Unit 2
Interstitial Ecologies Damjan Iliev, Julian Krüger
Year 2 Samual Coulton, Ren Zhi Goh, Cheng Guo, Jun Wing (Michelle) Ho, Cheung (Ivan) Hung, Nikolas Kourtis, Ka Wing (Clarence) Ku, Masahiro Nakamura, Shi Qi (Kiki) Tu
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2014
Year 3 Quiling Guan, Linghze (Frances) Lu, Cheol-Young (Nick) Park, Bethany Penman, Cassidy Reid, Saijel Taank, Marie Walker-Smith, Jessica Wang Unit 2 would like to thank Oliver Wilton (Technology Consultant), and our guest critics for their wit and wisdom: Bihter Almaç, Matthew Butcher, Mollie Claypool, William Firebrace, Rob Howarth, Jack Newton, Yael Reisner. We would like to extend particular thanks on behalf of the students to Barry Wark for his extraordinary support, design input and organisation of workshops throughout the year www.unit-2.com
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In light of present global crises such as population expansion, natural resource depletion and environmental disasters, there is an urgent need to align urban development and architecture with nature. This year we addressed the issue of sustainability by focusing on ‘Urban Ecology’, an interdisciplinary field concerned with the relationship between living organisms and their urban environments. In the past few decades, Urban Ecology has offered great insights into how cities can become places where artificial and natural ecosystems coexist in harmony, considering both built and natural environments as equal habitats for biodiversity and cities as multifaceted, interstitial products in the discourse of human-nature interaction. Term 1 focused on the notion of thresholds and their ability to mediate between nature and architecture. Students were asked to design a site-specific, small-scale, inhabitable structure as an integral part of a larger whole in the area around Camden Market. The main aim was to rethink architecture’s role as a mediator between habitat and immediate surroundings for the benefit of a more ecologically balanced urban environment. In December we visited Istanbul, a city that has undergone a fascinating transformative period, from an ancient settlement situated within the Bosphorus bay area to a massive urban agglomeration. Home to one of the largest urban populations in the world, Istanbul is also a city of the small, the intimate and the specific. It is saturated with intricate passageways, makeshift structures, vibrant communities and unique experiences. However, fast paced urban development, population growth, infrastructure failure and transforming economic realities postulate an ever-changing landscape. The city lacks green spaces and its connectivity to nature is fragile. There is a need to rethink traditional urban patterns and environmental responsiveness as a bottom-up approach from an architectural, interstitial scale. Informed by the first project and subsequent field trip investigations, students were required to synthesise the overall brief agenda into a complete building proposal. The design process started with a series of speculative spatial analyses derived from specific sites within the city centre. These analyses evolved through the appropriation of various environmental and infrastructural problems that are characteristic of the site, its immediate surroundings and wider urban context. Developing an element of environmental responsiveness through the fusion of space, structure and surface was of particular importance as it informed an ecologically sound and interstitial relationship between inside/ building and outside/nature. Students were expected to further their research into various social and cultural influences that translated directly into complex internal programmes and spatial organisations. The project culminated in fully functioning architectural propositions that are well integrated into the urban, social and natural environment.