ELEVEN: Field Operations 2009

ELEVEN VOLUME ONE: FIELD OPERATIONS, guidelines for actions, definitions of measures, are laid down by countless authorities endeavoring to control the effects of ensuing events. Neither the rural nor urban landscape is immune to the advance of these nervous reactions as we aim to fix on the moving target of an uncertain future. Our culture is voracious in its consumption and production of data. Typically, questions and answers are provided by its statistical manipulation.

FIELD OPERATIONS ELEVEN VOLUME ONE JUNE 2009

In a climate of change an all-pervasive attitude for reassurance and need for definitive answers to anxious enquiries is unhelpfully fuelled by the endless collection and negotiation of data. This analysis and reliance on the vagaries of statistics masks the fact that interpreting data is not the same as proposing ideas. To propose ideas, speculate on the future, stimulate a curiosity for the strange, the odd and the unknown, we need to look at things in a new and different way.

FIELD OPERATIONS is a framework for contemporary lyrical architectural propositions that acknowledge the challenges that face contemporary society, the city and the landscape. The opposing terms of simulacrum and exemplar refer to the potential range and intention of our proposals and determine a context where superficial imitations or substitutes are required to determine a new paradigm, a perfect environment.

ELEVEN is a new periodical conceived by the staff and Post Graduate students of Unit 11 at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Unit 11 is a laboratory for counterprogrammes that will look at the hypothetical or physical notion of ‘modeling’ as a representation tool, as a systematic example to follow or simply as a description to assist predictions. For us, modeling in all its definitions, provides a framework where lines of enquiry are pursued through an iterative, inquisitive and imaginative process.

Laura Allen, Ana Monrabal-Cook and Mark Smout. www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk

“You can’t type letters in the Pantheon,” says Phillip Johnson in an archive interview recently posted to the Guggenheims website. It’s the last line in a comparison he is making between two big architectural spaces. First, the monumental, hyper-geometric space of the Pantheon and secondly, the beautiful, bureaucratic space of Frank Lloyd Wrights Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine, WI – a place explicitly designed to type letters in. While officious guards might have a problem with you setting up a desk in the Pantheon, it’s not physically impossible to write letters there, only unlikely.

LETTERS FROM THE PANTHEON FOREWORD BY SAM JACOB We can make a pretty good guess at the kind of letters written from the HQ of a global cleaning product company. But what might the content of letters from the Pantheon be?

We might imagine letters from the Pantheon to be something of another order, as the typist sits under the oculus of the most terrifyingly totalising space the history of architecture has produced. Despite what Johnson says (or even because of what Johnson says), the Pantheon is the perfect place to write letters – at least letters about architecture. These would be letters written from the deep heart of history and canon of architecture - but equally an act of transgression (at least in Johnsons eyes). Just like Tschumis ‘Adverts for Architecture’ (sample copy: “To experience architecture you may even need to commit murder: Murder in the street differs from murder in the cathedral in the same way love in the street differs from the Street of Love”), the act of typing in the Pantheon would be an architectural act itself. And the writing it might produce might be half overwhelmed by the sublime sci-fi singularity of the Pantheon.

Or buried deep in another time. But most of all, these letters would be the result of some strange speculative architectural act.

Of course, this is an elaborate metaphor to underline the importance of writing from front line, of what we might call ‘embedded criticism’, or writing as an architectural act in and of itself. It is markedly different from detached, professional critics, whose duty is to explain, be topical, contextualise – essentially a form of writing whose form is prescribed within the role of journalism.

That’s why we can argue - despite what Tafuri says - for the importance of architects writing their own histories, publishing their own agendas and documenting their own landscapes. By confusing (or fusing) production, reproduction and dissemination with the practice of architecture an expanded, speculative field opens up.

In this way, the model of fanzine as device for disseminating the work of The Bartlett’s Unit 11 is not only cynical self promotion (which is of course, to be applauded) but also a means of extending the research and developing the propositional qualities of its work.

The Czech town of Zlín was planned and realised by Tomáš Baťa in the early 20th century. Baťa, a celebrated industrialist primarily in shoe-making, established modern factories and housing for his staff, using new methods of mass production.

In the present day post-Communist Zlín, the factories that were once the driving engine for the growth of the town no longer operate, rendering Zlin’s original function obsolete. Dagmar Nora, a local Zlín architect believes that “You may find that Zlín is quite dead”. Modern day Zlín is attempting to reinvent itself as a university town.

Most of the town’s factory buildings lie dormant and its housing neighbourhoods, which were never intended to sustain their own existence, now serve as commuter suburbs for the surrounding environs.

ESCAPING LANDSCAPE THE NEW LOCAL MANIFESTO FOR ZLIN

BY MARGARET BURSA

Garden City design of the 1960s gives a precedent for design of the New Local Manifesto. Which proposes the urban within the suburban by designing a new layer of landscape interactions in the residential neighbourhood.

The Baťa landscape is reinvented while maintaining the peculiar uniformity of its past, the original fabric is overlaid by applying dual functions to some of the houses becoming semi-public commodities with new social spaces and access. The density of houses varies according to function and the contours of the landscape are reiterated by creating new layers and lines of communication.

The New Local, Zlin, Czech Republic

Rethinking Fun

The New Local Manifesto

Urban leisure is redefined in the daily routine by bringing small funscapes into the immediate loci such as pools, lakes, mountains and theatres.

New-life Patterns

Local amenities allow repose to be constantly integrated with everyday working life, taken in small regular doses rather than concentrated holidays.

This becomes an essential model for the future of carbon conservation.

Community

The proximity of home and leisure reintroduces the social aspect of Baťa—coemployees and mass housing through neighbourhood synergy.

Pleasure and Inspire

The new interactions for Zlín can become a model for the resurrection of a dying suburb.

The suburb may be unable to sustain its future existence in a conservationist and fuel deficient world.

The Illustrated Landscape

The function of the built form depicts the design as a narrative. The Moravian Mount spirals around the house to allow a procession path to accent and decent.

Elements of function bleed into the landscape both as real and imaginary natures; the river of fermentation flows into the distillery, becoming rifts of colour cutting through the landscape contours.

The Housing Community Moravian Mount [Kopec: COPP--etts}] Exercise track and lookout pavilion. Running, cycling, dog run and views. 1 per 17 dwellings.

Green House [Skleník: SKLEN--eek] Greenhouse and allotments. Cultivation fields and hop growing. 1 per 10 dwellings.

House of Drink [Hospoda: HOSS--pod--a[h]] Distillery, winery and house of consumption.

Vineyards flow into the River of Fermentation, plum orchard for Slivovic. Distillery and wine making season 4 months, 1 per 100 dwellings.

Bath House [Plovárna: PLOV--are-na[h]] Swimming pool, lake and beach. 1 per 7 dwellings.

Play House [Divadlo: JIV--add--lo[w]] Performance space, community hall. 1 per 56 dwellings.

