FOrREST. 3
DWELLING FOR DAYDREAMERS. 12
RURAL ART HUB. 16
SELECTED WORKS. 18
The Community Forest/For Rest is located in the post-carbon and mining landscape of Bradford, Manchester, UK.
Acting in dissent to the legacies of displacement, extraction and intrusion towards social and ecological forms of life, the project provokes one to look towards nature and how it rests, grows and thrives.
The word ‘FOrREST’ explains the act of ‘being for’ human and non-human rest, in order for us to express ourselves, and the fact that forests are a source for multiple life forms and habitats.
The program explores the need for regenerative systems of activity: Resting, growing, expressing, and connecting by providing a food forest, cafe, reading rooms, chapel, gardens and play areas.
Creating various habitats for rest through reforesting the existing concrete landscape: providing food, shelter, shade and delight.
Wild Gardens. Resting.
Roof
-Steel Cap
-Larch timber shading fins
-Soil and planting small shrubs and wild flowers
-Granular drainage: sand, gravel filter and drainage layer
-Weather proof layer
-200mm Glulam columns, Thermafleece insulation in between
-Plywood deck
-50mmInsluated ceiling support layer
-Vapour layer
-Plywood ceiling
Mezzanine Floor
-12mm Oak floor finish
-60mm service layer 40x40 timber studs
-Cork insulation- around clt to prevent wall-build up from cold bridge
-220mm CLT floor
-Ceiling service layer
-Plywood deck and clay finish
Wall
-Glulam construction
--Beam 200x360mm
-Tripled glazed window in Larch window frame
-180mm concrete bond beam
-180x220 timber ledge beam supporting ClT floor (also with steel tension ties)
-Double glazed Window
-300mm Load bearing rammed earth, 300mm
-20mm Cavity provided for moisture with cavity barriers
-Vapour permeable natural clay render
U Value: 0.13 KWh/m2
Ground Floor
-Exposed RCA concrete floor, naturally coloured with brick and stone aggregate
-Heated floor pipes in sand and screed.
-250mm Thermafleece insulation 0.35w/mK
-sub floor
Sunroom
-Cedar shingles and polycarbonate tiles
-50mmx 100mm rafters
-Waterproofing layer on plywood deck under shingles
-Double glazed window in Larch frame
-Weatherproofed timber planter
-Concrete bond beam
-Rammed earth plinth wall
-Concrete footing
-Bio receptive recycled concrete and brick tiles 0 2m
Internal vignette of the Sunroom.
The sunroom acts as an buffer space between the exterior and main cafe interior. A bench undulates through the space providing a surface that calls people to rest, chat or contemplate. The relieves create room for accessible seating and face to face conversations.
An operable handle in between seating gaps the acts against anti-homeless architecture and allows for flexibility in the seating experience.
Notches are provided for gripping the arm-rest
Spatial comfort and bioclimatic design: light shelf to prevent direct solar gain, and underseat ventilation
Construction of the 1:5 detail model. The model uses material off-cuts and local soil from construction sites. The construction of the model reflects the process of the whole design: starting from the on-site ramming of earth to the assembly of prefabricated units.
Reclaimed timber
Concrete
Prefabricated oak seating
Rammed earth wall
Recycled aggregate tiles
The design makes use of local and low carbon materials from the site and sustainable UK forestry. The materiality expresses the contrast between solidity of rammed earth and the lightness of timber construction.
bond beam planter Oak finish Double-glazed window in larch window frame1:1 Recycled Concrete Bio-Receptive Tile
Portland cement
Recycled Fine Aggregates (RFA)
Coco Coir
Crushed expanded Clay
Reclaimed concrete (RCA)
Natural textures:
landscapes
textures: biodegradable providing nutrients and creating micro landscapes for moss and lichen to attach to.
As you transition through the spaces the floor treatment adapts, making one more aware of the smaller details
The ‘Dwelling for Day-dreamers is a semi-permanent housing community for theatre actors.
Located in Ancoats, Manchester, UK , the site is surrounded by Victorian mill typologies providing a strong material and historic feel to the site. The enclosure of the site creates an intimate community-dwelling, further emphasised by the neighbouring Hope Mill Theatre.
