Digital Manual by Guan Lee and Daniel Widrig

Bartlett Design Research Folios

Guan Lee Daniel Widrig Digital Manual

GUAN LEE AND DANIEL WIDRIG

DIGITAL MANUAL

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BARTLETT DESIGN RESEARCH FOLIOS

Guan Lee Daniel Widrig Digital Manual

CONTENTS

1 (previous) View of the entrance to Code-Bothy.

The laser-cut stainlesssteel lintel is clearly visible.

2 Back of ‘chair design one’, assembled with large-scale recycled-ABS SUP components.

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Project Details

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Statement about the Research Content and Process

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Introduction

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Aims and Objectives

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Questions

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Context

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Methodology

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Dissemination

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Project Highlights

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Bibliography

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Related Publications

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Project Details Title

Digital Manual

Author

Guan Lee

Co-author Daniel Widrig Practice

All projects were carried out under the umbrella of Material Architecture Laboratory, directed by Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig and Adam Holloway

Collaborating Architect

Piercy & Company (Code-Bothy)

Output Type

Design and built installations

Main Projects

Balustrade Garden (2019) Code-Bothy (2019 to 2020) Digital Manual (2019)

SUP (2018, ongoing) Solo Exhibitions Code-Bothy, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (forthcoming 2021) SUP: Keys to Design and Making, Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury (forthcoming 2021) Digital Manual, The Aram Gallery, London (2019) Group Exhibitions

Unnatural, High Wycombe Chair Making Museum, High Wycombe (forthcoming 2021) Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020, La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris (2019) Brompton Biotopia: Nature Scenes, London Design Festival, London (2019) Hand Held to Super Scale: Building with Ceramics, Building Centre, London (2019)

External Partners Bucks and Thames Valley Local Enterprise Partnership, Bucks County Museum, St John’s C of E Primary School (SUP), Brompton Design District/South Kensington Estates, Jane Withers Studio (Balustrade Garden) Commissioner

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Code-Bothy)

Research Assistants

Changjian Jia, Rachel Jones, Teng Wang

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PROJECT DETAILS

Fabrication CNC Stone Milling, Grymsdyke Farm, Jianye Mould Make, Tany Foundry Structural Engineer

Tim Lucas, Price & Myers

Fologram Consultants

Hanjun Kim, SoomeenHahm Design

Bricklaying Consultant

David Hussey

Prop Maker and Resin Specialist

Martin Hanson, Wimbledon College

Urban Ecologist and Scientific Advisor on Habitat Materials

Rob Francis, King’s College London

Hemp-Fibre Consultant

Steve Barron, Margent Farm

Landscape Architect

Jamie Hunt, Edit Landscape Design

Metal Casting with Sand Mould

Swan Foundry

Grant

£2,800 The Bartlett Architecture Project Fund (APF)

Funders Brompton Design District/South Kensington Estates, Bucks County Museum, Grymsdyke Farm, UCL APF, Yorkshire Sculpture Park Construction Costs £10,000 Balustrade Garden; £20,000 Code-Bothy; £40,000 Digital Manual; £20,000 MAL Furniture; £100,000 SUP; £35,000 Attachment Total Cost

£225,000

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Statement about the Research Content and Process Description

Methodology

This research argues for the place of human skill in an increasingly automated manufacturing industry. It explores ways for strengthening the interdependence and mutual benefits between manual craft and digital production. Through a series of built projects, the research investigates methods of fabrication using composite materials and new ways of manufacturing architectural components. These hybrid design and fabrication techniques make computation design more accessible and relatable to nonspecialist users.

1. Research trips to digital or craft-based art and architecture fabricators, including metal forging, casting, stone carving and brick laying, in the UK, Europe and China; 2. Computation design, 1:1 prototyping, digital programming and use of augmented reality (AR) technology; 3. Working with materials directly through trial and error and empirical experimentation; 4. Interdisciplinary workshops and exhibitions with educational institutions, museums, architects, craftspeople and artists.

Questions

1. What are the key differences between traditional/manual and digital/ computational workflows in the context of digital fabrication?

