Challenging The Loss of Specificity In Modern Domestic Dwellings

Challenging The Loss of Specificity In Modern Domestic Dwellings.

Scarlett Emma Hessian Student # 150162 Supervisor : Heidi Kajita Spatial Design, Perception & Detail, IBD The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation Spring 2017

Challenging the loss of specificity in modern domestic dwellings.

Introduction & Abstract The detail in Architecture

Nordhavn - Nordhavnen A new Urban Development

Objectives & Theory Potentials of Architectural Details

Methodology Processes

Vision

Categorised details and specification

Bibliography Texts and References

Appendix Personal Curriculum

CONTENTS

TITLE

The Pleasures of Processes

Introduction & Abstract The detail in Architecture

“What continues to be called specification in architecture ever more describes the opposite, which is to say loss of specificity.”

“The detail is not an accessory to architecture but its essence… the detail is the mechanism by which certain details are communicated, ideas that may be absent or even contradicted.”

Ford, 2009, Pg.6

Mark Dorrian, vol 16, no. 3, p.203

This thesis project is based on the subject of standardisations in construction, specifically in relation to design and detailing of material specifications within domestic architecture. The objective of this proposition is to design a dwelling for an elderly couple situated in the developing area of Nordhavn, Copenhagen.

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

Ledoux Flat facades

Tony Fretton Faith House

Material Study - casts Personal work

Drawings, specifications, primary and secondary interviews, physical castings and quantitative research will collate a mix- method research approach through design. This I will discuss further in the method section.

I will study one specific neighbouring building which has recently been completed in Nordhavn as a basis for the understanding of the current context and contemporary building proposals. This will be what I use to argue for and against the design propositions in order to design alternative proposals and methods of design and detailing. Using the process of a design and build project as the approach to how the proposal will be procured. This will be accompanied with interviews and character studies, material, site and spatial studies.

While many of the technological advances currently being made in the building industry allow for greater opportunities for design, they rarely produce better buildings that will last both in terms of technical

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

This project aims to raise polemic proposals of refinements and adjustments to detailing in domestic architecture. However not a proposal for an improved design or for an alternative design to the existing conditions, but is specifically emphasising the importance of the making of details, their use and effects, and changes over time.

performance and cultural integrity.

Architectural details are more often than not being standardised due to economic, quantitative or production implications; thus creating a loss of humanisation and personalisation.

Pressures of globalisation have resulted in an architecture that has become generalised and increasingly universal.

Detail Specifications Personal work

Detail Specifications Personal work

Interviews Personal work

Therefore the intention of the study of contemporary housing in Nordhavn is to challenge the integrity of the designing and detailing within a precise context of an elderly couple.

Addressing the topic of equality and the important implications of designing for every generation has on a neighbourhood, touching on he ideas of inclusion in society.

I will be using existing quantitative and qualitative research produced by the University of Newcastle; a project titled ‘DWELL’ (Designing for Well-being in Environments for Later Life.) This report captures some of the findings from the 3 year research and co-design process with residents from a citywide group in Sheffield, which represents a new approach to agefriendly general-needs housing.

This research has developed a working definition for downsizer homes and proposes a series of co-designed typologies that respond to third-agers’ aspirations.

The research has demonstrated a strong demand for better quality and more accessible ‘downsizer homes’, where people can continue to access neighbourhood amenities and participate in mixed-age community life.

The objective is to understand the

This project also addresses some of the UN goals for societal issues, hence the users being of elderly age. However it is also engaging with sustainability in housing and construction and the impacts of material sourcing. This project will explore the use of locally sourced materials and labour and alternative materials and construction methods to explore to potentials and opportunities of doing so. Posing the question of,

‘What alternative materials could be used and how could be build with them.’

