UG11
Liquid Laboratory James Hampton, Sofia Krimizi
Year 2 Nour Al Ahmad, Alexandra Cambell, Rupinder Gidar, Nnenna Itanyi, Ziyu (Ivy) Jiang, Harry Johnson, Tung Yi Sardonna Leung, Fola-Sade (Victoria) Oshinusi, Zhi (Zoe) Tam, Ching (Cherie) Wong, Yu (Amy) Wu, Ke Yang Year 3 Yat (Heidi) Au-Yeung, Ana-Maria Ilusca, Justin Li The Bartlett School of Architecture 2016
We would like to thank our consultants and critics: Chris Carroll and ARUP, Costandis Kizis, Johanna Muszbek, Hseng Tai Ja Reng Lintner, Brendon Carlin, Francesca Hughes, Frederik Petersen, Sara Shafiei, Bob Sheil, Mollie Claypool, Elisabeth Dow, Yota Adilenidou, Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Stefanos Levidis, Diony Kypraiou, Daniel Rea, Nick Browne, Jessica In, Manolis Stavrakakis, Ifigenia Liangi, Cristiana Chiorino, the Pier Luigi Nervi Project Association and from ETH Zurich: Achilleas Xydis, Sarah Nichols, Guillaume Habert, Nils Havelka Thank you to our sponsors ARUP
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UG11 operates as a material research laboratory, pursuing strategies of making to design new spatial typologies. Through investigation of cast material processes we look for the strange, the banal and the beautiful. We cast concrete. Our process is driven by experimentation on alternative uses of material and our investigation is informed by data collection, measuring and analysis. The material experiments lead us in a constant feedback loop of design stages, physical models, digital aspirations and fabrication techniques. We engage with a process that welcomes material mis-use and misbehavior, aspiring to systematise knowledge garnered from failure. We examine the ways technology can push our material beyond established forms and types. By investigating recent concrete fabrication and structural methods, we discover unexpected and productive design processes, potentially defining a new craft; one that can be both morphogenic and typological and will respond to a variety of programmes. Concrete, the protagonist of cast building materials, becomes in the unit the vehicle to disrupt and redefine practices of architectural synthesis. The diversity of scales, design approaches and structural systems applied to our projects has a direct correlation with the protocols of fabrication developed in the beginning of our investigation into the world of cast materials. Our field trip adopted the format of a Grand Tour focused on concrete applications, building paradigms and prototypes as well as current material and theoretical research in the field. Starting in Rome, we visited some of the first applications of concrete in the history of architecture and engineering, as well as identifying the sites of operation for UG11 projects in the north part of the city in close proximity with the large-scale Olympic infrastructure, as well as the recent MAXXI Museum. Making our way north to Turin, we visited a series of Pier Luigi Nervi’s buildings, the FIAT Factory in Lingotto and the wild rehabilitation of the National Cinema Museum. Our itinerary took us to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) in order to explore contemporary research on concrete alternatives, dynamic formwork and automated casting. The last stretch of our trip to Switzerland took us to the Rolex Centre by SANAA in Lausanne before spending the night in the monastery of La Tourette, visiting Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp and ending in Basel with the Vitra Museum and the Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner’s own design for his school.