums and that the terrain was very uneven and sloped sharply.” He suggested a major building expansion for the Medical school on the north side of George Square and Science Faculties around the other three sides. This phased proposal, avoided sporadic and 1 56
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Consulting Rooms Kelso
1967
Architects: Peter Womersley Shaun McIntosh // Stage 5
Peter Womersley (1923-1993) is considered to be one of the most visionary architects working in Scotland in the later half of the 20th century. Womersley received a bronze medal for his first commission Farnley Hay in Huddersfield and soon after formed his own practice. His portfolio exclaims a diverse body of work progressing from ‘miesian’ modular timber houses in his early years to the sculptural reinforced concrete in his later years. In 1965, Womersley designed a collection of doctors consulting rooms at Kelso. The consulting rooms were awarded a Civic Trust Award in 1968. The design consisted of consulting rooms and a caretaker’s house, set onto a sloping platform of slate. The structure sat amongst generic semidetached flats and (three-four storey) social housing built using brick cavity construction and harling renders.
The consulting rooms were housed in interlocked pairs within three extruded oval drums (7mx5m), with a fourth used for office space. These were arranged around a sunken waiting area winged on the east by a water closet and the west, an entrance porch. They were enclosed by a flat roof that adjoined all of the drums at a standard height on their vertical axis. The caretaker’s house (11m x 4m) was two storeys tall and detached from the main consulting rooms, however it was comprised of the same vague form. Its shape was conceived as a filleted rectangular plan that was then extruded and sliced 45 degrees at its head. This was then annexed by another cylindrical drum that formed the stairwell. The building represented Womersley’s transition from simple, rather flat bosomed architecture to a sculptural three dimensional one. Womersley referred to a basic Miesian principle of subtractive architecture’ in which the ultimate simple open volume, derived from the plan, is broken down by a series of closed
related volumes. In response to this he explored a counterbalancing ‘additive’ architecture. Here, a collection of similar closed volumes surrounded the circulation area and were held by their relative position around the dome-lit, seating area. This illustrates how Womersley wished to progress and not duplicate the ideas of seminal architects. At Kelso this additive architecture seems confused with its pastiche of organic drums and rigid horizontal projections. The main building was designed like a group of pavilions that had a flat roof and post and beam structure juxtaposed in its courtyard. The toilet, its lack of scale and its solitary position also confuse the aesthetic. The abandoned wind lobby also appeared to be an afterthought. Although all of these design elements possessed the same organic form as the other pavilions and there was definitely an apparent harmony; there was still a poignant mystery to the composition which infuriates and endears.
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Product Design
Product Design Some of the objects designed and built by Stage 6 students
Reflection Pod // Sinclair Young This pod was designed with the aim of providing an alternative environment within the studio achieved by breaking down the volume of the studio space to a more intimate space. By enclosing the user it allows complete detachment from their surroundings presenting the opportunity to focus or reflect upon their work.
Architect/Designer Bag // Blair Macintyre
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Arising from the notion present that architects and design professionals have a particular penchant for their paraphernalia, this then manifested itself in the form of an architect/designers bag. Both in terms of its visual appeal, unique material, elegance and ultimately with the high demands Architecture/design professionals place upon their belongings, it had to be of an extremely robust nature, yet not appear out of place during a formal occasions.
1 Finished Products 2 Plywood sheet templates 3 App. Screenshot
Two sheets does plenty // Dominic McAndrew From two sheets of plywood a student is supplied with a full compliment of workspace furniture and two pin up boards. The basic design is taken from an open source database. Due to the design only using temporary fixings items that are not needed can simply be fixed back into the pin up boards awaiting use. All items are easy to assemble, lightweight and materially efficient so as to get the most out of the limited amount of material. The items are easily fabricated in large numbers on a CNC router. During the project an app proposal was also developed. This allows students to mix and match items from the universities collection, and customise to their own taste and tools of the trade. For example, the top plate of the chest or drawers can be customised to hold the tools an individual prefers to have within easy reach. They go through a list and select (or select and buy) pens, rulers etc. The outline of these is then created into a machinable layout, creating a tray with a space for each of these to be kept.
