handouts

intensive design workshop week two

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 22:54:45 +0000

Monday - Concept formulation -to be based on your design thesis

Inside-Out -Morning: How are the programmatic components organised? Make volumetric model of the components and organise them in 3D space. How is the circulation connecting the different elements. Identify the organisational principles based on the appropriation of project one.

Outside-In -Afternoon: Explore the external volumetric envelope by producing a minimum of 7 volumetric studies. Use foam or other ‘quick’ model-making materials. The scale of the model is to be 1:500. Examine the design by placing it on the site model in its context and negotiate your design with your neighbour.

Tuesday - Produce one drawing surmising the design progress for each of the Monday’s explorations. Use photographs of the models and manipulate them further by techniques of collage and superimposition of line drawings ! Define criteria that allow you to assess their success. Show the weak and strong point.

Wednesday - drawing development: take only one option forward. combine the inside diagram with the outside envelope. Use an organisational principle -such as ‘line’, spiral, twist, weave, landscape from the first project in order to develop an architectural language for your project. Move away from the simple cubic geometry of the first programmatic volumetric studies to an architectural language closer to your previous project.

Thursday - Model 1:200 - Develop the design by constructing a 1:200 model using cardboard or other appropriate model making materials.
Model the key programmatic spaces first as separate elements before combining them. Model the external envelope as an additional element indicating the main perforations - windows, doors, translucent screens..

Modelling the main structural elements. Identify a different structural approach for each of the programmatic elements. Model with in distinctive ways.

Friday - Structural/Environmental Drawing: 2D section indicating the overall structural approach with its individual appropriations for the key programmatic elements. The 2D section should also indicate the different environments and environmental conditions for each of the key spaces by the use of material collages. In addition a 3D structural diagram should demonstrate the overall structural concept and start to identify the breakdown into off-site fabricated (prefab) components.

intensive design workshop week one

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 11:54:23 +0000

1 Feb 2010 Week 17

Monday - Library studies, research relevant buildings and extract detailed programmatic information, including all programmatic components, sizes and quantities. Photocopy all relevant information and subsequently excerpt this information. Pick one definite programme (sample building) and write a paragraph setting out the reason behind the choice, relating it to you project thesis.

The brief will need to be appropriated for the North Greenwich site which could mean the scaling of the entire program, deletion or addition of programmatic elements.

Thursday - Hand-in of Progress book, ‘Four Weekly Site Visits’ Sketchbook, Powerpoint presentation of the last Project (as presented on Tuesday 19th January 2010)

Brief analysis - Brief development. Write a structured brief; quantify the areas in sqm in a 2D diagram. Produce 3D diagram that takes into considerations the main spaces’ sectional requirements. Analyse the brief in terms of relations between the main programmatic components; Analyse the relations to the outside -where are relations to the outside(public?) useful- are they of visual, physical, or other nature?

Shift your emphasis to the user. When and how frequently are the different programmatic elements used? Identify the main users and their needs. What are the components different environmental and structural requirements?

You are advised to visit a building with a similar programme.

Produce an indicative 3D drawing cross referencing all programmatic information.

sample diagrams

task 5 -from urban field to field cell

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:25:19 +0000

Urban fabric is defined by solids and voids arranged to form continues patterns of enclosed volumes and voids. Within the solids the elementary building block of the heterogeneous urban field, the cell, can be found.

Unlike a free standing building placed on its own as an object in a landscape there is an mutual interdependency between the cell, the cluster of cells that form the solids and the urban field as a whole.

From the cell the solids of the urban field develop in accordance with the voids of circulation and open space. In 1927 the german architect and urban planner Ludwig Hilberseimer published his Grossstadtarchitektur. In it he captures this reciprocal relationship:

“The architecture of the large city depends essentially on the solution of two factors: the elementary cell and the urban organism as a whole. The single room as constituent element of inhabitation will determine the aspect of habitation, and since the habitation in turn form blocks, the room will become a factor of urban configuration, which is architecture’s true goal. Reciprocally, the planimetric structure of the city will have substantial influence on the design of habitation and the room.”

To conclude the first terms work you are asked to speculate on the nature of the cell. Again this cell is not programmatically determined other than that it should be compliant/constitutive of the media city.

Your task is to deduct from your strategic urban diagrams -as well as from the series of concrete manifestations of urban form- the architecture of the cell. Keep in mind the reciprocal nature of the relationship between cell and urban field. Describe the geometry and speculate on its prefabricated form of construction.

