PhD Research Projects 2017

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2017

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2017

TUESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2017 Conference: 9.30am–6.30pm The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 22 Gordon Street / London

CONTENTS

5 6

Preface

20

Introduction

Skill Acquisition and Filmic Gestures: Toward a Phenomenology of

Presenters 8

ANNA ANDERSEN

Skateboarding in Seoul, South Korea 22

From Les Fenêtres to Genius Loci:

Mapping Bottom-up Adaptations

of Rilke’s Windows

MARCELA ARAGÜEZ

in Cité Ouvrière (1853–2000) 24

Regenerating North London:

RICHARD BECKETT

The Chorus of a Last Resort 26

Bioaugmented Design: Enhancing

RUTH BERNATEK

Between the Real and the Fictional 28

The Sound of Spectacle: Xenakis

SEVCAN ERCAN

for Detecting Urban Vitality 30

Multiple Spatialities and Temporalities

NADIA GOBOVA

The City-Factory: Creativity and Constraints

DANIEL JAMES WILKINSON After Michelangelo:

of Displacement: The Island of Imbros 18

PATRIZIA SULIS

Urban Mobility Data as a Proxy

at the Montreal World’s Fair 1967 16

PHOUNG-TRÂM NGUYEN

Anamorphic Images: An Encounter

the Indoor Microbiome 14

DIONY KYPRAIOU

Hearing Tower Voices:

Cedric Price’s Interaction Centre 12

FANI KOSTOUROU

(Re)Form of Working-Class Housing:

Christian Norberg-Schulz’s Adaption

10

SANDER HÖLSGENS

Plagiarizing from the Future 32 34

Biographies Credits

PREFACE

Dr Nina Vollenbröker

Co-ordinator, MPhil/PhD Programmes

Dr Penelope Haralambidou

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural Design

Dr Barbara Penner

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural History & Theory

P

hD Research Projects 2017 is the

or methodological links, and this year’s

exhibition related to doctoral research

doctoral research, design and expanded

eleventh annual conference and

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

exhibition considers relations between

notions of drawing, film and sound, making and representing.

Organised and curated by Dr Nina

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/

Vollenbröker, PhD Research Projects 2017

year we have invited contributions by MPhil/

University College London; Professor Sylvia

PhD Architectural History & Theory. This

PhD students at the Bartlett Space Syntax

Laboratory and at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

Leading to a PhD in Architecture, the

two Bartlett School of Architecture doctoral programmes encourage originality and

creativity. Over 90 students are currently

has six invited critics: Professor Marco Cruz, Lavin, University of California, Los Angeles; Dr Tarsha Finney, University of Technology Sydney; Professor Frédéric Migayrou, University College London; Professor

François Penz, University of Cambridge; and

Dr Neil Wenman, Hauser & Wirth London.

Presenting this year are: Anna Ulrikke

enrolled and the range of research subjects

Andersen; Marcela Aragüez Escobar;

PhD conference and exhibition focuses on

Ercan; Nadia Gobova; Sander Hölsgens;

undertaken is broad. However, each annual a smaller selection of presentations from students who are starting, developing or concluding their research. The purpose of the conference and exhibition is to

encourage productive discussions between presenters, exhibitors, staff, students,

critics and the audience. The conference

papers are organised in pairs of thematic

Richard Beckett; Ruth Bernatek; Sevcan Fani Koustourou; Diony Kypraiou; PhuongTrâm Nguyen; Patrizia Sulis; and Daniel James Wilkinson.

INTRODUCTION

An Architectural Gesture

Ruth Bernatek and Sander Hölsgens

T

his year, the 2017 PhD Research

we open the door impacts not only design

coincides with a return to our

form or otherwise, but also the disciplinary

Projects Conference and exhibition

original Bloomsbury campus. Building

upon the traces of Wates House, the new

building attunes itself to an all-too familiar

environment. No longer hidden, its entrance faces the main street, the threshold

expectant, allowing the outside world

to strike upon the relocated texture of The Bartlett.

The door, itself an orientation towards

the world, reveals, perforates, discloses, hides, protects. As a singular site of continuous interchange between the bounded and

unbounded, the door has provoked numerous interpretations and different conceptual

ways of thinking within architectural practice and theory.

Life, wrote Georg Simmel, ‘flows forth

out of the door from the limitation of isolated separate existence into the limitlessness

of all possible directions.’ Equally, to whom

6

outcomes and capacities, expressed in built parameters of architectural discourse, research, education, and our scholarly

identity. By inviting a flexible attitude towards

notions of boundary, openness, and exclusion, the door of 22 Gordon Street welcomes a

generative pliancy through which to think

through and rethink the built environment.

