Unit Brief 2015-2016_SOFT CITY

Unit theme: The theme for this year is that of the ‘soft city’. Students are asked to investigate ways of looking differently at a major global city like London, seeing it not as a harsh or alienating environment, or as existing only in the realm of economics and systems, but rather as an open and fluid entity that allows for many readings of ‘softness’. This term can be understood literally, in terms of the relative density/hardness of the materials which are used to create buildings and urban spaces -- or more metaphorically in terms of the flows and interactions of human bodies, energies, weather patterns, trees and plants, animal species within the city -- or else poetically through the expression of feelings such as love, warmth, openness, communality, etc. How can designing the spatial practices and physical qualities of softness contribute to our urban experience, including the enhancement of sensations such as health and well-being? How might softness and hardness be designed together, whether in opposition or symbiosis, or indeed as some complex hybrid form?

Initial project: To start the year, you will be asked to investigate your personal understanding of London through an artifact or perhaps a series of artifacts that explore ideas of softness in relation to a specific area of the city which we will suggest. Your artifact(s) should aim to introduce you to a different set of sensibilities and ideas which will provide you with a new understanding of London as the ‘soft city’. Your approach in Project 1 can be openly experimental, addressing for instance the notion of digital craft through the making of large-scale, physical working models, layered spatialised drawings, material explorations, or various hybrid processes. To help in this task, we will be organising workshops to teach relevant computer skills and digital fabrication and photographic techniques. Your large-scale investigations/prototypes should combine fixed methods of representation (models, photos, sketches, paintings) along with more ephemeral time-based media (video, film). Importantly, the ideas that you begin to develop in the first project should act as the test-bed for your main design proposal for the year.

Main project: The site for your main project will be somewhere of your own choosing in London, selected on the basis that it offers intriguing possibilities for exploring concepts of softness within the city. How might your building design on your chosen site add to the properties of softness, and thus mediate in some way the prevailing urban mood of hardness, indeed coldness? How can rethinking softness help to create a new identity not only for your chosen site but also for surrounding areas and other parts of London? Students’ projects are therefore required above all to test out notions of softness so as to come up with innovative kinds of building uses that will enhance urban and cultural interaction. Throughout the year there is going to be an emphasis on research as a vital aspect of architectural design, and this will encompass many fields: anthropology, history, ecology, climate, economics, sociology, technology, studies of everyday life, etc.

Field trip: Our unit field trip in late-November to early-December will be to northern India, and specifically to visit Delhi/New Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur. There we will discover very different cultural attitudes and traditions towards issues such as softness/hardness, openness/closure, official/unofficial urbanism. We will link up with leading local universities and architectural practices to find out what is happening there now architecturally, as well as visiting a range of striking cultural phenomena, many of them historical in nature, which touch upon intriguing aspects of softness, hardness, density, social inclusivity, etc.

The Bartlett School of Architecture - End of Year Exhibition Opening

The annual celebration of student work from The Bartlett

School of Architecture, UCL.

One of the world’s biggest architecture degree shows sees over 500 students present an incredible range of inventive, creative and visual work, from models and drawings to films, multimedia installations and computer fabrications. This year's exhibition will take place at 140 Hampstead Road, with the opening party at the UCL Quad as usual. The Show will be opened by Spanish architect Carme Pinós.

Exhibition party & speeches
Friday 26 June 2015, 19.00
Main Quadrangle of UCL, Gower Street, London WC1

Exhibition party & speeches
Friday 26 June 2015, 19.00
Main Quadrangle of UCL, Gower St, London WC1E 6BT

Exhibition open to the public
Saturday 27 June – Saturday 11 July

Family activities
Saturday 27 June
140 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2BX

 

 Opening times
Saturday 27 June, 10.00 – 20.30
Sunday 28 June, 10.00 – 17.30
Monday 29 June, 10.00 – 20.30
Tuesday 30 June, 10.00 – 20.30
Wednesday 1 July, 10.00 – 15.00
Thursday 2 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Friday 3 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Saturday 4 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Sunday 5 July, 10.00 – 17.30
Monday 6 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Tuesday 7 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Wednesday 8 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Thursday 9 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Friday 10 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Saturday 11 July, 10.00 – 20.30

  

Bean Buro Architects Hong Kong is our main sponsor for Unit 0's exhibition space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Founded in 2013, the studio is an inter-disciplinary architectural design practice led by Lorène Faure and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, with a network of British and international collaborators to providing architecture, interior, installation, furniture and product design services. 

The diversity of the practice with its collaborators reinforces a core vision for the practice: to respond to the exchanges of global cultural narratives, incorporating overlapping design disciplines specializing in the social, economical and political production of urban spaces. 

We believe architecture is an emotional, spatial experience constructed by both the user and the author. Our design methodologies stem from the observation, speculation and analysis of contextual narratives. These narratives, or ‘stories’, generate dynamic exchanges of historical, environmental, cultural and social factors, resulting in highly inventive interventions while preserving plenty of intellectual wit. 

COLLABean, as an integrated part of Bean Buro, is a trans-disciplinary platform for collaborations between practice, research and academia. COLLABean can provide design research services for your business, and wherever appropriate, to involve specialists’ input from a network of highly reputable designers, academicians and researchers in the design field.

 

Bean Bruo Architects are members of Horhizon Design Research Network (www.horhizon.com), of which its members are direct affiliates with renown European architectural schools, university institutes and cultural organisations. Through the network Bean Bruo collaborates with specialists in the industry, such as engineers, manufacturers, and contractors, in order to consistently explore industry innovations and apply new knowledge and skills into our projects.

 

 

 

Wallbrook Solar Credit Union City of London//Sam COULTON [Y3]

This project proposes the setting up of a Credit Union to look after the interests of the low-paid cleaners in the City of London who work through the night. Their bank sits inside the first large park in that part of town, protected all around by a thin, inhabited wall of poche spaces. The rays and energy from the sun are collected by giant metal `flowers' in the park, with the light and heat then funnelled down into spaces for sleeping, banking, and socialising below the ground. Drawing on proportional analysis of Wren's St Paul's and St Stephen Wallbrook, a cluster of alabaster domes also transmit sunlight to the Credit Union, and the Wallbrook River is excavated to enhance the park's biodiversity.

The Royal Astronomical Society Museum Regent Street//Kelly FRANK [Y3]

The stuffy Royal Astronomical Society in Burlington House has lost the capacity to make the subject exciting and relevant to citizens. In this age of popular science, with films and television programmes on the wonders of the universe, what could make more sense than a new astronomical museum and research centre in Regent Street, sitting behind a retained commercial street-front so as to encourage shoppers to drop in? On the preserved façade, various mechanical cast-iron objects pop through to provide echoes of earlier devices like telescopes and orreries, while also alluding to the tradition of rich decorative details in London's older buildings. At the rear, a public garden includes an open-air amphitheatre for the dissemination of the latest astronomical discoveries.

Silk Wedding Dress Farm//Michelle HO [Y3]

There are few forms of human ritual as important as those attached to the clothes we wear. Beginning with an analysis of how the gentlemen's tailors operate in Savile Row, an approach to architecture which includes woven and threaded spaces emerged during the course of research. As part of the lively multicultural garment district next to Finsbury Park Station, a new silk farm is inserted, with the worms being bred in tall, elegant timber lattice towers. Overhead shading is provided by thin webs of spun silk cables, under which customers can peruse and choose their favourite wedding dress for that special day. These dresses will also become cherished heirlooms to be passed down the generations.