Ellen's Blog

Canterbury School of Architecture, UCA °SHOW 2012. Opening 6-9pm...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:59:02 -0400

Canterbury School of Architecture, UCA °SHOW 2012. Opening 6-9pm Friday 8th June. Open Mon 11th - Wed 13th.http://cantarch.com/?p=2316 Hope to see you there.

High resolution close ups of explorative model

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:56:17 -0500

High resolution close ups of explorative model

Explorative model Mallard wings, lasercut card, steel rods, mdf,...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:52:39 -0500

Explorative model

Mallard wings, lasercut card, steel rods, mdf, perspex, polystyrene

Installation based in Folkestone which incorporates a theme of...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:39:00 -0500

Installation based in Folkestone which incorporates a theme of community-inspired architecture. The compositions are framed around adaptable re-use of components. Each of these components have been sampled and juxtaposed into a final composition.

Mirage of Content: De/recomposition using a macro lense and...

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:10:00 -0500

Mirage of Content: De/recomposition using a macro lense and extracting partial glimpses from a high res photograph.Tracing shadow studies from a scale model and re-interpreting/sampling sections of these to create a finished composition.

Photo

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:05:08 -0500

Continued..

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 06:34:00 -0500

Conclusion:

What does it mean for architecture for the future as opposed to traditional commercialisation?
Summarise key issues with community architecture and an “architecture of decency”
Other examples of pro bono architecture and why it hasn’t been implemented on a larger scale

Form and graphical layout of essay:

Bound double sided booklet, graphically coordinated with generated images, scanned images on ‘green paper’ to continue the theme through-out.

Example of banana paper- experimenting with ‘green’ printing

Structure of essay continued:

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 06:16:00 -0500

2) Main body of the essay:

Linked themes with detailed quotes linked back to original essay focus

Key themes to focus on:

Community architecture:

A critique on existing community projects and architectural installations within the rural setting
For instance The Nelson Mandela Museum (community orientated project in South Africa. “the Museum is understood as an ongoing process that serves as a means to develop basic community infrastructure, and to further social organization through mixing job creation, training and educational functions.”
Also the “Now Here: A Park for Las Acenas project in Spain “c a l c undertook to redefine a centre village, left void after the closure of a tannery that had been both the economic and the cultural heart of the community
Nelson Mandela’s Youth and community centre in Qunu

Architectural education:

Comparisons of architectural education
The use of the University of Auburn’s students –vitally important to sustaining the Rural Studio’s principles and practice?
Educating students from a business orientated perspective- council meetings, meeting with non profit organizations and other community projects
Preparing students for practice

Localism and end users:

How many architects and developers in the 21^st century consider the end user when designing specific schemes?
More than site, client and green “buzz words”
Issues of the government intervening
Social and economic issue

Specific Rural Studios’ projects:

Referencing which projects work specifically well and which don’t
Lucy’s house, Shiles house, the music man’s house, Newnburn little league baseball team, perry lakes park pavilion etc
Differences between larger community projects and specific housing projects
How does the Rural Studio’s team chose who and where needs the housing project the most?
Newburn’s little league baseball team

Difficulties between Scale:

Critique assessing why architects today don’t usually opt for pro-bono work
Problematic when scaling up an approach like Rural Studios for instance land ownership, planning advocacy, free labour, politics and materials.
Overlapping Rural and Urban for instance the elevated walkway in Manhattan

Sustainability in the 21^st Century:

Holistic architecture referencing Cradle to Cradle and infinite, continuous recyclable. They “advocate the elimination of waste and the creation of systems that are ecologically, socially and economically beneficial.”
What problems arise with this approach at varying scales?

Compare with the after effects of New Orleans: Hurricane Katrina:

‘Crisis architecture’
Charity effort to reform and change a community
Differences and comparisons to Rural Studio’s houses and community projects
Economy
Ecology
Eco future homes to beat future flooding in New Orleans

How does the economy link in with community architecture?

Current economic climate
Shift of industries and scale- how does this impact upon architecture today?
Sustainable integrated process?

The use of materials in building practice:

Enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials
Rural studios projects often use recycled, donated, sustainable, raw materials. For instance: “beat up rail way ties, old bricks, donated lumber, hay bales, baled up corrugated cardboard, rubber tires, license plates and road signs.”
What problems arise when using these materials? Does a new sort of structural education need to put in place?
Haiti Earthship regeneration project

Living walls:

Just for planning ease?
Pros and cons behind using green spaces in a rural and urban setting
Vertical green spaces
Referencing Urban implants text: Instead of the traditional spatial planning of a town, the Verbakel architects wanted to integrate the landscape into every day public spaces and create hybrid living typologies. Can this approach work on all scales?
Stimulating rural / urban life?