This conference—the first PhD Research

Projects to be presented at 22 Gordon

Street—seems to embrace and echo this changing measure. It brings together a

diverse cohort of doctoral researchers from Architectural Design and Architectural History & Theory at the Bartlett School

of Architecture, alongside researchers from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

(CASA) and the Space Syntax Laboratory.

Collectively, our projects suggest how

architecture itself might be more permeable.

Rather than taking a stand ‘in-between’

(disciplines, fields, modes, practices), this

Anna Ulrikke Andersen dwells in the life of

palpable tonality, a discourse that operates

Trâm Nguyen repositions her and our body in

event instead works towards an intimate and on a gestural, energetic, and rhythmical

scale. The research projects presented at this conference share, and are receptive

Christian Norberg-Schulz, whereas Phuongher exploration of the simultaneously fictive and real space of anamorphic images.

These deliberate excursions into the

to, a particular dynamism in movement,

non-architectural territory of film, music,

coherence that goes beyond conventional

amongst others, point at a readjustment of

cadence, and posture that reveal a unique

ideas of interdisciplinarity. From the intuitive decisiveness of the sculptor’s hand in Daniel

James Wilkinson’s models to Ruth Bernatek’s inquiry into the spectacular, explosive and

often changeable movements of light and

sound of Xenakis’s Polytopes, this conference embraces an architectural gesture. The

ephemerality and immediacy of the gesture announces the enduring temporality and

energy of Richard Beckett’s autonomously

poetics, biography, big-data, and biochemistry perspectives, allowing for a reconciliation

with architecture at large with a newfound

physical proximity. Whilst 22 Gordon Street chimes with fragile, sensuous, moving

approximations of architecture, this moment of transition also expresses a physical and

architectural reorientation towards openness and visibility that animates this year’s

Bartlett PhD Research Projects Conference.

growing ecosystems, informs Patrizia Sulis’s understanding of London’s infrastructure as an urban vitality. Through poetic and bodily exploration of fugitive train rides,

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ANNA ANDERSEN THE BARTLETT, UCL

From Les Fenêtres to Genius Loci: Christian Norberg-Schulz’s Adaption of Rilke’s Windows

T

and new translations of Genius Loci into

architecture (1980), and asks in what ways

I attempt to outline Rilke’s influence

his paper investigates the notion of the window in Christian NorbergSchulz’s phenomenological

approach to architecture, outlined in his book

Genius Loci: Towards a phenomenology of

this concept was inspired by the window in the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Norberg-Schulz’s private library

contains 100 items by or about Rilke, whose poems are frequently quoted in NorbergSchulz’s published works. Even today, 1

Norberg-Schulz’s friends celebrate his

birthday by reciting a poem by Rilke, and

toasting a glass of wine. However, despite substantial literature discussing Norberg-

Schulz’s reading of Martin Heidegger, and its importance for architecture, Rilke’s

influence is continually overlooked. Rilke

dedicates attention to architectural motifs, spatiality, place, and philosophy in his

writing, yet he receives scant attention

from architectural scholars.2 As such, the

importance Rilke had for Norberg-Schulz and postmodern architectural culture

more generally, remains to be explored.

8

Based on a close reading of original texts

English, alongside new archival research

and personally conducted interviews with the Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi,

on Norberg-Schulz, and his windows. In

particular, I argue this to be evident in the

way they understand the window to relate

to notions of spatial orientation and mobility.

The paper is complemented by exhibited films, approaching these key terms in a different, more ambiguous way.

1. Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. London: Academy Editions, 1980; Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Nightlands: Nordic Builiding. Trans: Thomas McQuillan. Cambridge, Mass: MIT press, 1997.

2. Bollnow, Otto. Rilke. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1951; Ebneter, Curdin. Ed. Rilke Les Jours d’Italie: die italienischen Tage. Sierre: Foundation Rainer Maria Rilke, 2009; Guardini, Romano. Rainer Maria Rilkes Deutung des Daseins. Berlin: Küpper, 1941; Kramer, Andreas. “Rilke and Modernism.” in The Cambridge Companion to Rilke, pp.113-31. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2010; Tang, Yi-Ming. Fenster-Geschichten: Fenster-Geschichten: die Bedeutung des Fensters bei Rilke und ausgewählten anderen Autoren. Kassel: University of Kassel Press, 2009.