Park House [Garáž: GA--rage] Garage at the end of the permitted vehicle road. 9 cars. 1 per 9 dwellings.

Store House [Krámek: KRARM--eck] General store and individual specialised section. 1 per 40 dwellings.

A House of Drink

Greenhouse

Following on from the previous project sited in Thamesmead, the project creates a series of translative models that simulate a dialogue with their architectural context creating a new architecture that is critical, by citing and embedding visual characteristics of its environment.

Each model was created in response to photographs of the previous model in situ. Inspired by camouflage in nature, this allowed the characteristics of the environment to be embedded into the next model—making it a translation or ‘simulacrum’ of the previous one.

THAMESMEDIAN SIMULACRUM AN ANTIPHONIC METHODOLOGY BY ERIN BYRNE

The elevations and spatial composition of the final model recall how Thamesmead’s strong formal and spatial composition create incidental apertures, causing transient patterning through light and shade. Therefore the final model becomes a small architectural environment with its own ‘incidental and contrived geometries’.

Using reflections and apertures that reveal its context: the environment within the model becomes saturated with images and visual references to its context, and previous models. It can be read as a new antiphonic environment or proposal borne out of a response to its context, but with an independent character of its own.

The tectonic language of planes, panels and junctions developed in the models yield new architectural spaces.

They represent a planar and tectonic translation of interwoven ‘found’ forms and colour, forming an architectural outcome of an interpretive ‘antiphonic’ language (an ‘antiphon’ being a response or reply).

In developing a set of iterative and translative models, a new interpretive architectural language was created with wider architectural implications: the potential for diverse spatial, material and experiential outcomes, for example, facade, tectonic and landscape conditions.

This project has been the documentation of the development of this ‘antiphonic’ process and its architectural implications and thus the process of creating a ‘simulacrum’ as an architectural methodology.

An interlocking vertical landscape

Antiphonic landscape

In December 2006 Mayor Michael R.Bloomberg “challenged New Yorkers to generate 10 key goals for the city’s sustainable future. New Yorkers in all five boroughs responded” and the results were presented in the form of PlaNYC, a manifesto for improving the city’s urban environment, a “model for cities in the 21st century.” 1 In 2007 the city of New York organised an international competition to find a team of designers who would be entrusted with the responsibility of transforming Governors Island, a 172 acre National Landmark in the middle of Upper New York Bay into the city’s second park, ‘The Park at the Centre of the World’. The winning scheme was announced in December of the same year, via a joint statement from the offices’ of the then Governor Eliot Spitzer, and Mayor Bloomberg, who heralded “a unique opportunity to develop extraordinary parkland that will

THE PIONEER STATE A SOCIAL HOMESTEAD MOVEMENT BY JAMES DAVIES

benefit the City, its residents and visitors.” The chosen scheme would incorporate proposals aimed at promoting the City’s commitment to environmental sustainability that had been outlined exactly twelve months earlier in PlaNYC. These proposals included “new hills made from recycled materials, and free bicycles for visitors.”2 ‘The Park at the Centre of the World’ represents a missed opportunity to which I have responded in the form of an alternative proposal, ‘The Pioneer State’.

The subject of sustainability, “the property of being sustainable, the condition where human activity may be continued indefinitely without damaging the environment and where the needs of all peoples are met”3 is a subject that has become progressively more important to me as I have become embedded in the architecture profession and the construction industry as a whole. The nature and scale of reckless consumption within the construction industry is an issue that makes me feel very uncomfortable and figures such as the one below released by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) certainly make for uncomfortable reading. “…120 million tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation waste (CDEW) every year – around one third of all waste arising in the UK. An estimated 25 million tonnes of this waste ends up in landfill without any form of recovery or reuse.”4 This culture of reckless consumption is not just confined to an industry that I myself will be entering upon graduation, it can be found within all industries, whether it be auto-motive, agricultural or petrochemical to name but a few. All contribute to the reckless consumption of the earth’s natural capital at a rate that is no longer sustainable. In 2008 the World Wildlife Fund released its latest Living Planet Report stating that “three quarters of the world’s population lives in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.” 5 Even more alarming is the degree of waste that exists within these unsustainable industries in terms of conversion of extracted materials into end products. Economy and Ecology: Towards Sustainable Development authors Robert Ayres and A. V. Neese explain that in the United States, who as a nation “ra¬nk among the five countries with the largest footprints per person”, you may only expect a 10% conversion rate from raw material to end product, proclaiming that “more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the United States become waste almost immediately.” 6 This human model of efficiency is beginning to compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

1. The Plan, PlaNYC, The office of the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, 12/06 2. Press Release, The Park at the Centre of the World, Office of the Governor and Office of the Mayor, 19/12/07 3. sustainable development, www.towardssustainability.co.uk, viewed 06/04/09 4. Halving waste to landfill policy driver, Waste and Resource Action Programme (Wrap), www.wrap.org.uk 5. Living Planet Report, World Wildlife Fund, 29/10/08 6. Robert Ayres and A.V.Neese, Economy and Ecology: Towards Sustainable Development, p93

The Pioneer State

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The scheme encompasses an area of Governors Island equating to 160 acres, the same sized area of land that could be attained by “any U.S citizen, or intended citizen” via successful completion of the requirements set out in the Homestead Act of 1862. Amid renewed calls for the introduction of a modern-day version of the law aimed at alleviating the problems many American’s are now facing as a result of the current economic downturn, the scheme proposes that the State of New York transfer ownership of all 160 acres that form the southern half of Governors Island to the citizens of New York for a sum of $1, thus creating a 21st century community owned Homestead, 732m from the southern tip of Manhattan.

Of the entire 160 acre site, 100 acres will be made available for cultivation, an area equivalent to 484,000 sq yards. The Royal Horticultural Society states that a 330 sq yard plot of land enriched with the correct nutrients is sufficient to grow enough vegetables to feed a family of four for one year. Therefore in theory, 100 acres has the potential to support 6,543 individuals.

The Department of City Planning website for New York City reveals that within Manhattan alone there are 359.3 acres of vacant land, enough to support 23,187 individuals per year, whilst 25% of the total area of Manhattan is made up of open spaces and recreational area. If only 10% of this open space was assigned to community land ownership schemes it would still create 5,880 plots or enough workable land to support 23,524 individuals. A combination of vacant land and a proportion of open/recreational space could support over 56,000 people i.e. every single person in Manhattan who receives Public Assistance.

Exceptional White Architecture is concerned with the proposal of a replacement American embassy in Belgrave Square, London. Basing its argument on the work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, where he argues that America exists within a ‘state of exception’ as a result of its long standing backdrop of military behaviour and occupation across the globe, under the auspice of a martial culture within its society as a whole. My research attempts to identify methods that are in keeping with the themes of the “latent” presence of an embassy within its foreign context, and attempts to derive methods of design which respond to this tension.

