Sheds Development Model

Models for Bursledon Brickworks

Bursledon Brickworks Model is nearly complete! 

Specific Indeterminacy, designing for the unknown!

Sheets prepared for tutorial tomorrow with visiting tutor Nick Timms (Dip 2 Landscape Studio)

Meeting with Oli Cunningham (Tutor)

A meeting with Oli for a outside look at the scheme has brought some new ideas forward. As a a way of developing the process driving the building (student copicing wood and adding to the building) it is necessary to consider the effects over a long time. 

Above is a section of the Half Moon Theatre by Florian Beigel, a city scape constructed as a theatre which is now used as a framework for different processes. The building has been constructed in a manner which allows itself to be reused.

This is an extract of a DRMM presentation which uses a timber factory fabricated on site, which is used to build the building, then the factory itself is then reused. Every decision made in the building process benefits the finished product.

A scheme by the ARU for  the Brikettfactory, Witnitz scheme which looks at how buildings may be encouraged to develop over time in a sensitive respectful manner, stunning stuff. The scheme starts by ratifying the landscape to encourage further development.

Sheds Development

Concrete Insertions, 1 following process of timber conversion, the other following people's interaction

The insertions bookend the fragile brick walls, making it suitable for the following iterations

 The students convert the copiced wood into structural members in the works. This is applied to the building, eventually the timber is used for banisters and chairs etc.

concept development

apologies for the naff image, this is a concept image demonstrating the ideas generated within the concrete insertions spill out into timber/brick interventions with the existing building.

so the insertion is applied in two stages...

static concrete boxes where knowledge is learned and gained

dynamic timber/brick interventions where the knowledge is applied... the timber serves as the more responsive insertion towards the existing building

the sheds become a blank canvas to which the students can work with.

Showcase Feedback

The concept for the drying sheds has now developed into something suitable that I can work with to deliver the building. The concept is generated from the need for warm habitable space require by the brief. 

By inserting permanent concrete elements within the degrading brick walls it allows the building to become populated and usable by the students and staff. 

The people inhabiting the building then use the timber processed from the coppicing through the workshops to rebuild and renew the timber elements around the building as a part of their training. The timber is converted from tree, cut, 2nd cut and installed within the building as part of a learning exercise.

The same is done with bricks which are fired on site in the existing small kilns using imported clay and then used to repair / expand parts of the building.

The insertions catalyse the symbiotic nature of the people and the building.

Showcase

My showcase was presented to Sir Colin Stansfield Smith (designer of the Portland Building and Emeritus Professor to the University of Portsmouth School of Architecture) and Wendy Perring of PAD Studio. Feedback was useful and focussed on the concept of the drying sheds and the building's program.

Thesis Showcase compiled and exhibited

Each layer of the thesis question and design is hung and suspended above the next, this has been done to allow discussion to commence at all levels of the question/design

Design Summary (for showcase)

The design was summarised alongside the thesis sheets for the showcase

(the following points supporting the sketch model)

Thesis Summary (for showcase)

Thesis summarised for the showcase event

Drying Sheds Design Development Model

1:200 model exploring insertions articulated at a higher resolution. The insertions are now responding to each shed individually rather than responding to the drying sheds as a whole.

Thesis Conclusion

The alternative approaches towards intervention posed, suggest ways in which dialogue with existing buildings can be created and defined in a manner which does not reduce a building to a mere “Artefact”.

Visiting these buildings whilst writing this thesis  has allowed me to form my own judgements on the buildings and also to experience the reiterated spaces first hand. The time we spend experiencing a new built form should also be shared with experiencing old dejected buildings, analysing the underlying spirit of the building and forming our own personal intuitive responses.

The two types of dialogue which have been defined using case studies, form two modes of realisation for our responses to existing buildings. 

These methodologies create a rhythm and structure which we can use or disregard. By setting a framework it allows designers to analyse their own design process and may help maximise their response to the building.

Both Extrapolated Intervention and Holistic Insertion have their advantages and shortcomings and no doubt for some projects a mixture of the two is possibly the most advantageous. It is likely that examples exist but the 5 buildings visited in this thesis were chosen for their clarity in their designated methods of intervention.

These intervention techniques can now be weighed up against the Bursledon Brickworks and the buildings qualities will likely denote which technique should be pursued in each part of the works. 

“The building itself is never poetic. At most, it may posses subtle qualities, which, at certain moments, permit us to understand something that we were never able to understand in quite this way before.” Zumthor (2006, p. 17)

Precedent Research

Over christmas I have been looking around practices for potential employment next year, I have found a practice called Choi Ropiha who have a particularly interesting public regeneration project called Brick Lanes. 

"The materiality of the brick have been paired with the spatiality of lanes to generate a symbiotic relationship that intensifies the poetic mystery endowed within the space and the material"

"Given each modules potential for infinite variation when assembled on mass, one can imagine a 'secret life' latent within every brick"

 The project uses a brick streetscape which folds out at night to animate the space. The way this practice approaches materiality is embodied within a Adam Caruso quote which I may have to take for myself...

