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ERINN SAVAGE – Performance
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School of Architecture

Welcome to the Graduate Showcase for the Mackintosh School of Architecture.

In the following pages you will be able to explore the work of students that would normally be exhibited within Undergraduate Degree Show. All students in stage 3,4 and 5 have had the opportunity to curate and exhibit their work here, and to represent aspects of their thinking and practice that means most to them.

Unlike the traditional degree show, the Showcase will be added to over time, and it is possible for you to browse its contents again and again. The Showcase also allows the work to become available to a wider national and international audience.

After the interruption to the session brought about by COVID-19, we hope that you will enjoy this chance to explore this work which we are justifiably proud of.

Sally Stewart
Head of the Mackintosh School of Architecture

a view from the residence

encapsulating the sense of journey from the residential towards the performnace hall, sitting out in the landscape.

the space between

a sense of the enclosed and intimate environment of the residential retreat with its subtle hints of connections to broader landscape.

the site

a representation of the jurney and connection between the residential and performnace.

residential atmosphere

a study of the intimate yet lively atmosphere of the residential portion of the scheme.

residential form

a representation of the costal influence on form, material choice and colour and scale.

a residential detail

an exploration of material and form: a CLT structure.

The scale of the scheme

a more accurate sense of scale of the journey between the residence and performance hall, across the pier and into the water.

modelling the performnace hall

an exploration of the simplicity of structure and transparancy of material- this space is exposed and honest.

a performance detail

an indepth exploration of the layers of structure and material that this building endeavours to make apparent in its design.

The Brief and Site

Site Introduction

Collage

Early concept development

A Walk on Leven

Early documentation of the River Leven

Vale of storage units

Mapping of the industrial estates on the River Leven

Development

sketchbook scans

Development

sketchbook scans

The House That Was Always There

Interiour drawings

Balloch Pier

Axonometric drawing

The House That Was Always There

perspective section

'Sea Life Through a Lense'

This image represents my fundamental design goal: how to frame the natural beauty of Balloch. I took my inspiration from those unfortunate sea creatures who are imprisoned in restrictive and oppressive fish tanks in a sea life sanctuary on the loch. Whilst they are so close to the outdoors they are actually prevented from thriving outside in their natural habitat. In human terms I wanted to create a more positive relationship between inside and outside where visitors felt safe and warm inside but were drawn to the views of the loch and nature outside.

The Site Found

1:1000 Site Plan exemplifying the linear relationship between the residential and performance hall venues; imitating the pre-existing railway of Balloch which, its final stop was at the tip of the pier. The progression of a boat from jetty to jetty via both buildings and a canopy shaded pathway on land, shows the multipurpose links and modes of transport available as ways to accommodate the users when moving around the site.

'Portamento'

Mammals and nature co-exist between the walls of the residential retreat, through vast glazing, an indoor / outdoor living experience and materiality and design elements. On arrival visitors will observe a hanging façade of carved natural wood. The flowing, rippled appearance of the wood connects to sound waves created by children inside to the lapping waves of the river made by Mother Nature outside.

INGREDIENTS

1:50 principles of building detailing and mirroring front elevation render

Mornings in the Nest

Portal on the Pier

This performance hall concept serves as the threshold between land and water and is celebrated when music is being played by the residents. The choice of a curving form was precisely designed to imitate the mountainous range in the backdrop as well as the formation of waves, which are surrounding the pier that grounds the hall.

The bubble musical center

This project concerns a music center in Ballock comprising rehearsal rooms, an auditorium and accommodation for young musicians coming for internships. The idea here was to achieve an architecture which would reduce the carbon footprint as much as possible. I thought of one of my trips to Sicily (Italy) where I discovered very large ovens resembling large igloos used to produce handcrafted terracotta. These shapes are designed to minimize heat loss. This is why my project explores these unusual forms.

The bubble musical center

The bubble musical center

The bubble musical center

Little Venice of Cadiz

This project aims to respond to a future rise of sea level due to global warming. It is located in the lagoon of Cadiz. This Zone of Spain would be most affected by the rising waters because the level of land is very low. I therefore propose a partly floating village and partly on stilts This floating district is organized around a market on stilts. The inhabitants around the market sell fish, fruits and vegetables as well as products of marine culture (mussels, oysters and algae) in the market open to visitors. All these products can be consumed on site in small restaurants around the market forming small islands with panoramic views of the lagoon. Everything is produced by residents of the floating village, in floating greenhouses and fish and seaweed farming parks located around the dwellings. Leisure facilities can also be found in the district for inhabitants and to attract visitors from Cadiz: A volleyball court and a football field are provided as well as changing rooms and meeting rooms and small indoor sports halls. At the end of the district, there is an artificial beach of a unique shape reserved to bathers. Each home is designed: . to have maximum energy independence and a certain intimacy; . An external personal space sheltered from the sun; . And a pontoon to dock a boat Rainwater is collected by a steep roof, then directed to tanks located under the houses. Each unit has its wind turbine in order to produce its own energy as well as solar panels placed on the roofs.

Cross Section from Pier

Space Between Water.

Landscape Design

A series along the site, detailing how the land interacts with the water.

Rendered Site Plan

Extended Pier.

Perspective Performance Hall Section

Interior View of Balloch Performance Hall.

Music Retreat

The combination of a residential and performance space is captured within the landscape of Balloch. Its beautiful surroundings remain interrupted with the buildings matching the tranquil setting. The juxtaposition of the buildings catches the eye of by passers and lures them in for more.

Interaction

The way the buildings interact with one another is portrayed in this social scene. An open private space connects the two buildings together, allowing the children to interact with one another and remain in a safe space.

The Site

Accommodation Section

Bedroom View

Bedroom View

Performance Hall Section

Performance Hall View

Site Section

RESIDENTIAL RETREAT PERSPECTIVE ELEVATION

The view of the retreat is shielded partially by the untamed trees, to give the building a sense of security from those that use the park. The glass of the building creates a visual connection between the interior of the building and Balloch's landscape.

RELAXATION SPACE

A space at the top floor dedicated to people who want to escape from other social spaces. It gives people time to themselves, whilst overlooking the river and the scenery beyond.

cross-section river leven

axonometric site plan

entrance

Perspective Site Plan_ relationship between two buildings

Introduction to Residential Retreat_ Concept diagrams

Exterior Render and Plans

Interior Renders

Exploded Isometric_ Technical study and Private void study

Perceptive Section_ layers

Introduction of Performance Hall _ Concept diagrams

Exterior Render and Plans

Interior layout and study & Illustration of Interior spaces

Exterior view and relationship to Retreat & Exploded Isometric_ Construction

Structural Response to Geometries of Plan - Journey from Urban, through structure, to Natural Environment

Activities Centre Entrance Perspective

Performance Hall Perspective Section

Proposed Location Plan 1:2500

Situated at the bottom of Balloch Pier, the new retreat offers an inclusive for all type of performance art. Surrounded by nature, this allows privacy, creating a peaceful environment to gain creativity - outdoor activity can occur.

Exterior Context

Perspective Context

Location Diagram and Site Plan

Floor Plans

Cross Section Progression- 1

Exterior and Performance Hall

Cross Section Progression- 2

Adjoining Courtyard and Accommodation

Interior Renders

Development Model

Exploded Structural Isometric

Development Section

The Pedestal

Initial schematic drawing and the development work at 1:2 scale.

Site Isometric

Construction Details

Construction Model

Showcasing the relationship between the brick volumes and timber roof.

Site plan at 1:500 scale

Initial arrival section/ elevation to the site at 1:500 scale

Site section at 1:500 scale

Site section at 1:500 scale

Detailed section and elevation

Visualisations

A Public Pool in London

Studying the Westway

Tracing the changing city below the constant line of the motorway

Collage

Early exploratory studies

Studies

Developing the project

Interacting with the motorway

A new language between motorway and the island beneath

SISTEMA

Representation of the residential retriet and concert hall for the SISTEMA charity and the local community in Balloch, Scotland.

Section Through Practice and Performance Spaces

I took the ethos of empathetic design, sustainability, and fun into this featured work. This is a residential retreat for the musical charity Sistema Scotland. I focused on creating an environment that was safe and secure for the children but also allowing for autonomy and play. I explored the integration of playground design with music which resulted in a range of practice and performance spaces that changed in focus and formality.

Perspective View of Performance hall and Residential Retreat

Sketched Section Through Residential Building

This section shows the atrium space that connects all the residential rooms with a dynamic, multipurpose seating area. The section leads from the connection to nature with the park to the intimate relationship to the water.

Sketched Section Through Main Formal Performance Space

This section shows the key relation ships between the two public spaces created by the Performance hall. The walkable grass roof emphasises the existing viewpoint with roof lights scattered on top to entice people to peek down and explore the performance hall. A slightly more private square created by the water with the hall able to open to this square as well.

Amphibious

A public performance hall and floating residential retreat for young musicians. Building for transience and commitment to the community through a duet of extreme difference.

Floating Residential Retreat

Public and Private route through the site

Balloch town when residential building has departed into Loch Lommond and Location Plan: Journey from Railway to Loch.

Sited in the centre of Balloch town, the scheme acts as a gateway to Loch Lommond and The Trossachs national park, defining a new town square along the soft boundary of the river.

Visualisations of journey through the site

From train ride to public space, through performance to safety and privacy in nature. Balloch is the remnants of a fractured journey from steam train to steam boat up to the highlands. This project creates a new journey away from the urban.

Floating Residential Docked in Balloch

Retreats being of temporary nature have informed the architecture to be transient. Departing from the performance hall which remains a place making, accessible public asset to the town.

Elevation towards loch

The scheme is a duet of two buildings that require close physical proximity yet an extreme difference in privacy.

Water as a soft boundary for privacy

Residential Plans and Sections

The residential retreat is able to float due to a steel tubular pontoon and uses systems such as: rain water harvesting, passive ventilation and underfloor heating supplied by a closed-loop water source heat pump. Easily deconstructed as a post and beam frame, natural insulation and sheets of zinc to be recycled and reused.

Technical Detail Section

PATH CONCEPTS

The project emphasises a sense of journey. The buildings act both as a destination and as a starting point for adventures beyond. The incorporated walkways connect the different buildings and allow people to explore the boundary where water meets land.

SITE PLAN

This most recent project as part of Stage 3, is a music retreat fro children and community performance hall in Balloch, for the music charity Sistema. The proposal uses active and passive systems that utilise the environmental nature of the site which include the bank of the River Leven just before it joins Loch Lomond, and an island facing the bank. The retreat is on stilts which straddles the boundary between the island and the water. The island provides seclusion whilst still engaging with the town. It takes precedent from ancient Crannogs once found on the loch often built for defensive purposes.

AXONOMETRIC

GROUND + 1ST FLOOR PLANS

An island denotes isolation. The water acts as a defensive barrier and gives the retreat a sense of protection, in a location that is open and public. The client expressed that the trip was equally an opportunity for the children to get out of the city and be in nature as it was about learning music. I wanted to foster this. The island allows for the children to have space to explore freely without any interaction with the public.

DETAILED SECTION

SITING AND FORM CONCEPT

The offsite Brettstaple construction allow for easy and sustainable deconstruction as the panels can be readily reused. All that is left is the recycled aggregate concrete foundation, which creates a platform for new interventions or a simple public space. This was to mimic the man-made islands, which is all that is left behind from the ancient Crannog structures. The temporary nature of the retreat suggests the island is only borrowed and what is left is a space for the community to inhabit.

MUSIC RETREAT + COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE HALL

The community performance hall acts as front door to the music retreat. This is to encourage chance happenings as well as organised engagement between the community, visitors and those on the music retreat.

Watercolour

Topographical Model

1:1000. Produced in order to gain a deeper understanding of landscape to harmoniously place my project within

Geological Sectional Study

1:10000. Acrylic & Steel

Capture the Landscape

Sketch model exploring how the architecture could frame the landscape.

Final Model

1:250

Final Model

1:250

nestled in context

creativity occupying space

home away from home

Performance Hall Model

Simple model images showing the sheltered walkways around my performance hall.

Performance Hall Interior Render

This render shows the main space of my performance hall, and can be viewed in three dimensions by clicking here (https://api2.enscape3d.com/v3/view/cc22a562-8204-4b8a-9a35-ede98f92963e?fbclid=IwAR0Fd5ew0veZggyi3Fzn1gy2OZkTqbk9DL-7L04rYr4QQgnSsVOP7vVxxxY)

Performance Hall Perspective Section

Performance Hall Site Plan

Library Model 1

Library Model 2

Park Leven & Sistema Music Retreat

The Sistema Music Retreat project, for myself, was about creating two different buildings, in what I found to be a beautiful pastoral setting, that would create a semi private semi courtyard that kids and young adults can enjoy and have a free and diverse experience during their stay. The idea of having activities and places semi privatised for the kids was a leading factor in the design process for the River Side House and Leven Hall. After drawing the two buildings on site and working out the physical relationship they had with one another I wanted to go one step further and solidify the relationship my design had with its surroundings. On this map is not only my design for the Sistema retreat but also a redesign of the area. New pathways, activities and less tar parking lots. Having been inspired by the works of David Chipperfield, Gaudi’s Park Guell and the idea of place this project aims to give back both to the community and nature while not boldly conforming to its surroundings in a contemporary manner.

