Unit A

Technical and Computing studies work with the design module in first year, aiming to push student’s design projects further through technical details, material studies. fyts.1 Structural and joint studies, Weald and Downing Museum, Yohan Ismael fyts.2 Section, plan and Axonometric of structural framework, Auguste Tashan fyts.3 Inhabited section of Making Home proposal, Kalin Petrov fyts.4 Laser model cut out and drawing of Weald and Downing proposal, Zahraa Shaikh fyts.5 Laser cut model of Weald and Downing Proposal, Alfred Hatch

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RELATIONAL STATES

Carsten Jungfer, Fernanda Palmieri

Unit A is interested in the morphology of the city by investigating relationships between space, programme, materiality and time. The unit agenda engages in domains between architecture and urbanism and is based on an understanding of architecture as contextual response, critically questioning pre-existing conditions and found spaces within the city. If space is the outcome of collective action and therefore a “social product” (Henri Lefebvre), How exactly is space made? What are the factors driving the process? What roles do participants play? We will set out to get a better understanding of underlying principles contributing to urban change and to the formation of new types of collective space.

Spaces in the city are continuously negotiated, altered and adapted and are therefore in constant state of change. While the predominant reproduction of space follows rules of demand and supply, space in the city becomes increasingly commodified. Conditions of uncertainty however, including economic decline and political inactivity, produce spaces that fall out of the cycle of predominant spatial reproduction for periods of time. As a result of becoming obsolete, residual spaces emerge within the urban fabric in the form leftovers, vacant or unused territories.

At this stage residual spaces become available to alternative modes of spatial production. New actors are attracted by unknown opportunities and new uses emerge. Most of those processes are of experimental nature and can be described as temporary and inbetween uses, that provide a critical reinvention for the urban neighbourhood and local economy. “Pioneers” tend to claim vacant territories through direct occupation and unconventional approach; by extending their activities to attract a wider community a new network of social relations across the new spatial arrangements becomes established. This form of alternative production of space is widely recognised for generating social value in local communities. While it occurs in parallel to established cycles of urban regeneration, once the process of spatial stabilisation begins, the fundamental incompatibility of long-term goals between the two, however, becomes apparent.

Dalston, one of London’s most rapidly changing and diverse area in East London was chosen as study area for the year. Questions arising from the described conflict became the starting point for students’ investigations and their proposals set out to experiment with alternative modes of spatial production for project sites surrounding Ashwin Streets’ ‘Cultural Quarter’, currently also considered by Hackney Council for future development.

Students:

Y3: Aaron Williams-Grant, Abdulaziz Ghbaya, Angelle Dimech, Dalciamaira Nunes Cardoso, Daniel Kiss, Kiesse Andre, Makinde Otesanya, Marianne Gallagher, Nelton Bordonhos Barbosa, Yasmine Pala Y2: Ben Roder, Daniella Marchant, Delrich Biyoulou, Israa Salim, Julia Skiba, Kurt Arenas, Luciana De Souza, Lyes Hamidi, Mouniratou Traore, Nisha Anwar, Omar Harrak, Ying Pang

Unit A Website:

www.uel23ua.blogspot.co.uk

Visiting Crits:

Anna Schabel, Brian Cumming, Christopher Thorn, Felix Xylander-Swannell, Gregory Ross, Harald Trapp, Heidi Moxon, Keita Tajima, Kristina Hertel, Michele Roelofsma, Moto Auraa Kawakami, Mo Wong, Nick Green, Reem Charif, Rob Pyecroft, Sufiya Patel, Tak Hoshino, Tara Cranswick

Special thanks to:

Ana Stoeckermann, Ben Brewer, Jake Ferguson, Janin Walter, Marie Murray, Max Tobias, Melanie Humann, Neele Reimann-Philipp, Rainer Johann, Roey Hunt

“Space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products: rather, it subsumes things produced and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity - their relative order and/or relative disorder”

Henry Lefebvre

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a.1 Exploring relationships between existing spatial conditions within the Dalston study area. Composite drawing by Nelton Bordonhos Barbosa, Daniel Kiss, Marianne Gallagher, Nisha Anwar, Angelle Dimech, Kiesse Andre, Israa Salim, Abdulaziz Ghbaya, Makinde Otesanya, Luciana De Souza, Ben Roder a.2 ‘The Dalston Collective Rebellion’ is a proposal consisting of 4 buildings that host art residencies, a workshop and integrate the existing performance space (Oto projects) creating a cluster, that shares an accessible open space and aims to maintain opportunities for experimentation across the fields of arts & culture with reference to spatial production methodologies utilised at Holzmarkt and ZK/U Berlin), Daniella Marchant a.3 ‘The Yard Workshop’ propagates to increase interaction between resident artists of V22 and the local community. Rammed earth wall-construction uses ground and rubble from building waste, by Nisha Anwar

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a.4 The Yard Building: Following a careful analysis of relationships between spatial and functional transformations of the V22 yard, Angelles’ urban strategy reconfigures a series of new open and accessible yard-like spaces by inserting new programmes related to creative learning, that integrate with and may support the existing artist community, Angelle Dimech a.5 The Bake House Project builds on the success of the Knuckles Bakery in the Bootyard and proposes to extend this programme to the community by providing access to ‘baking infrastructure’ and spaces to learn about health and well-being, especially for Dalstons’ children, Israa Salim a.6 ’Dalston Underground’ is a proposal to re-activate the obsolete Eastern Curve Tunnel to provide new spaces to local organisations including the Eastern Curve Garden and Cafe Oto, Julia Skiba

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Final Axo

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a.7 Oto Hall: Following on from a careful analysis about the multi-layered role Cafe Oto plays in Dalston’s regeneration and community networks, the urban strategy for this project embraces existing and proposed opportunities of cultural and experimental collaboration at both local and global scales by propagating a set of distinct performance spaces with high degrees of adaptability, Nelton Bordonhos Barbosa