"To make an extraordinary material special, is banal. To Heighten ones awareness of a humble material like brick is poetic." Adam Caruso

This way of approaching brick is very intriguing and I hope it will feed into my tectonics study and development of intervention within the Kilns.

A sexy image by Choi Ropiha

Thesis Feedback from Peter Holden (architect)

Over the christmas break I took my thesis to my previous employer. Peter Holden is managing director of Acanthus Holden Architects and has been designing interventions within existing buildings for 20+ years. Having worked several times with AHA and being comfortable with their methodology, it has been beneficial for us both to have discussions over my thesis over the past number of months. 

Peter redesigning a insertion project in mid wales whilst reading my thesis question. Clarifying the principles of 'disassociation' and 'holistic insertion' encouraged a different viewpoint to be formed on the design. This is encouraging for me as it shows that my thesis topic has the potential to make impact at a larger scale than just my own thesis design.

Thesis Introduction Development

What are the most appropriate interventions within an existing building?

In my manifesto, Dialogue in Design (2009) I outlined the notion of dialogue. 

The urban fabric is a pattern in time, which has been woven by our actions. Any re-interpretations we make today should be calculated and informed as to not defragment this pattern we are intervening with. I believe that the design process should be interpretative, any good design should identify and negotiate a dialogue with its surroundings and become nothing more than an impression in time, another layer of history.

This thesis is an exploration into different methods of dialogue with existing buildings which best induce a new experience of a building. This thesis is an attempt to define and improve dialogue.

My thesis design with the Bursledon Brickworks is a prime example of a building that would benefit from an alternative approach to building intervention. The client is taking a restorative approach, which will result in a living museum. A living museum is a building that has been restored and the historic use of the building is re-enacted within. 

This thesis will start by highlighting the issues of the restorative and the contrasting approach of intervention then explore alternative approaches such as analogy and disassociation.

The notion of a disassociated building will be explored where the previous function is detached and the spirit of the building is exposed. The buildings poetics are used to drive the new architectural intervention. 

Using case studies, two methods of intervening with disassociated buildings have been identified. I visited all of these buildings from September – November 2010 prior to starting this thesis, as the notion of a buildings poetics can be best experienced first hand.

The buildings studied within this thesis have been chosen because they evoke an emotive response to the visitor from the reinterpreted building. Intervention in this alternative manner is used more than just to enable a new function but also strives to improve or create dialogue with the architectural merit of the building it is intervening with.

The aim of this thesis is to inform my design methodology for my proposed interventions with the brickworks.

Response from Francis Graves (tutor)

From: Francis Graves[U16984-10B]To: DAVID HOLDEN(arc50081) CC: Subject: Dip 2 Thesis

Sent: Friday, December 31, 2010

Hi David I hope you've had a good Christmas and I wish you all the best in 2011. I've finally found time to read through the last draft of your thesis document issued for review and comment. It's a good piece of work interestingly illustrated with appropriate selection of quotes . I enjoyed reading it. I don't have any comments about the general structure/content but do have comments on a few details:

Encouraging feedback from Francis will allow me to tighten up the thesis question in time for a final draft hand-in on 10th January 2011.

Interim Review Feedback

The review went well, areas identified to move forward are:

- Finish site plan, symbiotic nature

- Develop drying sheds, create a distinction between insertions and the umbrella roof. Develop structure and rules 

- Develop the kilns - tectonics of metal and brick.

Design & Mission Statement (Developing)

- Readdressing the symbiotic nature of the building with the site.

- Making appropriate interventions with the building to allow it to accept the new narrative.

Kilns - Extrapolated Intervention

Making the kilns usable with light, maximising the development of the old space.

Sheds - Holistic Insertion

Reiterating the space + Inserting new, creating a space which pays homage to the building but also create new habitable space.

Thesis Book Development

The thesis question final draft is due in on the 10th of January and for the 3rd draft destined for FMP tutor Francis Graves, the thesis question has been laid out as a book in inDesign.

Meeting with Peter Roberts

To better understand coppicing I arranged a meeting with Peter Roberts who looks after the Hilsea Lines vegetation. This meeting helped clarify the following which aides the development of the Bursledon site strategy :


- Local copse types (Alder, Hazel, Oak & Willow)
- Coppicing rotations (Alder 15 - 20, Hazel 7- 10, Oak - 20+, Willow - Annually)
- Uses attached to each eoppice (Turning, structural, weaving, posts, charcoal making.. etc)
- Man power required for coppicing (Hazel, approximately 1 acre/week with 5 people)

Drying Sheds Concept Development

Site Strategy & Concept Development

Thesis feedback

Thesis feedback from Martin Andrews. Over christmas I shall tie the thesis question up and seek critique from other tutors.

Concept Model Development

2 options explored on the CAD model. By using a polycarbonate roof with slatted timber, the atmosphere within the drying sheds can be reiterated. (Shown above is a photo of the restored drying shed, with artificial light shining through the slatted timber floor)

Linear light well, a continuation of the theme from the Philip Webb submission. The 'linear light' strikes the artefacts displayed beneath.

As the timber slatted roof create a linear light of its own, this notion of 'linear light' can be embodied throughout the building. Insertions create a new light beneath.