EXCEPTIONAL WHITE ARCHITECTURE A NEW AMERICAN EMBASSY BY TOM FINCH The work therefore asks: Is it possible to propose architectures that responds and represents this exceptional state and compromises accordingly? How does an architecture go about secreting itself within its surroundings in a such a security-led fashion so as to instigate the creation of so called ‘black sites’? And what might be the contemporary interpretations of the long standing relationship American design has to its military technologies?

These are questions asked at a time in which an architecture of exception has become widely known to the public: for instance the conditions at Guantanamo Bay - and so the thesis aims to provide specific examples in which these architectures permeate the Belgrave Square site and aide the construction of this latent presence by which the embassy is defined.

Finally the architecture aims to identify moments at which the discussion of this issues generates architectural systems that may assist the embassy in protecting itself as a target. The scheme also attempts to treat the embassy as a critique of existing American monuments that celebrate and describe the history of the American Constitution - that Agamben suggests has been compromised as a result of this ‘state of exception’.

As a body of research therefore the project is divided into a series of studies that identify the creation of this state of exception and how the role of the embassy is linked to this, as a representation of a country whose culture has a strong link to military design even at a domestic level. This domestic reasoning is paralleled with the identification of existing American monuments that celebrate the constitution, and the work provides examples of how the ideals they stand for have been compromised.

Belgrave Square’s White Facade

ZAMBIA

INDIA

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UGANDA

BOLIVIA

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PAKISTAN

Counterparts: UK vs. US Foreign Embassies

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DENMARK

Sterile Tennis Court

Carlo Scarpa passed away on the 28th November 1978 after falling down a flight of stairs in Sendai, North Japan. Nine years earlier Scarpa had begun work on what was to become the penultimate creation of his career and subsequently his final resting place, the Brion-Vega family cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole. Having died the same year that the family tomb was completed, Scarpa was buried, standing up “…..in a piece of ground in a fold of the wall enclosing the Brion graveyard…..A flat-lying tombstone designed by his son Tobia marks Scarpa’s burial place”. Within this article I will present one primary argument. That Calo Scarpa intended the Tomba Brion to be experienced within a certain and specific set of conditions. That the Brion-Vega cemetery must be visited at twilight, the time before sunrise, or after sunset, when sunlight scattered in the upper atmosphere

SIX DEGREES CARLO SCARPA AND THE TOMBA BRION BY JAMES DAVIES

illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the Earth is between light and dark. More specifically, during “civil twilight”, when the centre of the Sun is more than 6° below the horizon.

By looking at the way the human eye works in different light conditions, the way in which Scarpa was influenced by traditional Japanese garden design, the photographers and photographs that he personally selected to record the Brion-Vega cemetery and analysing my own experiences of Visiting the cemetery, I will hope to support my argument that the Tomba Brion can not be fully appreciated or wholly experienced unless visited during civil twilight. I will talk about the four areas mentioned previously as separate subjects initially and then bring them together at the end of the article to form one conclusive argument.

“I would like to explain the Tomba Brion...I consider this work, if you permit me, to be rather good and which will get better over time. I have tried to put some poetic imagination into it, though not in order to create poetic architecture but to make a certain kind of architecture that could emanate a sense of formal poetry....The place for the dead is a garden....I wanted to show some ways in which you could approach death in a social and civic way; and further what meaning there was in death, in the ephemerality of life—other than these shoe-boxes.”

“If there was an elegant way to die, it was his: he died in Japan, the land he had loved the most, after Veneto where he first saw the light.”

It is widely known and has been widely documented that Carlo Scarpa was influenced by Japanese culture and architecture “…..in particular the Sukiya style- in the light of the philosophical concepts of Wabi-Sabi.”

I would first like to explain as best I can, as western translations of traditional Japanese words, philosophies and proverbs are open to numerous interpretations, what I consider the ‘Sukiya style and Wabi-Sabi to be. The Sukiya style originates from the traditional Japanese tea ceremony and is a reference to the aesthetic of the tea house in which the ceremony is performed. A suitable example of the Sukiya style can be found at the Imperial Katsura Palace in Kyoto, which we know Scarpa visited on at least one occasion. Wabi-Sabi is the culmination of two words with different meanings, Wabi refreing to a state of mind or a way of life and Sabi referring to the singular object and the environment. “Wabi-Sabi seeks fusion with nature. Wabi-Sabi savours the beauty of the patina of time on an object, rather than a polished surface; penumbra, rather than light; organicity and decay rather than mechanicity and perfection.” Evidence of these principles can be found in the Tomba Brion when “Scarpa interrupted the horizontal run of the stepped parapet with a gap allowing rainwater to seep through, leaving a dark stain in the middle of the wall. Scarpa predicts in detail, the way nature would ‘complete’ his composition, almost controlling the action of weather and guiding it to a conscious, instinctive, aesthetic intent.”

Article Introduction 2008

The desire to exert control over a society has required a shift in scales, so much so that from the clinical media war that was the first Gulf War, Americans (in particular) have become obsessive with the expression of the minutiae of daily life. How the fluid boundaries of space-as-home or space-as-battlefield shift at all times, along with factions and politicking within these environments is now the agenda. In seeking to make this new battle digestible for those at every rung of the military chain, a strange cadaverous imitation has taken place. Though Baudrillard was actually referring to the massive differentiation in relative power of the combatants in the first Gulf war when he exclaimed - “It is the bellicose equivalent of safe sex: make war like love with a condom!”– the ostensible direction of the research by RAND points in the direction of this prophylactic war – cities of

HOLLYWOOD HAS NOTHING ON US PROPHYLACTIC WARS AND MILITARY UTOPIAS BY LUKE PEARSON imitation, scripts and actors designed to simulate conflicted societies before acting out the lessons learnt in the real battlefield. Or the utopian military journey as we may call it.

We may ask then – do these prophylactic wars actually propagate tension – both socially and spatially. Existing as a notional utopia, as a built reflection of American idealism placed as a lens upon foreign societies, how do these fake cities of combat start to reveal as much about the American psyche as they occlude much of the metropolis through reducing it to combat zones. There is an important distinction to make in these different methods of military contraception, some are infinitely more sophisticated (in their level of detail at least) – we may compare the “traditional” concrete shell to the holistic experiences which are given to soldiers on “tours of duty” in the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin for instance, where an entire theme-park war is acted out around them, and even produces a local economy surrounding the provision of arms, pyrotechnics and actors. Within Irwin, Iraq is compressed down, both spatially and culturally, into a series of wargames, which surprise in their broadranging scope, a real prophylactic war with factions, religious divides, divisive media – all thrusting away at a fake conquest within the sheath of the United States military: In a 1,000 square-mile region of the edge of Death Valley, Arab-Americans, many of them from the Iraqi expatriate community in San Diego, populate a group of mock villages resembling their counterparts in Iraq.