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Stage 5 Unit 1 HRPU - The New North, Cairngorms Gokay Devici HRPU is an architectural design and research laboratory that provides a platform for combining both practice and research in contemporary housing through academia, teaching, and research-based architectural practice. This is an experimentally minded research-based design studio. Scott Sutherland School is the most northerly provider of Architecture education in the UK. The school’s location represents a uniquely diverse portfolio encompassing urban and suburban, planned estates, villages and towns, managed landscapes and wilderness, marine and land-based industry, and coastal towns.
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Stage 5 students addressed the Cairngorms, which is the UK’s largest national park, and investigated a holistic consideration of rural and town housing with a view to developing a prospective typology catalogue for the design of residential buildings. The proposition and challenge of the unit is to explore new housing (accommodation) typologies that can interpret and accommodate current social, cultural and technological tendencies, focusing on adaptable and dynamic structures suitable for the ‘northerly’ context of which these projects are based upon. Your proposals will contribute to developing a strong and sustainable economy within the Park that is resilient to future pressures and increases prosperity and opportunity for the people and communities who work and live there.
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1 Mountain Peaks, British Isles 2 Settlement, Braemar 3 Settlement, Ballater
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Stage 5 Unit 2 Northern Verge, Norway
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Alan Dunlop Both Scotland and Norway share similar natural resources and a comparable climate. They have stunning landscapes and an extensive coastline and also share the North Sea as a potential rich resource. Both focus on bio diversity and are developing wind and water, perhaps misguidedly, as an alternative energy source.
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In the run up to the Scottish Referendum in 2014, The Scottish Nationalist consistently referred to Norway as an example of a highly successful, small northern European country with a comparable population and oil. They asked the question: if Norway can go it alone, why can’t Scotland? Year 5 of Unit 2 looked to Norway and investigated what it means to have an economy dependent on oil revenue from the North Sea and asked the question: what would happen if that oil supply ran out and could Norway’s and by implication an independent Scotland’s economy flourish without oil? Together they visited the cites and coastal areas in Norway to explore what the environmental and economic alternatives were in a country which at present is dependent on oil and in doing so plot a possible future, through rigorous analysis, architecture and urban design, for Norway and for Scotland. In their first semester the students created a new settlement in Eidsvåg, based on maritime industry, not oil. For their second semester they started their individual proposals for housing, schools, library, church, hydro, ferry port, boat and ship building, infrastructure, transport place making and much more to support the new settlement.
3 1Group Model 2 Site Concept Sketch 3 Settlement Development Sketches 4 Group Photograph
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Stage 5 Unit 3 The Pastoral Neil Gillespie
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Over the past few years we have been concerned with exploring architectural propositions that stem from themes such as the peripheral and the parochial. In each case we have attempted to understand and then interrogate our understanding of what these themes might mean. It has been enlightening; for example, we found activity and energy within peripheral areas; we discovered ambition and vision within the parochial.
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Stage 5 have considered the bypass as a whole. They have considered the new conditions and opportunities that this permanent mark in the landscape might make. The bypass will inevitably create a more definite sense of a city limit, it will make areas that are inside or outside this limit. It will create a physical division in addition to the social division that it has already created. It will have a major influence on future development. Does Aberdeen as a city have the foresight and skills to imagine how this development might happen, or rather how this new condition may be inhabited? Working as a group, Stage 5 have leapt into this civic void and have proposed a gridded framework within which each of their individual propositions will operate. While the grid is provisional, acting as an armature for exploration, the individual propositions are lucid and promising.