Dissemination

The research has featured in one solo exhibition (The Aram Gallery, London) with another postponed to 2021 (Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury). It has been included in three group shows (Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, London Design Festival and Building Centre, London).

The work has featured in an article in Cubic Journal and another in Architecture Today, alongside numerous online pieces about the exhibitions. It has been the subject of eight lectures and conference participations.

2. What is the role of hands-on production in the context of automation?

3. How can feedback loops be established between digital and manual modes of production to harness the best of both?

4. How can material research be more sustainable for the environment and for manual crafts?

5. What is the role of empirical testing in the age of digital simulation?

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STATEMENT ABOUT THE RESEARCH CONTENT AND PROCESS

Project Highlights

Five objects from Digital Manual at The Aram Gallery were selected for Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020 at La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, a group exhibition showcasing iconic architectural designs between 1960 and 2020.

Subsequently, the research led to building a permanent inhabitable construction, CodeBothy, commissioned by Yorkshire Sculpture Park. SUP was developed for an educational programme, the first of which took place at St John’s C of E Primary School, Princes Risborough in 2020. Going forward, the authors plan for a county-wide programme in collaboration with Buckinghamshire Council, engaging school pupils with the research.

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Introduction

Different projects were developed to represent specific ways of working between hand and digital tools. This research illustrates a shift in design and production methodology, readable across multiple projects at different scales.

Architecture is made at different scales: in situ and prefabricated in factories. Manual work is still a key part of the construction industry, alongside advances in digital manufacturing and automation. This research speculates on a hybrid form of production, which highlights neither digital or manual but a new way of thinking and working in architectural design production. With the advent of computerisation, the difference between digital and manual has often been crudely opposed: self-generating geometries are set against wilful formal constructions; digital code-driven productions against hand-operated tools; painless automation against laborious toil; or, simply, robot against human. Digital Manual challenges this opposition, creating a paradigm in which manual production and digital automation work together to allow for the conservation of crafts while integrating technological advances. It proposes that digital fabrication is improved with the help of manual craftsmanship and engages with sustainable materials to form a new mode of production.

Hybridity is compelling because the digital is perceived as the future/emergent, while the manual is the past/obsolescent.

Whatever the digital future holds, it is unlikely that the human element of design, particularly in the field of architecture, will completely disappear. One can engage with digital modelling software or make and design by hand, but can we work in between?

What kind of questions are relevant if straddling these territories is central to our project? Digital Manual consciously revolves around the hand- and machine-made, viewing design as procedural and systematic yet textural and indexical. Handmade objects leave behind distinctive traces not replicable with machines.

SUP

SUP looks at ways to work with plastic, to make designs that are both multiuse and reconfigurable. A number of modular building components were made using ‘S’, ‘U’ and ‘P’ shapes that can be endlessly reconfigured.

These shapes were extracted from the Hilbert Curve’s folded geometry: a fractal curve that can be folded infinitely to fill a volume. SUP’s components can either be joined end to end or interlocked into complex blocks. It has the potential to be used as an educational toy with endless permutations, akin to Lego, with the user naturally trying to see what fits.

While digital processes were used to design the system, it can also be approached manually without any specialist knowledge.

3 ‘Chair design two’, assembled using largescale recycled nylon SUP components.

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Code-Bothy

of cavities for planting; and adaptive geometry for different built environments.

All the balustrades are produced as panels, hand-pressed onto digitally manufactured moulds. The materials used for construction were mainly different mixes of hemp fibre and lime mortar.

Code-Bothy is a brick pavilion. The first was built at Grymsdyke Farm in Buckinghamshire in 2020, while the second is to be constructed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2021. A bothy is an unlocked shelter that provides rest for walkers. The ‘Bothy Code’ urges users to care for the structure and to be mindful of its surrounding environment.

The project inverts the Bothy Code to highlight the reciprocity of different processes. It employs bricklaying using jigs and both physical and virtual guides, including the augmented reality headset Microsoft HoloLens. Of course, one cannot physically touch digital bricks, but it is possible to take a real brick and put it in place of a virtual one. All the information about structure and geometry is held in the digital model, so the bricklayer only needs to focus on positioning the bricks and the quality of the finish.

