Unit 14 Metamorphosis: Architectures of Ingenuity Paul Bavister, James O’Leary
Year 4 Jiang Dong, Calum Alexander Macdonald, Heather McVicar, Louise Schmidt, Greg Storrar Year 5 Kyveli Anastasiad, Seonghwan Cho, Petr Anthony Esposito, Yuan Ning, Alyssa Ohse , Jia Yuan Shen, Kok Kian Tew, Andrew Walker The Bartlett School of Architecture 2014
We are grateful to our sponsors Kite & Laslett Thank you to Dan Wright, our Design Realisation Tutor, structural consultant Andy Toohey, our environmental consultant Max Fordham and to our collaborators at Royal Holloway Thanks also to our critics: Wesley Aelbrecht, Julia Backhaus, Gem Barton, Konstantinos Chalaris, Nat Chard, Illugi Eysteinsson, Ilona Gaynor, Alison Gibb, Ruairi Glynn, Fred Guttfield, Usman Haque, Christine Hawley, Sebastian Kite, Kristen Kreider, Tim Lucas, Patrick Lynch, Sam McElhinney, Mitch Mc Ewan, Ellen Page, Ollie Palmer, Bakul Patki, Eliot Payne, Price & Myers, Sophia Psarra, Kulveer Ranger, Richard Roberts, Rogers, Stirk Harbour + Partners, Florian Rothmayer, Ilona Sagar, Peter Scully, Catrina Stewart, Andy Toohey, Nick Wakefield, Melissa Woolford, Staff at Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead and all Detroit activists. A special thank you is reserved for all Bartlett workshop staff
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The post-industrial stage of capitalism has long-term implications for the cities we live in. Previously seen through the optimistic lens of modernist representation, the clean and fresh streets of architects’ visualisations are, in some extreme cases, turning into living dystopias. Some of the more established cities of the industrial era that have lost their economic momentum are now blighted with swathes of urban necrosis, with previously lively neighbourhoods disappearing, reclaimed by nature, and growing wild. Today’s cities are living organisms, a collection of autonomous components responding to localised conditions, each component thriving on the next, feeding on influxes of investment and societal needs. If left untended and starved of resource, areas of a city can die, leading to inevitable decay and the exodus of its host society. Yet with maintenance, sensitivity and care, these areas can be revitalised, bringing change and rebirth to fading urban conditions. This year, Unit 14 has been investigating strategies and tactics for replanting seeds of sustainable growth in the urban environment. We have been instigating modes of regeneration by way of critical interaction with a host environment. Using appropriate technologies, and working at 1:1 immersive scale, we seek to question existing design methodologies in the wider context of a macroeconomic reality. How can intelligent architectural systems help to promote sustainable growth in these areas? What are the components that can define a sustainable response system? How can physical actions engender change outside of the studio environment? There is nowhere on the planet at present where the problems of the post-industrial city are laid bare more starkly than in the ‘Motor City’ of Detroit. The Unit visited Detroit to see first-hand examples of experimental work that aims toward a more sustainable urban future, meeting local artists and architects who are working to develop resilient forms of urban communities in challenging economic circumstances. We then travelled to New York, moving from a city in current state of dereliction to one in a condition of renaissance, stopping off along the way at architecture and design departments at Cranbrook, Cornell, Yale and Cooper Union. We conducted field research to see how ideas currently being tested in the urban laboratory of America’s cities are changing their immediate environment. On our return to London, our Year 4 students developed new architectural propositions for sites located in Detroit. Our Year 5 students worked on highly tactical insertions, designing architectures of ingenuity that can engender new spatio-temporal conditions in the city, bringing about radical change. Architectural proposals from our research were tested through interventions, installations, prototypes, time-based media and drawings, leading to further speculative representations at an urban scale.