PhD Research Projects 2016

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2016

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2016

TUESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2016 Conference: 9.30am–6.30pm The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 140 Hampstead Road / London

CONTENTS

03 04

06

Preface

20

Presenters

22

Making a ‘Kind-of-Home-Place’

Introduction

24

Contextualising Spaces of Change

Destruction: Tracing the Aerial Viewpoint from Spectacle to Military Sublime

KILLIAN DOHERTY

Exhibitors

Decolonizing Architectural Practice:

Exploring Dwelling and Distinction within

the (Development) Landscapes of Rwanda 10

26

a New Figure for Design

Lighting Technologies in Dance Culture: 28

of Space 12

de Verre through the Large Glass 30

to Solving London’s Housing Crisis?

14

Narrating Political-sectarian Conflict in Contemporary Beirut

Searching for Identity in Damascus through 32

form in Modern Spaces 16

Practice at Grymsdyke Farm 34

21st Century: Critical Devices and Collective 36

EVA SOPEOGLOU

The Tectonics of Comfort between Clothes and Cities 2

MICHAEL WIHART

The Architecture of Soft Machines

Practice, In and Out of Academia 18

GUAN LEE

Cast & Camera: An Architectural

CARLO MENON

‘Little’ Architectural Magazines of the Early

MOHAMAD HAFEDA

Bordering Practices: Negotiating and

NAHED JAWAD

the Muqarnas: a Historical Architectural

EMMA CHEATLE

Part-architecture: the Maison

BILL HODGSON

Can Community Self-building Contribute

ALESSANDRO AYUSO Body Agents: Deploying

POL ESTEVE

A Challenge to the Modern Conception

HENRIETTA WILLIAMS

From Aerostation Wonder to Ultimate

in Amman and Tel Aviv-Jaffa 08

FREYA WALEY-COHEN Permutations

SIGI ATTENEDER

Urban Borderlands in the Levant:

HUDA TAYOB

38

Biographies Credits

PREFACE

Dr Penelope Haralambidou

Co-ordinator, MPhil/PhD Programmes

Professor Jonathan Hill

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural Design

Dr Barbara Penner

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural History & Theory

P

hD Research Projects 2016 is the

concluding their research. The purpose of

exhibition related to doctoral research

productive discussions between presenters,

tenth annual conference and

at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The event is open to the public and involves presentations by students undertaking the

the conference and exhibition is to encourage exhibitors, staff, students, critics and the audience.

Organised and curated by Dr Penelope

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/

Haralambidou, PhD Research Projects 2016

year we have invited contributions by MPhil/

Architectural Association; Professor Murray

PhD Architectural History & Theory. This

PhD students at the Bartlett’s Development

and Planning Unit and the Royal Academy of Music, as a continuation of our collaboration.

Furthermore, to celebrate 175 years of

architectural education at UCL we are

hosting an exhibition of work by recent PhD alumni.

Leading to a PhD in Architecture, the

two Bartlett School of Architecture doctoral programmes encourage originality and

has four invited critics: Dr Pier Vittorio Aureli, Fraser, University College London; Dr Hélène Frichot, KTH Royal Institute of Technology; and Professor Neil Heyde, Royal Academy of Music.

Presenting this year are: Sigi Atteneder;

Killian Doherty; Pol Esteve; Bill Hodgson;

Nahed Jawad; Carlo Menon; Eva Sopeoglou; Huda Tayob; Freya Waley-Cohen; and Henrietta Williams.

The five PhD alumni exhibiting this year

creativity. Over 90 students are currently

are: Dr Alessandro Ayuso; Dr Emma Cheatle;

undertaken is broad. However, each annual

Dr Michael Wihart.

enrolled and the range of research subjects PhD conference and exhibition focuses on a smaller selection of presentations from students who are starting, developing or

Dr Mohamad Hafeda; Dr Guan Lee; and

INTRODUCTION

Enter the Margin

T

he 2016 PhD Research Projects

probe into the borderlands and minor spaces

from Architectural Design and

of the body, in and through space.

brings together doctoral researchers

Architectural History & Theory at the

of architecture; and question the positioning A common thread across many of these

Bartlett School of Architecture, alongside

research projects is their location in the

Planning Unit and The Royal Academy of

metaphorically. For bell hooks, the margin

researchers from the Bartlett Development Music. This year, the research conversations coincide with the opening of an exhibition

to mark 175 years of architectural education at UCL. For this special occasion, Bartlett School of Architecture alumni have been

invited to exhibit their work alongside PhD candidates.

As always, the PhD Research projects

presented highlight the interdisciplinary

nature of doctoral research at the Bartlett in form, content, and method. Presenters

and exhibitors work through a broad range of research methodologies, drawing from practices and theories within disciplines

as varied as design, history, mathematics,

visual art, composition, and anthropology,

among others. Researchers are engaged in a search for tools to look, map, design, and

fabricate differently. They investigate the role of institutions and surveillance mechanisms;

4

margin - methodologically, physically, or

is a ‘space of radical openness… a profound edge’. As such, it is a space of possibility and potential, a space from which to look ‘both

from the outside in and from the inside out’,

to create and imagine new worlds. In moving between and across disciplines these various research projects confront the realities of

their locations. And through the unstable and shifting worlds of interdisciplinary research, they question and challenge normative

positions, critically evaluate, and search for

alternatives. As bell hooks herself points out, there is nothing new about the margin, yet

the potential it holds remains. Indeed many of the research projects address pertinent underlying social, historical, political, and environmental concerns.

