Course Requirements

Course Outline

Proposition
‘Places we remember and places we anticipate are mingled in present time. Memory and anticipation constitute the real perspective of space, giving it depth…’ A. Van Dick
How does architecture contribute to the Cultural Heritage and the identity of a city and its people? How do you look positively to the future when the fabric of a city is literally being torn apart brick by brick? How can architecture help heal not only the physical scars, but also and most importantly the loss of identity and sense of place? Why can theatre heal personal and communal trauma, in a way that words cannot? How can make a community participate in its own reconstruction?
Prologue
An earthquake is a point in time, perhaps unique, more often not. It is one of those occurrences that has a clear ‘before and after’; a watershed, if you want, after which nothing will be the same again; it creates a common memory for all those who were affected by it, a shared Cultural Heritage in other words. But earthquakes are still only a point in time and one fleeting moment in the history of a city and its inhabitants. Change in the urban in environment is constant, sometimes faster, often imperceptible, but always happening. Attempting to halt change, or weathering for that matter, is entirely futile. But change can be managed, at least to a certain extent with knowledge, understanding and a good degree of imagination.
Earthquakes are natural phenomena, as are thunderstorms, droughts, rain, wind, snow, flooding, sunshine. Earthquakes can therefore be considered to be ‘weather’ and weather and weathering are the defining elements that characterize the passage of time on the built environment. Our response to the local environment and its weather and weathering is what gives man-made form its identity and by common recognition, the identity of a city and its people. It is the container for shared memories of the past and for the creation of new ones. We may, therefore, be able to accept Nature as designer in chief and weather as its design tool, but perhaps only when we are moving from the common memories of disaster, the grieving, the healing and processing these memories, interpreting them and allowing them to be the start of something rather than the end.
Similarly with the built environment, when sudden fragmentation happens, whether through manmade or nature’s actions, the common identity of a people is threatened, “broken buildings represent broken people” (Mark Wrigley, Space in crisis –Bootleg edition Urban China (C-Lab). The instinct is first to flee, then to erase the memory of the pain and the reaction has historically often been that of wanting to create a tabula rasa, as an only too human way of dealing with the enormity of the event.
The risk is that of creating ‘non-places’ as opposed to ‘places’ when the need for these is greatest. ‘In the full sense of the word, a place is a space where relationships are self-evident and interrecognition are maximal and each person knows where he and others belong. It is invested in time and language’. B.Rufosky
But the risk of destruction is, paradoxically, often greater after the event and especially, during rebuilding. Knee-jerk decisions on abandoning sites or demolishing buildings, sluggish reconstruction, lack of funding, decreasing employment opportunities, increasing emigration, pessimism all affect the cohesion of a society and its communal memory exemplified by their built heritage. One only needs to look at other recent events, such as Haiti, L’Aquila, Fukushima, to see that this is the only predictable pattern linked to earthquakes, one that transcends geographical locations and national identities.
Hypothesis
A successful antidote to this has been art, and especially the performing arts, as a powerful way to deal with the trauma and preserve the memories. Direct involvement in performing arts organizations, especially those that entail personal engagement in some form of creative activity, or participation in the performing arts as an audience member, and even the presence of performing arts organizations in a community have a significant impact on the fabric of society. The cultural impact that these can
have are, respectively, “increasing the sense of collective identity, building community identity and pride leading to positive community norms, such as diversity, tolerance and free expression; improving community image and status. Plus, of course, similar benefits to the individual, from material health to cognitive; from interpersonal to economic” (from How the Arts Impact Communities: Joshua Guetzkow, Princeton University, 2002). But why theatre and not, say, sculpture or cinema?
What does theatre offer when you can go out and catch a movie for $20, or turn on the TV and see a drama for free?
Theatre then must provide something unique from each of these sources, and indeed it does. In an age where we find ourselves isolated in our own digital islands we have a hunger for interpersonal contact. In modern society we have precious few opportunities to gather together in a meaningful way; to explore the human condition. The theatre provides communities a way to explore issues while bringing people into the same room. Within this environment a synergy is built, the creation of common experiences and memory that can provide the kind of personal change that in turn leads to greater societal changes and eventually political changes.
Thesis
The challenge therefore is that of creating a place for the performing arts that takes forward, by positively and sensitively transforming it, the existing historic buildings and their context. A place for old and new memories. A place for the future of the past.
“…but the town does not talk about its past. Like the lines on a hand, it is written in the street corners, in the grating on the windows, in the handrails on the flights of steps, on the aerials, on the lightning rods. Each of these elements is, in turn, lined, scratched, chipped and splintered.” Italo Calvino, ‘Invisible Cities’
The Context
...  Context was dramatically altered by the earthquake and is even more radically being changed by human intervention.

Research, analysis and appreciation of the context of the project will be the starting point for the project. Context is not to be intended in architectural or urban form only (the physical environs of the proposal), but also as historical (the history of the building and of the changes it has gone through); social, economic, political but above all cultural (of the society that generated it and the current perspectives).

