UNIT 5 - PERIPHERY PARTY

PERIPHERY PARTY 2012 Participation, Desire, and Transformation: From the AA to Suburbia and Back

This studio will investigate mechanisms of participation as design tools for spatial transformation: we will be a laboratory for participatory planning and design processes, centred in the periphery of the 2012 Olympic site in Stratford, London.

The two week party of the 2012 Olympics has been seven years in the making, but the after-party will last for decades. The new Olympic centres have implicitly created new peripheries: communities that bear the brunt of the effects of years of imposed decisions, compulsory purchases, and uninvited construction of their surroundings.

What does it mean to suddenly but surely become the ‘periphery’? The party might be momentary, but the ‘after-party’ is where the fun really occurs, and the future is really made: how can the uninvited guests of the party, become the hosts of the after-party?

This studio will explore how the bystanders to this two week party can help shape a more positive collective future through participatory architectural ‘after-parties’.

Using the lower Lee Valley (just north of the main Olympic site) as an initial test site, students will work in teams to use the mode of the party as a tool to involve, define, research and analyse what and who the ‘periphery’ is, and discover their Olympicrelated concerns, desires and fears. From these conclusions, students will explore hybrid methods of cooperation and communication through further actions and spatial transformations (video, photography, physical and human intervention) in the Lee Valley area. Through testing and iteration, students will design and realize new forms of architectural participation, with the aim of making the ‘periphery’ the centre of the ‘afterparty’ where the future of the city is really decided.

THE PARTY PLANNING SCHEDULE 1. WHAT IS A PARTY? _ Lecture on the 1908 Summer Olympics in White City as a contemporary suburban analogous example; lectures on participatory design, actions in public spaces. _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Discussions around issues of the periphery and the Olympic aftermath; draw conclusions and decide the issues that will be focussed upon _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Students will research: definitions, types and formats of ‘events’ and ‘festivals’; strategies for community engagement; mechanisms of ‘play’ that relate to the issue they are working with; potential sites; Lee Valley artists, architects, community members and politicians with which to engage _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ In groups, students will start the process of designing events, trying to ensure broad participation, a variety of types of interaction and methods of engagement (discussion, social media, blogs, visual materials), all with clear spatial definitions (through plans, sections and 3D modeling). At the end of each day, each group will present their findings to the other groups for further discussion and clarification 2. WHAT CAN A PARTY DO? _ Iterating, refining and planning festival design proposals in Lee Valley _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Discussions focused around the use of new media and crowd sourcing in data gathering; games as data events; and socio-political issues in relation to the Lee Valley _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Initial iteration and testing of proposals within the communities of the Lee Valley, understanding what the proposals can do, and for whom (aka The Mid Review) _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas 3. CREATING THE AFTER-PARTY _ Discussions focused around experience categorization, extent of design, and documentation techniques _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Final iterations of the ‘after-party’ design (means and methods), and experiential documentation techniques _ Site visit to the Lee Valley and surrounding areas _ Construction/ installation of the 'After-Party' _ The After-Party (including experiential documentation) _ The Day After the Night Before (aka The Final Review)

THE PERIPHERAL INSTIGATORS DOLORES VICTORIA RUIZ GARRIDO and JUANJO RUIZ GARRIDO are the cofounders of SEMISOTANO ARCHITECTS. Their office has over nine years of building experience, developing more than eighty projects; their award-winning work has been selected to participate in the X and XI Biennial of Architecture of Spain. In London, they have worked as guest collaborators with Professor Sir Peter Cook in his office CRAB; together they won several prizes in international competitions. Semisotano continues to promote new ideas of social participation in their work, including through competitions such as the explosive ‘Proyecto Express’ sponsored by the Association for Sustainable Architecture and the Spanish Housing Ministry, which involved citizens, young architects and local politicians.

MARK E BREEZE is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and architect; he is the founder of the film and architecture design, research and production collaborative REPEAT DIFFER. Mark graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Bachelor and Master of Arts with First Class Honours, and a Master of Philosophy with Distinction; he received his professional Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University as a John F Kennedy Scholar and Herchel Smith Scholar. He has practiced architecture in London, New York, Boston and Beijing, working on mixed-use commercial projects for Norman Foster, residential projects for Annabelle Selldorf, and cultural projects for Colin St John Wilson and MJ Long; his professional film experience includes working as a Field Director, Architectural Consultant, and Producer for the Discovery Channel and Dreamworks under Steven Spielberg. Mark has taught at Harvard, lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and been on review juries at a variety of design schools, from Columbia, Pratt, Parsons, and the University of Michigan, to The Bartlett and The Royal College of Art. His research interests include the experiential potentials generated at the intersection of filmmaking and architectural practice.

BEATRIZ VILLANUEVA and FRANCISCO J CASAS are the co-founders of bRijUNi ARCHITECTS Office for Architectural Crisis and Literary Speculation. Both are architects, trained at the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (ETSAM); Francisco also holds a Master in Analysis, History and Theory of Architecture (ETSAM) and Beatriz a Master in Management and Design of Virtual Spaces (Fundación Camuñas) and a Master in Advanced Architectural Projects. They have written over a hundred articles for international media, and their work as architects has been published internationally (e.g. A10 New European Architecture, SUMMA+, Exkema etc). They regularly teach theory and criticism, and the history of design and culture at the Instituto Europeo di Design; they have also been guest tutors and lecturers for the Master’s Degree in Advanced Architectural Design (Universidad Europea de Madrid), ETSA Sevilla, and Alicante.

EDUARDO REGA CALVO provided invaluable ideas and collaborative instigation!