Sigi Atteneder’s research questions

the relational and territorial borderlands of the Levant, while Killian Doherty’s project

searches for an architecture that is ‘neither

while Henrietta Williams’ research traces the

population in Rwanda. Nahed Jawad’s paper

aerial flight, from pleasure to surveillance.

the one nor the other’ through a marginalised draws on the history and mathematics of

history of the omniscient viewpoint through Returning to bell hooks, these research

muqarnas in Damascus in order to challenge

projects invite us to ‘enter the margin’ as a

while Eva Sopeoglou looks to the margins

conversation between and across disciplines,

the generic globalization of architecture,

of architecture and clothing, for new tools and fabrication methods for a sustainable

future. Freya Waley-Cohen and Pol Esteve’s papers both investigate the embodied

relationship of architecture in counterpoint to other disciplines: through Waley-Cohen’s consideration of musical and spatial

composition, and Esteve’s study of dance culture and lighting technologies.

Yet it is not only the margin, but also the

space of possibility. The presenters are in between the centre and the margins of

architecture, between theory and practice,

and between the papers and the exhibition.

These are located research projects, which through their specificity hold the potential

to draw one in, critically question, challenge,

and creatively develop. Through the margins and the minor, the 2016 PhD Research

Projects may move us all ‘out of our place’.

minor which is of particular interest here

‘Enter that space. Let us meet there.’

a minor architecture adopting Deleuze and

Huda Tayob

today. Joan Ockman puts forth the idea of Guattari’s notion of minor literature. For

Deleuze and Guattari, the minor, in a similar way to hooks’ margin, holds the potential

for subversion and radical transformation.

Ockman suggests that a minor architecture is therefore not about nostalgic reactions or shock tactics, but rather, about incremental and subtle persistence. Carlo Menon’s

research into ‘little’ architectural magazines in Europe looks into the critical potential of

these architectural publications, while Huda Tayob’s research explores the possibilities

of incremental minor architectures in Cape Town. Ockman further reminds us that the

minor is historically constructed, and always defined in relation to the major. In London, Bill Hodgson searches for tools to find and

inhabit small, leftover, and under-used spaces to confront the housing crisis in the city,

5

SIGI ATTENEDER BARTLETT DEVELOPMENT PLANNING UNIT

Urban Borderlands in the Levant: Contextualising Spaces of Change in Amman and Tel Aviv-Jaffa

T

his research project investigates

confrontational spatial situations which

environments. Despite increasingly

separations. Amman and Tel Aviv-Jaffa have

spatial sources of change in urban

complex and interrelated modes of spatial

configuration, change in urban areas is still

largely understood as internal to city spaces.

This research however suggests that a

variety of processes, both near and far, are

at play when it comes to the production and reproduction of urban spaces. Addressing

the field of tension between similarity and

difference, and spaces that fold, overlap, and

withdraw, the research conceptualises these

spaces as urban borderlands. The theoretical framework builds on the concept of the

borderland, which extends the concept of borders from the edge of states to wider

spaces. Overall, while following the view of space as open and relational, the project also takes into account the oppositional

attributes of restrictions and separations.

The empirical focus of the research

is on the Middle East and the so-called Levant. In this contested region, the

heterogeneity and number of borders,

from conventional state borders to more

intricate mechanisms of control, result in

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oscillate between creating relations and

been selected as the sites of concrete case studies. Through these sites, and between

relational and territorial points of view, I

investigate the different trajectories and

multiple border-mechanisms that reflect

the balance of power. The research method extends beyond comparative approaches,

and seeks to work with cross-scalar contexts that play a role in the reproduction of urban spaces. The premise of the research is that contemporary processes of urban change

span across scales, and that acknowledging and activating spaces produced by

these processes potentially provides the

momentum to work towards more inclusive and just urban spaces.

7

KILLIAN DOHERTY BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Decolonizing Architectural Practice: Exploring Dwelling and Distinction within the (Development) Landscapes of Rwanda

I

n sub-Saharan Africa, architecture

and the local building materials of mud and

through the building of institutions.

landscape are being effaced. Development

historically facilitated colonial governance

Jean-François Bayart (1998) asserts that

institutions acted as sites of moral subjectivity thereby reinforcing a distinction between

western as modern/ good and non-western

as primitive/bad. Following Homi K. Bhabha

thatch negated, former relations with the

has thus spurred Rwanda’s indexed vision of modernity resulting in the re-emergence of former moral/ethnic divides of internalized colonialism.

