Chris Brierley - Sample Portfolio

Chris

Lore of the Land

MArch 2 Thesis

p06-09

Hartopp & Lannoy Point

MArch 1 Professional Experience

p10 p03-05 p14 CO Housing

Thesis Overview

My thesis explores the relationship between architecture and the increasing privatisation of land. Whilst in the atelier ‘&Architecture’,I elected to utilise folklore as a framework of exploration for political and social justice with the aim of persuading the Minister for Rural Affairs to open his 14,000-acre estate to the public.

Folklore Influence

My program and design is informed by a fictitious folklore I made-up based the history of Englefield Estate, the home of the Minister for Rural Affairs, whom I’m considering my anti-client, and a pre-existing folklore with narrative around unjust land ownership. The folklore was then developed by passing it from person to person, distilling the narrative of rights and wrongs around unjust land ownership to it’s purest form.

https://vimeo.com/916523622?share=copy

Layered Set Model

Charcole & Phototransfer Scroll of the Rambler’s Journey

91.94116593841724%

Method & Program

I hope to change the historical injustices of aristocratic land ownership of Englefield Estate via the secretive erection of a ‘theatre of trespass’. This proposal will be built using scrap materials and act as a back staging area. Through doing this I will create a narrative where the Minister of State for Climate, Environment and Energy believes his estate is haunted, due to the covert re-enactment of the bespoke folklore, enabled by my architectural proposal. With the end goal of compelling the Minister to open his estate to the local community, to rid it of the evil spirit haunting it, the Old Crockern.

Ink Axonometric

CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY STOP MOTION PROPOSAL

Project Overview

This project was done in a pair whilst in the atelier ‘Some Kind of Nature’. The brief was to create a co-housing scheme on a brownfield site, the proposal should provide shared living facilities and create communal space for local residents both human and non-human.

Guiding Concepts

Utilising ecocriticism as a guiding theory throughout this project and site was carefully explored to generate a program of closed loop existence that allowed humans and our selected non-human client, to live sustainably together. Myself and my partner adopted Geese, Moss and decomposers as our non-human clients.

Proposed Site Axonometric

Existing Site Photomontage

Noise Tram Station & community hub as area is redeveloped

Canal & Manchester heritage connection to waterays

Building of signifigance - red brick industrial building with asthetic heritagev ties to industrial Manchester

Building of signifigance

back-to-back

Topography from SE to NW

- quite steep slope

site

Residential Design

The proposal was designed with a repeating typology of paired blocks that built on the town house aesthetic. Each paired block featured between 7-5 flats of varying mixtures. We designed the top two floors be modular, thus allowing for a varied of occupant numbers.

Facade Hierarchy Ideology

We were informed by the concept of chance encounters, pairing front doors and having strong natural surveillance to create moments where neighbours of the proposal would bump into oneanother, to build a strong community network through our architectural design.

Historical Retention

Generating a community feel was a huge driver of this project and we believed in order to do this, we should retain some of this historic character on site via a retrofit proposal. Inspired by ‘Gramby Four Street’ by Assemble Studio.

Retrofit Functionality

We elected to strip out all internal walls of the existing terrace houses and make them into a shared kitchen, lounge, workspace, washing facilities and greenhouse. Thus providing opportunity for regular meals, collaborative working, gardening, shared washing facilities, community classes and generally increased socialisation and potential for up-skilling residents of this co-housing scheme.

Existing Terrace House Axo

Proposed Terrace House Axo

Historical Photomontage of Existing Street bordering site

Project Introduction

I have worked on this social housing Passivhaus scheme from RIBA stage 0 to it’s present stage of technical design. The scheme will be operationally carbon zero, has won a 2023 Inside Housing Development award, and most importantly will provide much needed high-quality sustainable homes to the resident of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Brief & Number of Homes

The scheme will provide 134 homes across 7 floors in varied 1, 2, 3 and duplex 3 bed units, 10% of which will be designed for wheelchair users. The design process was unique due to the local council’s ambitious sustainability strategy,and use of a co-production design approach.

Sustainability

The scheme aims to achieve its sustainability target via strong hierarchy of facade openings, thus preventing overheating, intelligently coordinated MEP, use of PV panels to create on-site energy and a considered thermal envelope.

HERE TO WATCH VIDEO FLY THROUGH

Proposed Street Scene Render

This project creates live-work spaces for the traveling artist in shared dorms or private residences with a studio. Planned to amplify the existing creative community on-site, the scheme adopts the concept of refuge and outlook, hoping to create chance encounters between artists. It is a retrofit project of grade 2 listed mill and provides the local community with a public gallery space, shop front and shared workshop space.

Design Process

During this project I was inspired heavily by Byre and the Garett by Hugo Hardy, an award winning retrofit for an artist. During the design process I utilised physical models to careful consider use of materials, solar shading and light entry to create a tranquil and communal feel throughout the building, whilst providing good lighting for artists and mitigate chance of overheating. This development through model making led me to be a finalist in the B.15 model making awards.

Massing 1

Massing 2

Massing 3

Final Massing

Jesmonite Existing and Proposed Timbre Facade Model

Plaster & Timbre Chimney retrofit as Birdhouse Concept

Brief

As a part of MSA live we worked with Birch Community Centre in South Manchester, I led a team of BA and MArch students and meticulously planned and managed the production of this 1:20 model, 1.5m x 0,9m in proportion. The brief of this model was to celebrate the beautiful timbre trusses and internal atmosphere of the historic building. Attracting funding to convert the present loft into usable space. Once this was done the trustees of the building hoped to get this building listed.

During the production of this model I learned a lot about human resource management, managing individuals workload and budgeting to client and workers comfort and ensuring a high-quality end product. The clients were thrilled with the model and we were fortunate to have an event to unveil the model in the Humanities Bridgeford Building, where one of the trustees studies in the 1970s. It was a very rewarding experience and the final build accurately and warmly portrayed the beauty of the historic building.

Internal Model Photograph

Roof Truss Photograph

External Model Photograph Internal

This undergraduate project looked to create a space for makers, a wood and metal workshop was positioned directly over a recycling centre, with storage contained for recycled assets placed in the neighbouring railway arches. The addition of a conveyor belt around the building provided makers the opportunity of upcycling furniture and household items before recycling. This was intended to upskill the deprived Brixton community and provide a funds generation that could be put back into local projects, this proposal led to me being nominated for the Riach prize for sustainability

Site Axonometric

Internal Concept Sketch

My time in Oxford had a profound architecture, art and the pleasures for the entirety of undergraduate year in Cowley, working in a

Whilst not studying or working methods of capturing it. I began film photography on a camera the goal of finding new ways historic city.

Cornmarket Street, Ink and Charcoal Sketch

New College Ln, Coloured Pencil and Ink Sketch

profound impact on my appreciation towards pleasures of the public spaces. I lived there undergraduate in Headington and then an additional pub, after graduating.

working I explored the city at length and began sketching and experimenting with camera I inherited from my Grandfather, with ways to capture my favourite spots of this

Film Photography of a Fishing Friend, Ashton’s Eyot

Film Photograph, Brasenose Ln

Film Photography, Magdalen Bridge

Chris Brierley

Sample Portfolio