'On Performative Regionalism' | Barbara Allen

This short essay discusses some of the issues Tom and I have been looking at with regards to the interaction of the people/urban environment.  Looking at the ideas of regional identity and place (region) being a culturally constructed concept.  Therefore it is the holding of a shared identity or set of cultural practices, which can be informed and transformed over the history of an area.

'performed identities and these are often acted out on a certain architectural stage engendering an attachment to a particular place of (micro)region'.

Is the trajectory of the design work within the studio currently tracking the cumulative conditions which have resulted in a specific microregion within the city?

Nicholas Grimshaw Lecture - 1st March 2010

'Capturing the concept: The Sketchbooks of Sir Nicholas Grimshaw CBE PRA from 1982 to 2007'

The lecture charted a number of projects, with live projected drawing from Nicholas Grimshaw of his stratagies for some of his major projects.  He described how he tries to hold a concept down, taking it from a 'napkin sketch' to a detailed (expressed through the details) design.  He revels in the enginnering knowhow and 'joy' of the structure.

• Sainsbury Supermarket, London
• rythum/grain/texture of the building was gained from the technology of the structure and imposed grid.

• Financial Times Printworks, London
• dispaying of teh mashinery of the factory.  Having the full efect of the building held within one element, the massive window.

• Eden Project
• '[the structure] weighs less than the air it encloses...[there was] worry about it blowing away'

Drawing Lecture - 25th February 2010

Drawing of the fragment of the design;

• Johan Berglund | capturing the spirit of the project within an image, selection of the telling angle

• Coop Himmelblau | projecting a fictional architecture onto exiting photographs
• Photos | being able to be used to show a progression of time, still time, mug shots
• Exploded Iso | relationship between component parts of a project/built environment
• 1.10/1.20 scale | operational dimension to architecture, shutters, windows, taps...
• How to set up exhibition panels and installations | relation of models to drawings, choreography of the images, drawing your eye through
  

Tutorial - 25th Feb - Vicky

Focusing our attention on the constructing of the site;

• section; 1.500 drawing with 1.100 level of detail held within, showing moments of known clarity
• identifying the positioning of the site within the city of Marseilles. Site is held on a hill, religious reasons(ownership of area-are these boundaries still present today?), air, sight across the city? Industry? Transport. current activity - why is a hot spot? Controls of flow through the site at each time in history - like a valve
  
• seeing the city in a meta-programmatic manner.
  

Things we want to do;

• 1.500 plan of the area
• 1.200 section through the site
• programmatic diagram | day, week, seasons
• rotating perspective
• starting to work on design fragments
  

Connections within Marseille

Applying fixing conditions from our found objects (piano and radio) to the city/model scale.

Piano

• balance; multiplies effect
  
• peg; restraining extreme tension
  
• layered; loose fit
• notches; allowing resonance
  
• sprung; point of rest
• hinge; open/closed
• wire; giving space to other components

Radio

• pin; conducting, specific
• welding
• clip; restraining
  

Casing examples in Marseilles | stair tower, chimney, courtyard

• stair tower; as pin, specific location allowing flow of people
• chimney; flow of waste and heat
  
• courtyard; spacial disconnection, flow of air and light

Testing these connections within the model and 1.500 drawings, demonstrating interrelations between spaces and concepts.

Tutorial - 18th Feb - Suzanne

In this tutorial we discussed the creating of the city. The drawing and modeling of our site and how we have to be incredibly refined and knowing in each move we make.

• Showing different scales within the same drawing. City (wall)/Urban Block (void)/Inhabited Scale (stairs).
• Cantilever - interdependence
  
• Movement/flows - Inhabited level of chimneys/stairs etc.
• Connections - looking at the way the model comes together. Taking ideas from the radio and the piano to help with these fixings.
  

Fixings

• Radio. The fixings within the radio are about tolerance, movement, pressure, ease, buildability.
• Piano. These fixings are more about the acoustics, touching, placing, holding, clipping, restraining.
• Would these two types of fixings be used in differing places with the city model or are they always holding the voids, dependent upon the type of void they are fixing.

ADD PICTURES and Drawings of the different fixings.

Marseille Lecture - 17th Feb 2010

A lecture by Suzanne, in which she talked about some of the aims we should have for the rest of the term, theories we may want to focus of, ideas regarding Marseilles, and trying to create an intensity with our work.

• the city and the city - our personal understanding of Marseilles.
• thinking about how we hold/make/build the city - the relevance to Marseilles.
• extraction of ideas from the house project - as a way of acting though designing.
• our knowledge of the urban fabric of the city - our feelings towards it, getting to know it and allowing this to bring you back to an architectural language.
  

Tutorial - 15th Feb - Vicky

Disscussion centred around the model in the Matthew Gallery, talking about the Eisenman Review Day, urban theories and scales at which to proceed with work.

Two Theoretical stances Tom and I set up to discuss with Vicky were;

• Hetrotopias within the city - a view of society within the urban, mixes and interactions.
• Concepts of perforativity and the event within the urban grain. This came from my dissertation of the Edinburgh Festival creating event spaces, but also Architectural Theory Lectures discussing Tchumi and his scripting of program and event within space.