9

MARCELA ARAGÜEZ THE BARTLETT, UCL

Regenerating North London: Cedric Price’s Interaction Centre

I

n 1979 Prince Charles paid a visit to the

Interaction Centre in North London, the UK’s first purpose-built community arts

centre, designed by British architect Cedric Price. The visit was tailored to demonstrate the Crown’s social commitment to the

regeneration of depressed neighborhoods.

Although Prince Charles described the Interaction Centre as ‘another

prefabricated building’—anticipating his

famous statements against contemporary architecture—, he praised the role of the

initiative in transforming a derelict urban area by means of community and council

involvement. The Interaction Centre was part of an ongoing cultural project promoted by

the Inter-Action Trust, a charity organization founded by American-born activist Edward David Berman in 1968. Berman reclaimed

the use of an abandoned plot of land owned by the Camden Council. After years of

negotiations between the Council and

the Inter-Action Trust, and an important fundraising campaign, the land was

eventually leased in 1973 to start the project.

10

A building rarely discussed before, the

Interaction Centre is reviewed in this paper

based on material from Cedric Price’s Archive and interviews with Berman. It examines

Price’s notion of ‘Calculated Uncertainty’

and its impact on the Interaction Centre by analysing the building’s design stages and

final outcome. Calculated Uncertainty—a

concept often quoted by Price with respect to the production of flexible architecture,

yet not clearly defined—is investigated from two perspectives: first, the real capacity of a building layout to be used for different purposes, and second, the potential of a

building to be physically modified over time.

Finally, a review of the life of the Centre during its more than 30 years of activity will provide an account of its social performance and

the extent to which the building operated as a catalyst for urban and community regeneration in the area.

11

RICHARD BECKETT THE BARTLETT, UCL

Bioaugmented Design: Enhancing the Indoor Microbiome

T

he cultivation of beneficial

built environment as a positivist approach

environment is a novel field of

our buildings and structures proposes

microbes in our buildings and urban

research, emerging through collaborative

work between biologists and designers, and developing alongside current advances in

medicine and our improving understanding of the human microbiome and the role it

plays in our health and well-being. Despite a modern tendency towards sterility, it is

to urban solutions. Biologically augmenting bioaugmented design as a tool to consider biologically intelligent strategies towards some of our current problems associated with urban living including health,

sustainability, disaster control/mitigation and pollution.

This paper details some initial

now becoming clear that our buildings

experiments in the design and fabrication

microorganisms that are constantly

within buildings whereby dormant seed

are complex ecosystems comprising

interacting between themselves, their

environment and the people that occupy our

built environment. It is also becoming evident that architectural design, through material application, spatial design, occupancy

patterns and building ventilation amongst others can directly influence and modify

of microbially inoculated materials for use microbes, embedded within the material

volume, are able to proliferate under certain conditions. The physical and chemical

properties of these materials are designed to demonstrate bioreceptivity towards a

strain of Clostridia, a bacteria potentially

beneficial to the human gut. Importantly,

this built environment microbiome.

these materials also demonstrate anisotropic

between the microbes associated with

variation in pore size distribution and

As our understanding of the relationship

buildings and the human microbiome improves, there exists the possibility

to design for the cultivation of benign,

beneficial microbes in our buildings and

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properties, exhibiting designed material

achieved through the fabrication process, in order to control biodormant and biostimulated conditions.

13

RUTH BERNATEK THE BARTLETT, UCL

The Sound of Spectacle: Xenakis at the Montreal World’s Fair 1967

I

n the summer of 1966, the architect and composer Iannis Xenakis received an

invitation to create an original piece of

music for the French Pavilion at the 1967

Montreal world’s fair. Rather than comply

with the outlined brief, he instead responded with a daring proposal to install an immense audio-visual ‘spectacle of sound and light’ in the central void of the building.

Xenakis believed that his installation

would give the French Pavilion ‘an

exceptional and unique artistic appeal’, defining the era by using the ‘most

advanced technical and audio-visual means currently available.’(Xenakis:1966). Not only did this correspond with the goals

of the French exhibition and the ethos of

Expo, which took Terres des Hommes as its

theme, and located science at the centre

of human activity and productivity. It also

gave Xenakis an opportunity to realize his

initial ideas for a total electronic synthesis of light and sound, consolidating his artistic preoccupations in the years since the Philips Pavilion.

