Bartlett PhD Research Projects 2019

In Permanent Readiness for the Marvelous

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2019

In Permanent Readiness for the Marvelous PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2019

TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2019 Conference: 9.30am–6.30pm The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 22 Gordon Street / London

CONTENTS

5 6

Preface Editors’ Introduction

24

CHI NGUYEN

Civic Publishing for Urban Change

in Contemporary London: The Role

of Publishing at the Government and

Presenters 10

Conversations About the City

YOTA ADILENIDOU Scripting Errors

12

Community Levels in Public

26

Citywide Street Cross-Section Analysis:

AVA AGHAKOUCHAK

A Multi-Scale Approach

Performing Spaces: An Attention

Oriented Study of Spatial Perception 14

28

Parallax, Between Reconstruction

Evolutionary Optimisation and the

and Reinvention

Generation of Emotional Response

16

30

Architectural and Urban Production at the

Temporary Use of Spaces of

Technische Universität Berlin (1963-1977)

Uncertainty: Narratives from

18

32

TOM KEELEY

in Joseph Conrad’s London

the Irish Border

34

PAUL KING

Codifying and Fabricating an Invisible Architecture 22

EMMA-KATE MATTHEWS

Spatiosonic Constructs: Exploring

Reciprocities in Architecture and Music

ADAM WALLS

Artificial Light and Stranger Danger

Walking, Reading, and Writing

20

ALESSANDRO TOTI

From O. M. Ungers’ to the Radical Students’

MARISOL GARCÍA GONZÁLEZ

Santiago’s Contemporary Practices

THOMAS PEARCE

On the Edge of Precision’s Own Shadow:

PAUL BAVISTER

to Sound and Space

NICOLAS PALOMINOS

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Presenters’ Biographies Credits

PREFACE

Dr Nina Vollenbröker and Dr Sophie Read

Co-ordinators, MPhil/PhD Programmes

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural Design

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural

and Urban History & Theory

Prof. Jonathan Hill Prof. Ben Campkin

P

hD Research Projects 2019 is the

thirteenth annual conference and

exhibition related to doctoral research

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

the MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/PhD Architectural and Urban History and Theory.

Leading to a PhD in Architecture, the

Bartlett School of Architecture’s doctoral programmes encourage originality and

creativity. Over 90 students are currently

enrolled and the range of research subjects

Organised and curated by Dr Nina

Vollenbröker and Dr Sophie Read, PhD Research Projects 2019 has six invited critics: Professor Lindsay Bremner,

University of Westminster; Professor Mark Dorrian, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; Professor

Stephen Graham, Newcastle University;

Professor Mari Lending, The Oslo School

of Architecture and Design; Dr Christopher Leung, The Bartlett School of Architecture

and Dr Tania Sengupta, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Presenting this year are: Yota Adilenidou;

undertaken is broad. However, each annual

Ava Aghakouchak; Paul Bavister; Marisol

a smaller selection of presentations from

Emma-Kate Matthews; Chi Nguyen; Nicolas

PhD conference and exhibition focuses on

students who are developing or concluding

their research. The purpose of the conference and exhibition is to encourage productive

García González; Tom Keeley; Paul King; Palominos; Thomas Pearce; Alessandro Toti and Adam Walls.

discussions between presenters, exhibitors, staff, students, critics and the audience.

This year, we have also invited

contributions by MPhil/PhD students at

The Bartlett Development Planning Unit and at The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

5

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

In permanent readiness for the Marvelous Thom Callan-Riley & Thandi Loewenson (2019) with and after Suzanne Césaire (1941)

‘What is the future? The future has been around so long it is now the past.’

– D Scot Miller, Afrosurreal

there is no alternative, we instead find a

flourishing inquiry of a very opposite nature.

Within these pages, in the slip, crack, and

Manifesto, 2009

interstice—between glitch and memory,

‘The past has to be continually re-narrated,

cohort who delve into ideas from future-past,

and the political point of reactionary narratives is to suppress the potentials which still await, ready to be

in shadow and in light—we catch sight of a

non-linear temporalities, re-animating them

a-new. We see projects which offer glimmers of radical, dangerous dreaming.

re-awakened, in older moments.’

– Mark Fisher, K-Punk, 2018

‘...Here is the freed image, dazzling and beautiful, with a beauty that could not be

‘And this is the domain of the strange,

more unexpected and overwhelming...’

the marvelous, and the fantastic, a domain scorned by people of certain inclinations...’

Echoes of radicalism, echoes of

otherness, ricochet through time. Weird and marvelous, perhaps they may just

re-awaken our desire for a world-to-come?