Borrowing Franz Fanon’s (1961) concept

(1991), the influence of western colonialism in

of decolonization, which points to an undoing

of previous social and cultural orders.

questions western developmental influences

subjugating identities resulted in the erosion Contemporary post-conflict Rwanda

is rapidly modernising, heavily assisted by

western development. The architecture and urban forms are legitimised by an imported Singapore-designed master plan, where

generic high-rise concrete buildings occupy zoned divisions of land. In the process,

scattered rural settlements are consolidated into ‘model villages’, while surrounding

fertile land is ring-fenced into economic

programs of tourism, energy and collective agriculture. Yet behind this discourse

of reconciliation and prosperity, 80% of

Rwanda’s population remains dependant

upon access to land for food and shelter. With access to forests and wetlands forbidden,

8

of colonial power structures, this research

upon Rwanda. It starts by questioning the

role current architectural practice plays in (unwittingly) depoliticizing non-western

needs. How might alternative approaches

to architecture open spaces for non-western peoples’ concerns? And could a mediated approach, located between western and

non-western cultural positions, give way to

a new architecture, as articulated by Bhabha (1991) that is ‘neither the one nor the other’?

This thesis asks these questions through the societal and physical spaces occupied by

an indigenous, landless community within Rwanda: somewhere between the forest and the ‘modern’ developed nation.

9

POL ESTEVE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Lighting Technologies in Dance Culture: A Challenge to the Modern Conception of Space

I

n 1978, the French semiotician, Roland

sight can be considered to be permanent;

Hommes discussing Le Palace, probably

an intermittent rhythm which rendered

Barthes, published an article in Vogue

the greatest discotheque Paris has ever

known. Le Palace was an old theatre that was transformed into a dance club; it used the

most advanced technologies of the time to

offer a spectacle of colour and light. Barthe’s text described Le Palace as an experience

of pleasure and novelty without precedent: an architecture which incarnated the ever-

in dance culture of the time, light followed the dichotomy between lightness and darkness evident. The interruption of

sight therefore created a non-normative

perceptual framework that dwelt on, and

aimed to trigger, a different understanding

of the body and dispositions of the individual within a changing social and urban geography.

This investigation articulates an

present desires of man.

intersection between a history of

text as a departing point to inquire into

space, and a history of vision to ultimately,

This research project takes Barthe’s

the meanings of the spatial experiences produced within dance culture. More concretely, the research analyses the

implications of the visual regime created

by advanced artificial lighting techniques

in contraposition to the visual regime that

sustained a modern understanding of space.

The historical focus of this investigation

will be the decades of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the moment when systems of illumination formerly invented for scientific purposes

were first used to transform the perception of space. While in modern space, light and

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architectural space, a history of the body in understand the fundamental role of the

innovative use of light for the definition of

cognitive space and the subject emerging in the second half of the twentieth century, in opposition to the modern legacy.

11

BILL HODGSON BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Can Community Self-building Contribute to Solving London’s Housing Crisis?

L

ondon is experiencing a serious

investigation has been carried out in my

of demand for properties, and prices

only two-dimensional information such

housing crisis with an excess

rising at around 10% per annum. Yet many inner London housing estates owned by

local authorities contain under-used parcels of land: air-rights above single-storey

garages, left-over corners of undefined public space, or social spaces whose

functions have long since ceased, such as first-floor playgrounds.

This PhD aims to interrogate the

potential for these small, unused sites on

public housing estates to become locations for community self-build housing projects.

The objective is to build such a project and test its viability in practice. To enable this,

new mapping techniques are needed in order to explore sites, find data, and digitally record this information in a coherent, scalable and potentially parametric manner.

My intention is therefore to develop

scaleable processes which can identify

and catalogue unused spaces on council

estates, including the analysis of significant data such as site area, potential height, and property adjacency. Thus far, this

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selected case-study area, Hoxton, using as plans, estate agents web sites, or by

wandering around streets in the hope of

finding something suitable. My proposal is

that by adding height and geometry to the mapping process, new sites can be found

which would otherwise be ignored or missed out. Furthermore, developing an interactive form of 3D-mapping will allow local

residents to discover and influence where new housing insertions might best be

placed. This software will thus contribute

both to the finding of potential sites, while also leading to community involvement, particularly regarding vital factors such as the ‘right to light’ of neighbouring

properties. An additional important feature

of the PhD, is a series of public engagement projects that will assess the willingness of Hoxton residents to participate in

community self-built housing projects.

13

NAHED JAWAD BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Searching for Identity in Damascus through the Muqarnas: a Historical Architectural form in Modern Spaces

M

uqarnas or stalactites are an important feature of Islamic

architecture. They were popular

up the debate on this identity crisis in Islamic cities to other scholars.

A further aim is to contribute to the

in a large geographic area, from Iran to

evolutionary process of the traditional

development of the muqarnas in Damascus,

explore new possibilities of the muqarnas

Spain. This research maps the historical

in order to questions the reasons behind their change of use, from a period of

creativity to an era of imitation within Islamic architecture. With this historical basis, this

design-based research project looks at ways

of re-introducing this traditional architectural module into modern spaces with different

historical form of the muqarnas, and

as a surface typology. Using computational tools and algorithms, and drawing on

the mathematical characteristics of the

muqarnas, the intention is to explore these possibilities structurally, environmentally, and spatially.

