UNIT EVENTS:

16TH DECEMBER PORTFOLIO DISCUSSION ALL YEARS 14:00 AT AVERY HILL

We will show two presentation books presented to the RIBA by Nicholas Szczepansak & John Walker from DS14 at the university of Westminster in the studio tomorrow afternoon.

Meor Haris K Barin has also kindly offered to join us to present both his 4th & 5th year portfolios from unit sixteen at the Bartlett.

Everyone some guidance notes for preparation of your draft:

ITTA 1 Draft:

- Provisional title or essay question.

- Summary of interest and or investigation, this should reflect on interests developed within the studio.

- Key text or references.

- Principle argument structure this could be presented as a series of bullet points for further development.

- Conclusion and or arguments uncovered through this study.

- Select initially two indicative images in support of your interest and or argument.

ITTA1 Presentation Summary:

Use your draft as the basis for your abstract [with my comments], then select between 5 and 10 images which are relevant to your argument, then develop these as a series of associated bullet points – the text to be taken from your main essay. Remember you should present the re-written abstract and the images with associated texts as part of the hand in as well as deliver them as seminar presentation.

unitsixteen

Launch of P.E.A.R Issue No4 [Supported by The University of Greenwich]

UNIT 7 Presents:  Catrina Stewart and Steve Baumann - Adventures in Dwelling
6.00pm Tuesday 6th December 2011,
Norbert Singer Lecture Theatre, Avery Hill

Catrina Stewart and Steve Baumann graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture in 2011. Both receiving a distinction for their final diploma projects, their work explores an architecture of interdependencies,  between the relentless cycle of  life, death and the city.  key to their practices is the desire to develop new experimental typologies, and vernaculars, for 21st Century urban dwelling.  Individually and collectively their work has been published in Dezeen, BLDG BLOG, Blueprint and recently on the cover of AR.

Site Model

Open Lecture: Nicholas Boyarsky – Dirty Cities

• CITY + LANDSCAPE – 03
• Wednesday 30th November 2011, 5:00PM
• Norbert Singer Lecture Theatre, Avery Hill, Mansion Site

DIRTY CITIES

Shrinking cities, productive landscapes and informal practices with recent projects by Boyarsky Murphy Architects.

A bottom up approach to the city challenges the notion of ‘master plan’ and suggests that the marginal, temporary and ephemeral are key to a contemporary understanding of the city.

AWAY DAY- WEDNESDAY 30th NOVEMBER.
@ BARBICAN
We will meet at the Barbican Centre tomorrow between 10:00 and 15:00 for tutorials.
Please follow this LINK to the Barbican map to find us. To find the Barbican please follow this LINK

Brick Swarm

Semi-autonomous flying robots programmed by Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler "will lift, transport and assemble 1500 polystyrene foam bricks"

Short film about Phillips Exeter Academy Library by Louis Kahn

http://vimeo.com/5407991

Follow this link to the world of Mr Goldstein
Follow this link to the NY Times article "Five Bedrooms, Pool and Custom-Built Skyspace"

Open Lecture: CJ Lim; Studio 8 Architects – Smartcities and Eco-warriors November 21, 2011

• CITY + LANDSCAPE – 02
• Wednesday 23rd November at 17:00
• Lecture Theatre M055

What is a Smartcity? The lecture represents the culmination of CJ Lim’s ongoing explorations into sustainable city design that began with a proposal to revitalise the community landscape of Chicago’s DuSable Park and matured with Guangming Smartcity, a new town in Southern China for 200 000 inhabitants. The smartcity is a vision of an urban future from an architectural perspective as opposed to a planning, environmental engineering or socio-economic one. Current discourse on sustainability appears to focus either on the technical aspects of ecological design at the scale of individual buildings or establishes the general principles for planning urban environments; ‘Smartcities + Eco-warriors’ attempts to address what the spatial and phenomenological implications are when sustainable design is applied to a city, what new hybrid typologies of programme and landscape are birthed, and the role that we as citizens rather than designers will play in the production of a relevant social space. A central component of the smartcity is urban agriculture and the establishment of an ecological symbiosis between nature and built form. This lecture is structured around a series of international case studies, some commissioned by government organisations, others speculative and polemic.

