UEL Architecture Yearbook 2014 by UEL Architecture

ACEUEL Architecture Yearbook 2014

Publisher University of East London Editor Michela Pace Graphic Design Michela Pace Jon Spencer Cover Jon Spencer Production Michela Pace Jon Spencer

Showcase Edition June 2014

University of East London School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering Dockland Campus E16 2RD T+44 020 8223 2041 F+44 020 8223 2963 www.uel.ac.uk www.uelarchitecture.org

Contents Introduction Encounters #1: Research Informed Teaching Degree Y1 Showcase Degree Y2/3 Unit Showcase Encounters #2: Prizes and Exhibitions Encounters #3: Workshops & Conferences Diploma Y4/5 Unit Showcase Encounters #4: Open Jury Encounters #5: Lecture Series Masters Technical and Professional Studies Encounters #6: Construction Week Encounters #7: Work Environment

Architecture, Design and the Built Environment CARL CALLAGHAN

It is reasonable to expect that by the mid century we will have established the motivators that will lead change in our society and shape and establish the defining approaches of our century towards society and nature. In 2050, a student aged eighteen, joining our programmes today, will be just fifty four years old. We can expect dramatic change across the world over the next years. It is our belief that our education programmes will empower our students to understand and lead change in design practice and research and to enrich our existing and new contexts both in the UK and internationally. Our position in the East of London has allowed us to witness and experience dramatic change. The evolution of the worlds leading financial centre at Canary Wharf, the Olympics and its legacy, and, the uplift of regeneration we see around us, has allowed us to develop an insight and expertise in understanding society and context undergoing change both here in the UK and the application of this internationally. With this in mind I would like to congratulate all the staff who participated in the outstanding research submission made in the autumn and especially Professor Tony Fretton, Maria Segantini of C+S Architects, Katherine Clarke of Muf and Anna Minton. Students and staff are encouraged to think and work both nationally and internationally. As I write, a project linking Venice and London as part of a collaboration between the UEL architecture the Ministry of Culture in Italy and New London Architecture /London Festival of Architecture opens simultaneously linking a model in the Doges Palace in Venice to a pavilion in Central London with a live feed. This project explores

and illustrates the local/international context of contemporary ideas. We are also very grateful to all our speakers and invited guests and critics who give generously of their time to contribute to the learning environment in the school. In particular, on behalf of the staff and students I would thank the President of the RIBA Stephen Hodder MBE for his lecture on Continuity and Development and Mike Davies CBE of Rogers of Stirk Harbour + Partners for giving our annual London Festival of Architecture address and opening the summer show. We have an active student society that arranges the lectures and I would like to thank and congratulate all the students, and particularly Marie Braithwaite, on their Best Society Award. At the core of our teaching philosophy is the relationship developed between staff and students. Students are taught one to one, in small groups as well as in studios, workshops, seminars and lecture halls. Our project work follows a pattern of investigation, experiment and innovation. The students have produced some fascinating project work this year and I am delighted to congratulate Sarah Jane Fourness on her award from the American Institute of Architects (tutors Satoshi Ono and Clara Kraft) and the Year one students (tutors Raphael Lee and year 1 tutors) on their award from the Green Building Council and their work in the Exhibition in the Museum of Childhood (V and A) on Children and Classroom Environments. This year we have seen considerable renewal and development in the portfolio of teaching programmes we offer. The new programmes are designed to work together to promote cross disciplinary learning. We

INTRODUCTIOM

have a number of professional programmes available including BSc (Hons) Architecture ARB, RIBA part 1 and MArch ARB, RIBA part 2 in Architecture. We are delighted that our Landscape programme received professional accreditation from the Landscape Institute. We have a lively undergraduate BSc (Hons) Product Design programme and to this we have added a BA (Hons) Interior Design programme and a BSc (Hons) in Architectural Design Technology. The undergraduate programmes will work together in year one to promote a broad understanding of the related disciplines. Our MA/MSC programmes address Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Computing, Sustainability and History and Theory. We also have links with schools abroad and students have the possibility of engaging with schools of Architecture in a number of cities including Venice, St Petersburg, Paris and Athens. Our students benefit from the traditions in the school of making and the study of materials. To these skills our students can add traditional and new approaches to representation and to advanced computing. There has been considerable expansion of the computer manufacture facilities in our new Digital Fabrication Lab. Our school has links with a variety of offices. Our studio staff are often practitioners of architecture, art and design and students regularly engage with practitioners at design reviews. Our students have an excellent track record of employment. 21st Century architecture and design faces complex challenges from local to international scales. The complexity of these challenges requires us to balance our own creative thinking with working together with others. Our professional and academic programmes

address innovative strategies and new poetic approaches to the understanding of people, societies and places and relate these to new contexts, materials, processes and technologies. We aim to equip our students with thinking processes and skills to thrive and lead in the working and cultural contexts of their choice. I would like to thank the students and staff for their work this year.

Carl Callaghan BA (Hons) Dipl RIBA Subject Leader Architecture Design and the Built Environment

ENCOUNTERS #1

RESEARCH INFORMED TEACHING Material and Practice, brought together through research is the common theme that links our senior research active academics Professor Tony Fretton (British Embassy, Warsaw), MariaAlessandra Segantini (Law Courts, Venice), Katherine Clarke (Barking Town Centre), Anna Minton (Author of ‘Ground Control’) and Alan Chandler (Palacio Pereira, Santiago, Chile) bring significant practice experience to teaching, but through publication, public engagement and influencing policy generate impacts beyond ‘the building’. The Unit views public engagement, including community teaching and learning activities, as central to its capacity to enhance awareness and opportunities relating to its

key research themes among the widest possible non-academic audiences, particularly local communities and policy-makers. Public Realm work by Clarke, Karthaus and Minton articulates qualitative and political aspects of urban life developing innovative platforms for communicating and evaluating the sustainability of the urban realm. The London Mayors ‘Manifesto on Public Space’ put Minton’s published research directly into practice in opposing private ownership of public space within new urban developments. Clarke’s work with MUF provides significant exemplars for the role of community

participation in design of excellent public space. Non-academic impact has been integral to our research agenda, which emphasises the application of a critical and rigorous approach to address the practical issues facing our external partners, particularly in industry and policy-making organisations. Partners and clients benefiting from such activities span the local to international, from communities, Councils and schools to charitable foundations and professional collaborators such as Heatherwick Studios (1:1 prototyping - Chandler) and Design

Above and opposite page: Palacio Pereira - Alan Chandler with Cecilia Puga, Paula Velasco Alberto Moletto

ENCOUNTERS #1: RESEARCH INFORMED TEACHING

Alan Chandler

LCV. Law Court Offices in Venice - Maria Alessandra Segatini / C+S Architects (photograph Alessandra Bello)

for London (funding urban community interventions with Chandler and Clarke), and international NGOs such as Article 25. The benefits of our non-academic research activities extend to international audiences of architects, planners, and academics by organizing and running of professional workshops for practitioners. Karthaus, in his capacity as jury member and scientific director of “Les Ateliers” workshops (an international NGO working across all built environment disciplines in partnership with governmental organisations) facilitates participatory

and innovative collaborations around urban planning themes, guiding groups of professionals in workshops addressing the production of urban proposals for immediate implementation as well as strategic direction in China, across Europe, Russia and India. Karthaus was scientific director of an EUfunded workshop in India proposing methodologies for the design and construction of a new city for 560,000 people. At a local scale, the ‘Live Project’ Workshop is a research and teaching

vehicle for post graduate architecture students to become involved with community groups, health providers, NGO’s and local authorities enabling direct change to users environments by using ‘design’ as an evaluative, analytical and propositional research process. Drawing on community enabled design practice (typified by Clarke’s work with her practice MUF - Altab Ali Park for the Londonwide ‘Highstreet 2012’ for the London Mayor, Design for London and English Heritage), students design innovation is harnessed to enable social change through spatial

WFT, Water Filtration Plant, C+S Architects (photographs Pietro Savorelli)

ENCOUNTERS #1: RESEARCH INFORMED TEACHING

change – projects that physically transformed community healthcare centres in Newham, enabled schools to realise urban gardening, biodiversity and climate change teaching, and develop material prototypes for international disaster relief under strict performance briefs, with engineers such as ARUP and Buro Happold as collaborators. Our transfer of specialist knowledge and expertise to non-academic audiences also occurs through engagement with and provision of consultancy services to influential advisory boards and committees, working with and for policy-makers and other organizations. Through publications and his role within the accreditation of standards in UK architectural conservation, Chandler was invited in 2012 by leading Chilean Architect Cecilia Puga to develop the winning conservation based project commemorating the Chilean Bi-Centenary, which required the establishment of new criteria for the conservation of monuments in Chile. Chandler was one of the first RIBA accredited ‘Specialist Conservation Architects’ and is an assessor for the RIBA’s national conservation register, recognised by English Heritage and international conservation bodies such as the

International Council on Monuments and Sites. Minton has provided policy reports for the RIBA, Demos, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, CABE and the homeless charity Shelter. ‘New Conservation’ research (Chandler) has pioneered the RIBA’s role in teaching conservation architecture and set new policy agendas internationally through exemplary design, publication and dissemination. The use of multi-media to engages with the wider community though the promotion of both the written and physical outputs of our work. With many significant outputs practice based, public recognition forms a key aspect of dissemination. Exhibitions following design prizes include exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Triennale di Milan, M van Museum Leuven (Holland), the RIBA (London), ArkitekturSalon (Stuttgart, Germany), Bilbao Jardines (Spain), Medellin Feria de las Flores (Columbia), and the XVII Architecture Biennale of Chile; radio and media broadcasting (Minton’s ‘Fuelling Fear with High Security’ on BBC ‘Four Thoughts’ and journalism for the Guardian and Financial Times), and the setting up of a new website platform to

Katherine Clarke - Barking Town Centre - muf architecture/art

provide accessible information and downloadable learning resources (www.uelarchitecture.org). Conventional published research is also strong within this tightly knit Unit, with Fretton and Segantini bringing out monographs, books on theoretical research and a key reference text on School Design, published by Skira in three languages, as well as numerous refereed articles in journals such as Architecture Research Quarterly, RIBA Journal, SPAB Journal, A+U, A10, L’Architecture D’Aujuhordhui, AD, The Architectural Review, Abitare, Domus and Ottagone. The School based Research GroupPlace Production Group organized by Pace, Karthaus and Chandler is a focus for the organization and management of practice based research, and under Chandlers leadership devised and implemented a highly rated Research Excellence Framework submission in 2014 under the Architecture and the Built environment Unit of Assessment 16.

Alan Chandler, Katherine Clarke, Tony Fretton, Roland Karthaus, Richard Lindsay, Anna Minton, Michela Pace, Alex Scott-Whitby were part of the Architecture and the Built environment Unit of Assessment 16, REF 2014 for UEL.

British Embassey, Warsaw - Tony Fretton / Tony Fretton Architects (photographs Peter Cook)

FIRST YEAR

LEVEL 1 ARCHITECTURE RAPHAEL LEE PROGRAMME LEADER

Level 1 Architecture is structured around a number of practical and design based projects working through from the scale of the body to the scale of the city. This year the projects are derived from a particular interest in the relationship between city and water, with the final design project looking at a small waterside site in Deptford Creek. Through the year the course aims to provide a broad platform for exploring creativity and introducing a set of skills and standards that range from surveying and technical drawing, to sketching and model making. Embedded within the schedule of projects and activities are lectures, practical workshops and tutored classes structured to guide every student along these first steps on the path to becoming an Architect, building confidence and developing a strong sense of purpose and direction. All the tools needed for a life long engagement with the discipline and theory of Architecture. Raphael Lee

Image: Bird Hide on site showing woven willow panels

FIRST YEAR YEAR 1

Practice and Attention to Detail RAPHAEL LEE, Kristina Hertel, Reem Charif, Luisa Alpalhao, Alex Veal, Bruce Irwin, Toshiya Kogawa

Practice and Attention to Detail Level 1 Architecture is designed as a beginning, setting out the ground, establishing inventive and reliable ways to generate complex thinking through drawing, making and questioning. Through a rigorous culture of studio practice we continue to cultivate the ethos of engagement, innovation and attention to detail that lies at the heart of our reputation and identity. The studio environment is the core of all our activities, a space generous enough for working, playing, imagining and experimenting, and a space integral to the life of the school, surrounded by students and staff from every level of the Architecture course and from the many other disciplines and fields that are in some way intertwined with Architecture, the fundamental human context. The path is not an easy one, but the journey is uplifting and the rewards are far reaching and life changing. The year is structured around a sequence of six immersive and open-ended project briefs, working spatially at various scales both here in London and beyond. Of these, four shorter, more experimental projects develop the spontaneity and courage required to undertake two substantial and more ponderous propositional design projects. It is expected that both of these key projects lead to a building design pursued to a high level of architectural complexity and resolution. Each new project builds on the experience gained from the last, the scale of the body, the scale of the room, the scale of the building. In January, half way through the academic year, study trips to visit buildings and

landscapes in Cambridge, London and Rome pave the way for the final design project, an explorative and viable architectural intervention for the local urban context of East London. Sometimes working together and sometimes alone, each progressive stage allows for a deepening understanding of the ancient pursuit of designing buildings. The foundations for an enduring fascination and analytical attitude to ideas of city, society and Architecture.

Georges Perec, Species of spaces and other pieces

Students: Neda Abadi, Hala Amkie, Aaron Bartley, Michael Bello, Ayisat Folasade Adunni Kareem, Feissal Majid, Paul Marshall, Abdul Salim, Rumena Ahmed, Djofrely Ferreira, Troy Frazer, Azwin Mohamadu, Ibrahim Odunsi, Angelica Sophia Phetphim-Farrow, Kenneth Senbanjo, Charlotte Marie Wetherall, Rosario Marcos, Yuko Endo, Michael Gonzalez, Pujan Gurung, Aniqa Khan, Paulius Overlingus, Damola Rahaman Salami, Parniyan Salari, Hassan Sheikh, Bjorn Selvon Bhola Wang Motunrayo Akinola, Delrich Biyoulou, Tawhid Chowdhury, Ahmadzia Hasas, Aaron Joseph, Alice Olivia Marwood, Roman Rassoul, Lauren Ruddick, Tejumade Eniola, Mohamed Abdelaziz, Michael Angelo Bagangan, Mohammed Baldo, Usama Ismail Mugisha, Florida Koci, Feli pe Makongo, Darlyn Norlay, Abigale Cawley Gentles, Hazel Teles, Lohanna Assuncao Januth, Mohammed Doud, Kieran Bradley Green, Joshua Heather, Clinton William Ogbebor, Harikishan Patel, Gannaty Rahman, Ben Rogers, Raquel Simoes da Silva Vieira, Zachariah Igbo, Sufyan Khalifa, Evelina Krol, Nathaniel Leonce, Kurt Darryl Mendoza Arenas, Josephine Olagunju, Valeria Ricci, Senan Shamkhi, Mizan Hussein, Michael Ansong, Leonardo Vladimir Castro Paredes, Jose Cervino, Mustak Miah, Kemal Rustem, Troy Stennett, Christos Xenophontos,

Erdjan Ruci, Saman Gamouri, Danissa Camille Dizon, Subash Gurung, Eva Mariam Marie- Launay, Ryosuke Minagawa, Nurul Asyiqin Binti Mohd Nazam, Abdul Sattar Nazim, Oluchukwu Judith Okonkwo, Fikrat GasimZada, Dawood Drankai, Michael Kibalabala Visiting Crits: Hwei Fan Liang, Claude St. Arroman, Tim Foster, Stephen Barrett, Renee Tobe, Carl Callaghan, Christian Groothuizen, Roland Karthaus, Anna Minton, Bruno Malusa, Kathy Bash, Andrew Scrace, Keita Tajima, Jim Ross, Paulina Huukari, Motoko Kawakami, David Carquejeiro, Carsten Jungfer, Rob Pyecroft, Colin O’Sullivan, David Bass, Janet Insull, Nenad Djordjevic, Christoph Hadrys, Gilles Retsin, Davis Eniks Sponsors: Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, Leaside Wood Recycling Project, EcoBuild 2014, Creekside Education Trust Special thanks to: Paula Leonardi, Gerry Grainger, Daryl Brown, Craig Madden, David Morgan, Mark Sowden, David Ring, David Farthing, Bettina Kabutz, Ges Hoddinot and all staff at the Lee Valley Waterworks, LWRP and the Creekside Education Trust.

YEAR 1

“Staircases. We don’t think enough about staircases. Nothing was more beautiful in old houses than the staircases. Nothing is uglier colder, more hostile, meaner, in today’s apartment buildings. We should learn to live more on staircases. But how? ”

YEAR 1

Bird Hide, EcoBuild 2014

â&#x20AC;&#x192; In early March, First Year Architecture Students took part in the EcoBuild 2014 Exhibition held at the Excel Centre. Working under the Exhibition theme of Timber Construction, students returned to the Lee Valley to design a permanent Bird Hide structure for a site overlooking the filter beds. A design was agreed using timber donated by the Leaside Wood Recycling Project and coppiced willow harvested

from the filter beds, and over two weeks the whole year group worked together to survey the site, collect material, refine the design at scale 1:1 and construct the Bird Hide on a stand in the Excel Centre. Following the Exhibition, the structure was reassembled on site in the Lee Valley Waterworks Nature Reserve, the first commissioned architectural intervention for these

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budding Architects. Working at 1:1 is immensely fulfilling and fundamental to all other design projects. This is the third consecutive year that we have taken part in the EcoBuild Exhibition, and are very proud this year to have been awarded the EcoBuild Sustainable Stand Award by The UK Green Building Council.

fy.1 First year students coppicing willow at the Lee Valley Waterworks Nature Reserve. fy.2 First year Architecture students constructing the Bird Hide at EcoBuild 2014, Excel Centre. fy.3 Bird Hide installed on site at Lee Valley Waterworks Nature Reserve. fy.4 Bird Hide, working drawing for recycled timber structure.

(more info can be found in the section Prizes and Ehibition)

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YEAR 1

Shelter Stories â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What is the most memorable experience of shelter in your life? Reflect back on that place and observe from memory the distinct qualities of the space and the spatial impression it left with you.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The year began with a group project to design and build shelter spaces using coppiced willow harvested by the students in the Lee Valley. Constructed at full scale,

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these towering structures set the tone for the year and played host to the annual First Year Meal Event.

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YEAR 1

fy.5 Constructing the shelter. fy.6 Willow Shelter, collage view drawing (Parniyan Salari). fy.7 Willow Shelter, 1:1 construction and documentation (Leonardo Castro Paredes, Mustak Miah, Kemal Rustem, Christos Xenophontos, Jared Woodhead, Troy Stennet). fy.8 1:1 Willow Shelter, collage plan (Ewelina Krol).

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A Room with a View

YEAR 1

‘Everything you can imagine is real.’ Pablo Picasso From there we travelled to Margate on the East Coast and made propositional designs for a small house for an artist, a space to work and contemplate. A struggle between the vastness of the horizon and the narrowness

of the seafront cliffs, this bleak and yet majestic place demands a fascination with the intangible: light, view, colour, atmosphere… Beginning with a particular room, a room with a view, projects explored these ungraspable qualities whilst setting in motion an ongoing discourse and architectural method.

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‘Your design must house the view, but also hold a piece of work by your artist. It is therefore relevant that you really understand their specific working environment. This understanding will inspire and inform the behaviour and the physicality of the space you design.’

fy.9 A Room with a View, proposal collage (Joshua Heather). fy.10 Section proposal for a room with a view of the sea, Margate (Oluchukwu Judith Okonkwo). fy.11 Site elevation of the Cliffs of Margate. A Space for viewing and listening (Oluchukwu Judith Okonkwo). fy.12 View of the chalk cliffs of Margate (Troy Stennett). fy.13 A Room with a View, proposal collage (Alice Marwood).

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YEAR 1

Inventory of stairs, steps and levels in Cambridge, London and Rome â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;How is the space of the stairs made? How does the stair physically engage with the spaces around it? Which spaces do the stairs connect? What functions do these spaces have? How are they supposed to be used? How do people actually use them?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; In January we journeyed to sites in Cambridge, London and Rome to see and experience buildings, spaces and architectural monuments, rural and urban,

old and new. From these travels we chased stairways, searching for moments of change, sequence and vista. On our return, measured surveys, models and observational studies were then translated into scaled drawings meticulously documenting these stairs, steps and levels, and identifying conceptual and spatial readings within the architectural context.

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fy.14 Campo Campidoglio, Rome. Small local stairs, large formal stairs (Ewelina Krol). fy.15 Section of staircase in Bramante’s courtyard at Santa Maria della Pace, Rome (Leonardo Castro Paredes). fy.16 The Pantheon, Rome. Level-change between portico and square (Ewelina Krol). fy.17 Axonometric drawing of spiral staircase and entrance hall, The Queen’s House, Greenwich (Florida Koci).

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YEAR 1

Repetition-Play A space for lightness and darkness made from a single sheet of laser cut plywood. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;You should work analytically and observe the following rules: ECONOMY - Use the whole sheet. Discard as little as possible in pursuit of your form.

MATERIAL - Consider how well your experiments in paper will translate to the plywood. ESSENCE - Reduce and refine your design to the minimum number of cuts necessaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

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fy.18 Folding paper sequence (Djofrely Ferreira). fy.19 Folding paper sequence (Djofrely Ferreira). fy.20 Twisted plywood, descri ptive geometry drawings (Bjorn Wang). fy.21 Laser cut plywood constructions, Open Jury Exhibition. fy.22 Laser cut plywood test construction (Djofrely Ferreira). fy.23 Impromptu concert venue, Playing in East London (Djofrely Ferreira).