An interesting question arises

shapes, vaults, and functions.

through the research regarding the limits

design, the research hopes to identify

criteria are included as design factors

Through both historical analysis and

the reasons underlying the identity crisis suffered by old Islamic cities such as

Damascus. The origins of this identity crisis lie in the clash of global architecture with Islamic architecture. The thesis hopes to

offer an alternative, and thus provide ways of incorporating the old with the new, thereby bridging the oppositional view, of Islamic

architecture as archaic, and modern global architecture as alien, in old Islamic cities.

Furthermore, the research hopes to open

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of creativity when cultural and social

for the computational muqarnas vaults.

Fabrication technologies and advanced

computational techniques hold the potential to advance the creation of geometric

patterns into previously unexplored areas

and with unexpected outcomes, leading to

architectural-ornamental and performative

muqarnas forms.

CARLO MENON BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

‘Little’ Architectural Magazines of the Early 21st Century: Critical Devices and Collective Practice, In and Out of Academia

T

and theory explores the role of little

represent a form of engagement with the

contemporary architecture. Almost entirely

into the safe boudoir of the printed page?

with their own studios or teaching practices,

of images, texts, and paratexts, produce

circulation create a shared space between

text-based essay?

his thesis in architectural history

magazines in exchanging ideas in

made by architects, often in combination

such non-commercial publications of small editors, contributors and readers, and

challenge the formats, modes, and values of established periodicals.

Responding to what has been described

as a crisis of criticism at the turn of the

century, this research aims to investigate the value of today’s little magazines as sites of

production to develop architecture’s critical project. It aims both at understanding little

magazines as a medium and at questioning their relationship with the discipline of

architecture as a whole through the following questions:

• Does today’s resurgence of DIY

littleness express a symptom of disbelief in

architecture’s major institutions, or a surplus of intellectual production demanding more spaces for architectural discourse?

16

• To what extent do these magazines

built environment, rather than a retirement • What editorial devices, in the interplay

forms of criticism different from the typical Designed as a critical ethnography,

the thesis is intended to be a real-time

investigation of a live material. It takes a

transversal approach to the experimental tradition of architecture magazines,

combining a close reading and analysis of

several case studies within Europe from 2006 to 2018, along with theoretical speculation and practice-led research — specifically

through the self-published, experimental magazine Accattone.

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EVA SOPEOGLOU BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

The Tectonics of Comfort between Clothes and Cities

M

y research focuses on architecture

in architecture beyond socially accepted

both environmental and fabrication

spaces were buildings and urban settings

and urban design that consider

technologies. More specifically, my practice-

based PhD thesis considers thermal comfort from an architectural, aesthetic, and

socio-cultural perspective. Architectural

envelopment and comfort are here explored

as multi-dimensional qualities of inhabitable space, place, and the environment.

Following the theories of Gottfried

Semper, the research explores building as a

form of dressing. Both clothing and building are adaptable environmental modifiers

critical in the fabrication of thermal comfort.

In addition, shadows emerge as temporal

architectural phenomena with textile-like

qualities, and the external envelope becomes a soft and modifiable ‘textile’ tectonic

material. Through this, semi-outdoor and

intermediate spaces emerge as the places where thermal comfort is generated.

The writings and built projects of

Bernard Rudofsky, avant-garde architect

and advocate of vernacular architecture,

help to further Semper’s concept of a textile

tectonic. Rudofsky promoted human comfort

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norms of the time. For Rudofsky exemplary with ambiguous external boundaries, such

as the patio house, the urban arcade and the Japanese house-garden, all of which relate

to ideas of comfort. Furthermore, Rudofsky’s own built work features shadows with soft boundaries and playful textures.

This paper focuses on the project

Weaving Shadows, a small summer house

located in Greece. The project involved the

design and fabrication of a 1:1 prototype. The design features a permeable and movable metallic envelope, a textile-like patterned

surface. As shadows move during the course of the day, the house becomes a nomadic

living environment. The project was designed and self-built using digital CAD/CAM

technologies. The tectonic arrangements

of semi-enclosed spaces suggest a possible

sustainable future for architecture, where the boundaries between exterior and interior are

negotiable, and bodies can freely inhabit both sides of the architectural fabric.

HUDA TAYOB BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Making a ‘Kind-of-Home-Place’

T

his paper explores the spatial and

on ethnographic research, the paper will

among African migrant groups in

particular market spaces, namely Som-City,

material practices of home-making

Cape Town. Literature on the home largely focuses on the physically defined space of

the nuclear family home. In contrast to this normative literature, Mary Douglas argues

that the home is an ‘embryonic community’ based on the establishment of ‘solidarity’.

For Douglas, home is a kind-of-space that

is characterized by a regularity of practices, people, and things. In a related yet different approach, bell hooks suggests that home is ’no longer just one place’, but a multiplicity of places. For bell hooks, the home-place is furthermore a site of radical potential,

regardless of material scarcities. In a related vein, Dolores Hayden suggests that identity is not only expressed in space through built forms, but also through spatial traditions which include particular ways of using

spaces such as yards, gardens, and porches.

