The Collaboration Café Symposium:

Unit 9 designed and constructed an exhibition at the Café Gallery of the Building Centre last year.The model was based on our chosen site for last years project- North Greenwich Peninsular. The purpose of the exhibition was to

promote a web based project review and exhibition platform known as StickyWorld. The model was constructed from sheets of plywood which were CNC routed, the entire model pivots from the centre to close onto itself reviling a complete model of the site or, the model opens out to form a translucent wall for the exhibition.

to view the final panels click here

to view the drawings click on the image above or here

The Performing Arts of Form Forming is a new dance school and recording studio part of a media campus put forward by the government to keep up with the increasing media industry within London.  

Site Plan:

The new campus will inhabit a heterogeneous continuous mat, which embraces the left side of the Greenwich Peninsula. The urban mat will lock into the existing and upcoming network proposed within Terry Farrell’s master plan for North Greenwich. The mat maintains the themes walkway and cycle path but also creates new areas along the river which open out towards the bank and Canary Wharf, these points also continue and form pedestrian favored routes west to east across through the site and tube station to meet the other side of the Peninsula. The heterogeneous mat provides continuous blurred public access over the whole site with variation in geometry and space, due to the nature of the heterogeneous formation the user can quickly understand the geometry of the entire mat even though every area may be different to the next.

On this mat the facilities for the new campus begin to emerge. Each plot acquires the geometry specified by the urban mat, new programme is introduced and it is this new programme that adopts the mat as its public ground where all public facilities related to the programme above sit. The programme above will then affect the public realm below interrupting its geometry and forcing new inhabitable areas to emerge over the ground. The public ground blurs public movement over and around the distortion of the mat affected by the allocated programme. This begins to form a figure ground relationship with internal space and external space where the mat is the ground in which different figures of programme begin to emerge creating a variation of spaces to inhabit.

Ground Floor Plan:

The Performing Arts of Form Forming will takes on this geometry and uses it to place all publicly used facilities, the auditoria, bar, café, practice stage and lecture theater all inhabit the heterogeneous mat and begin to form different new areas where the users can sit and watch an informing performance if they wish or while drinking their coffee. The café and bar both look on to the river and take advantage of the generous space given to the public, it is here where students can informally practice during the summer months and the public have a position placing them in an orientation as if they were seated within an auditorium but instead they find themselves in the bar or café.

Lower Ground Floor Plan:

The programmes from above and below begin to affect the public ground above distorting and blurring the movement of the users. Below are where the recording studios are found taking advantage of the obscure landscape above forcing the ceiling of a recoding studio to be ramped as this helps with acrostic control, also found below is the set design and workshops with close access to the main stage and service entrance.

Unfolded Truss 1:

Unfolded Truss 2:

The dance studios above begin to fold down and interrupt the public ground below, in order to maintain a clear continuous public realm the upper floors are constructed within a truss system, this then achieves the large spans and reduces the interruptions on ground. There is a point in which the upper floor folds down and merges with the public ground, it is here where the student can make their way to the studios above The continuity is maintained within the upper floors by introducing the main programmatic elements and forcing them between the floors. This begins to fold the floors so that they touch and maintains a sense of continuity within the upper mass. These folds do not only maintain continuous access but it also provides for break out spaces for the students during classes. A fold gives the student a place to sit and rest, or the class can sit and attend a seminar given by the tutor or even passers by can sit and watch a practice taking place. The fold is emphasized on the façade of the building and takes on the concept of blurring movement as the students can use the folds to move from floor to floor or even sit and relax.

First Floor Plan:

Second Floor Plan:

Third Floor Plan:

The upper floors inhabit the entire truss but not only does the truss provide for structural purposes it also provides for segregation. The dance studios bleed through the truss and there is a point when entering a studio the user is presented by the truss, and it is here where they can place their bags and the lockers are also located within this area. The corridor above also bleeds through the truss creating a place where the pianist might be located within a dance studio but then above that it also provides a point in which students can practice during classes if they need to step out of the room. This space is juxtaposed over an unrelated dance studio. The façade is also brought in pass the truss to allow for light to enter more central parts and to provide spaces where students can sit out side.

Section CC:

Exploded Structural Axiomatic:

Section AA & BB:

East & West Elevations:

Internal Perspectives- Entrance/Main Stage/Breakout Space/Dance Studio

Exploded Skin Diagram:

Dance Studio Section:

Model Images of Dance Studio:

Breakout Spaces:

The main programmatic element of the upper floors will drop down into the public space below and meet with the programme elements forming upwards. The dance studios are the main programme elements and these will push into the upper surfaces peeling the surface downwards or upwards forming different ground conditions within the upper mass and affecting the different spaces bellow. This distortion contained by the upper mass in section will form different emerging spaces. The different ground conditions can form breakout areas for the dancers relating to the dance studio that forced the distortion.

The Plot:

Main grid lines are drawn from the master plan, the spaces between the main grid lines are broken down into smaller grid lines. The auditoria  are placed onto one half and distorted to meet the grid lines where appropriate, the same is done for the central strip and public facilities. Programme then interrupts the ground, which is formed by the figure, and the figure is then updated to suit the level change. Consequently forming a ground floor plan that will emerge from the master plan mat, blurring movement through undefined boundaries.

Campus Urban Grain:

The matt is to be used in order to form a figure ground relationship with the building mass for the campus [Wikipedia - German: Gestalt - “essence or shape of an entity’s complete form”] the shape of the buildings will emerge from the ground to form different figures over the matt.

The routes have been distinguished so in theory whatever is left over will become building plot. This is more or less the case but there is still a zone in which plot is merged into ground, it is here where the ground condition continues upwards to the raised plots. This zone is a mix of walk-able and non-walk-able grounds and where different facilities of the campus can emerge from within the groundscape producing new areas of inhabitation in and on the ground. Where the routes move from left to right and cut into the ground a surface will connect the upper level. This upper surface will be perforated with the same method as before to maintain fluidity and continuity over the matt, additionally to provide light to the lower route without breaking the surface above. 1 dance school and recoding studio, 2 architecture and arts, 3 admin and offices, 4 leisure facilities, 5 student accommodation, 6 public restaurants and bars, 7 on site parking.

Greenwich Peninsula:

There are three public transport hubs close by, tube, bus and ferry. This will provide for the transport to the site as well as the car. At the moment a large part of Greenwich peninsula is occupied by car parking. A new master plan is undergoing construction at the moment. There are limited green spaces found on Greenwich peninsula and the pedestrians are forced to walk against the river with limited access off of the Thames walkway to the centre of the peninsula. The existing site is scared by its industrial history with very limited pedestrian access running from east to west.

Context:

Diagram highlighting the near-by transport links from central London to the Greenwich site and comparing the number of recording studios, dance schools, music schools and campuses in relation to accessibility. The new campus at North Greenwich will sought to incorporate each category within one site.

Sketch Model 06:

This model begins to explore the relation between each programmatic ground and how the main programmes begin to interrupt the public ground by distorting the space through the interjection of exposed programme. The new spaces formed within the public slice have different qualities, forcing different facilities to inhabit certain areas of the public ground.