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YEAR 1

A Room of One's Own Building as staircase - Staircase as building` Design an Observatory for a Scientist to study Deptford Creek. The proposed building, evolving from a sensitivity to both site and brief, will incorporate three fundamental spaces: - A Cellular Space: A Room of Oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own - A Collective Space: A Room to Collaborate with Others - A Way to the Water: Stepping up/Stepping Downâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Re-visiting spatial ideas and concepts developed over

previous projects, the final design project is focused on a small site beside Deptford Creek. Set amidst times of galloping change and redevelopment, the urban detritus of the Creek is being literally washed away, day by day. The site is a small, protected Nature Reserve run by the Creekside Education Trust who form the principal clients in the brief to design a new building where a Scientist

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YEAR 1

can pursue their work and research, and interact with neighbouring artists and the local community. As one of only a handful of sites in Central London where the city meets the water via untamed banks, the preciousness of this place relies wholly on the potential for dilapidation.

fy.24 Site collage, Deptford Creek (Alice Marwood). fy.25 Proposal collage, Deptford Creek (Oluchukwu Judith Okonkwo). fy.26 Studies of Deptford Creek (Alice Marwood). fy.27 First year architecture students exploring the creek at low tide. fy.28 Proposal for new public space and steps to the water, Deptford Creek (Leonardo Castro Paredes).

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YEAR 1 computing&TS

Future Scenarios Computing & Technical Studies First Year Computing and Technical Studies provide a skill base and mental attitude that supports and feeds the work and projects undertaken in the Design Studio. Structured around a broad programme of computing classes that run throughout the year, there are a number of technical and theoretical Lecture Series, Technical Drawing Classes, workshops and independent project briefs studying both the structural

and the environmental issues that impact architectural practice. Students learn to document and present project work professionally using a range of software and draft meaningful CAD Drawings that can be printed, laser-cut or manipulated as presentation images. After starting the year with a series of hands-on workshops run in the Engineering School concrete testing labs, this research is then applied to an ongoing

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YEAR 1 computing&TS

Case Study analysis of No.2 Willow Road, leading to a propositional study of how the Modernist House may be adjusted and re-engineered to anticipate and accommodate changes in climate and up to date environmental technologies.

fy.29 Spatial study of plywood construction (Troy Stennett). fy.30 Technical drawing sessions in the First Year studio at UEL. fy.31 Technical drawing sessions in the First Year studio at UEL. fy.32 First Floor Plan, Survey drawing of No.2 Willow Road, Erno Goldfinger (Alice Marwood). fy.33 Ground Floor Plan. Survey drawing of No.2 Willow Road, Erno Goldfinger (Alice Marwood).

DEGREE

LEVEL 2&3 ARCHITECTURE Christian Groothuizen Programme Leader

The BSc Architecture programme is designed to educate students to think seriously about the world around them, to consider occupiers and users, buildings and spaces with an approach that is both critical and poetic. At the core of this education are our design units The design unit fuses together the diverse elements of an architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education through an iterative design-led process that is driven by creativity, imagination and critical self-reflection. By instilling an appreciation of site and context, the art of construction, economy of structure and the nature and complexity of materials the unit produces student work that draws on a complexity of ideas, is well founded and a delight to experience. Christian Groothuizen

Image: Aleksandr Vasjutin, Degree Unit B, 3rd year: detail study of post office depot, Southwark

UNIT A

City fictions: narrative, infrastructure, choreography Carsten Jungfer, Felix Xylander-Swannell

The understanding of city as conglomerate of transitional processes was the starting point for our investigations into public realm conditions surrounding Smithfield Market in London. As a group we collated individual samples of the Everyday, the specific and the routine and attempted to read the city by means of making multi-dimensional drawings. In parallel to the Observational we experimented at material scale by re-casting city fragments through mould-making techniques at 1:1 scale. A common interest emerged: The transformational process from object to micro landscape by means of three-dimensional production. Speculation about relationships between urban space, material and activity began. During our field-trip to Sicily we visited a number of architectural interventions, that display unique qualities of dealing with narrative, time, material and setting. These first-hand experiences and the reflections on those became critical points of reference to the subsequent discourse within the unit throughout the year. (cretto di Gibellina by Alberto Burri, Palazzo Abatellis by Carlo Scarpa and Piazza Alicia in Salemi by Roberto Collovà & Álvaro Siza Vieira) The historical centre of Palermo provided the study area. Students selected individual project sites for their interventions within the Kalsa quarter, partly derelict and seemingly abandoned of municipal support. Developing a brief, a building programme and urban strategy, each student investigated a personal line of enquiry and reading of the historic and cultural context,

Palermo, Gibellina, Salemi, Italy

social agenda. Most of proposals respond by providing a simple local service to the community and explore opportunities how to act as a ‘social node’. Through critical observation of layers of relational qualities, students set out to rediscover spatial opportunity, explore alternative forms for spatial practice and design alongside mechanisms of interaction. Working across all scales; social - material – architectural, a focus was placed on threshold conditions between internal programme and opportunities for connectivity into the surrounding public realm and the city. We engaged in conversations about methodologies of observation and decision-making; about re-programming techniques, participation and adaptability; about techniques of spatial narrative and threshold; and the opportunity of space as junction.

Visiting Crits: Aleksandrina Rizova, Clara Kraft, Camilo Amaral, Dominic Cullinan, Elena Blanco Alba, Emu Masuyama, Keita Jima, Paulina Huukari, Satoshi Isono, Tak Hoshino Special thanks to: Phil Brown of Other Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sculpture, Roberto CollovaĂ , Roey Hunt, Stephen Morgan, Paola Mollica

DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

Students: Adriely Pechutti, Akin Gurung, Anastasia Iliaki, Andreas Shelis, Arifah Habib, Aslihan Ozer, Azizul Abdul, Beatriz Lins De Oliveira, Chido Mutongwizo, Daniela Bertuol, Daniella Rosa, Ilianna Logotheti, Irena Stoeva, Isabella Barbalho Siq, Ivan Semedo, Marie Lartigue, Marija Stoliarova, Natalia Moreira, Ping Hin, Puja Singh Verma, Ruta Didelyte, Shakirin Samsul Baharin, Shiduo Nagano Junior, Sonia Rajartnam, Tiffany Waddill, Vasileios Sempsis, Vasilia Ioannou

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VISIT www.uel23ua.blogspot.co.uk

DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

a.1 Smithfield Observations (Puja Singh Verma) a.2 At a glance. A fleeting encounter behind Farringdon station is observed and analysed (Irena Stoeva). a.3 Smithfield Market section investigating space and time (Beatriz Lins De Oliveira). a.4 Material exploration of stone detail at St. Bartholomew’s church yard through mould-making and casting, (Vasileios Sempsis). a.5 The perfect curve. Sli p-casting of concave stair detail found at the exit of the former poultry market (Vasilia Ioannou).

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

a.6 Four minute performance. Choreography of workers and steel-beams in subterranean setting observed by Marija Stoliarova a.7 Market analysis investigating meat-flows, thresholds and temperature zones along the buyer’’s walk (Arifah Habib Mohamed). a.8 Sequential casting of corner conditions at Holborn Viaduct (Marie Lartigue).

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

Palermo, Sicily: a.9 Historical centre of Palermo as of 1818 drawn by Lossieux and current map of Kalsa quarter with the urban void Piazza Magione at it’’s centre. a.10 Urban strategy for the Spasimo Complex project site and adjacent public realm between Piazza Magione and St. Teresa (Daniela Bertuol). a.11 Organisational study of Spasimo church and monastic complex (Daniela Bertuol). a.12 Plan and elevations of Spasimo complex with project site and aerial view (Daniela Bertuol). a.13 Jazz school extension and Concert hall with model and cross section (Vasileios Sempsis). a.14 Exploded axonometric of proposal for a theatre school, an infrastructural insertion and annex for the Spasimo complex to improve opportunities for current and future performances. The program is composed of a covered open space, that leads visitors into the theatre school and further into the open church space. The new insertion offers a small auditorium as

well as spaces for rehearsal. All public areas including cafe/bar and box-office, staircase and public facilities can be operated independently. The core idea is to create a sequence of thresholds between enclosed and open spaces that connect the project site with the public realm of the Kalsa and the gardens inside the Spasimo complex by returning this space to the public domain and to the inhabitants of Palermo (Daniela Bertuol).

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

Palermo, Sicily: a.15 Sign-makers workshop and archive on two sites connected by a narrow alleyway (Aslihan Ozer). a.16 Proposal for an raised hard landscape with viewing platform above to improve public realms activities behind St. Teresa, including pony-riding that occur on Sundays and take children on short excursions outside the citywall to the nearby sea-front. Below spatial studies of Carlo Scarpa’s intervention at Palazzo Steri and development models (Puja Singh Verma). a.17 Inhabiting the wall. The agenda of this project is to create a pedestrian connection across the city fortification and link the Kalsa quarter to areas beyond. Re-inhabiting the wall and the existing ruins built on top and to allow local people and visitors to experience the former city boundary through a journey alongside it and through thresholds that once acted as a shield protecting the city. In programmatic terms small spaces for informal market activities are offered along the route for use during the day, while an open-air cinema can be set up for evenings and night use,

exploiting the surrounding spatial setting (Irena Stoeva).

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a.17 DEGREE Y2&3 unit A

UNIT B

Time. Scale. South Bank, London David Bass, Yasar Shah

Unit B is involved in places where contemporary events put deep context and historical continuity under stress. Recent studies include Thessaloniki, Mahdia, Trieste, and the City of London. This year we worked in Southwark, where we designed housing and investigated themes of time and scale. Our work is strongly grounded in context and reality. This year, however, we found the reality to be more than strange… Many prime housing developments in London fail in their ostensible purpose of providing housing. Instead, they generate investment opportunities for the global super-rich, sheltering money rather than people, and becoming phantom towers of non-occupants. Though they satisfy complex regulations and sail through bizarre audits for “community” and “sustainability”, these shiny fruits of calculation and back-room deals represent an incomprehensible non-achievement. They are perhaps the most disingenuous and insincere results of any Architect’s labours. In designing housing for Southwark, Unit B was careful about which aspects of this unbelievable reality to embrace. We chose instead to understand housing as a human question. In our preparatory work, we looked at time and scale in their most immediate aspects: the “now” of action, and the “here” of detail. We studied how the South Bank’s many short-life and pop-up installations work, and we documented a number of small-scale material fabrications immediately to hand in the area (for instance, the Royal Festival Hall stairs, and slit windows

Prague, Brno, Czech Republic

in a post office’s corrugated concrete wall). We then remade, played with, and transformed these material details to create a series of shops, kiosks and other interventions for the riverside commercial community of Gabriel’s Wharf. The main design project involved a wider range of time-scales, physical scales and precedent studies. A trip to Prague and Brno, including a visit to Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House, opened up further questions: urban configuration, historical contexts, spatial sequencing, tectonic order, materials, and so on. Explorations in Southwark uncovered a number of sites to research and to work with, and students devised individual briefs based on “housing”, but involving a richer programmatic response than that one word implies. Frederice, Rajib and Eleni worked with existing structures to bring vitality and denser occupation to currently debilitated parts of the borough. Matt used a co-housing model to bring manufacturing and employment as well as housing to a rail-side plot. Nikki and Aimon developed artists’ housing and studios, working with institutions and initiatives already in the area. Kostas focused on temporary accommodation, designing a hotel that plugs into both a busy transport hub and neglected urban archaeology. Karolina, Onur and Rahul proposed multiuse developments on prominent sites. Some projects explored relationships between street, buildings, gardens, and public and private space, while others

developed housing for students or other constituencies, such as train fetishists… Underlying all of this work is a concern for working with context, creating spatial richness and tectonic order, making an undemonstratively helpful architecture rather than one that shouts “look at me”, and understanding that reality is better than dreams. The reality we have been immersed in this year is, after all, only a dream that will eventually go away.

Visiting Crits: Phyllida Mills, Mark Power, Michael McNamara, Anna Minton, Maria Alessandra Segantini Special thanks to: Bikrant Pakhrin, Valentin Manaila, Orlaith Ryan, Dinah Bornat, Bruce Irwin, Step Haiselden, and many others at UEL

“It is manmade, and it’s absurd, as if built by children who were never told ‘No’.” Dave Eggers, Visitants (forthcoming)

VISIT www.unitbuel.blogspot.co.uk

DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

Students: Y3: Karolina Czyrko, Matt Fallowfield-Cooper, Esteban Grajales, Becky Jackson, Frederice Koch, Eleni Korovesi, Aimon Litinas, Rajib Manandhar, Nikki Michael, Rahul Mirpuri, Aleksandr Vasjutin, Dishav Vasudev, Konstantinos Vatanides Y2: Punit Babu, Bia Cri ppa (SWB), Onur Emek, Tayma Escoffery, Daniel Gibre, Abu Hussain, Stephanie Intsiful, Mary King, Waqaar Shah, Amanda Eifler, Danielle Scardini Lopez, Emiliana Rodrigues Costa, Bruna Stein Goncalves, Isabela Resende

DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

b.1 Aleksandr Vasjutin studied slot windows in the ribbed concrete of a post office depot in Southwark. He later remade and transformed this assembly, which then became the basis of a design for a bookshop within a commercial unit in Gabriel’s Wharf. b.2 Eleni Korovesi studied the interaction of solid and void in a handrail at Tate Modern. She then played with this theme in a series of casts. b.3 Eleni Korovesi’s casts and cuts became the basis for the design of a spice shop in Gabriel’s Wharf. They reappear in her later housing project as a concrete wall which defines the enclosure of an underground cabaret club.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

b.4 Rahul Mirpuri’s tower at One Blackfriars aims to create a more generous public realm, considerably more social housing, and a less histrionic presence than the scheme currently being built on this site. b.5 Karolina Czyrko’s studies of imminent developments around Coin Street, with her proposal for a mixed-use IBM Creative Village at Gabriel’s Wharf incorporating housing. IBM is based locally, and Karolina aimed to understand and solve some of their business predicaments. b.6 Onur Emek’s studies of the area within Southwark where Unit B members found sites for their housing projects. Onur draws out the various time-scales at work in this place, from short life pop-up installations to more permanent structures. Time lapse photographs (made with Esteban Grajales) investigate the “now” of use and action within this context.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

b.7 Konstantinos Vatanidis investigated temporary housing needs, and designed a business hotel that nestles into Blackfriars station on the North bank of the Thames. It straddles public routes and large sectional changes, and incorporates parts of Blackfriars Bridge.â&#x20AC;&#x192; b.8 Niki Michael developed a highly disci plined brick building that houses living and working spaces around a walled garden.â&#x20AC;&#x192; b.9 Design development sketches by Konstantinos Vatanidis. Unit B encourages drawing by hand as an essential skill for designing and creativity.

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b.10 Sectional study of entrance to artists’ housing (Aimon Litinas). b.11 Plan of “Technopolis”(Aimon Litinas). This project combines housing with studio and exhibition spaces, and burrows into railway arches near Borough Market to create a range of environments from highly tuned new-build to cheap and “found”, with ambiguous zones in between. b.12 Long section through “Technopolis”(Aimon Litinas).

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

b.13 Diagram of dependencies and responsibilities for Collingwood Works, his co-housing self build project - see also facing page (Matt Fallowfield-Cooper). b.14 Eleni Korovesi’s housing restructures and extends Winchester Square, which is currently a lifeless car park at odds with the vibrancy of Borough Market and other immediate neighbours. Underneath this enlarged square are facilities including a cabaret club (seen here) organised around a curved wall taken from her first term studies. b.15 Frederice Koch addresses the awkward condition of Bear Gardens. Flats in this narrow street are not currently doing well. She proposes that the street become a cultural quarter, and contributes a club housed in a concrete box behind a retained warehouse facade. Upon this box, she raises a housing settlement into the light. b.16 The year is 2030 (Matt Fallowfield-Cooper). Central London has become a patchwork of monuments to the super rich. With government after government failing to deliver on housing promises for decades, many have

been priced out of the market, and are left to take the situation into their own hands. A creative and forward thinking group of young professionals dreams up an inner city self build project to bring life to a neglected corner of Lambeth, without lining the pockets of any developers or investors along the way. Could this be a catalyst for change that Londoners have been waiting for?…” (from MF-C’s Project Report).

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b.16 DEGREE Y2&3 unit B

UNIT C

Applying the Borrowed

Clara Kraft Isono, Satoshi Isono

The unit centers on the making of 1:1 scale building prototypes explored through digital fabrication and casting. The aim of the unit is for students to develop a good understanding of concrete as a building material from design development through to fabrication and construction on site. We begin by researching existing examples of both contemporary & traditional innovative concrete construction techniques from four different architects or artists and building them at scale 1:1. These were our case studies: 1. Prefabricated Concrete_ Piere Luigi Nervi, The Palace of Labour 2. Shell Construction_ Felix Candela, Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca 3. Prefabricated Concrete_ Miguel Fisac, Centre for Hydrographic Studies 4. Concrete Skins_ Erwin Hauer, Design 1 A hands-on study of the techniques initiates proposals for alternative construction elements or methods integrating digital fabrication. We test our ideas through building prototypes that are developed in a series of fabrication workshops using Rhino and CNC milling technology at Grymsdyke Farm.

Madrid, Spain

Unit trip and Site The unit traveled to Madrid where our site The Conde Duque Cultural Centre is located. The Conde Duque was reborn in 1983 as a cultural centre, after serving as the barracks of the Royal Guard Corps since 1717. Today the Conde Duque, one of the largest buildings in Madrid, is working hard to retain a presence in Madridâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural activity. Its aim is to operate alongside the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s large metropolitan cultural centres, such as the Matadero Madrid Contemporary Arts Centre and the Caixa Forum. However the intimidating former military facilities have failed to create a vibrant cultural community and complete re-organisation of the centre is required. For the final design brief students worked with Pablo Berastegui, the Cultural Director of the Centre to develop a design and program strategy that would invigorate the site and allow it to realise its full potential. During our trip and in addition to our site investigations we visited exceptional examples of concrete architecture, such as the post-tensioned prefabricated concrete roof of the Centre for Hydrographic Studies, by Miguel Fisac, as well as the outstanding Gymnasium of the Maravillas School by Alejandro de la Sota, which also provided an invaluable reference project for our interventions in Madrid.

Visiting Crits: Carl Callaghan, Alan Chandler, Christoph Hadrys, Martin Nässen, Tal Mazor, Tuomas Raikamo, Vitali Stanila Ty Tikari, Arthur Trieu, Keita Tajima, Ivy Vassilopolou, Mo Wong, Carsten Jungfer and Felix Xylander Swannell Special thanks to: Guan Lee, Paul Starr, Calum Perry, Pablo Berastegui, Olivia Rico, Carlos de Riano, Tim Lucas, David Shanks Sponsors: Grymsdyke Farm, Centro Cultural Conde Duque

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“You think and you do it at the same time. You draw and you make. You revisit your drawing. You do it, you redo it and then you redo it again.” Renzo Piano

DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

Students: Fatih Akbudak, Phunphueksa Asawathaweechokechai, John Benedicto, Yousef Bouzid, Elisa Brandelli Ca, Savvas Charalambous, Jonas Brazys, Kiyoshi Chida, Beatriz Fontenele, Ana Frigeri, Nikoliya Genova, Kent Gin, Inayat Hassan, Kinan Karima, Larissa Loyola Pedro, Zoe Mavromati, Joshua McDermott, Carina Mendes, Amanda Nunes, Kathlyn Pagador, Mara Parfenovica, Thomas Phili p, Odaine Phi pps, Aline Santoro, Mateus Sartori, Ashfaaqali Sumodhee

DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

c.1 Bone Module, Inventory of mold components (Jonas Brazys). c.2 Brick mold and cast. The concrete brick prototype was the outcome of hands-on research of the work of Erwin Hauer, in particular his Design 1 and Design 11. c.3 Detail concrete brick wall. The designs emphasized the interaction between the screen and the light. The prototype took inspiration from an appearance which varies in relation to the source of light and the position of the viewer. The module for it is originated with the formal concept of two opposing bridges that partially contain an interior space. Those bridges are fitted diagonally into a square tile and are connected along the edges to form a single entity. c.4 Concrete brick wall with colour pigments. Following our site visit in Madrid several concrete colour pigment tests where carried out to investigate how the prototype might integrate with the existing brick construction of the site (Yousef Bouzid, Phunphueksa Asawathaweechokechai, Amanda Nunes, Odaine Phi pps, Kent Gin, Joshua McDermot). c.5 La Villa del

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Conde Duque. Kent Gin uses his brick design as a catalyst to explore the inhabitation of neglected spaces of the Conde Duque Cultural Centre whilst introducing live and work spaces for young creatives of the Universidad district to coexists in a social cultural centre.

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c.5 DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

c.6 Hyper two part mold. The 1.1 building prototype was inspired by Felix Can¬dela’s Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca. The geometric design of the hyperbolic paraboloid, which gave the shape to the chapel was tested through a number of models to understand better how the form could perform in conjunction with concrete when applied to architecture. c.7 Hyper Concrete Shells. Research proved that Candela did not use structural optimization techniques to develop the form and dimensions of his thin shell designs; however, it became evident that he optimized his forms for efficiency in construction, for deflection control and energy costs showing an ability to construct his structures economically. c.8 Hyper Concrete Shell Detail. A design centered on an economy of means became the driving force for the final group design which was a multifaceted thin concrete shell hyper using minimum material for maximum effect (Kiyoshi Chida, Beatriz Fontenele, Inayat Hassan, Ashfaaqali Sumodhee, Nikoliya Genova, Kathlyn Pagador, Zoe Mavromati).

c.9 Kiyoshi Chida’s proposal creates a new courtyard within the existing Conde Duque Cultural Centre becoming auxiliary to the vertical circulation that already exists. It connects the existing spaces and the new spaces creating a new circulation area for a more dynamic use of space and relationshi p to the city.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

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c.10 Luigi Column cast and mold. Inspired by the Italian architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi’s Pallazzo del Lavoro in Turin the 1:1 prototype develops from ideas for a rein¬forced concrete column that is both lightweight and modular. c.11 Detail Luigi Column. Integral to the design was the development of a ‘concrete joint’ that allowed for the connection of the arches and the columns without the use of any other materials. c.12 Luigi Column Assembly. A series of three modules allows for a flexible assembly of arches and colums. (Fatih Akbudak, Elisa Brandelli, Aline Santoro, Kinan Karima, Savvas Charalambous, Mara Parfenovica). c.13 Top image: model study developing insertions for a new public street and horse riding arena (Carina Mendes). Middle Image: plan development for archive spaces using the prototype column from term 1 (Mara Parfenovica). Bottom Image: model proposal for roof structure (Inayat Hassan).