3_AXIS

Located in Balloch, Scotland, the residential retreat and performance hall will help children with a difficult family backgrounds reconnect with the nature and their surroundings. Seeking similarities between musical harmony, space and human body it is my intention to create a place of escape and contribute to childrens mental health through the interaction with my building, nature and music practice.

Site Plan 1_200

The site for the project is a cross point of three axis: Axis of journey, axis of escape and public/private axis. Laid out in an east-westerly direction, the building responds to its surroundings in a number of ways. The location of the buildings not only benefits from breathtaking views, but also is a part of environmental strategy. In order to achieve energy self-sufficiency, the project of a residential retreat is based on passive use of solar energy.

Floor plans of the Residential Retreat 1_200

The closer to the river edge the more private is the program of the residential retreat.

Perspective cross section of the residential retreat 1_50

The bridge in-between the two buildings is accessible from the sun space of the residential retreat creating the connection to the performance hall and practice rooms.

The Voids

The voids spread throughout the height and length of the building finished with a south facing roof lights act as light wells. The roof windows allow a flood of an unobstructed light that allow a natural light penetration far into the floor plan. The roof light enclosure, ceiling and some walls of the upper floors are painted white to strengthen the illumination by providing strong first reflections. The light reaches the timber panelling of the first and second floor and cast a warm glow throughout the bridges that lead children to their flats.

Flexible Comfort

The flexible system of the partition walls within the cloisters gives the opportunity for every kid to feel comfortable in the residence. The rooms are also designed in a way to provide enough space for the instrument practice.

The sun room

At the south part of communal areas, there is a large sunspace stretching across the south-west facade. It serves several functions from a pleasant place of botanical discoveries to a dreamlike meeting and circulation space. Moreover, it forms a buffer space able to capture heat during winter. The open floor plan allows flexibility and facilities the distribution of the warm air to the communal areas.

In-between

The performance building is conceived more as a pavilion in the park than a classic urban building, more like a roof protecting a public space. The polycarbonate skin allows the sun to penetrate the building, reaching the exposed rammed earth walls that surround the main event space. During winter the thermal mass walls absorb the passive solar energy and slowly release their heat into the interior of the event space reducing the heat demand. The skin of the building allows continuity between the structure and the park, without giving up a certain privacy for the activities that take place inside. Seen from outside, during the day, the translucent skin of the building appears sculptural and does not make the immediate visual communication between the interior and exterior possible; at night, this situation is reversed and the interior becomes perceptible from the outside.

To perform

The secondary structure of the roof consists of thin and deep LVL beams which bring a diffused sun light within the space the whole year round. The primary structure accommodates the lightening and sound equipment.

Residential Retreat - Model

1. Intro

2. Site Model

3. Retreat Centre Exterior

4. RC Floor Plans

5. RC Section

6. Presenting the Retreat Centre

7. Concert Hall

8. CH Floor Plans

9. CH Section

10. Presenting the Concert Hall

Balloch accomodation for music students

3rd year: Upper floor and site plans

Balloch accomodation for music students

3rd year: Ground floor and Detail

Balloch accomodation for music students

2nd year: Rendered section

Library Lounge

2nd year: Render of Library Lounge

Library design

2nd year: Library ground floor book shelf arangement, as well as section of reading pavili

Bath House isometric

1st year hand drawing: View of the bath house on a slope (hand drawn)

Bath house -1

1st year hand drawing: Bath House plan with first bath

Bath house axonometric

1st year hand drawing: -Axo of bath house main floor with showers, bath, massage room and staircase revolving around sunlit tube

Bath House model pictures

1st year hand drawing: Images taken of 3d model. Two baths and sunlit stairwell

Site axonometric

Perspective section of the retreat

Sections of the performance hall

Perspective of the complex

Perspective of the performance hall

Axonometric structure

Axonometric

Axo View of Urban Dwelling

Central Perspective

Perspective view of urban building

External Perspective

Perspective of urban building as seen from common courtyard

2 Alternate perspectives

Perspectives of alternate explored versions of the scheme

Long Section and Elevation

Long Elevation/Section of urban building

Elevation & cross sections

Cross sections / elevation of urban dwelling

Axonometric Studies

Axo Studies of urban dwelling

Unit Floor plans

Examples of adapted unit floor plans to suit a variety of living conditions

Structural Work

Structural details of a separate project

1:50 Study model

A study model completed early on in the project timeline

A change in use

At the smallest scale, everyday objects inherent uses are adapting. A dining table is now not just for formal dining but a surface for a multitude of activities.

1:20 cell model

Flexible space weaves around more ‘concrete’ servant cores.

View into a cell

Social and private space is defined by servant spaces, changes in level and axis. A ‘Duchamp’ door creates an extended space either belonging to the private domain or the more social.

Section through a cell

Space is reordered through activities rather than defined by rooms.

Section through a block

The section tries to explore the relation between a more interwoven relationship between domesticity and labour. Small open courtyards and changes in levels help distinguish changes in use and privacy.

1:500 massing model

Using a 3x3m grid I explored multiple variants of masses siting within the context of the block.

1:100 structural model

The oversized timber truss along the ‘horizontal fly tower’ allows space for environmental systems, and to not hide them away.

1:100 tectonic model

Exploring the relation of a skeletal timber structure against a solid mass.

Bay study

This early facade study makes use of cheap and readable materials. The timber colonnade supports a space for display, storage and performance, allowing the activity within to be expressed externally.

1:50 technical section through the performative space

This section through the building shows the relationship of the timber performative pavilion against the more ‘concrete’ servant spaces.

Site Research

Concept

Diagrams

Orthographic Drawings

Housing Types

Long Section

Interior Spaces

VENUE FOR PERFORMING ARTS

Perspective Section

VENUE FOR PERFORMING ARTS

Building Programme Diagram

VENUE FOR PERFORMING ARTS

Ground Floor Plan in Context

LLGC Calendar CC AlisonW at English Wikipedia

Thesis: Due to lack of funding across the UK toward the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, Queer spaces have been disappearing. Fading out due to lack of support to keep them open and running. A good example of this is the ‘Gay and Lesbian Centre’ that was once a thriving hub to community in London. Seen as a milestone in the LGB community at the time due to it being helped by the Greater London Council’s Charter for Lesbian and Gay Rights launched in 1986. This centre was a new start to help support for the community as well as providing them with several utilities such as specialised bookstores, offices for queer organisations and many more social engagement activities. I drew a lot of inspiration from the idea of this space which unfortunately closed pre-maturely in the 90s after just 6 years of running. Partly due to a fault of a new government that stripped LGBT funding and part due to infighting between the different spectrums of ‘Queer’ at the time. While this space was good for the community, it had fundamental flaws socially which I think was partly due to the era it started. However, I believe a space like this would be much more functional in today’s climate due to what some consider a second wave of feminism and queer liberation.

Map of Queer Spaces throughout Glasgow

Upon looking further into this, I realised that there is not only in fact a distinct loss of spaces across the country, but a clear gap in non-profit spaces for Queer people that are solely for the community. A fact that is quite shocking due to how integral the Queer community has been in British history. This becomes even more apparent when you look at Glasgow as a city. A major city in Scotland that has been considered by many to be one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly countries in Europe and the world. The vast majority of the Queer spaces in Glasgow are bars, clubs and spaces that are there to profit off of the community. There is no denying that these are key for the Queer community but shows a concerning trend that the only way to access the community is thought financial means. Further research showed me that since the shutting down of the London Gay and Lesbian centre there has not been a non-profit solely Queer venue open in the UK. Showing that the need for such a space was in demand.

Site within Glasgow City centre

Site Massing

Due to the site's large footprint I decided to split the building up in order to create a typography of different uses throughout the site. Designing spaces for the art to be more of a show case and letting in a more public side of the greater community, while keeping the more central area of the site to the more private areas. Creating a ‘sanctuary’ of some sort. 

Building Typography

Once the massing was decided I had to figure out what characteristics of the building typography were required. I came to the following ideals in terms of design:

Environmental Factors

Certain environmental aspects were also taken into consideration before developing the interior of the building. Criteria I wanted to stick by during the whole design process. 

Schedule of spaces and Circulation 

Defining the areas that were more public and private as well as how they are circulated throughout the building was also key to figuring out the best way to organise each of them. 

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

Fourth Floor Plan

Stages of Construction 

I was also keen to bear in mind the environmental impact of the building. Looking into using CLT for as much as possible withing the construction. This led me to prefabricated CLT panels that could be brought onto sight and built in stages. Main components being the CLT walls with cladded exteriors, CLT floor providing horizontal rigidity throughout the building allowing for the uninterrupted voids and finally glulam beam within the roof to hold up a green terrain as well as further horizontal loading. The gallery building has been used as an example as each building will follow the same construction techniques.

Various Construction Types

I made the decision to use different forms of CLT throughout the building to give different environments in each area. CLT walls differ from the voided spaces to the rooms that house the activities. The void spaces would be ribbed CLT to emphasize the feeling of a reclaimed space, showing the raw exposed structure with the circulation taking place in these spaces, increasing the feel of the void spaces as an area you can pass through. Then the roomed areas were to be solid CLT, adding a bit of security to them and a feeling of them being built into the current structure. Enclosing them a bit more when leaving the large voided areas. As for the wall build up this again looked at using materials that would be less harmful on the environment in the long run as well as very low maintenance. Brick for the cladding that would be recalled where possible, while providing the benefit of very little maintenance in the future of the building. Cork for the insulation as it is effective at this purpose, natural and comes with various benefits of resilience, making it a grate long term solution.

Gallery Long Section

The building follows the designs aesthetics described above in, playing with voids throughout the space to create a different areas of interest withing the building. Seen in the cross section and various visualisations. The variety giving different environmental feels to each floor having a focus every time you travel up to another level. The open plan design giving the opportunity for the artwork to be seen at almost every view, thus showcasing the Queer artists as much as possible within the building. The simplistic material textures are also used to make the art stand out and The Gallery: pop, while also giving the raw feel of a reclaimed space that comes with many Queer enviroments.

Gallery Cross Section

S4 Studio. Cell Prototype

Stage 4 Studio (Cell, Block, District): A prototype dwelling (Cell) developed using the modular 3x3x3 structural cube system, with modular components such as walls, Windows, floors etc. The structural system allows for large span cantilevers, allowing courtyards to expose the nature from below and the allow light to penetrate from above. 2019.

S4 Studio

Stage 4 Studio (Cell, Block, District): The centre of the development viewed from street level shows the vertical layering from the public, open gardens on street level to the private developments which have naturally (unplanned) taken shape above to suit individual requirements. 2019.

34 Riverside View, Alloa

Craig's First project completed as a Design & Build Developer, while studying at GSA. He designed, detailed, costed, procured and project-managed the project between 2018 and 2019. The 22sqm domestic extension is a high quality design, utilising the confines of the site and passive design to enhance the spaces within with lots of light, ventilation and views to the garden. It uses High quality, long-lasting materials such as Dutch brick, Western Red Cedar, Zinc and Aluminium, and adopts a unique but simple steel ring beam to create seamless Corner openings. The final cost of £43,000 was under the national per/sqm average. See website. 2019.

Art Gallery, Forth Valley College

The Art Gallery was Craig's final year Graded Unit assignment - a result of 6 months work to fully develop a large-scale commercial building, from design, technical detailing, costing, implementation and final presentation. It itilised a steel space frame and a hyperbolic parabaloid roof to create a range of spaces within. Craig recently revised the project to make small amendments to materials, vegetation and even implemented a new gallery. Craig developed the design alongside his tutor - a graduate of GSA himself, Stuart Taylor. Craig's use of 3d live rendering as a design tool during the project set a standard which the college later adopted and one which Craig has continually adapted over the years. Craig credits the building as preparing him for professional practice and his eventual enrolement on the GSA Architecture course. See Website. 2014, 2019.

Dwelling Experiment A

Dwelling House A: Designed on a real-life plot, the Dwelling design was made by Craig as an experiment and was later used in his dissertation focusing on the viability of the architect to be both designer and developer. Using natural materials, and a unique structural approach, the Dwelling explores the possibility for designers to be more expressive in their designs while remaiming financially feasible. See website. 2019.