The interaction with the canal connects the scheme to the public and forms a vista into and out of the small community.
The design considered what it meant to ‘dwell’ as a performer and composed spaces for performers and their families to ‘daydream’. Drama was created in spaces by using nature, light, and spatial composition to invoke sensual qualities of space for the occupants.
Through landscaping and materiality strategies, biodiversity, climatic resilience, and low carbon measures have been considered, as well as enhancing social appreciation towards nature. The design is also inspired by post-pandemic resilience , in creating an environment that cultivates social and ecological interactions, while providing a balance of private and public spaces.
Concept sketch based on modelling. Light reflection from water into the interior
Initial concept sketch depicting the natural ornamentation of space due to light to create dynamic sensual space to dwell.
Section of perspective view above, depicting position of window opening.
Concept Spatial Modelling: In response to precedent study of Ricardo Bofill to experiment and create dynamic flows between spaces.
1:100 Unit models: Used to generate ‘scenes’ of space. Forming different types of units to accommodate dwellers with varying needs.
1:100 Unit models: The models also considered lighting, form, and function in relation to the program.
Ground Floor Plan Courtyards and pathways sense of exploration in The cafe leads into an intimate the audience and actors
Piecing it together. Developing the plan at 1:100, considering circulation, vistas and private/public spaces
Key:
1. Reception
2. Stepped theatre seating
3. Stage floor
4. Backstage
5. Bicycle store with seating
6. Cafe
7. Cafe extension
8. Outdoor performance
9. Waste facilities
pathways have been used to create exterior dwelling points and to separate units. It creates a this small community.
intimate garden performance space sheltered by bushes and shrubs, these become both actors community performances looking out to the restored canal.
seating with storage
seating
performance space
Through materiality, unique layouts and the integration of nature, the closed-off site becomes an warm, intimate and expressive community
Entering the community dwelling
Courtyard: Entering extended family unit
community for theatre actors and their families.
Hallway looking into family performance/living room
Top floor, private family room and bedrooms
Rural Art Hub, is an artist and community-led studio founded by Joseph Schneider. They radically explore creativity and are rooted in sustainability.
In August 2022, I was chosen to participate in an ongoing community project, helping to re-imagine the shippon (Cow Barn) creatively while retaining its rural heritage. Through a short design residency with other Architecture students, I gained a deep appreciation for the Rural Art Hub. I saw the value that it had on the locals, and the power of art, experimentation and expression
After the trip, some of the students and I worked on submitting an application for funding a design for the shippon. A concern that Joseph had was that during the winter months, the space was inhabitable. So together we came up with a future-proof temporary solution to create an adaptable interior space within the constraints of the shippon, with locally sourced and reusable materials. The smaller space meant that it could be more easily heated, and was functional over the winter. I then went back in November to help to start off the build with 2 other students.
1:1 construction no matter how small is such an empowering tool, and through it I was able to develop relationships with the people there.
The space has since been developed, used, and adapted and dissembled to meet the ever-changing uses of the space, as intended.
Constructing shelving frames for our exhibition of ideas for the ‘Mother Shippon’
with future green house material
Exhibition of our collective ideas We referred to the heritage of the shippon and voiced the future of the community
Internal shot of design submitted for funding. This design used more polycarbonate
Section of the Shippon
Modular panels, made with simple and temporary joinery methods
The project looked at exploring the constituents of everyday life that makeup the city. By looking at actors and spectators of the city. And how they architecturally shape the experience of their occupants. create a collective experience of everyday life.
This piece is a collection of the drawings and observations made at the bus stop depicting its role
at the bus stop as a form of architecture, I address how bus stops are a dwelling place, home to occupants. The project aimed to convey the city as an accumulation of simple and ordinary actions that
as architecture in the city.
Legacies of EDI (Extraction, Displacement and intrusion).
Exploring various timelines and a polyphony of narratives.
The piece expresses the systemic processes of extraction, displacement and intrusion of the our world.
Its creation represents the playfulness and care taken in allowing a multitude of voices being
the ‘other’... voices, needs, histories, senses, experiences, worlds, cultures, and stories in being heard and felt, but the quick and brutal represents the nature of its destruction.