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c.13 DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

c.14 Mold and Cast of Bone Module. The prototype was inspired by Miguel Fisac’s post tensioned concrete ‘bone’ beam as used in the roof of the Hydrographic Center in Madrid. Initial test where carried out through models at 1:10 scale. c.15 Bone Module Disassembled. Scale model testing lead to an in-depth understanding of the construction process both of the complex moulds which had to be created to produce an exact 1:10 replica of each module and the post tensioning system. c.16 Bone Modules Assembled and Post Tensioned in Beam Form. This process proved invaluable for later stages which required reinterpretation of the beam through creating modules by CNC milling of high density foam moulds (John Benedicto, Larissa Loyola Pedro, Mateus Sartori, Thomas Phili p, Carina Mendes, Jonas Brazys). c.17 Conde Duque Sports Center - an insertion of sports facilities into the existing cultural centre extending out into the adjacent park providing a clear new identity whilst co-existing with present programs. The weaving of the old and

new building fabric is achieved by a seamless architectural language informed by previous investigations into long span post tensioned concrete (Jonas Brazys).

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c.17 DEGREE Y2&3 unit C

UNIT D HOUSING AND THE FORM OF THE FUTURE CITY Bruce Irwin, Dinah Bornat

The setting London is not building enough housing to meet existing or future requirements. Yet around 70% of London’s built form was constructed (even if not currently occupied) as housing. Housing is our most pressing current architectural need and the design, form and shape of housing our most powerful and direct tool for determining the shape of our future communities. Constraints on the design of urban housing are keenly felt and seemingly binding: cultural preferences for ‘houses’ rather than ‘housing’; green-space objectives; technological, spatial and financial constraints on the extension of transit systems; political inheritances that constrain or prohibit the power of local councils to directly achieve housing goals; models of housing finance that favour investors over occupants while producing strangely (possibly) un-liveable housing stock. Shared space, non-public non-private space, has often been poorly considered (if considered at all) and it can be argued this has played a part in the failure of the postwar housing boom. Although private space – balconies, courtyards- is tightly specified in the GLA guide, we struggle to define the value and importance of the spaces in between the pavement and the front door. This unit is preoccupied with valuing these spaces as fundamental to the success of good housing development. Through an intuitive and personal approach to shaping what could be possible, we have aimed to embed this so called ‘amenity space’ in our housing proposals. Inside, outside and around, Unit D is exploring the

Granada, Spain

potential of new housing to remake London. We are focusing our work on the no-man’s land behind (from the river) the rail viaduct between Waterloo and Vauxhall. This area offers opportunities to address some of the transit issues (it is Zone 1, with rail, tube, cycle links), and some of the spatial issues (un-dense for Zone 1), while provoking, perhaps, a direct reaction contrary to the current dominant model of housing construction. The area also provokes an examination of the difficulties and possibilities in urban housing- working in a community with both a day and a night economy, and sitting adjacent to a major infrastructural figure- the viaduct. Working on ‘in-fill’ and on un-built sites, Unit D will propose housing as we think it might be: hopeful, playful, generous, urban, and lasting. Design a community of housing for your site. Through site research, analysis, and using creative intuition define a client or community for your proposal. Use the tools of the design process (mapping & analysis, writing, sketching, research, modelling, planning, sectioning, etc.) to determine what type or arrangement of housing and internal and external circulation best suits your client or community and your site. [What shape will housing take? What is the future form of our city?]

Visiting Crits: Dr. Rachel Cruise, Helen Roberts of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio, Alex Sherratt from Mathew Lloyd Architects, Andy Puncher from PH plus, Tom Russell from Emmett Russell Architects, David Bass, Raphael Lee, Alan Chandler, Hwei Fan Liang Special thanks to: María de la Barca Fernandez-Reinoso, Alfonso Bermejo Oroz, Maisie Rowe, David Roberts, Jim Rooney

Y2 proposals These should include 1-2 unit (housing) type(s), plus community, commercial and/or amenity space(s). The proposal must be at a scale and orientation that is appropriate to the proposed occupation of the site. Y3 proposals These should include 2-3 unit (housing) types, plus community, commercial and/or amenity spaces. You are asked to define a specific client or community based on site and other research. Knowledge of this client’s requirements will be essential in writing your own project brief. Examples of this client or communities might include: The Peabody Trust; an existing local community group; an existing locally based business, group, team, etc. Design the relationship of your housing proposal to its site, its neighbourhood, its city.

“Neighbourhood is a word that has come to sound like a Valentine. As a sentimental concept, ‘neighbourhood’ is harmful to city planning. It leads to attempts at warping city life into imitations of town or suburban life. Sentimentality plays with sweet intentions in place of good sense.” Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

DEGREE Y2&3 unit D

Students: Y3: Emanuel Adesope,Marina Ahmadi,Mary Folorunso, Ina Kanazireva, Rozhgar Muhammed, Baker Nsimbi, Nadira Sultan, Farooq Ghani Y2: Yahya Bulbulia, Victor Dairo, Lauretta Doku, Elias Elgueta, Laxmi Gurung, Athena Hylton-Thompson, Haroon Khan, Nicoletta Marin, Sanndeo Purgass, Mohamed Shoble, Ryem Salim, Amanda Bodstein, Bertrand De Andrade, Pedro Sepulveda Pereira, Rafaella Peixoto, Stephania Asmuz De Pereira

DEGREE Y2&3 unit D

All the Unit D sites are immediately adjacent or very near to the Network Rail viaduct between Vauxhall and Waterloo Stations. The viaduct forms a high wall separating the Thames from the neighbourhood. Many streets cut through this wall, and the SPDs from Lambeth and Wandsworth Councils encourage hope that more may be opened in the future- with the aim of connecting small existing parks to new ‘linear park’ plans along the river and towards Battersea. The area has a long history of manufacture and thriving day and night economies. Most of the sites are either empty, infill conditions, or are minimally occupied. In some cases the presumption is that the existing buildings are of such poor quality or use of space that they can be demolished. However a couple of the sites have buildings that may need to be retained and developed as a part of the proposal. We encourage students to think of

reuse of demolition material as aggregate, and reuse of whole buildings where possible or viable. Unit D is particularly interested in the definition and constitution of ‘amenity spaces’ within this challenging context. What is and is not ‘amenity’, and is it public or private? What are you allowed to do there, and when? A series of short projects focused on different aspects of this challenge: form and mass; privacy within a public realm; relation of facade and street; materiality and detail. d.1 Ryem Salim. A night playground at the edge of Vauxhall.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit D

d.2 Mohamed Shoble and Yahya Bulbulia. Show of Hands. A tempting set of hand-ready blocks were extracted from a large piece of timber. The blocks fit to the hand but also to each other- recalling the form of the original block. d.3 Yahya Bulbulia tested one of the blocks at a much bigger scale. This kind of testing became a method of working and was very useful for giving quick form to ideas about public space. As the forms were predetermined, the design process felt more like a process of interpretation or intuitive response. d.4 Ryem Salim and Sandeo Purgass reassemblesd their blocks to form a small tower. d.5 Ina Kanazireva proposes a cyclists’ changing Kiosk with a wavy metal roof that echoes and frames the landscape. The landscape was formed from rubble of buildings damaged by bombing in WWII. Vauxhall develops a new layer and a new amenity.

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d.6 Ryem Salim constructed timber mobels as part of an anaylisis of form and massing on his proposal site. d.7 Ryem Salim. Travel sketchbook, Granada. Unit D travelled to Granada, Spain during the second week of November. We visited many architectural sites of historic interest and we toured contemporary buildings and building sites as well. The small city of Granada, which is both compact and delightfully urban, is an excellent subject for street sketching. The streets are lively and well shaped and present an amazing variety and quality of paving. d.8 Ryem Salim. The timber blocks were used to test and propose in the context of a site in Wyvill Road. The blocks were photographed and then sketched over, combing backgrounds with careful and accurate site sketches. d.9 Ryem Salim. Granada street view. d.7 Nadira Sultan. Landscape section drawn through the Mirador de San Nicolás. The streets beneath the mirador fold back and forth down to the Rio Darro. The section makes the famous view possible- over tiled rooftops

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d.11 Haroon Khan proposes a Kiosk for cyclists within the Vauxhall roundabout, a site of overlapping forms of commute. The cycles can mount and lock into the roof of each kiosk space, allowing the changing cyclist privacy and a measure of security in a very public space. d.12 Golden Lane inhabited flat study (Haroon Kahn). Several London examples of 20th century housing were examined and inhabited using drawing. These reference buildings became a starting and returning point in design conversations. d.13 Lillington Gardens, Pimlico (Ryem Salim). This flat has its own exterior stair and front door. All the entrances to the flats are off of the internal garden space, which is both public and private. d.14 Odham’s Walk, Covent Garden (Yahya Bulbulia). Grey card model showing a corner of the Long Acre facade and one side of the entrance ramp. The ramp leads up into the residents’ shared courtyard. All the housing is reached off this communal space.

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d.15 Urban Woodland (Yahya Bulbulia). Experiments with the blocks, building study researches, and observation and discoveries about the site area led Yahya to propose a small tower block adjacent to the viaduct at the corner of Wandsworth and Wyvill Roads. The proposed building is within urban woodland with winding paths and three public tree houses. The paths will become shortcuts for neighbours and the tree houses play spaces children.

use. This model can be adjusted to test the location and size of these spaces- each flat block is adhered separately and is demountable from the trunk.

d.16 Urban Wooland collage drawing (Yahya Bulbulia). The first form of the tree houses and the beginning of the main structural and formal ideas about the proposed housing block came from sketches and tests made using the wooden blocks. d.17 Massing and conceptual structure model (Yahya Bulbulia). The individual flat types are treated like leaves on the trunk of a large tree. Yahya has edited the leaves to create open spaces within the massing. These spaces become multi-storey planted terraces for the residents’

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d.21 Sail Street Housing Association (Haroon Khan). Haroon capitalised on adjacency to a major cyclists’ route into central London, proposing an arc of housing backing to an enhanced cycling landscape and play space. Like his building study -Golden Lane- the ground of Haroon’s proposal is lifted to form a public throughway. Thus the new landscape will be made visible and inviting to passers or cyclists-by.

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d.18 Beaconsfield Gallery and Newport Street Housing Association (Nadira Sultan). Nadira develops a strategy of clustered small multi-unit blocks that create a variety of paths through her triangular site. Each flat has its own street entrance, and the entrances face all directions from each block, creating many lively fronts and preventing activity shadows. In her proposal Beaconsfield Gallery, an existing organisation, will inhabit more of the viaduct arches, and the entrance to this new expanded gallery makes a kind of magnet and point of entry onto her site. d.19 Long Section through The Newport Street Housing Association (Nadira Sultan). The top level flats are ‘upside down’ maisonettes, each with an enclosed roof terrace facing out over the viaduct. These outdoor rooms have windows punched through the outside wall with larger openings into the interior living spaces. d.20 Ryem Salim used sketches to test the form and massing of the body of his building proposal, and to see the possible shape and opening to its internal courtyard.

UNIT E

Past Present and Future Isaac Cobo i Displas, Claude SAINt Arroman

Unit E explored the relationship between drawing and architecture on the basis of speculative proposals over the city of Toledoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing fragments. Drawing inspiration from the history of architectural drawing traditions and meticulous architectural detailing, the unit designed new architecture that connects with old buildings, within a hypothetical program that integrates past, present and future. Since the 13th century invention of the scaler drawing technique, architects have indulged in creatively imagining spaces and built forms through orthogonal drawings, perspectives, projective drawing and, more recently, through renderings and animations. Continuing the urge to draw and communicate ideas, the unit analysed the perspective drawing technique invented by Fillipo Brunelleschi and investigated visual perception, scale, proportion, geometry and light. Extending his linear Perspective Machine by combining it with Polaroid photography, the unit then started its exploration by recording how we perceive architecture and its urban context. The students extensively surveyed and photographed four brutalist buildings - to educate the eye into recording details and architectural effects, to understand relationships between buildings and open spaces, solidity and emptiness. The town of Toledo in central Spain offered a the unit with a rich architectural history to define the nature of the exploration. Declared a World Heritage Site in 1996

toledo, Spain

by UNESCO for its rich historical and cultural heritage, Toledo offers a rich opportunity for the students to discover in one town, the three religions (Jewish, Moorish and Catholic) and their architectural heritage. Additionally it is home to Visigothic and Romanesque art forms. The unit identified six fragments in Toledo, all situated along the Tagus river (El Tajo). These abandoned buildings and partial structures provided an ideal location to hypothesize about new public programs for Theatre, Library, Museum, Baths, Markets, etc. for the city. Using their detail catalogue, students then designed proposals that connect to these fragments and propose new buildings for the city of Toledo.

Visiting Crits: Xavier Font, Carlos Penaponte, Nenad Djordjevic, Maija Viksne, Paula Tosas Special thanks to: Jan Liebe

DEGREE Y2&3 unit E

Students: Ana Alves Quintela Queiroz, Elaine de Araújo Te, Eduarda Barradas Bad, Mitul Chudasama, Yasmin Fazani Guima, Amar Farouq Kamaruddin, Aysenur Macit, Simone Mesquita Alvares, Gabriela de Oliveira Bragança, Pedro Silva Costa, Fili ppos Tympas, Amalina Yahya, Zuhayr Zaki, Nasser Ahmad, Katie Andrews, Alborz Bathaei Bozcheloue, Marie Braithwaite, Fernando Cano Larios , Raghav Dixit, Michael Eleftheriou, Michalis Georgiou, Noora Kassinen, Aaron Mifsud, Samuel Nicholls, Divyani Patel, Chrysoula Theodorou

“Drawing is the principle locus of conjecture in architecture.” Robin Evans

‘The Angel looks like it just had arrived now, this is the momentum’ Mark Hayduk This is a painting of the Biblical subject of the Annunciation, by the Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, dating from circa 1472–1475[1]and housed in the Uffizi gallery of Florence,Italy.

DEGREE Y2&3 unit E

Extending Filli po Brunellechi’s linear perspective machine e.1 Combining it with Polaroid photography (Marie Braithwaite). e.2 The unit will start its exploration by recording how we perceive architecture and its urban context (Katie Elizabeth Andrews). Using the Perspective Machine, a custom created recording device based on the Brunellechi model, the students will extensively photograph the Barbican Center. The aim is to educate the eye to look for details, architectural effects and understand relationshi ps between buildings and open spaces, solidity and emptiness. e.3 (Raghav Dixit). The unit will visit Madrid en route to Toledo, and see works of Herzog and de Meuron, Jean Nouvelle and Abalos and Herreros to see how these proposals react within their old urban context. Additionally, the unit will interact with two professional practices in Spain. We will meet Maria Anna Castillo Almena, the architect responsible for designing and restoring the El Greco museum in

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Toledo and Richard Roger’s office in Madrid. The town of Toledo in central Spain offers the unit with a rich architectural history to place the projects. Declared a World Heritage Site in 1996 by UNESCO for its rich historical and cultural heritage, Toledo offers a rich opportunity for the students to discover in one town, the three religions (Jewish, Moorish and Catholic) and their architectural heritage. Additionally it is home to Visigothic and Romanesque art forms. The unit has identiﬁed three fragments in Toledo,and they are situated along the Tagus river (El Tajo). These abandoned buildings and partial structures offer the students an ideal location to hypothesize about new public programs such as Theatre, Library, Museum, Baths, Markets, etc. for the city. Using their detail catalog, students will then design proposals that connect to these fragments and propose new buildings for the city of Toledo.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit E

Mazapanes de Buenavista. Central Eléctrica de Buenavista, Toledo, Spain. e.5 Fragments of an abandoned hydro electrical power station provide a shell of materials, standing as an expression of time, for which the newly proposed use can be inserted. The past power production of the ruin is restored with a new system and new function. The power produced sustains the proposed Marzi pan production, a production that symbolises a great tradition within the city that spans across the three religions of Toledo. The extension of the fragments is built in a way in order to blend with the history of the site; a light steel structure supports a cladding of stone recycled from the area. e.6 Fragments of the power station expand out to the south bank of the rio Tajo, the proposed provides a connection to these fragments. The connection is made at a human scale to enhance the physical connection between activities on each side of the river.

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit E

e.7 Cafe space. Insertion into the existing fragments provides double storey space that creates the cafe and kitchen area. The space forms a journey from the new to old, from the enclosed depth of the ruins to the exposure of the surrounding landscape.â&#x20AC;&#x192; e.8 Promenade of perspective panorama. The prosed promenade forms a visual and physical connection that symbolises a reminder of the previous connection of energy flow between the two fragments of the ruins.

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Calderón - Bridge Program. Toledo, Spain e.9 The section suggest the existence of specific rooms which are located within the building. The brass lit corridor, the pool level, shower rooms, sauna and the open lift which creates circulation between vertical spaces. e.10 Healing rooms in the late afternoon just before dark. In the background sits the centre of the old town of Toledo hidden behind the hill that lines the site. e.11 Night Bridge. The connection between spaces at night with the suggestion of subtle light demonstrating the suggested path. The buildings surrounding the bridge illuminate and reflect the light indicating rooms which are use able in that current time. e.12 The Bridge before dawn. The buildings sits beneath the city scape of the old town of Toledo. The brass handrail reflects in the sun and bounces off the water. The solar lamps now begin to look dim as the morning sun replaces there light with its own and

illuminates the bridge that sits within the water. Here the water level is high and strokes the bridge as it passes beneath.

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UNIT F

The Factory Terrace

Adam Willis, Lewis Jones

Unit F explores a hands-on approach to design, placing the idea of making at the heart of the design process. We are intrigued by the unexpected and resourceful use of materials and construction, and excited by the possibilities of re-use at the scale of a building and of the city. Throughout the year, large-scale physical models are used to develop and refine spatial and constructional strategies. Ready Steady Make As a precursor to the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main project, we explored the idea of re-use at the scale of a piece of furniture. 12 abandoned chairs were transformed into a series of new pieces of furniture, embracing the potential of chance, surprise and accident in the act of making. The finished articles found new uses for discarded materials and in doing so teased out and celebrated the essential characteristics of each original chair. The Factory Terrace Tens of thousands of terraced houses lie empty across the north of England, the devastating result of long industrial decline and the chronic failure of the Housing Market Renewal Initiative. We have set out to propose how these derelict buildings can be transformed; how their fabric can be dismantled, reconfigured or re-assembled to create new opportunities for the areas and communities they serve. We have been working in Little Klondyke in the north of Liverpool, where 450 houses stand empty with not a single resident remaining. We met the people battling to save the buildings and heard the views of

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

local residents and activists. Our approach has not been one of refurbishment or preservation, but using bold acts of removal, addition, lining and overcladding to accommodate a range of new programmes that can tackle longer term social and economic problems facing the area. The projects are seen as prototypes, demonstrating possibilities for the re-use of the thousands of terraces currently lying empty and the exciting new opportunities for living, working and public life that these buildings can provide.

Visiting Crits: DMark Lemanski, Miraj Ahmed, Will Shannon, Charles Bedin, Eva Macmanara, Paloma Strelitz, Amy Perkins, Fran Edgerley, Giles Smith, Mat Leung, Jane Hall, Alice Edgerley, Joe Halligan Special thanks to: SAVE Britains Heritage, Jonathan Brown, Juliet Edgar, Clem Cecil

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit F

Students: Y3: Abdulkadir Munie, Airydas Mikalajunas, Enes Dizdarevic, Gulsen Karpazli, Jamal Mahmood, Joseph Woollard, Josephine Lyne, Misbah Ahmed, Salma Shamim, Sinem Gurgur, Spencer William Gadsby, Talha Junaid Siddiqu Y2: Ahmed Farah, Beatriz Carolina De Souza, Bruna Pasquali, Bruno Santos Bezerra, Camila Andressa Pereira Rosa, Dilek Kaymanli, Ian Knowles, Isabella Flach Gomes, Ivon Paulo Vieira, Jose De Rego Troccoli, Leilane Souza Dias, Remziye Gul Busra Meydan, Silas Koopmans, Viraj Patel, Wagner M. Carvalho, Yaprak Cetinkaya, Yulia Kriana Amaral

DEGREE Y2&3 unit F

f.0 Previous page: erial view of terraced houses and factories. Preston 1930. f.1 Front page of the Liverpool Echo, April 2010. f.2 12 discarded chairs. f.3 (Bruna Pasquali & Remziye Meydan). f.4 (Airydas Mikalajunas & Viraj Patel). f.5 (Abdulkadir Munie & Yulia Kriana Amaral). f.6 (Isabella Flach Gomes & Misbah Ahmed). f.7 (Spencer Gadsby & Jamal Mahmood). f.8 12 new pieces of furniture.

"TWELVE CHAIRS" IMITATION WINDSOR

The brief is to redesign a new piece of furniture using an old chair by using the existing furniture pieces and patterns and reflecting to the new. The chair we had was an old wooden Windsor Chair with a lot of marks and scratches on it which we have used mostly the legs to create our new piece of furniture.

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f.9 Little Klondyke, Liverpool. f.10 (Sinem Gurgur). f.11 (Spencer Gadsby). f.12 (Gulsen Karpazli). f.13 (Airydas Mikalajunas). f.14 (Jamal Mahmood).

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f.15 (Joseph Woollard). f.16 (Abdulkadir Munie). f.17 (Enes Dizdarevic). f.18 (Silas Koopmans). f.19 (Ian Knowles). f.20 (Yulia Kriana Amaral).

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UNIT g

Building Blocks, Building Stories Hwei Fan Liang, Christian Groothuizen

This year Unit G chose Berwick Street as our site for the year, in Soho - where behind the tacky touristic sheen, layers of history and activity, the mundane and the notorious combine. Silk shops, second-hand record shops, sex shops, bookshops, schools, council housing, chandelier makers, solicitors, coffee houses, public houses, post-production studios, bike shops, bespoke suit makers, religious study centres, and street markets exist cheek by jowl on ordinary and remarkable streets. We made proposals for the future of Soho, identifying clients and programmes that engaged with the delicate and constantly shifting balance of players, agents and residents of the area, and developing an architecture in response to a particular character of place, retaining traces of past and present in material and meaningful ways – a counterpoint to the prevailing redevelopment model that obliterates centuries-old plotlines with open-plan floorplates or frictionless residential units. On two contrasting sites – one in the interior of an urban block, surrounded by backs of neighbours, fire escapes and windows, the other with three free elevations to back street, alley and market - we made propositions built around the narrative of inhabitation, spaces and opportunities for interaction and reciprocity between activities and occupiers, street and interior, public and private. We began the year visiting and studying buildings in London and Paris – chosen for particular qualities of occupied volumes, territories and views - as a way of developing a set of architectural interests for

Soho, London . paris, france

each student and exploring these ideas through a transformation from observation and representation to active engagement. As part of this development of interests, constructed devices are a way of testing spatial and experiential ideas, and suggest a material way of working. They are also a way of navigating and documenting our experiences of the city. In the context of Soho – with its rich collision of activities, physical and temporal adjacencies – we seek to create proposals that can provide the frame and stage for the everyday theatre, craft, care and survival of individuals who live and work close by one another. We are interested in designing architecture that is oriented around inhabitation and experience, making use of cinematic techniques and understanding proposals over time.