Two outcomes are expected:
Geometry and Construction: Take a representative area of your urban field and zoom in. Build a 1:100 model of the cell within an urban solid. The model has to be true to the cells (prefabricated) construction.
Experiential: position a view from within the cell over the urban solid out to the rest of the urban field in order to capture the experience of being in the urban field. See Photograph above by Peter Marlow ( he is currently showing photograph from the Isle of Dogs - close to the North Greenwich Site - for more info goto)

Timetable:

Monday, 7 December 2009
optional - tutorials from 11.00
Thursday, 10 December 2009
seminar from 10.30 - 13.00 / optional - tutorials from 14.00
Monday, 14 December 2009
Final Jury: Project One from 11.00 Please pin-up the night before or by 10.00 on Monday morning
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Professional studies Meeting with Roland Karthaus In Groups (timetable to be confirmed)
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Presentation & Get-together with Unit 11
Friday, 18 December 2009
Prefab workshop from 11.00 to 16.00 & Christmas drink & sketchbook hand-in

task 04 - Heterogeneous Urban Fields:

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:17:10 +0000

Heterogeneous Urban Fields:

For Monday, 9 November 2009:
After you have now develop your individual patterns into 3D model and explore its architectural potential it is time to graft the models on site.

Each group is to combine the individual studies into a singular urban conglomerate. Work predominately in model scale 1:500 on the site (a base plate for each group will make work easier).

Negotiate a site layout as a group. At this stage brainstorming ideas should be still at the forefront. Develop the urban form as closely as you can within the logic of your geometry formation.
Attempt to maintain and strengthen the idea of the urban field. See text- the text will be issue on Thursday, 5 November 2009.
Bring back the your discussions of the ideal contemporary city.

Project timetable: Group presentations on Thursday, 19 November 2009
Text: From Object to Field by S Allen - Architectural Design, 1997

task 03 - Prefab Case Study

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 13:41:06 +0000

In this analytical project we will investigate prefabrication methods by deconstructing exemplary projects using drawings as an analytical tool. This project requires ‘library research’. Catherine Johnson, the Architecture Subject Area Librarian, has given a brief introduction to Library research. Please make use of all available channels! Do not rely only on google.

Pecha Cucha presentation + draft submission: Monday, 16 November 2009; 10.00 a.m.; final document submission Monday, 23 November 2009 10.00 a.m.

Each student will analyse a prefab system or a prefab project from a short list (see below) and produce a set of original (no photocopies or scans permitted) diagrams and drawings.

On 4 (two double spreads) standardised pages adhere strictly to the following format!:

page 1&2: Introduction: descriptive text; Represent the project as an axonometric 3D drawing.
Indicate the main components, component size and combinatory system. Pay also attention to the ground condition! How does the project meet the ground? Does it require in-situ foundations?
Show in an iconic way a principal connection of two or more major components; The descriptive text must be authored by you - strictly no google cut-and-paste which will count as plagiarism. Annotate and stick to the reduced-line-drawing-style.

page 3&4: comprehensive component catalogue: show all major components of the prefab system to scale. Attempt to order them in a appropriate manner for example size, programmatic ore structural categories. This section should also address materiality and composition of a exemplary components.

page 5&6: Production & Transport & Construction: show diagrammatically how the components are transported to site. A timed sequence should demonstrate main stages of the construction. Also show indicatively the machinery necessary for transportation and erection of the building.

page 7&8: Geometric reduction & mat-ability: Reduce the systems to a strictly abstract geometric pattern. Explore through this abstraction the possibility to extent the project to the scale of an entire city neighborhood.

Additional information will be required from you for the general part of the case study such as: location; cost; proliferation; target market....

For the Pecha Cucha presentation + draft submission: Monday, 16 November 2009 2008 you are asked to present your work in a 20x20 timed PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. Use as much additional information (not permitted in the document submission) as possible in order to give your colleagues a good overview of the project. Use high resolution and cleaned-up image only for the presentation. Stick to white background and black type.

The submission of sheets: submit your work on Monday, 23 November 2009 10.00 a.m. in the following format: (format of the ‘FOUR WEEKLY SITE VISITS’ - Sketchbook 21.59cm x 27.94cm - of which 5mm all around reserved as bleed edge. Submit as a C3 Indesign documents. On the day we will assemble booklets and send the to the printer the same day.

For the creation of these pages you should use the DTP software Adobe InDesign CS3. Do not embed images or drawings only link them to the document. Keep images and drawings in a separate folder – usually called ‘Links’.

There will be tutorial on inDesign on if you do not know how to use it - time and place to be arranged.

A few more organisational points: Name the indesign file lastname_Prefab.innd ; name the image files lastname_Prefab_1.jpg. Please use vector format files for all line drawings lastname_Prefab_1.pdf.

Only use JPG for raster files and pdf for vector drawings, colour mode should be RGB, compression quality high and resolution of 300dpi.

Please take a look at the unit’s previously produced case study documents on www.semiautomatik.com