This year’s presenters emerge from

the global shadow of third-way-politics,

post-crash austerity, and now tightropewalk the precipice of the vast unknown that is the UK’s ungainly exit from the

EU. Yet, in the face of the injunction that

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In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher

suggests that the Real can only be ‘glimpsed in the fractures and inconsistencies in

the field of apparent reality’; the search for alternatives lies in the act of finding and manifesting these glimpses. To be

truly productive, these visions must be of worlds-out-of-joint with our own, at first

appearing strange, perplexing or downright wrong, opening up ‘an egress between

this world and others’ (Fisher, 2016). One of the magical strengths of The Bartlett

Doctoral Programme is that it is comfortable

in the weird, allowing for images to be

‘freed’, interrogated and developed through

drawing, making, writing, and performance; ‘unexpected and overwhelming’. This year’s presenters exemplify this radical openness in architectural research.

readings of how otherness is both oppressively created and creatively unlocked, l’avenir.

‘...Here at last the world of nature and things makes direct contact with the human being who is again in the fullest sense spontaneous and natural...’

‘...Here are the poet, the painter, and the artist, presiding over the metamorphoses and the inversions of the world under the sign of hallucination and madness...’

Delving back (and seeing ahead), Lesley

Lokko, a critic at last year’s conference,

suggests that there are many ways of talking of the future—when we speak of ‘l’avenir’,

we are speaking of the ‘coming of the other’.

For Adam Walls, it is in the ‘twilight spaces’ where darkness and difference are defined, with spatial and political consequences

that illuminate the concurrent construction of ‘race’ and ‘terror’ in nineteenth century

London, with potent relevance today. Thomas Pearce similarly dwells in the ‘in between’, re-seeing the past ‘parallactically’, bringing

forth the visions of ‘others’. Both Walls and Pearce—through light and shadow—offer

These edges, shadows, and lines

can be microscopic or 310 miles long,

as in Tom Keeley’s research walking the Irish Border; tracing imagined yet ‘real’

politicised lines, where thin air may soon become hard border. From ‘precision’s

shadow’ to Pinochet’s spectre, glimpses of metamorphoses are often fleeting—

momentary and unfixed—which Marisol García González explores through the

complex entanglements of spatial practices that appear to contest capitalist production of urban space in Santiago. Alessandro Toti further uncovers the historical struggles of staff and students in Berlin—meeting in

the creative imagination of Marxist modes of urban production—which resonate

with architectural debate today. These reverberations are felt in Chi Nguyen’s

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writing experiments, opening up institutions

and highly-personal reflections, these

as a civic practice in urban discourse’.

will celebrate the support systems which

to public engagement through ‘publishing

‘...Here at last is ... chance mastered and recognized, the mystery now a friend and helpful.’*

testimonies, stories, and speculations nourish—and critique the structural

dynamics which impoverish—research as much as researcher; a platform for fuzzy edges and ideas-still-in-formation.

For Emma-Kate Matthews and Paul

Suzanne Césaire—surrealist, writer and

spatial and the sonic where the realm of

have structured this introduction, wrote

Bavister, it is in the space between the

the ‘virtual’ becomes a site of critique—in

turn, as a mode of disconnection, separating music ‘from physical, spatial realities’, and as a terrain ‘capable of adapting to emotional response’. Nicolas Palominos makes use of

the virtual to reveal concealed disputes and variations over time in London’s streets.

Not content with glimpses and cracks, Yota Adilenidou and Paul King instead

revel within the fault lines of perceived order.

cultural theorist—whose interjections of Marvelous surrealism as a mode of

transcending the apparent and crushing, colonial (Capitalist) ‘real’; ‘far from

contradicting, diluting, or diverting our

revolutionary attitude toward life, surrealism strengthens it’ (Césaire, 1943). It is with her call that we end, confident that the

researchers presenting at this conference persevere, in ‘permanent readiness for the Marvelous.’

Adelinidou operates ‘in a malleable present’ while King ‘considers the glitch, the bug,

the fault and the virus as potential creative forces.’ Ava Aghakouchak positions the

human body as a fallible being, developing wearables towards an enhanced sense of presence. As the Puppet Master says in

Ghost in the Shell, ‘All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to

remain what you are is what limits you.’

This year’s exhibition opens with these presentations, and closes with a night of ‘confessionals’ where the dynamic

environment of the PhD process itself is scrutinised. Through other-worldly

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*Suzanne Césaire, ‘Alain et l’esthétique’, Tropiques, 1941

PRESENTERS

YOTA ADILENIDOU THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Scripting Errors

T

his design-research focuses on

a toolbox system that can be applied at

evolution of form and the logic of

according to specified parameters. This

the importance of error in the

matter distribution. I seek to describe the relationship of error to randomness and

repetitive behaviour. While considering error as a path and necessity for optimization,

I ask if we can invent a process for creating an error system in response to desires for maximum efficiency and variation in architectural design; implemented in structure, fabrication, and formal

investigation. Can we construct for an

uncertain future of multiple possibilities by

operating in a malleable present where built

elements of various scales are able to adjust, adapt, and co-inhabit their environment?

I use the development of the embryo

to the fully grown figure as an analogy.

