VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 2
JANUARY ‘12
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CONTENT 4
Cover Story:
‘Into the Loony Bin...’
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The Material World
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The Material World
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Secret Leeds
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Dear Diary
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Inspiration Corner
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Book of the Season
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Sketch Pad Extracts
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Pier Nervi
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Concept of the Month
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Reflection Period
On the cover: Arcelor MittalOrbit Tower render courtesy of arup.com Editor: Tom Eddison Production Coordinator: Tom Eddison Designer: Tom Eddison Information is correct at press time. Sarkeytecture magazine is (not) published quarterly by architecture student Tom Eddison. Written articles do not necessarily reflect the official company policy or opinion. © 2012 sarkeytecture. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without permission is prohibited.
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...so sarkey...
Sarkeytecture magazine is a hectic amalgamation of highly opinionated ramblings and inspirational media ranging from innovative products and crazy concepts to enlightening books and film. Every issue features a main article on topics dear to the editor’s heart, as well as regular ‘ministories’, sketches and design concepts, and critical reflections of such. Graphic content features highly in this publication, alongside strong opinion. This publication is highly layered, containing not only ‘at-a-glance’ material inspiration but also conceptually inspiring thought provoking feature stories.
Shaped like a large undulating blob, the Ordos Museum in the Gobi desert by MAD architects is a polished metal scultpure that is resistant to the frequently occurring sandstorms.
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The completion of the museum has provided the local citizens a place to embrace and reflect upon the fast paced development of their city. People meet organically in the naturalistic landscapes of the museum, an intersection of natural and human development.
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Entering the museum presents visitors with a strong contrast to the exterior: an airy monumental cave flushed with natural light through skylights. The cave links to a canyon which carves out a void between the galleries and exhibition hall and is brightly illuminated at the top. Patrons maneuver along the base of these primitive surroundings and through the light across mid-air tectonic bridges, reminiscent of the intersection of the past and the future of the Gobi landscape. Visitors will repeatedly cross these sky-bridges and reflect upon their journey from a variety of picturesque vantages.
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COVER ARTICLE: INTO THE LOONY BIN...
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of the most petrifying nights of my life.
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High Royd’s Mental Hospital, Menston
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I was fortunate enough to attend a wonderful Roman Catholic high school in Menston as I was growing up. I could write for days of my all too brief time spent there (a little over a year), but anecdotes of a prepubescent past are not the focus of this story. Instead, I shall indulge you with a little tale of exploration, and one
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Directly opposite the school stands a perfect example of Victorian architecture – High Royd’s Hospital. The former mental asylum is a gorgeous Grade II listed Victorian-gothic masterpiece by architect Edward J. Vickers. It sits in a beautiful 300-acre site and in its heyday contained a butcher, a dairy, a baker’s shop, a cobbler’s and an upholsterer’s and even a railway. The hospital was still operational as I was a schoolboy and was only closed in 2003. I even knew people who had been incarcerated there. I grew up seven stone throws away from Highroyd’s Hospital, and at night I could see from
my bedroom window the yellow back-lit clock face, shining through the trees. It always reminded me of the moon and enraptured me from a young age, filling me with a sense of intrigue and unnerve. I only occasionally had any chance to stray too far within its grounds, and even then it was only for the odd under-10s football match. After Highroyds’ closure in 2003 part of the
complex was converted into a police dog training facility before being converted into fancy ‘exclusive’ apartments, and it was then that the opportunity arose to finally explore the asylum that had illuminated my nights for years. One of the out-buildings, the ‘white houses’ to us, had to be entered through a breezeblock-sized void
masses of papers strewn across the rotting floor. It was incredibly eerie looking around at the absolute mess in the ward, and still the beds were notably neat and orderly. All of the other wards were in a similar state of disrepair, as were the numerous offices and other rooms we stumbled across.
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approximately four feet elevated in a bricked up doorway. This is apparently where the most severe head-cases were kept. We entered onto a floor littered with glass and mud and all manner of indeterminate generic detritus, at one end of a corridor longer than the torch beam could penetrate. Along each side of the corridor were single doors leading into various wards. Beds were lined up neatly in the rooms, still with bedding, and there were
Accessible only through a first floor broken window, via a precarious concrete canopy, we
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cabinets bursting with documents. Ledger upon ledger is filled with patient notes, treatments, deaths. We find a nursery, children’s finger paintings still on the wall. All of a sudden the dogs start barking. The police dogs. And the unkempt trees rubbing against the outside of the building make it
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entered a sparse room painted blood red. One of the walls bore remnants of a small fire, charred and coffeestained. Every wall was ferociously peeling paint. Out into another corridor littered with beds, books, glass and cans, down a narrow flight of heavily creaking stairs we arrive at a crossroads. Three corridors disappear into gloom, and an open office door shows filing
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sound like there are other people here with us. We listen in absolute silence, individual breaths held. The trees rub again and of course there are other people in here with us.