Drawing on these alternative

conceptions of the home, among others,

this paper suggests that African markets in

Cape Town act as a ‘kind of home-place’ for

the migrant communities they serve. Based

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focus on home-making practices within two an informal shopping mall, and Fatima’s stall, an individual small shop. Through

these spaces, the research proposes that

inhabitants of these markets do not only find ways of using space differently, as described

by Hayden, but also ways of making space.

On an urban scale the cumulative effect

has been to transform whole buildings into

embryonic communities. At a more intimate scale, the outwardly transactional spaces

of these African markets are characterised by regular familial and domestic practices, many of which would otherwise take

place behind the closed doors of nuclear family homes. These markets therefore

become the central space of solidarity for

transient and marginalised migrant groups in Cape Town, and in the process a kind of

home-place.

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FREYA WALEY-COHEN ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

Permutations

T

he presentation of a piece of

violin parts, which are housed within six

listener’s perceptions of the music.

levels of acoustic enclosure. A central space

music has a profound effect on the

Listening, whether live or digital, is a form of cultural engagement, and a shift in the

presentational situation can transform the way a listener hears the music. This paper

explores the relationship between my role as a music curator and my role as a composer, as I examine how writing for different

cultural contexts, acoustic spaces, and in

collaboration with different arts, affect my

compositional decisions. I will discuss these

ideas through the narrative of Permutations, a roaming performance artwork, currently being developed.

Permutations consists of a new piece

of music written by myself, performed

and recorded by violinist Tamsin Waley-

Cohen, and held within an architectural

setting designed by Finbarr O’Dempsey and Andrew Skulina. The music and its setting

are developed simultaneously, each acting as a muse for the other.

The composition is written for six violin

parts. The architectural intervention spatially distributes and affects the recorded solo

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individual chambers, each with adaptable

will be formed and shared by these chambers where all of the violin parts are experienced as equally balanced and combined as a complete ensemble. Listeners will be

able to explore the different textures and counterpoints that emerge from within

the music. In navigating the performance, the listener will be presented with the

opportunity to experience the solo, duet or full ensemble in counterpoint, contingent upon their movement through the space.

Furthermore, the architectural proposal for

Permutations is designed to be interactive and changeable, made from prefabricated

parts. The audience is encouraged to play the

architectural intervention like an instrument, affecting the degree of acoustic enclosure in the space and thus forming an integral part of the performance.

23

HENRIETTA WILLIAMS BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

From Aerostation Wonder to Ultimate Destruction: Tracing the Aerial Viewpoint from Spectacle to Military Sublime

T

his paper is centred on a 3 to 5

the Thames Estuary filmed from an aerial

piece uses archival footage woven

from a rousing Nazi documentary on the

minute video piece. This short video

with new imagery to trace the development of aerial flight through three journeys

rostrum camera is intercut with imagery Luftwaffe ‘Skyfront’.

The third and final journey documents

between Britain and Germany.

the RAF Bomber Command annihilation of

Vauxhall balloon which travelled from

imagery from the RAF bombers in action,

Our journey begins with the Royal

London to Weilburg in 1836, and starts with the innocent excitement that the spectacle of this new aerial viewpoint provided. In

his published diary of this journey, Monck Mason (1836) described ballooning as

‘the most delightful and sublime of all

sublunary enjoyments’. With the advent of World War I there was a sudden need

to adapt this so-called ‘God’s Eye view’ to the development of aerial imaging. The

innocence of ballooning adventurers was quickly subsumed into a new form of military surveillance.

Our second journey brings us back from

Germany towards London. This time, we

follow the route of a Luftwaffe instructional film where maps with arrows pointing to

the Thames guide us towards our ultimate destination of London. A perfect model of

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Dresden and Hamburg. Using archival film

and weaving these with the Harris Bombing Maps, this final chapter traces the ultimate

descent into complete destruction through the omniscient viewpoint of the aerial.

25

ALESSANDRO AYUSO

Body Agents: Deploying a New Figure for Design

T

his thesis puts forward the

I also created narratives from the viewpoint

non-ideal figures that exist in a

interwoven with the historical and analytical

notion of body agents: dynamic,

reciprocal state with designs. While body agents address radical new conditions in

architecture, they are informed by historical

of body agents, which were similarly

text, aiding in the formulation of the thesis’s framework and argument.

My research resulted in the creation of

precedents—most essentially the proto-

body agents such as ‘P_1435’, an alternately

the Baroque work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini,

and Torso 2.0, a prosthetically enhanced

Baroque work of Michelangelo Buonarroti, and the Modernist work of the radical

artist-architect Walter Pichler. I began with the observation that, in all these artists’

practices, representations of human figures enact emotional and personal themes of their authors as well as broader cultural issues and epistemes, many of which I

found resonated with the current day. These figures mediate between the architect and

the design, but also between the inhabitant and the buildings within which they are embedded.

This historical research formed the basis

of a triadic methodology which also included design and fictional writing. I enmeshed

my own images of body agents in design

vignettes, which informed, catalysed, and ornamented my animations and models.