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Drawing upon recent archival and field

research conducted at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, this paper will argue that Xenakis’ unique conception of sound and space in the Polytope Montreal indicates a move toward a new typology of audio-

visual architecture that emerges after the war, and coincides with developments in

sound technology. Furthermore, I speculate whether Xenakis’ audio-visual architectures are only achievable under the aegis of high profile international exhibitions. Montreal

became the first in a series of five ‘polytopes’

by Xenakis, which collectively form the basis of my research. My doctoral thesis aims to

determine the wider relevance of Xenakis’ audio-visual works as a subject of study for architecture, and address pertinent questions about how the soundscapes

of spectacle may potentially contribute to architectural history.

15

SEVCAN ERCAN THE BARTLETT, UCL

Multiple Spatialities and Temporalities of Displacement: The Island of Imbros

M

y doctoral research addresses age-long discussions on the

disappearance of ‘minorities’ under

the sovereignty of the Republic of Turkey,

and investigates the wider implications of spatial, temporal and political aspects of

displacement within the island of Imbros and its diasporic locales.

Located in the Aegean Archipelago,

Imbros has a Rum population (Anatolian

Greek) who have faced different means of

displacement; initiated by the compulsory exchange of populations in 1923 between Greece and Turkey, and intensifying with the policies targeting minorities during the 1960s and the 1970s. The period in

question resulted in a poignant erasure of original communities, their modes

of production, and the reconstruction

of Turkey’s overall pattern of urban and

rural settlements. However, Rums of two

islands, Imbros and Tenedos, and Istanbul, were excluded from the 1923 compulsory exchange and survived the ‘first wave’ of displacements.

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This paper will suggest a re-thinking

of displacement as a spatial, historical

and materially bound practice operating through complex relational processes.

It explores multiple spatialities and

temporalities of displacement through

Imbros, expressed and examined through the different names given to the island Imroz (differs according to its use today and in the past), Imbros and Gokceada.

The act of naming and renaming reveals a unique set of conditions, that can be

identified with different interest groups

involved in Imbros’ transformation under

displacement practices. I argue that each name offers a distinct experience and

alternative understanding of the island, together with questions concerning

identity, territory and transnationalism.

In order to respond to the linguistic and

spatio-temporal dimensions of the study, I follow a site-specific methodology that is organized by, and operates through

different scales of inquiry, varying from regional scale to building scale.

17

NADIA GOBOVA THE BARTLETT, UCL

The City-Factory: Creativity and Constraints

M

y research explores states of

study of Yekaterinburg so far has revealed

of architectural design and urban

employed in parallel with official trends,

creative thinking and practices

planning in Russia between 1920 and 2016.

It elaborates upon the urban architectural

process in Yekaterinburg, a formerly closed industrial city, by tracing the design and construction histories of its industrial-

compensatory artistic practices and tactics both within and outside of professional and educational institutions, in order to retain theoretical and practical architectural knowledge.

This paper focuses on an early period of

residential districts. Built in various parts

Soviet modernism, and primarily addresses

districts chart changes in political, social and

settlement comprehensively designed and

of the city, at different points in time, these architectural discourse. Specifically, they

reveal how Soviet architectural processes

were shaped by restrictions imposed on the creative design sphere – including the early

prohibition of private architecture practices, and official (political) depreciation of the

architect’s authority within architecture and building practices since the late 1950s.

My investigations are framed by

a sequence of changing paradigms in

Soviet architectural history; from early

modernist pursuits for the ideal Socialist city, the manifestation of neo-classical

reconstruction during the Stalinist period, to desire for optimization and standardization in design and construction. However, my

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Sotsgorod Uralmash, a unique industrial

built for 40,000 residents, including factory workers and their families. It also considers

Chekist’s town, a communal gated residential complex, and a series of architectural

competitions held in Yekaterinburg in the 1930s. The post-revolutionary years are

viewed as the most creative period in Soviet architectural history and theory, a crucial

moment that brought avant-garde ideas and innovative designs to the fore. However, it is

rarely discussed in light of the unprecedented constraints imposed upon the architectural sphere, which, amongst others, included

time limitations, deficiencies in technology and resources, and strict political and ideological doctrines.

SANDER HÖLSGENS THE BARTLETT, UCL

Skill Acquisition and Filmic Gestures: Toward a Phenomenology of Skateboarding in Seoul, South Korea

D

rawing upon phenomenology and

minutiae within skateparks condition

and embodiment in architecture

experience skills, and how this affects their

the theoretical turn towards affect

and anthropology, this paper offers a sensory ethnography of skateboarding in Seoul,

how skateboarders in Seoul develop and

felt relationship with the built environment.