Balustrade Garden

Balustrade Garden started with experiments using natural materials to construct small structures for animals. The experimentations are grounded in cyclical processes of making using natural fibres and bioplastic. A focus of this project was exploring how a suitable binder can be used for external applications.

The project envisions how protective and decorative railings on balconies and terraces can promote diversity of insect species in an urban environment using biodynamic insectaria. The balustrade design is modular and reproducible, and focuses on three key aspects: textures and porosities; pockets

4 View of Balustrade Garden installed on top of Fernandez & Wells in South Kensington during London Design Festival 2019.

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INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

Other Works

This research has been developed through a number of other projects, including a series of furniture selected for the group exhibition Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020 at Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris and the solo exhibition Digital Manual at Aram Gallery in London. Lionel Blaisse, curator of the exhibition in Paris, picked four pieces of furniture by Material Architecture Lab to represent the current and contemporary design direction. The Aram Gallery’s curator Riya Patel selected not only finished pieces but also fragments and material experiments.

Attachment, a forthcoming permanent intervention on a column of a new building in Mayfair, London, extends this research by experimenting with the composition of the column in contemporary construction.

Columns are iconic as much as they are indispensable in architecture, from the solid marble of various Greek orders to the modernist piloti. Attachment highlights and expresses the external film of the column as a material with morphological and tectonic properties.

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5 SUP at Digital Manual, The Aram Gallery, 2019.

6 Attachment is a permanent polished stainless-steel installation on CNC-milled stone cladding at 61 Curzon Street, London.

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Aims and Objectives

Questions

1. Experiment with design production, working like a craftsperson to transgress the boundaries between digitally- and materially-led skill-based design;

1. What are the key differences between traditional/manual and digital/ computational workflows in the context of digital fabrication?

2. Devise experimental techniques of digital fabrication that use human input as key parameters to disrupt the technical predictability of machine-made objects;

Traditional workflow is based on manual operations designed to be followed by skilled workers. Digital fabrication replaces human operations with numeric input. Digitally controlled operations are transferable from one machine to another with fewer perceivable discrepancies. This practice-based research challenges these boundaries to explore hybrid workflows.

3. Find new materials through manually configured digital patterns and designs.

2. What is the role of hands-on production in the context of automation?

The way that architectural fabric is designed is intimately related to its production and fabrication methods. There are operations that are more effective if carried out manually and same vice versa, yet a fully automated production line is not yet practicable. This research looks at designing manual processes into digital manufacturing construction phases, recognising that a hands-on element in making is as much a question of design aesthetics as efficiency.

3. How can feedback loops be established between digital and manual modes of production to harness the best of both?

Machines and humans can learn from each other’s operations. A skilled craftsperson has the ability to continually incorporate feedback from tools and materials.

By incorporating more accurate feedback, programming can predict and circumvent

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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES / QUESTIONS

issues in production. Familiarity with machine production can enhance the ability of a skilled craftsperson in isolating critical information for design input.

4. How can material research be more sustainable for the environment and for manual crafts?

Green design strategies and material performance targets must emphasise the ways in which architecture can mitigate local resource depletion, global climate change and environmental degradation. Hybrid modes of digital-manual production can lead to novel material processes and sustainable composite materials. Working sustainably also means practicing and testing design fabrication at a variety of scales, from furniture to architecture.

5. What is the role of empirical testing in the age of digital simulation?

Traditional crafts develop over a long period of time and use locally available materials.

The refinement of production techniques results from the prolonged observation of their performance and cannot be easily simulated. Empirical tests can be more effective if they are designed into production digitally.

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Context

to the point where bodily movements are ingrained and the process of making becomes automatic. If robots can be programmed to do the same without extensive practice and time, why would we continue to lay bricks by hand?