Using computation and Cellular Automata

various scales and in differing conditions provides alterations to body form and

varied possibilities for interaction with the context—in this case, the environment

and other bodies—while responding to

uncertainty and infinite future scenarios.

Different body typologies are created; from

linear structural elements to space dividers and larger surface components which

provide detail intensity, perforation, and

lighting. Their proliferation, guided through assemblage sets of differential grids, leads to the build-up of big span structures and edifices such as a cathedral—a reference to the detail resolution and the sculpting

methodologies of Gothic architecture and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia.

The research results are communicated

systems as a model of growth and matter

through drawings, 3D visualizations, and

finite data, a series of experiments establish a

3D printed components/tiles and a large-

distribution combining randomness with

taxonomy of architectural bodies’ deviations and morphological errors. This results in

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fabrication prototypes such as one to one scale robotic 3D concrete printed column prototype.

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12

AVA AGHAKOUCHAK THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Performing Spaces: An Attention Oriented Study of Spatial Perception

T

his research focuses on the potential

provide sensory modalities, external to the

the internal somatic experience

reduce the effect of personal interpretation

of artificial synesthesia to deepen

of space, so that a performer can generate enhanced bodily representations of the

space. The result is a fluid and dynamic set

user’s cognitive procedures, aiming to

and therefore produce, I propose, more objective notations of the space.

In the current stage of the project, a

of movements in contrast to what might

virtual reality training platform is being

this shows how a combination of conscious

architecture into intangible information

be considered rigid bodies of architecture;

performance and directed attention can lead to a more profound sense of presence.

During the first stage of this research, a

set of experimental performances at the Sir

John Soane’s Museum explored how a visualtactile body-based amplifier can highlight certain architectural elements within the

performer’s perceptual scene and increase their sense of attachment to the space.

Cross-sensory mapping of the vertical

space on the performer’s back by a humanmachine interface demonstrates how the

intangible, non-functional space above the performer’s head can be turned into more

comprehensible information on their body.

The systematic output patterns of the device

developed to turn physical bodies of

which cannot be manipulated by the user’s body, similar to the vertical space above a performer’s reach. This virtualization of the space in the format of a training

platform both helps increase the period

of familiarization with the wearable and

restores the lost level of attention towards

the external act of inhabiting space. Taking humans as ‘animal symbolicums’ (Cassirer, 1923) and the only living organisms with a vertical orientation of experience and thought (Harries, 2004), this research

addresses the possibility of enhancing human perception, through constructing deeper synesthetic modes of engagement with vertical space.

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PAUL BAVISTER THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Evolutionary Optimisation and the Generation of Emotional Response to Sound and Space

T

he relationship between music

differing room types. Lokki and Pätynen’s

over the millennia by a series of

critical, historical decisions previously

and architecture has been shaped

complex causal relationships between

composer, musician, instrument, space, and

research provides essential clarity on mired in woolly, subjective thinking.

This paper builds on this work by

the emotional responses of listeners. The

breaking down the concept of ‘music’ into

relationships form a continuity over time that

emergent virtual entity capable of adapting

sounds and spaces that arise out of these

has informed the way we listen to music and

the way we design rooms to accommodate it.

However, the development of acoustic theory in the early twentieth century gave rise to a

series of rigid conventions in acoustic design, affecting both musical and architectural

composition, and considerably slowing down the mutual co-evolution of both.

Current research into emotional

response and music undertaken at Aalto University by Tapio Lokki and Jukka

Pätynen uses anechoic extracts of key

pieces of Western music—Beethoven,

Mozart, Bruckner—to investigate the effect of classical music on the occupants of

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digitally evolved sounds, and ‘space’ into an to a user’s emotional response. It follows two strands of investigation; firstly, the

study of evolving sound in fixed space and, secondly, the evolution of space in relation to fixed music.

Using virtual auditory systems, bio-metric

sensing, and evolutionary computation,

this research deploys a new tool-set with which to optimise the development of

our engagement with sound, space and

emotional response. This paper reviews

a series of tests on listeners that aims to accelerate the coevolution of sound in space, and space with sound.

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MARISOL GARCÍA GONZÁLEZ THE BARTLETT DEVELOPMENT PLANNING UNIT, UCL

Temporary Use of Spaces of Uncertainty: Narratives from Santiago’s Contemporary Practices

T

his research investigates temporary

intentions and motivations of the different

of uncertainty, in Santiago, Chile.

spatial practices. This investigation—using

urban practices, enacted in spaces

These practices are emerging as alternative forms of collective collaboration, political

activism and resistance against capitalistic logics of city production but also as

new flexible economic models aligned

with capitalistic logics of accumulation, acceleration and privatization.

This research critically examines both the

actors involved in the development of these qualitative methods and ethnographic

research combined with spatial analysis— explores the connections between the spatial configurations of temporary

practices and the broader socio-economic and political forces that shape the urban development process.