Visiting Crits: Robin Cross, Simon Tucker, Mike Levey, Nick Willson, Sandra DenickePolcher, Katherine Clarke, Chris Hartiss, Jayden Ali, Roland Karthaus, Lucy Thomas, Zoran Radivojevic, Jon Spencer Special thanks to: Matt White, The Royal College of Physicians, TUC Congress House, Siège du Parti Communiste Français, The Soho Society, The Society Club, Christian Pottgiesser, Alison Crawshaw, Ian Troake, Tom Dollard, Step Haiselden, Rich May

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“Buildings are used as a popular stage. They are all divided into innumerable, simultaneously animated theatres. Balcony, courtyard, window, gateway, staircase, roof are at the same time stage and boxes.” - from “Naples”, Walter Benjamin

VISIT www.uel-unit-g.blogspot.co.uk

DEGREE Y2&3 unit G

Students: Mehdi Ahmed, Mobasher Ahmed, Mohtasham Bahadur, Sara ErfantalabEvini, Arash Farhadi, Hakan Gulesin, Liang Liang He, Nicole Landazuri, Susana Lima, Farhia Mohamed Sidney Carvalho, Deborah Cintra, Emanuella Da Silva Pia, Rohaine Dailey, Cindy De Moraes Aguado, Ilyas Demirci, Jessica Franco Bohmer, Mohammad Reza Hosseini Bagha, Karwan Hussein, Ilir Kabashi, Dina Khaki, Anna Kokkota, Jonan Momodu, Marjorie Romano Modesto, Quadri Uthman

DEGREE Y2&3 unit G

g.1 Pevious page: Life of Berwick Street (Arash Farhadi). g.2, g.3 Palais de Tokyo captured by a pinhole projection device inspired by the skylight over side stair at the Royal College of Physicians (Mohammad Reza Hosseini Bagha). g.4 Parisian view and ground captured by device inspired by the Oasis Centre (Sara Erfantalab-Evini). g.5 Model of available view from the swimming pool at the Oasis Centre (Sara Erfantalab-Evini) g.6 Berwick Street simultaneous views captured by device inspired by the Photographers’ Gallery (Liang Liang He). g.7 The Photographers’ Gallery as a periscope (Liang Liang He). g.8 Impressions of The Society Club: cocktails, candles and canines (Marjorie Romano Modesto). g.9 Kemp House day and night (Mehdi Ahmed) g.10 Ronnies Flowers stall in Berwick Street market (photo Dina Khaki) g.11 The Museum of Soho physical artefacts (photo Liang Liang He).

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Collage uses captured experiences, borrowed and found images to speculate on the next stage of proposition, antici pating the architectural ideas of the main projects in visible and evocative ways. g.12 Decorated vessel over extended street space (Mehdi Ahmed). g.13 Soho windows: façade fashions, (Mehdi Ahmed). g.14 Exterior/ Interior Society Club (Deborah Cintra) g.15 Observing the spectators (Anna Kokkota). g.16 SkyLand: connecting the post-production industry (Arash Farhadi). g.17 Oasis Centre territory of circulation (Sara ErfantalabEvini). g.18-19 A Museum of Soho for Berwick Street (Dina Khaki).

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g.20 The New Society Club (Nicole Landazuri). g.21, g.25 The New Society Club (Jessica Franco Böhmer). g.22 Soho Society Theatre foyer (Quadri Uthman). g.23 SkyLand: connecting the post-production industry (Arash Farhadi). g.24, g.27 Institute of Textile Artisans, studios and social club (Mehdi Ahmed). g.26 The Soho Society ballroom and meeting hall (Sara ErfantalabEvini). g.28 The New Society Club (Mohammad Reza Hosseini Bagha).

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UNIT h

Bairro : Fragments and City Keita Tajima, Mo Woonyin Wong

Unit H continued to explore the city through fragments of space, details, time and their stories in relation to everyday life. The unit engages particularly with the relationship between careful observations of spatial experiences and translations of these experiences into form of drawings, physical models and the collages, in order to abstract and develop architectural ideas. This year we focused on domestic space and the idea of “sharing” as a key to explore the interiority of urban neighbourhood in Porto. Spatial sampling/Collage The initial project is set to explore series of spatial moments by understanding the relativity and the autonomies of spatial fragments within an architectural space. The first observation was made by the visit to “Turn End”, the one of three houses (The Turn, Middle Turn, Turn End) with gardens, designed and self built in 1960’s by British architect Peter Aldington. By translating a series of chosen moment into the analytical drawing, and to the collage through physical models, enabled students to abstract spatial ideas as which then elaborated as a design tool to test and to be manipulated on the project sites in Porto. Porto As Romans called it “Portus” (means port), the sea (Atlantic Ocean), the river (Duoro River) and the ancient settlement along the granite hilltop, naturally became important city for the various trades. After

Turn End, UK . Porto, Portugal

its long history, the present city shows the richness and diversity in its architecture, and its city centre is classified as UNESCO World Heritage site. The city specially developed as a port city in 18th century through its industry and trading of Porto wine (presence of Baroque architecture in the city shows its heyday). However, with its lengthy stagnation of economy of the country together with its property law, have left its historic centre in the state of decay for over the decades, leaving one third of buildings unoccupied (much of them are residential use/used) as well as making city centre unpopulated year by year. The unit has made series of visits during the trip which includes architectures by Alvaro Siza and Fernando Tavola, and also visited new generation of Portuguese architects practices who are seeking alternative solutions to the current situations in Porto. Urban dwellings, neighbourhood and local infrastructure With the historical back ground of Porto and its dilemma of conservation and development, we made our test ground within the historic centre and investigate the possibility of re-utilising decayed/abandoned buildings in relation to their neighbourhood. Our projects will speculate the the alternative scenario for the future of Bairro (neighbourhood) by looking at its eco system in local activities, social spaces such as traditional wash house, bakery, series of small manufactures and fragmentations of residential community as well as ever

Visiting Crits: Pedro Castelo, Emu Masuyama, Gregory Ross , Ivana Sehic, Chris Thorn, Step Haiseldon, Kristina Hertel, Raphael Lee

increasing tourists. By exploring the possibility of dwellings as catalyst in urban neighbourhood, we re-imagined the relationship between domestic spaces and the city through shared spaces and local infrastructures, that express the sense of neighbourhood and their stories of alternative urban living.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every motion of hand in every one of its works carries itself through the element of thinking, every bearing of the hand bears itself in the element. All the work of the hand is rooted thinking.â&#x20AC;?

Special thanks to: Manuel Montenegro (FAUP) Pedro Jervell (SKREI) Jose Paixao (Arrebita) Peter and Margaret Aldington (Turn End) Jackie Hunt (Turn End)

Martin Heidegger

DEGREE Y2&3 unit H

Students: Kasim Ahmad, Larissa Almeida Martins, Luna Bibas, Eric Cabussu,Tamires Cassella, Dimitrios Chatzigorgalis, Renata Chaves Monteiro, Igor Dias, Umut Dogan, Thomas Dunning, Olajide Ayobami Falusi, Heleomar Figueiredo, Klevi Furruku, Ali Hudda, Konstantinos Iasonidis, Syed, Imam Anees Imtiaz, Nakul Jilka, Luke Kane, Farid Mahmood, Alina Maria Ometita, Jahzel Parkinson-Actil, Cindy Pereira, Saifa Rahman, Rebeca Maria Ramos Tabosa

DEGREE Y2&3 unit H

h.1 Turn End sampling process: The observation of inter locking space by the penetration of the light. The volume of light connects two spaces temporally through the shared openings (Nakul Jika). h.2 Turn End sampling process : Analytical drawing demonstrating the inter-connected space through series of walls with different porosity and volume of each spaces. This observation later translated into the spatial idea which looked at the sequential volumes in relation to movement (Luna Bibas). h.3 Turn End sampling process: Series of 1:10 sample models extracted from the observation in Turn End. Each fragment models were used as spatial samples to explore found moments further and develop the spatial idea into abstraction. Models from the left. Farid Mahmood looked at the geometry of roof structure junction (Thomas Dunning and Luna Bibas). Nakul Jika explore the idea of interlocking space further. Konstantinos Lasonidis explore the textural condition of study in Turn End by inverted space model and unfolded latex skin to capture the texture and its geometry.

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â&#x20AC;&#x192;h.4 Turn End sampling process: Exploded axonometric of structural components of study space. (Konstantinos Lasonidis). h.5 Turn End abstraction of spatial moment : Series of development models by abstracting the idea of social boundary through the different volume of linked spaces (Renata Chaves Monteiro). â&#x20AC;&#x192; h.6 Turn End, abstraction of spatial moment: The idea of privacy and the vertical louvre system was explored further by spatial models and collages. The space of louvre was observed by introducing the spatial sequence and its movement within (Thomas Dunning).

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DEGREE Y2&3 unit H

h.7 Porto : The view from the long staircase in the neighbourhood of Séé towards The River Douro. Nearly half of the residential buildings in this neighbourhood are unpopulated due to its severe condition. h.8 Porto : The aerial view indicates historic centre of Porto and the one third of the buildings in historic centre are in the process of decay. Individual observation had been made in different parts of historic centre of Porto which include Vitória, Ribeira, Sé and São Nicolau. h.9 Porto : Inversion of interior space and exterior space. Exploded axonometric exploring the local activities, left over land, existing allotment space and shared objects within the staircase space. The stair case space can been seen as shared interior space when local people are gathering in daytime. Luna Bibas h.10 Porto: The sampling of moments through the journey from the centre of town (Ribeira) to the neighbourhood of Séé(Renata Chaves Monteiro).

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craft workshop and transformative structure which provide opportunities to have different seasonal event spaces throughout a year (Thomas Dunning). h.14 The new insertion to medieval wall house, which provides public viewing platform as a new connection to Cathedral garden. The sequence of space explores the idea of suspense through the prolonged moments till the discovery of new views (Eric Cabussu). h.15 The project explore the potential of spiral staircase space and the idea of void as shared space, the series of pocket public squares addresses the levels and extend public space on the bridge while ground space opens to local passage. The spaces between public platform and local shared space provide students accommodations. Heleomar Figueiredo possibility to augment core academic staff.

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h.11 The boundary as an infrastructure. Exploring the idea of wall as an means of connection as well as series of thresholds. The new inhabitable wall structure reveals Porto’s historical wall and uses to form in-between space as shared space for local residents to gather and exchange the skills and knowledge while it reconnects the neighbourhood to the bridge as public passage which provides the scenic journey looking towards the River Douro (Syed Imam). h.12 Local performance (Fado) space. The spatial exploration of visual connections through series of openings and void spaces inform the relationshi p between activities and framed views. The proposal also functions as new public passage to connect and facilitate tourist walk along the River Douro to the public space above wash house. New void insertion provide light and visual connection throughout the building from the performance space to residential flats in ground and lower ground floor (Klevi Furruku). h.13 The craft workshop quarter: Sketch section demonstrating the series of

DEGREE Y2&3 unit H

h.16 Porto: The collage work explore the idea of layered space in relation to verticality of the abandoned building site in the neighbourhood of Vitoria (Olajide Ayobami Falusi). h.17 Porto : Proposed local market space under the bridge Ponte Luís I. The prefabricated concrete plates address different entries from existing long staircase and market activities (Nakul Jika). h.18 Porto: The junction space within proposed dwelling/ shared communal space which demonstrate the idea of interlocking various spaces and activities from the top of the bridge to the bottom (Nakul Jika). h.19 Porto: The passage of tea explore the sequence of spaces by experiencing the combination of the light and the smell through the journey of proposed micro tea production in the neighbourhood of Sé(Ali Hudda). h.20 Local market space: The section through dwellings, local shared space and local market (Nakul Jika). h.21 The craft workshop quarter: The project explore the potential of re-introducing traditional Portuguese crafts workshop

by re-interpreting Machiya House as a cluster of live/work spaces. The space in between live/work units facilitates the public access and series of pocket court yards by introducing the double skin structure to accommodate semiprivate space within their individual research potential and the possibility to collaborate with the augment (Thomas Dunning).

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COMPUTING & REPRESENTATION IN ARCHITECTURE Janet Insull, Isaac Cobo i Displas

Level 2: Moving from hand-drawn to the computer using a range of software Students use their first Unit project to create a Digital Data Investigation of their Unit site which includes creating a 3D massing model in an industry standard CAD program. Their final Unit project develops the notion of the 3D massing model as an aid to the orientation and design of their building. In the pages of the Supporting Studies Book students explained their project through a 3D exploded view, rendered images and a section to show materials, habitation and atmosphere. The students were able to achieve this by moving between a range of current industry standard software. For their technical studies students created a 2D drawing of a 1:20 section with a materials detail and fixings. Level 3: Building on knowledge Level 3 students created a detailed 1:20 section for their final project with a materials detail and fixings. We show how to created a section with material textures, and life on it, lightness and darkness. To be a technical drawing with a touch.

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DEGREE Y2&3 computing

Special thanks to: UEL Digital Lab, UEL Printing Lab, Paula Tosas Auguet, Rajat Shodi, Daniel Coll i Capdevila

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cr.1, cr.2 (John Francis, Y2) cr.3, cr.4 (Mitul Chudasam, Y2) c.5 c.6. (Jonas Brazys, Y3) cr.7 (Alborz Bathaei, Y3)

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ENCOUNTERS #2

Ecobuild 2014 where the UEL stand was the winner in the Sustainable Stands Award

PRIZES AND EXHIBITIONS

Ecobuild 2014 Following the success of the willow shelter project at the beginning of the year, we partnered with Lee Valley Waterworks one more time to design and build a permanent Bird Hide to overlook the filter beds. All students worked together and over just a few days came up with a shared design and constructed their proposal. Timber elements were constructed from material donated by the Leaside Wood Recycling Project and willow once again harvested from the filter beds. Everything was set up on a stand at EcoBuild 2014 and the students worked on site at the Excel Centre to complete the design. Over the course of the Exhibition the willow elements of the proposed design were woven and fixed in

place overseen by the many curious onlookers and passers-by. Following the exhibition a dedicated team of students reassembled the finished Hide on site in the Lee Valley where it will be a permanent fixture for East London bird watchers and walkers. Working at 1:1 is immensely fulfilling and fundamental to all other design projects. This is the third consecutive year that we have taken part in the EcoBuild Exhibition, and are very proud this year to have been awarded the EcoBuild Sustainable Stand Award by The UK Green Building Council. Project Detroit 2013 As a mix of bachelor and diploma students from UEL, keen to investigate the aims of Detroit and

its community to regenerate and rebuild the city, we formed a group called Project Detroit. Visiting the notorious Motor City in July 2013 for 10 days, we met and interviewed different organisations, artists and entrepreneurs to hear their stories, experiences and ideas on Detroit today. For over half a century Detroit has been a sore reminder of a failed American dream. The city of Detroit has been on the front line of modernisation and the car industry but since 1950 the city suffered one of the worst de-industrialisations and suburbanisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in US. But in the midst of the crumbling post-industrial ruins there are signs that the notorious Motor City is jump-starting

Project Detroit

ENCOUNTERS #2: PRIZES AND EXHIBITIONS

A selection of the exhibitions UEL have contributed to and prizes won this year

its economy. Detroit is undergoing a rapid transformation through many young entrepreneurs are starting up different companies because of the city’s cheap rents and no restraint.

ENCOUNTERS #2: PRIZES AND EXHIBITIONS

The endless waves of daunting negative press which surround Detroit were quickly washed away after one day in the city. Everyday we met a different entrepreneur who had an aim to make a positive impact. Detroit may appear to be a hopeless city of ruin from the outside, but Detroit is a city of people. People who have passion, hope and drive to bring the city back from triple bottom line and things are changing. Read more about our trip on our blog: www.projectdetroit2013.tumblr.com A Portal between two cities, enhancing the dialogue between Venice and London The project is the result of collaboration between the University of East London, New London Architecture, The Building Centre of London and the Soprintendenza ai BBAA of Venice. The project links London and Venice together physically, digitally and metaphorically via two pieces of contemporary architecture of differing scales in the aim of stating that contemporary is nourished by the past. Using live video streaming technology visitors are able to look into the installation in Venice and feel central London and vice-versa. The Loggia of the Ducal Palace in San Marco square is the prestigious location where is sitting the geometric structure of the Venetian pavilion - a

Sarah Jane Fourness’ Gridshell project

pure white Venetian plaster form which recalls three centuries of connectivity and dialogue through the means of architecture between two of the greatest mercantile cities of the world. The inspiration of Palladio underpinned the architectural language of London in the seventeenth century – a language only surpassed by the influence of Venetian Gothic as translated through the words, drawings and philosophy of Londoners John Ruskin and William Morris in the nineteenth century. Their influence returned to Venice in the twentieth century in the form of powerful conservation principles which advocate craft, respect and the sensitive accommodation of the new within a vibrant, socially engaged historic city. With Scarpa and Rossi demonstrating profound architectural responses to Ruskin and Morris, our project is a meditation on the nature of this dialogue in the twenty-first century, learning and synthesizing fundamental lessons on form, materiality, detail, structure and most importantly – communication. The project links the City of Venice during the time of its Biennale entitled ‘Fundamentals’ with London as it hosts its own Festival of Architecture entitled ‘Capital’. The London Pavilion, a larger version of its little Venetian sibling, sits in South Crescent outside The Building Centre, home to New London Architecture, an organization focused on understanding and celebrating London’s built heritage while challenging its policy makers, and architects to bridge the past and

the future. Both structures in London and Venice have been designed and built by diploma students of the University of East London, who have spent the past year immersed in the culture and architecture of Venice offering the city their own ideas of how contemporary architecture and the historic city come together in the 21st Century. AIA Design Awards UEL student Sarah Jane Fourness was given the Excellence in Design Award at the American Institute of Architects, UK collecting the Noel Hill Student Travel Award for her gridshell project. The gridshell, which draws its strength from its doubly-curved lattice is one of the most efficient structures known and was the topic of investigation for a year. Executed in three phases, the project covered the technical, aesthetic and design potential of gridshell structures using wood as the material focus. During the first phase, the creation of models to understand materials and technical factors was essential to developing the project. The second phase consisted of a case study of the Weald and Downland Gridshell and focused on the aesthetic and spatial qualities of the structure, which found it flexible; ideal for public and multi-use spaces. The third phase was a design proposal for a workshop in Helsinki, Finland utilizing both the investigated technical features while achieving the desired spatial qualities.

A Portal Between two cities, UEL Pavilion on the Ducal Palace, Venice and in London (photographs, Michela Pace).

ENCOUNTERS #3

WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

The Sommerakademie La Festa del Redentore An International workshop, joining together, during a one week of work, the students from Hasselt University, School of Architecture and Art and the students from the University of East London, in the guest University of IUAV in Venice, took place in February 2014. The premise for the workshop was a confrontation of two different pedagogies, though working on the same topic.

A series of guest speakers such as Jean-Christoph Rossler, Fritz Neumayer, Giovanni Favero, Alex Scott-Whitby and Maria Alessandra Segantini completed the offer. As a final output of the international workshop, the students, grouped in teams, were required to elaborate a project for the temporary installation of the Ponte del Redentore. Every group was followed by a tutor and critical coral discussions happened at the end of each week.

The students were confronting with very different approaches: from the very conservative one of the German students, to the more conceptual of the Italians, to the more craft driven of the UEL students. This confrontation rose discussion not only among the students, but also among the teachers during the crits, offering the students a valid methodology of questioning the given site and program.

La Festa del Redentore

ENCOUNTERS #3: WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

A selection of the international workshops and conferences attended by our staff and students

Università Iuav di Venezia d i pa r t i m e n t o d i architet tura costruz ione conservaz ione

corso di laurea magistrale in architet tura per il nuovo e per l’ant ico

VENICE START (U/APP) International Venice workshop 2014

curator of the international workshop Maria Alessandra Segantini Iuav responsible of the workshop Armando Dal Fabbro professors Jo Berben, Carlo Cappai, Maria Alessandra Segantini, University of Hasselt Michela Pace, Alex Scott-Whitby, University of East London Armando Dal Fabbro, Patrizio M. Martinelli, Università Iuav di Venezia

ENCOUNTERS #3: WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

guest speakers Jo Berben, Camillo Botticini, Tony Fretton, Patricia Viel

DIPART IMENTO DI ARCHI TE T TURA COSTRUZ IONE CONSERVAZ IONE

CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN ARCHI TE T TURA PER IL NUOVO E L’ANT ICO

CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN

AUGMENTED CONTEXT

CONTEXT AND CONNECTIONS

VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lunch pills serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

“VENICE START (U/APP)” workshop lecture serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

Alessandro Mimiola

03>07.02.2014 aula 1.1-1.3 Magazzini

ARCHI TE T TURA PER IL NUOVO E L’ANT ICO

05.02.2014 ore 13 aula 1.1-1.3 Magazzini

Jo Berben, a20 architecten

04.02.2014 ore 17.30 cotonificio aula gradoni

Jo Berben will explore the recurrent themes of connectivity and contextualism from a portfolio ranging from sensitively crafted work with religious historic sites to the research on housing programs and public buildings. Smart plans, evocative spaces, appropriateness and an innovative approach to construction are constant themes in the work of this young Belgian office. Alessandro Mimiola will be lecturing the possibilities offered by computer graphic in architecture, related to the reinvention of the context.

lectures aula Gradoni Cotonificio ore 17.30

DIPART IMENTO DI ARCHI TE T TURA COSTRUZ IONE CONSERVAZ IONE

CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN ARCHI TE T TURA PER IL NUOVO E L’ANT ICO

CONTEXT AND PROCESS:WHERE IS DESIGN? 06.02.2014 ore 13 aula 1.1-1.3 Magazzini

Fabio Vanin, Latitude

VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lunch pills serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

Learning different ways of reading, understanding and describing the context, not only using our (the architect's) tools but borrowing the ones of other disciplines, seems today an emerging need. Moreover, the process that might lead to design is becoming increasingly relevant. But how to position design in this picture? The lecture/Fabio Vanin will briefly discuss these issues using some Latitude recent researches.

