unitsixteen.H4.2012

UNITSIXTEEN HERRON+ISA+HAGOS                                                 2012-13

The Robinson Institute . . .

CONTEXT:

The site for your proposal is the National Gallery Extension [Sainsbury Wing], located on the corner of your broader study site of Trafalgar Square. Turning the clock back we ask you to imagine an alternative future.

Consider the abandonment of the original Common Wealth Institute, designed by Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall and Partners, completed in 1962, which used Modernism to mark the transition from Empire to Commonwealth. Sited off Kensington High Street, on the periphery of the Museum district, a curiosity from a lost age, set within a garden landscape on the edge of Holland Park the original building stands abandoned, slowly decaying into ruin.  A proposed redevelopment by Stuart Lipton and OMA has recently received planning consent for a combination of private apartments and retail units all clustered around a relocated design museum, which is to inhabit the cannibalized remains of the former exhibition hall.

Consider the original institute as an idealistic but faded utopian dream, flawed from inception, a curiosity from a period when modernism was still an ideology rather than modernism as simply image. What is your view regarding buildings and or institutions, which fall out of use? Is shopping the new social model?  What is the difference between say the Design Museum and the Conran shop?

PROPOSAL:

Within this context you are to propose a New Institute, a collective experiment in life and art. Your proposal should represent and house a collective vision for the re reading of the Common Wealth as a contemporary institution. At the center of this you will need to consider how your architectural proposal physically embodies and formalizes both the tangible and intangible properties of this collective social ideal. Consider these two alternative prototypical models, the Salk Institute by Louis Khan, and a club like the RIBA. Consider their respective ambitions and functions; A centre for research, knowledge, and debate, meeting ground and or social club.

Your initial work 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.

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 club, 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 & Tapestry Room: A quiet place of study and wonder

05:    The Drawing Room: A presentation, exhibitions, and public dissemination space.

06     Central Galleries or Exhibition Halls: The scale a specificity to be determined.

07:    Living Units: Two self-contained apartments one for the director the second for a visiting scholar.

You should consider the planning issues involved, contacting the local planning authority, consulting the local UDP, and the various current rulings regarding the proposed redevelopment. 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 year 4 guide]

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.

-       What are the driving spatial and organizational strategies

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

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

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

-       3D Drawings and Diagrams to examine, spatial relationships,

circulation systems, volumetric massing, and distribution of key programmatic elements.

-       Site model [To an appropriate scale]

Some Key Dates . . .

WK 9             19 Nov           Introduction

WK 10           21 Nov           Outline Design Presentation No1 – 10am

WK 11           28 Nov           Tutorials Design Development – 10am

WK 12           23 Nov           Design Development Presentation No.2 – 10am **

WK 13           30 Nov           Tutorial Design Development – 10.00am

WK 14           19 Dec           Scheme Design Presentation No.3. –  10am**

                                               [VACATION]

WK 1 T2        14 Jan            Interim Portfolio Assessment 9am – 10am

Note:

** These occasions will have external guest critic.

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]

A further timetable for the development of this project and the associated report will follow.

Reference Tate: [http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/patrick-keiller-robinson-institute