Programmed Wall and Pike Loop were designed to be sculptural, in order to show the potential of a robot versus a mason. For Gramazio and Kohler, walls built by robots can afford an infinite number of design configurations and patterns without ‘extra effort’ (Gramazio and Kohler 2016). Unlike the brick layer, the robot has the ability to position each brick in a different way without optical reference or measurement. The overall wall designs, therefore, have unique spatial disposition and procedural logic, but they do not perform any differently to the wall made by hand. This sets up a key position for Digital Manual: that the added value is in the design aspect. For example, a wall can be assembled with more geometrical compositions and optimised for structure, porosity, performance and design language.

Digital Manual also proposes that there is added social value in maintaining a balanced human and automated workforce. The project acknowledges the social and economic implication of industrial realities but introduces practices such as craft, design and decorative art as equally vital considerations. David Pye, a professor of furniture design at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s and 70s, presented a clear distinction in his book The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968) between made by hand with risk and made by machine with certainty.

Workmanship for Pye is making that employs ‘any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgement, dexterity, and care which the maker exercises as he works’ (Pye 1968). Departing from this rigid characterisation, Digital Manual explores

Digital Manual was conceived in the context of the perceived threat posed by automation to the manual crafts. It was influenced by sociologist and philosopher Richard Sennett’s argument in The Craftsman (2008) that working with our hands is fundamental to humans and our desire to make things well is innate. Yet while acknowledging that digital fabrication has marginalised the crafts, does it follow that manual skills will disappear altogether?

The threat to manual workmanship has been a key concern from the industrialisation of the eighteenth century to the digital revolution of the twentieth century. The industrial era saw a powerful argument emerge in defence of craftspeople of all kinds, who in the words of William Morris were needed to elevate the purely utilitarian from ‘ugly’ to ‘beautiful’. In Morris’ view, ‘applied art’, meaning an ‘ornamental quality which men choose to add to articles of utility’, was vital to dignify design in a mechanised age; craftspeople such as ‘the mason, the joiner, the cabinet-maker, the carver’ remain essential (Morris 1901).

In the same way that industrialisation threatened craft production in the nineteenth century, so too does contemporary digital fabrication threaten manual crafts today. In architecture, trades such as bricklaying are supposedly headed for obsolescence. In 2006, Swiss architects Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler led a research project entitled Programmed Wall, which constructed a brick wall with an industrial robotic arm. Three years later, they constructed a brick wall in situ, Pike Loop.

These two events made the demise of bricklaying seem inevitable. According to Sennett, the craftsperson’s skills are developed over time with continued practice,

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CONTEXT

design manufacture as always involving varying degrees of risk and certainty. It rejects the romanticisation of hand-crafted work and maintains its relevance in an age of automation. Ensuring that future generations of makers can continue to lay bricks and render walls by hand is an issue of social sustainability.

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7 View of Code-Bothy’s oculus, 2020.

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Methodology

These digitally modelled designs can be hammered into their metallic equivalent under the skilful hands of artists in the workshop. Experienced craftspeople subdivide given geometries into segments to be formed, welded and polished. Each step of this process requires years of training and practice. This is the opposite of de-skilling due to the introduction of digital technology, as the fabricators decipher details of production. One can argue that this is an effective way to sustain manual skills through a collaboration between digital and hand modelling. A visit to see the craftspeople at work allowed for a deeper understanding of how digital designs can be approached by respecting both the limitations and boundaries of a craft.

1. Research trips to digital or craft-based art and architecture fabricators, including metal forging, casting, stone carving and brick laying, in the UK, Europe and China

Different fabrication experiments and prototypes involving digital tools such as robotic arms and CNC milling were explored at Grymsdyke Farm in Buckinghamshire. Experienced brick layers like David Hussey, mould makers like Martin Hanson, carpenters and several material scientists visited the farm to instruct and oversee projects.

Collaborations were formed with foundries and manufacturers in China to understand the scaling-up of processes. Exchanges of skill and research took place in design and fabrication institutions, including: · ETH Zurich. A leading institution in robotic fabrication and digital technology; · Factum Arte, Madrid, Milan and London.