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HRPU, The New North, Cairngorms 1 Lukas Vegys 2 Kyle Scott 3 David Kemp 4 Alexandra Dobes 5 Li See Yeow
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Northern Verge, Norway 1 Anneli Kiviniemi 2 Gavin Douglas 3 Natalie Hristova 4 Daniel Cardno 5 Krista Silina
The Pastoral, Aberdeen 1 Janis Vilcins 2 James Coe 3 David Jebb 4 Euan Beggs
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Stage 6 Unit 1 Denburn Regeneration Professor Gokay Deveci Stage 6 concluded their study on Aberdeen city and investigations into possible scenarios for tackling the growing problems of its centre. What do we want Aberdeen to be in 25 years? What identity should it have? What needs to happen to ensure that the centre remains a prime space in the city? How do we incorporate ‘next housing’ typologies and what other mixed uses? What civic or cultural focus should the street have? How does the city centre connect to spaces and places around, below and above? These are a few of the research questions which were asked during the development of the projects.
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1 Edward Ashcroft 2 Christina Carle 3 Chery; Gillespie 4 Oisin Kenny 5 Sabin Maguregui 6 Zhanar Omarova 7 Fajar Rezandi 8 J’ Steward
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Stage Six Unit One
James Nicol Inhabiting Denburn This scheme achieves density through repurposing the under-appreciated, It engages with existing paths that were previously disregarded and creates a frontage to a stretch which lacked in continuity and vibrancy.
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Dominic McAndrew SUB URBIA The proposed building provides a bold and unique solution to the need for high quality, high density housing in Aberdeen with a view to curtail the exodus of the city’s high earning families to the expansive commuter belt. The propositions deal with this in two ways – one building of 14 floors, with retail at ground level, office space on levels 2-3 and housing above. Poor quality units are removed from the building form and replaced with an elevated terrace whilst simultaneously creating new triple aspect apartments with private roof terraces. The second, and most radical, is the use of a super slender, super-tall tower providing a mixture of two units per floor, 1 unit per floor and duplexes of varying configurations over 52 floors. At only 12 metres wide and 150 metres tall this building makes a strong impact on the Aberdonian skyline.
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Stage Six Unit One
Rachael Murray Reconnecting the City The proposal is situated within the City Centre of Aberdeen, on Union Street. During the unit’s Master-planning semester in Stage 5, it was proposed that the Trinity Shopping centre would be removed, in order to create a fully legible pedestrian route through the lower level of Aberdeen. By creating this new route and removing the obstructions, it became clear though that there was now a large gap site that needed re-purposing and to be given a more suitable and sustainable function for a modern City Centre. This individual project was driven by the main theme of Connectivity. There are many key outdoor spaces that have been left neglected and forgotten due to current development within the city, so therefore, this building, by using existing historic buildings such as the Trinity Hall, provides a key vertical connection down from Union Street to the Green. By connecting the historic public space in the Green with Union Street, it means that the pedestrian can move through the city with ease, and can avoid the traffic that usually dictates their movement. However, although the building provides connections, it needs purpose and function to provide for the inhabitants. The proposal provides a traditional Food Hall and Market for the public to gather in, shop, eat and socialise, encouraging the people of Aberdeen to fully utilise all the richness and culture that the city boasts.
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Amy Kennedy The Triple Kirks, Schoolhill The Triple Kirks is an important part of Aberdeen’s heritage, which contributes to give the city a sense of identity. But with such historic buildings being left vacant and at risk of damage and decay, these irreplaceable assets are at risk of being lost forever. The project intends to inspire people towards the true potential in restoring historic buildings. With the interventions proposed to be an imaginative twenty-first century re-inhabitation, which will transform the public’s experience; reinforcing the qualities of the ruin, whilst providing spaces to allow for the rich physical and cultural understanding of the Triple Kirks and the city of Aberdeen to be revealed in a proposed Architecture Centre and Museum.
