Abdullah Imran– Architecture (Part 1) Portfolio, University of Bath

ABDULLAH IMRAN RIB A Pa r t I G ra duate Por tfo l i o University of Bath; 2018-2022

AB D UL L AH IMRAN RIBA Part 1 Graduate

E D U C AT I O N

Mobile: Email: LinkedIn:

2018-2022 University of Bath

+44 7438 595024 abdullahimran282@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/abdullahimran282

BSc Architecture (Hons) RIBA Part I Grade: 2:1 (Upper Division)

Regional Chair, Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) Telephone Fundraiser; University Alumni Fund Peer Mentor; Department of Architecture Vanessa Warnes, Final Year Project Tutor: vw228@bath.ac.uk

2016-2018 Tudor Grange Academy (Solihull)

GCSEs & A-Levels

A*AA at A-Level (Fine Art; Mathematics; Physics) 7 A*s, 6 As at GCSE (including OCR FSMQ) Student Prize for Academic Achievement Model United Nations Delegate Student Artist Prize

E XP E R I E N C E

May-Sept 2021 Bath

Assistant Landscape Architect Macgregor Smith Working directly under associates and a director at this renowned mid-size practice, I used InDesign and Illustrator to develop planning documentation, AutoCAD to build specifications, and SketchUp and Lumion to produce compelling visuals. I learned to efficiently balance focus between projects of varying scales, from single-residential to civic masterplanning, and gained exposure to most design stages through briefing meetings and contractor updates.

Rupert Grierson, Director & Mentor: rupert@macgregorsmith.co.uk

Dec 2018 Bath

RIBA Student Mentee Mitchell Eley Gould Through the RIBA’s mentorship program at this medium size firm, I was introduced to the Plan of Work and typical practice hierarchy structures.

Work Experience Aug 2017 Islamabad

Nasir Saeed Associates During a family trip to Pakistan, I took the opportunity to gain an insight into differences in the industry across nations. I compared processes, and as this firm works closely with the Pakistan MOD, I learned of the specific approaches needed in bureaucratic projects.

Work Experience April; June 2017 London; Solihull

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Bennett’s Associates; Solihull Council Building Design Group During A-Level break, I was fortunate to spend a week each in these respective offices. I accompanied architects to various sites in progress and was able to compare approaches between the private and civic sector.

PRO F I CI E NC Y

LA NGUAGES

Administration MS Office | InDesign

English: Native Language Urdu/Hindi: Second Native Language (C1)

2D & Graphics AutoCAD | Photoshop | Illustrator

Arabic: Limited (B1)

3D & Rendering SketchUp | Lumion | V-Ray Analogue Hand drawing | Model making

Hello there!

I’m Abdullah, and I have just completed my studies at the University of Bath. As the son of medics, my childhood was characterised by constant moving from place to place as my parents progressed in their training. Having then lived in four different countries and eight different homes by fourteen, I found that I had developed a mellow, keen interest in how different communities decide to organise themselves and the world around them.

Studying architecture at Bath equipped me with the discipline to approach creative challenges methodologically and thoroughly.

Through multidisciplinary studio projects, I saw the potent value of collaborative design, and on the flip-side of the coin, the sincerity that arises from giving up the mythical ‘starchitect’ aspiration in favour of a more empathetic, people-centric approach to problem solving. My present hope is to deepen my understanding of the dimensions of place-making through contribution to an open minded and collaborative studio.

CULTURE

HISTORY

PHILOSOPHY

CRAFT

LITERATURE ART

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Civic Center

Cultural Center

Public Archive

Two Projects

Various Artwork

4th Year Thesis Project

3th Year Group Project

3th Year Final Project

Miscellaneous

Line and Shadow

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MAHALLA

“Mahalla” (Arabic) translates to ‘organised community.’ The scheme proposes a home for the the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the UK’s foremost Muslim umbrella organisation.

Civic Center, Bloomsbury Fourth Year Final Project

AutoCAD, Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop Site Dimensions: 65 m x 40 m Approx. Floor Area: 2700 m2

The strategic effort to be an asset on both national & diplomatic and yet intimately local scale, and the creative tension between responding to both a sensitive Bloomsbury context and centuries of Islamic aesthetic heritage results in a delicately balanced contrast between a formal masonry ‘shell,’ and an expressive ‘Mashrabiya’ screening.