Structure of essay:

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 06:13:00 -0500

1) Introduction:

- Ethos behind how Rural Studio’s operates as “an architecture of decency”
“The Rural Studio, which works in one of the poorest counties of the poorest states of the USA, vividly demonstrates the impact of context-based education in a deprived community.”
History and background overview
Why hasn’t this approach been applied to an urban scale previously?

Focus for Essay question:

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 06:12:00 -0500

Samuel Mockbee’s Rural Studios have a moral sense of duty to the communities it is involved with. What problems arise when extending this approach to an urban scale?

Cerda -Isotropic plan for Barcelona

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:50:23 -0500

Cerda -Isotropic plan for Barcelona

Toward the Archipelago

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:44:00 -0500

Pier Vittorio Aureli brings in themes of politics, economics, aristotle and the “greater good” Aureli also refers to the similarities and differences between Roman and Greek theories and definitions of the city. The greek interpretation refers to a “city framed by its walled perimeter.” Where as the Roman definition resides with “expanded territorial organisation where roads play a crucial role.”

Aureli continuously mentions the theme of coexistence and cohabitation -whether it be a meeting of people in a gathered place or a community of people from the same place and their necessary circulation systems. “cohabitation which means what is shared is simply the material condition of inhabiting a place.” In some ways cohabitation in an urban setting it much more complicated than in a rural one. For instance many aspects that make up a city relate to the programs within it and the people associated with those programs on a day to day basis. On an urban scale there are more inter-relating programs and activities and networks and therefore cohabiting within this setting is seemingly taking on more than in a rural setting where on the large part communities have cohabited and coexisted historically in a simpler way.

Cerda: “to ruralise the city and to urbanise the countryside.” Expanding the city into the suburbs and creating continuous urban sprawl- “potentially infinite” Cerda went on to draft an isotropic grid of 133 by 133 meter blocks with an equal distribution of key services like parks and hospitals. Aureli states the purpose of doing this could have been to eliminate class conflict and to suggest this infinite cityscape. Los Angeles vs New York: free reign to develop architecture and programs as the city ha a need for it vs. setting up a grid like system which works with inter-relating programs at certain intervals from each other. Both systems have their positive attributes and in many ways it relies upon the people living their to keep these systems working well- politics and economy play a huge role in their existence.

Giorgio Agamber suggests the key concepts for contemporary urbanity: such as network, landscape and globalisation.”

One striking resemblance to contemporary architects and iconic architecture which sometimes leaves little doubt that urbanisation has played a strategic role in its development is this statement: “in the economy of the iconic building, what is considered “productive” is the personality of the architect, his or her creative ego.” This to me shows a relevance that today many “iconic” architects strive for their own reputation over the relevance of their building and the impact it has upon its surroundings in the greater sense of the word.

It is evident throughout this continuously changing text that Aureli is not concerned with the contemporary methods for mapping the city and its perimeters and programs but rather using other ways of interpreting the city through the means of politics and economics. “Architecture must address the city even when the city has no goal for architecture.”

Reconsidering form from within the system or machine itself....

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:03:05 -0500

Reconsidering form from within the system or machine itself. Much like the “ocean of endless surfaces.”

Stim & Dross, Rethinking the Metropolis

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:00:52 -0500

“The city must be seen as an organism, but a deeply perplexing one because it is simultaneously a machine, or rather, a series of disconnected (nano-)machines running their own determined and reckless courses- the combined result of which we will never fully fathom.”

Stim and Dross is based upon the city of Houston. In many ways Stim- stimulations represents stimulating aspects of the city that keep this machine like quality going. Where as with Dross- the waste products are the seemingly insignificant spaces, vacant buildings, unused remains left over/regurgitated from this ever continuous organism.

Lerup mentions the ‘Zoohemic canopy of trees’ as an organic subecology which is in grave contrast to the towering skyscrapers and polluted ‘freeways’ used to enter these machine like cityscapes. “Houston is at any one location both a giant room and an ocean of endless surfaces.” i think this means that with an American cities, it is contained in the sense that it has the conception of inside a larger organism containing cohabit- able spaces and people. However cities are made up of distinguishing parts that make the whole and each of these can be extracted from Houston and work independently - although not necessarily as successful without the dependance upon other surfaces or programs within the city itself.

Living walls- Good for the environment or simply a tool for...

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:07:29 -0500

Living walls-

Good for the environment or simply a tool for planning ease??

“A green wall is a wall, either free-standing or part of a building, that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and, in some cases, soil or an inorganic growing medium. The vegetation for a green façade is always attached on outside walls; with living walls this is also usually the case, although some living walls can also be green walls for interior use.^[1]. For living walls there are many methods including attaching to the air return of the building to help with air filtration. They are also referred to as living walls, biowalls, or vertical gardens.”

I’m all for vertical green spaces and visually green walls have a striking impact. However, have architects and practices alike manipulated these ‘green’ features and through the use of green ‘buzz’ words simply taken the aesthetic and used it to mask a growing natural problem? Green or living walls after all require nurturing and looking after, does simply flipping the axis of landscape help or hinder its sustainable impact?