ARCHITECTURE CONTEXT RELATIONS

Camillo Botticini, abdarchitetti

VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lecture serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

06.02.2014 ore 17.30 aula Gradoni Cotonificio

Camillo Botticini will treat the theme of context, seen as a generative and foundamental element in architectural design, showing his academic research and practice.

H-FARM: START-UPS AND INNOVATION IN THE VENICE LAGOON Timothy O'Connell

VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lunch pills serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

07.02.2014 ore 13 aula 1.7-1.9 Magazzini

The unique story of H-Farm, an Italian Venture Incubator investing in disruptive startups in the fields of Digital Media, Web, Mobile, Social Media, 3D Printing and emerging Technology. The business focus is on Made in Italy scaled worldwide: Design, Fashion, Travel, Food & Wine

DIPART IMENTO DI ARCHI TE T TURA COSTRUZ IONE CONSERVAZ IONE

CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN ARCHI TE T TURA PER IL NUOVO E L’ANT ICO

BUILDING CONTEXT Patricia Viel, ACPV & Partners

VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lecture serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

ARCHI TE T TURA PER IL NUOVO E L’ANT ICO

05.02.2014 ore 17.30 aula Gradoni Cotonificio

"Italian architects are expected to produce contextual rather than conceptual projects, a broad landscape design rather than a single object: a whole narrative, not a mere sign." Patricia Viel will talk about the concept of everyday quality of life through examples of recent works by her architectural partnership with Antonio Citterio aiming at generate and support environmental quality demands.

Posters for Venice Start (U/APP)

BUILDINGS AND THEIR TERRITORIES Tony Fretton, Tony Fretton Architects VENICE START (U/APP) workshop lecture serie chaired by Maria Alessandra Segantini

03.02.2014 ore 17.30 aula Gradoni Cotonificio

Tony Fretton will discuss how the relation of buildings to their surroundings can be a means of making a communicative architecture

Venice Start (U/APP) An International workshop, joining together, during a one week of work, the students from Hasselt University, School of Architecture and Art and the students from the University of East London, in the guest University of IUAV in Venice, took place in February 2014. The premise for the workshop was a confrontation of two different pedagogies, though working on the same topic. A series of internationally recognized guest speakers, such as Jo Berben (A2o), Toni Fretton, Patricia Viel and Camillo Botticini (ABDA), together with younger researchers (Alessandra Bello, Alessandro Mimiola, Antoni Muntadas’ art studio, Fabio Vanin from Latitude and Timothy o’ Connell from H-FARM), were giving lectures during the same week. As a final output of the international workshop, the students, grouped in teams, were required to elaborate a strategy of intervention, a process, more than a project for the site, a map of potentials for a possible process of infilling the start-up industry inside the area Ex-Gasometri in Santa Marta in Venice. More and by and

recently, due to the economic political changes driven globalization, neo-liberalism post-industrial markets, we

are assisting at phenomena of concentration of people and capitals in specific parts of the world with the consequent decline of others. Global and shrinking cities represent a current opposition and topic of research. It can be argued, though, that this opposition is in fact, a more complex condition in search for a definition: decline, can be easily turned into a different kind of growth, if we consider not only the numeric values, but instead understand and evaluate the cultural potentials. We use the terms territorial translation to overcome this opposition and describe a relational conception embracing both growth and decline, through those actions, which are able to balance the preservation of the cultural characters with the necessary changes that need to be introduced in the landscape mosaic, searching for a different kind of equilibrium. After the international workshop, the investigation continued individually, touching four different scales: the global scale of the network of trading goods while exchanging culture; the local scale of the knots-cities of Veneto Region; the community scale of the relationship between the built environment and the public space and, finally, the body scale of the materiality. Furthermore, the

workshop addressed the complex, multifaceted issue of meaning and its transmission through architectural form as a criterion in the design process. This exercise was following a first seminar which had happened in Venice in November 2013 and including the contributions of the Soprintendente Renata Codello was presenting contemporary works of architecture in Venice, Giovanni Favero, about the economic transformation of Venice and the lagoon, the ‘forcola’ craftman, Saverio Pastor, Aldo Bello, speaking about the urban masterplan for Venice by Leonardo Benevolo, Michela Pace, showing her work with the communities, Antoni Muntadas’ art work and myself presenting the Venetian works of C+S Architects. The seminar was concluded with Armando Dal Fabbro’s presentation of the research of the Scuola di Venezia. Maria Alessandra Segantini

ENCOUNTERS #3: WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

Transmaterial Aesthetics: Experiments With Timber In Architecture And Technology In October 2013, Unit C Tutors Clara Kraft Isono and Satsohi Isono presented the paper, Applying the Borrowed, Learning Through Making at the International Symposium; Transmaterial Aesthetics, Experiments with Timber in Architecture and Technology at the ANCB Metropolitan Laboratory, Aedes Network Campus Berlin. The Symposium was interested in discussing projects that interplayed aesthetics and technology in timber architecture, probing the topic of transmateriality. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;In the light of increasing environmental awareness, timber emerged at the forefront of material investigations in architecture over the past decades. Waste material from the end of the manufacturing process, or recycled material is fused with other materials to produce composites with changed structural, performative and aesthetic properties. Pulped, cast, bundled, 3D-printed, and robotically-stacked,

new technologies enabled a radical shift away from traditional tectonics and towards articulations previously associated with other materials such as concrete, masonry and plastics. Together, these experiments give rise to a new techno-aesthetic paradigm that could be described as a form of transmateriality.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Transmaterial Aesthetics, Sandra Karina LĂśschke, University of Technology Sydney The paper presented the methodology of Unit C, which Clara and Satoshi co-teach at UEL. In the unit students are encouraged to investigate how established modes of craft with an inherent understanding of materiality could inform emerging fabrication technologies. Research is based around recognized techniques and how this might be applied to new technology. The methodology of established master-builders, such as Eladio Dieste and Miguel Fisac, who have developed a rich body of work investigating material and technology in architecture, is used as a reference. The presentation went on to discuss that whilst architectural

education and practice has been transformed through the emergence of new digital tools and construction technologies, a real understanding of how materials can inform this process been left behind. Generally speaking architects have adopted a similar path when investigating emerging construction techniques as part of the design process. Firstly tectonics is explored through computation and digital tools with designs eventually customized into comprehensive building systems. The systems are tested against available technology and the processes they support. Finally a material is identified to suit all of the above. In this process the possibilities that materials offer is overlooked, subordinating them into preestablished designs. The work of the unit challenges this notion that was demonstrated in a series of films that explored an approach where ideas can be generated through an ongoing process of collaboration between materials and the digital environment.

DIPLOMA

LEVEL 4&5 ARCHITECTURE ROLAND KARTHAUS Programme Leader

The Professional Diploma in Architecture emphasises the skill of design as a means to organise and manipulate technical knowledge about building, in the pursuit of Architecture. For each student, it is both an intensely personal and collective endeavour, with the unit operating interactively to extend, challenge and test each emerging architectural thesis until it is either destroyed and replaced, or finely honed. Specialist interests are explored to develop independent theoretical positions and pre-occupations for architectural testing. The skills and knowledge gained in the part 1 and through experience in practice are critically examined, extended and applied to develop new and deeply-founded positions that can support a future career in architecture. Roland Karthaus

Image: Towards an alternative form of Architecture Education (Shinnosuke Hoshikawa)

UNIT 2

context city

Christoph Hadrys, Uwe SchmidT-Hess

Diploma Unit 2 addresses urban and architectural conditions in locations undergoing critical change and over the years, has worked in North Africa, Scandinavia, East London and other places in Europe. Through a combination of research and creative practice, we propose interventions, which respond to urban challenges and introduce elements of cultural and imaginative vigour. The Unit explores extremes of interrelated scales, from urban geographies through to building and detail qualities. In this process, strategies formulate responsiveness to global contexts, site conditions, understanding of scales, architectural sensibilities, as well as structural and material realities. We aim at creating social, spatial and time-based habitats and environments. This year, our design investigations and projects focused on deprived neighbourhoods around the City of London. The immediate context of the City of London is one of the most diverse but also fragmented areas in London. It bears traces of different ways of living and working that reach back many centuries. It is an area of contrasting and heterogeneous dimensions of old and new, big and small, solid and void, dark and light, slow and fast, shiny and matt; home to people from all over the world, rich and poor. Large parts of the Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fragmented and fragile context remains difficult to use for local and adjacent communities. Unit 2 focused on these critical areas to the north and south of the river Thames. We explored strategic and architectural potentials within an ongoing process of urban transformations.

berlin, germany

The guiding theme of this year was Context City. This refers to both, the location next to the City of London and architectural interventions that critically engage in social and spatial urban contexts. We asked how contexts, life and architecture can resonate deep into one another and explored ways in which sharing and living together can be part of a unique and synergetic urban life. Each student chose one of the possible sites for their main building design project. The individual projects focused on designing site specific buildings. Each student carefully developed architectural qualities, sense of place, logic of space, proportion, resourcefulness and programmatic precision as well as technical and material finesse. We aimed at understanding each intervention to be an anchoring piece within the fragility of the city and its communities. By invigorating existing and imagining new, we intend to create schemes that are both, sustainable and enjoyable.

Visiting Crits: Eva Aftab, Camilo Amaral, Michalis Christodolou, Darren Lee, Jan Liebe, Christopher Pendrich, Daniel Rees, Maria Segantini, Maija Viksne, Kevin Widger diploma Y4&5 unit 2

Students: Y5: Ghazaleh Borouni, Leoni Brooks, Michael Denyer, Khalid Egal, Martina Favero, Kristina Fescenko, Tom Green, Kingsley Kwaku Koranteng, Eleni Kostoula, Ipek L’Aimable, Julian McIntosh, Christina Ntetsika, Dimitra Panteli, Sara Saeed, Loucas Stephanides, Ana Teixeira Y4: Chiara Amato, Steph Yi Ching Chu, Morna Currie, Trang Giang, Jason Humbert, Amir Jafar, Nhu Thi Yen Le, Blaine McMahon, Fabien Mitchell, Panayiota Savvas

“To understand the underlying intention of the proposal, it is necessary to decompose the designed building into a series of related fragments - just as an archaeologist would make drawings of the finds uncovered at his site.” Peter Salter, Intuition & Process (London: Architectural Association, 1989)

VISIT www.diploma-unit2.blogspot.com

diploma Y4&5 unit 2

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

y4 Chiara Amato - Haggerston Bath Steph Yi Ching Chu - Stacking Sport Morna Currie - Homeless Shelter and Park Trang Giang - Re-Social Housing Jason Humbert - Towerbase Amir Jafar - Cooking School Nhu Thi Yen Le - Old Street Junction Blaine McMahon - Courtyard Housing Fabien Mitchell - Sport House Panayiota Savvas - Brick Lane Extension and Childcare

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

y5 Ghazaleh Borouni - Extended School Leoni Brooks - Art School Michael Denyer - Un-erased Excavation Housing Khalid Egal - Civic Bath Martina Favero - Hotel Spine Kristina Fescenko - Ethical Fashion Tom Green - Bishopsgate Planning, Station and Hotel (see right) Kingsley Kwaku Koranteng - Fabric Eleni Kostoula - Cycling Station Ipek Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Aimable - Sport Inn Julian McIntosh - Coin Street Community House Christina Ntetsika - Post Treatment Centre Dimitra Panteli - Builders Street Sara Saeed - Art House Loucas Stephanides - Start Up Ana Teixeira - Cinema and Film School

diploma Y4&5 unit 2

2.4

diploma Y4&5 unit 2

2.4 Page to the left, Ethical Fashion Centre (Kristina Fescenko). 2.5 Section below, Art School (Leoni Brooks). 2.6 Plan and perspectives, Posttreatment Centre (Christina Ntetsika).

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diploma Y4&5 unit 2

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diploma Y4&5 unit 2

2.7 Page to the left top, interior perspective Cinema and Film School (Ana Teixeira).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 2.8 Page to the left bottom and this page, Coin Street Community House (Julian McIntosh).

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UNIT 5

RECONFIGURED GROUND POPULATING THE DISPLACED CITY Simon Beames, Catherine Phillips

This year unit 5 have speculated on the future sustainability of cities outside the highly developed world. A city such as Pula, Croatia, is a potential point to influence the cultural, physical, as well as social and economic ‘endurance’ of part of a relatively new politically stable state. The projects have a topographical and cultural component. This is integrated with a conceptual and technical approach to figure/ground at the urban scale in the way that the proposals physically connect with the site and engage spatially with the city. The unit focuses on ways that material characteristics are articulated to create form and space in relation to context, and in particular on how junctions between materials/component parts are expressed. The brief had 3 project parts, looking at different aspects of the thesis argument, developing a technical resolution via the forming of an artefact at 3 scales Micro / Meso and Macro. Project 1 _Part 1 - DISARMING. We investigated an assembly of space, material, form and context through well designed connections. By taking objects apart we understand the complexity of systems and the language and beauty of components. Project 1 Part 2 – DECON RECON We studied several iconic buildings critical to social, political or cultural functions in London. An appraisal of the typology informed the thesis project and importantly

Venice, Italy & Pula, Croatia

a forensic reduction of the building to its enduring minimum. Part 3 is the production of an artifact that conceptualizes that irreducible core… Main Project – Propositions for PULA The theme of this year’s main project stems from speculating on the conservationism captured by a city such as Venice. We see the evidence that Venice is in peril. We then consider the origins of the limestone used to build it, which was quarried and shipped over from the other side of the Adriatic Sea, on the Istrian Peninsula. In Istria we focus on the city of Pula, which has a similar current population to Venice. Pula was an important Roman settlement, and still has impressively intact Roman remains. Initially we developed collaborative masterplan proposals, leading on to individual projects. We focus on three main sites in Pula – a disused quarry at the edge of the city, a city centre site that involves ancient ruins, and a rural disused barracks site overlooking the city. Pula has many evident layers of architectural history. Since Roman times it has been the administrative centre of Istria, and is both a thriving industrial city and a tourist resort. It hosts an annual film festival and is an area famous for its beautiful coastline. Briefs developed out of the earlier themes. We investigated the possibilities that emerged out of this

research for buildings and public space proposals. These were connected with explorations into ways that carving into the bedrock can reveal the character of this place. The unit approaches architectural proposals driven by a critical response to site, context, material sensitivity and use. The intention is to forge strong connections between working in two and three dimensions between the drawing and the model - and the use of the model to generate further studies through experimental combinations with other media such as print and photography.

Visiting Crits: Matthew Barnett Howland, Luke Engleback, Kenny Fraser, Francois Lefranc, Edward Mccann, Nic Tuft, Geoffrey Ward, Maria Alessandra Segantini Special thanks to: Emil Jurca Architect, Pula

diploma Y4&5 unit 5

Students: Y5: Farah Ariffin, Tiziana Biniakou, Konstantinos Damiris, Melanie Diedrick, Grigorios Galerakis, Su-Vin Lau, Toby Massawe, Constantinos Spatharis, Dawit Teklu, Agis Tompros Y4: Maria Apostolopoulou, Craig Bernstein, Robert Campbell, Akash Chohan, Kathleen Halloran, Nikolaos Isaakidis, Matilda Marku, Hanisah Nordin, Elizabeth Mitchell-Yankah, Kenneth Awele Okafor, Evelina Rodrigues, Ourania Roumpoula, Konstantina Si peta, Sarah Ekanda

â&#x20AC;&#x153;....quarry workers take stone out of the mountain, but without realising it, they fill it with space.â&#x20AC;? Eduardo Chillida

diploma Y4&5 unit 5

5.1 Deconstructed typewriter reconfigured (Dawit Teklu).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 5.2 Deconstructed watch and tools of deconstruction (Toby Massawe).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 5.3 Centrepoint, the irreducible core - structural construction strategy (Dawit Teklu, Toby Massawe, Craig Bernstein, Robert Campbell).

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diploma Y4&5 unit 5

5.4 Trellick Tower, the irreducible core - mapping the journeys to the dwelling units (Constantinos Spatharis, Grigorios Galerakis).

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diploma Y4&5 unit 5

5.5 Aerial view of the Roman Coliseum at Pula.â&#x20AC;&#x192; 5.6 Stonemasonry school in disused quarry (Elizabeth Mitchell-Yankah).â&#x20AC;&#x192;

5.7 Map of Pula showing the project sites 1 - A disused gravel quarry on the west side of the city 2 - Historic city centre sites in the vicinity of the Roman amphitheatre and Coliseum and the Venetian fortress 3 - City waterfront sites 4 - Disused military area on the northern side of the bay overlooking the city

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diploma Y4&5 unit 5

5.8 Concept studies for quarry site - formal/spatial studies derived from observation of fossil voids in Pula beach stones (Maria Apostolopoulou).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 5.9 Archaeological Museum built on a site containing Roman ruins at the edge of the Roman Forum Square and adjacent to a 12th century church (Su-Vin Lau).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 5.10 Waterfront boat-building workshop and museum (Hanisah Nordin).

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5.11 Health spa and school in disused quarry (Farah Ariffin). 5.12 Contemporary Art Gallery (Tiziana Biniakou). 5.13 Urban Winery, cork and concrete construction (Constantinos Spatharis). 5.14 Re-located waterfront town hall (Toby Massawe). 5.15 Museum of conflict, composed around existing war tunnels - excavated limestone, concrete, corten steel and glass (Dawit Teklu).

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UNIT 6

Object Oriented Materialism Karosta Gilles Retsin, Isaie Bloch

Unit 6 continues to work within a materialist approach to culture and architecture, shifting its focus this year from a little Alpine village in Switzerland to a former Soviet military town in the high north of Latvia. The city of Karosta translates as War Port. Situated in the south west of Latvia, it used to be a closed secret military town for the Russian Empire, and later for the Soviet navy due to its strategic location. Today, Karosta is a city in desperate need for revitalisation, so to solve some of the socio-economical questions as well as the reintegration of different ethnic groups. The studio will examine architectural proposals that will foster local cultural activities as well as art residences. The proposals will respond to the changing social and economic circumstances of the city through generating new cultural opportunities. Set within a materialist, Object-Oriented framework, students will explore the relationship between building topology, massing, ornament and structure using novel fabrication techniques and computational tools like Zbrush, Processing and Grasshopper. As Latvia regained its independence in 1990, the Soviet military left Karosta resulting in a massive population drop from 25 000 to 7 000 inhabitants. Since then Karosta has been classified as a problematic district inhabited by so called “leftovers” (mainly ethnic Russians) from the military contingent. This drastic move left many abandoned brutalist buildings behind which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair as which applies commonly for a lot of

Karosta, Latvia

modernist constructions in the whole former Soviet territories. There are number of impressive historic monuments as St. Nicholas Ortodox Marine Cathedral in the central part of Karosta, the Horse Arena or Manege and Karosta Prison. Today Karosta is a place where many “everyday tourists” are heading to take a look at what desertion has caused. Social conditions and processes, ethnic suspicions and misunderstandings enforce indifference, apathy, lack of information and poverty. Today, Karosta does seem to attract more and more new inhabitants and artists that stay temporarily or for a longer period of time. Unit 6 will work within an Object-Oriented framework and materialist discourse. Students will develop research into specific material processes and substances found on the site. We will look into the industrial and fabrication paradigm embedded in this objects, related to a complex social and economic context of soviet and post-soviet times. We will look at architectural precedents both from the modernist and constructivist Soviet era and the splendid Latvian Art-Nouveau. Students will conceive the architectural project as an assemblage of interacting objects. We will use advanced computational methodologies as lowpolygon modelling, Zbrush, grasshopper and handson structural analysis software to define and design modes of interaction between architectural objects as circulation, structure and massing. A series of intensive tutorials in the first term will introduce everyone to new computational and representational techniques, as well

as analogue model making, digital fabrication and 3D printing. Students will work on a given blank site located in the hart of Karosta North of the st. Nicholas Cathedral, as a part of a larger redevelopment plan of the area. The site is surrounded by soviet apartment blocks, which can be partially integrated in the project proposal. The area greatly exceeds the required building size, therefore it is necessary to think carefully about the massing and its impact on the site. The corresponding building programme will be a mid-sized building as for example: community & recreational centre, library, restaurant, artist studios and residences, ateliers & manufacturing space, exhibition halls, conference rooms, tourist information centre, sports centre or memorial space, or any combination of this programmes.

Visiting Crits: Igor Pantic, Roland Karthaus, Manuel Jimenez-Garcia, Moa Carlsson, Stefan Bassing, Corneel Cannaerts, Harald Trapp diploma Y4&5 unit 6

Students: Y5: Ali Datoo, Charbel Chagoury, Hara Soupalika, Christos Petropanagiotakis, Dikla Masuri, Hassan Mostafavi, Malama Polykarpou, Marios Spyridon Martinis, Moksud Khan, Muhammed Al-Kufaishi, Salleh Ahmad, Yosuke Nakano Y4: Anthony Hu, Lester Yong, Dimitrios Martinis, Douglas Cameron, Gavin Fung, Illias Siametis, Irina Durneva, Jaspal Sev, Masha Damigah, Margarita Genyte, Nareh Ghazarian, Stylianos Oikonomou, Zin Zainal Abidin.

Set within a materialist, Object-Oriented framework, students will explore relationships between building topology, massing, ornament, material and structure using novel fabrication techniques and computational tools.

diploma Y4&5 unit 6

6.1 This project identifies Karosta as a field of unrelated objects without enclosed space. Through strategically positioning the new building, close to three existing blocks, it frames an enclosed square. Architectonically, the project investigates the idea of subtraction and dialectics. A single tile adopts different behaviours on the facade and in the subtracted void - transitioning from a regular grid to a computed disorder. (Charikleia Soupalika)â&#x20AC;&#x192; 6.2 This project is an investigation in massing, proposing the idea of the mega-ornament: can an ornament become a space or mass in itself; and how does it interact with the main massing it is depending on? A series of studies into figure-figure interaction and composition was conducted, and new sectional conditions emerged from the inflection of the main mass with the mega-ornaments. Materially, the project becomes a rough assemblage of different prefabricated and standardised building products (Muhammad Al-Kufaishi).