American soldiers at forward operating bases nearby face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheading in underground tunnels. Recently, the soldiers here, like their counterparts in Iraq, have been confronted with Sunni-Shiite riots. At one village, a secret guerrilla revolt is in the works.

An enclave community of expatriate and ersatz Iraqis go about daily life, paid to imitate a society some 7500 miles away. 150 miles from Los Angeles, the Hollywood ethic becomes absurdly embraced to create the faux war, rich in the bravado of the theme park and seemingly far from Baudrillard’s assertion that current and future wars would take place through the “unfolding in an abstract, electronic and informational space”.

It may follow that war is no longer measured by the ostentation of war- which is true when the city and its populous are presented by the military as the targets of surgical strikes. The desire is for it to become as a transaction of funds, clean and efficient. But in the effort to reduce the inherent messiness of urban combat – which is somewhat less than surgical – richly detailed programmes are run to familiarise soldiers with a simulated Iraq. In other words the very ostentation of these centres directly offsets their modus operandi – that is to prevent such a rich new society from being freshly discovered by the traveling force, it is intended for the foreign metropolises and towns to already be known. The utopian journey must have already been completed in a controlled environment.

Article Introduction 2008

Read any article on immigration in the last decade and you are almost certain to see the topic described in hydrological terms. Flooding, flows, deluge, and waves, are just a few of the phrases that commonly permeate the discourse on the subject. Perhaps this is not surprising when we consider the fluid nature of migration, but what should be of more concern is when this understanding ceases to be a metaphor and control systems for water and people meet in the assumption that people can be managed as if a broken hydrology. The observation of this condition at the US/Mexico border fuelled an interest that runs throughout the project. Systems and components can be understood as interconnected hydrological and geological networks that met in moments of conflict.

HYDROLOGICAL BOUNDARIES CONSTRUCTION AND DESTRUCTION ON THE US/MEXICO BORDER BY JOEL GEOGHEGAN

Mirroring the complex interconnections observed within the border context, the research strived to articulate the forces and tensions created by immigration control systems and the consequential impact on a neighbouring or connected infrastructure.

For example: in the context of the border a wall may be constructed to control the movement of people on the surface, but this is designed without the consideration of an existing sewer system beneath it, and when the people divert their route via the sewer system new forces are imposed on it. This problem could be further exasperated by the wall disrupting the natural drainage in the area causing unusually high water levels in the sewer system and finally culminate in flooding at surface level, people drowning within the tunnel, or the inability of the sewer to do its original job. Ultimately the repercussions of new systems cause existing systems to become obsolete.

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Large maquiladora factories position themselves in close proximity to the emerging slums along the border in order to extract cheap labour. The water pollution caused by these industrial giants creates a scarcity of fresh water within the region. What little supply there is is diverted back into the factories for their various processes. Many of the surrounding colonias are not equiped with sewer lines at all and have little if any access to water delivery lines, further intensifying the inhabitants desire to escape the poor conditions and seek a new life in the U.S.

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Border Conditions

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Border Context: 09

Damm(n)ed Fence Floods

The wire-mesh border fence construction, built to prevent crossing but allow water to pass through, is halting the natural flow of floodwater along the border when debris piles up against the fence, including in drainage gates designed to prevent flooding, and the 6-foot deep fence foundation stops subsurface water flow. Therefore, instead of flowing and draining naturally, the floodwater is carrying laterally through the port of entry, pooling 2 to 7 feet high and causing considerable damage to the ecology and surrounding infrastructure.

The removal of the natural vegetation for service and patrol

United States / Mexico Border

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Border Context: 08 Rogue Mining

In response to the increasing militarization of the border above ground, opportunist immigrants and traffickers have taken to the subterranean networks for hidden crossings.

As the official networks are also now policed and underground border walls of dubious authority are erected (causing considerable malfunction to the host network) new spontaneous and illegal tunnels litter the border land undermining the fences and walls. As border police futilely backfill the tunnels new ones are already being excavated creating a shifting rabbit warren concealed from public view.

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1. “The Source” 2. “The Rising Sea” 3. “The Reservoir” 4. “The Storm Surge” 5. “The Deluge” 6. “The Spillway” model scale 1:2

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Rio Grande Valley Fence

In the name of border patrol 70 miles of fencing is being constructed in this area. In many places the fences are being constructed directly on top of the existing levee walls.

These ageing levees are already desperately in need of repair or modifying in response to rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions due to global warming (as witnessed in the effects of hurricane Katrina). The stability of the flood control systems is in considerable question.

Should a large hydro surge occur it is likely that the system will fail and consequently create flooding on a devastating

We preserve historic sites and buildings to remind ourselves of a notion of the authority in our history. What other explanation is there to preserve ancient ruins other than to acknowledge what the site once stood for?

The historic style of the Federal Hall on Wall Street, New York, considered one of the best examples of classical architecture in New York, refers directly to ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The facade is inspired by the Greek Parthenon and the interior to the Roman Pantheon, albeit at a smaller scale, reflecting the American preoccupation with the notion of democracy and power.

REPLICATING THE REPLICA THE MODELS OF JOHAN HYBSCHMANN

The Federal Hall is not the only American government building that portrays authority through the use of historic references. The US Capitol and Supreme Court in Washington are both drawn with the same template, fusing 19th Century building techniques with classical orders.

Replicating the Replica is a redesign of the Federal Hall as a representation of the American Constitution. The existing building has been reprogrammed and redesigned many times since its origin in 1788. The building currently serves as a museum of American Democratic Government, however all exhibits are replicas of originals.

There is nothing of innate value in the building.

The building programme includes a museum and law court. The arrangement of spaces encourages public insight into the democratic process by setting up specific visual connections into otherwise private spaces using references to the existing American spatial interpretation of historic authority. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, the building will reveal itself as referenced architecture or a simulacrum of a reference. The simulacrum manifests itself as “fragmented” architecture. The project thus explores to what extent our perception is guided by reference.

The Watch Maker

Johan’s study and critique of American Federal buildings sets up a programme of social, political and architectural rigour. He successfully investigates his interest in the fusion of perceptual and architectural techniques through analysis of film, photography, drawings and particularly model-making with the precision of a watchmaker.

His design is mainly focused around the construction of 6 exceptionally intricate scale models that exhibit the relish by which Johan resolves his brief spatially, materially and programmatically. Dominant features such as the dome are analysed through intricate cutting, mirroring, and dissecting which results in a complex overlap of material, space and controlled views. Classical columns are disassembled into components only to form a perfect still life when rotated at high speed.

The assemblage of Johan’s pieces become design projects in themselves with a machinist’s attention to detail.

Federal Hall, 26 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005

The Watch Maker

The ordered layout of the Survey of London volumes is subverted through the act of reading. Turning the pages, cross-referencing and the materiality of the books, all contribute to the way in which the space of the book analogous to the space of the London borough it illustrates - is understood.