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Stage 6 Unit 2 Suzhou, China
Alan Dunlop With the rapidly changing economic and social conditions in China, space is emerging for new architecture in which critical thinking and place making are embedded. Over two years students have worked to develop the Suzhou manifesto and to design a new city of one million people. This
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new settlement responds to Suzhou’s growth and China’s social and economic ambitions whilst retaining an authentic sense of place. Students visited Suzhou and experienced an urban and social environment vastly different from Scotland. They gathered information on the people and the
city and developed a plan for new development. Individual project briefs, which were driven by the research and design work in the master plan, include high rise structures, transportation centres, medical facilities, urban farms, water fi ltration tower, public gardens and much more.
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Stage Six Unit Two
Jean Christie Oncology Wellbeing Centre At this moment in time cancer is the leading cause of death in Urban China and is one of their most important public health problems. “A placebo is a phoney cure that works, you can imagine all sorts of ways in which architecture adds to the placebo effect.� The vision is to transform the journey and experience of the patient by creating a building that is sympathetic and understanding. To simplify what is already a very complicated and difficult time by consolidating cancer treatment into one compact campus. This will give the opportunity to to focus on the quality of spaces at a human scale whilst challenging the conventional and traditional design of healthcare facilities. To create a peaceful and healing space which has a direct connection to the surrounding nature and water, which has been proven to aid in the treatment and recovery of the patients.
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Duniya Zisan Earth Sheltered Care Home China’s population is rapidly ageing. An estimate predicts that by the end of 2015 there will be 220 million over-60s. As a result, the demand for care-homes in the region have risen. This sudden increase in the demand for care homes can be partly traced to the one-child policy and a sudden fall in the number of births. This project therefore proposes to design a luxurious facility that would cater for Suzhou’s growing population of senior citizens. The design would also consider provisions for recreation, leisure, therapy and catering. In line with global campaigns for sustainability and environmental friendliness, the design for this care-home employs the concept of earth sheltering. This concept isn’t far-fetched as many Chinese people still live in caves. And we aren’t talking about just one or two people; according to the LA Times, at least 30 million people live in caves, which are energy efficient and have a low environmental impact.
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Stage Six Unit Two
Rory Dickens Waste Water Tower “The sewage disposal system devised by Joseph Bazalgette in 1859 was considered in many ways to be a breakthrough particularly in public health and sanitation. The current reality, as predicted by his critics at the time, it is one of the biggest loss of nutrients in the history of civilisation.” Justus Von Liebig. The Waste Water Tower is a design aiming to tackle the growing water pollutions of China by treating sewage using the ‘Living Machine System’. A natural system that uses plants to remove the nutrients and as a result the bacteria from the sewage providing the city with a source of potable water.
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Ruo Lim Vertical Living Farm This project pursues the idea of a vertical farm with the desire to improve mental, social and physical existence in urban areas. The Yuan vertical farm is located in the centre of the new settlement to minimise the use of land area while maximising the agricultural production in the city. It will reduce carbon emissions and food shortages. This vertical living farm aims to tackle three years of Masters’ project: the loss of agricultural land; mass housing shortage for the new urban Chinese and the reduction of carbon footprints.
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Stage 6 Unit 3 North Sea Perigrination
Professor Neil Gillespie, Over the past few years we have been concerned with exploring architectural propositions that stem from themes such as the peripheral and the parochial. In each case we have attempted to understand and then interrogate our understanding of what these themes might mean. It has been enlightening; for example, we found activity and energy within peripheral areas;
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we discovered ambition and vision within the parochial. Stage 6 have been concerned with completing their parochial studies within Old Aberdeen. The students have penetrated their proposals acutely and methodically in order to reveal or release fundamental truths about space, light and form. Following on from our peregrinations, north,
along Aberdeen’s eastern seashore, from the Rivers Dee to Don, and having paused in Old Aberdeen, we now attempt to imagine the new western boundary that will be formed by the proposed Aberdeen Bypass; a new arterial route that will connect north and south avoiding the congestion of the city.