Dwelling Experiment B

Dwelling House B: An experimental Dwelling project which explores vertical design on a Urban plot. The design features striking Architecture, designed to allow light and ventilation to reach all parts of the Dwelling providing an attractive and mindful internal environment that allows it's users to reconnect with the city surroundings while maintaining a sense of privacy and security. It utilises a range of materials from recycled brick, corrugated steel and Aluminium to increase building performance while recreating a spiritual connection to the Urban fabric. This project designed by Craig and was later scrutinised and costed as part of Craig's Dissertation. See website. 2019.

Redefining Homeless Housing

Site

Redefining Homeless Housing

Cell Types

Redefining Homeless Housing

Cell Sections

Redefining Homeless Housing

Elevation

Redefining Homeless Housing

Plans

Redefining Homeless Housing

Interior Visuals

Redefining Homeless Housing

Exterior Visual

Redefining Homeless Housing

Exterior Visual

Site Information

Thesis Investigation

Spatial Development

Ground Floor Plan

Long Section

Earlier Stage 4 Work

HF-MCG-01

10.00 A.M. 21st June 2023

10.00 P.M. 21st December 2023

12.00 P.M. 30th November 2023

3.00 P.M. 13th February 2023

6.00 P.M. 11th September 2023

No Ownership Modes: Internal view of the architype R2++.

Four types of housing units were developed. R2++ is a Co-Housing unit on two levels which allows up to 6 double bedrooms.

No Ownership Modes: Layout of Achitypes R2++ and R1.

No Ownership Modes: Long section through Co-Housing and Co-Working components.

Each adult is allotted a Co-Working share. Renting the workspace may allow users to supplement their income during periods of economic difficulty. The proximity of the home to the workplace may improve the way of life of the users, with whole businesses being born through inhabitants working together.

No Ownership Modes: The scheme acts as a gateway to the new public space.

The thesis’ grow from each other and form part of a new social framework in both the private and public realm.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: Detailed development of the vessel and associated structure.

The ground plane becomes one with the landscape.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: Ground plan and landscape.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: First floor plan.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: Second floor plan.

The administrative offices to support the running of the participatory democracy.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: Typical upper floor plan.

Vessel for Participatory Democracy: Imagined within the site.

Both schemes are situated in the heart of Glasgow’s oldest district, the Merchant City.

project title

cell unit - old + new

masterplan

block deconstructed

site map

sections

axo of joint family level

view of unit terrace

model image

pause or pay

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, would like to state my support for the Pause or Pay Campaign.

Masterplan Floorplan | Pathway | Rooftop

Cross Section

Section Diagramme

3rd Floor Plan

Living space : the cell

DOMESTICITY AND LABOUR DWELLING

This proposal is situated in a plot of 51.50 m2. It is designed for a young couple, where one or both can work in the same space. The element that marks the change in the use of space is the difference in floor level and ceiling height. The design separates labour and domesticity, so work and private lives develop in individual spaces. The front elevation has a brick lattice, which permits the entry of light but also creates a sense of privacy.

DOMESTICITY AND LABOUR 3D MODEL INTERIOR VIEW

nterior view of model where the changes of level in both floors and ceilings can be seen to separate activities. The height in the work area gives versatility to the space, to carry out diverse activities in spite of being a reduced space.

LABOUR AREA INTERIOR VIEW

This image shows the perception of space from the point of view of the observer. The wall that divides domesticity and labour does not reach the ceiling so as to generate the sensation of continuity of space.

MERCHANT CITY URBAN HOUSING SECTION

The Merchant City is a centre for trade, (goods, services, culture and experiences). My thesis proposal is to create space for both culture and housing. Houses will be for two demographic groups, ones in need of healing from overworking, and those that are looking healing by working, following on from our first proposal for the district. Taking the cell’s concept as a start point, different levels will still separate uses, but on a larger scale. My thesis is that people from different sociodemographic groups can interreact in the same area over a variety public, private and semi-private spaces allocated across different levels within the same architectural proposal. Living - working dwellings (flats) are allocated on lower floors of the building. Microflats are a response for people who can not afford housing or need short term use. These will be allocated in the upper part of the building. The cultural are will be a multi-purpose space where its main use is a concert hall. It is connected to a plaza which is an open space that can hold different activities during day and night and even seasonal events.

URBAN HOUSING HUTCHENSON ST. SECTION

The section along Hutchenson street allows us to observe the scale of the proposal in relation to the existing architectural context, as well as the proposed change in use of the surrounding streets; In this case it is proposed to pedestrianize Wilson St. Also, in Trongate St. wide pavements are proposed to prioritise pedestrians and leaving a street for the transit of public transport and delivery vehicles for the businesses in the area.

INTERNAL VIEW

View of the internal pedestrian precinct, where diverse activities can happen during different seasons. It shows proposed materials, that contextually match their surroundings, and human scales.

Multigenerational Growth

The Single Demographic City Though the city centre is often rich in cultural diversity, it often lacks such richness in terms of age demographic. The continuous movement of families and the elderly to the suburbs has left a shallow demographic dominated by students and young professionals. In the current Urban planning process, it is clear that there is a major lack of consideration for such groups, forcing them to move out with the centre in order to fulfil their housing needs. Urban Village: A Community Model By applying village typologies to the merchant city, it is hoped that the demographic and richness of village community can be manifested on the site. Through the integration of fundamental community spaces it is hoped that the site will act a whole and inclusive community which scales down the current city into a more tangible environment. People, Experience, Learn, Grow The following project focuses on providing multi-generational homes for vulnerable individuals, pushing for a close knit relationship between families, the elderly and young singles. By redefining the classic model of “your home and your two neighbours” it helps to establish those close knit relationships that would naturally develop over time in a suburban environment, in an urban environment . Not only does the project aim to tackle current financial issue’s faced by individuals when trying to buy property in the city, the Cell model provides a family dynamic which aims to support a shared domestic labour. In the project, daily tasks are deigned to be split amongst inhabitants, forcing strong relationships to be formed. Where the young individual can cook meals for the elderly in return for wisdom, the elderly may babysit while the parents are at work in return for help with daily tasks and parents can provide useful life skills for young individuals, helping them on their way in life. Not only does this alleviate rising loneliness but provides an environment where individuals can live, teach, learn and grow as individuals together.

In the project I have chosen for the Degree Show we were given a brief asking to design a public building, consisting of a performance space of a certain spectators' capacity, accompanied by an additional programme of our choice. The site of this project is located on Candleriggs, within the Merchant City district in Glasgow. My proposal is a cultural centre, which consist of an amateur/experimental theatre, exhibition space, flexible workshop spaces which can be adapted for teaching art and small crafts that do not require heavy equippement, library and a top-floor cafe. The overarching idea that connects all the function is the exchange – of experiences, knowledge, skills, memories – through a variety of storytelling devices – performances, art – or act of “creating” in general – formal and informal conversation. Theatre space does not have traditional rows of seats, which are replaced with wide stair-seats, that can become parts of the stage if necessary; voids, present in the exhibition and library parts of the building, as well as mostly open – and if enclosed, then glazed – spaces, allow the different parts of the building to blend one into another. Wide stair-like structure is also used through the library floors, allowing to subtly differenciate between the space of the borrowing collection and places more private, where one can sit and rest, preferably with a book. Use of light and charred wood as external and internal cladding creates a feeling of depth – on the outside, with charred wood - that draws a passer by into itself, together with a frosted glass screen that allows one to see the sillhouetes of the performers preparing for the play; light wood finish used within the interiors provides a warm, welcoming atmosphere and counteracts the large volumes of the building by its organic qualities; big factory-like windows allow a glimpse into the outside world, and vice versa – users of the building can observe the street while feeling safely enclosed. [a fragment of “There's no sea...” mural by Michal 'Sepe' Wrega has been used in the 1:50 section drawing]

The Music Lab

Diagrams

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

Third Floor Plan

Merchant City Perspective

Long Section

Merchant City - Initial Site Analysis

From the initial site analysis, we identified the lack of social infrastructure in the surrounding area of the site. The project chooses diverse vulnerable groups across society and reforms a part of the city to accommodate their fundamental needs, bringing in the density and services needed to sustain a community and support the surrounding vicinity of our district.

Observing Labour through Play

My project focuses on the needs of workless families, aiming to break the cycle of unemployment by making different models of labour observable to children from workless households and providing parents with the facilities to access support finding a job.

Approach from South-West of Proposal

View of the main public entrance to the proposal looking towards Trongate. The proposal is set back from the street to allow for the creation of a public square in front.

Approach from North-East of Proposal

View of the back of the proposal. All domestic circulation is external and exposed to allow for smaller communities to be formed around the shared front gardens that each serve four flats.

Long Section through Proposal

The long section shows the vertical play area that takes place in the core courtyard of the building. This allows children to observe different modes of labour in the public library on the lower floors and the office spaces within the flats that are placed to face into the play area.

Typical Housing Floor Plan

The flats are split over two levels and interlock to create shared outdoor spaces at the front and back. This front and back garden will be shared between a different set of 4 flats to create smaller communities for shared working and childcare.

Axonometric of Units Stacking

This drawing shows the way the flats interlock to create shared outdoor space on two levels. Each colour represents a different 3 or 4 bedroom family home.

Lower Floor Plan of a Unit

This is a typical lower floor plan of a flat. The design comes from my aim to create housing where domestic labour (primarily childcare) and traditional labour (‘work’) can coexist and complement each other by creating working and childcare communities around shared outdoor space.

Typical Upper Floor Plan of a Unit

This is a typical floor plan of an upper floor plan of a flat.

Working Model Photos

These photos are taken of a model made to work out my initial ideas for a unit that deals with the issues of the relationship between labour and domesticity. I wanted to tackle the question of ‘how can you work from home without feeling like you are working from home?’ My solution was an upper floor that can fold up during the day to create a double height work space on the lower floor. Additionally, the walls between units can slide open to allow for collaboration between neighbours to resemble a more traditional office setting.

Design for Natural Systems

Visualisation. A Housing block in the Merchant City, that incorporates natural and mechanical systems to support nature and sustainable life in the city.

Design for Natural Systems

Plan. Adaptable housing units reduce the distance between work, production and the natural.

Design for Natural Systems

Structural Model. The building framework supports nature in the city, which in turn supports human life.

Collaborative Glasgow

Visualisation. A space for collaborative design, production and performance to enable democratic representation of the diverse context it is in.

Collaborative Glasgow

Section. An open experience is arranged around the cycle of idea to production, to performance.

Collaborative Glasgow

Detail Model. The material, spatial, functional experiences are arrived at from a nature-centred approach, lessening the impact and enabling it in the city.

The physical

The void in between

The digital

P1_Cell

P1_Cell

P3_Urban Housing

P3_Urban Housing

Typical Flat layout for large scale family. Each family member has a specifically designed space aimed at various levels of social interaction depending on their generation. A void space is created above the stairwell so all members can hear each other throughout the home once leaving their specific private bedroom space.

P4_Urban Building

More project work coming soon.

Pause or Pay Campaign

Citadel Communities Block 1 in Proposed District.

The Citadel Community encourages as many domestic, production and commercial tasks to be performed in groups, by providing a variety of large functional spaces that surround a central gathering space - like the layout of Islamic Citadels. The dwellings are organized based on individual and group activities and the many terraces surrounding them provide opportunities to socialize and grow as a community.

Citadel Communities - District in Context.

Glasgow faces the challenge of finding ways to function more sustainably and create less waste whilst housing and providing work for an expanding population. By encouraging communities to live in organized neighborhoods whereby neighbors can support each other with domestic and laborious processes: resources can be shared amongst many citizens and waste can be reduced.

Citadel Communities Block 1 and Residential Cells.

The ‘Acoma Pueblo’ in New Mexico housed a society that lived harmoniously with each other and the natural world. Emphasis is put on spaces where domestic and production activities were performed in groups, these are shared by many multi-level dwellings which are efficiently organized. These layouts have informed the separation of activities in the residential cells of the Citadel Community and allowed more space for public, commercial and production areas throughout all the levels of Block 1.

Citadel Communities - Section through Block 1.

Labour and Domestic

In this co-housing, people can become each other’s traditional meaning family in an unconventional way and decrease spend. They can work at the co-working area or elsewhere by leaving their children at the nursery with qualified older people.Older people can spend the day with their own age or have fun with children. Labour and family are in their own self, but not isolated anymore.

Domestic in Labour

From ground floor to second floor, these areas work as transition area.It brings labour to the domestic and domestic to labour.

Section AA'(1:200)

Combining the three different unit types together, it can helps to create many sharing/private social areas in between in order to work as social condensers.

Seventh Floor Plan(1:100)

Three unit types have been developed. Unit A is th unit type that designed for single parent with children only. Unit B is the type for elderly people only. Unit C is the only mix living unit type in this building.