More critical research is needed to

ambiguous nature of such practices and the

understand the conditions and attributes

and explores the extent to which temporary

transformative and progressive change—

temporary urbanism discourse around them, practices in Santiago challenge capitalistic forms of public space production; a city

where urban development has been deeply

influenced by the neoliberal model imposed

by Pinochet’s dictatorship.

This research seeks to understand the

complexity of this context by unraveling the

that allow such practices to produce

representing a valuable alternative to

traditional modes of public space production.

This topic, widely explored in European and

North American cities, has been less studied in the Latin American context, where this research focuses.

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TOM KEELEY THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Walking, Reading, and Writing the Irish Border

T

he Irish Border runs 310 miles from

been seen or inflected differently over

divided the six counties of Northern

are connected spatially; deriving from, and

Lough Foyle to the Irish Sea and has

Ireland from the Republic since 1921. Its sinuous route stems from seventeenth

century county boundaries; the irregularities

time. Through the walks these histories

relating to, key sites along the border where they take place.

This approach is underpinned by the

of which are heightened due to the unique

restaging of a ‘hedge school’; an eighteenth

geography, and politics in these islands.

precedent used to develop a method that

relationship between architecture, history, With the ‘Irish Question’ remaining

relevant to UK politics for over 200 years, and now once more due to Brexit, this research

uses lessons of the border to produce a public architectural history that looks both forward

and nineteenth century Irish pedagogical

practices history with others. The timing of

this is critical; conducted as the centenary of

Partition in Ireland approaches in 2021 and as the UK exits the EU.

This research tests a way of producing a

and back. It questions how sites of the Irish

public architectural and landscape history

future condition.

the academy; responding to the specific

Border tell the history of its past, present, and The research seeks to understand the

contested spatiality of the Irish borderlands through a series of walks along and across

the border, both alone and with others. These routes are determined by key historical

moments, showing how the border has

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that takes research beyond the archive and geographies and histories of the border, as

well as the daily practices around it. It asks

how histories—official and unofficial—have

influenced the border, and, in turn, how they may have been shaped by the border in the first place.

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PAUL KING THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Codifying and Fabricating an Invisible Architecture

T

his research seeks a location for

inevitability of error, the requirement of

components in contemporary

as invisible, yet essential, components of

undervalued, uncodified, and invisible

architectural production. In particular, I aim to identify current notions of perfection in digital methods of design and fabrication, and to define the extent and value of error and imperfection within these

methodologies. Predominantly operating

within the invisible space of tolerance, this

research aims to propose a new way to view the connection between the drawn and

the made that considers the glitch, the bug, the flaw, the fault, and the virus as potential creative forces.

By privileging the drawing, architecture

has failed to adequately engage with the

tolerance, and the value of imperfection

the construction process and any realised

building. I will test this thesis through two

parallel strands of enquiry: the written and the built. My written work will encompass a brief history of error and imperfection in architecture; a taxonomy of tools in

architecture extending to current digital modes of production; and, ultimately, a

codification of an invisible architecture of

human, machine and material error. My built projects will be used to explore the physical

nature and creative opportunities that these

invisible components can offer digital design and fabrication.

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EMMA-KATE MATTHEWS THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Spatiosonic Constructs: Exploring Reciprocities in Architecture and Music

T

his research concerns the

of music—divorced from physical,

creative reciprocities between

towards ‘virtual listening’—where

discovery and exploitation of

music as constructed sound, and

architecture as constructed space.

Historically, architectural space has

played an active role in influencing the experience and composition of music.

Renaissance composer Adrian Willaert

spatial realities. This continuing trend media can be created and consumed on demand, whenever, wherever—creates a disconnect between the practices of

designing spaces for music and composing music for live performance.

This research is explored through the

is famed for having supposedly invented

composition and choreography of physical,

opposed positioning of choir lofts in St Mark’s

are hypothesised, constructed and examined

polychoral music in response to the spatiallyBasilica in Venice. Conversely, architects have long acknowledged the desires of

music in space. Long before acoustics was a formally recognised discipline, Roman

architect and engineer Vitruvius discussed

a method for enhancing the sonic character

of performance spaces by embedding ‘echea’ (acoustic vases) in the walls. Despite these examples, only a handful of spatiosonic

practitioners have managed to rigorously

explore interactive threads between musical space and physical space in their work.

In contrast to the above examples,

increasing use of portable technologies enables more ‘virtual’ experiences

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musical performances. These performances using a range of analytical analogue and

digital techniques; from predictive models of acoustic simulation, to interrogating

the results of the performances through the analysis of ambisonic recordings,

spatio-temporal drawings and audience

feedback. The compositions are referred to as ‘constructions’ and each one establishes the terms through which sonic media

and architectural space might influence each other. With these constructions,

architecture is activated by musical desires.

Simultaneously, music is composed and performed as a way of accessing and exploiting spatiosonic phenomena.