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wistful and exuberant 581-year old putto,

version of Pichler’s Torso. The development of these figures’ particular viewpoints

and evolving histories contaminated my

design process; their expressive anatomies, comprised of reified digital meshworks,

spatially and materially intertwined with

their architectural contexts. My intention

is to catalyse architectural imagination and expose opportunities to interject situated and embodied intersubjectivities into contemporary design.

27

EMMA CHEATLE

Part-architecture: the Maison de Verre through the Large Glass

M

y thesis presents a detailed and

unconsummated sexual relations across the

Maison de Verre (1928–32) through

marital conventions of 1920s Paris. This and

original study of Pierre Chareau’s

another seminal modernist artwork, Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass (1915–23). Aligning the two works materially, historically and conceptually, the text challenges the

accepted architectural descriptions of the Maison de Verre, makes original spatial

and social accounts of its inhabitation in

glass planes reveals his resistance to the

other analyses of the Large Glass are used as a framework to examine the Maison de

Verre as a register of the changing history

of women’s domestic and maternal choices, reclaiming the building as a piece of female social architectural history.

The process used to uncover and write

1930s Paris, and presents new architectural

the accounts in the thesis is termed ‘part-

analysis, which incorporates creative projects

theory, part-architecture fuses analytical,

readings of the Large Glass. Through a rich into history and theory research, the thesis establishes new ways of writing about architecture.

Designed for politically progressive

gynaecologist Dr Jean Dalsace and his avant-garde wife, Annie Dalsace, the

Maison de Verre combines a family home

with a gynaecology clinic into a ‘free-plan’ layout. Screened only by glass walls, the

presence of the clinic in the home suggests an untold dialogue on 1930s sexuality.

I explore the Maison de Verre through

another glass construction, the Large Glass.

Here, Duchamp’s complex depiction of

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architecture’. Derived from psychoanalytic descriptive and creative processes, to

produce a unique social and architectural critique. Identifying three essential

materials to the Large Glass, the thesis has

three main chapters: ‘Glass’, ‘Dust’ and ‘Air’.

Combining theoretical text, creative writing, and drawing, each traces the history and

meaning of the material and its contribution to the spaces and sexuality of the Large

Glass and the Maison de Verre. As a whole,

the thesis makes important spatial readings

whilst expanding definitions of architectural design and history.

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MOHAMAD HAFEDA

Bordering Practices: Negotiating and Narrating Political-sectarian Conflict in Contemporary Beirut

F

ollowing the shift from borders to

bordering practices within the field

of border studies, this thesis proposes

an understanding of bordering practices as specific kinds of spatial practices and

critical spatial practices which occur through

processes of negotiating and narrating. These processes are in turn situated in relation to the writings of Henri Lefebvre, Michel De Certeau, and Jane Rendell.

The thesis examines the im/materiality,

spatiality, and temporality of bordering

practices since their resurfacing in Beirut in

2005. This will be looked at through the spatial practices of a triad of residents, politicians,

The thesis is structured around four

projects. For each of the projects I first

identified conditions of strategic division as

practised by political parties through borders of surveillance, sound, displacement, and

administration. I then investigated residents’ spatial practices that exist as responses and negotiations to those strategic divisions.

Through this process, the four projects

produce four new bordering practices that

transform borders from stable entities into

multiple shifting practices and representations that divide and connect through the acts of negotiation and narration.

More specifically, project 1 proposes

and militias in relation to spaces of political-

crossing the border of surveillance between

practice-led research project that works with

proposes translating the border of sound

sectarian conflict. It is a site-specific and a

residents who are located within the Mazraa

district, and who are of different political and religious affiliations, namely Sunni or Shiite.

The thesis explores a series of bordering practices: those produced by conflict

mechanisms, those negotiated and narrated

through my engagements with the residents, and those negotiated and narrated through the art installations I produced in response.

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two women at their balconies. Project 2 between taxi and walking journeys.

Project 3 proposes matching the border of

displacement between twin sisters and their husbands. And lastly, project 4 proposes

hiding behind the border of administration

between an elected district’s representative, Mukhtar, and his fictional TV character.

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GUAN LEE

Cast & Camera: An Architectural Practice at Grymsdyke Farm

A

s digital processes prevail in

share tactile and spatial relationships with

practice, the inspiration drawn

this exists. This thesis studies the individual

contemporary architectural

from nature through mathematical and

abstract constructs often lacks a necessary relationship to the physical realities of

making and place. My research asks the following questions:

• How can design ideas taken from an

intimate interaction with materials and place remain relevant in architectural practice today?

• How can specific and ever-evolving

modes of craft inform design executions, and be meaningfully integrated into

contemporary architectural production?

My research is practice-led and

focuses on processes of casting through

on-going and hands-on experimentation at a 1:1 scale. Set within the workshops of Grymsdyke Farm, it engages with

materials in a direct and intimate manner.

Photography is employed as a practical

documentation tool but also as a physical

and theoretical counterpart to casting, with the photographs becoming design works in themselves. Casting and photography

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architecture, yet limited discourse around

properties of both practices and how they

correlate, bringing to light the ways through which they learn from each other, and

intersect and overlap with architecture. It

examines works by different practitioners, such as the inventor and photographer

Henry Fox Talbot, architects and builders

Pier Luigi Nervi and Mark West, and artist

and photographer Medardo Rosso, to show how casting and photography engage the

maker with issues of representation, time, positive and negative, fluid and solid form, trace, copy and reproducibility.