Tectonic(Young and Elderly center)

1:50 cross section for Young and elderly center with a classical theatre

View into courtyard

The proposed project is a multi-generational live-in workers’ cooperative for those who are most at risk in the current capitalist housing model. Residents act as custodians of the building, allowing them to live there in exchange for the labour required to run the cooperative. The flexible scheme emphasises residents’ growth, which is achieved through gaining diverse skills from a variety of responsibilities. The flats are designed for short-term residency - a few months up to a couple of years - with a simple grid design to keep them cost-effective. Shared social spaces and a diverse community foster a friendly, communal atmosphere.

View along deck

View into flat

Flat typologies

The flats are all variants of the base (cell) layout, with adaptations for different types of inhabitants, intended for short-term occupation. The typologies are assorted across the plan to create a diversity of tenants. The simple gridded layout allows for low cost but high-quality dual-aspect flats.

Occupancy relationships

The variety of activities across the site create interdependencies and a very localised community.

Title page

Ground floor plan

Flat type for multigenerational family

Flat type for live/work at home

Flat type for artisans

Section/Elevation 1

Perspective of library

Perspective of courtyard

Urban block

We propose to arrange the different departments of a school around an urban block within the Merchant City and for it to be open for public use. The school is open to residents and wider city habitants, offering access to education and providing public amenities while being fully integrated into the city fabric.

Trongate facade

Typology section

The design uses a range of typologies and stacks them on section to create homes for varying types of users while sharing communal spaces in the form of a courtyard and roof terrace.

Urban Nomads

An portable apartment for freelancing labour

Overview

Community

Glasgow Grand Opera House

West facade

Opera Hall

East facade

Perspective

A Collective Library

The library becomes a place for families as well as individual sanctuary.

A Shared Culinary Experience

The communal kitchen provides a social and learning environment for all ages.

The Urban Demographic

What makes people want to stay? Currently, there is a state of impermanence in Merchant City. It is lively in at the weekend and empty during the week. It is seen as a place where time is spent passing through it rather then staying. Offering the amenities to have the choice to stay, whether you are an artist, student or young family is crucial to the design strategies.

Street Conditions; Light and Heavy Labour

Differences in light and heavy labour, changing position depending on light; heavy structures to the north of the site facing Wilson Street, and light structures to the south facing Trongate. The painting studio on the roof is a hybrid of heavy and light structure, allowing green space to envelope the studio in a tranquil setting. It becomes a garden and play space for children.

1:2500 Proposal in Context

The masterplan comprises a school, multi-generational housing units and an artists in residence unit. Colonnades invite you into the space, providing covered walkways and open spaces for markets and exchanges. A monument, not exceeding the heights of the surrounding context, acts as a waymarker in Merchant City.

Ground Floor in Context

The retail and commercial spaces, such as the independent cafes and museum, maintain an activated, lively space throughout the day.

Ground Floor Proposal

First Floor Proposal

Cell Iteration for a Single Occupant

This micro study of the movement within a residential unit shows the private spaces divided by a large, inhabited wall into the semi-public studio and library space. Subtle level changes delineate this hierarchy, with soft buffers such as planters also creating further sub-divisions of space. Integrated furniture allows for transformative open areas, as well as thick floor plates for storage and pop-up furniture.

Labour and Domesticity with the Building

Co-living cell archetypal: two cell types

This project focuses on the relationship between domesticity and labour in the contemporary society. Throughout rising of population in cities, sometimes it is hard to feel a sense of belonging and often feel lonely. Urban loneliness is connected to population mobility, declining community participation and a growth in single-occupant households. After a burnout day it is important to separate work from home, or spaces that can evoke that. Feeling of isolation is connected with high rates of people living alone. I will be studying precedents such as wellness centres and healing environments that architecturally promotes mental health and conclude by incorporating it in the co-living housing typology proposal.

Transitioning from work to home: social space

Decreased attention on personal spaces in living typology and lack on social interaction between others in the community, this contemporary ideology of architecture condition can have physical and mental effects on the individual. An unconnected society. Creating generous spaces for social bonding is the attention necessary in co-living typology and improve mental health.

Transitioning from work to home: cleanse

Architecture is used to create a route where step by step the user travels through the building is being cleansed physically and mentally from work and transitioning into domesticity. It is shown in the clear cohesion of spaces that are to function as physical cleanse or evoke the feeling of mental cleanse.

Spacial distinction section

A design that has additional opportunities to encourage users to lower their stress levels, internal and external qualities of a building that could result in having a positive effect on the user’s wellbeing and applying that in a city context. A sanctuary within the chaotic city life. An oasis.

From Urban to Oasis

Decreased attention on personal spaces in living typology and lack on social interaction between others in the community, this contemporary ideology of architecture condition can have physical and mental effects on the individual. An unconnected society. The design reevaluates the sense of community through a public pathway above ground that connects all buildings within the site. It allows for social bonding in the neighbourhood that feels safe. A place that can relieve the feeling of disorientation in the busy city, sense control when you are able to see everything in a new perspective. The contrast between urban and oasis, seeing buildings looking up in the city, but in the design being able to see them looking down.

Introductory diagrams

This project began by looking at the half stepped floor slab as the main separator of space within a living unit. The proposal is based upon the psychological divide this creates. The apartments provide the user with a high degree of flexibility and adaptability, with the half step as the only pre determined separator.

Location within the city

Like the masterplan developed previously in this project, where an outer edge contains the historic grid, the proposal conceals and hints at a hidden world inside the scheme.

Masterplan

A master plan was developed prior to the design of this scheme. The main ambition was to maintain the historic grid in Glasgows city fabric, utilise the surrounding vistas to create new ones and provide spaces for informal knowledge exchange in key spaces placed in the new vistas designed. We called these spots ”beacons”, to help visitors and passers by navigate through the neighbourhood.

Ground floor plan

Through chamfered corners, new vistas and narrow lanes, the proposal stays true to the outlines decided upon in the masterplan, and opens up at ground floor level into a semi private courtyard through a series of hour-glass shaped openings in the building fabric.

Sections

Section and cross section showing the dialogue between housing and public space, as well as its relationship with existing building heights.

Typical plan

Each flat has a unique layout and consists of several half stepped floors, with the only constant being the stacked load-bearing cores providing plumbing and services for the kitchen and bathrooms.

Axonometric section

The language of the elevation is kept deliberately neutral to refrain from indicating what a certain room designated usage is.

Apartment plan

The inhabitant chooses what spaces to divide, to what degree and with the materials they themselves prefer. It is not up to the architecture to determine what a certain space should be used for. That is for the inhabitant to decide. The line between labour and domesticity is drawn by each user according to their own needs.

Axonometrics in context

The undulating roof scape is a response to exposure, with the tallest parts facing the outside and the lower parts facing either a square or neighbouring buildings in the masterplan.As the proposal sits within the inner part of the masterplan, the decision was made not to design taller than the buildings surrounding the site, to retain a sense of intimacy.

Views within the proposal

Three moments in the scheme showing: 1. Entering the semi private courtyard. 2. Approaching one of the new public squares through the masterplan. 3. A view of the southern elevation approaching from Argyle Street.

Models

Left: a collection of study- and massing models used to progress the design. Right: a presentation model exploring a section through the scheme, showing the relationship between building and courtyard as well as the incorporation of vertical circulation.

The Bourdon at forty

Photo essay for MacMag 45 documenting The Bourdon Building, home of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The Bourdon at forty

Photo essay for MacMag 45 documenting The Bourdon Building, home of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The Bourdon at forty

Photo essay for MacMag 45 documenting The Bourdon Building, home of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

Scenes of an imaginary past

Personal project investigating how nature slowly engulfs manmade environments, invoking scenes of an imaginary past. The history of the place becomes emphasised and amplified.

Scenes of an imaginary past

Personal project investigating how nature slowly engulfs manmade environments, invoking scenes of an imaginary past. The history of the place becomes emphasised and amplified.

The Agonistic Assembly

The thesis is set in 2029 Antwerp, whereby following the results of the general election, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) break the imposed cordon sanitaire and form an alliance with the far-right Vlaams Belang party. Together they initiate their common mandate for the establishment of a newly independent nation of Flanders. The thesis proposal is for the Flemish National Assembly, a public institution that integrates governmental ministers, NGOs, activists, and the wider public within one building. Several conflictual relationships will be enabled between diverse demographics through the intersection of high/low culture political and public programmes. The proposal seeks to establish an agonistic architectural language through the creation of a contemporary 'Polis', defined by professor Eric Swyngedouw as "the site for public encounter, democratic negotiation and radical dissent".

Insurgent Polis

Belgian Archipelago

I propose a reading of Belgium as an Archipelago of politically and geographically distinct islands. The federal government is formed from a complex arrangement of language based communities, cultural regions, and local provinces, that are fundamentally divided between the Capitalist and Socialist camps of Flanders and Wallonia. Geographically, Belgium is a low-lying country divided into 3 distinct regions: the coastal plains in the North-West, the low-lying polders in the centre and the Ardennes Plateau in the South. Similarly, Antwerp can be seen as a pluralistic composition of discrete islands, held in a dialogue through the urbanisation that connects them.

Site

The proposition is situated around Antwerp's Bonaparte dock in Eilandje, at the threshold of the old medieval city. The unique urban room created by the old docks contains the features of the wider Belgian morphology, as represented by the six historic artworks. The thesis accentuates each feature through a landscape proposal that recreates the three distinct geographical regions of Belgium. The assembly creates an agonistic relationship with each of these constituent parts through a rotated grid that unapologetically interrupts the city whilst simultaneously allowing it to flow through the heart of the scheme.

Flemish National Assembly

The built proposal seeks to express the conflict inherent in pluralism through the intersection of three formal political objects, a public field and the MPs offices. The objects house the debate chamber, the library and the committee rooms, and together they contain the lobby - the space of conflict and encounter between the MP's, activists, lobbyists and public. Each object has a formal masonry crust, containing the political programme, and a lightweight timber nest, which hosts the space of public conflict. The MPs offices are contained within a new city block, that reads as part of Antwerp’s grain. Suspended above is the field - a three-dimensional ruin that contains the public programme of the assembly (studios, broadcasting suite, workshops, press offices, and exhibition halls). This surrounds the government, creating a constant tension between political and public life, whilst remaining open to the city.

Tectonic Pluralism

The detailed design of the assembly is driven by the principle of Tectonic Pluralism, which is defined as the dialogue between discrete design languages. The assembly is composed of masonry crusts, timber nests, a 9x9m concrete frame, CLT boxes, and steel servicing and walkways. Each distinct space follows its own material logic, resulting in duplicated structures and enclosures. The threshold between each enclosure becomes a terrain vague, a liminal space in which the public and political can engage in agonistic encounters.

Parliamentary Lobby Section

The Lobby & The Field

Testing

Process

The work exhibited thus far was completed in March for the purposes of an interim review, and is therefore not final. The thesis has since developed in several key ways as illustrated in the bottom row of sketches. Programmatically the changes densify the scheme, by introducing four political objects (library, committee rooms, broadcasting suite, ministers officers), moving the debate chamber into the lobby and surrounding the heart with more playful and engaging public programmes. Architecturally the proposal has become considerably more open and loose, by breaking down each object into a collection of distinct elements. The work is ongoing, and the current intention is to complete the thesis in July. Any developments towards the final project will be recorded and published on my upcoming website.

Deconstruction - reconstruction - deconstruction

Abandoned warehouses viewed as a resource in building a new masterplan, resulting in a circular use of materials.

Industrial and post-industrial areas of Antwerp

As industry has moved areas and buildings have been left behind, in close proximity to the city centre.

District plan: existing and proposed masterplan

33 warehouses have been identified in the district of Den Dam, which lack potential for new uses and for creating public space. These can be deconstructed in order to create a new masterplan made up of the same materials.

Catalogue of elements and materials

Elements and materials from the deconstruction process have been mapped and organised as a database for creating new buildings.

Deconstruction and its potential

Model 1 shows a method of mental deconstruction as a way to study each element of the space and building in relation to its qualities of light, texture, tectonics and spatial qualities. Model 2 shows one way of testing the new uses of structural elements.

A new public building

Through the thesis I have tested the extremes of reuse, in relation to its potential. A new public workshop and market building has been created with a very different expression to the material's original use.

New uses of structural elements

The structure has been taken in use in different ways to allow for large and interesting spaces within.

Combination of brick wall sections

To allow for minimal deconstruction of the original materials, bricks have been deconstructed as larger segments of wall. These have then been combined to create a regular grid form of a variety of brick patterns, allowing for it to be further deconstructed and reused in the future.

New potential of elements

The main workshop space expresses the exposed steel, brick and corrugated metal sheets, keeping an industrial look but used in new ways. The spaces are lit by diffused daylight through large areas of polycarbonate sheets.

Facades

The facades of the storage buildings and the workshops take in use a similar expression, only differenced by the glazing and the roof form.