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CHI NGUYEN THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Civic Publishing for Urban Change in Contemporary London: The Role of Publishing at the Government and Community Levels in Public Conversations About the City

G

overnment documents, like The

London Plan, materially shape London’s future and strategic

collectives in publishing workshops, on

concepts of copy, edit, remix, and amplify.

Examining the charged role of publishing

spatial development. Concurrently, local

at the civic scale in London and in public

alternative plans and visions of urban change.

analyses the ‘publishing practices’ (Gilbert,

communities produce and disseminate their Both represent particular claims to the city and specific expressions of inclusivity and diversity in civic participation. These two

scales of publication often meet in tension, if they meet at all.

This research project addresses that

communication gap through collaborative design-based practices, and theoretical investigations. Drawing together ideas

of publics and flow, it considers how these

different texts of the city can better interact across government and community levels.

This is explored through writing experiments, and collaborative work with different

conversations about the city, this thesis

2016; Thurston, 2013) of both government

and self-organised community groups from

a critical media and communication design perspective. The research looks beyond the

common understanding of such publications from a policy, administrative and historic perspective, and focuses on publishing as a civic practice in urban discourse.

Through this, it seeks to expand publication scholarship with an original interpretation

of civic publishing as a connective ‘gesture’ (Ludovico & Muller, 2008) having motion and agency in urban debates.

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NICOLAS PALOMINOS THE BARTLETT CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SPATIAL ANALYSIS, UCL

Citywide Street Cross-Section Analysis: A Multi-Scale Approach

S

treets are the main physical means

through which the components of a

city are connected. These connections

are physically demarcated by the designation of spaces for pedestrians and vehicles. Both spaces complement each other to fulfil the various roles of streets at the design and

strategic scales of the city. However, this seemingly complementary relationship also conceals disputes over space.

City growth and emerging mobility

behaviours expose design problems in street

space designation. Enduring street patterns,

where street space is often fixed and limited, and modernist design principles which

prioritised car-traffic over other street uses

further contribute to the problems of street space designation today.

Through a cross-section analysis, all of

A systematic analysis combined these

measures with an analysis of the street

network to respond to important questions in new ways: How are streets described in terms of their space designation and

structural properties? How are these street metrics spatially organised across the city?

What correspondence do these properties have with urban form?

This novel descriptive analysis shows that

the typical street segment in London has

7.5m carriage-way and 4.5m foot-way space.

This reflects a dominance of vehicular space

in the design of the city’s streets. London has a wide range of street types which can be

interpreted as a result of variations of street standards through time and different roles that streets serve in cities.

Initial findings suggest that existing

the streets in London were deconstructed

street typologies might be refined to support

to quantify their physical relation. New

and design that are consistent with current

into vehicular and pedestrian subsystems data were generated for over 200,000 street segments using experimental

geocomputational techniques to source quantitative descriptors of foot-way,

carriage-way and total street widths.

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alternative methods for street planning patterns of urbanisation and emergent mobility practices.

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Thomas Pearce, ‘Jakob K. Der Neue Mensch’. Set design, video work and artistic collaboration with Mara Kanthak and performance makers Heike Bröckerhoff, Moritz Frischkorn, Jonas Woltemate. Performed at Kampnagel, Hamburg, May 2018. Photographer: Anja Beutler.

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THOMAS PEARCE THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

On the Edge of Precision’s Own Shadow: Parallax, Between Reconstruction and Reinvention

P

arallax is a slippery term. It is, by its

unphotographable menswear shop by Adolf

from the Greek parallaxis ‘a change’,

naturalist painter Abbott Thayer (1909), a

own definition, difficult to define:

which in turn stems from parallassein ‘to

alternate’ and then from allos ‘other’, it is used to describe the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions. Parallax is

about difference, about a space in between, a shifting relationship between points of view, between others.

This paper discusses a design-research

Loos (1898), an invisible wooden duck by

perverse rainwater pipe by Walter Gropius (1926), an elusive dance performance by Bauhaus choreographer Jakob Klenke

(1927)—re-seeing them not only from the

vantage point of their own contemporary context but also, parallactically, from

(historically, technologically, geographically) shifted positions.

Such parallactic shifts act as a critical

method using shifting notions of parallax

device to re-examine the a priori framing

architectural historiography and design

allowing for the recovery of ‘lost’ spatial

within a practice oscillating between

speculation. Parallax is fundamental to the geometric reconstruction of threedimensional spatial positions from

two-dimensional information and forms the basis of technologies like photogrammetry.

Starting from this metrological parallax,

I extend the methodology to encompass

notions such as historical, speculative and trans-optic parallax.

of the original vantage point, as well as

dimensions. At the same time, they create their own spatial and narrative undercuts and unknowns, shadow spaces in which

parallax in turn can operate in a speculative and generative manner. It is at the edge of

precision’s own shadow, at the intersection between re-construction and re-invention, that the project unfolds.

