“(...) like a vinyl that is keeping in its grooves all the voices that have been accumulating and if the disc could be played, it would tell us everything that has happened during so many years and so many times...”
Ricardo Flores, Escala 1:5
Feasibility (Side A)
1. Synopsis
pg. 06-07
2. The Ethical City
pg. 08-09
3. Line Through the City
pg. 010-011
4. Conceptual Foundation
pg. 012-021
5. Porto
pg. 023-045
6. Centro Comercial Stop
pg. 046-067
7. Formative Review
pg. 068-069
8. Case Studies
pg. 070-073
9. Iteration
pg. 074-083
Proposal (Side B)
1. Technical Study
pg. 085-095
2. Centro Cultural Stop
pg. 96-105
3. Exhibition
pg. 106-107
Jack
Synopsis
“Architecture can no longer limit itself to the aesthetic pursuit of making buildings; it must now commit to a politics of selectively taking them apart.” Jill Stoner
Poetic Rupture: Wonder in the prosaic palimpsest.
A response to Richard Sennet’s call for a generation of wonder in that which exists in order to counteract the overwhelming force of capitalist desire, Poetic Rupture acts as both a social agent and a means with which to strengthen (sub)consciousness. With wonder defined as, the feeling excited by something strange; a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and sometimes awe it is the emotive response of the passerby to an estrangement of the familiar that drives the architectural criteria.
A case for an improvised deconstruction of the existing building stock, of a hermeneutic reconfiguration of undervalued structures as a means with which to dismantle mythologies and power structures. The thesis interrogates how the insertion of negative space into the prosaic palimpsest can foster remembrance and self discovery and bring about an empathetic revolution that aligns the built environment with the dynamism of societal consciousness.
Onwards from the work of Gordon MattaClark, a reductive language of cuts is employed in alignment with literary device to frame an architecture of metaphor and immaterial culture.
Located in the Bonfim neighbourhood, east of Porto’s historical centre, the thesis takes place within CCStop, a once service station and commercial centre now inhabited by musicians, concerned with aligning the found architecture with its experimental inhabitation. The formalising of the autonomous DIY rehearsal spaces and provision of informal performance space at the core of a recomposed Stop provides a platform for collective remembrance and empathy through self expression in the public realm.
2. The Ethical City
The Empathetic City
“With the ongoing threat of pandemics, artificial intelligence, food + energy insecurity, the Climate Emergency and political upheaval across the globe, what does this mean for the current city and the future of cities?”
“Ethical decision making and processes relating to the planet, society and the choices that we make can no longer be separated from architectural design.”
As we are tasked, by necessity, with the confrontation of complex societal issues in architectural thinking and making it is important to define the ethical lens through which we can do so.
The term ethical alludes to the dealing with morality which encompasses the concepts of right and wrong. In this context it can be derived as a process based on principles that are considered correct.
In relation to the planet, the acknowledgement and commitment to the mitigation of the climate crisis is of utmost importance. Regarding society, the acceptance and celebration of diversity
However, at the universal scale, as the concepts of right and wrong are not consistent across cultures surely a more pertinent approach is one that incorporates and understands a diversity of attitudes and emotions? Therefore the ethical city to me represents an urban environment that harnesses self-awareness, interconnectivity and empathy.
ethical
[ eth-i-kuhl ]
adjective
pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.
Related: honorable, virtuous, righteous, honest, upright, moral
empathy [ em-puh-thee ]
noun the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
An initial delve into the city of Porto resulted in the definition of a line through the perceived ‘hot spots’ of the city centre. A satirical intervention of a travelator for tourists to efficiently pass through the city, with snapshot moments where the tourist is able to step off captured through postcards.
A response to Sennet’s proposition of the wandering flaneur and how the speed of movement is a core component of urban experience.
4. Conceptual Foundation
Ethics for the City by Richard Sennett
Sennet’s investigation explorse ways in which we can align the built form with societal conscience through an open, adaptable, ethical urbanism that reflects the complexity, contradiction, and ambiguity associated with urban experience. Interestingly his argument is based on a linguistic distinction made in French language between ville and cité that aligns the text with my dissertation ‘The Linguistics of Romantic Materialism’.
In Crooked, Open, Modest Sennet implies the need for a generation of wonder in things that already exist and for a complexity to enrich the human experience of place and space and resist a system of oppression.
The call to counteract the force of capitalistic desire is evident, to practice with time and care to develop spaces that derive from the synchronous uses and diverse beings that they surround. The stimulation of self-discovery, facilitation of non-linear experience and dynamic knowledge
systems through wandering is addressed in Walking Knowledge. The importance of slowing the inhabitant to activate lateral consciousness and thus enriching experience is stressed with a curvature designated to neurologically spotlit forms.
An ethical attitude to urbanism is expressed in Time’s Shadows as one that celebrates adaptation, of which reconfiguration is placed at the forefront. Rupture, or stark/violent intervention, is encouraged as a social agent and provocateur of change with the power to influence “consciousness of place”. This consideration of genius loci is evident, with a recomposition of oppressive spatial and programmatic systems for its improvement implied. Given that “a good rupture is not an erasure” the treatment of the ruin or everyday building as a palimpsest could fulfil the intentions that are expressed; and with a stoic calmness its widespread application could provide space(s) for revolution.