1. Ceramics in Context

2. Timeline of Ceramics in Antwerp

3. Site Morphology

4. Nolli Map of Space

5. Site Proposal

6. Materiality Proposal

7. External View

8. Internal Spaces

9. External View

10. Section through Display Box Window

1. Natural Disasters

A major hurricane devastates at least one country in the Caribbean every year. While earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are not as prevalent, the Caribbean sits on a tectonic plate which could mean danger at a moment’s notice. This simply means that the architecture found in these places either need to be extremely resilient or adaptable. I have decided to take the latter approach.

2. Structural Model

The image shows the framework of a single ‘modular’ unit which has led to the design development of the thesis project. This form was generated through several iterations which were tested on site.

3. Community: Self-build Pavilion

The concept of self-build is complimentary with sustainability and disaster relief. This liberates the user from having to hire an expensive contractor and recognizes the social dimensions of the process, from consideration of the structure through to the lived experience of individuals.

4. Pavilion Functions

The pavilions themselves have specific functions to address specific needs. They can be used to address social needs such as gathering, community needs such as soup kitchens and market stalls and productive needs such as spaces for isolation and urban farming.

5. Filling the Urban Void

Welcome to Europark, a district located on the left bank of Antwerp city centre. There is an interesting collage of urban typologies and landscape fragments found within the district however, there is a lack of social infrastructure. Ninety-five percent of the land is residential and is otherwise completely isolated and not maximizing its full potential. The aim of the thesis is to solve the problems set forth by this type of modernist landscape such as, the lack of jobs, lack of social infrastructure and numerous urban voids while addressing the needs of the demographic.

6. District Strategy

The thesis proposes the regeneration of Europark by implementing a network of architectural interventions which address social and cultural needs culminating at an urban hub. The interventions seek to improve living conditions in Europark regardless of demographic by using a modern set of design principles which fill urban voids left behind since its completion.

7. Medieval Context

The units are capable of suiting multiple contexts for various needs. This unit solves the need for a social gathering space located in the centre of the medieval city in Antwerp, Belgium.

8. Residential Context

This image also depicts how the social unit can be used in a residential setting to fill cultural voids.

9. Pavilion Adaptability

Bringing people together to build these pavilions will undoubtedly improve the quality of life through a sense of community but also a sense of belonging and ownership. The pavilions are adaptable, multifunctional and self-built. This means that when the units reach the end of their lifecycle the materials can be repurposed to create something entirely new such as housing for residents, an office space or even an urban hub…

10. The Urban Hub

This self-build initiative will be used to train people in construction methodology which then prepares them to handle larger projects such as an urban hub. The following images depict how the interior spaces of an urban hub can be organised to host a variety of functions such as a market, community centre, training facility and more.

Human-Machine Interaction

The Thesis Project speculates on the impacts of AI, the robotization of labour market and the growing inclination towards automation and replacement of human jobs by machines, as well as seeking to define new parameters for a post-capitalist society through the design of a new typology building which combines a ‘human’ and ‘machine’ programme.

Antwerp and its port

Over the years, Antwerp’s identity and territorial expansion has been strongly connected with its port (ranked second in Europe after Rotterdam) representing the main economic driver for the city and the whole Flemish region (approximately 10% of the GDP and a total of 140.000 in between direct and indirect employees).

Race to automation

The race to productivity, efficiency and international competitiveness of today societies, is leading the Port of Antwerp to invest more and more into new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), drones, self-driving vehicles, automated cranes and many others; a tendency poised to change not only the logistics and shipping industry but also other sectors.

Future Port of AntwerpFuture Port of Antwerp

Antwerp World Expo 2055 | Poster and Tour Map

The proposal is set in a future scenario (2055) where Antwerp will be hosting the World Expo, an international exhibition designed to celebrate the achievements of the future automated Port of Antwerp. The event will lead to the construction of a new Institutional building located in the fraction of water separating the city and port area, establishing a new dialogue between the machine and human environment.

Building program

The building design takes the shape of a tower acting both as a gate to the port as well as the culminating entity of Het Eljiande district cultural axis, dominating Antwerp’ skyline and the former Port Authority. The building programme includes: . Data centre, digital infrastructure governing the automated port (machine); . Leisure, education and expo activities to entertain Antwerp’ citizens and visitors (human); . Cable car station as the new transport link between the tower and remaining Expo buildings in the locks; . Drone port occupied by drones whose purpose is to monitor the port landscape; These two main blocks are detached by a central atrium bringing light in and allowing drones to move freely.

Section

The section suggest Structurally, the building is defined by a modular layout in the south-side block due to the scalability and change in size of the data centre, while the north-side block is characterized by a hybrid truss system, allowing big open spaces for flexible and adaptable uses in order to respond to people needs and requests. To conclude, the two concrete cores stabilize the entire structure crowned by a system of 3d printers, cranes and robotic arms which automate its own construction.

Data Centre

The building environmental strategy foresees the reuse of exhausted heating produced by the data centre into leisure activities such as the swimming pool, sauna and showers or energy supply for the rest of the building. Therefore, this new sustainable data centre concept strives to transform this high energy-consuming typology into an energy-producing resource for communities to generate their own power.

Entrance view

Working model

Context and program

Development of the conceptual model

Ground floor

First floor

Sequential experience

Observation on vernacular window constructions

Oslo Trienale Live Build - Degrowth

The Plant Power! project looks at applications for nature based solutions to generating heat within an urban setting. As part of the Oslo Triennale. Being Tectonic with Public Works hosted a School for Civic Action masterclass to build a compost heater. This will act as a test bed to generate knowlegde which will then be implemented within the projects of the partners involved. The compostor will be in the garden of the museum creating a heated public space for visitors to embrace plant power! as a natural alternative to fossil based space heating.

Plant Power - A Compost Bioreactor

Our team designed a cylinder shaped container to maximise the efficiency of the compost process. The concept was to encourage engagement with members of the public and tease out curiosity with steps leading you ontop of the compost pile to a public space and viewing platform. The design was adjusted during construction, this was a team decision influenced by time, resources and skillsets.

An Enduring Architecture

01. It is said that represents the heart of Europe. The city is a complex ensemble of social, economic, and cultural simultaneities that can be understood in its architecture. A construction that speaks of the social and organizational structure of a place. 02. The city is understood as "An architecture, and this simultaneously, as a construction of the city over time." 03. The river was his origin, it brought wealth but determined its character. The city reminds us of its commercial and defensive nature. 04. Its Architecture is expressive, retains the patina and the character of the people, their traditions. It builds on itself, and it is temporary, but its idea endures.

05. A find triggers the project, a baroque monument, and a ruin next to it. A 15th-century Dominican monastery lies forgotten, around it a collection of fragments that contain and are part of the history of the city. 06. In 1262 the Dominican Order began the construction of the first monastery Church. 07. The locale has been built as a result of the destruction, re-construction, alteration, and changes of use. A sort of factors that enrich and shape the idea of a place that is still alive but forgotten. 08. It is an area of religious worship, it was a monastery, church, warehouse, wedding chapel, and kindergarten; monument, ruin, and point of tourist interest but above all, the civic centre of public life. The block responds to the city, adapts to its inhabitants, and lasts over time. An event In 1698 a heavy fire overwhelmed the complex, destroying the roofs and leaving 3/4 of the monastery in ruins. The reconstruction of the church begins, it is financed with the sale of the monastery to private owners. 09. Urban archaeology and the study of pre-existing elements of the project are part of the working methodology. The inventory appears as a study, catalogue, and analysis tool to understand the stories behind the architecture.

10. A choreography of complex geometric and spatial relationships reveals the different elements that make up the block. The vestige is made up of buildings from the 15th, 17th, and 19th centuries. 11. A four-winged monastery set around a courtyard adjacent to the church. A ruined two-winged monastery. The old library and herbarium. A garden, full of small vestiges and altars. A neo-classical garden wall and a monumental gate. 12. As a result of the discovery, an exhaustive study begins to understand history and culture through elements, objects, and materials, but also the ability to adapt and reuse the different elements without losing their original idea. On these remains the project will be built, the city had chosen its place.

13. Antwerp is perceived as a palimpsest, a cluster of clearly visible temporal layers that tell us a story. In the same way, the project wants to be erected on what is already built. 14. Three stories tell us about the project and allow us to reinforce this idea of time layers. The first is how to reveal existing layers through the controlled dismantling of insignificant and dilapidated buildings. The second, Insert a set of activating objects that give the place of function and cohesion. And the third, to create a contrast in the architectural language that speaks to us of the dialogue between the new and the old. 15. If civic and cultural public spaces are one of the most fascinating works of architecture that define the city, we want to build one more, representative of the time and place, of a collective and ecological nature.

16. A house of memories is proposed. A museum in the form of a flexible cabinet of curiosities that celebrates the complexity of the social fabric through its collective memory. Collective memory understood as the soul of the city, which is, in essence, the city itself and its people, their stories, and history. 17. The museum studies Antwerp through common and mundane objects that can evoke memories and feelings while telling us their stories. 18. The Forum offers a space to encourage citizen participation, debate, and reflection concerning the destruction, and construction of the city: past, present, and future. 19. An archive for people's memories offers a space dedicated to collect, store, and exhibit citizen's objects and their stories. Everyone has the choice to be remembered through their objects. 20. The memory is enlivened, stimulated with ghostly and blurred images, the opacity and translucency of the material are used as an evocative strategy.

21. The pre-existing state determines intervention at different levels. A building facade is shown before the city. A flexible gallery of light construction with precast elements is introduced into the patio and covers it. It is reversible and provocative. The ruins are consolidated becoming a new set. The garden harmonizes and unites all the elements. 22. The facade building arouses our curiosity, blurred figures in movement draw our attention. We access a hall of exaggerated proportions that transits between the ancient and the contemporary. Suddenly, we see it, in front, a wide staircase that guides our experience, to reach it first, we must cross part of the old building and enter the courtyard. Upon access we perceive the new inserted volume and the tension it generates. One facing the other, they stare at each other as if wanting to start a dialogue but they never touch, they observe. The volume appears raised from the ground, supported by a swarm of columns that are familiar to us. Iron supports recovered from industrial structures along the river, form these supports.

23. The long and narrow galleries of the old monastery evoke the most medieval city, collecting the individual memories of its citizens. In contrast, the inserted volume presents wide and open spaces that are reminiscent of the city's ambitions and aspirations, contain their collective memories, and represent their transformations. The main circulation is established in the inserted volume through which we access the different levels, building metaphorical and physical bridges between both structures that allow us to experiment and frame different moments, thus establishing the link between both interventions.

24. The shape is not important, the contrast is. The pre-existing architecture is of medieval geometry and character, ornate and stereotomic. The scale reminds us of the power of the church and its symbolism. The intervention seeks contrast and temporal evidence. Lightweight steel and timber structures lift the new volumes of simple form. The contrast is produced with the use of glass with different opacities that reinforce the lightness of the ensemble.

An Architecture of Active Nihilism

The thesis scheme seeks to architecturally explore contemporary societal nihilism, beginning with a deep research period drawing from a breadth of philosophers, artists, and architects. The prime endeavour of the work is to act as a proposition upon societal relationships with death and being, and present a richly programmed scheme to conveying the arguments. This visualisation presents a gallery scene in which Bruegel’s ‘Dulle Griet’ steals from the gates of hell upon a vista of the decaying refineries of petroleum conglomerates past and present.

Site: Petroleum Zuid

Sitting 2.5km south of Antwerp’s old town, on the East bank of the Scheldt, Petroleum Zuid exists as terrain-vague, an overgrown relic of industry past. A thriving petrochemical in the early 1900’s, it is the oldest petroleum port in Belgium, and both the largest in Europe and second-largest in the world at its zenith. Long declined, with just a handful of petroleum companies remaining, the area straddles a unique landscape which affords key aspects and axes to the opposite bank of the Scheldt, and connection to central Antwerp.

Contemporary Passive Nihilism

Just 100 companies produce 71% off all greenhouse gas emissions, and pertinently lobby to ensure the undermining of real climate progress. Similarly, within the realms of technology, we are within the grips of private interest, our virtual presence bought, sold, exploited and entrenched through a socio-psycho cultural dependence, even in death. Technology’s ability for good is kept an arm’s length away, behind an ever-receding horizon of exponential advancement and capital. What’s the point?

Toward Active Nihilism

Expanding Nietzsche’s notions of passive and active nihilism, the argument is that we are societally entrenched within a state of ontological dysphoria. We innately struggle with the abstract finality of death: inevitably and infinitely us, and all, will eventually cease to exist. Society’s artifices of self-soothing, of death denialism, lead us to deeper entrenched passive nihilism, thus unable to globally contemplate the urgency of impending climate extinction. Thus, the programme seeks to act as memento mori, while exploring the ambivalence of meaning in a meaningless landscape of active nihilism, and the cathartic liberation of awakened sensuousness within it.