The method takes shape through a

series of design-research investigations, which re-visit historical scenes—an

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ALESSANDRO TOTI THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

From O. M. Ungers’ to the Radical Students’ Architectural and Urban Production at the Technische Universität Berlin (1963–1977)

F

ollowing massive transformations

in the West German economy and

society, from the mid-1960s onward,

the image of a humanist and democratic modernism was gradually called into question; replaced by new models of

architecture and urbanism. This research inquires into these new models and the

relationships between architecture and

society in West Berlin between 1963 and

1977, through the analysis of two platforms

of architectural production developed at the Berlin Technical University (TUB).

The first is the Veröffentlichungen zur

Architektur, a collection of 27 pamphlets illustrating the activity of O. M. Ungers’

chairmanship of TUB between 1963 and

1969. The pamphlets represented a significant

The second area of investigation is the

activity of TUB radical architecture students, who self-organised seminars, exhibitions, and journals from 1967 to the mid-1970s.

Driven by a solid Marxist ideology, their

works largely focused on the urban and social cleansing perpetrated by the municipality and supported by Berlin building

corporations. Their engagement took the form of grassroots activities in affected

neighbourhoods, as well as the publication of both mainstream and niche magazines. This process ended in 1977, when trends towards individualisation and commercialisation

would progressively detach architecture

from social conflict and political radicalism in West Germany.

In this research, these two bodies of

innovation in the academic environment at

materials are considered in a dialectical

addressed; their urban interpretation

continuities, discontinuities and reciprocal

the time, thanks to the variety of topics they of architectural design; the concrete

relationship with the West German socioeconomic conditions they drew; the wide

range of editors and authors; and their clear orientation towards an external readership.

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relationship, with the aim of investigating influences between them. Connecting them yields a better understanding

of both their historical development and their contemporary legacy for architectural debate.

Holger Ellgaard ‘Protest against the German Emergency Act’, 1968.

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ADAM WALLS THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL

Artificial Light and Stranger Danger in Joseph Conrad’s London

T

he emergence of electric lighting

throughout the 1890s, modern ‘terrorism’

nineteenth century had fundamental

political tactic. Inherently tied to issues of

in London towards the end of the

and far-reaching effects on both the built environment and urban subjectivity.

Competing interests, technologies, and

aesthetics combined to form a variegated,

contested lightscape; composed of hybrid, mutable, and intersecting atmospheres— ‘twilight spaces’. These environments

constituted, and were constituted through, the diverse subjects who inhabited them;

forming the objects and settings, both real

and imagined, for processes as varied as slum clearance, colonialism, women’s suffrage, and aerial warfare.

Within this broader history, this paper

will focus on London in the 1890s, as

depicted in Joseph Conrad’s novel The

Secret Agent (1907), with a particular

focus on terrorism and terrorist attacks in the city—rare occurrences which

nevertheless had profound effects on the

everyday experience of light, darkness, and

difference. With the Irish, Fenian bombings of the early 1880s, and anarchist attacks

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first emerged as an insurrectionary, violent empire and immigration, terrorism quickly became aligned in the public imagination

with foreigners and strangers, or an enemy

within, culminating in 1905 with the passing of the Aliens Act. Attacks were typically represented through strong images of

light and dark; from the climactic flash of

dynamite, to the darkness of the assailants’

appearances. With this, electric light became associated with security, while certain races and ethnicities found themselves subject to new regimes of surveillance.

This paper uses topographic literary

analysis, whereby literary representations of the city—detailing the experiences

of both real and fictional subjects—are

cross-referenced against drawings, maps, and photographs from the time. This

method considers those experiences and subjectivities in relation to the historical environments and atmospheres within which they were produced.

‘Night Fantasy, in John Morrison and Harold Burdekin’s London Night (1934). Copyright Museum of London.

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PRESENTERS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Yota Adilenidou holds a Diploma in Architecture from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (A.U.Th.) and an MSc. AAD from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University. She is the Director of Archhives Ltd. and previously worked with Eisenman Architects, Evan Douglis, and Sakellaridou & Papanikolaou Architects. Yota was Programme Coordinator for DRL MArch at the Architectural Association and has taught at the Department of Architecture of A.U.Th., Hertfordshire University, London College of Contemporary Arts, Central Saint Martins, and the University of Brighton. She is currently a part-time Lecturer at the University of Westminster and Chelsea College of Arts, and a PhD Candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Ava Aghakouchak is an architectural designer/ interaction designer. She is a PhD Candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture where she is carrying out research on the effects of active wearables on the loop between body-mind, machine, and built environment. Her research builds on her graduate project at the Interactive Architecture Lab, which was highlighted by Domus as one of the top 10 designs of 2016.

She is currently a member of the Interactive Architecture Lab and teaches theory and design at the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Canterbury School of Architecture.

Paul Bavister graduated as an architect from the Bartlett School of Architecture in 1999. His career began in restaurant and retail design and has since evolved to specialise in cultural projects; in particular acoustic and performance spaces.