The company has a research wing on advanced 3D scanning and art conservation; · Jianye Mould Maker, YuYao. The manufacturer uses both digital and traditional methods for plastic injection mould manufacturing; · Swan Foundry, Banbury. One of the UK’s few remaining sand-casting facilities · Tany Foundry, Hangzhou. Specialising in the fabrication of large-scale public art, this foundry works with digital technology and traditional fabrication techniques.

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Attachment references a fabrication process studied at Tany Foundry in Hangzhou. The foundry specialises in forming metal sheets to a digital model.

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METHODOLOGY

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8–9 Polishing station for cast bronze objects at Tany Foundry, China.

10 View of a 3D-printed sculpture at the workshop of Factum Arte, Madrid.

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11 A custom-made 3D scanner at Factum Arte.

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12 Martin Phillips, owner of Swan Foundry, Banbury, examining a CNC-milled timber mould for casting sand.

13 Sand moulds ready for casting in iron.

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METHODOLOGY

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14 Polishing of welded stainless steel sculpture at Tany Foundry, Hangzhou.

15 Polished bronze sculpture ready for final application of finishing at Tany Foundry, Hangzhou.

16 Welding of stainless steel sculpture at Tany Foundry, Hangzhou.

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2. Computation design, 1:1 prototyping, digital programming and use of augmented reality (AR) technology

Piercy & Company and Material Architecture Lab (MAL) at UCL set up a pilot research programme called Making and Practice. The idea is to pair an established architects’ practice with a material and fabrication-based research programme to design and realise a structure at 1:1 scale. As a collaborative platform, MAL’s interests in material are mediated through experimentation with current advances in computation design and digital fabrication, and also applicability testing utilising live projects in the construction industry. Two research assistants, Changjian Jia and Teng Wang, spent a month at Piercy & Company and another at Grymsdyke Farm learning bricklaying from chief bricklayer David Hussey. The programme was grounded in a process of making prototypes with rigorous and iterative refinements of design and digital and manual models.

SUP’s goal was to design a building system using modular components. Digital tools were used in combination with physical prototyping to design and test combinatory options. The system has unlimited possibilities for what can be made, from a toy to an architectural structure. While SUP is made up of modular components, it is also multiscalar, meaning different sized components can link together. Digital processes were used to design the system and some potential outcomes, but it could also be approached manually without specialist knowledge. It is simple enough for intuitive play as the assembly and disassembly require no tools, adhesive or mechanical connectors.

17 Front of ‘chair design one’, assembled using large-scale recycled-ABS SUP components.

18 (overleaf) ‘Stool design one’, assembled using middle-scale recycled-ABS SUP components.

19 (overleaf) ‘Stool design two’, assembled using small-scale recycled-ABS SUP components.

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METHODOLOGY

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Most discrete architectural design systems are built using either nodal connections or flat faces stacked up in grids. SUP, however, explores a component system based primarily on interlocking joints, which allows for stable standardisation without losing expressive design potential. The components can be digitally generated to fill any volume.

Conditional rules allow them to be used expressively to design large, complex, architectural spaces.

The research for Code-Bothy examined the relationship between manual and digital assembly using the standardised brick.

An assembly method based on mixed-reality technology was employed for the construction. The Bothy was designed using parametric modelling tools. The result is a brick structure that is challenging, if not impossible, for a skilled bricklayer to set-out and build without some kind of digital aid.

Bricklayers were equipped with wearable technology – the mixed reality smartglasses Microsoft HoloLens – that allowed them to combine traditional skills with digital placement capabilities to build the computation design. ‘Code’ thus comprises both written laws for the use of a Bothy and computer language for its design and fabrication.

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20 Hanjun Kim realigning the bricks after the pointing process with mortar for Code-Bothy, 2020.

21 Construction site for Code-Bothy, which needed to be covered on sunny days to allow for the person using the HoloLens to be able to see the digital model.

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METHODOLOGY

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22 Hanjun Kim positioning the bricks before application of mortar, Code-Bothy, 2020.

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23 David Hussey using Microsoft HoloLens to position the first layer of bricks for the Bothy.