Copies of his book “Smart-cities and Eco-warriors” for sale to students.  Books to sell at discounted price of £20 (normal retail price is £29.99) – cash only.

PAUL NOBLE

WELCOME TO NOBSON
NOVEMBER 10 - DECEMBER 17, 2011

6-24 Britannia Street
London WC1X 9JD
T. 44.207.841.9960 F. 44.207.841.9961
london@gagosian.com
Hours: Tue–Sat 10–6
Gallery Information
Gallery Map

It was therefore decided to erect a civic monument on the roundabout at the outskirts of town. The monument is a large, vertical structure that spells out the friendly message “Welcome to Nobson.” 
—Paul Noble

Please follow this LINK to the Gagosian

CLOUD

PERNILLA & ASIF

A call for help in installing this new work which is supported by the Design Museum.

They need around 6 people to help for 2 days from 7 -11 on the friday and from 11- 9 on the saturday. Please contact Susanne via the unitsixteen email if you are interested in joining in.

URGENT : URGENT : URGENT : URGENT : URGENT : URGENT : URGENT : URGENT

ART OF AMERICA . . .

Episode 2 of 3 / BBC 4 i-Player

DURATION: 1 HOUR

In the second part of his fascinating journey exploring American art, Andrew Graham-Dixon gets under the skin of the modern American metropolis. Starting his journey at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, which he describes as a pioneering early skyscraper, Andrew discovers how the ambitions of visionary artists and architects helped America remove itself from the shadow of Europe and become the most advanced civilisation on earth.


Andrew travels to downtown Manhattan to explore the grimy world of early 20th century painters John Sloan and George Bellows, and visits Stockbridge in Massachusetts to find out how the world of Norman Rockwell is not as sentimental as it first seems. In Chicago, he explores the visionary mind of architect Louis Sullivan and travels to the decaying outskirts of the city to see the underside of the American dream.


He uncovers the impact the Great Depression had on artists such as Edward Hopper and Arshile Gorky, and finds out how this struggle inspired America's first internationally-acclaimed art movement - Abstract Expressionism. He pays a pilgrimage to Jackson Pollock's perfectly-preserved studio in Long Island to discover the secrets of his unique drip technique, before flying across America to take in one of modern art's most moving experiences, Mark Rothko's chapel in Houston, Texas.

Please follow this LINK

ADVERT . . . Unit 5 Presents:  Mon Oncle 
Screening @ 6:00 M055 Tuesday 22nd November

This 50's parody of ergonomic, techno futurism was made shortly after LeCorbusier promoted the notion of architecture being a machine to live in. It presents a world in which bodies have been tailored to fit objects, rather than vice versa, and thereby become objects themselves. The characters are fragmented and atomised into compositional ingredients then carefully slotted into plastic artificiality. This is a prophetic world prior to Big Brother which has completely structured itself around an omniscient camera, with the result that this fragmentation remains irreversible, and collectivity doesn't consist of the human body so much as inanimate or mechanical objects. As a result, a great deal of the humour stems from the disparity between functional and compositional imperatives, such as the steel-and-glass efficiency of office, street and school are offset by the circuitousness that validates domestic architecture. Here the population had been streamlined; merely to be forced through a series of ridiculous diversions and tributaries. All of which is explicated by Hulot's own wandering gait. "Mon Oncle" predicted our present times of circuitous bureaucracy and mechanical priorities. It suggests how we must today more than ever be at peace with our machines and not let our technology seduce us, or bully us either.

The Way Things Go

>film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss.