Some examples of projects which are pushing the idea of elderly living in urban environments are Patel Taylor’s UK housing for the elderly project; successfully creating dynamic, humble homes that are influenced by their history and context. The architect claims that the homes, “Derived from a rich heritage in the UK of housing for the elderly – known as the English almshouse – these homes maximise land usage for the borough and provide council tenants with quality of life and pride in their homes,” A contrasting reference of housing for the elderly is ‘Can Travi’ houses, in Barcelona, built by GRND82. They expose the domestic activities of the users to the city beyond, like the central courtyard of the houses of the

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

Elevation Study Personal work

important implications designing a dwelling has on the life and activities taking place within the home, and the surrounding contexts,

This thesis proposal requires the definition and clarity of the ‘detail’ in order to argue for the design proposal.

A detail in architecture has multiple tasks, and is interpreted differently by practitioners and craftsmen. I see the ‘details’ in architecture to have more than a physical use as a product, but part of a wider context. The Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design,

Patel Taylor homes for the elderly - UK

“Antoine Picon reflected on the problems of quantification that ornament presented to the ‘detailed estimates’, speculating that the characteristic flatness of expression in façades by contemporary architects such as Ledoux might be understood in relation to this, the relief of mouldings ‘thinning’ under new demands for quantification.”

(Dorrian, 2011, p.6)

This comment of the characteristics of architectural elements and their implications on experience is what I am posing to explore and challenge throughout the project by studying the area of Nordhavn, Copenhagen.

My understanding of the detail in architecture has several layers and approaches. It is a physical component which has the simplest task of a product which holds a use, however it is also what forms the action and creativity which take place with or around their functions; such as a window, or a door handle.

A detail is also the strategy one approaches architecture with.

The detail is in the people, their circumstances and experiences as much as the detail and specifications in the product of a window, door handle, window sill etc. The proposal will emerge from a spatially associative quality of thought which will be explored from personal and collective experiences of dwelling. Exploring the dual relationship of the envelope of a home and the interior space and the impact of the relationship between their physical contexts.

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION & ABSTRACT

GRND85 Can Travi Barcelona

Algerian Kashba translated onto the vertical plane. Each user makes the space their own. The architecture is saturated with daily life, and shows itself to the city as such. The large windows that chequerboard the facade, act like picture frames for the activity of everyday life. Engaging the exterior with the interior world, and vice versa.

Nordhavn - Nordhavnen A new Urban Development

“Copenhagen is seen as a city of homes. We put home, a place to dwell, in the centre, through which we view and explore our city.”

Catalog Housing, p8

SITE

SANGBERG

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

COBE

PRAKSIS

Site Residential Commercial Green Space

The City of Copenhagen has about 500,000 inhabitants. This number is growing and is expected to increase by 45,000 by 2025. Nordhavnen is intended to accommodate a large proportion of these new inhabitants, give them a good place to live and provide them with workplaces, training, education and experiences.

Aerial site photographs

The public Nordhavnen plan claims to be designing a dense urban structure with relatively small building plots. The majority of the buildings have 3 – 6 storeys, with only a few large buildings. The relatively small and fragmented building plots are to provide the neighbourhood with character and will aim to promote a city with a human scale The dense urban structure has been designed with staggered buildings to provide varied spaces and good micro-climate conditions.

The descriptions given to the general public do not state the design approach to the architecture this urban strategy plans to achieve.

However I believe the strategy and urban massing of the proposal is good, and appropriate, somewhat comparable to the Borneo development in The

Netherlands. This idea of lower rise residential housing helps to create as they claim, a much more human scale architecture which is a very contrasting condition to the existing condition and context.

The existing conditions of Nordhavn are very industrial, with brick factory buildings in run down condition or have been renovated into very designed and ‘trendy’ warehouse like spaces for design showrooms. The surrounding context of Nordhavn is very contrasting. Being detached from the main land as a series of bays and harbour, it covers an area more than 2km2 and is used for ferry berths, container terminal, marina and industrial import/export companies.

I have chosen to work with this area of Copenhagen as it suits my desire to explore the contemporary approach to large scale residential construction and design. With contrasting architectures occurring in a fairly small footprint, it is interesting to see the styles and typologies of housing that are being developed. This helps to investigate and archive the current typologies and designs which will be gathered in three main studies.