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diploma Y4&5 unit 6

6.3 Agent-based ornamental objects, exploring turbulence and mass as driving features (Charbel Chagoury). 6.4 Object-Oriented Bricolage; chunky structural building elements which are initially unrelated are assembled into one object (Salleh Ahmad). 6.5 Study into two coexisting material strategies: a timber tile system combines with a steel circulation system (Moksud Khan). 6.6 Assemblage of different objects inhabiting a subtracted void. The project explores the idea of weird subtraction: material is removed but the void left is not indexically related to the subtraction itself; instead a new discreet object is revealed. The project is an assemblage of a rough standard building elements and custom-made fluid elements. It is set in an artificial version of a so called Khrushcheviana - a soviet era living block (Mahsa Damigah).

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diploma Y4&5 unit 6

6.7 & 6.8 A small metal and wood workshop combined with dining hall make up the programme of what could be described as a social monument for Karosta (Moksud Khan).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 6.9 Moments of interaction within heterogeneity space become apparent through sectional conditions. One ornament, connects physically to one other mass, creating a passage way between the masses, intersecting through, connecting the piazza of the farmers market to the back of garages. The interplay between these masses perform a greater connectivity for the programs. The mass dependence on another object results in unpredictable impact between the masses. As results developing spikes which have their own program and sometimes folding in relevance to the geometry of masses complimenting the ornament. Advanced computational methodologies were used to develop differentiated interior conditions and impact zones between masses. Techniques such as agent based computing were used to assemble different objects together (Muhammad Al-Kufaishi).

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6.10 Building as permanent Bricolage - investigation into subtraction and assemblage. A concrete core structures a steel massing (Nareh Ghazarian).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 6.11 Three different objects activate the existing framework of the site without interrupting it. The floating objects contain a small museum, dining hall and recycling workshop (Margarita Genyte).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 6.12 Rendering showing the subtracted void, with the Russian orthodox church of Karosta on the background (Mahsa Damigah).

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6.13 Interior rendering showing the designed assemblage of building elements. The concrete circulation core ends in a metal roof. Rebar is used as railing (Nareh Ghazarian).â&#x20AC;&#x192; 6.14 Interior perspective of the library. Chunky wood furniture forms a landscape contrasting with the ornate ceiling (Charbel Chagoury).

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6.15 Frontal view of the proposal. The concrete massing is creates an ambiguity between subtraction and juxtaposition. Where mass is removed, timber elements are revealed, which subsequently sli p outside of the subtraction and spread over the mass. The two volumes are combined with a topological bridge made of wood. Although small in scale, the project displays a monumental character, reminiscent of soviet-era monuments (Moksud Khan).

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UNIT 7 Michele Roelofsma , Kristain Garrecht

Over the past few years we have been working in inner city conditions, discussing regeneration possibilities from “within” the urban fabric. The challenge to insert 21st century “thoughts” into the often precious urban fabric should be seen as a Craft in relation to the making of buildings and spaces. Napoli 2013, Istanbul 2012 and Fez 2011 led to rich architectural discussions. Working in these delicate historical sites requires a reassessment of one’s relationship to history and its value in modern times. The appropriateness of the architectural and urban response to location in a city cannot be disconnected from an economic and social understanding. This understanding gave the projects executed in the abovementioned cities real substance and a rich platform to start an architectural discussion. The ultimate desire to accommodate people and housing their needs remains the driving factor of our dream, guided by practicality and a sense of logic. We are interested in a contextual approach which seeks to question the social and political background of the city.

for contemplation of our references, a collage of our appreciation of the world around us? The contents of the Soane Museum or Aldo’s collection of artefacts from cloth to ceramic from all over the world demonstrate the enormous creative ability of humans and become the driving factor of architectural discussion. We can call it the touchstone, reminder and recharger for the rest of our lives: a Sonsbeek pavilion (Aldo Van Eyck) - a Cabanon (le Corbusier).

“Room for Reference “ “Room for reference” - the things we like and appreciate become important in the formulation of our world. The building, paintings, music philosophy that we like can slowly become unspoken criteria. The Duke Federico studiolo room, cabinet for contemplation, in the Ducal Palace reflects the Duke’s devotion to classical and humanistic studies. How would we construct a room

MADRID, Spain

“Form” and “Accommodating Architecture” “Form” and “Accommodating Architecture” the second introduction exercise The discussion of the tension between interior and exteriors given theme reoccurs in the Cebada competition project that the unit adopted as main architectural project. The design brief and the location of the site, Latina Madrid, answered to the Unit’s general preoccupation. The second part of this exercise is the confrontation to scale and Inhabitation. The brief also required an exploration in Technical and Environmental issues

Visiting Crits: Ana Ruta Faisca, Yassar Shah, David Grinaway, Charles Brown Cole, Toshiya Kawaga, Muzz Daddayboy, Alan Chandler, Peter Beardsell, Renee Tobe, Willem de Bruijn, Aidan McMahon diploma Y4&5 unit 7

Students: Emi Kono Tomohiro Himeno, Huang Zelin, Ahmed Elsirafi

Special thanks to: Renee Tobe, Willem de Bruijn Sponsors Stanton&Williams

needed community centre leads to many architectural and urban discussions of which “the politics of the plaza” and the reinterpretation of the meaning community centre is a starting point. Part of the brief was based around an ongoing competition. We used the Competition Mercado de La Cebada which questioned the relationship of a space for a neighbourhood in form of a community centre as a Platform for regenerating a major public square in the hard of Madrid. Every Student was asked to participate in this competition as part of the curriculum, with the aim of carrying the work of the students beyond the boundaries of UEL, and making it part of an ongoing international architectural discourse. Three Unit members received an Honourable mention for their competition entry. “Study of the submitted competition” Cebada Community Centre The Architectural ideas submitted by the Students formed the platform for a more in depth Architectural and Technical study. Following the competition, unit members refined their architectural proposals and developed spatial architectural qualities, together with the brief for a Community Centre. Competition entries were analysed and developed further with the aim to integrate technical and environmental studies. As a Unit agenda, we put a great emphasis on how to contextualize the proposition in relation to the existing neighbourhood of

the Latina quarters. As part of the design development the students developed their own architectural idea that was studied in the first term of the academic year in relation to the room of references. The unit aims is to develop a comprehensive thesis which seeks to address social, political, technical, environmental and spatial aspects.

“In contemplating the external world we choose the site of subsequent culture.” Adrian Stokes

VISIT www.acedip7.com

diploma Y4&5 unit 7

Threshold, Passage and Transitions (Doris Quek). The built social space can have blurred ambiguous contours, where inside and outside ground could merge and new flexible thresholds can occur. These thresholds spanning urban transition created a passage to accommodate movement and social activities through the porosity of dense medieval setting of Madrid. 7.1 Site Model 7.2 Ground Model 7.3 Cut 7.4 Interior Perspective 7.5 Existing Proposed 7.6 Existing Proposed

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Architectural idea is to re-establish the neglected space of the Mercado de la Cabada in order to consolidate La Latina with the continuing social growth of the city of Madrid (Esther Peyrovi). The proposal for the community centre uses the form and scale of the existing roof to control the spaces underneath it and in the same way the form of a new subsidiary roof controls the market space on the lower ground level, creating forms which house the market stalls and allow for closer social interaction. 7.7 Ground Floor Plan. 7.8 First Floor Plan. 7.9 Roof Plan. 7.10 Exterior to Interior. 7.11 Theatre Space. 7.12 Garden Space. 7.13 Concept model. 7.14 Section Proposal.

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Cebada Community Skin (Gergana Yotova). The aim of the project is to negotiate space and accommodate the needs of the locals in 9th century fabric by given interpretation of 21st century community centre.In this case the architectural idea is ‘Cebada Community Skin’. The skin is a long thin building, which embrace the whole site. By readdressing the skin, we readdress the problem and the architecture of the place. The skin became a transition between the urban fabric, the street and the domes of the market. It is a solution of what could happen on the street and the urban fabric. 7.15 Model. 7.16 ßExterior Perspective. 7.17 Interior Street. 7.18 Office. 7.19 View out. 7.20 Open space.

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The architectural idea of my proposal is to express movement through the design in order to provide a flexible and changing environment (Stefania Solemon). To achieve this physical phenomenon of dynamic change, the proposal alters its building composition and character through its flexible façade’s design, which works like an external skin that opens and closes up according to seasons, weather and activities. 7.20 Closed Façade / Open Façade 7.21 Spatial qualities 7.22 Interior.

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Creating Relations of Symbiosis (Miranta Deki). The proposed intervention makes a generous gesture to La Latina by providing a new layer of spaces and rooms developing in Plaza Cebada that belong to the city and take inspiration from the neighborhood. The program aims for a hybridized fluid space with unlimited possibilities to interact with and for the creation of social and spatial relationshi ps of symbiosis. 7.25 Exterior. 7.26 Community plaza. 7.27 North Elevation. 7.28 Exterior.

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Proposal for the Community Center and Mercado Cebada (Al Qomah abd. Walad) 7.29 Axo. 7.30 Exterior Perspective. 7.31 Exterior Perspective. 7.32 Model.

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UNIT 8

venice start-up

alex scott-whitby, michela pace

We all think we know Venice? The Italian city of canals, a thousand bridges and a hundred islands; made famous by Canelletto’s paintings of the grand canal, Ruskin’s writings about its stones, and Hemingway drinking in Harry’s Bar. A City? A tourist mecca and attraction definitely. Every year 25,000,000 people descend on it with 7,800,000 spending one night or more soaking up its unique atmosphere. Lovers kiss by moonlight on bridges, and drink spritz in its campos. But the average tourist spends less than 8 hours in the city and increasingly vast numbers now arrive by cruise ship. These hoards follow guides round with flags, and their prescribed route smothers the city in places leaving Venetians to retreat to the relative safety and quiet of the back streets. Venice is in peril for sure but has the tipping point been reached? The Venetians think it might have and in 2009 the residents held a mock funeral for their city. Currently the population is a third of its 1945 peak. It has become a bipolar city catering for the old and rich sitting uncomfortably with that of its poor and student populations. The middle class is almost non-existent and its graduates depart for the mainland leaving the city void of intelligencia and life. This year Unit 8 has continued its interest in the nature and narrative of complex urban situations and where better to immerse itself than in Venice? What we discovered surprised and excited us. We found that there is an illegal trade in its stones, that Venetian bridges are threatened by accessibility requirements, and

Venice via Paris, Lyon, Firminy, La Tourette, Geneva, Brig, Verona, and Vicenza

that even its master craftsman are under threat from the lack of skilled apprentices. We found that the Venice that we thought we all knew was dying. However, in its place were tentative new shoots of something altogether more interesting; a city of students and universities has given birth to a new technological hub. Could Venice become a silicon island? We found our site in a forgotten contaminated corner next to the cruise liners, students and private yachts, walled off and overgrown. In its past it had been the city’s gas-works; a hub of Venetian infrastructure. Once humming, it has lain silent for a generation behind its crumbling walls. Our question for the year was how to start it up again? And could our current technological revolution help Venice and the site re-emerge as a city that was more than just a tourist honey pot. This year we have worked collaboratively to create 3 bold visions for the site within which each student has negotiated for their proposal’s position within a group masterplan. Using their fellow unit members’ designs, the site’s industrial heritage, and Venice as their context, students’ theses range from live/work incubation spaces for graduates that would otherwise leave the city to a proposal to save Venice’s threatened bridges by building 89 new structures. We are presenting our research and proposals in Venice during the architecture biennale and will also be showcasing the work of the unit in a pavilion designed, constructed, and curated by the unit in Central London as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

Visiting Crits: Eddie Jump, Diana Cochrane, Rachel Marshall, Guy Shenton, Pierre Blanc, Michela Bortolozzi, Angie Pascoe, Roland Karthaus, Maria Aessandra Segantini, Carlo Carpai, Yanchee Lau, Martha Dallyn, Jago Boase, Philli p Breese, Roger Whiteman, Osman Marfo-Gyasi, Niamh O’Connor diploma Y4&5 unit 8

Students: Y5: Alek Ragovskis, Oscar Wokowu, Stephanie Awatefe, Anastasia Skalidou, Anthi Tilliri, Ruth McIntyre, Agata Madurowicz, Natalija Janovica, Charanpal Matharu, Jasneet Rattan Y4: Baptiste Laversanne, Eleni Gavril, Wilson Lam, Zoe Chavali, David Adjei, Justina Job, Kamil bin Khalid, Fawwaz Zullkefle, Kehinde Obisesan, Jason Boamah, Shaheer Vira, Sayed Mojtaba, Daniel Culqui, farihah Anwar, Johoshaphat Sarfo-Duah

Special thanks to: Maria Aessandra Segantini Sponsors: Ramboll

This year the unit has been developing UEL’s links with the International University of Architecture Venice, and working closely with UEL’s new visiting professor Maria Alesandra Segentini, we arrived in Venice by train after retracing the route of the Venice Simplon Orient Express stopping off en-route to admire and learn from the works of Le Corbusier, Aldo Rossi and Carlo Scarpa.

“Of all the cities of the world it is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the first book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first picturedealer’s and you will find three or four highcolored “ views “ of it. There is nothing more to be said about it. Every one has been there, and every one has brought back a collection of photographs.” Henry James, November 1882

diploma Y4&5 unit 8

8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 This year di ploma unit 8â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 4th year students have been working with the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Venetian authorities to create an intervention into the historic fabric of Venice. The final culmination of this is a pavilion occupying the Dodges Balcony of the ducale Palace in St Marks Square in Venice. The intervention has become the headline act for the Italian ministry of cultures activities during the 2014 Venice Biennale, and the students are the first architects/designers to have been invited to situate a piece in this prestigious place since Carlo Scarpa. The Ducale Palaces big sister is a full scale architectural project situated in Store Street in Central London for the London festival of Architecture. Both Pavilions will communicate with each other during both festivals and continue the historic conversation between Venice and London.â&#x20AC;&#x192;

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diploma Y4&5 unit 8

8.5 After visiting Venice for the first time Ruth McIntyre realised that Venice’s Bridges posed huge accessibility questions of one of the most visited cities in the world. Her project developed a bridge making factory to build 108 new accesable bridges for Venice over a 100 year timescale. 8.6 Wilson Lam found out that Venice had the highest energy prices in Italy. He proposed a new Combine Heat and Power Plant in his role as Civic Mayor for his groups masterplan. The project wraps an old disused building in a new corten steel skin.

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8.7 Baptiste Laversanne proposes to create 2 new civic towers that over time will grow and host new forms of start up enterprise above a redundant warehouse building. 8.8 Agata Madurowicz’s proposes a new film school for aspiring cinematographers as Start Up in Venice. The project looks to catalyse on Venice being the backdrop for a plethora of films and give new opportunities to Venetian’s to be part of this multi-billion dollar industry. Her project formed the basis for her group’s masterplan creating the first new park in Venice for over 200 years. 8.9 Oscar Wokou used Neave Browns Alexandrea Road as a precedent while designing his start up hub for young Venetians his sectional model shows the flexibility in accommodation that was to prove instrumental in his proposed scheme.

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8.10 Jasneet Rattan Proposed a new experimental music academy to complement the existing conservatoir. At its heart is a social space and stepped library that is to be occupied by the public and experimental musicians.â&#x20AC;&#x192;

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8.11 Alek Ragovskis thesis looked at how you built a long inhabited wall within the context of Venice. His project extends the over crowed prison over a canal to create a space where prisoners are rehabilitated in rather than just punished. 8.12 Natalija Janovica project for an architectural incubation hub based loosely on the work of the Redundant Architects Recreation Association (RARA) intervenes with two historic structures on the units site to create a new light filled social space for both architects and community alike. 8.13 High above the city lies Eleni Gavrilis’s proposal for a start up hub. The hub is accessed by thick concrete walls that hold a lightweight glass structure with far reaching views over the rooftop of the city.

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UNIT 9

Urban Archipelago

Harald Trapp, Robert Thum

If metropolises like London are more and more organized by interests and investments that override planning and regulations, why not try to work out the abstract methods for the production of space behind it and turn the isolation of developments into a tool for micro-planning? Unit 9 started from the understanding that island and archipelago organizations could be seen as generative models not only for shrinking, but also for growing cities like London. These self-referential systems are, both on the level of the city and of the architectural object, characterized by clear programmatic and/or morphological identities. Rather than looking for context, they promote alternative forms of connectivity through the precise demarcation of limits and borders. The area of research for such archipelago-structures is East London, focusing on undefined zones of the Lea Valley. The sites had to be identified as islands within this archipelago, that were either lacking programmatic or morphological identity or already represented a disconnected element in the urban fabric. Based on a thorough analysis of the specific borderconditions that defined each of those individual islands, an architectural intervention had to be developed to either intensify existing or introducing new programmatic and spatial qualities to the selected fragment. In the course of the design-process therefore a unique program had to be developed for each island, based on social, economic and ecological criteria. This individual

Berlin, Germany BERLIN, GERMANY

program had to be transformed into a three-dimensional organization of spaces on the urban island and, in a dialectical process, a corresponding morphology to be developed. Access and horizontal and vertical circulation had to be used to foster the confrontation, integration or hybridization of unrelated programmatic and formal elements. The architectural proposals are to be seen as â&#x20AC;&#x153;islands within islandsâ&#x20AC;? within the urban archipelago. They are characterized by autonomy, self-sufficiency and containment to allow for their independence within and of their urban island within the urban fabric. Whereas the organization of the interior boundaries therefore rather has to concentrate on permeability and connectivity, the outer perimeter is supposed to limit and control connections to the surrounding city. To intensify the development of the design-process, a diagrammatic composition of the program had to be implemented in spaces that were tested by the juxtaposition of sectional models of core-elements of the architectural object and site-models to approve of its implementation within the superordinate island. The resulting projects should be seen as complex architectural systems that consist of a series of spatial and programmatic operations: not buildings, but structures that are depending on their constant connection to forms of use.

Visiting Crits: William Firebrace, Maria Alessandra Segantini, Marcus Andren

diploma Y4&5 unit 9

Students: Y5: Ewelina Bogusz, Ilias Chatziioannidis, Sandra Gavelyte, Zuobin Goh, Baldeep Heer, Shinnosuke Hoshikawa, Giuditta Martello, Damian Picazo de Miguel, Jonas Prismontas, Orlaith Ryan, Matthew Joseph, Lai Leong, Nikolaos Martinis Y4: Shin Jae Bahk, James Batson, Vasco De Mello Breyner Pereira Raposo, Imaan Hanif, J n Yee Ker, Ashiff Mohd Nor Azam, Konstantinos Palantzidis, Ravjeet Virdee, Wan Zulfadli Wan Abdul Samed, Darren Robertson

â&#x20AC;&#x153;On one hand, the impetus behind the dissolution of boundaries, whether substantiated by desires for interconnectivity, indeterminacy or multiplicity, has seemingly reached an impasse. On the other hand, the proliferation of privatized, single-use programs such as gated communities, special economic zones or tax havens has reinvigorated a renewed interest in segregated organizations and their impact on cities.â&#x20AC;? Mark Lee, Two Deserted Islands, San Rocco #1 Winter 2011

diploma Y4&5 unit 9

Media Terminal East (Damian Picazo de Miguel). Proposing a new concept of educational space for the community of Lea Valley called “Media Terminal”. The Media Terminal will contain art space, library and media information in a train station. This proposal will provide to the East London community a new building and a different way of accessibility using the public transport and reducing the pollution. The public transport will make easier for the citizens of London to access to this proposal design from any part of the city and for different kind of citizens as families, old people, student and staff that are working in the building. 9.1 Elevation 9.2 Elevation from the plattform 9.3 second floor plan

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Architectural Plans Second Floor Plan (level +6.00) 16 Reading area / Terrace 17 Talking room 18 Lecture room 19 Silence room 20 Meeting room 21 Staff office 22 Information desk 23 Children´s reading area/library 24 Desk with internet connection 25 Audio/Visual space/libary 26 Seating area 27 Access to the platform 2 & car parking

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“The art of creating suspense is also the art of involving the audience, so that the viewer is actually a participant in the film”

Alfred Hitchcock diploma Y4&5 unit 9

An extension of the public path: Three Mills Film School (Baldeep Heer). The Three Mills Film School is located on Three Mills Island in the Lower Lea Valley of East London. The school provides filming facilities for students and local people who are interested in film. An extension of the public path continues through the school, offering glimpse of student activity which would usually be un-seen to the public eye. The continuous path enables the viewer to also experience film spatially through a series of carefully framed views which they experience on the path. 9.4 Model 9.5 Framed view along the Film School corridor, towards the canal 9.6 Extended Path plan: The extended path enables the viewer to walk continuously through the path

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The Munici pality of Necropolis, (Ryan Orlaith). The aim of this thesis is to reinstate the role of death and its rituals into daily life and the urban grain, giving it a position of prominence and permanence both socially and architecturally. This is a reaction to current attitudes of denial towards death and the relocation of burial sites to the outskirts of London. The proposal is a result of considered research of the social, political and architectural stances surrounding death in London. 9.7 Interior 9.8 In the towers 9.9 Impluvium 9.10 Arrival of mourners 9.11 View over London

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STUDY and PRACTICE: Towards an alternative form of Architecture Education (Shinnosuke Hoshikawa). The project is an alternative form of architecture school specializing in collaborations of STUDY and PRACTICE. The aim of the school is to generate and transfer knowledge between study and practice. 9.12 Flexible boundary between STUDY and PRACTICE units 9.13 Transgressional staircase 9.14 Overall diagram of the scheme 9.15 Elevation from the Lee

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UNIT 11

studio vandelvelt Tiny Cities Jamie-Scott Baxter, Colin O-Sulivan

As we move at great speed to an evermore urbanized future, our cities of the past plod towards a homogeneous fate. And what of the landscapes we are encouraged to leave behind, who will be their custodians as we all migrate to the city ideal? Diploma unit 11 continues to question the nature of settlement, urbanity and landscape in the 21st century, celebrating diversity, difference and variety as an antidote to a slow increase in entropy as our cities creep towards sameness and our landscapes depopulate. These themes were explored though a series of architectural proposals in the Val Misox, an alpine valley in southern Switzerland. It was within this region, defined by ancient geological rhythms we developed the idea of a linear, landscape-settlement composed of smaller, distinct architectural objects each possessing the embryo of civic space. Study trip The Unit traveled overland across northern France to Switzerland stopping to visit selected cities, buildings and landscapes along the way. Arriving in the Val Misox, we spent a week carrying out a comprehensive study of the region using a collection of mapping and recording techniques to uncover the particular characteristics of this landscape of settlements. Thesis project This trip and a regional study became the foundation of individual research and design projects. It is from the

Val Mesolcina, Switerland

unitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research over the last few years that a peculiar typology has emerged. Drawing on a hybrid of urban and rural precedents these well crafted and distinct architectural proposals hold a tension between domestic, income generating and shared civic space. Through their careful placement and orchestration these proposals are akin to infrastructure, possessing a gravity to generate and attract future settlement. Preliminary projects We began the year by studying the work of the English architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens; the American urban theorist, Jane Jacobs; and a contemporary philosopher, whose most recent work on Speculative Realism was published in August this year, Graham Harman. It is from Harmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection of myth-like essays on the metaphysics of objects that we borrow our title for the year; Tiny Cities.