Some Cedric Price material available through the CCA Archive

A bit hit and miss, but worth a peruse...

http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/540-cedric-price-archive

London design guide, helpful space standards etc

Follow this link -http://www.lda.gov.uk/publications-and-media/publications/design-guide.aspx

MORPHOSIS -
Introducing the work of the influential LA based office. Please follow this link to the office and the archive:
Main website - Link
Mophobia Archive - Link

Artpark Performing Arts Pavilion 1992 Montage 32x36 inches

The Conversation (1974) movie trailer . . . . Link

Tonight on FILM 4 23:15 - 01:25 Monday 14 November 2011

The Conversation (1974) is the slowly-gripping, bleak study of electronic surveillance and threat of new technologies that is examined through the private, internalized life of a lonely and detached expert 'bugger.' The conspiracy thriller is an effective character study that exposes the emerging conscience of an estranged eavesdropper whose work once resulted in the death of three people:

Harry Caul...an invader of privacy. The best in the business. He can record any conversation between two people anywhere. So far, three people are dead because of him.

The timely, low-budget cinematic masterpiece of the 1970s was written, produced and released by director Francis Ford Coppola before and during the Wategate era (and between his two Godfather films) - a time of heightened concern over the violation of civil liberties. Its claustrophobic themes of the destruction of privacy, alienation, guilt, voyeurism, justified paranoia, unprincipled corporate power and personal responsibility effectively responded to growing, ominous 20th century threats of eavesdropping to personal liberties.

The haunted surveillance expert, who pursues a case (seemingly of marital infidelity) that demonstrates his rarified human emotion, discovers that he has become the victim of his own technological profession and intrigue by film's end. [His last name, 'caul', literally means the protective, embryonic membrane that sometimes covers the head of a child at birth.]

Charles Ross: The Year of Solar Burns (1993)

Charles Ross documented a year of sunlight for 'The Year of Solar Burns', (commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture for permanent installation in the Chateau d’Oiron). Ross burned the daily movement of the sun onto planks of wood by concentrating sunlight through a magnifying lens. Each of the 365 planks, with its curved smoky flarings, captures one day of sunlight, a portrait of sunlight drawn by the sun itself. Continuous or interrupted and stopped by clouds. Ross also discovered that when laid end to end, the solar burns trace a double spiral.

http://www.staraxis.org/chross-bio.html

Olafur Eliasson: Playing with space and light

Robert Irwin: Light and Space

from the Richard Grey Visual Arts Series

Drawing: Abercrombie/Forshaw's London Community map, 1943

more info

also interesting

Plot 24 info - addendum

Ladies and gents,

Here are a few more links that might be useful:

• The Stratford Masterplan (Newham Council)
• A press release regarding one of the proposed developments for the plot
• An article on the Westfield shopping centre (The Guardian)
• An article on the planned transformation of the Olympic Park (and the surrounding area) after the Olympics (Evening Standard)
• An leaflet on the planned transformation of the Olympic Park (and the surrounding area) after the Olympics (Stratford Renaissance Partnership)

Plot 24 info.

Boys and Girls,

I have downloaded, collated and uploaded the following for your viewing pleasure:

London Plan

London Plan [sustainability plan]  

Stratford UDP & its various sections  

Planning applications inc. all reports, statements and agreements:

App 1090282  [hotel]

App 1090258FUMODA [mixed use tower]

Tickle the above links to download them from my dropbox – please think very carefully before you print a thousand + sheets off!!

you might want to right-click and save the links as this will speed up their download time.

NB: You don’t need 'dropbox' to view these files but should you want it feel free to use this invite as you will get a little bit of extra space than if you go directly to the website…there’s even an ‘app for that’.

J

UNITSIXTEEN HERRON+ISA 2011-12

The Salon of Lost Content

[Refuge of Misfits]

“Crazy silhouettes of twisted steel from piles of broken masonry, memorials to the chaos of the old town. A fine building in ruins and we turn away sadly. But we should be thankful for much of the destruction – challenging opportunity confronts us.” Ralph Tubs -

CONTEXT:

The New Society a repackaged ideology presented as improved benevolent strain of socially progressive capitalism sheltered the great experiment in Mass Deregulation. Structural Deficit a catalytic tool sheltering a political programme of wholesale privatization of state institutions. Finance, health, law and order, education all outsourced and controlled through a policy of light touch regulation. Banks unprotected and unregulated collapse, property values go into free fall, exports stall, double dip recession, economic stagnation, rising social unrest, led to unprecedented urban flight, tax starved, and abandoned London declared Bankrupt by the IMF falls into protracted decline.