24 (overleaf) Exterior view of the Bothy and the incremental rotation of the brick arrangement. The design pattern is clear with the help of direct sunlight and the shadows cast by the protruding bricks.

METHODOLOGY

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25 (previous) View inside Code-Bothy, 2020.

The small openings are a design feature.

26 Code-Bothy in the paddock at Grymsdyke Farm, 2020.

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METHODOLOGY

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27–8 View through the HoloLens showing the digital model of CodeBothy superimposed on the physical structure.

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29 Screen capture of the Fologram software showing the interaction between the bricks and the person in charge of positioning them.

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3. Working with materials directly through trial and error and empirical experimentation

The authors worked with a variety of materials, traditional and hybrid, and employed digital fabrication techniques and manual operations in testing them.

The aim is that these materials can then be scaled-up or further developed for exhibitions or commissions.

The experiments were conducted for Balustrade Garden and for furniture featured in exhibitions in London and Paris.

The chosen materials are underused, recycled raw materials or industrial waste.

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30 (previous) View of Code-Bothy’s oculus, 2020.

31 Silicon mould for a 3D-printed part of Balustrade Garden, 2019.

32 Testing the assembly of Balustrade Garden at Grymsdyke Farm, 2019.

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METHODOLOGY

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Weaving Coir This research looked at new uses for coir – coconut husk fibre – which is an abundant waste product. The aim was to investigate its potential as a surface material by combining fibres with a natural starch-based binder, which was then applied to a fabric’s surface by hand to give it a new visual language.

The finished object is much stronger than its constituent parts, with a robust shell that hardens when it dries.

One of the larger tests was a prototype coir chair with a digitally produced substructure. The inside of the chair was made from polystyrene spheres, drilled with a robotic arm at precise points. The spheres were connected point-to-point by rods and the whole assembly was covered by fabric.

In this project, both the design and the fabrication technique were digital. The structure was modelled beforehand using a script that mimics the flow of fibres around an object: a space-filling curve that can be described as a continuous mapping from a lower- to a higher-dimensional space. This was adjusted to see the overall texture and visual effect; fibres were then hand-applied layer by layer to resemble the digital creation.

In this way, final objects are assembled based on digital information rather than being sculpted. The intention is that this methodology could be used where coir is produced, instead of shipping it from tropical countries to factories internationally.

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33-5 Woven coir structures modelled using a script.

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METHODOLOGY

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Sand Printing

contrasting sides. The inner side has a clear impression of the robotic arm’s movements and looks like a digitally produced object, while the outer has a rough texture that reflects the process of applying sand by hand. In this way, these products are literal embodiments of digital and manual methods.

This project engaged 3D printing with sand, not as a means to reproduce a digital model but to allow the printing process to create a language of its own.

Initial tests were made by combining sand with a liquid binder. A dispenser filled with the binder was attached to a robotic arm, which was digitally controlled according to a script, and traced predetermined lines and patterns into a sand bed. The binder set in a few hours according to where it had touched the sand; where two lines crossed, a stronger bond was formed.

To achieve more structural integrity, the lines of sand can be designed to cross over each other several times. The advantage of using the robotic arm is that the same object can be made again, allowing similar objects to be assembled; unlike casting, however, they cannot be made identical.

Although the same script is followed each time, the way the binder interacts with the sand can’t be precisely controlled. This gives the objects an uneven, handmade quality, even though they are digitally produced. So far, the method has been used to make a prototype screen, a column and a chair.

In parallel, the density of a sand object was also explored. If printed very thin, sand has the potential to transmit light.

A series of experiments was carried out using thin layers of sand mixed with a binder to produce a translucent sheet material.

This was also done with digitally created moulds using scripts based on natural sand formations. The robotic arm carves flowing formations into moulds made of reusable polystyrene. The sand coating is manually applied to the base object, which is later removed, leaving just a thin translucent shell with textures and two

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36 Six-axis robotic arm carving a mould for sand casting at Grymsdyke Farm.

37 3D-printed chair made with injections into sand using a sixaxis robotic arm.