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We leg it as fast as we can down the corridor, up the creaky stairs, down the corridor into the blood room, out onto the death-trap veranda, drop down into the weeds and scarper off into the night… It may well be this event which attracts me so profoundly toward the beauty of decrepit buildings. I absolutely love them. A decaying structure positively drips character, its story is literally being told in front of us as its various layers of history are 6
naturally peeled away. Retrospectively this ‘mini-quest’ to Highroyd’s has given me a much more profound understanding of a building’s power to affect people. The atmosphere created in such buildings can be utterly staggering, enough to terrify, and it just goes to show the true diversity of architecture. Nazi architect Albert Speer’s architecture notably was used to terrify the very soul, but more on that next month…
INTO THE LOONY BIN...
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Mortuary at Highroyd’s Hospital
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the material world
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• Suitable for floors, walls, and furniture applications; • Light commercial, institutional, and residential environments; • Unique abrasion resistance properties & resilience; • Multiple custom options for size, texture, and finishes.
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Recycled leather tiles and sheets made from pulverized leather fibers extracted from car seat manufacturers. Exceptional combination of elegance, sustainability, and durability for floors and walls. Easily applied as a glue-down product with a variety of options. Our Echelon Collection Recycled Leather offers the following advantages:
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Japanese construction and design firm TIS & Partners has just unveiled a strong and surprisingly low-tech brick that can be rapidly produced in disaster areas, and applied to the quick construction of long lasting shelter.
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Since the brick’s main component is common sand they can be produce in quantity nearly anywhere. The process of making the brick uses carbon dioxide to harden sand and a binder to provide tensile strength. In fact, the inventor claims the bricks are 2.5 times the tensile strength of concrete in one day, meaning that the construction of walls would need much less steel reinforcement and could be used immediately in emergency constructions.
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The bricks are created using a very simple process: high silicon content sand is put into an air tight mold that can be virtually any shape. CO2 is pumped into the mold and bonds with the silica to make a solid bricklike material in less than a minute — at this point, the brick is very strong under lateral loads, but still crumbles if stressed under tensile pressure. The next step is to infuse the bricks with a binder such as epoxy or urethane. Bathing the blocks in the binder creates a hardened block that has all the proper requirements for a strong building component. The brick’s strength is 2.5 times that of concrete in less than 24 hours, which is critical for emergency building and predicted to have a 50 year lifespan.
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SECRET LEEDS The Forgotten Beck
these beautiful areas, and are oblivious to their vital role in city development.
overlook
Disaster!!! My computer contracted a virus throughout the Christmas break, and I’ve been piss-arsing about trying to get it fixed for weeks. My last backup was weeks before it happened as well, so I’ve lost quite a lot of work and time in trying to fix the f***er.
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people
DEAR diary...
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This goes to show the absolute importance of Leeds’ forgotten waterways, and indeed any city, for it is inevitably the many little streams that drove the mills and factories of Industrial Age Britain.
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Throughout the 16th and 18th centuries the beck provided many corn mills with water. In the 19th century it supplied water for chemical works and tanneries, most of which are now residences.
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these forgotten gardens were commonplace they too would be unappreciated due to their prevalence, and so I must be content in knowing that, forgotten as it is, I will greatly appreciate Meanwood Beck every time I cross it.
Meanwood Beck, Leeds Leeds hides many beautiful places away from prying eyes, and it takes only the most determined to root them all out. Particular thanks go to phill.d for actually stepping down into the forgotten Meanwood beck, something I ever ache to do when I walk through the area.
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In one way I wish that multitudes of these waterways were commonplace in our cities, the immediate architecture surrounding such is inevitably aweinspiring. However, if
It’s been putting a lot of stress on me, I hate to admit it but it’s noticable. Architecture sure is stressful. My design project beforehand was not going brilliantly, so at least I can step back and think about where I was going wrong, but nearly all of my graphic-based dissertation was wiped. Paradoxically it fills me with an emptiness I cannot explain whenever I think of it. It f***ing sucks. 13
INSPIRATION CORNER Home to any and all sources of random inspiration
BOOK OF THE SEASON
Designed to provide visitors with an immersive experience, Genesis is a complete environment, which integrates enclosure, aperture, views, respite, meditation and community. David Adjaye, Miami
Bill Bryson recounts his travels with companion Stephen Katz through sections of the Appalachian Trail in eastern America, heading north from Georgia. Bryson hopes to revive a connection to the American wilderness by walking the trail, joining the subculture of hikers, and telling the wilderness history of much of the Eastern United States.
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Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods
tang palace, hangzhou
What I found so compelling about this book was the ease with which Bryson portrayed the human emotional connection to the environment, particularly hiking trails. The narration of his book was so readable, speckled with humor and completely arresting. The history he gave was so tightly weaved in with his own adventure that I didn’t realize just how much information I was picking up as I read! It was the history contained in this book that hit me the hardest. It is a dressing down of the American Park Service and American Forestry Comission and their widely ineffective and hypocritical methods of ‘maintaining’ their native wildlife. It is absolutely captivating and morally enlightening, and an absolute must read!