At its peek London’s population reached approximately 7.5 million, revised estimates suggest a core population of around 2.4 million remain, although accurate figures are somewhat speculative. Like Detroit, inner London is less city like, more a series of dispersed rural settlements, semi autonomous neighborhoods, locally generated, predominantly unregulated experiments in social organization . . . Out East Stratford City a fresh new world of dreams and unparalleled unnatural beauty and wonder.

PROPOSAL:

“The Salon of Lost Content [Refuge of Misfits]”

Within this context you are to propose a New Institute, a collective experiment in life and art. Consider these two prototypical models of experimental communities, the Salk Institute by Louis Khan, and the community at La Tourette by Le Corbusier. Consider their respective ambitions and functions, communities for speculative research, knowledge, and debate.

Your Atlas will provide you with a strategic lens for interpreting this new terrain. You will need to consider how your architectural proposal physically embodies and formalizes both the tangible and intangible properties of this collective new social model.

SITE :

Plot N24, Zone 3, Stratford City

The site is adjacent to Stratford International Station, at the boundary between the commercial district of Wesfield Centre and the Olympic Athletes Village development of E20. The site was subject to a previous development application by SOM [planning application no.10/90282 & 10/90258/FUMODA]

You will need to establish individual positions as to the projected futures of the site framed against current and planned development and how your project negotiates this. Do you insert your projects amongst this new commercial setting, adjusting or adapting? Do you propose an alternative future, which may or may not include retaining the existing ruin? What is your view regarding buildings, which fall out of use? Is shopping the new social model?  What is the difference between say the Design Museum and the Conran shop?

PROGRAMME:

The principle accommodation is to be questioned; the following is for guidance only. You need to decide on the specific nature of your Institute. Is it a place of study, a place of science, a place of retreat, an archive, a window onto an unrealized utopian dream? Consider your project as a bridge between two worlds, a hybrid structure which tries to arbitrate between opposing pressures of use and ideology?

 

SCHEDULE OF ACCOMODATION:

01:    The Secretariat: The administrative core of the institute

02:    The Common Room: A central meeting point and social hub to the community.

03:    The Laboratory: To be defined by individual agendas.

04:    The Library: A place of study and wonder

05:    Land Store: A collection.

06:    Living Units: To accommodate a small community, is this fixed?

Task 01: Outline Design Presentation No1

The following should be seen as an indicative guide as to the range of information, needed at Outline Design Stage Presentation No1.

-     Clearly describe the key architectural characteristics of your proposal.

-       3D Drawings and Diagrams to explain proposals relationship to site.

-       3D Drawings and Diagrams to examine, spatial relationships, circulation, and volumetric massing, and distribution of key programmatic elements.

-       Site model [To an appropriate scale]

-       Suggest the principle qualities imagined for at least two key spaces.

-       Describe the central spatial characteristics of your proposal.

-       Prepare a typical sketch plan and sketch section drawn to an appropriate scale.

Some Key Dates . . . .

WK 7              02 Nov           Introduction

WK 8              09/11 Nov      Outline Design Presentation No1

WK 9              16 Nov           Tutorials Design Development – 10.00

WK 10            23 Nov           Design Development Presentation No.2 – 10.00

WK 11            30 Nov           Tutorial Design Development – 10.00

WK 12            07 Dec           Scheme Design Presentation No3. – 09-30

WK 13            14 Dec           Scheme Design Presentation No3 - 09:30

WK 14                                    Interim Portfolio Assessment: Scheme Design

REMEMBER:

The attached timetable is tight. We recommend that you collaborate in groups to research, prepare and share site information. Design and technical development is to be recorded in a project file; recording all research, information gathered and the like, structured to form the basis for the technical reports [see guidance notes ]

 follow this link to the Olympic Delivery Authority on Plot 24