• • •

Material studies Site studies Spatial studies

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

This area is in the process of development; with a mixture of commercial and residential properties, creating a new urban area for the city of Copenhagen. The schedule for development has been split into two stages. The first stage which has begun and is due to be finished by 2017. Stage two is scheduled to start 2018 with a further 200,000 m2 of development. Eventually the entire Nordhavnen can be developed to include enough homes for ‘40,000 habitants’ (CPH City and Port Development, November 2009, p.45)

NORDHAVN - COPENHAGEN

NORDHAVN - COPENHAGEN

BORNEO - AMSTERDAM

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

BORNEO - AMSTERDAM

BORNEO - AMSTERDAM

Sangberg Architect Block House typical floor plan Sort metalplade Elastisk fuge på bagstop

Gråt Ilmodbånd

01

Ydervæg (21)001

12 b

b

300

Eksisterende gavl

Eksisterende gavl Sort Ilmodbånd

22 10 Vandret snit bb

300

10 Sort metalplade

Elastisk fuge på bagstop Ydervæg (21)001

Eksisterende gavl 22 a

Lodret snit aa

a

Sangberg Architect Block House detail drawing

12 Gråt Ilmodbånd

Context and site diagram

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

10

The immediate neighbouring buildings to the site are smaller, with a mixture of typologies and specifications.

Brick is the most predominate facade material, with metal window trims, sills and balconies. This combination of materials and styles helps to create a human scale to the urban environment, suitable to its industrial context. The finishing is mostly of a very high level and is impressive to see the standards on the exterior of the buildings.

An observation from site visits however is the limited ability to connect with the occupants of the area. It is very empty, quiet and still half a building site. The apartments surrounding the site range from 50sqm to 200sqm and are majority designed to be habited by young families. This is an interesting study as the habitants I wise to work with are those of elderly age. This contrast of accessibility and living will help to challenge the creation of a diverse domestic, urban environment.

This exploration of how occupants inhabit the new apartments will be carried through the meeting of existing residents; viewing the conditions of the interiors and how they reside within them and their personal experiences of residing in Nordhavnen.

Choosing one specific existing site to investigate in depth will help to focus the levels of specification and detailing which I will study as precedent to argue for and against my design proposal. The site I will analyse sits across the street from my proposed site and has been developed

by Sangberg Architects. I have access to some of the drawing documents and specifications which will guide the research and quantitative section of the material, specification, documentation methods.

NORDHAVN - NORDHAVNEN

300

Located on the coastline, opposite the well-known Parkhus 48 site. The current condition is a flat, empty plot situated next to a few newly completed residential blocks, with a mix of 3 - 5 storeys. There is a variation in scale of residential buildings surrounding the site. All of these blocks have been designed by different architects, and some are renovations of old industrial buildings. There is a mix from 2 storey buildings to the 17 storey COBE renovation of an old silo, which will accommodate 42 dwellings, mixing domestic with public by giving two floors as public space.

The neighbouring Silo which sits perpendicular to COBE’s is a secondary Silo that has completed renovation

by Praksis studio. This is 11 storeys, creating 78 dwellings.

Objectives & Theory Potentials of Architectural Details

Making Do and Getting By Richard Wentworth

The methodical challenge for this project is methods of design and build processes within residential housing. I will explore the potentials in the design and detailing of the architectural elements in residential housing.

Therefore, I will explore what methods can aid to create this ‘seamless continuation’ throughout an architectural proposal.

Within this project, I aim to explore and create a domestic space for an elderly couple. Working with specific characters who reside in Copenhagen, creating the proposition of them moving to the new development Nordhavnen. Designing should be the result of reflection, recollection, memory, concentration; an attempt to evoke the layers of collective memories embedded in places.

Design decisions can affect the way one dwells in a multitude of ways, from the shape and form of the window itself, where it sits within the wall, and how it is connected or disconnected with the ceiling.

Designing a window which could open outward into the exterior space of the façade, allows placement of private objects, such as a vase of flowers, or a telephone. A larger window sill to rest yourself on to have a place to rest and view outside can animate this banal space which is not a place to spend large amounts of the day, can create a

‘People are immersed in their world, and this immersion is qualitative, subtle, in many ways, ineffable.’ (Evernden, Seamon and Mugerauer, 2016, p.370) simply adding a window sill, and a single panelled window to frame a larger uninterrupted image, that opens outwards to the exterior space. We can then invite the exterior atmosphere to the interior and vice versa; broadening human experience.