From a phenomenological perspective,

South Korea, an intimate and informal

I argue that notions of Weltlichkeit, skilful

skateboarders negotiate their presence in the

understanding of the skateboarding practice

network of everyday mobility. I explore how

built environment through spatial expertise, bodily gestures, and skilful learning.

My narrative takes the Korean turn

toward landscape architecture and the

realisation of the Dongdaemun Design

Park and Plaza in 2010 as its starting points, and opens up to three skateparks: Cult in

Dongdaemun, Ttueksom in Ttueksom Resort

coping, and everydayness contribute to our as a particular form of dwelling.

I propose film as a medium to think

about and think through these aspects of the skateboarding practice, which I

announce not only as a bodily and performed phenomenon, but also as a poetic and

intimate form of culture. In my contemplative film, Reverberations (2017), I explore

Park, and Nanji in Nanji’s ecological Hangang

three skateparks—including their direct

takes root in local rituals, social practices, and

textures, and colours with spatial skills, bodily

Park. I propose that skateboarding at large cultural ways of perceiving urban space.

Within the scope of this paper, I

examine the acquisition of performative and embodied skateboarding skills

within the Korean context. Specifically,

I rethink the ways in which architectural

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surroundings—in Seoul by blending rhythms, gestures, and social practices. As a sensory

ethnography, Reverberations gives room to

cinematic excess, including the materiality of objects, posture and gestures, the texture of surfaces, and repetitions.

21

FANI KOSTOUROU SPACE SYNTAX LABORATORY, UCL

(Re)Form of Working-Class Housing: Mapping Bottom-up Adaptations in Cité Ouvrière (1853–2000)

H

ousing and homeownership

have always been regarded as

mechanisms of social control.

During the nineteenth century, European

company towns were built not only to provide better living conditions to the workforce, but also to alleviate tensions between

political authorities, industrialists and the public. Homeownership was also part of

a ‘housing reform’ that aimed to moralise and bring social balance to the working

classes. A century later, Modernism offered yet another way of engineering society

through housing on a mass scale. Failing

to deliver on its promises, Modernism gave social housing a bad name. Today, global

economic crises, immigration and the mass displacement of refugees have once again

intensified the question of housing. However, whilst we endure a worldwide housing

shortage, existing large-scale projects are being demolished. Furthermore, the real

estate debt and new shared living habits

signal a further restructuring of society via housing, this time away from the ideals of homeownership.

22

My research adds to these debates

by analysing the evolution of a French nineteenth-century working-class

housing settlement. Cité Ouvrière, in

the city of Mulhouse, was the first mass factory-housing to give workers access

to homeownership. This paper discusses the political and economic intentions

behind Cité Ouvrière, its birth and the

role of architecture and urban design in social ‘reform’. It traces the incremental

transformation of initially uniform housing, into an ethnically diverse and spatially

sustainable Old City quarter, and addresses the bottom-up physical adaptations of

the houses from 1853 until 2000, through

processes of mapping, detailed archival work and qualitative study in situ. It considers

Cité Ouvrière as a spatial manifestation of

owners’ ‘active participation’ to housing and argues it may open up new opportunities

for our existing domestic building stock in view of the global housing crisis.

DIONY KYPRAIOU THE BARTLETT, UCL

Hearing Tower Voices: The Chorus of a Last Resort

M

y research explores representations

by its intriguing social history as a ‘Last

social imagination, public opinion

unemployment and fierce social division.

of tower buildings, as engraved by

and changing historical contexts. Specifically, I examine the dubious role of post-war

towers in low-rise urban neighborhoods as a response to contemporaneous housing

and high-rise demand within London. By

deploying tools deriving from psychoanalysis, art and history, I re-construct narratives

of the built and the lived, in an attempt to creatively re-imagine such towers for the concerned public.

Via this process, I am critically redefining

architecture as a more socially relevant

practice; for architecture may operate as a system to organize structures, arrange

space and relationships while generating

conceptual possibilities, but its complexity

and significance lie, mainly, within its power to script stories and the lives of others (Sheeren 2016).

This paper focuses upon Archway

Tower as a site of contradiction, haunted

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Resort’ for Britain during a period of vast

Conceived and designed around a landscape of first and third-person testimonies of the life of Archway Tower, my practice re-enacts tower ‘voices’ from archival

sources and interviews, as a means to

further investigate the tower’s interiority,

which is then experienced as an immersive audio installation. At the centre of my

investigation are questions such as ‘What does Archway Tower’s Last Resort mean to its actors (people that lived in it and

with it)?’ And, ‘How might real and fictive stories of those actors script the tower’s biography and social provision?’ I deploy

‘minor architectures’ to re-enact fragments

of the Tower’s life cycles in order to perform a wider critique on the impact of the high-

rise being heard, shared and re-constructed through the ‘Archway Tower Chorus’.