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Stage Six Unit Three
Jill Marks Interfaith Centre A key concept for this project has been the theme of liminality. One way in which liminality is expressed in the building is through the series of transitional spaces which create a process or ritual. It is the experience of this process, the process of preparation, in which liminality is experienced.
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Anna MacKenzie Interfaith Chaplaincy The aim of this project is to create a non denominational and flexible place of prayer, contemplation and sanctuary to anyone who might require it. The building aims to be as neutral as possible while still preserving a sense of spirituality. By designing opportunities rather than barriers and aiming to not exclude any belief system; the hope is that the space created can be used by any denomination or none. The brief is split up into 3 separate buildings on the site. The main building houses the main hall/ prayer space on the top level, due to the split level of the site due to the large retaining wall this hall opens up directly onto a walled garden to the South West, To the east glazing with views across the roof tops towards the sea are partially obscured by a large screen which is fixed to the exterior facade.
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Stage Six Unit Three
Volha Druhakova Forum of Beliefs This building will be a universal place for every belief, providing for the social activities related to the dialogue between different religions in the open lower part of the building, and also for a retreat, worship and meditation in the isolated space of paradise garden raised to the roof. Circulation is through a sequence of different spaces, materials, light and reflections are used to create rich experience and convey the feeling of having visited far-away place to the users of the building.
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Russell Kearsey Students Union In all memorable experiences of atmosphere. Space, matter and time fuse into one single dimension, into the basic substance of being, which penetrates consciousness and allows for a grand epitaph to endure once this feeling has departed. We identify ourselves with this space, this place, this moment, and these dimensions become ingredients of our very existence and which can profoundly influence us. Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation plays through our senses, through memory and through atmosphere.
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Urbanism
Electives
Public vs Private Urban Interface
Sabin Maguregui // Stage 6 The separation of public and private and its influence on personal space were studied using the examples of Thomson Street, Wallfield Place and Footdee in Aberdeen. Private and public spaces If we study any settlement, town, village or city we can see how they are structured to create separation between private and public spaces. The physical space of any city is greatly affected by the way its community divides into public and private spheres, and how movement between these places and access to different areas and activities are controlled. Similarly, if we look at our daily routines and actions it is clear that they are shaped by how we live and pass from private and public spheres and the way we feel and behave on these various settings: from a private place where we feel safe and in control to a public place where we feel cautious. Personal space The definition of spaces in the city as public or private therefore depends on how people feel in them and how its physical characteristic influence their perceptions. “All forms of private and public distinction are directly related to the fundamental distinction between the inner self and the outside world� (Mandanipour, 2003) The interface between body and the city is personal space. It provides a portable and invisible protective layer that controls the level of privacy and freedom of an individual in a particular situation, and regulates distance of separation between people. The size of personal space varies depending on the perceived role and status of the person in a place and the degree of protection from outside intrusion desired during that situation.
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Social Interaction Additionally to the function of protection, the size of personal space is also determined by the function of communication and social interaction. Personal space is equally part of both private and public realms and therefore it is an important driver of social encounters and how individuals regulate their interpersonal interactions by maintaining an appropriate distance between each other. Therefore, this depends on whether we are with relatives, friends, acquaintances or complete strangers. 1 Thomson Street, Aberdeen 2 Wallfield Place, Aberdeen 3 Footdee, Aberdeen 84
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Construction Flat packed emergency shelter
Rory Dickens // Stage 6 What is HÖMM?
How does HÖMM work?
HÖMM is designed to be an emergency relief shelter that can be air dropped and then lifted by the community to the build space. It is to be constructed by two or more unskilled labours using only two adjustable spanners/wrenches. Once constructed and fully inflated the pillows will harden creating a permanent structure that has a floor space of 6m by 3m.