Contamination and Remediation

Historical leaking of underground pipes on-site resulted in severe contamination of the site’s soil and groundwater. An in-depth technology study was undertaken to examine the nature of the pollution and ascertain the best in-situ remediation strategies. Both bio and electrokinetic remediation are employed, however holistic phytoremediation through trees acts as the primary strategy. Through this method, remediation is effective, but slow, presenting a poetic allegory of the time required to remedy versus the nihilistic notion of time running out. Urgent, though perhaps futile while still in the grip of passive nihilism.

First Floor Plan

The scheme attempts to work within the natural geometry of the site, by carving a series of distinct axes, which themselves intersect with both existing fields and a large data repository. The data repository programme acts as a monumental memento mori, storing the online presences, or ‘virtual corpses,’ of the deceased, and preventing their potential exhumation; its form unapologetically divides the site, enclosing the petrochemical plants in counterpoint to the vast remediation field.

Orthographic Projection

Pulling key elements apart within the scheme, this projection assists in reading the individual programmatic components, their formal presence, and relationship with the scheme whole. The museum and bathing programme exist nested within the data centre and axes of the wider site, weaving and subsuming before a final sensuous elation in the remediation field. The crematorium acts as subtle and sensitive benign memento mori, a more considered reminder of death, in counterpoint to the data repository’s employment of raw scale.

Plan and Section (Excerpt)

Scale is a key tool employed throughout to express the monumentality of death spatially. This section shows a key connection within the bathing programme, which draws one along the sheer height of the data repository toward the more human and tactile scale of the bathing wings.

Thermal Baths via Data Repository

The perpendicular route to the connection shown within the previous section, it acts a clear and striking expression of active nihilism and the truth of death. One strides on in its face, finding freedom in its nothingness, toward elation and liberation.

Thermal Bathing

Active nihilism is relished in the absurd embrace of sensuous experience. An introverted awakening within extroverted and carnal public programme. The waste heat from both the data-repository and crematorium warm the pools and saunas; one literally bathes in death. Now awoken in active nihilism and liberated by its acceptance of inevitable extinction, we are charged with the ability to fight our existential woes, a glass of champagne in-hand.

Thesis Synopsis_

Industrial Typologies

Catalogue: Components

Catalogue: Parts

Construction Diagrams

Visualisation

Vacancy

Visualisation

Ground floor plan Scale 1:100

Visualisation - Workshop building, embedded into existing court

Axonometric

Located in the Amandus-Antheneum district in the North-East of the city, the thesis project occupies the centre of an urban block on the edge of Sint-Jansplein square. The inner-block location constitutes a foil to the main square, creating a more intimately scaled public space that is less imposing and more suitable for social interaction than the main square.

Tower Storytelling Room

Storytelling communities value a connection to nature, which makes the use of sustainable and natural construction materials appropriate for the thesis. Rammed earth has both a symbolic and literal connection to the natural world and the building expresses such a connection through its architecture and materiality.

Ground & First Floor Plans

Sections

Library Interior

Rammed Earth Models

The left model was created using subsoil I excavated from a local building site by the River Kelvin. Earth model making taught me much about the considerations that must be taken into account when constructing with the material, such as mix composition, formwork design and shrinkage moderation. The hands-on approach is the best way to learn about earth building.

The thesis is community focused and aims to serve primarily the local community of Antwerp Noord, which is a complex multicultural setting of around 35,000 inhabitants of more than 150 nationalities. It is a vibrant and dynamic neighbourhood and one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the city with notable Moroccan, Bulgarian, Chinese and Portuguese communities. At the same time however it is one of Antwerp’s most deprived neighbourhoods. With such a mix of cultures it can be possible for certain groups to become marginalised which can lead to a problem of social isolation within society. The building programme of storytelling related spaces and architectural language focusing on a multi-sensory experience, address these problems of isolation and encourages social cohesion.

Site Model in Context

Programmatic Research – Field Work

Influential Theory

Material Study

Architectural Technology Driver: Using highly sustainable rammed earth paired with conventional building materials for creating innovative forms, not previously associated with the traditional earth material. This is achieved in the design of the building’s detailing and in the methods of construction. My architectural technology in-depth study examined which qualities of concrete could be replicated using rammed earth. This provided the knowledge base for moving forward. The limitations of rammed earth due to its lack of tensile strength can be overcome by using limited instances of conventional materials in support of the main earth structure. The building is constructed partly using traditional rammed earth construction methods of tampering the walls in place and partly using contemporary high-tech prefabrication of rammed earth panel¬¬s to streamline the construction process. ¬¬¬

Exploded Detail of Rammed Earth Tower

Air Filter Tower at Roosevelt Square

How the architecture contribute in managing air pollution on urban heritage and sustainably integrating into community?

Master plan of the old Spanish walls

The Leien are a series of streets that largely follow the route of the Spanish fortification walls as it was constructed in the 16th century. In the modern days, the entire road on Leien has become a chaotic distribution line of trams, car and buses, neglecting pedestrians and cyclists. This complicated 60 meters wide traffic boulevard along the Leien has formed a huge traffic barrier and becomes one of the main contributors to the air pollution.

Site Models

Diagrams

Diagrams

Roosevelt Square Site Plan

Roosevelt Square Lower Ground Plan

The Oasis of Old Walls

The architecture in this scheme functions as air purifier to clean the air. The historical Spanish wall now becomes part of the ecosystem which turns into urban attractions for the people. In addition, the traffics will be reduced and pushed to one side of the boulevard. The Leien and the old walls are both meaningful to the people and the city. How to promote the sustainable design into people everyday life to benefit community instead of replacing historical site by motorway? The integration of old walls to the new public space brings a greater sense of openness and accessibility to the old fortification, reflect the history of the site, whilst proposing new community spaces socially and environmentally.

The Oasis of Old Walls

Air Filter Towers at the Leien

Tower Axonometric

Tower Plans

Structural Models

Sustainable Design

Concept collage of design thesis: ‘Act Natural’

Principles of nature have been followed throughout the design process. Situated in the university campus, the thesis proposal uses the design of an Innovation Research Centre for Biomimicry to provide opportunity for the following: To create more opportunities for biomimetic design which accommodates a cross-culture of disciplines which all take inspiration from the natural world to solve contemporary problems. To bring nature back into the city and increase biodiversity. To create soft touch and sympathetic architecture. To explore natural and organic forms in the design.

Green Space Analysis

With 15m² of public greenery per inhabitant and only 14% of the ground surface being soft urban landscape, Antwerp’s medieval centre has the lowest percentage of green area.

Urban Strategy

The proposed Innovation Centre for biomimicry is connected with The Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp located at the zoo and botanic garden. Green corridors have been introduced for nature highways, linking up existing green areas in the city.

Site Analysis

Study of existing species found on site and target species to be reintroduced.

Key plans

n/a

Cross Section

From left to right, the section describes the two storey accommodation block, three storey research and design facility, shared atrium café, below ground lecture theatre, prototyping hall and workshop facility.

Elevations

n/a

View through the building

n/a

Workshop and prototyping space

n/a

Close up elevation and section

Notwithstanding the decision to design out artificial strategies through material specification, structural design, environmental design and services, the buildings naturalness becomes most apparent in the greening of the external envelope.

Axonometric of design proposal

n/a

Prologue

Story of the Antwerp's Ark and Apocalypse.

Flood, North Sea, the city and the envisioned apocalypse

The Ark: Conceptual Mapping and the Realization

Antwerp's Artefacts

The Archival Relationship: City, Block, Scale & The Ark and its relevance

Deconstructing the Ark

Constituting components of the Ark

Ark Capsule

The Ark Capsule is a self sustaining piece of capsule, capable to withstand various environmental condition.

The Construction Process & Timeline of the Ark

A timeline of construction on the River Scheldt, across a timeline span of centuries. As a narrated, timeline, necessity based line of construction, according to the needs of time being.

The Ark Anthropology

An in-depth understanding on the societal, progressive & cultural norms of the Ark.

The Blueprint

Ground level: Archive Chamber First Level: Upper Archive Chamber Second Level: The Grand Walkway Third Level: Vault of the Artefacts Fourth Level: Garden of Eden & Vault of Paintings Fifth Level: The Vault of Archives (in the Ark of Capsule)

Future of Ark Capsule ; End of the Ark

Infrastructure as performance

Concept Collage

Entrance Elevation

Elevated View

Facade View

Site Plan

Layered Facade

Facade at Night

Integration of Services

01_AXONOMETRIC STUDY_ Existing Site

02_ANTWERP PLAN_ Block ‘Pitting’

03_STUDY MODEL_ Existing Site

04_LOCATION PLAN_ Site//Gentrification Band//Park Spoor Nord

05_CONCEPT MODEL_ Existing Site

06_CONCEPT MODEL_ Cut

07_CONCEPT MODEL_ Carve

08_PLAN_ Ground Floor

09_ELEVATION STUDY_ Repurposed Brick Infill Panel on Timber Frame

10_STUDY MODEL_ Subtract//Add//Reuse

The Patchwork City

The Journey of Migration

The Water Cycle

Ground Floor Plan

First and Second Floor Plan

Library Elevation Study

Short Section

Short Section Continued

wolvenberg watergarden

Inspiration is from Junya Ishigamis Biotop watergarden. Trees and puddles create a mesmerising space, where visitors can jump between the stones and explore the flora.

green ring vision

The ring road was built in the 1960’s and replaced the Brialmont fortifications from the 19th century. The ring road is highly dominated by road infrastructure, disconnecting the inner and outer city. However, it has potential of becoming a strategic area in the future city structure, turning into the Green Ring. The City of Antwerp has presented a plan with specific strategies for the Green Ring, focusing on green spaces that connects the inner and outer city, creating habitats for flora and fauna as well as for the people of Antwerp.

brialmont fortifications

To realise the Brialmont fortifications, huge earthworks took place. Soil was removed to make room for the forts and ramparts. Water canals were introduced and had to be dug out. The soil could then be used to build the ramparts. The principles historically used, ground manipulation and water introduction, have become factors informing a new language for the green ring, to bring a sense of what used to be in a present context. source of images: photograph - Natuurpunt Antwerpen Stad, map - Old Maps Online

parks of berchem - existing conditions

A specific site along the Green Ring has been chosen to explore certain strategies, namely the parks of Berchem. The parks include a few traces from the fortification, water bodies, topographical variations and masonry ruins. However, today the parks are fragmented by the ring road infrastructure.

proposal - landscape palimpsests

The method used for developing this project has partly been through landscape palimpsests. Designing through palimpsests is not about preserving the past but to celebrate a collective memory of the site for the users, even if it just provokes a vague mental presence that there used to be something different at this place.

layers

These diagrams shows the layers used to structure the landscape. A superimposed grid, interrupted by the existing water bodies and topographical remains, forms the large scale organisation of the landscape. The ground manipulation and water introduction follows the grid. Desire lines take users across the site whereas meandering paths allows them to stroll in the landscape. The new trees are indicated in orange and strategically placed along the edges to create a buffer between the roads and the park.

manmade landscapes

Antwerp is flat in its topography and the differences in height this section shows are all manmade interventions. The red-dotted line indicates today’s ground condition, and how the thesis proposal further uses ground manipulation to form the landscape.

wolvenberg & brilschanspark

Examples of spaces created with ground manipulation and water introduction.

rainwater & filtration

One of the principles - water - has been introduced in relation to arising issues of urban runoff. Through sustainable urban drainage systems, the landscape forms elements to collect and filter rainwater and recharge the groundwater. The theme of water filtration has informed the program of the building; a bath house. Visitors can enjoy the experience of swinging in pools that are naturally cleaned through gravel beds and aquatic plants. As water evaporates, the pools will be refilled with rainwater collected from the roof. The filtration process becomes a visual part of the building experience and tectonics.

bath house

Development Model 1:1000

Decentralising the City

Antwerp's Civic Framework

Antwerp City Plan

Study Models

Urban Repair

Approach

Civic Courtyard

Circulation

Elevation, Section AA

Confounded Antwerp/Antwerp Confounded

The Tower of Babel (by Breugel) acts as an anti-fabel, the antithesis of who Antwerp is - the city that has thrived due to the confounding of its languages, and now revels in its amalgamation of architectural forms.

The river, block and plot

You need some context, these are three features of the city. There are thousands more, but these are complex, what is more important comes next.

Do no restrict this to ‘vernacular’

The city of Antwerp, through its many iterations and developments, has predominantly accommodated its population in the terraced house. Though similar in typology, each plot-ed home varies in character, dimension, function, use and ownership. No single plot is the same.

Housing and Housing now

The developments of the 21st century (ironically termed ‘Slow Urbanism’) use a tabula rasa approach, establishing full urban block plans in coordination with the city’s authorities. But if a significant portion of Antwerp’s built context is formed by its residents, what future does a city have if instead generic architectures of dwelling begin to fill the void? The new developments being introduced into the city are dwellings of suffocating restriction. What resilience do these newer structures offer?