PHOUNG-TRÂM NGUYEN THE BARTLETT, UCL

Anamorphic Images: An Encounter Between the Real and the Fictional

M

y thesis examines the relation

in which the body is required to adjust

image and our comprehension

representation, and the space of the real.

between the perception of a visual

of space, by exploring the potential of

and engage with both the fictive space of This paper asks: what can we expect

anamorphic images to represent and

from our experience of the real and

In anamorphosis, the primary image is

our anticipation and memory, while

be experienced as architectural space. completely deformed by the displacement of the original point of view in space, and

the resolution of the image is only possible

by the physical adjustment of the viewer in

space. As a result, anamorphic images are a drawing projection method that requires a

re-enactment by the body for the meaning to emerge again.

Rather than focus on the deformation

of the image itself, this research instead

directly addresses anamorphic construction as a way to access a world beyond the

visible. Though a purely visual medium,

anamorphic images possess the capacity

to evoke an active way of perceiving; their experience opens up a place for dialogue,

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what are the temporal relations, toward experiencing the space unfurled by

anamorphic images. In order to unpack

this complex question, I shall present the second cycle of my research project,

‘The Optical Table’, which is conceived

and acts as a physical stage for perception.

The stage allows for the deployment of

physical elements, and aims to study their

transformation in time and space using film, both to record and project. Expanding on the idea of disjunction, between the real and the represented, The Optical Table offers an opportunity to speculate and

analyze how the body bridges the space between the physical environment and the imagined realm of projection.

27

PATRIZIA SULIS CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SPATIAL ANALYSIS, UCL

Urban Mobility Data as a Proxy for Detecting Urban Vitality

T

he recent explosion of available

according to three complementary dynamic

sources represent an unprecedented

variability and consistency. Each attribute

spatial datasets from different

opportunity to unveil and understand urban

phenomena more conventionally researched via empirical methods from a quantitative

attributes that compose diversity: intensity, represents different temporal values, that

are able to reflect how diversity (and vitality) temporally changes over the course of

perspective. In particular, mobility data,

the day or week in the same urban place.

proven to be a reliable source for exploring

validated against other urban datasets,

from a spatial perspective, mobility data also

different times of the day and the week. The

like those acquired by public transport, has human mobility within the city. However, provides interesting insights into human

uses of urban space, inferring quantitative

information about environmental qualities such as vitality and attractiveness.

In this paper, I propose an innovative

application of Jane Jacob’s concept of ‘urban vitality’ using mobility data, specifically

Oyster card transaction records, as a proxy

for measuring diversity and vitality in the city of London. Unlike previous studies, I define diversity as it is represented by spatial and

temporal differences in mobility patterns

within urban places. My study is conducted

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The results, when compared and

show the liveliest places of London during fine temporal granularity of the data used

in my analysis reveals meaningful variations in terms of flows and mobility diversity

across London. This significantly improves our understanding, in a more detailed and

quantitative way, about how spaces across the city are distinctly used by people over

set time-frames. This paper also suggests

how spatial big data analysis can be applied to effectively support spatial planning

research and practice with quantitative descriptions of urban qualities.

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DANIEL JAMES WILKINSON THE BARTLETT, UCL

After Michelangelo: Plagiarizing from the Future

T

he history of architecture is founded

was a tool to test the drawing, whereas

The discipline of architecture as

techniques positioned clay architectural

upon a long history of drawing.

we know it today only emerged during the

15th century. This emergence is inseparable from the work of Leon Battista Alberti, an

architect, poet, cryptographer and suspected

gymnast, and coincides with the rise of paper as a common drawing material. Alberti’s

Michelangelo’s transposition of sculptural sketch models as a generator for the drawing, and while Alberti’s engagements with the

body resulted from the clarity of a Vitruvian abstraction, Michelangelo’s are dominated by an intensity of looking.

This paper considers how the

seminal work, De Re Aedificatoria (1452)

working practices of Michelangelo, and

architecture through a prescription of

architectural design, can be used to intuit

successfully codified the discipline of

drawing standards and the role that these

were to play in a divorce from construction.