The response was to challenge these ordered volumes by embedding new, subversive architectures within their covers, giving volume to the 2D illustrations and photographs. Subsequently, I explored the process of reading and the materiality of the book as a source for the creation of new spatial relationships, details and material palettes. These particular ‘Field Operations’ start at the scale of the desk, then the book and move to the suggestion of the 1:1 in entangled spatial relationships, and the overlap of materials and details.

THE SURVEY OF LONDON A SERIES OF MODELLING THROUGH DRAWING BY WILL JEFFERIES

Prototype One

In the current economic climate architecture is on hold. My interventions in the books form miniature prototypes for the reinvigoration of ‘to be demolished’ spaces - bringing the intentions of C.R. Ashbee, the founder of the Survey, into the present architectural context in and around London.

Prototype Two

Prototype Three

Prototype Four

Material Menagerie : 42/50 Faberge Eggs

The concept for a spatially vertical building to house an exotic collection of Faberge eggs initially came from researching the spatial consequences of zoos in the modern era and their representation of nature. A zoo cage creates an artificially aesthetic and controlled environment; taming the different wilderness habitats of the world in front of our eyes in a concentrated format. In the context of the capital cities of the world often buildings require a vertical spatial layout.

AFTER THE ZOO A MATERIAL MENAGERIE BASED ON THE FABERGE EGG BY EMILY KEYTE

The ‘Exeter Exchange’ on the Strand in close vicinity to the project’s site was in competition with the Tower of London zoo until London zoo was formed. It is most famous for the menagerie that occupied its upper floors for over 50 years, from 1773 until it was demolished in 1829. The aristocratic menageries have to be distinguished from the later zoological gardens since they were founded and owned by aristocrats whose intention was not primarily of scientific and educational interest.

These scaleless environments were investigated on a field trip to New York, and the ultimate in lived artificial construct; central park. From these preliminary studies the design was developed into a built form. The building, sited off a discreet lane leading down to the River Thames acts to display and store an exotic collection of the Russian Imperial Faberge Eggs of which 50 were made and 8 are missing. The Faberge collection is held within the building’s enclosures that are disguised within the material context of the building. Each of the 42 eggs can be viewed from different angles dependent on the location of the visitor.

A Fabergé egg is any one of sixtynine jeweled eggs made by Peter Carl Fabergé and his assistants between 1885 and 1917. The eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones. Carl Fabergé and his goldsmiths designed and constructed the first egg in 1885. It was commissioned by Czar Alexander III of Russia as an Easter surprise for his wife Maria Fyodorovna. On the outside it looked like a simple egg of white enamelled gold, but it opened up to reveal a golden yolk. The yolk itself had a golden hen inside it, which in turn had a tiny crown with a ruby hanging inside. This became an annual tradition.

Before the 1917 revolution a total of fifty known Imperial eggs had been presented, only forty two of which have survived. The missing eggs may never resurface. The spatial qualities of the eggs are determined by its materials and processes. The curved underlying surface of the eggs are carved metal formed by ‘Guilloche’ that a process of engine turning. It is a style of engraving where a repetitive pattern or design is etched on an underlying material.

Ornamental patterns are carved into a base metal. Enamel is then applied as melted glass from a powdered form.

Faberge would bury the guilloche under many linings of enamel pulling depth and delicacy out of the design.

Set materials seem to drift in the enamel.

Faberge’s legacies

The Material Menagerie

Menagerie tests and the zoo

First used in his 1517 allegorical account of life upon an ideal island, Thomas More constructed Utopia from the Greek word ‘outopia’ as an island, life upon which is described to us in detail by a visitor to its shores, and our narrator, Raphael Hythloday. His creation was quickly adopted into the English Dictionary where, as well as confirming its origin and authorship, one finds its definition as follows : Utopia n. (also utopia) : an imagined perfect place or state of things. [title of a book (1516) by Thomas More: based on Greek ou ‘not’ + topos ‘place’]

IMAGINED PERFECT PLACE THE BARBICAN AS A SITE OF UTOPIAN SPACE AND TIME BY NICK WOOD

Through making reference to a ‘perfect place’, and despite clearly stating its origins from the non-place of ‘outopia’, the definition provided by the Oxford English Dictionary makes an error in reference to the phonetically identical state of ‘eutopia’, meaning happy place. However, it is the necessity of imagination, which precedes the definition of this ‘perfect place’ that retains the reference to its origin as ‘no/non-place’ - and one that has been generally agreed by theorists of the topic.

The political theorist Judith Shklar highlights both the spatial and temporal nature of this state with her conclusion that; ‘Utopia is nowhere, not only geographically but historically as well. It exists neither in the past or the future. Its aesthetic and intellectual tensions arising precisely from the melancholy contrast between what might be and what will be’. Does such a definition denote that there is, ironically, ‘no place’ for Utopia in built form ?

Over history, especially the period of post war regeneration, a plethora of ambitious projects have been born out of the idealist Utopian imaginations of their Architects, embracing the forefront of technology as they aim to define a modern way of living.

A fine example of this is the City of Brasilia, planned and developed in 1956 by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. Embracing the height of technology at the time, the city assumed a modern aeroplane-like plan with large highways that recognized the motor car passing through its heart. The sorry state we now find the city in, can be explained by its heavily prescribed nature, with the scale provided for motor proving unfriendly to humans, and the development of slums at the city edge that house a majority of the 3 million inhabitants.

Projects like Brasilia have left some skeptical about the realization of Utopian, I propose that its downfall arose from its aim to first and foremost achieve the phonetics of a ‘perfect place’, and perhaps that attempts to preserve (and embody) the formative imagined elements within its realization may have achieved a closer representation of Utopian nonplace.

In support of this theory, I present the Barbican Estate, which through an investigation into its embodiment of the Utopian, and its ability to become the site of Frederic Jameson’s categories of Space and Time.

I exhibit the embodiment of non-place both spatially, through a study of building navigation and fabric, and temporally, looking at (amongst others) the idea of Nostalgia as a vehicle for utopian realisation within its dislocated and futureless past.

Article Introduction 2009

This article sets out to determine typography´s role in determining “place and non place” in our surroundings, and whether, as a positional device, type is something that allows people to retrieve a sense of place from non-place.

Social anthropologist, Marc Auge uses these two terms as opposites to one another in his book ‘Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity’, in which he makes reference to the speed and volume of encounters with various means of communication which lead to an understanding and comprehension and response of only the most recent, the “supermodern” as he terms them.

CRAFTING PLACE WITH TYPOGRAPHY CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF HELVETICA AND BEYOND BY TOM FINCH With the context of this article, non-place refers to the typographically homogenised contexts in which these encounters occur or are referenced by. The investigation, is in part, an examination of the font Helvetica, something rich in meaning and part of a much broader cultural product when first released which is now viewed as a default regardless of function. Its opposite, place, describes the most recent of encounters which rely on the individual being present to engage in something unique to that situation, no possible anywhere else, or at any other time.