2. Programme massed on site into formal and contextually informed masonry ‘shell’

3. Breaking shell creates open aspect and language: one at street corner, another at park

4. Two wings mediated by diagonal atrium: street volume hosts visitors, and other for staff

5. Two focal volumes defined and accentuated: Council Chamber and Mosque.

6. Chamber integrated into form for links with adjacencies; Mosque drives own form

7. Mosque raised into to control threshold with and assert presence alongside park

8. Circulation ordered around inward garden, a classical Islamic organising element

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1. Two approaches, one from formal Georgian street and another from organic park

Ground Floor Plan, showing formal and staff approach from street and community approach from park

North & Mecca

North short section through chamber and various supporting visitor spaces

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Mosque Section

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The mosque concentrates the collected tectonic ideas across the scheme into a single statement. Interest is found in the unifying of elements not paired together anywhere else and further intensified by the geometric purity iof the perfect cube.

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1.

GRC ‘crown’ with in-cast stained glass that washes incoming light with a chorus of colour

2.

Curtain wall and roof with integrated ventilation louvres inside parapet

3.

Stretched paper diffuses light and enhances transcendental, noncontextual nature of space

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Glulam open lattice structure with steel tendon & cable supports

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Reclaimed masonry completes scheme perimeter ‘shell’ and marks threshold with park

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Load-bearing CLT wall

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Hand-woven carpet arranges worshippers into lines for prayer

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Shading: Precast Glass-Reinforced Concrete ‘Mashrabiya’ Screens

Primary Columns

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35mm prefabricated GRC screen with perimeter frame thickening

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Thermally broken timber-aluminium hybrid curtain wall

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Timber mullion

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265 mm square glulam column

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Steel T-plate flush with screen creating 5 mm shadow gap

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Cast-in bracket bolted to T-plate

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Thermal isolating pad

Curtain Wall Steel T-Plate

4000 mm

Screen & Cast-in Brackets

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0m

0 30

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1 7

6 3 5

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CHAMBER: DETAILED PERSPECTIVE SECTION

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F

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C

B

A

A: Inside-outside masonry pavers on screed; underfloor heating; concrete slab on ground beam; pile foundations

D: SIP upstand rooflight with louvres to aid buoyancy effect stack ventilation

B: Intermediate acoustic floor with air-heating plenum for displacement ventilation through slot diffusers; suspended acoustic ceiling; curtain wall with GRC rainscreen

E: GRC coping; load-bearing CLT wall; internal acoustic GRC panels; external sawtooth masonry leaf

C: GRC coping; SIP parapet; SPL roof on acoustic CLT ceiling supported by glulam lattice structure

F: Recessed porch; steel shelf lintel; GRC soffit hung from CLT floor by acoustic ceiling hangers

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POW E R H O USE Third Year Joint Engineers & Architects Project

This joint engineers’ & architects’ project proposes a way in which Manhattan’s old powerhouse may be redeveloped for the benefit of the local community. The existing long, thin volume had been gutted, and so to ensure minimal, light-touch intervention, we conceived an inward-looking scheme.

AutoCAD, Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop Site Dimensions: 200 m x 40 m Approx. Floor Area: 8200 m2

Given such a vibrant context, our approach stressed flexibility, and the resultant scheme envisions a total sandboxing of space in which elements are made to be updated and re-imagined.

Cultural Center (redevelopment), Manhattan

2. Microcosm: city grid logic imposed onto plan

3. Lego-like modules, including flat and ramp type, developed

4. Changeable, evolvable configurations emerge

5. Opportunities for spaces like market stalls and play emerge

6. Same logic applied onto vertical axis

7. Inhabitable volumes inserted to create usable space

Semi-private, configurable volumes emerge

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1. Building exists within and is defined by grid

North Partial Section, showing modular flexibility of ‘pods’ to host a variety of community functions at affordable hire rates

East Sectional Perspective, highlighting how ‘blocks’ on horizontal plane and ‘pods’ on vertical axis combine to offer true sandboxing of space

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D I A S P O R A ARCHIVE Archive & Education Center, Manhattan

For the brief to design an archive & center for the history of a specific minority group in New York City, my proposal explored the legacy of the Muslim & African diaspora, most fully embodied by the life of civil-rights leader Malcolm X.