Disrupting Alberti’s formative idea of

the architect was Michelangelo, who, with

prior training and experience as a sculptor,

advocated an alternative method of disegno,

which both challenged and complicated

the standards set by Alberti. Two specific

factors underpin the differences between

Michelangelo and Alberti’s approach; the role of the model, and their engagement with the figure. For Alberti the architectural model

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their relationship to wider standards of the contents of his lost architectural

treatise, last seen in Borromini’s 17th century workshop. Michelangelo’s drawing practice

is presented as a rehearsal for his buildings,

and therefore challenges the Albertian traits

of tectonic legibility and planar composition.

Importantly, these traits are still prevalent in the 21st century. As such, I attempt to

rethink the development of style through a rethinking of the both historical and

contemporary definitions of architecture.

BIOGRAPHIES

Anna Ulrikke Andersen is a PhD student in Architectural Design at The Bartlett. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Oslo, and an MA in Architectural History from The Bartlett. Her current doctoral research focuses on the window in the life and theory of Christian Norberg-Schulz, where she is adopting a practice led research methodology of filmmaking. Anna is the founder and former coordinator of the Bartlett Film+Place+Architecture Doctoral Network, and currently the Competition Director of Architecture Film Festival London 2017.

Marcela Aragüez is an architect, researcher and editor of LOBBY Magazine who has practised architecture in Spain and Switzerland. She holds a MArch from the University of Granada, and an MSc in Spatial Design from The Bartlett. Since January 2015, Marcela is a PhD candidate in Architectural History & Theory at The Bartlett, researching the production of indeterminate spaces in post-war buildings in Britain and Japan.

She is a teaching assistant at The Bartlett, and tutor for UCL’s History of Art Department. Her research is supported by Sasakawa Foundation, the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, and the Canon Foundation.

Richard Beckett is a lecturer and Director of BiotA Lab at The Bartlett. He has a multidisciplinary background and specialized in biochemistry before going on to study and teach architecture at UCL. His investigations into architecture have remained cross-disciplinary, focusing on the contemporary discussion of digital architecture and novel fabrication alongside the impact of biotechnology on architecture. Specifically, investigations into the use of living or semi-living materials in our built environment. Richard’s current project, Computational Seeding of Bioreceptive Materials, is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

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Ruth Bernatek is a PhD student in Architectural History & Theory at The Bartlett. Her research addresses the complex relationships between music and architecture in the ‘Polytope Projects’, a series of large scale multimedia installations conceived by the composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, between 1967 and 1978. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to research, she draws upon her academic background in Art History, and training as a classical musician. Ruth is a tutor for the History of Art Department at UCL, and co-founder of the doctoral initiative Sound Making Space, at The Bartlett. Her PhD is funded by London Arts and Humanities Partnership.

Sevcan Ercan is an architect and researcher with a particular interest in sites of displacement and islands. In 2013 she pursued an MA at the Bartlett School of Architecture, where she is currently undertaking a PhD in Architectural History & Theory, supervised by Iain Borden and Jane Rendell. Her PhD research is funded by the Ministry of National Education of Turkey.

Nadia Gobova is a qualified architect and researcher. She holds an MA in Architectural History & Theory from Ural State Academy of Architecture and Arts in Yekaterinburg, and an MA from the Academy of Art University San Francisco, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar. Nadia previously worked for architecture design practices in Russia, US, and the UK, before embarking upon her PhD in Architectural History & Theory at The Bartlett. Her current research is focused on states of architectural creative design thinking and practices of urban planning in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Sander Hölsgens is a trained photographer and filmmaker. He is a tutor at UCL’s Writing Lab and the MA in Film Studies, and is currently undertaking a PhD in Architectural Design at

Bartlett School of Architecture. Sander has a background in fine art, cultural studies, and visual anthropology, and since 2011 he has been involved in a variety of film productions in South Korea. His latest film, Whose Kimchi?, was screened at the British Museum during the London Korean Film Festival 2016; his essay film Blue will premiere during the Birkbeck Essay Film Festival 2017.

Fani Kostourou is an architect and urban designer who has previously studied at the National Technical University of Athens, ETH Zürich and UCL London. Her work has featured in ETHZ group exhibitions at MoMA New York, Museu de Arte do Rio, X São Paulo and 15th Venice Architecture Biennales. Fani is currently a doctoral student at The Bartlett, an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and postgraduate teaching assistant at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and Development Planning Unit, UCL. Her PhD research is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Diony Kypraiou is a doctoral candidate in Architectural Design at The Bartlett. She holds an MArch in Architectural Design from The Bartlett (GAD, 2011), and previously trained in Architectural Design at the School of Architecture of Patras, Greece. Diony is a visiting lecturer and design tutor for Interior Architecture (BA) at Westminster University, and a tutor at UCL’s Writing Lab. She has practiced, lectured and exhibited work on architecture and art internationally. Her doctoral research explores representations of tower buildings and their social biographies, as scripted by imagination and changing historical contexts.