HÖMM is designed to fit in its own transportation box. This helps to save space allowing for the maximum possible number of shelters to fit in the plane per air-drop. Once dismantled the container walls act as the shelters floors and doors. To simplify the construction the main frame is connected by hinges before being packed. This means the instructions are simpler to follow on site and also removes the need for drills and screwdrivers, which are expensive, to be shipped in the box. The only tools required are two spanners. Nuts, bolts and threaded bar also allow for minimal damage in dismantling the building should a more permanent structure be required. Due to the timber being more or less damage free it can then be reused in a new building project. The design also allows the joining of more than one air-drop to create a larger structure. This method is not shown in the following instructions. The defining feature of the construction is the method of hardening. The air pillows provide insulation but should they become punctured pillows will no longer provide insulation. To overcome this and increase the durability and longevity of the structure there are two layers of epoxy on the outside of the air pillow. Upon inflation these layers are pressed together by expansion of the pillow. This creates a chemical reaction that binds the 2 layers together over 48hrs. Due to its arched form a very strong layer is created protecting the air pillow from puncture and also resisting lateral loads that may lead to racking in the structure. An additional foil layer is placed on the outside to insulate the building from warmer climates and protect the epoxy layer from solar degrading.
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The Hearth of Maramures
Dissertations
Alexandra Dobes // Stage 5 Fire is one of the crucial elements of nature and it allowed civilization to progress over the centuries, being the primal source of heat, light and energy. In terms of architecture, fire, together with another fundamental element of nature, water, led to the appearance of different materials which then defined shelters. Gottfried Semper (1851) wrote about the origins of architecture in relation to anthropology and described the hearth as the “sacred symbol of civilization”, around which the other three elements: the roof, the enclosure and the mound , are grouped. Even more, Semper saw the hearth as the central piece, “ the first and most important, the moral element of architecture”. Throughout the development of human societies, the relationship between these elements of architecture changed, emphasis being put on some aspects while others were given less importance. In Maramureș, Romania, the hearth is still regarded as the central, defining point of the dwelling. The functionality, practicality and symbolism behind this piece of architecture make it an indispensable element in the lives of the people from the area. There is a strong sequence of geometrical volumes created by the different components. The complex relationship between them was developed in order to serve different functions. Up until the XXth century it was the main source of heat of the house, source of light, place for food preparation, resting and sleeping place and it constituded the cohesion center of the entire family life. A great part of the human activity was taking place around the hearth, with customs and traditions being transferred on from generation to generation. Dwellings from Maramureș that still “benefit” 86
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Hearth from Saliste, Maramures
from the hearth were identified and looked upon in greater detail, with emphasis on functionality, component parts, utensils, construction methods but also the symbolic interpretation of gestures and rituals directly related to the use of this element of architecture. However, the archaic hearth suffered some adjustments during the last century. The changes
that modernization brought in the region and its effects on the overall aesthetics of the hearth was also examined. The complexity and capabilities of the hearth of Maramureș assured its longevity, therefore it could be seen as a symbol of permanence.Consequently, this work becomes a typological study where emphasis is put on one element of architecture.
Studying the Roots of Finnish Architecture Anneli Kiviniemi // Stage 5 As a student studying architecture outside my home country of Finland, I have become more and more interested in the question; what makes architecture truly Finnish? Recently I have begun to believe that perhaps an answer to this can be found from the starting point of our culture, folk poetry.