Through this exploration the goal is to try to reach an understanding of how we can alter levels of emotional and human engagement within dwellings and broaden the potentials which lie within the architectural elements of a built architecture.

Stephen Bates states talks of the window in architecture in Papers 2, stating that, “In traditional architecture, there were visible elements to accomplish these tasks: coping’s, sills, mullions and applied trim. In the practice of nondetail, these elements are, for the most part, present, but not as discernible parts.” (Sergisson & Bates, 2013, p.73) Working with the understanding that sophistication is achieved by the careful refinement of details and a distillation of ideas to create a particular atmosphere.

OBJECTIVES & THEORY

OBJECTIVES & THEORY

“To many practitioners, detailing is simply a question of consistency.

The ideas of the larger building are carried into its small scale elements.

It is a seamless continuation of the act of design and requires no more understanding or skill than does architecture, they simply need more technical expertise.” (Ford, 7, 2011)

dynamic use of a room and connect it to the outside world. This enables people to feel part of the world outside of their homes. We are humanised by our contexts, and by creating spaces that allow for growth of experience we can affect the everyday experience of a human. As Baudelaire once said,

Chatfield House Pierre D’avoine Museum of Childhood Caruso St John Museum of Natural History Caruso St John Paul Smith facade process casts 6a Raven Row Handrail 6a Hackney house Sergison Bates ‘Mon Oncle’ film still Jacques Tati

is what I aim to avoid and hope to create an alternative architecture which holds emotional content; An architecture which can develop over time; An architecture that has the ability to create an organization of fragments which can be conceived as a unified whole.

By choosing specific architectural elements of a domestic architecture, such as a handrail on a stair, I will treat them with as much importance and hierarchy as the detailing and design as the window frame, or door portals and architraves or the facade fixing detail. 6a architects describe the importance and respect given to a designed element of a building in their book ‘Never Modern’ “The lower end of a handrail at Raven Row terminates with a small flourish, a slight swoosh that hyphenates the seeing eye with the grabbing hand.

There is a pleasure in the use of it.

There is a pleasure, too, in the making of it, as several wooden variants made in the office prior to its casting in bronze aluminium testify.”

(Scalbert, I et al, 2013, p. 65) This description of the pleasure of process and use is the mind-set I imagine to thread through my proposal. 6a also refer to the artist Richard Wentworth, understanding his work to be both equally about language and the making of things itself, believing that, “the way things are made can lead to a winder understanding of the city, of its culture and of its politics.”

(Scalbert I et al, 2013, p.73)

One must try to understand the complexity and roles of the architectural elements that make up a home, before engaging with design, detailing and building. Heidegger argues that dwelling with the modern age has been reduced and that we ‘dwell less fully’ today and that “A key to dwelling is letting ourselves and the world be, and this lettingbe includes the ways we build, see, understand and think.” (David Seamen, 2000, p.190) I support the ideas of Heidegger in his opinion that details, such as window are part of a wider context, a part of living and being in the modern world which architects hold responsibility in creating.

An example of this idea of the happenings and actions of a user in a space, or interacting with architecture and the effect they have on a wider context than the immediate action taking place is referenced in ‘Never Modern’ when discussing Jacques Tati’s movie ‘Mon Oncle’, “All that Tati does when he reaches his home is to adjust a window, redirecting the reflection of the sun onto a parakeet, causing it to launch into song.” (Scalbert I et al, 2013, p.80) These are the moments I would like to appreciate and consider during the qualitative processes of interviews, and simply spending more time around the neighbouring areas of the site.

OBJECTIVES & THEORY

OBJECTIVES & THEORY

“The thin skinned abstraction that characterises much global architecture,” (Caruso, website)

Methodology Processes The Pleasures of Processes

Presentation Plan Draft estimate

The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding the processes of design to build and how important this communication and relationship of language and image is within the architecture we as architects create.