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Part of my design precedents in semester one is rubbish and the voids between naturally assembled waste. The images show magnified views of driftwood and spruce. The cellular arrangements are amazing to see, an otherwise invisible world brought into view. Sara Cannon - cumulative mouse trails
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Chad Hagan nonsensical infographics
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PIER NERVI...
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The Italian engineer and architect Pier Luigi Nervi (1891–1979) was among the most innovative builders of the twentieth century and a pioneer in the application of reinforced concrete. In 1932 he produced some unrealized designs for circular aircraft hangars in steel and reinforced concrete that heralded the remarkable hangars he built for the Italian Air Force at Orvieto. None have survived but they are well documented: more than enough to demonstrate that they were a tour de force, both as engineering and architecture. Nervi’s designs were too complex to be calculated by orthodox mathematical analysis, and he developed a design methodology that used polarized light to identify the stress patterns in transparent acrylic models. A few unbuilt projects were followed by three structures for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. He built the Palazzo dello Sport (1959, with Marcello Piacentini), the Flaminio Stadium (1959, with Antonio Nervi), and the Palazzetto dello Sport (1957, with Annibale Vitellozzi). The last is a gem of a building whose rational structure is so transparently expressed that the observer can almost see the loads being shepherded to the ground in a way redolent of late English Gothic fan vaulting.
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CONCEPT OF THE MONTH
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The Elemental Archive Minamata, Japan
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Minamata is a Japanese fishing town and the site where mercury poisoning was first discovered in 1956. The most advanced factory in Japan, the Chisso Mimamata, had been secretly dumping its chemical waste into the bay. The mercury poisoned fish which were eaten by the town folk, who in turn became poisoned. Children were born deformed, blind, deaf and dumb. It was named Minamata disease and for twelve years the Japanese government and the Chisso Corporation attempted to cover the entire affair up.
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This got me thinking… Imagine a chemical store which would safely house all elements of waste value to industry; a periodic table of waste element compounds safely stored away from people, and the ecosystem. Like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, perhaps these potentially harmful substances could be locked up and ‘frozen’ until a certain time in a future (where chemical fusion is commonplace) when they can be of use to society once again. And so the Elemental Archive is born. And what might it look like? Who knows…
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REFLECTION PERIOD
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Quarterly study-based critical reflections September 2011
October
My first task within the studio group was to analyse and research the ‘Water Palaces’ of Istanbul, as well as an architectural history of the city. The work took ages to prepare and was presented in the form of a scroll, over eight feet long. The work was generally well received but apparently the background was a little distracting. This comment has been made to me before so this is something which I must surely take on board!
Upon return from Istanbul – My instincts were cockon about it; I’m totally ambivalent toward the place. There were certain aspects that I enjoyed, notably the architecture, but the social and cultural scene I could not wait to get away from. And the Turkish food is positively manky, especially the sweets.
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I’m both excited and cautious about going to Istanbul, it has never been a place I would choose to go, and it seems even beings forced to go I’m having reservations. I’m just not into that whole hectic scene they have out there.
The site I have chosen in Istanbul is on the corner of a narrow but fairly busy residential intersection. I am happy with the site, although I have no idea what to design for it yet! A couple of initial thoughts have fluttered through my brain, including a live/work/ play house/cafe/brothel which has a dark appeal, although I’m a tad nervous about approaching the tutors about it! Much more thorough site analysis must inform my design choice…
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Analysis of the site has determined that there is a vast amount of rubbish present, as if it naturally makes its way there over time. The site is disused and has been for some time, hence the accumulation of detritus. I have started an analysis of refuse found in the area, and I am constructing a piece of shadow art to represent the site. It will be made from rubbish found at my own local wasteland. Well, I’m not happy with it. I’m not entirely sure it represents what I wanted from the whole process, and I’m sure I need a tetanus booster now. I want to relate this abundance of rubbish to my building, but I think a recycling centre is a poor choice as there is one nearby, and I’m not too keen on actually creating my building from refuse. I’m not sure what to do.
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December
Semester one tech project has been the focus of my time currently. I have been tasked with the structural build-up of the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. It’s a positively massive task, and the 17-stage build-up I have currently done has been deemed too vague. I must delve into much more detail if I am to do well in this project.
My design is struggling. I just can’t seem to nail the purpose of the building. It was at first a museum for inspiring exhibits, then a document archive for the adjacent archive currently being renovated, and now I’m just not sure what it is. The archive was too big and ‘lacked hierarchy’.
I need to think of my research from a more abstract point of view.
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I need to focus more on my time management, as I always seem to be staying up on the night before a hand-in to make sure everything is complete. I am somewhat of a perfectionist though, so this may play a minor part.
I’m also not relating the building to my rubbish investigations anymore. This has really been a wakeup call. I really can’t keep dwelling on the function, I need to get it nailed and get cracking. Pull my finger out. Surplus generic motivational cliché.
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Upped the build-up to a healthier (and physically accurate) 41 stages. My model was also used to create accurate supplementary pictures to the lighting strategy. The model looks kickass now but it’s taken up a lot of my time and my design work has fallen behind.
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November
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