The work of graphic designer and art director Zak Kyes provides a contemporary illustration of how this can be achieved. The research examines our every day typographic encounters and what they mean uniquely to us as individuals, and how they alter our subsequent encounters with others, and the resultant ways in which we associate type with location.

In doing this the investigation examines that roles that the factors and moments contributing to the shaping of the craft of typography have, and in doing so gain a deeper understanding of the role of it’s opposite, ‘placeless’ communications. The result is the questioning of whether formal nuances in type are able to stir the memory of similar such nuances and moments found elsewhere in place and time, forging links between the two and the, experientially, very personal results of this. As typographer Bruno Maag describes; “to the untrained eye, all the fonts look more or less alike but I think it is a subconscious thought process, that then triggers the emotional response to the typeface, as with any design element, and can have a truly personal impact”.

Article Introduction 2008

A fable by Jorge Luis Borges describes how a map of an empire might be required in such detail that it eventually covered the territory entirely, leaving the empire to disintegrate and be left as tatters in the corners of the map.

Thus the map can replace the place it describes or be understood as a place in itself. This Manhattan based research piece follows on from Borges’ notion, questioning the nature of aerial photography as a mapping medium. The collage of multiple central-projection photographs to compose an orthogonal view results in ambiguities and abnormal portrayals of architecture. High-rise buildings appear contorted, slanted, skewed, merged or disjointed from their footprints. The fenestration of a skyscraper, perspectively skewed, can be read as a grid in the horizontal plane or rooftops seen as sloped surfaces. Read seperately of the map content, the image

SIMULATIONS OF [A] MANHATTAN RAPID PROTOTYPING A HYPER-REAL MANHATTAN

BY ALEX KIRKWOOD becomes a mapping through imagination not information. This map then engenders a new territory that is extracted from the image data.

The map space as simulacrum is explored in studies where new terrains are extruded from the aerial images of Midtown Manhattan sites. The new cityscapes take on imagined typologies devised from clues in the surface scan of the image. Modelling the imagined sites in three dimensions generates hyperreal versions of the mapped city and allows an exploration into how fictional cityscapes could be conceived from aerial photography. Cityscape typologies are devised with city processes in mind: transportation, living, industry and leisure. The city blocks are viewed as homogeneous structures encompassing different processes. They are all tied together with the issue of water treatment in the city: gutters, drainage, storm drains and treatment plants.

Modelling the hyperrealities through three-dimensional rapid prototyping allowed the form, composition and depth of the new territories to be explored in a homogenous model. The forms are interpolated from a pencil drawn image plan and axonometric view. The information in these drawings results from a reading of tonal edges in the aerial image. The uncoloured plaster hyperrealties are generated with form and exterior detail as the motive force behind their fabrication, not the installing of new decorative colour or material details that might be represented by more traditional methods of model making.

They were fabricated on a Z Corp printer but not infiltrated with the toughening glue in the finishing stages.

Although this lead to a very brittle and delicate surface, the models retained more of the detail and accents of the drawings. The acrylic domes provide dust protection but also affirm the idea of the models as objects in themselves, existing as a hyperreal worlds within their globes, reflecting the ghost of the city through their mass, but remaining particular to themselves.

Cutting into these globular masses, a new language of elevations were exposed, and a further [New] New York becomes revealed. The relationship between the great masses of the metropolis, becomes infused together with the elevational reinterpretation of an architecture that can only exist as a three dimensional object.

Rapid Prototyping the Hyperreal

[New] New York Elevation Composite

[New] New York Elevation Composite

Situated on the Essex coast, to the South of Clacton-On-Sea, lies a unique community. Though it suffers from severe deprivation and dereliction, the residents of Jaywick are still staunchly defensive of their neighborhood.

Now facing extensive rebuilding to overcome its problems, the idiosyncratic town strives against the homogenisation that often comes with such large scale regeneration projects.

Jaywick was built in the 1920’s as a seaside resort for visiting Londoners. The local council would not permit residential provision in the area due to risk of flooding and lack of sewers, so permission was granted for day-trip beach huts. Nevertheless, visitors began to stay for longer periods, and the town has since become a permanent residential area of around 1500 homes.

POLICY MAKING FOR PLEASURE SEEKERS A NEW PLAN FOR JAYWICK BY HOLLY LEWIS

As it was never intended as a permanent residential community, Jaywick suffers from a lack of infrastructure and facilities that are assumed with planned development. Its private roads are unadopted, in poor condition and have no street lighting. Jaywick is also in an area of high flood risk, in the Great Flood of 1953 thirty five people were killed. Flood remains a threat to the houses of Jaywick and its access roads.

It has some of the poorest quality housing in Europe, is the third most deprived area in Britain and suffers from high and concentrated crime, dereliction and high unemployment. A history of opposition to and under provision by the local authorities has developed a strong sense of community self-reliance in overcoming the lack of resources. Many homes have makeshift extensions and customisations, often without relevant permissions.

There is strong distrust of external agencies and their future plans for the town.

After years of neglect, the local authority is now trying to instigate change and improvements in Jaywick. The new built environment of the town has not yet been designed, but many of its qualities are predetermined by relevant national, regional and local policy. Significant decisions, such as plot size and storey heights have already being ‘designed’ through such policy.

In its present state, Jaywick is a good example of why policy is necessary to control the built quality of developments. It is also a good example of great things that don’t quite make sense, of the joy that can be found in idiosyncrasy and inefficiency.

There is a real danger that, with the aim of eliminating the severe difficulties that Jaywick faces, the unique and positive aspects of this community will also be swept aside, making way for standard, homogenous development that could be found anywhere in the country. This project explores preemptive frivolity and indulgence in the realm of policy and planning level decisions rather than enforced pedestrianism. Policy Making for Pleasure Seekers refers both to the need to accommodate holidaying visitors, and to a planning department revelling in Jaywick’s fun loving, carefree past.

Ring Road Raising access roads by at least 1m, in response to PPS 25: Development and Flood Risk and Tendring District Local Plan (TDLP) Policy COM33: Flood Protection.

Side Show Nursery - Investment for social and economic improvements, in response to Good Practice Guide on Planning for Tourism (replacing PPG 21) and TDLP Policy COM4: New Community Facilities.

Grown Over Stacking Chalets - Providing a range of tenures, in response to Good Practice Guide on Planning for Tourism (replacing PPG 21) and TDLP Policy ER18 - Caravan and Chalet Parks.

Chalet Bank - Providing a range of tenures and parking, in response to Good Practice Guide on Planning for Tourism (replacing PPG 21) and TDLP Policy ER18 - Caravan and Chalet Parks.

When we refer to the drawn process as both an interpretative and imaginative exercise, may we then start to address the distinction in semantics between the process of the “draughtsman” and the process of the “delineator”.