The resilience of the plot-ed terrace

The current culture of editing one’s dwelling pronounces the streets of Antwerp. These plots, individual in their figure ground, allow for adaptation internally and the altered expression of the facade.

Alterations over time

A model for continual alteration

To question the current, pan-European, ‘block’ development of Antwerp in the neighbourhoods of Eilandje and Neue Zuid, the thesis poses the question: in a city actively densifying its centre, can a housing model be proposed that allows the population of Antwerp the (same [existing]) ability to adopt and adapt their properties.

and the parts that it considers

BUT with fresh eyes, this looks to be (similarly) too standardised. Lets critique this, what resilience does this have. Then let's move on.

Ruins of Adolescence - Gilles Delalex

The current climate of scarcity has dramatically altered how we review the life of a structure, now we must consider an architecture of adolescent ruins (Delalex), spaces that are not ‘flexible’ but can be lived in and inhabited in various ways (Stewart Brand). With much of Antwerp’s urban fabric still in place more resilient models of alteration and adaptation are required that can manipulate existing structures into habitable spaces whilst retaining their core structure.

Ruined, ruins, and made of ruin - an intelligent ruin - bOb van reeth

If we are to truly consider new methods of construction within the city during this climate of scarcity we must surely begin to retain and reuse whatever resources we have. A portion of the thesis explores the collation of architectural debris and salvage as a public amenity to be incorporated into homes throughout Antwerp. This references the recent project undergone by the Amsterdam government in which they catalogued all architectural debris within the city for residents to use. These collage models, and the drawings to follow explore how the interiors of the plot-ed homes can be occupied differently through the personal and specific use of both permanent and temporary elements such as I-beams or greenhouse glass panelling. They use the same pieces/elements to create two considerably different dwellings.

Salvage and scarcity

Scarcity and salvage

Inside

‘Context as a principle of architecture. Architecture as a principle of context. From one context to the other context. In a different way in the case of architecture.’ - VARIETE/ARCHITECTURE/DESIRE by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu

Outside

‘Context as a principle of architecture. Architecture as a principle of context. From one context to the other context. In a different way in the case of architecture.’ - VARIETE/ARCHITECTURE/DESIRE by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu

01. The old and new of Kattendijk lock and Rijnkaai of Antwerp

As one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, the city was brimming with people coming for trades, textiles and a state-of-the-art tailoring services since the Middle Ages. Along with the increase in population and industrial development in the city, the urban area was developed into a commercial area and the outskirts of the city as an industrial area for various industries and logistics use. As the role of riverside changes due to urban development, a new architectural program is presented based on research on context in Antwerp.

02. Flood threats by the climate change and Sigma plan as a countermeasure

Sigma Plan presents different contextual measures for each region adjacent to River Sheldt as a flood prevention measure by the Flanders government, and by taking a first look at the project, it has become an important foundation for presenting strategies tailored to the Katendijk lock and Rijankaai region.

03. Sigma Plan : Strategies

I. In general, from the exisiting concrete water barrier, 90 centimetre extra height will be added to block the overflowing water to the city. II & III. The waterfronts in Zuid are treated by putting the dykes along the river and the foundations are reinforced using slurry wall against the water penetrating to the underground. In the urban context, the openness toward the water in some extent is preferred by the public due to the leisure activities for the citizen. IV. Drainage Installation & Anchor-injection

04. Site Analysis

Eilandje District consists of museums and their supporting facilities. Based on Sigma Plan, the site is planned to defended by the flood barrier. In this regard, I chose the architectural program for this site as a fashion archive which preserve the local designer’s masterpieces and also presents the exhibition opportunities with the elevated promenade as a combined flood barrier to the building.

05. Site & Program

06. Site / Floor Plan

Ground FLOOR PLAN 1 LIBRARY (L) 2 LIBRARY (S) 3 ARCHIVE RETAIL 4 ARCHIVE CAFE 5 RECEPTION 6 ARCHIVE (PERMANENT) 7 OFFICE 8 EVENT VENUE 9 PROMENADE CAFE 10 RETAIL 11 PROMENADE RESTAURANT 12 RESTAURANT 13 BICYCLE STORAGE 14 OFFICE / LOCKER 1ST FLOOR PLAN 1 LIBRARY 2 EXHIBITION 3 OFFICE 4 RETAIL 2ND/3RD FLOOR PLAN 1 ARCHIVE 2 EXHIBITION 3 OFFICE

07. Section

08. Promenade – Exterior View

With the tide park located in Droogdokken and cultural activities of surrounding buildings, the elevated promenade makes the riverside more accessible and extends citizen’s walking area.

09. Fashion Archive - Interior View

The importance of collecting past design records has been recognized by many of fashion brands. Since then major fashion houses such as Christian Dior and Balenciaga collects their numerous fashion pieces and designing process as their brand DNA. Now it is essential to archive the city’s potential assets in the future and allow the public to access them. The main building exposes an accessible library to people walking along the promenade and on-site streets, and the space beneath the promenade, which functions as a defensive wall, is the best place to store valuable items.

the Neutral Sacred Space

territory of several denominations were indicated by colours and the dome and white are shared as a sacred place

Mosque & Synagogue in Antwerp, within twentieth-century belt

the Conflict

conflicts among culture, religions, architecture and territory

the Journey of Time

Authenticity

perception - a certain length of time pass repeatedly

Eternity

perception - insensitive to time

Transiency

perception - sensitive and concentrate on specific moment

the Conflict of Context

site on boundaries, among the new and old context, a cross the infrastructure

THE GALLERY OF WASTEWATER

INVISIBLE INFRASTRUCTURE

CONSUMPTION OF WATER

The diagram brakes down all forms of waste produced in Flanders. It separates what is reused and recycled with arrows facing down and what is incinerated and put into landfills with arrows facing up. From this diagram it is obvious how much waster we use compared to all other commodities.

PAST INDUSTRIAL PARADIGMS

The proposal is situated in Stadspark in the center of Antwerp. This site is the remanence of the old city wall and moat, which protected Antwerp and is where the cities excrement was dumped. This is just one of many post-industrial sites which are scattered around the city, each was elemental in the cities development but have now all been, or are planning to be, turned into city parks. By cosmetically beautifying over these sites, the city is denying these areas of their past. The thesis proposes this park be returned to its natural state of a waste landscape.

PLAN AND SECTION

WASTE TOURISM

PRODUCTS OF VALUE

UNDERSTANDING THE COLLECTIVE

A WASTE LANDSCAPE

Oscillations

The proposal is a town hall which brings together private ‘introverted’ functions with ‘extroverted’ community engagement spaces. Spanning 4 sites across a residential and industrial block, the buildings create a ‘corridor’ of space which bridges the two programmes and allows users to move between introverted and extroverted spaces. This ‘oscillation’ between part and whole is enabled through spatial flexibility, so that users from each programme can experience a balance of environments. Assembly studies have informed the development of specific architectural ‘formats’ for shifting occupation.

Filtering Boundaries

An organisational strategy of vertically and horizontally interlocking spaces has been used to structure the negotiation between programmes. While event spaces allow users of the introverted programme to depart from their familiar environment and connect with resonant extroverted activity, spaces for daily activities reverse this order, allowing members of the community to enter the introverted spaces. Both typologies permit different levels of exposure to support a balanced coexistence between users. These ‘grades’ of connection are enabled through movable screens which filter visual, thermal and acoustic levels.

Interstitial Spaces

Using the constraint of the two edges enclosing the site, the proposal operates on the local scale and that of the broader urban context. Site investigations in Antwerp highlighted the disparity between extroverted new developments and modest residential territories. Situated in a site of particular tension, the building mediates between these scales. This condition is framed to encourage movement between contrasting environments. Rather than removing boundaries and thresholds, the thesis takes the position that proximity and tension between opposites can be utilised to create co-dependency.

Shifting Configurations

A key criteria for the spaces which allow contrasting users to oscillate between introverted and extroverted environments is the practicality to accommodate changing application. The ‘fine tuning’ of divides between spaces is critical in enabling a connected experience, without impacting functionality. In the event and daily activity spaces, moving partitions allow the balance between experiential involvement and detachment to be calibrated. To enable shifts in ownership, these divides can also take on a variety of spatial and environmental configurations.

Spatial Impressions

While the upper level of each building in the proposal are separate from the extroverted ground floor plane, the lower strata can afford varied degrees of openness and connection to the surroundings. The system of movable partitions is configured specifically to each building, and can be raised or lowered to divide or expand spaces. As a device for controlling levels of exposure, the panels operate at a micro level, whereas fold-able doors along the urban corridor work on the macro level. Movements between part and whole are moderated from the scale of an individual space to the scale of each building in order to control the balance between introverted and extroverted environments.

Intergen Antwerp is an intergenerational learning facility proposed within one of Antwerp’s many city blocks. Intergenerational facilities have shown to be successful for preventing ageism in children and for fighting loneliness in elderly people, as well as benefiting their respective families. The idea of immediate interaction across the age groups has formed the project’s components, such as a care home and educational facilities, which are linked by the act of collective sharing. The different buildings, which have different levels of privacy, are connected through both prescribed social spaces and by the formation of informal spaces in-between the facilities. By creating spaces that encourage interaction between children and elderly, the first and the last stage of life; a new place for living, learning, and playing is created within the city.

Through explorations in one of Antwerp’s residential areas – the 2060 quarter, a hidden courtyard was revealed within one of its many city blocks. Zusters der Armenplein is an enclosed courtyard containing both communal and private areas: a private area for care home residents, a park, and a communal garden used for growing flowers and vegetables. There are gates situated at each side of the block that lead you through the courtyard during the day, until the path closes for the public during night time. Zusters der Armenplein is an example of many successful city blocks in Antwerp, and the project intends to build upon the existing components and facilitate the interaction between people of different ages.

The organisation of the different buildings, as well as the shape and functions of the connective roof, was explored and developed through a series of models in different scales.

Intergen Antwerp proposes the coexistence of several buildings: a nursery and primary school, an elderly care home, and a learning facility containing both educational and leisurely spaces. The buildings’ separation is a response to the city’s fine urban grain, but each of the proposed buildings are connected through a shared terraced space and the greenhouses covering the buildings’ roofs.

The private; primary school, nursery and care home, and the communal; learning facility and the community hall have several shared spaces within and between them, which is seen clearly on the ground floor level. The leisurely common ground acts as a circulation space, keeping the existing pathway through the block, and is open to the neighbourhood community during special occasions – such as market days. Facilities that can be used by more than one age group, such as a sports hall, art classrooms and media suites have been placed in different buildings to encourage more circulation across the common ground which leads to more interaction across the stages.

While the ground floor level contains more of the communal spaces, the shared terrace above will be used mainly as a playground for children and elderly only. It is accessible from each of the buildings and will act as an extension of the private-shared spaces of each facility, while the void in the middle will guide circulation and bring light down to the common ground.

The facility’s common ground invites the neighbourhood community in during special occasions, such as market days and school festivals.

Uniting the different stages through the process of growing and harvesting, and cooking and eating food is not only a sustainable method of food consumption but also a way to educate children and adults how to source sustainable food in the city.

The buildings facilitate areas that are intended for social interaction as well as encourage the formation of new and more intimate spaces.

Hypothetical narratives of living structures.Weaving Factory.

Weaving factory and urban garden on the edge This intervention is standing on the edge of the city. It is larger in scale than the previous two. The area is famous for crafts and hand made products. This intervention filled the understudied, complex, odd site. Weaving factory and urban garden facilitates the space for communal use of this craft neighbourhood and regenerate the area in a humble way. A small step of suggestive improvement with collective and participatory manner may lead to larger changes.

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Bicycle repair station.

This structure is built from a collection of observed components around Kyoto. Its is almost the exaggerated performative interpritation of Kyoto rich urban patterns. It represents the clash of tradition and contemporary in ad hoc and bricolage manner. Function inhabits this structure in a process, also its size is never defined, it can grow, develop. There is an initial part provided by the architect/professional, but the rest is easily attached and developed by the community, users.

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Bicycle repair station.

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Community Garden and Bee-keeping roof station.

Garden between sento public house and parking This intervention inhabited a shallow and underused site of contradictive situation. Such situations are often seen in Kyoto. The function of this intervention is urban garden and beekeeping stations on the rooftops. Again the structure comes from observed components and primarily recycled materials.

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Kyoto context from memories

Ad hoc and bricolge context. Traditional and contemporary clashes.

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Bicycle repair station.

