Portfolio

TOM ELLIS

SELECTED WORKS 2017 - 2023

PROJECTS

01 / UDAIPUR MASTERPLAN

Location: Udaipur, India

Length: 5.5km

Year: 2023

The masterplan proposal envisages a future for Udaipur, addressing the city’s current issues of environmental degradation and lack of accessible green space. The Chhatta is a green tapestry of agricultural land that is soon to be developed upon. The Chhatta re-links the city’s eroded drainage basin whilst providing a linear public park that connects the historic city centre at the lake’s edge to the foothills of the Aravalli range. The stitch transitions from an urban lake frontage at Hara Bazaar in the city centre to a wild and lush landscape of Prakrti Ke Zameen. With time the Chhatta will extend into the Aravalli mountains with a re-wilding programme that seeks to repair the quarry scars of the hills whilst maintaining sufficient green space for the growing population.

Hara Bazaar

Sheher Ke Liye Ghar

Prakrti Ke Zameen

Rest, gather, and grow structures (collectively known as the Chhattaree) each serve a particular purpose and play an integral part in the development of the Chhattah. They are a manifestation of the infrastructural systems below ground, and provide a suitable environment for both the community and nature to thrive together. The shading qualities of the structures provides comforts for park visitors whilst protecting vegetation from the sweltering summer sun.

Sheher Ke Liye Ghar is a new community located towards the centre of the Chhatta. The district will set a new standard for housing practice’s in Udaipur as the population expands. Mid-rise residential blocks are organised around private courtyards offering pockets of green space for congregation and growing. Tight streets weave through the community to offer passively shaded routes for pedestrians and cyclists.

A retrofit programme will upgrade the poorly built developer-led blocks that are proving problematic for the community. Connection of the existing buildings to the new infrastructural services will also offer improved sanitisation and power.

Sustainable Retrofit of Existing Housing Blocks

Proposed Housing

Sheher Ke Liye Ghar Masterplan

Location: Udaipur, India

GIA: 2800m2

Year: 2023

Aasha Ki Haveli stands as a visionary facility, dedicated to breaking down the existing barriers that impede women in Udaipur from accessing timely cancer screening.

Aasha Ki Haveli celebrates the vibrant culture of the city, weaving together ayurvedic street gardens and a café that actively engages with the community, facilitating the dissemination of crucial cancer awareness.

Reclaiming the once oppressive haveli typology, Aasha Ki Haveli repurposes it to ensure utmost privacy; fostering an environment that encourages women to seek screening without hesitation. A programme of ayurvedic therapies and support offers complementary treatment options for diagnosed patients, empowering them to embrace an active role in their personal journey through cancer.

1:500 Site Model

5. Restorative Beacon 6. The Haveli

Ayurvedic Street Gardens

Entrance Landscape

Herbal Pharmacy

Aasha Ki Haveli’s facades are a direct response to the extreme local climate. Bricks made from quarry waste and lime will be air-dried to create an extremely low-carbon material that offers thermal mass and privacy.

A perforated copper facade inspired by vernacular jaali screens creates a dynamic breathable facade layer. The building’s progressive programme is reflected by the openable facade allowing female patients to take control for their own privacy level. The saffron hues of the copper reflect the positivity of the rajas guna.

West Elevation

Restorative Section North Elevation

Copper Jaali Pattern

Detailed Facade Isometric

Restorative Block Systems

Screening Block Systems

Detailed Facade Study

/

BRISTOL SOUND HUB

Location: Western Harbour, Bristol, UK

GIA: 2000m2

Year: 2022

The Bristol Sound Hub proposes a new cultural music platform in the city’s Western Harbour development. The scheme focuses on the concept of clustered obscurity inspired by the amalgamation of sounds, people and culture that established the Bristol Sound in the 1980s.

The current Brunel Way flyover will be removed as part of the proposed masterplan. The removal of the flyover to many will appear as a positive for the city. However, it is apparent that the structure is in fact a creative canvas for skaters and street artists alike. The Bristol Sound Hub will provide a new creative outlet for the city’s youth with music teaching and performance spaces helping to re-establish the dwindling Bristol Sound. The building presents an appropriable landscape with flexible furniture replicating the adaptive environment of the flyover’s underworld.

Concept model - the flyover as a creative shelter

Flexible Staging/Seating Units

The proposal is nestled within a densely vegetated landscape reminiscent of the Somerset forest clearings where the Bristol Sound was often presented at raves concealed from the authorities. The landscape is used to instigate a sense of journey and discovery from the streets of Western Harbour masterplan.

A timber frame and translucent polycarbonate roof replicate the sheltering qualities of the lost flyover. Sitting under the shelter, the clustered amalgamations of rammed concrete blocks further conceal the music whilst providing an appropriable ground plane for skaters.

Main Venue Space

Discovering the Sound Hub

Initial Timber Frame Design Development Model

04 / 11:22 SKILLS BUILDING

Location: The Bronx, New York, USA

GIA: 2750m2

Year: 2021

Exhibition Garden with views into the timber workshop

Interdisciplinary meeting stair

Timber Workshop

The building’s primary structural system is composed of reinforced rammed concrete elements through the lower levels of the building, and from this rises a frame that consists of glulam members and dowel laminated timber floor decks. This structural strategy is a reference to the vegetative cloak that rises from the Manhattan Schist formations of Central Park.

Cafe Terrace Details

Exploded Structural Isometric

The building presents itself as a further ‘natural interruption’ to a street elevation still scarred by the 1980s fires that devastated South Bronx. Charred timber facades rise from the striated concrete base, referencing the historic struggles of the borough that are synonymous with the struggles of today’s youth. An overlaid oak frame provides the perfect growing medium for the extensive planting that rises up the staggered terraces, turning the workshops into natural havens.

West Elevation

South Elevation

East Elevation

Stepped massing responding to the nearby context

This project was a 5 day design study undertaken for the developers of the YTL Arena, Bristol. Working alongside a partner and project architect, I was involved in the study exploring the conversion of the existing eastern hangar to a flexible exhibition space. The design looked to reflect the industrial heritage of the site through the use of stacked shipping containers.

Brabazon East Hangar, BristolFeilden Clegg Bradley Studios (2021)

Victoria Park Building, University of PortsmouthFeilden Clegg Bradley Studios (2021)

Whilst at FCB Studios, a large amount of my time was spent on RIBA stage 4 design work of this proposal for a new 12-storey building for the faculty of humanities and social sciences. My work encompassed the production of internal visualisations that were part of the tender package to illustrate the quality of finishes.

Lower Woodland Barn, DevonPrivate Project (2020)

In August 2020, I was commissioned to undertake a design exercise for the conversion of an agricultural barn in Devon to two residential units. My scheme was for the removal of the existing barn structure and the construction of a new timber framed building sitting within the footprint of the existing barn. Corrugated metal cladding was paired with horizontal larch cladding to both respect the agricultural vernacular whilst offering the contemporary proposal that the client desired.