SITE

The proposed site includes the historic Odeon Theatre at 214 Tuam Street. ...By the time the earthquakes struck the building had been laying empty for almost ten years and was already at risk of demolition from neglect and lack of an on-going use. Proposals had been made for its reinvention as an arts centre, but to no avail. The building suffered significant damage in the June quake, with the lower stalls area of the roof has collapsed into floor In January 2012 the building was earmarked for demolition, but it appears that the current plan is to demolish the stage house and part of the auditorium up to maybe the balcony area, whilst the foyer areas look set to be retained at his stage. The buildings to the East of the theatre suffered major damage and most of them have already been demolished and the site is vacant. To the West is instead a vacant area which is currently the subject of the Arts Circus proposal

Specific Course Outcomes

Theory:

• Show an understanding of the links between material and immaterial, the poetic and imaginary within the built environment
• Demonstrate an understanding of the response of architecture to natural phenomena
• Create a proposal that explores permanence and impermanence, specificity and repetition

Architectonics:

• Show an understanding of how to analyse and interpret existing historic contexts
• Create a design proposal that creatively and sensitively interprets and transforms an existing historic context at urban and building level.
• Define and use of the dominant vernacular material in new and different uses

Programme:

• Understanding of the physical, functional and cultural requirements of buildings for the performing arts
• Create a design proposal that explores in detail the interaction between built space and human inhabitation within the performing arts building typology

Performance:

• Demonstrate an understanding of structural systems and the opportunity of expressing and integrating these within the architectural proposal
• Think sustainably and apply sustainability concepts in meaningful ways

Form and space:

• Demonstrate the ability of setting an abstract concept and taking it through from urban scale to ‘door knob’ scale.
• Produce, use and record development models as a tool to explore the concept and design proposal
• Produce sketches, visualisations, collages or other visual material to demonstrate the qualities of the spaces produced

Media:

• Produce a clear and professional oral and written presentation, demonstrating the drawings skills (technical and artistic)
• Demonstrate the integration of imagery and graphics
• Consider using video and/or sound to further express your proposals

SCHEDULE

Week 1 Wed-Thurs, BIM Bootcamp. Friday: meet with design tutor

Week 2 Group research of context (historic research, site analysis, existing building

analysis) and production of communal site model (individual models will need

to ‘slot-in’ to communal model)

Week 3 Production of individual Thematic Investigation

Week 4 Design development (Site Strategy, Building Form, Massing)

Week 5 Design development and production of draft architectural drawings and study

models (sketches, plans, sections, elevations)

Week 6 Mid Semester Crit:

5 A3 sheets landscape plus concept (so 6 x A3 in total).

• Study models are part of the submission as well as your sketchbooks.
• Bind the research work so that the visiting tutors can flick through it.

• Show the adjacent context on your drawings in ground plan, elevation and section:
• North point, section lines and scale
• Label the spaces and show people in sections and elevations
• Lineweights & types are important. 
• Ensure you dash what is above or below
• Pin up the drawings in the order that will help you explain the project (eg starting with the site plan, then floor plans etc, or via a series of sketches of the main spaces which might represent the journey that a visitor to the building might do)

• how did the research and concept influence your design?
• what is your concept?
• what particular type of performance space are you exploring and why?
• site strategy
• functional diagrams
• overall building massing
• hand-drawn plans and sections (in pencil). I expect all the spaces to be identified, if only with a single line and key spaces to be developed.
• hand-drawn sketches (in pencil) of key spaces of the building
• sketch models in grey card, foam or timber and/or 3d Revit conceptual massing models

*MID SEMESTER BREAK*

Week 7 Design development (tutorials via Skype in this week)

Week 8 Design development and production of draft 1:20 axonometric

Week 9 Final design development and production of draft 1:5 detail axonometric or

model

Week 10 Production of mock-up presentation with final drawings/models

Week 11 Production of final presentation

Week 12 Final Presentation

Mark Cannata can be contacted via email or phone as follows:

• Email: mark.cannata@3651south.com

• Skype: thirtysixfiftyonesouth

• Telephone: 021338525

Output Requirements

Initial Design

• Historic research and site analysis (Group work)

• Context model 1:200 (Group work)

• 1:500 Site strategy plan

• Individual thematic investigation (Concept model or Interpretative drawing); this must be a

crafted study that explores the nature of the site, the brief or the building type.

Building Design

• 1:500 Rendered context plan or 1:500 Sections/elevations showing relationship with existing

context

• 1:200 Proposal Model

• 1:100 Ground floor plan with adjacent context

• 1:100 Floor plans

• 1:100 Significant building elevations

• 1:50 Cross section through building; this should cut through the main spaces of the proposal,

such as the auditorium, and show adjacent external context

• 1:20 Axonometric, section or model of part of the proposal showing the integration of

architecture, structures and services

• 1:5 Axonometric or model of a significant detail that relates back to concept

• Sequential perspectives of significant spaces as montages/collages/sketches/rendered digital

models, highlighting spatial or ritual connections. To be presented in the form of a visual

narrative. As a minimum these have to give an indication of how the proposed spaces are

inhabited, their materials and light quality.

• Details of presentation format (medium, size, number of boards etc)to be confirmed

Reading List

• Juhani Pallasmaa, “The eyes of the skin – architecture and the senses”, Wiley ed.

• Robin Evans, “Translation from drawing to building and other essays”, AA documents 2

• Mazen Haidar, “City and memory”, Bruno Mondadori

• David Leatherbarrow, “Uncommon Ground – Architecture, technology and topography”, MIT

Press

• David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi, “On weathering”, MIT Press

• Christopher Woodward, “In ruins”, Chatto and windows

• Pierre Thiebault, “Old buildings looking for new use”, Menges

• Johannes Cramer and Stefan Breitling, “Architecture in existing fabric – planning, designing,

building”, Birkhauser

• Others will be provided in due course