Paul is currently a Senior Associate Director at Flanagan Lawrence specialising in Research and Development. Paul is an active member of sound art group Audialsense and has given lectures on the relationships between sound art and architecture at universities across London. Paul

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is both a design tutor and PhD Candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Marisol García González trained as an architect at the Universidad Católica de Chile. She holds an MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development from the Bartlett Development Planning Unit. She has worked as an urban design practitioner, co-founding two NGOs focused on participatory processes in urban design and the development of social housing. She has taught at both graduate and postgraduate level, working as a lecturer at the Universidad Católica and Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile. Her current PhD research at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit focuses on the politics of the temporary use of spaces of uncertainty in the city of Santiago.

Tom Keeley is an architectural historian working between architecture, geography, landscape and culture through writing, situated research and printed matter. He teaches at the Welsh School of Architecture and Central Saint Martins and is currently undertaking a London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) funded PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture. He has worked for The Architecture Foundation (London, UK), Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York, USA), and Space Caviar (Genoa, Italy). His work is held in the collections of the National Art Library at the V&A in London and the School of Architecture Library at Princeton University.

Paul King is an architect, educator and academic researcher based in Sheffield. He is a Principal Lecturer and the Deputy Head of Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University School of Architecture. Paul practised architecture for nearly 20 years in Liverpool, London, and Manchester working for Urban Splash, Ian Simpson Architects and Glenn Howells Architects. Paul is a member of both the RIBA

National and International Validation Panel and the Education, Research and Innovation Group for RIBA Yorkshire, and an external examiner at Manchester School of Architecture. Paul is a PhD Candidate in Architectural Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Emma-Kate Matthews is an architect, artist, musician and composer. She teaches a Masters unit in architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture where she is also a PhD Candidate.

Her research concerns the discovery and exploitation of creative reciprocities between music as constructed sound, and architecture as constructed space. To date, her spatial compositions have been performed at the Royal Academy of Arts, Shoreditch Church, the Sagrada Familia and the Southbank Centre. Her work has also been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and the RIBA, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Architectural Design and Design Ecologies.

Chi Nguyen is a multidisciplinary designer working across the boundaries of visual communication and architecture, currently researching practices of experimental publishing for public-led conversations about cities. Chi is a PhD Candidate in Architectural Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture and holds degrees in graphic communication design (Central Saint Martins) and architecture (Carleton). She was a contributor to Engaged Urbanism (UCL UrbanLab) and a writer and editorial designer for Unknown Quantities (University of the Arts London). Chi has exhibited at the Lethaby Gallery and Somerset House (London, UK) and at the Bi-City Hong Kong– Shenzhen Biennale.

Nicolas Palominos is an architect, city designer, and spatial analyst trained in Chile and the UK. He has worked in the public and private sectors as an urban designer, urban consultant, and urban policy advisor. Nicolas is interested in urban data visualisation and quantitative urbanism using applied research methods to inform urban design and city planning. His current research focuses on understanding the spatial design of cities through

investigations of socio-economic and spatial networks in studies of street systems and urban production.

Thomas Pearce holds a BA and MA (KU Leuven, Belgium) in Cultural History and a BSc (TU Berlin) and MArch (Bartlett) in Architecture. His PhD research, funded by the ESPRC, situates the potential of technologies of digital capture, simulation and fabrication between their capacity as tools for increased precision and as generators of new uncertainties, shadows and unknowns. He has run the undergraduate Unit 8 at the Bartlett School of Architecture since 2014 and previously tutored at the Architectural Association (20132017). Having worked extensively in practice as a specialist for digital capture, design and fabrication, he now works as an independent architectural designer within a changing network of collaborations.

Alessandro Toti is a PhD Candidate in the Architectural History and Theory programme at The Bartlett School of Architecture. Alessandro studied at HCU Hamburg, PUC Santiago de Chile University and, in 2013, he completed an MA in Urban Design at Roma Tre, writing a dissertation on the AEG industrial settlements in Berlin. In 2016, he completed a second MA in Architectural History at The Bartlett School of Architecture, researching O. M. Ungers’ Veröffentlichungen zur Architektur. Alessandro has tutored architectural history and theory at Roma Tre, Camerino and Cornell University.

Adam Walls studied architecture at Cambridge University and worked in practice in London before returning to pursue a PhD in Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Adam’s thesis project, Twilight Spaces, investigates the transformation of visual experience in London during the period of light’s electrification. His work has previously been published in the Architectural Theory Review and he currently tutors at the UCL Writing Lab.