Visiting Crits: Pierre d’Avoine, Alex Bank, Etienne Clement, Jane Clossick, Ros Diamond, Tony Fretton, Charlotte Harris, Paul Shepherd Special thanks to: Antoine Bouchayer-Mallet, Tony Fretton, Ueli Heiniger, Stuart Mills, Orlando Oliver, Tej Sagoo, The Lutyens Trust

diploma Y4&5 unit 11

Students: Y5: Douglas Ahern, Joseph Hawkins, Dalila Mohamed Khairi, Daniel Morgan, Juliana Nikolova, Calista Oppon, Riaz Patel, Anastasios Tolias, Vanisha Varsani, Floros Zorpas Y4: Armo Akanesyans, Ioannis Boulougras, Jacovos Costi, Flavio Da Costa, Christos Karageorgos, Zhi Yoong Law, Jalil Nayim, Darryl Nganjo, Norris Ngwamah, William O’Brien, Eman Osman, Nousheen Rehman

“All Swiss are first and foremost citizens of a commune. It is from this status that they automatically derive citizenship of a canton and of the country as a whole” The Swiss Federal department of affairs

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diploma Y4&5 unit 11

Unit Research. 11.1 Reading the city through its materiality. Eman Osman; study of Mesocco (previous page). 11.2 Regional research - Val Misox. In order to develop a ‘way of working’ as a unit, small groups of interest were organised and these developed a research document to closely examine the particularities of state, canton, valley and commune providing insight into the relatisonhi p between local, regional and national identities. Though this research it became apparent that the individual’s bond with the commune, the most local level, is as strong if not stronger than identifying with the confederation at a national level. 11.3 Areas of exploration included a careful examination of demographics of the valley. The daily, weekly, monthly and seasonally varying populations provided key insight into our places of study. Unlike the current norm in the UK, the populations of these ‘tiny cities’ is growing, albeit at a very slow rate. 11.4 Juliana Nikolova; study of local urban typologies and moments between private place and public space in

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Tension and Negotiation. As an alternative to developing a primary rigid masterplan with attendant constraints and desire for uniformity the unit continued to work in small groups with each student developing an urban building proposal. Through discussion and negotiation these individual buildings were tested through a series of workshops, model making and a sometimes difficult dialogue with other students. 11.6 Jalil Nayim; propsed urban landscape (studies) 11.7 Folly Farm by Edwin Lutyens (group study) 11.8 Goddards by Edwin Lutyens (group study) 11.9 Zhi Yoong Law; migrant knowledge exchange and residential building 11.10 Vanisha Varsani connetcs the riverlnadcape with the historic core and to her collegues projects. 11.11 Collaboration; urban space and an ideas about the city were developed from the tensions between individual proposals.

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Thesis Projects. 11.12 Joseph Hawkins: I am proposing a knowledge and skill exchange centre in Roveredo at the western end of the Val Misox. Providing spaces for local businesses to develop products whilst augmenting existing systems of vocational and academic education, the proposed scheme explores a method of revitalising the ‘urban fallow lands’. These alpine and pre- alpine landscapes, a particularly Swiss urban typology identified by Denier et al. (2006), are defined by steady emigration, a lack of economic diversity and a disconnection from nearby urban networks. Structured around the regeneration a disused train line that runs through the valley, the scheme aims to draw stronger economic and social links between the communes of Roveredo, San Vittore and Grono while recognising their specificity and autonomy and re-positioning them within existing local, regional and international urban networks. 11.13 Riaz Patel: La Sala d’atesa is a proposal for a building which will sit into the ground besides the station. Performing

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with two formats, the horizontal movement across the ground where new landscaping across the entire site leading you towards the monument, and the vertical allowing distant views into the landscape and the village. The proposal will test time, exploring the site as of current stage, if the housing development would happen, or if Grono would have major expansion where architects would regenerate the entire village with new buildings to help this. 11.14 Nousheen Rehman: Like many physically dense towns, the landscape and structures of Grono have had to negotiate over time, to accommodate its growth; new industry, transportation and other developments. These adaptations manifest themselves physically in the form of openings that are often cut out from what exists, giving back space to the town. Learning from a language of cut aways, alleys and courtyards, this project forms the secondary layer of buildings behind the main street. Negotiating with neighbouring proposals it creates an extension to the old town as well as introducing new paths

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investigate building on a hill. Using a local typology and Modern precedents my project of walled spaces negotiates the step hill side and creates an illusion of density appropriate for the discreet extension of this tiny city. diploma Y4&5 unit 11

towards key parts of the town, public space and courtyards. The building contains workshops to make and distribute local dairy produce as well as other facilities which speak of the town’s traditions and heritage. It seeks to reinvigorate the agricultural economy as well as offering resources to new residents. 11.15 Armo Akanesyans: My project, a series of small buildings that hold a school of architecture, aims to ‘bridge’ the void that will be left in the tiny city of Roveredo situated at the bottom of the valley as the plans for the removal of the motorway go ahead. The series of buildings is connected by new sequences of ‘back street’ and ‘yard’ spaces drawing on found, urban typologies. 11.16 The Illusion of Density: Mass on a Hill Landscape through a Walled Gardens. My project is an exploration of the movement of the village through the alleys that form ‘secret paths’ through the city. There is a clear structure of Mesocco’s public and private spaces, walls, boundaries, cluster space and pocket spaces. The elements of the project are designed to

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ENCOUNTERS #4

Open Jury 2014

OPEN JURY Our unique opportunity for visitors and fellow staff and students to see work in progress and share the diversity of architecture at UEL Christoph Hadrys

The Open Jury was again a unique opportunity to see work in progress and to share the diversity of architecture at UEL. The event was organised in such a way that each Unit or Group presented their ongoing work to an invited panel of guests in their own studio space. As such, it was both, a two day ‘mid-term exhibition’ with work in progress and a vital platform for discussion about academic work in architecture. Furthermore, invited guest lecturers, gave a series of lunchtime and evening lectures. On Thursday 31st January 2014, former students Paulina Huukari and Michelle Price, talked about their UEL Travel Bursary that last year took them to the North American city of Detroit. Furthermore, the tutors Roland Karthaus and Jamie ScottBaxter talked about their urban design workshops in India. In the evening, Chris Hampson, Director at Hampson Williams Architects and RIBA London councillor as well as Elly Ward, tutor at London Metropolitan University, talked about their recent projects.

On Friday 01st February 2014, Jan Liebe talked about his work at Witherford Watson Mann Architects, most notably the Astley Castle project that won the Sterling Prize in 2013. Furthermore, he showed his most recent design projects in Northern Spain. In the evening, UEL Visiting Professor Maria Segantini talked about the Italian architect Guiseppe Terragni. Furthermore, UEL Visiting Professor Tony Fretton talked about two projects of the Italian/ Brazilian architect Lina Bobardi, the Sao Paulo Art Museum and the SESC Pompéia Factory. Invited Guests Thursday 30.01.2014 Camilo Amaral, Chris Hampson, Roland Karthaus, Jan Liebe, Chris Pendrich, Maria Segantini, Maija Viksne, Elly Ward Friday 01.02.2014 Eva Aftab, Marcus Andren, Jago Boase Ramboll, Robin Cross, Sandra Denicke-Polcher, Yanchee Lau, Jan Liebe, Anton Sawicki, Maija Viksne, Ana Minton, Chris Williamson, Nick Willson Guest Lecturers Thursday 30.01.2014 Lunch Lecture – Detroit – Travel Bursary 2012-13 (Paulina Huukari and Michelle Price) India – Workshop (Roland Karthaus and Jamie Scott-Baxter)

Evening Lecture – Chris Hampson and Elly Ward Friday 31.01.2014 Lunch Lecture – Jan Liebe – Projects in Context Evening Lecture UEL Visiting Professor Maria Segantini about Guiseppe Terragni UEL Visiting Professor Tony Fretton about Lina Bo Bardi

ENCOUNTERS #4: OPEN JURY

Like every year, we had the Open Jury and Lectures in the AVA Building, at the end of January. The 2 day event welcomed invited guests, all students, members of staff and people who were interested in our architectural studies.

ENCOUNTERS #4: OPEN JURY Open Jury 2014 (above and page opposite)

Explanation of this image over aclear area

ENCOUNTERS #5

Recent students Paulina Huukari and Michelle Price talking about a research trip to Detroit part funded by UEL Going Global travel bursary.

LECTURE SERIES Our lecture series presents a wide range of architects and related professionals and is enjoyed by visitors, students and staff alike

05.12.2013 Florian Beigel and Philip Christou London Metropolitan University

27.02.2014 Finn Williams GLA

12.12.2013 Tony Fretton Tony Fretton Architects

06.03.2014 Barnaby Gunning Barnaby Gunning Architects

16.01.2014 Jonathan McDowell McDowell+Benedetti

13.03.2014 Gilles Retsin Kokkugia / SoftKill Design

23.01.2014 Nick Taylor Squint/Opera

20.03.2014 Maria Alessandra Segantini C+S Architects 27.03.2014 Mark Whitby Davies Maguire and Whitby

07.11.2013 LuĂsa AlpalhĂŁo Atelier Urban Nomads

30-31.04.201 Open Jury Two-day yearly event open to the public, during which students present their units to a panel of professionals and academics in the discipline. Accompanied by additional lectures from invited guests.

21.11.2013 Matthew Shaw ScanLAB Projects

03.02 2014 Lyndon Fothergill GLA

28.11.2013 Edward Williams Edward Williams Architects

20.02.2014 Nick Willson Nick Willson Architects

03.10.2013 Cities Debate - Streets Tim Rettler GLA Anna Minton Journalist Maria Segantini C+S Architects 10.10.2013 Catherine Pease vPPR 17.10.2013 Gavin Stamp Architecture Historian 24.10.2013 Stephen Hodder RIBA President

24.04.2014 Adam Khan Adam Khan Architects 01.05.2014 Robin Cross Article 25 19.06.2014 Mike Davies Richard Rogers Partnership

ENCOUNTERS #5: LECTURE SERIES

Claude Saint Arroman

ENCOUNTERS #5: LECTURE SERIES

MA&MSC MASTERS

Image: Moksud Kahn

computing&design

Object Oriented Eclecticism

Gilles Retsin

Set within an Object-Oriented framework, the MSc Computing and Design investigates computational design strategies for an architecture of increased heterogeneity . In contrast to holistic, systemic and parametric fields, the studio investigates messy, local object-oriented forms of bricolage and assemblage. Computationally, the focus is on developing generative, but object-focused design methodologies, looking mainly at ideas of agency and physics. Students will research methodologies to embed physical constraints into heterogeneous and essentially autonomous “agential objects” as a kind of typologies. The year is structured in a series of projects and experiments exploring computational design methodologies in a context of information density and heterogeneity. Exponentially increasing possibilities of new manufacturing technologies like 3D-Printing allow to register previously unseen amounts of heterogeneity and information in matter. Inspired by concepts from information science and object-oriented ontology (OOO), diverse concepts such as OOO, resolution, heterogeneity are connected to the idea of increased information-density. Computational design methodologies focus on concepts like assemblage and discreteness, rather than organism and continuity. These processes are set in a messy and discrete work flow, not as a single meta-computational process, but more as a plethora of methods and objects. Through establishing a rigorous connection between objectoriented ontology, computation, and information-

density, the course attempts to create a framework for understanding computational design and architecture in a manufacturing context with the potential for extreme resolution and information density. In recent years, architectural academia developed a renewed attention for the object instead of the field. Inspired by Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology – architects start to question ideas of of continuity, process, and nature which have been closely linked to the digital paradigm in the past two decades. OOO proposes that nothing has special status and everything exists equally, rejecting the claim that human experience rests at the centre of philosophy. Where computational research in architecture initially started out with a deep interest for curvature, continuity and gradual change, new research understands computation as fundamentally related to the concept of the discrete and distinct. This shift from the continuous field to the distinct object is profoundly linked with the nature of computation and information, which can in the end be broken down to the calculation of a single bit or unit. Heavy computational processes like Finite Element analysis, cellular automata, agent based systems and object-oriented programming languages are fundamentally based on discrete units rather then continuous wholes. Object-Oriented programming is a programming paradigm that translates concepts as objects or classes which have specific methods to interact – the agency or behavior of a class. Architectural interest in OOO has until now mainly privileged a

Visiting Crits: Manuel Jimenez-Garcia, Isaie Bloch

non-computational angle. The architectural impact of the relationship between object-oriented thinking, object-oriented programming and discreteness remains under-explored, but is key in order to harness the full potential of information-dense architecture enabled by new additive manufacturing technology. Through a series of initial workshops, students are asked to develop a computational design strategy, in which local object-object interaction can create differentiation and establish bigger objects as highentropy, contingent multi-object objects without a need for morphological coherence. Computed interactions between the agential objects should result in a radically heterogeneous architecture with previously unseen levels of information density. After an initial period of tooling-up where students familiarize themselves with Processing, Rhino/ Grasshopper, Zbrush and SoftImage, a concrete design project rooted both as a computational and theoretical response is developed. The theoretical response aims to understand the nature of the object within an assemblage and a framework of part-to-whole relationships. In contrast to previous years of MSc research, the focus is on the application. Students are expected to output an actual readable architectural proposal – an eclectic mega-object as an assemblage of multiple objects. Diploma students are introduced to the theoretical framework covering the history of computing and design and recent developments looking at the move from

object to field. Initial coding exercises in Java/Processing and Rhino/Grasshopper start in the 4th year and are intensified in the 5th year.

“Through a series workshops, students are asked to develop a computational design strategy, in which local object-object interaction can create differentiation and establish an emergent objects as a heterogeneous substance without a need for morphological coherence.”

MASTERS computng&design

Students: Y5: Charbel Chagoury, Malama Polykarpou, Dawit Teklu, Moksud Kahn, Ilias Chatziioannidis, Dikla Masuri, Yosuke Nakano, Chariklea Soupalika, Muhammad Kufaishi, Lai Leong, Marios Martinis, Nikos Martinis Y4: Evilina Rodrigues, mahsa Damigah, Zinnuraain Zainal Abidin, Nareh Ghazarian, Alba Daja, Armo Akanesyans, Matilda Marku, Douglas Cameron, Sarah Ekanda, Shaheer Vira, Margarita Genyte, Justina Job, Fili p Remplakowski, Morna Currie, Stefania Solomos, Stylianos Oikonomou, Chun Ping Yong, Ilias Siametis, Miranta Ntika, Anthony Hu, Fabian Betancour.

MASTERS computng&design

mcd.1 3D printed model (Chariklea Soupalika). Exploration of heterogeneity through textural qualities and multi-objects assemblage using a combination of ZBrush, Softimage and Processing. mcd.2 Dikla Masuri 3D: printed model. multi-object assemblage using SoftImage and processing. Five different objects combine into one emergent piece: strands, blocks, panels and particles. mcd.3 Securing Object Identity through Form (Dawit Teklu). Agency is used to unify a detonated spherical object. Agents inherit fragmented destinations of the exploded objects and tie them back to the objects previous nucleus, prior to detonation. mcd.4 Multi-object object exploring the contrast between linear, thread-like elements and solid blocks (Moksud Kahn). Recursive process between agents reading a base mesh and solid stones adapting and scaling between the agent trails. mcd.5 This model is an amalgamation of several attempts at creating an eclectic multi-object, that exhibits qualities of extreme heterogeneity and differentiation within its mereology (Osman Marfo-

Gyasi). Fine, frame-like elements collide and interact with volumetric pieces and larger scale tubes. A workflow between processing, grashopper and Zbrush was established.

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mcd.5 MASTERS computng&design

sustainability&design CRITICAL APPLICATION

Alan Chandler . Roland Karthaus . Anna Minton . Michela Pace . Alfonso Senatore DIMITRA KIRKOU

Through the UE programme, the challenge of sustainability is understood as a socially constituted problem, with the ecology of the urban condition arising from the inextricable processing of natural resources and human relations. Marxist theory provides critical analysis; Simmel, Harvey, Bermann and Sennett reveal iterative relationships between the built form of the city and its inhabitants. We understand sustainability as a radical notion that runs deeper than, and counter to depressingly ubiquitous ‘greenwash’. Anna Minton’s book ‘Ground Control’ takes centre stage as the contested democratics of public space provides a platform for change: the relationship between built environment and society having now reached a critical juncture. What would a sustainable city look like? If, as James Lovelock has suggested, democracy might have to be suspended to deal with climate change, would we ever want to live in one? Perhaps a more relevant question is what are we trying to sustain? City scale part one: city theory Since the end of the Modernist era, Architects and urban designers have fiercely debated the question ‘what is public space for?’ Anna Minton’s book ‘Ground Control’ asks the question ‘who is public space for?’, and posits the answer (everyone) as a stubbornly problematic requirement for social sustainability in the city. As a tourist, one can wander through a sequence of spaces in the city and be none the wiser as to the degrees

of public/private control that operate; as a homeless person, a skateboarder or a protestor, this hidden landscape becomes immediately apparent. The students task was to methodically design and propose a method for testing the degree of control of several urban spaces that are publicly accessible (though they may be privately or publicly owned). Designing a standardised method of testing the limits of these rules that could be applied to other spaces, reveals the rules that govern the chosen space, but not seek to change them (yet). City Scale part two: urban prototype Our school’s philosophy of engagement is expressed through the prototype: a 1:1 scale design proposal that ‘plugs into’ and supports, disrupts or overthrows urban processes. Instances of individual interest that hinge on the interaction between society and natural resources are explored and design proposals are made to instigate wider change through repetition. Environmental Architecture is the application of software to the hardware of the city: the architecture of the environment: Part one: LEED ND as prism for the city Working with the London Legacy Development Corporation, the area surrounding the Queen Elizabeth Park in London will be analysed using the USGBC’s

Visiting Crits: Manuel Jimenez-Garcia, Isaie Bloch.

MASTERS sustainability&design

“‘Everything is OK”

‘software’ LEED ND. The findings will contribute to an evidence base for the planning of new development surrounding the park, helping to integrate it with its surroundings; physically, programmatically and culturally. Specific components of LEED ND will be dismantled and reconstructed to become finer metrics for this particular place and fed back to the US Green Building Council as part of our ongoing joint collaborative research project in Sustainable Urban Design.

Danny Shine socialexperimentalist - youtube”

Part two: Conservation Retrofit in Camden Historic buildings in Camden are targeted for Code for Sustainable Homes standards. Ecotect and SAP are deployed to assess heating, lighting and power demands and potential for improvements. Architectural judgment at the level of detail is deployed to test and check the implications of such measures and allow the buildings to remain as pieces of architecture.

VISIT maasdurbanecology.wordpress.com maasdenvironmentalarchitecture.wordpress.com

MASTERS sustainability&design

msd.1-msd.3 Fun by Design. Urban Ecology prototype (Zhi Yoong Law) msd.4 (Sayed Mojtaba Shahrestani)

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mlsd.4 MASTERS sustainability&design

interpretation & theory Dr Renée Tobe

Interpretation and Theory examines architecture’s representational capacity. It is one of several parallel programmes discussing the theoretical and cultural background to design issues. It was taught this year through seminars, drawing exercises, visits to the Royal Academy and walks through the City of London. Students developed a critical voice to discuss factors influencing the development of critical judgement, what criticality is and how it influences discourse. Each Seminar examined a different aspect of detail, scale, ornamentation, reproduction, publicity, perspective, post-colonialism, pleasure, Situationists, Modernism and its different histories and discourses, certainty and indeterminacy. This course has a contemporary perspective on issues of critical thinking and interpreting and understanding architecture. It helps student to be more self-aware as designers and more articulate as architects. It does this by first examining the origins of Modernism. The focus is on building, and developing innovative means to create within a contemporary environment. There is an openness and sense of enquiry abut the work which its students have produced and it values work which is the development of a personal voice, both in writing and in design. Students are invited to express concepts visually through images as well as through text. This year Y4 students examined the imagined and critical histories of Modernism expressed through urban explorations

and Y5 students investigated multi-layers of cultural expression interwoven through the built form.

“Details are much more than subordinate elements; they can be regarded as the minimal units of signification in the architectural production of meanings. In the details are the possibilities of invention and innovation and it is through these that architects can give harmony to the most uncommon and difficult or disorderly. ” Marco Frascari, The Tell-the-Tale Detail

Special thanks to: Dr Andrew Higgott, Vanessa Vanden Berghe

MASTERS interpretation&theory

Visiting Crits: Anurag Verma, Dr Alex Veal, Dr Willem de Bruijn Dr Andrew Higgott

landscape

landscape architecture professional landscape architecture DAVID BUCK

Landscape Architecture We are living in an increasingly urbanised and dynamic world with over half the worldยนs population now living in cities. This creates an urgent need for design professionals to develop new approaches and skills that are on the one hand global, on the other able to translate into very specific and local conditions. We require new tools to understand and respond to current realities, that are conceptual, theoretical, virtual, practical, material and hands on. Our programmes are predicated upon understanding the best of current local and international landscape practice, while emphasizing the development of intuitive and analytical processes to test and develop new forms of landscape practice. It welcomes students as collaborators in a programme that seeks to develop new strands to contemporary landscape architecture that are innovative in approach and include the temporal possibilities at the core of landscape. The programmes are designed to develop intellectual and practical professional tools for landscape architects, and through project based studies search for new solutions to the increasing complexity of our urban landscapes, where the social, political and economic, as well as spatial pressures are most intense. Our staff and students, from all over the world, are encouraged to work nationally and internationally to explore a wide variety of interests, approaches and areas of research.