In the terms of master-renderer of the United Nations himself, Hugh Ferriss, value of the delineator’s work is through not only the representation of a built matter as a form, but of the reflection and introspection into the life and context of the architecture. My ascribing of the United Nations as an organisation and the notion of the bureaucratic as both a binding framework and an opaque screen is directly influenced by Ferriss’ assertion that “A realistic rendering… may indeed be produced by dealing honestly with only the physical facts; an authentic rendering, however, demands a realistic treatment of intellectual and emotional factors as well”. I take this

THE DRAUGHTSMAN AND THE DELINEATOR THE PLACE FOR DRAWN METHODOLOGIES IN AN ANALYSIS OF THE UNITED NATIONS BY LUKE PEARSON definition of the “authentic” rendering to allow my drawn process of generation to pass through a multiplicity of political and spatial situations which all exist at the same time, and to use the nature of rendering to address this critique of the United Nations.

The use of black shadows and stark contrasts is an intentional reference to an anachronistic view of the future which still holds power in contemporary visuals – as an stylised way of drawing which reflects the realisation that the utopian vision of the United Nations itself has been occluded by its position in a world many times changed since its inception. The drawings become linked within the United Nations, and out into Manhattan in a position of response to it, through becoming part of a body of a drawn critique by their visual language as well as the more explicit references weaved into the drawing.

This process of linking an argument through drawn phases of a journey, has an echo to the way in which Ferriss’ work striated New York as a body of skyscraper islands hidden within his perpetual murk and mist. In a sense then, the series of drawings which on the one hand present themselves as propositional pieces (whether a skyscraper or an insertion into a desk), actually constitute a mapping through renderings. This mapping must by its nature take place on both a critical and haptic level, the experience of producing a particular drawn method is part of an ongoing dialectic relationship to the drawing itself and the political context within which it is produced. The sense of the archipelago pervading Ferriss’ is precisely through the maintenance of effect – that many different buildings within the Metropolis fell under his spell and became enshrined in his chiaroscuro world is both a comment on the unique drawing methods he employed relative to his contemporaries, and a reflection of an economic or rather a fashionable desire by clients to have Ferriss delineate their projects. Through this chiaroscuro charcoal manipulation, Ferriss encouraged developers to imagine their skyscrapers as legacies within the Metropolis as if represented by Piranesi or J.M. Gandy, to ascribe upon their project a classicism which these rising monoliths demanded. His technical style therefore became more authentic of the intentions and dreams of the captains of industry who erected their towers ever further skyward, because it appeared to root them as clearly independent visions within the city, but more importantly as historic objects standing against the temporal city, stolid and powerful within the “Ferrissian Void”.

With this in mind, it seems clear that Ferriss must have been a natural delineator for the United Nations in many ways, as by their very nature his renderings would reflect the fledgling organisation as one for the ages, standing powerful in the darkness, basking its surroundings in the light from its office, the gentle glow of its bureaucratic halo fading off into the void. At the same time, the immutable power of Ferriss’ renderings seem to become somewhat inflexible. Though his X-City drawings were re-labelled to present the notion of what the United Nations complex could become (and showed the theme of his drawings could potentially be mutable) the idea of the United Nations as monument-building for all ages seems today inappropriate seeing how far the organisation has changed from its original configuration.

My drawn language then, seeks to reflect within the United Nations, both this idea of the linkage between a sense of the positional critique and that of the visual notion of the future frozen solidly in the form of the past.

The Meadian Blade Runner world of the 1980’s should not be contemporary to 2009 but still remains so, under the auspice of a dystopian-positivity toward the world. One might also argue that the century old Modernist rhetoric is also divergent from the present day situation in which the United Nations sits, therefore I felt it natural to combine these two anachronistic languages together in an expression of the outmoded elements of the United Nations, and how I might start to link these spaces together into an archipelagos of hope.

The UN as historical and temporal organisation

Delineations of the Metropolis

The bureaucratic machine as monument to asbestos removal

The House of an Opium Eater Whilst residing at 36 Tavistock Street in London from 1821-25 and consuming the lethal amount of 320 grains of opium a day, the famous addict Thomas De Quincey wrote the book that made his name: ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’. In it he describes the heightening pleasure, the physical pains of withdrawal, and the amplification and distortion of space he experienced whilst taking the drug, including the various hallucinations he experienced.

HALLUCINATORY ARCHITECTURES THE ARCHITECTURAL LEGACIES OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY BY RAE WHITTOW-WILLIAMS

Taking inspiration from the text, the aim of the project translates the various hallucinations of Thomas De Quincey into the envelope of the existing house. Each environment is developed using differing techniques and processes of collaging space, forced perspective and iterative modelling in order to create a series of scale-less and absorbing hallucinatory spaces.

The project is used as a tool to develop working methodologies and explore new techniques of drawing and modelling by extracting the detail, surface texture and spatial qualities from physical forms and threedimensional scans in order to develop pictorial representations of the hallucinations, and translate them into spatial environments. The process becomes the most integral and rewarding part of the project, inverting the traditional method of drawing and computer modelling, and thus developing a new way of not only working but also generating form and spatial environments. Whereas traditional computer modelling methods are quite restrictive when designing conceptually, using the physical models to immediately generate the 3D scans allows a much more bespoke and serendipitous outcome.

A conceptual 2D collage initially explores the potential pictorial representations of the hallucinations and places them all within the envelope of the house at 36 Tavistock Street. Then, focusing in on each hallucination in turn, a modelling process is developed to generate the space in three dimensional physical form. In the case of the sunless abyss (the focus of this article) the physical forms are scanned using a 3D handheld scanner to generate a series of pointcloud surfaces which are then worked into and used to generate the sunless abyss as a pictorial representation as will now be discussed.

The sunless abyss process began with a series of plaster studies, which were cast in latex balloons, in order to try to create a physical representation of the detail seen in the initial concept collage. The first, and subsequently second, series’ of plaster studies were then used to create a following series by using them as a 3D template and binding both forms together whilst the wet plaster dried; once hard, the three series’ of plaster studies all loosely slotted together in the form of a 3D jigsaw. The somewhat low-tech method of form generation allowed serendipitous outcomes and reinforced the importance of physical modelling within the new developing methodology.

It was important that the plaster models became part of a generative process to design and represent the sunless abyss, and therefore it was decided that rather than trying to attempt to model the forms again in a computer modelling programme, it would be more beneficial to use a 3D scanner to record the surface data of the forms as made objects.

I scanned each of the plaster forms using the METRIS handheld scanner, recording them as sets of seperate surfaces of pointcloud data, instead of solid ‘blobs’, meaning that the pointcloud surfaces were effectively hollow and immediately spatial.

The pointcloud data was then manipulated and explored using hand drawing to bring out the spatial qualities of the original plaster forms onto paper. The high level of detail captured by the scanner allowed surface imperfections and patternation to be recorded and thus incorporated into the representation of the sunless abyss.