AutoCAD, Sketchup, V-Ray, Photoshop Site Dimensions: 30 m x 20 m Approx. Floor Area: 1600 m2

From his autobiography, I derived a vision and model for a transformed community through knowledge, and thus the aspiration for this scheme: a center to instill self-confidence through engagement with artefacts of heritage and culture.

Third Year Joint Final Project

1. Site determined and dynamic entrance line derived

2. Rammed earth tower holds archive and anchors plan

3. First floor: grid begins to rotate towards Mecca

7. Cultural Expression: 4. Second floor: rotation to Mecca completed

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5. Unifying atrium stitches floorplates together

6. Sawtooth elevation reflects upward rotation in structure

Traditional carved timber ‘jaalis’ screening for shading

Traditional Islamic ‘Jaalis’ shade south glazing

Rainwater filtered and harvested or sustainably returned to drainage

Fresh air brought into mechanical system from north through garden, rather than from south through road

Sunlight pulled down deep into plan through atrium skylight in otherwise tight city-block allotment

Clerestory for dedicated light and air to prayer room

Collected rainwater stored in stable underground environment and pumped up to W/C systems

Acoustic gradient with lower spaces in section more communal; higher spaces more insular and reflective

Building ventilated largely by a mixed-mode system, with some opportunities for natural flows in the higher, smaller spaces

High thermal mass from thick rammed-earth walls stabilises archive conditions, which thus need only be controlled by low-energy mechanical systems

Entrance defined by a welcoming shade from elevation cantilevers

High-efficiency LED lighting systems used in spaces where daylight isn’t available, or desirable, as is the case in the controlled environment of the archive

View into atrium, showing lightweight timber structures (top) around heavy rammed earth spine (bottom), which holds archive contents

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C

B

A

West Elevation

L O S T & F OUND Museum of Migration, Euston Road

Fourth Year Joint Engineers & Architects Project AutoCAD, Sketchup, Lumion, Photoshop Site Dimensions: 85 m x 40 m Approx. Floor Area: 25000 m2

Our group entry for the prestigious Ted Happold Prize, this multidisciplinary project proposes a headquarters for London’s ‘Migrant Museum,’ an organisation committed to sharing the influence of migration in shaping the nation’s history.

Opting to retain the existing warehouse building on site, our approach emphasised an exciting interplay between old and new, through which a rich patchwork may emerge. Thus, some elements of the elevation [B] reflect the old [A], whilst others offer something fresh not seen in the context before [C].

2. Thermal line recessed to make taster spaces permeable.

3. Slabs saved, reused and cut to suit 4. New exhibition provision layered new scheme above existing building

5. Cores and services collected into spine, freeing floorplates

6. Circulation: primary staircase and lift cores

7. Form derived from irregular set of existing columns and vernacular of Victorian context

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1. Existing structure and facade retained. Entrance through taster exhibition zone

8. Elevation as contrasting collage, reinterpreting existing and inserting something new

G A R D E N M OSQ UE Kingsmead, Bath

Summer Project (2020) Site Dimensions: 30 m x 25 m Approx. Floor Area: 300 m2

Throughout the first summer lockdown, I used this project as a vehicle to explore principles in the Islamic art and architecture tradition that interested me, and as an exercise in critically translating abstract concepts for success at such humble scale. I learned introductory concepts in geometry and balance, contrast and multiplicity, the traditional importance of frames and borders, as well as, through discussion with Bath mosque, the basics of relating to and understanding clients.

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A RT WO R K Various Media

Top to bottom: Visual musing inspired by a gentle, rainy morning last June Visual musing inspired by passage from ‘The Poetics of Space’ (Bachelard) Study of John Madin’s Powergen offices whilst under demolition, Solihull

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Top to bottom: Patchwork collage of various architectural languages seen across Birmingham Drawing of aerial view over center of Cranbrook, Kent Drawing of view into Mosque Madrassa complex, Samarqand

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Many thank s