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MICHAEL WIHART

The Architecture of Soft Machines

M

y thesis thesis speculates about the

possibility of softening architecture through machines. In deviating

from traditional mechanical conceptions of

machines based on autonomous, functional and purely operational notions, the thesis

conceives of machines as corporeal media

in co-constituting relationships with human bodies. As machines become corporeal

(robots) and human bodies take on qualities

of machines (cyborgs) the thesis investigates their relations to architecture through

readings of William S. Burroughs’ proto-

cyborgian novel The Soft Machine (1961) and Georges Teyssot’s essay Hybrid Architecture:

An Environment for the Prosthetic Body

I have developed a series of experiments,

ranging from soft mechanical hybrids to

soft machines made entirely from silicone and actuated by embedded pneumatics, to speculate about architectural

environments capable of interacting

with humans. In a radical departure from

traditional mechanical conceptions based on modalities of assembly, these types of soft machines are based on integrated behavioural designs and composite

construction in order to infuse the machines with notions of flexibility, compliance,

sensitivity, passive dynamics and spatial variability.

Challenging architecture’s alliance with

(2005). The research thus argues for an

notions of permanence and monumentality,

continuum of architectural machines as

typologisation of architecture (walls,

update of architecture’s long historical well as architecture’s anthropocentric

mandate. As purely mechanical models of

architectural machines are being superseded by models that incorporate digital sensing

and embedded actuation as well as soft and compliant materiality, the promise of softer,

more sensitive and corporeal conceptions of technology shines onto architecture.

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my thesis formulates a critique of static

floors, columns). In proposing an embodied architecture, the thesis concludes by speculating about architecture as a

capacitated, sensitive and sensual body

informed by the reciprocal conditioning of constituent systems, materials, morphologies, and behaviours.

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BIOGRAPHIES

PRESENTERS:

Sigi Atteneder is an Austrian born urbanist, architect and researcher with a background in construction. He was a research fellow at MIT, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Development Planning Unit where he investigates the role of urban borders within the change of cities in the ‘Levant’.

Killian Doherty is an architect who has practiced in New Orleans, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda. He has a particular interest in sites of conflict, and the dissonance of modernity and development in Africa. Killian has written for the Architectural Review and VOLUME and his PhD research is supported by the Frederick BonnartBraunthal Scholarship.

Pol Esteve holds an architecture degree from the Escola Tècninca Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (UPC) and an MA in History and Critical Thinking from the Architectural Association in London. Pol is co-founder of the studio GOIG and currently teaches history, theory, and design at the Architectural Association.

William Hodgson is an architect and educator with a specific interest in urban housing and self-building, along with the politics of urban planning. His recent architectural projects include a self-built office and house in East London. Bill was the former Chair of Hackney’s Planning Committee, and currently teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Nahed Jawad is a PhD candidate at the Bartlett.

She holds a BA from Damascus University, and an MA in Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association. Between 2006 and

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2011, Nahed worked at Zaha Hadid Architects.

She is currently a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins, and an editor at LOBBY magazine.

Carlo Menon is an architect and researcher with degrees from La Cambre, Brussels and the Bartlett. He is co-editor of the magazine Accattone, and is involved in teaching, exhibiting and publishing projects. His PhD on today’s little architectural magazines is supported by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.

Eva Sopeoglou undertakes practice-based, multidisciplinary research across the fields of design and technology. Her work focuses on creative outlooks in architecture and urban design, with a particular emphasis on environmental concerns and digital fabrication. Eva is currently a lecturer of architecture and interior architecture at the University of Hertfordshire.

Huda Tayob practiced as an architect in Cape Town, Mumbai and Tokyo prior to starting her PhD. Her doctoral research draws on postcolonial theories, the politics of invisibility, and the notion of everyday architectures in order to research African markets in Cape Town. Her research is funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.

Freya Waley-Cohen is a composer and doctoral candidate at the Royal Academy of Music. She is a founding member and the artistic director of Listenpony. Freya has received numerous awards and fellowships, and currently holds an Open Space Residency at Aldeburgh Music, where she is a Britten-Pears Young Artist.

Henrietta Williams is a photographer and videographer with an interest in urban security.

Her work has been widely exhibited and published and is held in the V&A permanent collection. Her PhD research considers the aerial viewpoint and is supported by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.

Guan Lee is a lecturer at the Bartlett and the Royal College of Art. His practice, Grymsdyke Farm, is set in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire.

The farm’s motivating concept is to establish and explore the value of living/working arrangements that involve intimate engagements with materials and processes of making, both digital and analogue.

EXHIBITORS:

Michael Wihart is an architect, educator and researcher based in London. In 2015 he graduated with a PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, where he obtained a Master’s with Distinction in Architectural Design and used to lead Diploma Unit 24. (http://www. wihart.net/)

Alessandro Ayuso is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster. Before moving to London he taught at universities including Virginia Tech and Marywood University, cofounded a practice in New York, exhibited in venues such as McCaig-Welles Gallery in Brooklyn, and studied as a Fellow at Syracuse University in Florence.