MA Professional Landscape Architecture There are three 60 credit modules: two design studio and theory modules followed by a 10,000 word written and drawn thesis. This is 12 month full time programme but can also be taken over 24 months part time. Graduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture There are two 60 credit modules: two design studio and theory modules. This is 9 month full time programme. Both of these programmes have full accreditation from the landscape institute and provide a pathway to future membership for students who complete the Instituteยนs requirements MA Landscape Architecture There are three 60 credit modules: two design studio and theory modules followed by a 10,000 word written and drawn thesis. This is 12 month fulltime programme but can also be taken over 24 months part time. Programme Focus We use live projects in the urban landscape of London so that students learn through the prism of site reality, and where the pressures on open space are most intense. Sites studies and places visited support this. The projects each student undertakes progress logically from concept through to construction, to provide the full range of skills required for professional life.

Each student develops their own Œthesis, working collaboratively with others that echoes life in professional practice. We celebrate the school’s 1:1 material studies and a craft-based making approach to design, working within the studios, workshops, and on site. We believe that theory and practice work form a virtuous circle, informing each other, and that our current investigations are strongest when underpinned through a critical understanding of the past. Example readings include William Gilpin’s An Essay on Prints, JB Jackson’s Concluding with Landscape, Stan Allen’s Mapping the Unmappable; Kevin Lynch’s The View from the Road, and the Landscape Consultants Appointment.

Special Thanks: Christoph Hadrys, Michele Roelefsma, Alex Blum

MASTERS landscape

Students: Y5: Nana Ayisi, Luke Keefe, Georgia-Maria Maragkudaki, Agis Tompros, Anastasia Skalidou, Anthi Tilliri, Baldeep Kaur Heer, Dimitra Panteli, Douglas Ahern, Eleni Kostoula, Griforios Galerakis, Gulizar Sevin, Khalid Egal, Konstantinos Damiris, Melanie Diedrick, Panagiota Maragkoudaki, Riaz Patel, Stephanie Awatefe, Toby Hatfield, Tomohito Himeno, Zelin Huang Y4: Abdul Qomah Abdul Walad, Ashiff Sharizad Mohd Nor Azam, Craig Bernstein, Eman Abdu Osman, Imaan Alia, Ioannis Boulougras, Jun Yee Ker, Konstantinos Palantzidis, Norris, Ngwamah, Nousheen Rehman, Ourania Roumpoula, Panayiota Savvas, Shazrin Aiman Suhaimi, Wan Zulfadli Wan Abdul Samad

“A landscape is not a natural feature of the environment but a synthetic space, a man-made system of spaces superimposed on the face of the land.” John Brickeroff Jackson Discovering the Vernacular Landscape

VISIT www.ma-la.blogspot.com

MASTERS landscape

mla.1 detail sketch development in context.â&#x20AC;&#x192; mla.2 representation emphasizing the temporal and material aspects of landscape.â&#x20AC;&#x192; mla.3 orthographic representation of landscape.

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mla.2

mla.3 MASTERS landscape

urban design Context City

Christoph Hadrys with david buck, roland karthaus

The MA Urban Design is the design intensive masters for alternative urbanisms at the University of East London. The course is growing out of the Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s longstanding preoccupation with urban and landscape intervention. It is set up to develop both intellectual and practical skills for urban designers and architects. Through interrelated design and theory projects, we search for alternative solutions to complex urban conditions. The course sets out to explore and develop new forms of urban practice in cities undergoing critical change, where conventional thinking struggles to respond to uncertainties and the necessity for imaginative thinking. It aims to prepare students to work with different geographical settings, urban agendas and economies through design projects. We engage directly with communities, sites and contexts, to be able to develop both practical and innovative urban designs, from the scale of regions and cities, all the way through to neighbourhoods and building scales. This approach is informed by local and international urban practice, but also emphasizes studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; individual interests, abilities and intuition, to explore and develop new forms of urbanism. Asking questions, like who is building cities and how to build cities, allows us to open our understanding about finer visible and invisible forces. We research diverse methodologies, like the use of tolerances and time-lines, to enable more dynamic and generative urban processes, allowing a much wider range of people to take part in building cities.

Berlin, Germany

The course provides a platform for the individual student to develop an expertise and an approach to sustainable urban design through the development of urban design strategies and research. As more and more emphasis is put on the importance of sustainable developments by governments and professional bodies, such knowledge and skills will be of increasing usefulness to the students in their professional lives. The programme prepares for work in the public as well as in the private sector. The masters course has two fully integrated parts: The design intensive studio and the theory component comprising Masters and Diploma students. The MA Urban Design welcomes students as fellow innovators in a programme that is both visionary and hands on in seeking to develop urban futures that are sustainable, distinctive and enjoyable.

Visiting Crits: Camilo Amaral, David Buck, Roland Karthaus, Maria Segantini, Salahuddin Abdul Hakeem Bin Abbas, Maija Viksne, Elly Ward MASTERS urban design

Students: EMA UD MASTERS: Emre Calis, Soma Kareem, Fatemeh Rostami, Tendeseco St.Francis, Nurnuha Zulfakar THEORY Y4: David Adjei, Chiara Amato, Maria Apostolopoulou, Jason Boamah, Yi Ching Chu, Vasco De Mello B. P. Raposo, Trang Giang, Amir Jafar, Nhu Thi Yen Le, McMahon Blaine, Darren Scott Robertson, Ravjeet Virdee Y5: Ewelina Bogusz, Ghazaleh Borouni, Denyer Michael, Martina Favero, Kristina Fescenko, Zuo Bin Goh, Tom Green, Shinnosuke Hoshikawa, Matthew Joseph, Kingsley Koranteng Ipek L’Aimable, Guiditta Martello, Julian McIntosh, Daniel Morgan, Juliana Nikolova, Damian Picazo de Miguel, Jonas Prismontas, Jasneet Rattan, Sara Saeed, Loucas Stephanides, Oscar Barnabas Wokowu

“The neatness of architecture is its seduction; it defines, excludes, limits separates from the ‘rest‘ - but it also consumes. It exploits and exhausts the potentials that can be generated finally only by urbanism, and that only the specific imagination of urbanism can invent and renew.” Rem Koolhaas, Whatever Happened to Urbanism, SMLXL

VISIT www.ma-ud.blogspot.com

MASTERS urban design

Urban Design Studio The design component aims to prepare students to work with different urban situations and agendas. In the beginning of each academic year, students engage in an induction project, to familiarise themselves with the teaching and learning environment of the course. During that time, we develop design tools and principles, by testing and refining them in various locations. For the main design project, individual students focus on one site of their choice, for the the academic year. This focus allows deeper explorations of a range of scales and urban design issues. Students formulate objectives, briefs, programmes and spatial aspirations of their design work. Throughout this process, we engage in workshops, presentations and tutorials. This year, our design projects focused on deprived neighbourhoods around the City of London. We explored strategic and architectural potentials within an ongoing process of urban transformations. The guiding theme of this year was Context City. This refers to both, the location next to the City of London and architectural interventions that critically engaged in social and spatial urban contexts. We explored ways in which sharing and living together can be part of a unique and synergetic urban life. We formulated strategies that respond to global and site conditions, understanding of scales, architectural sensibilities and local communities, to create social, spatial and time-based habitats and environments.

Urban Theory Component The theory component welcomes Masters students and also 4th and 5th year Diploma students. The course is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;hands onâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; and it works in close collaboration with the design component. A lot of urban issues are difficult to explore purely on a visual basis. This has to do with the abstract level of scale and complexity. For example, we can do models of buildings and they will partly tell us spatial and social relationships. In urban design that is different. We can do models of a city, but it is not that easy to understand the underlying forces, that are shaping cities. Concerning issues like migration or globalisation, physical models might tell us very little. We have to read, write and talk, to gain a more holistic understanding of urban issues. Students attend weekly lectures on distinct urban topics, followed by seminars. The fields of studies range from urban history, theory, interpretation and practice to science. Invited guests from different backgrounds enrich the course with diverse talks. We explore complexities of cities through discussions, writings, readings, lectures, drawings, student presentations, movies and excursions. The theory component is assessed through ongoing course work and an 4000 - 5000 word essay on an urban topic that the students select and research themselves. The studies in urban theory are set up to help articulate a critical context and vision for studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design and thesis work.

“mud.1 Urban Design Essay. ‘Spitalfields a Memory of Land’ by Shinnosuke Hoshikawa. Below studies from Princlet Street

MASTERS urban design

There is also this wet atmosphere filling the street space. It probably has to do with the light quality of London. Light in London is different from that of Barcelona. London’s unstable weather and its sun, who doesn’t rise high enough to soak its light into narrow streets, never entirely dries up the streets and leave wetness on building materials. Moss are growing on pavements, window sills, entablature and inbetween the cracks of stucco and bricks. They add a little bit of green to the street palette of low-saturated colours. This wetness tones down the colours of the streescape and enhances the calming effect.”

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ARCHITECTURE

Michele Roelofsma, Kristain Garrecht, Dr Renee Tobe

The M Arch programme aims to re-establish the creative development of the student, through looking at ways of harnessing practice techniques and experience to find poetic readings and make a more architectural response. The programme is unusual in its creative response to student’s previous experience in practice and is organised on the Studio system for design work with options in supporting subjects. Students are taught alongside postgraduate Diploma students for design and technology and alongside Masters Students for the theory components of their studies. Napoli 2013, Istanbul 2012 and Fez 2011 led to rich architectural discussions. Working in these delicate historical sites requires a reassessment of one’s relationship to history and its value in modern times. The appropriateness of the architectural and urban response to location in a city cannot be disconnected from an economic and social understanding. This understanding gave the projects executed in the above-mentioned cities real substance and a rich platform to start an architectural discussion. The ultimate desire to accommodate people and housing their needs remains the driving factor of our dream, guided by practicality and a sense of logic. We are interested in a contextual approach which seeks to question the social and political background of the city.

Madrid, Spain

“Room for Reference” “Room for reference” - the things we like and appreciate become important in the formulation of our world. The building, paintings, music philosophy that we like can slowly become unspoken criteria. The Duke Federico studiolo room, cabinet for contemplation, in the Ducal Palace reflects the Duke’s devotion to classical and humanistic studies. How would we construct a room for contemplation of our references, a collage of our appreciation of the world around us? The contents of the Soane Museum or Aldo’s collection of artefacts from cloth to ceramic from all over the world demonstrate the enormous creative ability of humans and become the driving factor of architectural discussion . We can call it the touchstone, reminder and recharger for the rest of our lives: a Sonsbeek pavilion (Aldo Van Eyck) - a Cabanon (le Corbusier). “Form” and “Accommodating Architecture” “Form” and “Accommodating Architecture” the second introduction exercise The discussion of the tension between interior and exteriors given theme reoccurs in the Cebada competition project that the unit adopted as main architectural project. The design brief and the location of the site, Latina Madrid, answered to the Unit’s general preoccupation. The second part of this exercise is the confrontation to scale and Inhabitation. The brief also required an exploration in Technical and Environmental issues

Special Thanks to: Dr. Willem de Bruijn

Visiting Crits: Ana Ruta Faisca, Yassar Shah, David Grinaway, Charles Brown Cole, Toshiya Kawaga, Muzz Daddayboy, Peter Beardsell, Dr. Renee Tobe, Dr. Willem de Bruijn

Sponsors: Stanton&Williams

“Competition Mercado Cebada” The project of the “Mercado de la Cebada” (Cebada Market) in the historical city is not only working with the rich urban fabric but also with the untameable “desires” of the locals claiming the city back and partly taking over the Plaza. How to negotiate space and accommodate the current needs in this 19th century urban fabric and simultaneously accommodating the needed community centre leads to many architectural and urban discussions of which “the politics of the plaza” and the reinterpretation of the meaning community centre is a starting point. Part of the brief was based around an ongoing competition. We used the Competition Mercado de La Cebada which questioned the relationship of a space for a neighbourhood in form of a community centre as a Platform for regenerating a major public square in the hard of Madrid. Every Student was asked to participate in this competition as part of the curriculum, with the aim of carrying the work of the students beyond the boundaries of UEL, and making it part of an ongoing international architectural discourse. Three Unit members received an Honourable mention for their competition entry.

members refined their architectural proposals and developed spatial architectural qualities, together with the brief for a Community Centre. Competition entries were analysed and developed further with the aim to integrate technical and environmental studies. As a Unit agenda, we put a great emphasis on how to contextualize the proposition in relation to the existing neighbourhood of the Latina quarters. As part of the design development the students developed their own architectural idea that was studied in the first term of the academic year in relation to the room of references. The unit aims is to develop a comprehensive thesis which seeks to address social, political, technical, environmental and spatial aspects.

“Study of the submitted competition” Cebada Community Centre The Architectural ideas submitted by the Students formed the platform for a more in depth Architectural and Technical study. Following the competition, unit

Thesis Project For Masters students, a thesis project (10,000-12,000 words) is undertaken in the summer term. It is the culmination of the year’s work and is in addition to the above-mentioned Diploma programme. The topic is chosen by the student, in consultation with his or her tutor, following group discussions on potential topics in the dissertation seminars. Students will be given support throughout the summer term to help them complete their project.

VISIT www.acedip7.com

MASTERS architecture

Students: Emi Kono, Tomohiro Himeno, Huang Zelin, Ahmed Elsirafi

TS PS

TECHNINCAL & PROFESSIONAL STUDIES Alan Chandler Programme Leader

ts ps techincal and professional studies Alan Chandler

Research based architecture “Education constrains variety, because (although it may open new vistas) it leads us to reduce the alternatives that we are prepared to entertain” (Stafford Beer ‘Designing Freedom’) ......So, why do a live project? Professional studies, sustainability, social science, cultural studies, technology and design are all facets of the same experience we call architecture. This conglomerate nature is recognised in the way the subject is organised as an architectural education in the UK, encompassed by the phrase “comprehensive design project”. This is our pedagogic Holy Grail, yet the means by which we guide future architects through the development of this holistic endeavour and recognise its achievement is ironically through numerous criteria and sub-clauses, each to be disaggregated and placed under scrutiny, mapped, re-mapped and appraised against subject area QA benchmarks often developed for other academic disciplines, and ratified accordingly. Thus synthesis and segregation are uneasy bedfellows, indicative of the inherent architectural schizophrenia of being art and science, creativity and management. Even leaving aside the less quantifiable issues of ‘art and creativity’, we are still confronted with a duality - science masters nature wheras management masters events. Even the most un-artistic architect must therefore attempt to ride at least two of these four horses simultaneously, so it is little surprise that risk avoidance is inherent in our profession, but also that avoidance of risk is futile.

As an architectural profession we have to concede that risk management also encompasses all aspects of our architectural education - ‘success’ delivery is behind this, indeed is behind all aspects of our modern lives. Our criteria for ‘approval’ is prescribed to counter the risk of later professional failure, and this risk attenuation is understood and distributed through the structures of teaching. However, true to our unreconciled profession, the educational strategy so often employed to attenute risk is to dream up subjective sites, programmes and atmospheres, then invent complicated assessment criteria to counterbalance it with objectivity. The risk of a “lack of success” (also known as ‘failure’), provides the impulse for personalised vision projects that provide too little detail to be proven wrong, and assessment mechanisms that provide criteria that when ticked off determine that everything is right. I would argue that neither part of this process actually engages with the interweaving of all aspects of our profession. RIBA Part 3 measures competence in risk avoidance, but I would suggest that the inevitability of risk requires that we are weaned onto such solids during our design education so we know what needs avoiding and why. This brings us to the question: How far is a risk managed education a preparation for managing risk? Understanding Stafford Beer’s concept of ‘variety’ reveals how risk is attenuated, and helps us determine where in the experience of architectural education risk needs to happen. Strategically the classic ‘studio

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taught’ self selection project invents both brief and risk through tutorial and discussion, and the proposition establishes a number of key themes that are self fulfilled. Stafford Beer would argue that this simplification - an aggregation of variety and risk to allow the studio tutorial model to operate within the School “kills that subtelty of information that requisite variety demands”*. So when students say “people”, we ought to be asking “who, exactly?”, when they say “site”, we might enquire who owns it, when they say ‘climate’ and refer to a single photograph from the study trip when it rained, we know that the requisite variety of experience needed to elaborate a meaningful architectural project is lacking. Not only is the subjective design project often thin on relevance, but such an approach leads to a reliance on metaphor to fill the meaning gap - “urban flows” and “interstitial spaces” are surrogate realities that stand in for the users and the place, and worse hampers the ability of the student or the tutor to judge how the interraction between them can be enhanced through the elaboration of the project. The question appropriate to defining risk in architectural education is ‘where to attenuate variety’? Clearly architecture is complex and requires management, but how is that management realised? Let us edited out excess variety at the commencement of the project: limiting the range of variables at the outset will therefore deliver a greater the chance of synthesis. This model is popular because a greater number of participants are able to achieve a product

which can be cross referenced back to the attenuated requirements. The process of development is simplified, the number of needs contained, the democratic potential harnessed. Quality Assurance requirements are satisfied. The student ‘passes’. If this is not acceptable, and variety is not attenuated at the start of the project, how then is complexity managed? If the process of developing the project works through a constant feedback of action and reaction, the ability of the project to contain complexity is enlarged, however the final shape of the ‘product’ may emerge only at completion - and if truly successful will never actually be complete as its participants would effectively continue the process themselves. The potential for ‘failure’ is enhanced, but only through this method of dynamic variety management could a project be said to achieve the integration desired by the profession, because it is what the profession does. Within the RIBA Part 2 I suggest that we should therefore actively familiarise the student with the risks that require avoiding in a controlled and positive manner. So we are to take the high road? What tools are therefore required to put into practice the ambition of teaching an integrated and democratic design process?

VISIT www.constructionweek2013.wordpress.org

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tsps.1 Cement Free-Hot Lime Crete for Haiti (with Article 25). Many fatalities in the 2010 Haiti earthquake were caused by poorly constructed concrete block buildings. Reconstruction is being hindered by a lack of locally available materials and cement imported for construction is expensive while long delivery times cause delays. Local available lime could be used as an alternative medium to cement. tsps.2 Fabric Formwork (with Heatherwick Studio) Workshop. To prototype at 1:1 composite fabric formed column and capita sections for use in the 1000 Trees project.

The structural limitation of the studio culture also maintains some strong positives, so strong in fact that I would suggest it needs support, rather than replacement. That support, for me is via the engagement with users and place that occurs with the delivery of a “live project”, where the users become participants and the students become professionals. Through engaging with the issues of risk and variety, Architecture at UEL has effectively removed the segregation of sustainability, professional studies and technology from design within Part 2, and uses the ‘live project’ as our Diploma student’s first educational experience within the School to exemplify this integrated attitude. The experience of professional engagement sets up an expectation that alters the relationship the student maintains with their subjective Unit work, the desire to invent becoming directed outwards towards the intended users of the project, rather than inward as personal fulfilment. At its best the Live Project is not simply a team of students making effectively a 1:1 model, but is the opportunity to engage with the requisite variety and risk that clients and users bring. Our Social agenda runs throughout our school, whether building directly for the community, or understanding and responding to users needs within portfolio design work. UEL produces directed, responsible and socially aware graduates that understand architecture as a beautiful, radical tool to make ‘place’. tsps.1

tsps.2 MASTERS architecture

ENCOUNTERS #6

CONSTRUCTION WEEK Handwork: Teaching and research in the community

Between September and October 90 level 4 students engaged in the annual Architecture ritual of ‘Construction Week’: originally only a week long project, this event has grown to become a pedagogic and research event with far reaching consequences for students and the community alike. Collaborative team building across the study Units bring students within the material culture of UEL Architecture at the start of their Diploma studies. Construction Week provides a platform for skills acquisition, social interaction, teamworking and staff diagnostics to gauge the abilities and commitment of the students themselves. Since 2004 Alan Chandler determined that the student teams would engage with real clients, real sites

and real budgets, giving the teams the freedom and constraint of client expectation and the need to be inventive within an economy of means. The ability that we have as Architects is not simply to provide grand visions, but to generate inventive and insightful work that makes something from nothing - it is this ability to bring space and events into being that is the hardest and most rewarding aspects of practice. Student work is not simply a rehearsal for office work - it has value in itself and can bridge both the ‘academic/ real life’ and the ‘research/teaching’ divide.

The technical and professional staff team wish to thank all individuals and groups who entrusted their sites and budgets with the students, and to thank the students for taking that responsibility admirably, delivering for their clients work full of enthusiasm and commitment.

ENCOUNTERS #6: CONSTRUCTION WEEK

Alan Chandler

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ENCOUNTERS #7

WORK ENVIRONMENT

ENCOUNTERS #7: WORK ENVIRONMENT

A taste of the work environment here, life in the studio, workshops and study trips

Thanks to: ARB / Architects Registration Board RIBA / Royal Institute of British Architects NLA / New London Architecture The Building Centre Camden Council LLDC / London Legacy Development Corporation William Paton Community Garden, London Borough of Newham Social Life ECOBUILD Sustainable design 2014 Lee Valley Regional Park Authority Leaside Wood Recycling Project Creekside Education Trust Article 25 Les Ateliers IUAV / University of Architecture of Venice, Italy University Finis Terrae of Santiago, Chile Kazan State University of Architecture and Engineering, Russia St Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Russia Guangzhou, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, China Akmei Metropolitan College of Athens, Greece Shanghai Giao Tong University, China Caâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Foscari / University of of Venice, Italy University of Hasselt, Belgium SRI / Sustainable Research Institute BBAA / Soprintendenza ai Beni Architettonici e Paesaggistici di Venezia e Laguna, Italy ARUP Heatherwick Studio Ramboll ATER Pordenone, IT muf / Architecture-Art PRL / Place Research Lab Tony Fretton architects C+S / Cappai Segantini Architects, IT WWM architects / Witherford Watson Mann architects InTeA srl, Venezia