During the last century Finnish architects have contributed significantly to the development of modern architecture in Europe. The country has produced a number of influential architects whose legacy resonates through contemporary practice. Although Finland has a long cultural history, the National Romantic movement emerging at the end of 19th century is often considered as the starting point of Finnish art and architecture. During the battle of independence at the early 20th century, the small but influential nation started to establish a strong sense of Finnish identity through literature, arts and architecture. Inspiration was drawn from the geographic areas of the oldest settlements, such as Karelia and Ostrobothnia, and ’Kalevala’, the national epic of Finland became highly influential. The folk poems of Kalevala were gathered and put together by Elias Lönnrot and the book was first published in 1835. Due to the important role of Kalevala within the history of Finland as an independent country, a strong respect towards the poems of the epic is rooted in me. Although the runes were written down almost 180 years ago, and sang long before that, they include a strong description of the characteristics of Finnish people and Finnish scenery. Passed on from generation to generation, the poems illustrate the life of our ancestors, their habits and beliefs as well as their attitudes towards built environment. While studying architecture, I have come across surprisingly many references to the runes of Kalevala which I first read as a child. For example, in his book Modern Architecture: A critical history Kenneth Frampton connects the work of National Romantic architects such as Eliel Saarinen, Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Lars Sonck to the national poem and states that
“the basic inspiration behind all their work was the Finnish folk epic, the Kalevala” (Frampton 2007 p. 193) . International interest in the metaphorical world of the epic seems high among architects who, however, often confuse the connection between architecture and the poems. The subject is not widely studied yet a number of references to the content of the runes can be found from the work of Finnish architects. During my fifth year of architectural studies I got the opportunity to research the topic for my dissertation. Through an interpretive study I aimed to open the world of Kalevala to the readers and shed light on its important role in the history of Finland before focusing on the architectural significance of the poems. The study was based on readings of Kalevala in its original language as well as connections drawn between Kalevala and architecture in published literature. Additional primary source material was obtained directly from the architects and authors who have showed interest in the topic before; including Rainer Mahlamäki and Anthony Antoniades who kindly shared a letter he received from Göran Schildt, in which he discusses the topic. The dissertation discusses primal, almost unconscious, attitudes towards built environment that the Finnish architects seem to possess and which are strongly linked to the Nordic region and landscape – as well as the poems of Kalevala. Furthermore, the study introduces a concept of “Cultural and Aesthetic DNA”, according to which people carry within them certain “DNA” of their region, no matter where in world they may live at the time, which determines what they find aesthetically and spatially pleasing. Kalevala Illustration by Nicolai Kochergin Scott Sutherland School 2015
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Dissertations
Macro-lots The regeneration of the decaying urban space
Antoine Pierron // Stage 5 Urban decay is not a new phenomenon, many studies have analyzed its causes and it is evident throughout the history of urban planning. However, because of the contemporary context of globalization, this process operates at an unprecedented magnitude and takes many forms throughout the world. Studies on the subject suggest that this phenomenon is part of a much broader dynamic. An increase in areas affected by the process of urban decline is observed, recent prospective suggests that the continued increase in global urbanization, urban decline does not appear to be synonymous with disappearance of the city. This phenomenon is neither paradoxical or pathological but inseparable from the urban condition. To deal with the degeneration, the city must reinvent itself and appeal to innovative urban strategies. The macro-lot operates a strategic transformation of the pre-existing urban fabric to create new urban conditions. The design of a macro-lot is in line with that of ‘open blocks’ theorized by Christian de Portzamparc the Pritzker prize-winning architect and urbanist. It is an entity formed from the void, generated by the mutualisation of a set of blocks or parts of blocks. Macrolots are composed of several entities that seek to sustain some individuality, without binding to a common rule that homogenize them. A macro-lot is a whole which is not mono-functional, and which associates different programs made by different actors within the same fabric. It is a large size urban block in which all programs are coordinated, both from the point of view of the contracting owner and the project’s management. Different operations are performed in the same time frame to avoid delays in the delivery of a program for any participant. An urban operation that develops macro-lots assumes that actors adhere to common designing and implementing architectural and urban process. This involves the pooling of certain program elements, including car parking and indoor gardens open spaces. The concept of macro-lot derived from the idea that a new parceling structure allows for a condition of urbanization based on the collective rather than the individual. More than an architectural concept, macro-lot mainly represents a profound socio-economic reorganization of the urban fabric to counter the process of urban deterioration. This research dissertation focuses on the Parisian urban fabric, affected by the phenomenon of urban decline at many levels and across multiple periods. 88
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The study looks at the urban decline phenomenon and its influence on the urban fabric’s ability to reinvent itself. In France, the macro-lot is now an essential tool for the development of cities. Given the phenomenon of urban decay and the tendency of society to be characterized by a perpetual sense of change, this study explores the relevance of the macro-lot as an urban tool.