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4. Interdisciplinary workshops and exhibitions with educational institutions, museums, architects, craftspeople and artists

lead a lesson or set out activities for the children’. This is to allow for ‘open-ended, self-determined True Play’ (Anji Play 2020).

We also looked at the work of play designer and professor of industrial design at Rhode Island School of Design, Cas Holman. Of particular interest was Rigamajig, a large-scale building kit inspired by industrial hardware for hands-on free play and learning. The design language of Rigamajig is paired back with minimal detail so that children can decide how they want to play. This thinking can be applied to the design language of SUP. The components are tonal but colourless, which allows for children to project their own ideas onto them.

Bucks and Thames Valley Local Enterprise Partnership (BTVLEP) are key partners in Buckinghamshire County Council’s Cultural Strategy for the county that ‘explores how creativity and culture can add to and enhance quality of life for the people that live and work here’ (Buckinghamshire Culture 2020).

Through guidance and cooperation with Buckinghamshire County Council, the forthcoming exhibition at Bucks County Museum, SUP: Keys to Design and Making, aims to support the County Council’s cultural agenda.

The researchers collaborated with St John’s C of E Primary School in Princes Risborough and Bucks County Museum for an exhibition, SUP: Keys for Design and Play (postponed to 2021). A programme of workshops was designed for Year Five pupils to explore and identify SUP as a toy and an educational design tool, highlighting the value of play. These workshops were led by Grymsdyke Farm’s artist in residence, Rachel Jones. The participants were provided with a set of SUP components, which varied from session to session. The students were given prompts rather than instructions, which allowed them to use SUP however they liked. Collaboration was encouraged through a series of exercises in which the groups worked individually for the first half of the session, before connecting their creations with those by the other groups.

There were several opportunities for the children to reflect on their creations and to draw and discuss what they had made and what they might like to make in future sessions.

Discussions and workshops were key to the curation of the exhibition at Bucks County Museum. The workshop structure was adapted from the V&A Young Curators Teaching Session, a framework for young children to learn about working in a museum, particularly as a curator. When designing the workshops, we looked to the methods and ideas of the play-based curriculum Anji Play: ‘teachers do not structure, guide or direct the activities or outcomes of the child’s experience during play. This means that you will not see Anji Play teachers actively

38–9 Children at St John’s C of E Primary School playing with SUP components.

40 SUP table extension.

41 SUP roller coaster.

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42 (overleaf) Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020, Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris, 2019.

METHODOLOGY

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Dissemination

Lectures

The project was published in an article by Guan Lee and Daniel Widrig in the doubleblind peer-reviewed Cubic Journal (2020), see pp. 90–119. It has featured in Architecture Today (2020), see pp. 84–9, and in various online articles and reviews, including on the Buckinghamshire Culture website.

Guan Lee and Daniel Widrig have spoken about the project at six lectures and conferences: · Craft Council, London (2020) · Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury (2020) · London Design Festival (2019) · The University of Edinburgh, keynote (2019) · The Bartlett, UCL (2019 and 2017) · Milan Design Week (2018)

Solo Exhibitions

New Commission

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The research has led to the commission of a permanent installation, entitled Attachment, on a new building at 61 Curzon Street, London (February 2021). It is the winning scheme of an invited competition organised by Audley Property Management.

Publications

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Code-Bothy, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (forthcoming 2021) SUP: Keys for Design and Play, Bucks County Museum, Aylesbury (forthcoming 2021) Digital Manual, The Aram Gallery, London (2019)

Group Exhibitions

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Unnatural, High Wycombe Chair Making Museum (forthcoming 2021) Brompton Biotopia: Nature Scenes, London Design Festival (2019) Hand Held to Super Scale: Building with Ceramics, Building Centre, London (2019) Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020, La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris (2019)

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DISSEMINATION / PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Project Highlights Guan Lee and Daniel Widrig’s research employs a mixture of digital and manual techniques. It claims specific ground in design research that values human skill in contemporary processes of fabrication and engages school pupils in this field. Two significant exhibitions in London and Paris, featuring many of the initial outcomes, have been followed by a permanent and inhabitable construction, Code-Bothy, commissioned by Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

SUP involves the initiation of an educational programme at St John’s C of E Primary School, Princes Risborough. Going forward, there are 22 classes from 12 schools and colleges scheduled in the vicinity that will participate in workshops to run in parallel with exhibitions around Buckinghamshire County, reaching approximately 330 children and young people annually.