Rather than using physical modelling as an additional modelling technique, as found in traditional practice, this process that I have developed puts much more emphasis onto the physical forms as an essential part of the methodology and therefore crucial for the process to exist at all.

3D Scan of a Hallucinatory Architecture

3D Scan of a Hallucinatory Architecture

A Sunless Abyss

Buildings are a mixture of human and machinic arrangements. The low hum of the air vent system, the ‘clanking’ of workshops toilets and lifts, interspersed with the patter of students chatting, moving between department and compartment.

The raw sounds of the building reveal a level of isolation created through the immersion of segmented spaces.

The continual hum of Wates House is interrupted, the drone of pipes and the chords of compressed sound balls reveals a connection of fragments. an array of spaces that do not co-exist visually, but gather resonance together through soundscapes. Hear connections between the building, be aware of your position inside this machine...

A SOUND CONNECTION MANIPULATING ARCHITECTURAL RESONANCE BY CHRIS WILKINSON

The devices are arrayed across the full extent of the building. All connected to the internal mechanisms of Wates House. As doors and windows are propped open, drone pipes carry a low hum into and across the building.

Chords of varying pitch and volume can be heard dotted across the top of the arrangement. ‘Sound bags’ signify the instance of opening and closing internal mechanisms. The bags are compressed and produce a note. When multiple doors and windows are opened chords are formed.

A network of sonic manipulations

An installation by Matt Hill, Jack Newton, Ben Nicholls, Steve Westcott and Chris Wilkinson.

The work stems from the idea of accumulation, the creation of a texture that can grow in response to space and inhabitation; a process of self-construction requiring no specific techniques or tools. Intended as a non-scaler installation, the system is based on the proliferation of a three-dimensional motif. The logic of aggregation enables it to proliferate to the point of breaking the conventions of scale, and to impose itself on the scale of architecture.

KITE ASSEMBLAGE EXERCISE ONE AND THEIR RIBA INSTALLATION BY CHRIS WILKINSON

The Kite Assembly project was prepared for this year’s RIBA National and International Awards Dinner commissioned by the RIBA Trust. Following the ceremony the components will be reconfigured for a range of future events in the space of the RIBA foyer on Portland Street. The modular kite component was fabricated by the London based company Carl Robertshaw

The modular kite hanging at the RIBA

Born out of intrigue with our desire to escape the dullness of our everyday lives, recent work has attempted to expose and investigate the fascinating world of the real.

Often presenting themselves as surreal or unreal, these projects act to disturb our fundamental assumptions about what we see around us. The moment of their exposure allowing for the creation of a gap in our perception of our surroundings, the disparate parts of which are further excited by our misinterpretation, or tied together through imagination.

747 LDN/NYC EXPOSING THE (UN)REAL BY NICK WOOD

The research first looked at the connecting element been the unseen real space and a contrived experience, in this case questioning the domestic environment of the Boeing 747 with 747-400 LDN/NYC, which presented the fascination of flight through a relational scaling and exposure of its disparate elements.

The 747 LDN/NYC vessel

Tying together relational scalings

Oliver Goodhall and Holly Lewis form We Made That. Under the ‘Bathing Beauties’ project, we were commissioned to deliver a unique beach hut for the Lincolnshire Coast. Chosen in open international competition in September 2006 a series of new huts are intended to provide distinctive attractions for hire amongst the existing coastal terraces, giving a much needed boost to the local tourist economy.

Also presented is a drawing of a competitively won commission for two bespoke and robust pieces of exhibition furniture for the recently refurbished Poole Museum in Dorset. Designed in close consultation with the museum staff and curatorial team, the cabinets intrigue and engage visitors with new and exciting ways to interact with the Museum’s collections.

WE MADE THAT THE WORKS OF HOLLY LEWIS AND OLIVER GOODHALL

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Core was an installation for b Store London on Savile Row, which revolved around a propositional architecture within a one-way mirrored box, existing as a comparison between the social naivety of sweeping architectural visions of the early and mid twentieth century and worlds that exist in the imaginary. Having trained as architects we sought to question how a professional barrier exists which deems the architect’s vision real but architectures manifested through fiction flights of fantasy. The installation sought to transfer methods of interpretation into different scales of response and intervention, from pieces which exist both as furniture but also scale drawings of propositional spaces, to a surfaces based on systems of syntax and interpretation. Across the cycle of a day, the mounting in a one-way mirrored box lent the Core a temporal existence, as a glowing series of reflections by night and an opaque monolith by day.

MEDWAY THE CORE: AN INSTALLATION BY TOM FINCH AND LUKE PEARSON

ELEVEN would like to thank

BOOKBINDERS OF LONDON Printing and Binding Portfolios Posters Photobooks Calenders Canvas Printing Bookbinders of London 11 Ronalds Road Highbury N5 1XJ Tel: 020 7607 3361 Email: bookbindersoflon@btconnect.com Web: www.bookbindersoflondon.com For their generous support

ELEVEN VOLUME ONE: FIELD OPERATIONS JUNE 2009 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MAGS BURSA, ERIN BYRNE, JAMES DAVIES, TOM FINCH, JOEL GEOGHEGAN, JOHAN HYBSCHMANN, WILL JEFFERIES, EMILY KEYTE, ALEX KIRKWOOD, HOLLY LEWIS, LUKE PEARSON, RAE WHITTOW-WILLIAMS, CHRIS WILKINSON, NICK WOOD. FOREWORD BY SAM JACOB OF F.A.T. ELEVEN EDITORIAL TEAM ARE LUKE PEARSON, TOM FINCH, MARK SMOUT, LAURA ALLEN AND ANA MONRABAL-COOK. DESIGN BY LUKE PEARSON. FOR MORE INFO WWW.SMOUTALLEN.COM / CONTACT SMOUTALLEN@MAC.COM

FIELD OPERATIONS THE COLOUR BOOK The unit presented itself as a cacophony of colour, whether through drawing or model, a clash of hues came to define a framework of a Field Operation in itself.

Whether austere, chaotic or “new ugly� we sought to express ourselves outside of typical faculty palettes - to throw the graphite aside and embrace this clash.

Luke Pearson The Draughtsman and the Delineator

Here we present a Colour Book, a cypher by which to read the work presented within the document.

Rae Whittow-Williams Hallucinatory Architectures

Mags Bursa Escaping Landscape

Chris Wilkinson A Sound Connection

Erin Byrne Thamesmedian Simulacrum

Nick Wood 747 LDN/NYC

James Davies The Pioneer State

Tom Finch Exceptional White Architecture

Emily Keyte Material Menagerie

Joel Geoghegan Subterranean Hydro Assemblage

Alex Kirkwood Simulations of [A] Manhattan

Johan Hybschmann Replicating a Replica

Holly Lewis Policy Making for Pleasure Seekers

Will Jefferies The London Survey

Itai Palti Tel Aviv Film World