Model

• using and expanding the model to develop an architectural language. One of grain/verticality/connections/casings/edge conditions.

Sections

• to draw a long city scale section which starts to include temporal natures within the city. The event and the programmatic.
  

Eisenman Lecture

This was a public lecture held on the 9th February 2010.

Peter Eisenman discussed two forms of archtiecture (zeitgeist and genius loci) in relation to his work. Zeitgeist being the 'spirit of the times', while genius loci is the 'spirit of the place'.

He tracked the changing use of these through the twentyeth century, in terms of Learning from Las Vagas and Global Capitalisation.


He stated that his project for Cidade da Cultura de Galicia is trying to connect to both of these terms by the incorporation of the 'spirit of the time' and the creation of a new place.

Article from BD | Deconstructing a visit from Eisenman

Peter Eisenman | 'E-Day' Reviews

For the reviews with Peter Eisenman, Tom and I added to our work on voids and casings by looking at the fragments of our site in greater detail to try and learn how the population deal with casing and void in their everyday lives. This starts to link with earlier ideas from our projects about intimacy/performance.

These fragments were:

1. chimney stack (which had been fitted retrospectively and strapped onto the existing)
2. staircase tower - with access balconies. (which had been treated as an object in a similar way to the chimney)
3. semi-enclosed courtyard (which starts to identify the disassociation of the population with courtyard life - the void)

We also built a model which looks at the internal relationship between spaces within a void (in this case spaces between the backs of buildings). The cast plaster represents the voids between buildings, the timber (up to the cut line is built material or ground, and then past the cut line is under sea level). The stacked card starts to show the dence infrastructure, with car park and metro under the site.

Mapping Cours Julien

An investigation into three key words [key/casing/void]

Looking at how casings of buildings start to hold voids, both on a building scale and a larger urban scale.


Questions which start to be asked are where void start and stop. To develop this a little furter we sketched out a few viod/casing typologies.

This starts to look at the relationships of the casings to one another, the intensities/intimacies created between built elements.

Investigation

Combining Tom and my concepts - breaking them down into key words

[void/key/casing]
[analogue/resonance/interdependence]
[intimacy/buffering/appropriation]

Codes of Inhabitation

• Taking apart elements of the city, looking for clues:
• courtyards/windows/doorways/public places/roof terraces/street fronts/resaurants/examining
• codifying areas - testing how these effects the population
• looking for an area of Marsielle which is in need

Sound Mapping

Sound Mapping - add text

Thesis Notes

This is a diagram starting to explain my 'areas of concern' and the points from the 'house for an outsider' project I wish to bring though into the Thesis question.

Areas of concern within Marseille – house for an outsider

Temporal death of parts of the city – unused areas – possible use of areas – how may this instance of an analogue nature be dealt with – injection of performance/identification of a festival landscape.

Findings from the Fieldwork

• Ebbs and flows within the city, day/month/year.
• How does this effect the community

Port area locked at the weekend, change in atmosphere – spare space within the area at
certain times.

• Use and reuse of structures – very Marseilles.

Possibility of working within existing structures/permanent/temporary/mixed time basis.
Possible ideas of festival activities, for a core of performance spaces.

• Industry being brought back into the city. Re appropriation of space.
• Need for medium performance space within the city.

Placing the House for an outsider

Looking at building conditions within the city, new/old within the city.

• Alcazar: montaging old and new.
• Propping of old/new: interdependence.
• Subversion of the new.

Underground carpark
A level of hidden infrastructure.

• - Gem like within the urban fabric – the Odeon

Fieldwork

How does the architecture of the city shield/cut through, edge condition. Looking for areas of impermeable or intensity created by the urban fabric.

Reviews

Notes taken on the various dicsussions on the review day.

• Cataloging
• juxtaposision of industy/landscape - infrastructure and the community

Can you ever fully design anything - there must be some level of inhabitation and use of the structure/object, which might be very different to the intended use (link to theory - basins)

Construction of our sites over this term - theoretically, economically, culture and population.

Possible exercises to do:

• roads/metro/train/tram/boat/coast - connections and cutting through
  
• old/new/future
• relationship between the built and the infrastructure - beer drops/cellars

Our review - Sound Mapping

• performance - interactions with the city
• manipulating the fabric of the city - voids/sea edge etc. - looking at a material language
  
• steam - pressure - voids, holding, large/small
  

Cheap space - surrounding many of these infrastructural elements of the city - how does this effect the use of the space? Can new uses feed off of this decline of land values?

Introductory Design Lecture

Pointing out the various aspects of the course which we will be investigating this term.

• identifying parts of the city we wish to work in/investigate.
• crafting of a 'Thesis Argument'. Starting by looking for key themes (glossary of terms) which have surfaced from the house for an outsider and the Field Trip.
• working both at an architectural and a conceptual level. (what does the city have to deal with and how can this help be implemented). Do these has a current relevance to society/economy etc?)
• background research of themes and theory.

Design Report: a playing out of the thesis, abstracting and unpacking.

For this term to be an ongoing investigation and reinterpreting of work