URBAN IMPLANTS

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 06:06:00 -0500

Urban Implants was a competition winner in 2005 in Bonheiden in Belgium.

The architects Els Verbakel, Elie Derman and Ward Verbakel wanted to create public spaces that use the town’s original landscape as the base material.

Their proposal consisted of a collection of ecological installations within this urban setting. Each intervention can occur independently of each other and function within both public and private spaces.

Image 1)

Bonheiden as a town is the bi-product of suburbanization- an area on the fringe of major cities. Instead of the tendancy towards “grey, boring and generic” bonheiden invited a design planning competition to re-think the spatial quality of its centre. – “Something, which could cope with the ageing population and the development pressures of multi-unit housing projects.”

Instead of the traditional spatial planning of a town, the Verbakel architects wanted to integrate the landscape into every day public spaces and create hybrid living typologies. For instance instead of having an urban setting adjacent to specifically planned squares or parks, they wanted to have both of these identities overlap with each other. The effect of this is encouraged future growth instead of simply “freezing the present situation” which is exactly what the Flemish policy for this town.

Image 2)

Each of the urban interventions can be split into three components which are fields, lines and points.

“Fields represent surfaces such a squares, parks and natural domains. Lines refer to continuous spaces along streets and paths. And lastly points refer to green structures and art installations.”

Some examples of each of these include green kiosks, ecological advertisement panels and vegetated street lighting.

Image 3)

Their proposal offers an alternative to a conventional masterplan by presenting a ‘design toolbox’ instead – a matrix of pinpointed interventions of various scales and budgets that can be flexibly modified and implemented on demand, leaving the town the power to control its own progress and ‘master’ its own future.

“To achieve flexible and innovative design and policy strategies, a matrix organizes all of the interventions according to location, type of intervention and morphology, which operates as a ‘toolbox’ of design interventions and principles.”

Image 4)

The interventions range from art projects, small and larger buildings and public spaces to building regulations and communication projects.

It is my view that the urban implants can be implemented into other western European towns with the same view to integrating the landscape into an urban setting. We also think that by transforming the existing public spaces in this way will ultimately stimulate new urban life for the future.

Some other examples of the Urban Implants:

We must soon provide all of the world’s resources - food,...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:44:02 -0500

We must soon provide all of the world’s resources - food, energy, transportation, jobs, dwellings, etc. 100% sustainably. These Linear Ecocities are a challenge to you to do even better!

http://www.cnu.org/node/3530

Charter of the New Urbanism

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:39:01 -0500

CNU; the Congress for the New Urbanism put forward the charter of the New Urbanism in 1996. The charter states numerous princlples and guidelines for a new planning strategy for towns and cities on an urban scale.

“neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions.”

This philosophy of town planning outlines key concepts to community living and strategic cityscape organisation:

1) Development patterns should not blur or eradicate the edges of metropolis

2) The development and redevelopment of towns and cities should respect historical patterns, precedents, and boundaries.

3) the physical organisation of the region should be supported by a framework of transportation alternatives.

4) Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian friendly and mixed use.

5) Many activities of daily living should occur within walking distance.

6) Appropriate building densities and land uses should be within walking distance of transit stops.

7) Concentrations of civic, institutional and commercial activity should be embedded in neighborhoods and districts.

8) Individual architectural projects should be seamlessly linked to their surroundings.

9) The design of streets and buildings should reinforce safe environments, but not at the expense of accessibility and openess.

10) In the contemporary metropolis, development should adequately accommodate automobiles.

11) Architecture and landscape design should grow from local climate, topography, history and building practice.

Many of the above principles are based upon common knowledge of comtemporary design planning, especially principles 2,4 and 11. However town planning at this scale is based upon much more than landscape and typology, its about safe environments, appropriate signage, centralised town squares and specific accommodation for a wide range of recreational and working uses. Principle 8 represents the link between architecture and context, which in many ways refers to all of the above points. However the concentration of the pedestrian vs the automobile is something different altogether. Many cities and town planning is based upon the separation of the car and the pedestrian. This philosophy wishes to connect the two with respect to contemporary living- instead of ignoring the car altogether and completely pedestrianising the centre of a city, why not accommodate both an in appropriate and contemporary way?

Possible focus for Essay question...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:14:09 -0500

Areas of particular interest:

1) Should architecture be concerned with a moral sense of duty to the communities its involved with? - building upon Rural Studios, sustainability and architecture in the 21st century.

2) How does ecology play a role in shaping the future of architecture at an urban scale? Using Three ecologies, landscape urbanism, Manwell castel’s rise of the networks society and Terra Fluxus

3) Should we design architecture for the future and remove any sense of nostalgia for the past? Reference Rem Koolhaas and Matt Urbanism

Projected urbanism through the years

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:58:50 -0500

Projected urbanism through the years