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CREDITS

MPhil/PhD Supervisors: Professor Nadia Luisa Berthouze, Professor Peter Bishop, Professor Camillo Boano, Professor Iain Borden, Professor Victor Buchli, Professor Ben Campkin, Professor Mario Carpo, Professor Nat Chard, Professor Marjan Colletti, Dr Clare Colomb, Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens, Professor Marcos Cruz, Dr Edward Denison, Dr Simon Donger, Professor Adrian Forty, Professor Murray Fraser, Professor Stephen Gage, Professor Jeremy Gilbert, Dr Francois Guesnet, Peter Guillery, Dr Sean Hanna, Dr Penelope Haralambidou, Professor Neil Heyde, Professor Jonathan Hill, Dr Jan Kattein, Dr Guan Lee, Dr Chris Leung, Dr Jerome Lewis, Professor CJ Lim, Professor Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Professor Timothy Mathews, Dr Clare Melhuish, Professor Mark Miodownik, Professor Raf Orlowski, Professor Sebastian Ourselin, Dr Brenda Parker, Professor Alan Penn, Professor Barbara Penner, Professor Sophia Psarra, Professor Peg Rawes, Professor Jane Rendell, Dr Stephanie Schwartz, Harriet Richardson, Dr Tania Sengupta, Professor Bob Sheil, Professor Mark Smout, Professor Hugo Spiers, Professor Neil Spiller, Professor Philip Steadman, Professor Michael Stewart, Dr Nina Vollenbröker, Dr Robin Wilson.

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design Students: Yota Adilenidou, Abdullah Al-Dabbous, Ava Aghakouchak, Bihter Almac, Luisa Silva Alpalhão, Nicola Antaki, Lena Asai, Paul Bavister, Richard Beckett, Giulio Brugnaro, Matthew Butcher, William Victor Camilleri, Niccolo Casas, Ines Dantas Ribeiro Bernardes, Ting Ding, Killian Doherty, Daniyal Farhani, Judit Ferencz, Pavlos Fereos, Susan Fitzgerald, Naomi Gibson, Ruairi Glynn, Isabel Gutierrez Sanchez, Felix Graf, Colin Herperger, Danielle Hewitt, Bill Hodgson, Christiana Ioannou, Nina Jotanovic, Paul

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King, Dionysia Kypraiou, Hina Lad, Ifigeneia Liangi, Eyborg Lund, Rebecca Loewen, Thandi Loewenson, Shneel Malik, Emma-Kate Matthews, Matthew McDonald, Hamish Muir, Phuong-Trâm Nguyen, Aisling O’Carroll, Christos Papastergiou, Annarita Papeschi, Thomas Pearce, Arthur Prior, Sarah Riviere, Merijn Royaards, Sayan Sakandarajah, Malika Schmidt, Alexandru Senciuc, Wiltrud Simbuerger, Eva Sopeoglou, Dimitrie Stefanescu, Quynh Vantu, Cindy Walters, Daniel Wilkinson, Henrietta Williams, Seda Zirek, Fiona Zisch.

MPhil/PhD Architectural and Urban History and Theory Students: Vasileios Aronidis, Gregorio Astengo, Ruth Bernatek, Thomas Callan-Riley, Chin-Wei Chang, Mollie Claypool, Miranda Critchley, Kerri Culhane, Sally Cummings, Sevcan Ercan, Pol Esteve, Nadia Gobova, Esther Jimenez Herraiz, Sheng-Yang Huang, Thomas Keeley, Marc Levinson, Kieran Mahon, Carlo Menon, Soledad Perez Martinez, Ana Mayoral Moratilla, Chi Nguyen, Matthew Poulter, Anthony Presland, Diana Paola Salazar Morales, Saptarshi Sanyal, Amy Smith, Lina Sun, Claire Tunnacliffe, Alessandro Toti, Maria Venegas, Adam Walls, Azadeh Zaferani.

Submitted and/or completed doctorates 2017-18: Nerea Elorduy Amoros, Anna Andersen, Sabina Andron, Tal Bar, Katy Beinart, Bernadette Devilat, Marcela Araguez Escobar, Sander Holsgens, Nahed Jawad, Irene Kelly, Jeong Hye Kim, Claudio Leoni, Samar Maqusi, Ollie Palmer, Luke Pearson, Mariana Pestana, Felix Robbins, Natalia Romik, Ozayr Saloojee, Camila Sotomayor, Ro Spankie, Freya Wigzell.

This catalogue has been produced in an edition of 300 to accompany PhD Research Projects 2019, the thirteenth annual conference and exhibition devoted to doctoral research at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Tuesday, 19 February 2019.

Edited by Nina VollenbrĂśker, Sophie Read, Thandi Loewenson and Thomas Callan-Riley.

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

Copyright Š 2019 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 mechanic, 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 2019 is supported by The Bartlett School of Architecture and The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL.

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On the cover: Thomas Pearce, ‘Jakob K. Der Neue Mensch’.

Set design, video work and artistic collaboration with Mara Kanthak and performance makers Heike Bröckerhoff, Moritz Frischkorn, Jonas Woltemate. Performed at Kampnagel, Hamburg, May 2018.

Photographer: Anja Beutler.