Emma Cheatle is Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute where she is undertaking a new research project titled, ‘The dark and airless room: architecture, maternity and gynaecology, 1750–1880’. Emma practices critical-creative writing combining text, drawing and audio in order to ‘reconstruct’ the past lives of buildings as sites of social history.

Mohamad Hafeda is an artist and designer. He is co-founder of Febrik, a platform for participatory art research in the Middle East and London, and co-editor of Narrating Beirut from its Borderlines (2011) and Creative Refuge (2014). Mohamad has exhibited internationally, and is currently a lecturer in architecture at Leeds Beckett University.

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CREDITS

MPhil/PhD supervisors: Alisa Andrasek, Dr Jan Birksted, Professor Peter Bishop, Dr Camillo Boano, Professor Iain Borden, Dr Victor Buchli, Professor Mario Carpo, Dr Ben Campkin, Professor Nat Chard, Dr Marjan Colletti, Professor Sir Peter Cook, Dr Marcos Cruz, DrEdward Denison, Professor Adrian Forty, Professor Murray Fraser, Professor Stephen Gage, Dr Francois Guesnet, Dr Sean Hanna, Dr Penelope Haralambidou, Professor Christine Hawley, Professor Jonathan Hill, Dr Jan Kattein, Dr Chris Leung, Dr Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Professor Timothy Mathews, Dr Caroline Newton, Professor Sebastian Ourselin, Jayne Parker, Dr Barbara Penner, Dr Sophia Psarra, Dr Peg Rawes, Professor Jane Rendell, Dr Stephanie Schwartz, Dr Tania Sengupta, Professor Bob Sheil, Mark Smout, Professor Philip Steadman, Dr Hugo Spiers, Professor Neil Spiller, Professor Michael Stewart, Professor Philip Tabor, Dr Claire Thomson.

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design students: Yota Adilenidou, Bihter Almac, Luisa Silva Alpalhão, Nicola Antaki, Nerea Elorduy Amoros, Anna Andersen, Jaime Bartolome Yllera, Paul Bavister, Richard Beckett, Katy Beinart, Giulio Brugnaro, Matthew Butcher, Armando Caroca Fernandez, Niccolo Casas, Ines Dantas Ribeiro Bernardes, Bernadette Devilat, Killian Doherty, Daniyal Farhani, Judit Ferencz, Pavlos Fereos, Susan Fitzerald, Ruairi Glynn, Isabel Gutierrez Sanchez, Colin Herperger, Bill Hodgson, Sander

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Holsgens, Popi Iacovou, Christiana Ioannou, Nahed Jawad, Tae Young Kim, Dionysia Kypraiou, Hina Lad, Felipe Lanuza, Tea Lim, Thandiwe Loewenson, Samar Maqusi, Matthew Mc Donald, Matteo Melioli, Phuong-Tram Nguyen, Ollie Palmer, Christos Papastergiou, Luke Pearson, Mariana Pestana, Arthur Prior, Felix Robbins, David Roberts, Natalia Romik, Merijn Royaards, Wiltrud Simbuerger, Eva Sopeoglou, Camila Sotomayor, Ro Spankie, Theo Spyropoulos, Dimitrie Stefanescu, Theodoros Themistokleous, Quynh Vantu, Cindy Walters, Daniel Wilkinson, Henrietta Williams, Seda Zirek, Fiona Zisch.

MPhil/PhD Architectural History & Theory students: Wesley Aelbrecht, Tilo Amhoff, Sabina Andron, Vasileios Aronidis, Gregorio Astengo, Pinar Aykac, Tal Bar, Ruth Bernatek, Rakan Budeiri, Chin-Wei Chang, Mollie Claypool, Sevcan Ercan, Marcela Araguez Escobar, Pol Esteve, Stylianos Giamarelos, Nadia Gobova, Irene Kelly, Jeong Hye Kim, Claudio Leoni, Kieran Mahon, Carlo Menon, Megan O’Shea, Dragan Pavlovic, Soledad Perez Martinez, Matthew Poulter, Regner Ramos, Sophie Read, Sarah Riviere, Ryan Ross, Ozayr Saloojee, Huda Tayob, Claire Tunnacliffe, Freya Wigzell.

Submitted and/or completed doctorates 2015–2016: Joanne Bristol, Pablo Gil, Polly Gould, Kate Jordan, Jane Madsen, Amy Thomas, Alex Zambelli.

This catalogue has been produced in an edition of 300 to accompany PhD Research Projects 2016, the tenth annual conference and exhibition devoted to doctoral research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Tuesday 23 February 2016.

Edited by Penelope Haralambidou and Huda Tayob.

Designed by Avni Patel | www.avnipatel.com Printed in England by Aldgate Press Limited.

Published by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. 140 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2BX. Copyright Š 2016 the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk PhD Research Projects 2016 is supported by the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Doctoral School Skills Development Programme, UCL.

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On the cover: Eva Sopeoglou, Summer House in Halkidiki, Greece.