1 Open block concept 2,3 Macrolot Podzampark
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Soviet Modernism in Latvia Architecture of Marta Staņa and the possibility of critical practice in post WWII Latvia during the Soviet occupation
Janis Vilcins // Stage 5 ‘Soviet Modernism’ is a term first coined by the Russian architect, Felix Novikov, and it refers to the period in Soviet architecture from 1955 to 1985. It’s beginning was clearly marked by Nikita Khrushchev’s reforms and the imposed industrialization of construction. The few decades following his reforms of 1954 saw architectural profession slowly becoming superior to the construction industry, producing generic standardized designs all over USSR with an unbelievable uniformity, while under the control of the centralized power of the Communist party. The topic of Soviet Modernism still remains widely under-researched due to the perception that, within the extremely limited context, architecture had no artistic merit and the role of the profession was industrial production of square meters. Recently emerging interest from researchers, however, confirms that there were examples that went beyond the generic and standardized designs, however, the architectural manifestation of these aspects are yet to be comprehensively assessed. Lack of existing research, makes it difficult to place works of Soviet post war modernists in a wider architectural context and it cannot be analyzed with the same tools as Western architecture, therefore, focus on one specifically chosen example can serve as a useful introduction to understanding the complexity of the issue. Firstly, Latvia can be seen as an example of the specific architectural characteristics developing in each of the separate Soviet Republics. Consequently, Marta Staņa and her work then outlines the key ways to apply critical practice within architectural profession, which were to
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Photo by Jānis Trops. 1977
either work on buildings whose functions and significance required an individual design or to work on projects that were not a priority in ‘State plan’. There was a choice to either work within the limits set mostly by bureaucracy and the centralized power or to practice within the limits of deficit and the inability to acquire higher quality building technology. Looking at the architectural qualities created by Staņa within this context, it becomes clear that political subversion was also one of the key aspects that clearly manifested itself in architecture. Initial attempts to appropriate the generic modernity show clear reference to the
interwar period, however, already in the 1960s Western influence becomes much more prominent. Overall, Soviet Modernism was not an ideological limit to architect’s creativity, however, the centralised system created an environment where the possibilities of critical practice in architecture were extremely rare. Daile theatre can be seen as an example of a common consequence of this aspect- architecture becomes a hybrid merging Party’s directives and orders, Western influences as well as local traditions and ideas.
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The Sketchbook
The Sketchbook Drawing is an important part of architectural education. In a world in which digital technology plays an increasingly important role students need to develop their computer skills. However, this should not be at the expense of practicing and developing the ability draw and to imagine through drawing. A good sketch can capture the quality of a place or the essence of a design idea. These sketches have been produced by students from first year to sixth year.
1 Violeta Vasileva 2 Robert Coutts 3 Kirileigh Fisher
Facing Page 1-2 Joanne Fowlie 3 Kirileigh Fisher 4 Craig Mackenzie 5 Lorna Robertson 6 Niall McGuinness 7 Moray Taylor 8 Liam Davies 9 Niall McGuinness
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The Sketchbook
Masters Students’ Sketches
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Above and right Jean Christie Left Natali Hristova
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The Sketchbook
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1 Duncan Henderson 2 Gavin Douglas 3 Faiz Hanapiah 4 Daniel Cardno 5 Volha Druhakova
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4 Facing Page Top Unkown (5th year?) Zisan Duniya Right Robert McCaughan 94
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Overleaf Docho Georgiev
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The Sketchbook
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