RCA Y2-New Liberty-Research Book

N E W

L I B E R T Y

r e s e a r c h

Fanzhe Sun 2021-22 RCA Year 2-ADS 0

b o o k

“ N E W

L I B E R T Y ”

t h rou g h “Mu l t i s t u d i o” i n a n et work of t h e d e-s ch ool ed i n s t i t u te

abstract

The project is centered on the multi-identities of a constantly changed RCA Architecture studio, as the core of a de-schooled institute, to explore the “new liberty”.

It proposes the future studio would be dispersed everywhere outside of one fixed studio space, forming a ubiquitous studio network. It can be organized at home, in the office, on the site, in a different country, or in any place that suits the project’s needs and personal pursuits, which is an approach to reduce restrictions, for example physical distance, and decrease the tuition fees.

The studio, thus, plays a different role to connect the dispersed studio behaviors outside, being released from a working space but used for multiple functions of the exhibition, archive, events, and temporary gathering. In this way, the studio can be opened to the public, to share the school knowledge and involve more people than the registered students. It still keeps the teaching function but in a hybrid- digital and physical- way, so that students, tutors, or outside guests are not forced to be on-site, with fewer space needs.

To support the ubiquitous studio network and achive the multiple functions, the studio itself is designed with three systems – ceiling rail system, wall system, and floor system – to satisfy the different functions at different times. Its major changes are illustrated through renders as final products.

This design of the studio is sitting at a hybrid transition status, which is transferring to a de-schooling institute but keeping the physical studio space with radical roles. In the far future, the physical core studio would be disappeared, and studio behaviors would be totally dispersed and connected through the virtual online space.

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control society

Jacques Tati, Playtime, 1967, a generic post-war working space and Control Society >>

“break

the wall”

Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect, 1975, Les Halles >>

manifesto of new pedagogy

Fanzhe Sun, manifesto drawing for HTS dissertation >>

umwelt research

“unconstraint”

and environment setting

1 “Shell” out of the body as “fetter ” and “shield”.

Heidi Bucher, Body Shells, Venice Beach, 1972.

2 “Unconstraint” place and “the secret garden”.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, 1911.

3-right Design starts from space No. 8 “garden”, as a narrow space in the model, which is not fettered with exquisite design but is genial and littered with sundries, where I can do whatever. <<

a “shell”, like a “fetter ” to add a constraint and limit one to act as the mainstream standard, but also as a “shield” to make one show a suitable and decent exterior in a group.

I always cherish the time to take off this “shell”. This idea of “unconstraint” reminds me of my favorite novel - “the secret garden” during my childhood, where the garden is closed by the ivy walls and no one has been there for 10 years. It is an individual territory, without other people, without the restriction, as an ideal “paradise” and “shelter ” for a temporary casualness and unconstraint.

“Methodology 01” is to make a 70 X 70 cm model and a 2-min film for my umwelt.

Briefly, space No.1 is the façade of my momand-pop shop; No.2 is its back shop; No.3 is its show window; No.4 is the current working space- the RCA studio; No.5 is its model shelf in the studio; No.6 is the stage of the lecture theatre 1 of RCA; No.7 is tissue storage of the shop; No.8 is garden.

Its design starts from space No. 8 “garden”, as mentioned before, with specific metaphoric meaning for me to link with “Unconstraint”, based on my favorite novel and my childhood memory in the old house. This narrow space in the model is not fettered with exquisite design but is genial and littered with sundries, where I can do whatever. Then, it collaged spaces No.1 to 7 from my memory and everyday life, in different levels of psychological “restriction”.

My umwelt to research in term 01 is “Constraint and Unconstraint”.

The model also explored the concept of “environment setting”:

In the everyday life, one has to care for and change their wearing, manners, behaviors, and expressions to fit the requirements as well as satisfy others. It is equal to wearing

Properties and resources of an environment, as well as its atmosphere, are shaped by the groups of social roles and their actions in it. According to it, the environment can be

conceptualized as actual physical settings, and as cognitive representations of setting. Correspondingly, the setting in which ‘roles’ participate is also influenced by the environment.

The theories include Roger Barker ’s works on behavior settings and Jacquelynne Eccles’ analysis of person X environment interactions and person X environment fit. Ecological theories focus on the interaction of persons and environments with a particular interest in how the features of the environment require unique physical and psychological adaptions. It also considers the harmony or conflict in values, expectations, and opportunities for activities across the setting.

According to this theory, I retook the photos of the large model to re-order and re-think these spaces in parallel status, with different identities in counterpart: “open and closed” in façade and show window; “physical and digital” in model shelf and screen of the stage; different psychological feelings of “messy and tidy” in back shop and studio; and “passive natural growing and artificial making” in garden and storage. (photos has been put into the portfolio to introduce the concept of environment setting.)

This type of space status and identities through space settings, being influenced by actions and events, form the one of the principles of strategies to design for the site, which also explore the constantly changed in space through time, as a way to study scenography and substantialize psychology.

Photos in pairs represent the features of space used in final design > 1 physical and digital 2 close to open 3 nature and artificial 4&5 working spaces’ status changing >>

site research

M o ve to Ke n s i n ton G ore , 1959 >>

My site is my everyday working space- the RCA Kensington Campus, located beside the Royal Albert Hall and opposite Hyde Park. It was an open public-accessible space in 1962 , when it just moved in, but becomes much more closed in the current situation.

So it is a suitable site to observe the “constraint” status and explore the “unconstraint” as my umwelt as well as study its identities and environment setting. I used the photographs and renders (put in here and portfolio), as the “Methodology 02”, to observe and document its current restricted situation, as the first step to understand it and think of the design.

The space now is highly controlled by “zones”, “walls” and management regulations. This controllable approach generates a generic and disconnected studio landscape, which is totally different from what it looked like several years ago and in 1962, with a more energetic atmosphere and humanistic infrastructure. Unequal qualities and conditions are generated in each zone space by the walls. Some spaces are lifeless, and some have a much better nature view and light but are still “dull”. Items of Furniture are not allowed to move, and the layout is not allowed to be changed. Many spaces are not used most of the time.

Access control, through doors and identification systems, creates barriers and closure.

One needs to pass through 3 doors to enter the Studio in the eastern entrance, and the western entrance facing the street has been stopped using for a long time. Access to the middle collective space above the garden is

also forbidden. The current Gulbenkian hall linking with the studio is also rejective and dull.

Comparatively, its welcomed stance in 1962 was more energetic, as a gallery and lecture hall with open space and flexible circulation.

This free and creative Art & Design school returned to what Sim Van der Ryn called the “classroom box”, in the book entitled the Farallones Scrapbook, and published in 1971 by a group of radical architects and educators led by him. That is described as “being hierarchical; uniformly organized; subjecting each seat to the gaze of the instructor; and limiting the motion of each student” and, ‘We are dominated by furniture.’

Free self-expression is confined in certain areas, for example, one’s lockers, personal tables, certain storage spaces, in need of gentle ways without damage. It is time to think of how to take the energy and new relationships to it, to unfreeze it, to make it “unconstraint”.

rca kensington history

<< New Buildings for the Royal Collage of Art, 1959 1992, from RCA imagine archive >>

rca kensington history

studio gulbenkian hall history

Hall beside the studio and linking to studio, originally use both floor in same level with studio and floor below as the gallery and lecture space >>

studio in memory

St u d i o , 1 9 6 2 > >

G u l b e n k i a n H a ll, 1962 >>

current studio

St u d i o , re n d e r, 2 0 2 2 > >

G u l b e n k i a n H a l l , 2 0 2 2 >>

current studio

work i n g- te a c h i n g s pa c e , re n d e r s > >

2021-22 >>

c i rc u l ati o n - a rc h i ve s pa c e , re n d e r s > >

studio now

CLOSED REGULATIONS

WALL

WALL WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

WALL

RESTICTED TIME AND SPACE

WALL

studio now

<< the classroom box, Van der Ryn studio current photo collections, parallel render on portfollio and exam presentation >>

studio 2019 before lockdown

s t r at e g y r e s e a rc h

ubiquitous studio organized in situ home

ry lla ga

restaurance

mountain

farm offices

In 1971, Ivan Illich used his book De-schooling Society to criticize modern society’s institutional approach to education, which constrains learning to narrow situations in a limited space and a fairly short period of the lifespan. Writers like Leadbeater rediscovered Ivan Illich in 2000 and argued for a partially de-schooled society: ‘More learning should be done at home, in offices and kitchens, in the contexts where knowledge is deployed to solve problems and to add value to people’s lives”.

Similarly, Maslow, in his 1968 essay, described an ideal ‘ubiquitous college’,

Reconsider the role of the school building, and its relationships outside and inside.

To develop personal Umwelt “unconstraint” to site for a broader pedagogy of “ideal and liberty”, the theory of “deschooling” and ‘ubiquitous college’ were studied as the base of design proposal and strategy.

‘…not restricted to particular buildings at particular times’ where ‘the teachers would be any human beings who had something that they wanted to share with others’ These theories are all concerned with conviviality – on the ordering of education, work, and society as a whole in line with human needs, for more people, places, times, and possibilities.

To the architecture studio, the theories are specifically reflected on: no entry barrier; not limited in certain students; teaching everywhere to involve more people in situ; care of education budget; education support in margin time; beyond the discipline boundary. They aim to challenge current pedagogy that certain students stick to the fixed studio space and encourage a radical role of RCA architecture studio to become a deschooling institute, as an approach to make it “unconstraint”.

My proposal for it is “a phenomenon of the ubiquitous studio network”, which allows the studio to be dispersed, happen in a wider scope, organized in situ, and involve more people. I write it like this: Teach and present on the journey or on a “destination” - the “destination” could be the place that supports study or just any random place.Teach and present within multiple environments, along the river, before the gallery, in the ruins, or in a theatre or restaurant. One can park, at anytime and anywhere, in or out of the vehicle, to organize the studio in situ.Then, teaching and presentation can involve more people, organizing as a public event without entry restriction.

“Ubiquitous studios” make each one can freely choose where is the best working place for their own needs of project and expression, in a wider dispersed network. One does not need to be limited by frequent collective schedules, regulations, and authentication systems, as well as to be regularly tied in one building.

In this way, the original studio space is no longer long-term occupied in a form of controlled generic “office” space. Thus, the role of the original studio, and inside and outside relationships, should be reconsidered. It will not be limited as the esoteric commutation and debate area and fettered by institutionalization and professionalization of old guild-route. An “open plan” in the building is far from enough.

Its role and meaning should be fire-new, subverted, and reformed, as the major design objective of this project in the deschooling network.

u b i q u i to u s s t u d i o s t r at e g y

Te a c h a n d p r e s e n t o n t h e j o u r n e y o r o n a “d e s tination” - the “destination” could be the place that supports study or just any random place.

Te a c h a n d p r e s e n t w i t h i n m u l t i p l e e n v i r o n m e n t s , a l o n g t h e r i v e r, b e f o re t h e g a l l e r y, i n t h e r u i n s , or in a theatre or restaurant.

One can park, at anytime and anywhere, in or out of the vehicle, to organize the studio in situ.

Then, teaching and presentation can involve more people, organizing as a public event without entry restrictions.

-A phenomenon of the ubiquitous studio network-

u b i q u i to u s s t u d i o s t r at e g y

“More learning should be done at home, in offices and kitchens, in the contexts where knowledge is deployed to solve problems and to add va l u e t o p e o p l e ’s l i v e s ”.

L e a d b e a t e r, C . ( 2 0 0 0 ) ‘not restricted to particular buildings at particular times’ where ‘the teachers would be any human beings who had something that they wanted to share with others’ Abraham H. Maslow (1971)

u b i q u i to u s s t u d i o s t r at e g y

The studio could happen in the nature, the site where the project is located; O r h a p p e n i n t h e office, to cooperate your school project with practice, or as a rem o t e d pa r t- t i m e s t u d y while working in the office: Or organize the studio at home.

n a t u r e

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h o m e

a c l a s s i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p f o r e s o t e r i c d e b a t e a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n ?

Raphael, the School of Athens, 1509–1511

T h e c o n t r o l a n d r e g u l a t i o n i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n ?

Thomas Rowlandson, The Guildhall, from The Microcosm of London, 1808.

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Carl Spitzweg, English Tourists in the ‘Campagna’ c. 1835, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie.

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More ubiquitous studio example on portfolio and exam presentation

d i s ta n c e l e a r n i n g

Distance online learning opportunities supported by other collages and universities

No entry barrier not limited in certain students teaching everywhere to involve more people in situ care of education budget education support in margin time beyond the discipline boundary challenge current pedagogy that sticks to the fixed generic studio space

3 major purposes of ubiquitous studio: 1 study, working and teaching out of the studio according to needs, not fixed to studio space.

2 involve more people joining the learning and teaching process, not restricted by distance, not limited to registered “tutors” and “students”.

3 emphasis on the experienceable learning, adding value to people’s lives.

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f o r c o n v i v i a l i t y m o r e p e o p l e , p l a c e s ,

t i m e s

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p o s s i b i l i t i e s

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h y b r i d , d i g i ta l a n d p h ys i c a l

Fanzhe Sun, model photos from term 01 model and film making >>

closed and open up

Fanzhe Sun, model photos from term 01 model and film making >>

c h a n g e u s e a n d s tat u s

Fanzhe Sun, model photos from term 01 model and film making >>

studio identities research

studio identities precedent

To consider its possible new roles and their scenarios, I look at many non-school cases and research the famous design school- Bauhaus, where the studios become the test board and create their own identities by practicing students’ or staffs’ works.

Based on them, I imagined and rendered the scenarios of space identities according to a series of roles: As an archive, it can digitally store and display the student’s works on screen, which can be accessed and visited by others; but also can be used as a physical archive with a different atmosphere. As a tempera gathering space, it is flexibly filled by chairs and other infrastructure with personal identities, where people could freely bring any relationship into it, as a place with your kinship or pets. As a broadcast center, it can host lectures and events online. As a spiritual core to bond the

dispersed studio, it imagines people can gather and be projected in the spaces in a way of Holography. As the test board, students’ designs can be used as part of the space, be updated at regular intervals. As the experiment field or laboratory, it can be rented out to students for crazy attempts in its idle time.

More of this type of designing research about different studio identities were collected, including past students ‘designs of studios or schools, visual information about studios from the online collection. It forms the base to formulate the design result.

The theory of environment setting mentioned before and explored by the term 01 model largely inspired the strategy for a new studio space, not only in its imagination of different identities of studio roles but also in its constantly changes of status with the random actions and events.

possible studio roles

1 2

Digital displaying 1 Archive displaying 2 Temporary gatherings 3 broadcasting-lecture 4 spiritual core and bond 5 of a dispersed study network

The roles that original RCA studio spaces should contain, as the core of the ubiquitous studio network.

It has its own space of liberty in this way, but also supports the “ubiquitous studio” outside the school with digital facilities and physical service. <<

3 5 4

Bauhaus >>

design research

g e n e r a l s pa c e p r e c e d e n t

junya ishigami Kanagawa Institute of Technology workshop >>

<< Kanagawa Institute of Technology workshop, conlumn structure

Kanagawa Institute of Technology workshop- flexible furniture >>

Kanagawa Institute of Technology workshop-glass transparence >>

g e n e r a l s pa c e p r e c e d e n t

“When the children make a circle, they form a kind of architecture.”

Drawing from “Space as the Third Teacher: An alternative classroom typology promoting creative learning and play”, the 2015 RIBA Bronze Medal, by Boon Yik Chung.

Show several activities of “small groups” in a large open space as specific architecture, and these roles give meaning to the space.

1 Joos de Momper, Flemish Market and Washing Place, Flemish, the 1620s. Oil on canvas, 166 × 194 cm. Madrid, Museum of Prado.

2 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559. Oil on panel, 118 × 164 cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

3-top: Zhang Zeduan, Along the River During the Qingming Festival (part), Song dynasty (1085–1145).

Ink and color on silk, handscroll, 25.5 × 525 cm.

Beijing, Palace Museum.

objects design drawing precedent

objects design precedent

junya ishigami >>

think of new functions and identities of original architecture studio as a deschooling institute as the core of “ubiquitous studio” network

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ceiling rail, wall, floor,

3

systems

...

Fanzhe Sun, rendering >>

various flexible wall t ypes, furnitures

Fanzhe Sun, rendering >>

ceiling rail a n d f l e x i b l e pa n e l precedent

flexible glass door and wall precedent >>

flexible wall panel precedent >>

flexible ceiling and wall system in my design: flexible exhibition wall system base, joint, ceiling wall rail system and electricity rail systems >>

existing studio ceiling reserach

floor system

<< floor system precedents: floor height variety - floor system technology principle floor system detail section section in my design >>

d i g i ta l t e c h n o lo g y i n t e r v e n t i o n

<< LED screen as digital intervention to connect the core studio space with “ubiquitous studio”; - the wall system and screen wall in my design

LED screen technology, installation, unit >>

lighting

<< spot light

screen lighting >>

appendix

:

previous deisgn versions

process

Other rendering versions not include screenshot versions of process >>

Version 3,before 03 May Crit >>

Version 3, before 03 May Crit >>

Version 4,changed plan and added render for 03 May Crit >>

Version 1, before 26 April progressive review >>

Version 2, changed and added for 26 April progressive review >>

Year calendar as guidance for space change thinking >>

start to think space, plan flexibly and variety, after crit >>

teaching zone space flexibility decided >>

1 start thinking wall varieties - 2 exhibition wall on ground - 3 hanging wall system for flexibility and variety -4 exhibition space thinking, after crit >>