In order to engage with these multiple positions, I will use a mix method through the design process. I will work secondarily with ceramics and model making, using casting from early site, material and form studies through to final documentation and proposals.

Model making is also an important potentially recreating existing se�ngs in smaller scales to give a basis of spatial understanding to then move forward and implement proposals onto.

Time Schedule

Feb Programme

Site Study/ Context

Spatial Study/ Form Material Study Character Studies

Documentation

Design creation

March

April

May

I plan to have the majority of the documentation process to be a collection of drawings, categorised into themes of making, or production processes. E.g. handmade, D.I.Y, on- site, off- site, repair, patina etc. these drawings will stem from design sketches and into very detailed specification drawings which sit with a descriptive text. I will also be using models to test designs, and eventually create 1:5 or 1:20 versions of the design proposal.

The mix-method studies I will develop mostly toward the beginning of the project, but which will carry the project are those of the following:

•

Interviews with the elderly couple – audio recordings, transcripts & photographs

•

Site visits of elderly couples home – photographic & drawing recordings

•

Interviews with three generations of a family - audio recordings, transcripts & photographs

•

Quantitative studies of the context & neighbouring buildings – data, photographs, development plans & drawings

•

Qualitative studies of architectural elements and products – categorised as specifications by their process based qualities rather than per-formative specifications

•

Joy in making

•

Adjustment through use

•

Patina & change over time & use

METHODOLOGIES AND PROCESSES

METHODOLOGIES AND PROCESSES

I will approach this project from the perspective and position of an architect, using the best developed technique I possess of drawing to be the primary media of representation.

However I will enter into a dialogue with other crafts and positions which make up the design and build process, e.g. quantity surveyor, carpenter, contractor and specification writer.

A mixture of detail drawings from 1:5 to 1:20, exploded axonometric and perspective drawings to explore the relationships of the exterior envelope with the interior experience.

Vision

Categorised details and specification

VISION

Chatfield House Pierre D’avoine Big House, Little House Pierre D’avoine Raven Row 6a Juergen Teller Studio 6a

Centre for the applied arts Sergison Bates

Sergison, J & Bates, 2013, p.134

Drawing will be the primary method and technique of communication for the process and documentation of this project. Included are some examples of the drawing techniques and styles I will adopt for this polemic proposal.

The precedent drawings and images represent different examples of what it is I wish to determine.

An apartment and domestic living space drawn to a high level of detail whilst capturing activity and movement in a 2D image. Other images realise the mapping and archiving of belongings, placement of architectural elements in relation to their contexts.

Others are treating the architecture as product specification and how they make up a whole. Axonometric drawings are informative in representing the layering of spaces, highlighting the overlapping of spaces and relationships between an interior and exterior space. The placement and inclusion of text and specifications in relation to the drawings The work of Pierre D’avoine, 6a, Caruso St John are key precedents in this project because of their anthropological and design approach to the process methods towards design. This collection of design practices produce drawings as a means to explore and communicate ideas, sometimes they are two- dimensional, but most of them work with depth, trying to represent a form of a space. The production of models develops an understanding to a project. At a certain point drawings are used to communicate a project to a client, and later to statutory organisations. In this way drawings communicate the intentions to those who need to interpret them. Drawings are often not for the client but for the many people who contribute to the building process.

“A drawing considers and accepts tolerance, but still it needs to be a good drawing. This small but crucial component of every project represents the architects hope to excel, within a realistic reading of the parameters of opportunity.”

(Sergison, J & Bates, 2013, p.135)

VISION

“Drawing by hand offers certain possibilities that do not exist in digital drawing. A hand drawing contains a sense of doubt and represents an attempt to work things out that we value highly. It contains a level of inaccuracy that is closer to the reality of building. A computer drawing has the capacity to represent a level of precision that is rarely possible in construction.

With a hand drawing, every element has to be scaled. A repeat element has to be drawn again and again and, like the modules that are actually built, it is in reality never the same.”

Dan Lavinsky Metalocus

AA School - Material Matters Exhibiton

Karl Nawrot and Walter Warton

James Wines - High rise of Homes Catalog of Housing

Ness Lafoy Urban SF Farm

Yannis Halkiopoulos Brooklyn Co-Operative

Andrew DeGraff Unfinished Construction Sites

VISION

VISION

Kolab Architects - Architectural Illustration.