Phuong-Trâm Nguyen is a trained architect in Canada, and holds an MA in Architectural History & Theory from McGill University, Montreal. She is currently pursuing a PhD

in Architectural Design at The Bartlett, funded by the Government of Québec, Canada (FRQSC).

Her research addresses questions of perception, beyond the visual realm, through the study of anamorphic construction in film and reenactment. She is the coordinator of Bartlett Film+Place+Architecture Doctoral Network, a multi-disciplinary research forum founded by PhD students who employ filmmaking as a tool and method of research, engaging in a dynamic dialogue between practice work and research.

Patrizi Sulis is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL. She holds a MSc in Urbanism from Delft University of Technology, and a MEng in Civil Engineering and Architecture from the University of Cagliari. She has previously worked as a research assistant for the development of the Bartlett London Research Tool, as curatorial assistant for two editions of FESTARCH International Festival of Architecture, and served on the steering committees of various other events. Patrizia’s doctoral research investigates medium and small scale urban phenomena through an analysis of spatial big data and urban dynamics.

Daniel James Wilkinson is a PhD candidate in Architectural Design at The Bartlett, and lecturer at London South Bank University. He completed his MArch at The Bartlett in 2014, as a member of Unit 12, before joining the Faculty of Architecture at The University of Hong Kong as a tutor and research assistant. His doctoral research focuses on Michelangelo’s lost architectural treatise and its role in countering the predominance of a traditional Albertian mode of architecture.

Specifically, a wider conception of disegno, which integrates the dimensional complexity afforded by sketching in clay, over the limitations of orthographic projection.

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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, Dr Edward Denison, Professor Adrian Forty, Professor Colin Fournier, 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, Professor CJ Lim, Dr Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Professor Timothy Mathews, Professor Mark Miodownik, 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, 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 Fitzgerald, Ruairi Glynn, Isabel Gutierrez Sanchez, Colin Herperger, Bill Hodgson, Sander Holsgens, Christiana Ioannou, Nahed Jawad, Tae Young Kim, Paul King,

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Dionysia Kypraiou, Hina Lad, Felipe Lanuza, Ifigeneia Liangi, Tea Lim, Rebecca Loewen , Thandiwe Loewenson, Shneel Malik, Samar Maqusi, Matthew Mc Donald, Matteo Melioli, Phuong-Trâm Nguyen, Ollie Palmer, Christos Papastergiou, Annarita Papeschi, Thomas Pearce, Luke Pearson, Mariana Pestana, Arthur Prior, Felix Robbins, Natalia Romik, Merijn Royaards, Sayan Sakandarajah, Wiltrud Simbuerger, Eva Sopeoglou, Camila Sotomayor, Ro Spankie, Dimitrie Stefanescu, 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, Tal Bar, Ruth Bernatek, Rakan Budeiri, Thomas Callan, ChinWei Chang, Mollie Claypool, Miranda Critchley, Sally Cummings, Sevcan Ercan, Marcela Araguez Escobar, Pol Esteve, Nadia Gobova, Irene Kelly, Jeong Hye Kim, Claudio Leoni, Kieran Mahon, Carlo Menon, Megan O’Shea, Soledad Perez Martinez, Matthew Poulter, Sophie Read, Sarah Riviere, Ryan Ross, Ozayr Saloojee, Amy Smith, Lina Sun, Huda Tayob, Claire Tunnacliffe, Freya Wigzell.

Submitted and/or completed doctorates 2016–2017: Pinar Aykac, Jaime Bartolome Yllera, Stylianos Giamarelos, Popi Iacovou, Torsten Lange, Dragan Pavlovic, Regner Ramos, David Roberts, Theo Spyropoulos.

This catalogue has been produced in an edition of 300 to accompany PhD Research Projects 2017, the eleventh annual conference and exhibition devoted to doctoral research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Tuesday, 21 February 2017.

Edited by Nina VollenbrĂśker and Ruth Bernatek.

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

Published by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB Copyright Š 2017 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 2017 is supported by the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment.

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PhD Research Projects 2016. Photography by Richard Stonehouse.

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On the cover: Daniel James Wilkinson; Disegno Study 14; 2016