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43

43 Packaging for SUP Sit and Play kit.

44 Sit and Play social media publicity by Johannes Spitzer.

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DISSEMINATION / PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

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Bibliography Anji Play (2020). A Parents and Advocates Guide to Anji Play.

[Viewed 19 October 2020]. www.anjiplay.com/guide Buckinghamshire County Council (2020).

Buckinghamshire Culture.

[Viewed 19 October 2020]. https://buckinghamshireculture. wordpress.com/cultural-strategy/ Gramazio, F. and Kohler, M. (2016). Gramazio Kohler. [Viewed 20 October 2020]. https://gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/ web/e/about/index.html Holman, C. (2020). Rigamajig.

[Viewed 19 October 2020]. www.rigamajig.com/ Morris, W. (1901). Art and Its Producers, and The Arts and Crafts of To-day: Two Addresses Delivered Before the National Association for the Advancement of Art. London: Longmans & Co. Pye, D. (1968). The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge University Press.

Sennett, R. (2008). The Craftsman.

New Haven: Yale University Press.

V&A (2013). Young Curators Teaching Session.

[Viewed 19 October 2020]. www.vam.ac.uk/moc/wp-content/ uploads/2016/03/YOUNG-CURATORSTEACHING-SESSION_f307936d7288c717e 5cb9401c0d15022.pdf

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BIBLIOGRAPHY / RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Related Publications by the Researchers Lee, G. and Widrig, D. (2019). Digital Manual. The Aram Gallery exhibition leaflet.

Lee, G. (2020). ‘Code-Bothy’. Architecture Today. 309. pp. 62–6.

Lee, G. and Widrig, D. (2020). ‘Making a Case for Modularity’.

Cubic Journal. 3. pp. 76–103.

Lee, G. and Widrig, D. (2020). Project Digital Manual: SUP: Keys to Design and Making. Bucks County Museum exhibition leaflet.

Related Writings by Others Blanchard, C. (2019). ‘Cité de l’architecture Archi Design’.

Art & Décoration. September. pp. 27–8.

Castelnau, M-L. (2019). ‘Cité de l’architecture du Patrimoine’.

La Gazette de l’Hôtel Druot. 28 June. p. 184.

Couacaud, J. (2019). ‘Les Desseins du Mobilier d’architecte’.

Intramuros. 200. pp. 22–6.

El Omari, H. (2019). ‘Le Mobilier d’architectes, 1960–2020’.

D’Architectures. pp. 12–3.

La Croix (2019). ‘Chasse aux Chaises Design’. La Croix. 24 June. p. 18.

Lorelle, V. (2019). ‘Des Architectes Bien dans Leurs Meubles’.

Le Monde. 20 June. p. 27.

Oui, M. (2019). ‘A L’échelle de l’objet Domestique’. Amc. June. pp. 116–9.

Printed article

Online article (clickable link)

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Image Credits

Bartlett Design Research Folios

All images © Guan Lee, unless otherwise stated.

ISSN 2753-9822

1–3, 17–9, 30 Photo: Jack Spicer Adams

© 2022 The Bartlett School of Architecture. All rights reserved.

5, 34, 37 © NAARO 27–9 Screen capture: Hanjun Kim

Text © the authors

33 © Material Architecture Lab 38–41 Photo: Rachel Jones 43–4 Design: Johannes Spitzer

Founder of the series and lead editor: Yeoryia Manolopoulou Edited by Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Barbara Penner, Phoebe Adler Picture researcher: Sarah Bell Additional project management: Srijana Gurung Graphic design: Objectif Layout and typesetting: Siâron Hughes Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the material reproduced in this publication. If there have been any omissions, we will be pleased to make appropriate acknowledgement in revised editions.

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