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Experimental Laundrymat been done from dissembled components

This test has been done solely from disassembled ad hoc structure

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Statement

Area required to feed a city

Farmers markets & food storage

City strategies

Inner city strategy

Suburban city strategy

Ring park city strategy

Pattern city

The Resilient Agriculture Centre

The Plastic Cycle / The Program

Most plastics on this planet end up in the ocean. Whilst recycling schemes in Europe claim to recycle waste produce, vast quantities of plastcs are actually sold overseas and dumped into landfills or into the ocean. Therefore there is a large requirement to close this system off and ensure that the plastic waste is reclaimed and re-purposed. The program of the thesis aims to provide this service for the waterways of Antwerp, in a way that allows teh public to understand what exactly is happening within their own city.

The Site

The location for the thesis was chosen because of the relation of the existing buildings to the city and the port. The Loodswezen building once was the base of operation for the city's port pilots and stands as physical connection between these two. The site was also significant due to the fact that it is in a promising part of the city, but has never been connected. Throughout its development it as always been separated by canals, trainlines, tramways and roads. As such this was an oppertunity to provide the City with some active waterfront space which could be enjoyed, instead of being hidden away.

Site Location PLan

The location of this site is on the outskirts of the historical city, and the old port. As such this area of antwerp is largely developed and the oppertunity to provide local residents with open living space is small. As can be seen from the location plan, this site provides a large area with access to green infastrcture and is one of very few sites along the entire east side of the river to utilise the riverbank for indiviudal recreation.

Project Plan

East Elevation

Material Study | Detail Section

The project program revovled around the re-purposing of plastics and reducing the waste of the city. As such it seemed like an oppertune moment to explore how construction could also occur with reduced wastage. As such it was the intention of this thesis to explore how architecture could be built at large scales using natural materials and materials from the local area. As such much of the construction is proposed through reclaimed bricks, timber, and rammed earth.

Site Cross Section

Key Spaces & Visuals

Antwerp Fashion Revival

Fashion design urban design

Antwerp Fashion School

Fashion school design

Antwerp Fashion School

Physical model

Fashion School Structure

Fashion school grid shell canopy structure analysis

Bending Active Grid Shell

Physical model study of structural core

Grid Shell Structural Dome

Antwerp fashion school structural core

Grid Shell Canopy

Grid shell structural canopy

Antwerp Fashion Revival

Urban Plan of Antwerp Fashion District

Antwerp Fashion Revival

Section of Antwerp Fashion District

Isometric View

King Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo

Misinformation in Modern Politics

Key Strategies

The Approach

Short Section

Urban Forum

Interstitial Spaces

Experts' Debate Space

The Archive

ANTWERP CENTRAL LIBRARY - Thinking space

ANTWERP - historic context

CENTRAL LIBRARY - Typlogy and programme

CENTRAL LIBRARY - The aims of contemporary typology

ANTWERP - Urban context

ANTWERP CENTRAL LIBRARY - Spatial organization

ANTWERP CENTrAL LIBRARY - Tectonics

ANTWERP CENTRAL LIBRARY - Public spaces

Juxtaposition Field. (Photoshop Collage)

How can we expose, manipulate and utilise grain elevators and their industrial journey to integrate and welcome surrounding residential streets and activate community? Thesis identifies the area of T’Dokske, Merksem, as an area of vast juxtaposition of form, scale, function, purpose, class, materiality, infrastructure, density and permeability. The neighbourhood consists of industrial and residential terrain. Mixed neighbourhoods are generally a positive thing, but in the case of T’Dokske they behave as numerous mono-functional areas, with a lack of integration. The residential / industrial clash is further enhanced by the lack of boundaries – there is no definition between residential and industrial, thus creating contested terrain. Due to the industrial / residential permeability, residents, pedestrians, cyclists, HGV’s, vans, cars, children, boats, commuters, workers all share the same spaces. Historically, industrial T’Dokske had a strong relationship with the residential core of Merksem, but now this no longer exists. The thesis aims to re-establish this.

Anaerobic Digestion Park. (Physical Model, Photoshop Collage)

View from window of neighbouring street towards the new anaerobic digestion park.

Productive Landscape. (Physical Model, Photoshop Collage)

Grain elevators provide a large blank screen for outdoor movies in the summer months.

Storage tanks as Public Space. (Physical Model, Photoshop Collage)

Bio-waste from grain factories is turned into clean energy via the process of anaerobic digestion.

Landscape for the community. (Physical Model, Photoshop Collage)

Someone takes a sunrise dip in the dock.

Natural Elements. (Physical Model, Photoshop Collage)

Over time, anaerobic digestion tanks are left to allow nature to colonise and take over, blurring the line between industrial and natural landscape.

AD Park Site Plan. (CAD line drawing)

Landscape plan showing anaerobic digesters as human-scale undulating parkland.

Disconnection amongst Coexistence. (Site Photograph, Google Map Image)

The catalyst for the thesis project, when visiting Antwerp I was disturbed by the clash of residential and industrial terrain. T'Dokske (the docks) in Merksem, Antwerp, used to have a strong relationship with the industrial and residential context, but this no longer exists. However, the industrial / residential site is permeable, which means residents, pedestrians, cyclists, HGV’s, vans, cars, children, commuters, workers all share the same spaces. There is a severe lack of definition between industrial and residential thresholds, and thus feels uncomfortable.

Desired Landscapes. (Site Photograph Collage / Site Photograph Collage with Yuppie Ranch House ELASTICOSPA + 3)

The industrial landscape of grain elevators produces clean bio-waste, which can be used as organic matter for the process of anaerobic digestion. This clean energy park could be used to create a new landscape for the community, as well as generating electricity and heat.

Juxtaposition FieldJuxtaposition Field

(Site Video) grain factories - rice factory - hgvs – pedestrians – cyclists – can I walk here – road to nowhere – is that a pavement – is this a road – why is that man staring at me – whats that massive building behind that street - where is everyone – do people like living this close to industry – do people who live here work in industry - another lorry – should I be here – houses – industry – houses – industry – why are there no boundaries – what is residential and what is industrial – how did this happen – why did this happen – think Im walking on a road – smells like bread – can I buy bread – wheres bread – is this a pavement – a bridge - a park – a shop

Antwerp Demographics- Bringing the world to Antwerp

With Antwerp being an extremely diverse European city, it was necessary to convey the different nationalities residing within the city. The range of nationalities of people residing in the city prompted for a thesis response which sought to invite the “world” to a central location to learn about languages of the country.

Antwerp Historic Centre

Antwerp has had major public realm improvement with Antwerp Central station being expanded to include a high-speed rail service which removes the terminus status of the station. The site selected for the proposal is the subject of a recent major public realm improvement which is situated on a main `boulevard within the city which used to be a boundary wall of the historic city. This makes the site selection favourable as it’s on a key historic gateway to the city from the newer side of the city.

Site Connectivity

Being surround by major transport links such as the train station, bus station, bike station and newly revamped metro-station, allows residents from all over Antwerp to come and learn languages, furthering their communication skills whilst acting as a catalyst for cultures to mix.

Proposal Ground Floor Plan

This ground floor plan shows an open foyer with exhibition space and cafe located on the ground floor.

Proposal Cross Section

This sectional study shows the main internal atrium space which acts as a catalyst for social interaction.

Proposal Long Section

This long section shows internal spaces of the language institute as well as the surround context. This includes the Antwerp tower, opera and the recently improved public realm on the boulevard.

Learning Landscape Tools

Researching the famous Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger, the design of educational buildings becomes clearer with his intention to create spaces which promote social interaction within its users. Hertzberger talks of “Inhabitable Corridors” which refers to circulation space become useable space in comparison to the traditional classroom arrangement where the corridors are often too long and dimly lit. These diagrams seek to show the different tools envisaged within the proposal building.

Proposal First Floor Plan

Moving from the ground floor to the first floor via the main staircase, users are granted access to a public lecture theatre. Travelling up through the building via another widened staircase, more traditional classrooms are located on the upper floors.

Proposal Floor Plans

The following plans give a sense of the different room layouts intended. There's an aspiration within the design to create open social spaces as well as some enclosed learning spaces. The teased theme in these floor plans looks at designed circulation space given the same lighting quality as the teaching rooms themselves.

Proposal Elevation and Section

This image seeks to show the materials envisaged for the project at the mid way point during the design phase.

Workmanship can be defined as ‘using any kind of technique or apparatus in which the quality of the result is not predetermined but depends on the judgement, dexterity and skill of the maker’. (-David Pye)

Antwerp, City Map.

The Albert Canal.

The site is strategically located at the mouth of the Albert Canal, which spans 130km across Belgium, as part of my thesis it is to be utilised to encourage connection between towns and cities located along the canal. Using the waterways as a means of creating a small-scale trade network for local makers is a more sustainable means of transporting goods and people and offers the opportunity to set up a rich dialogue between cities across the country. Natural resources found along the canal such as clay deposits, forestries and quarries have inspired the three main productive spaces included in my design- ceramics, joinery and stone masonry. From a sustainability point of view, I am eliminating the use of cars and investigating the feasibility and benefits of solely using the water system to transport raw materials to site and exporting finished products from the site to wider Belgium.

Site Strategy.

There are seven main spaces included in my design which are to act catalyst for the district alongside an overall masterplan. They include; workshops for makers, storage, an exhibition space, a marketplace, an educational/community building, a logistics/administrative building and finally housing. There is a distinct lack of housing within the immediate area surrounding the site and I believe the inclusion of housing for makers within proximity of the site is crucial in creating a sense of urbanity and 24hour life in what currently could be considered a largely desolate area.

Structural Strategy.

Each new building comprises of a solid concrete plinth which provides a sense of permanence and mirrors the carved, heavy nature of the surrounding docks and industry. Above the plinth, is a lightweight framed structure which is veiled by a crafted facade which would be produced and installed on site by the makers. The proposed buildings respond to the existing shed structures which characterise the site.

Ceramic workshop.

Market square.

The market square is framed by a Market Hall, Ceramics workshop and a community/educational building. The design aims to encourage public interaction with the programme and provide a space for creativity and workmanship to thrive.

Part section/elevation through ceramic workshop.

I have explored how the construction of each facade may be representative of the thesis idea itself. The construction of crafted facades made on site to celebrate ‘the workmanship of risk’ would create a unique space within the city and encourage public interaction. Each facade would be representative of what’s being produced within the district, for example, glazed ceramic tiles as a rain screen. The nature of materials which are produced by the 'workmanship of risk’ are often less precise and therefore the construction method has to have a tolerance for imperfection.

Facade study - joinery workshop.

This study model explores the relationship between the plinth and facade, examining proportion and materiality.

Circular Economy

Using Imprints Left Behind from Gap Sites

Memory through reuse

Case Study A: Raapstraat Site

Case Study B: Blindestraat Site

Detailing the Components

Detailing the Raapstraat Site

Disassembly and Reassembly of Components

Detailing the Blindestraat Site

Detailing and Recording to Facilitate Reuse

parkland framing the market hall

A final render/visual showcasing the tim-ber frame market hall in the backdrop of the park.

market hall visuals

Visuals/renders highlighting the market hall in context with the landscape and the feel & look within it.

location

Maps and plans showing the location of my thesis project.

new den dam masterplan

A drawing presenting my new master-plan for the Den Dam area of Antwerp

abstract mapping collage

a Piet Mondrian inspired collage high-lighting the connections and infrastruc-ture happening all around Den Dam ar-ea.

constraints

A visual diagram showing the obstales that the site has to address.

status quo – the issue

Diagram displaying the current circumstances in the area and highlighting the ambition of my thesis for the neighbourhood.

masterplan strategy

An outline strategy for Den Dam.

testing | models | experimentation

A series of various masterplans for the area tested in model form.

visuals

Further visuals highlighting the various buildings and parklands within my thesis design.

Gatehouse East

Model (1/200), walnut, sapele

Gatehouse South

Model (1/200), walnut, sapele

Gatehouse West

Model (1/200), walnut, sapele

Brokenness Chapel

Model (1/200), walnut, sapele

Melancholia Chapel

Model (1/200), walnut

Joy Chapel

Model (1/200), acrylic, sapele

Dependence Chapel

Model (1/200), walnut

The City

An anthropocentric view of Antwerp

The Intention

The remnants of industry and and ideas for re-use

The Site

Understanding the sites context, existing infrastructure and history

The Masterplan

Designing around four main contaminants: mineral oil, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and benzene. This is also while setting out public and private clusters of buildings throughout the existing infrastructure.

The Mycological process

Outlining the principles of mycoremediation and carbon store through the use of mycelium and phytoremediative planting.

Mycelium

Utilising specific biological structures of mycelium in order to design facade panels.

1:20 Sectional Model

Exploring the impact of the facade on internal spaces.

Mycelium as a Texture

Exploring the use of mycelium patterns as a relief texture for internal plaster panels.

Mechanising

Exploring how the spaces can open up and close down to invite people to the site

Site Narrative

Exploring the proposed narrative of the public experience of space

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.

Price: £10

This item is for sale, please contact for more information.