The Rest Is Imagination

Challenging the loss of specificity in modern domestic dwellings.

6 - Todesgade 1

Brick laying pattern. Systematic, repetitive, clean

Thrreshold Space - Recording of Volume & Details within the threshold

Low level concrete block of facade wall - breaking up rhytyhm of facade - possibly a form of decoartion

Staircase as a sequence of thresholds

Slip Concrete bricks as paving stones on ground plane at the borders of the housing block

Step and ballustrade detail - stair nosing, joinings

Entrance door architraves are concrete with pre-cast ribbed impressions, a decorative feature of doorway

Material & Building junctions. Thresholds in a threshold

Sprayed painted blue metal ballustrade & bannisters in all communal stairwells

INVESTIGATION SITE 6 - TODESGADE 1

VISION

VISION

Initial observation and study drawings will be sketched and produced by hand and developed through hand and onto digital production. These will then aid any 3-dimensional work and images I will produce.

‘4th Floor’ library & artists residences project - 2nd semester

1st semester registration drawings and specification details

These are some examples of previous semesters work which communicate the technique of drawing and image making I will take up for when,

Bibliography Texts and References

Secondary Texts

Primary Texts Caruso, A (2010). Gardens Of Experience. England: Sun. Ford, E.R (2009). Five Houses, Ten Details . (First ed.). New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Ford, E.R (2011). The Architectural Detail . (First ed.). New York: Chronicle Books.

Fretton, T, Zumthor, P & Diener, R (2010). Das Haus .

Zurich: ETH.

Foucault, M (2001). The Order Of Things. (2nd Edition ed.).

London: Routledge.

Gardiner, M.E (2000). Critiques Of Everyday Life. London & New York : Routledge.

Guillen, M.F (2006). The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical . USA: Princeton University Press.

Lefebvre, H (1991). The Production Of Space. UK: Blackwell

Scalbert , I et al (2013). Never Modern . England: Park

Publishing .

Books.

Melhuish, C & D’avoine, P (2005). Housey Housey. London: Black Dog Publishing.

A Phenomenological Ecology. USA: State University Of New York.

Perec, G (2008). Species Of Spaces. London: Penguin Classics.

Sergison, J & Bates, S (2013). Papers 2, Sergison Bates Architects . (Illustrated edition ed.). England: Fausto Editores

Smithson, A.P. (1974). Alison and Peter Smithson - With-

SAS .

out Rhetoric An Architectural Aesthetic 1955 - 1972 . (1st Edition ed.). London: MIT press.

Sergison, J & Bates, S (2016). Papers 3, Sergison Bates Architects . (First ed.). Lucerne: Quart Publishers.

Marc M. Angélil,Construction De-constructed: A Relative Reading of Architectural Technology, Journal of Architectural

Shonfield.K (2001).”Premature Gratification And Other Pleasures” This is what we do: A Muf manual. London.

Ellipsis.

Thomas, K.L (2007). Material Matters: Architecture and Material Matters . (1st Edition ed.). London: Routledge.

Mark Dorrian (2012). Regulating Architecture. Architectural Research Quarterly, 16, pp 200-204 doi:10.1017/ S1359135513000031

Education (1984-), Vol. 40, No. 3 (Spring, 1987), pp. 24-31 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1424851 (Accessed: 30-012017 13:12 UTC)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Seamon, D (1993). Dwelling, Seeing and Designing; Toward

Appendix Personal Curriculum

Education 2015 - 2017 The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Design and Conservation Spatial Design Perception & Detail MA Architecture 2010 - 2013 Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design University of The Arts London Architecture, Spaces & Objects BA Architecture 2009 - 2010 London College of Communication University of The Arts London Foundation Diploma

Work Experience 2015

Grimshaw Architects, Sydney Part I Architectural Assistant

2013 - 2015 Michaelis Boyd Associates, London Part I Architectural Assistant

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Scarlett Emma Hessian 12th May 1990 British

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation