Proposed site plan and development

So, this is my first revision of my proposed site plan, with the wall to the North East edge of the site.


There is also a 1:500 model of this, which I'll upload some photos of soon.

I presented these to Steve, Ed and Rick on Tuesday as part of our usual usual morning session and the feedback was positive, here are some points which came out of those discussions to allow me to develop this further:

• The sections of the wall that curve around tree positions are exciting, can these incidental interventions be used elsewhere to express other parts of the wall?
• How close to the tress can I actually build? I've based my workings on the spread of the canopy, but Ed's Landscape Architect friend offered a definitive solution - If there is a Tree Protection Order then there is no chance of building a wall. For other trees I need to measure the diameter of the trunk 1.5m up from the ground and multiply that by 10 for a single trunk or by 12 for a multi-stem tree. Thanks for that very useful piece of information. I need to add this information to my site plan and amend accordingly.
• The individual sections of the wall (library, creche, etc.) and external spaces need to now be developed ahead of our Tech. Week (w/c 2nd March). The library and creche are, I feel, the most important elements of the proposal and what I will likely concentrate on for my Technology Report, therefore I need to quickly finalise the other areas to allow me to concentrate fully on these. I need to take a side-step and re-introduce the Pattern Language again.
• The construction/materials of the wall are crucial to the success of the building. Steve suggested something colourful may be the answer and I am to look at solutions for this. Tuesday's post on the Ordino Complex is one example, Ed suggested glazed bricks which could be a colourful and low maintenance solution. There is of course, the work of Gaudi to look at, particularly the Park Guell.
  
• The external spaces seem to split themselves up into 5 zones. In order from North to South they are: Car "Park", external Art/Performance space, new pedestrian entrance/transition zone, an as of yet undefined 'Something in the Middle' area and finally the garden allotments area. These need to be worked out to create 'Positive Outdoor Space'. I need to look at the 'kitchen gardens' of stately homes for an idea on how my garden area may work and also consider placing greenhouses throughout the site, possibly against the wall, to create a connection between the other areas and the, slightly disconnected, gardens and shop.
  
• Do I need a lift in the creche, despite it only being two storeys high?
• How does the school connect to the library, if it does at all? I think that maybe covered walkways directly from the school's existing staircases, at all levels, could be an exciting solution. I need to explore this further.
• The entrance in to the library and creche courtyard and the main entrance is very important, it is the propylaea of the project and as such needs to be an exciting space.
  
• There are school bus stops to Bricknell Avenue, can these be incorporated into the wall and made exciting places to wait?
• I had a colour co-ordinated image showing the use of existing schools, Steve thinks I should explore this further to incorporate my proposal. He suggest I look at the drawings of Portuguese architect Tomas Taveira.
• I need to have a proposal for the refurbishment of the existing school building, if only in diagrammatic form. The work of DRMM should give me some pointers. The refurbishment of the old school sports hall into a lecture hall, for example, is too extensive to undertake in this project but there need to be strategies in place.

So, lots to do ahead of our next meeting with Steve on Tuesday and also by the 2nd of March.

Ordino Complex / Arteks Arquitectura

Courtesy of www.archdaily.com



I think this is a really interesting project and following some discussions tody athere are some elements that are useful as a precedent for my project.

Here's the blurb:

Architect: ARTEKS Arquitectura + Esther Pascal architect
Location: Ordino, Andorra, Spain
Architects in charge: Gerard Veciana Membrado & Elisabet Faura Pavia
Collaborators: Gemma Roca, Dalila Pregal, Alvaro Briceño, Malte Ruckert, Ruper Maurus, Carlos Cobreros, Cecilia Vázquez
Artistic Collaborator: Victor Pérez Porro
Technical Architect: Alex Miralles
Structure: GETCE BEAL_ Xavier Beal Vilaginés
Utilities: Bernabé Rodriguez
Acoustics: Higini Arau
General Contractor: COIMA S.A
Utilities: Bernabé Rodriguez
Constructed Area: 9,714 sqm
Photographs: Pedro Pegenaute & Eugeni Pons

The puiet complex is a building composed by four different programmatical activities. Because of its dimension, complexity, trying to obtain a better-scaled relationship with the urban context of the town of Ordino, and adapting itself to the different existent typologies, the volume of the building has been fragmented following its different activities. Differentiating roofs, materials and façade depths.

What I find particularly interesting and relevant is this internal wall which is supposed to create the sensation of exterior space inside.




The materials of the wall element of my project need to be very carefully chosen, they need to express a new architectural language whilst harmonising with the school building and the surrounding houses. Using coloured panels could be an interesting solution to creating the wall, different coloured panels could be used to express seperate elements of the wall and buildings.

Well Being Wall?

Been a while since I've updated here so I'll try to condense two weeks into a fairly short paragraph.

As I began to look in more detail at what my Community 'Well-Being' Centre should be it came up in discussions that with 2 monolithic buildings on the site, was proposing a 3rd entirely appropriate? This also came up in developing the 'Pattern Language', which promotes the use of a 'Building Complex' rather than one large building. This lead to a few days of playing with ideas based on a building complex until eventually the following idea was hit upon
:



Could a building complex occupy the whole of the North East site boundary, creating a wall? Could the previously identified notions of 'Well Being' be inserted to create a 'Well Being Wall'?

Narrative

Narrative is an important tool in developing the design. By imagining how a person, or group, may use the building I can begin to make decisions on the design, be that through the location of a particular activity or space or on smaller details such as the placement of windows to capture views.

Below are three narratives produced as part of my booklet:

Case Study - Sharp Centre for Design, Toronto by Alsop Architects, 2004

I've previously looked at Peckham Library as a case study, Steve has suggested that I also look at this building by Alsops also. Although struggling to find something to back up what I recall Alsop saying about this building (during a lecture he gave which I attended a few years back) I recall that it is built on stilts, above the existing building, to preserve the views to the adjacent park. There may also be some issues regarding rights and space requirements which were unachievable at ground level.

Anyway, a very useful article from www.galinsky.com has this to say about the building:

The Sharp Centre for Design was built to accommodate an expansion of the Ontario College of Art & Design in downtown Toronto. The project was funded by the College, the Province of Ontario, and Rosalie and Isadore Sharp - the benefactors after whom the building is named. The building houses new art studios, lecture theaters, exhibit spaces, and faculty offices. It is the first building completed in North America by the English architect Will Alsop.

The center is a two-story, black and white rectangular volume set atop brightly colored, 26 meter tall columns, straddling existing buildings of the College. In addition to this most visible part of the building, an unbuilt space between existing buildings was filled, creating space for new functions while providing the elevator and stair core that services the upper levels. Located on a quiet side street between two main commercial streets, its immediate neighbors include midrise housing, a food court, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (temporary location), and Grange Park, a treed community park immediately south of the Art Gallery of Ontario. From Grange Park the black and white volume creates a delightful edge as it hovers on its stilts.

With the addition of the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Will Alsop cleverly addresses the complicated notion of expansion in a dense urban setting with his soaring black and white box. The building stitches a connection between existing buildings while providing new space in the rectangular volume that proudly soars above. Organizing the rectangular block above the site allows the street level to become what promises to be a new and valuable civic space that can become an extension of the activities of the college. Still the building may be criticized for being somewhat exclusive, failing to offer a serious connection to the street. However regardless of this consideration one cannot help but believe that there is room in Toronto for this type of assertive expression.

Provocative, unconventional, hopeful, whimsical, and perhaps irreverent, the building is remarkable in the context of Toronto. As a winner of a 2004 RIBA Worldwide Award, the building was described as "courageous, bold and just a little insane." Alsop's project seems perfectly fitting for a college of art and design in a city criticized for competent, but ordinary, architecture. Interestingly, what we see is far less wild than the scheme originally envisaged by Alsop - early representations show the rectangular volume dressed in a dizzying array of day-glow colors. In this light, the simple pre-finished metal cladding seems somehow consequential, and perhaps a hint to difficulties involved in achieving such an unconventional building. Above all, the building may be considered optimistic, and hopefully sets a course for the students who will occupy it.

I also found these images of the models, which I think are really interesting. They are not immaculately made but have a real quality about them which explains the thinking behind the design as well as giving an impression of the impact it may have.


Click here to see a 3D model of the building.

Reviews

On Tuesday myself, Ed and Rick had an interim review with Bob following our usual meeting with Steve in the morning. There were some interesting points to come out of these discussions and Steve's feedback on my document so far:

• My booklet contained information and the initial development of 'A Pattern Language', as developed by Christopher Alexander, but discussions with Bob brought up some potential problems. This methodology has been around for a couple of decades (in fact Bob knows it very well as he studied it as a student!) and has never really taken off as a major method of design. I have to question whether it's entirely relevant, although my thoughts are that it is extremely interesting and is something I'd like to give a modern interpretation. There is a risk that it becomes a formulaic pattern for the components of the design; it would be down to my own creative intuition to prevent that.

• 'Well Being' has many strands of meaning, therefore it is necessary to examine what it might mean in relation to spirituality, noise and light for example.

• Bernard Tschumi, in Architecture & Disjunction, says about "... the actions and events that take place within the social and political realm of architecture." and that in "...contemporary urban society, any cause-and-effect relationship between form, use and function, and socio-economic structure has become both impossible and obsolete." He argues that architecture has become a means to stabilise and institutionalise society, meaning architecture has become "the artful building of spaces" rather than responding to events or program. I'm still getting to grips with his writings but I think he's suggesting that architecture should be about the program of events and activities. This may not necessarily mean that one building is sufficient for many activities and that it requires each to be considered and developed in the most relevant manner. Here's the trusted Wikipedia comments on Tschumi:

  [His] approach unfolded along two lines in his architectural practice: first, by exposing the conventionally defined connections between architectural sequences and the spaces, programs, and movement which produce and reiterate these sequences; and second, by inventing new associations between space and the events that 'take place' within it through processes of defamiliarization, de-structuring, superimposition, and cross programming.

  If anyone has read Tschumi or has any thoughts, I'd be delighted if you would leave some comments.

• Does the school site need something tall, a beacon? Could this be a clock tower or similar?

• Is it really relevant to develop the grassed area and hard sports surface as I am currently intending to? Would it make more sense to develop on the school forecourt, maybe over the existing area even? I should examine dual use of the existing school building. Are there facilities there that are capable of taking some of the activities of my proposal? The land to the South-East of the site may be better utilised for growing food, etc.

So, a lot to do then. We've set ourselves a target of having the feasibility stage finished by the 10th of February, so time to crack on once I've tidied up a few bits in the booklet.

Project Update

I'm currently working up a (roughly) 5000 word document investigating the context and underlining thought processes of my proposal. This will include an understanding of the social environment in which the site exists and theory which supports the decision to create a community building in this location as well as case studies and initial design development.

I've been supporting my writing through numerous books and writings, including Christopher Day's Places of the Soul, C. Richard Hatch's The Scope of Social Architecture and Jack Rostron's Sick Building Syndrome.

I'm sure I'll update the blog as the document and project evolve but there's currently too much to post without boring people to tears, so I'll offer the following which defines what 'Community Well Being' might be and at the bottom a quote which I find interesting from C. Richard Hatch's book.

well-being: n. the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy

community: n. (pl. communities) 1. a group of people living together in one place 2. (the community) society 3. a group of people with a common religion, race of profession: the scientific community 4. the holding of attitudes or interests in common 5. a group of animals or plants living or growing in the same place. Origin: Old French comunete

community care: n. long-term care for mentally-ill, elderly and disabled people within the community rather than in hospitals or institutions.

community centre: n. a place providing educational or recretational activities for a neighbourhood.

community service: n. socially useful work that an offender is required to do instead of going to prison.

The dictionary definition of ‘Well Being’ as a state of comfort, health and happiness suitably sums up the ambitions of this project, albeit expanded so as to integrate a whole community rather than being individually focused. ‘Well Being’ can refer to the activities taking place in the building as well as the building itself, well designed, considerate architecture is essential in this process.

“Society has been fragmented into “interests” that are the unavoidable effect of a competitive market in labor. Community is almost unknown; society is reduced to an aggregation of fearful and mutually suspicious individuals.”

Project Narrative

Super Slow Motion

Somebody at work showed me these the other day and I thought they were really interesting; they're videos captured in super slow motion. At undergraduate level the studio I was in was very interested in using film to capture a motion, activity, etc which could be used to generate an architectural language. There is certainly the potential to do this with super slow motion.










This is an advert for Scweppes:

Pushing on...

Well, the completion of the Briggate project last week means that my time is now solely focused on producing my Final Design Project. There hasn't been much in the way of progress other than contemplating earlier thoughts about what is meant by "Community Well Being"; I also made a visit to Kelvin Hall School last week to investigate the site and take photos but also I spent the morning with a couple of classes and was given the opportunity to dicuss some ideas with the pupils and teachers as well as offer them some insight into what it is architect's do. I spent the second school period od the day in a Year 8 Geography class were I was given free reign by the teacher to discuss my ideas, then I spent the third period with an art class; both classes were wonderfully receptive and encouraging and gave me some excellent input.

Just to jot down some thoughts that came out of my session there:

• The school no longer has a library, pupils would like to see one reinstated.
• Pupils are very aware of the current trend for healthy eating, organic foods, etc. and were very enthusiastic about being given the opportunity to learn how to cook, shop and grow food as well as being provided with more options for their school lunches; maybe even preparing their own? Food could be the main aspect of this project?
• A new sports centre on site is beginning to engage the community with the school as well as providing excellent facilities for the staff and pupils to use.
• Safety and security are big issues with the children; particularly with regards to older children stealing their ball, smoking behind buildings and other every day problems of secondary school. However, most see it as a learning curve and accept that segregation is not the answer as was suggested by one in the class.
• More children would like to cycle to school but the bike stores are inadequate (approximately 10 racks for 1000 pupils) and they feel unsafe and unmonitored due to their current location.
• Most pupils live locally (within 15 minutes walk) and walk to school, only a handful travel by bus or car.
• The environment and sustainability are subjects that the school now teaches and the Year 9 classes are asked to design a building as part of their studies. This is done as a purely geographical/environmental study and whilst very encouraging I put the question to the pupils and teachers as to whether they believe architecture can be seen as a form of art and if there is a way to combine the subjects? (More on this later)
  
• More than half take part in extra-curricular activities such as football teams or music lessons, mostly after school with few taking part away from school. Of those not taking part in any activities, some suggested that local opportunities are limited or unsuited to their needs.
  

The day was just a brief and initial study but certainly gave me a different perspective and it seems so long ago that I used to walk those halls! The work that is done in Year 9 with regards to buildings interests me greatly and I took this discussion further with the Geography and Art teachers; we discussed the opportunity of me going back to the school int he new year to take a small class on architecture, which would link to Art and Geogrpahy classes. Exciting, but scary! There may also be other opportunities that arise from this which could inform my project, such as the making of a documentary, with a friend of mine, and the possible involvement in a whole school project with sustainability at the heart of it. I look forward to these developments!

One final point, this is an interesting interview with David Chipperfield with regards to current architectural trends; very poignant for us I think!