Building Memory by Jeffrey Malpas
“The engagement with place is [...], by its very nature, an engagement with the human. The human dimension of architecture is something that the presentism of modern architectural theory and practice often effaces.
That it does so is no accident, for the effacing of memory is indeed an effacing of the human. It is also, by the same token, an effacing of both ontology and of ethics.”
Malpas sets a mandate for an ontological architecture, or one that spans being and memory on both an individual and collective scale. He suggests that the considering of memory as an explicit element in architectural thinking and making could progress a counter movement to the inhumane, or un-empathetic condition of existing architectural theory.
This places memory at the core of my line of enquiry, while defining the alignment of genius loci with the human self as a means with which to tap into societal consciousness.
Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
“… the universe of speech governs all the phenomena of being, that is, the new phenomena. By means of poetic language, waves of newness flow over the surface of being. And language bears within itself the dialectics of open and closed. Through meaning it encloses, while through poetic expression, it opens up.”
Bachelard places the human conscience in a spatial context, with consideration of the domestic home and how its spaces of intimacy provide opportunity for imagination and memory to flourish.
The power of poetic language to flow over and through the self and to open up an internalising semantic is pertinent to my research as it implies a fulfillment of my emerging criteria. It defines a language of inherent complexity and ambiguity with which to resist a system of enclosure and oppression.
Complexity and Contradiction, Venturi
Semiology and Architecture, Jencks
Robert Venturi’s seminal text served as a rupture of architectural theory, critiquing the overly simplistic modernist principles and assigning a value to the ambiguous and the ornate. The reintroduction of historical analysis into contemporary theory, with compositional studies of the Baroque for example, providing a framework for a development of contemporary language from the old.
The emphasis placed on ambiguity and contradiction as elements of human experience lays the context for Sennet’s wandering flaneur of non-linear human experience.
“Reality only reveals itself when illuminated by a ray of poetry. All around us is asleep.”
Georges
Braque
In Semiology and Architecture, Charles Jencks explores architecture in relation to linguistics, specifically semiotics with the semiological triangle highlighting the connection between language, thought and reality. The analysis of architecture through a linguistic lens allows for a layering of meaning and inference that I intend to uphold through my thesis investigation.
The concept of a ray of poetry awakening reality is a powerful image that I believe can be brought into the tangible sphere through architecture. It’s likening to light strengthens my premonition that it is negative space that could achieve this and forms a connection to the position of Flores i Prats.
Flores i Prats
The violent language of Matta-Clark sets a precedent for extracting an emotional value from buildings of which they were not aware prior to intervention through a process of attacking a ruin to develop a new experience from the old.
The generation of romantic material appears to be an exponential function of the critical reduction of physical material, with the initial holes and subsequent shards of light beginning the curve, gradual expansion of the void increasing the rate of romantic charging and demolition releasing the romantic charge to an apparent infinity. This language will be a key precedent for my own moving forward, working with a similar attitude of care for abandoned/forgotten spaces but on an urban scale. His generation of romantic material answers Sennet’s call for a regaining of a depth of wonder, finding value in material with no obvious value for shared experience.
Conical Intersect
By converting buildings to a state of mind, the conscience of an urban landscape (cité) can be tapped into its physical material (ville).
The methodology he employs is one that supports my interest in weaving the past into the present, stimulates my passion for sculptural form and places collective and personal experience at the core of the design process. By employing varying levels of complexity, using the by-products of the city and the people for the people. This will place my thesis at the intersection of time, memory and social justice. I believe that mass consumerism is a modern manifestation of the forces that Matta Clark and the Anarchitecture group were battling and thus intend to focus my final design thesis on the counteracting of it. To take back spaces lost to consumption/capitalistic desire, open up the city from the inside out and reintroduce poor and creative communities back into the centre of Porto.
“By undoing a building ... [I] open a state of enclosure which has been preconditioned not only by physical necessity but by the industry that proliferates suburban and urban boxes as a pretext for ensuring a passive, isolated consumer.”
Gordon Matta Clark
Reflection
My architectural interests lie in the treatment of the existing situation as a valuable resource with inherent character and an opportunity for research of elements, qualities and capacities that can be recomposed. The concepts of emotional heritage and memory are the core components of my investigations with emphasis placed on the inherent value of the ruin as a palimpsest and found waste/objects as repositories of memory. The romantic charging and social commentary of Gordon Matta-Clark and philosophical writings of Jeffrey Malpas and Gaston Bachelard are key influences.
Flores & Prats’s dualistic pursuit of parts and the whole alongside Matta-Clark’s premonition that the physical and the poetic are halves of the whole (Richard, Frances) will form a trialistic basis for my language of experimental preservation and thesis interrogation.
1. The pursuit of the whole (a typological/situational clarification and spatial reconfiguration).
2. The pursuit of the parts (the collection, organisation, and redistribution of fragments).
3. Converting a building to a consciousness-altering form through its undoing.
As I reflected in my dissertation ‘The Linguistics of Romantic Materialism’ the process of weaving the past into the present human experience has the power to not only diminish emotional and cross-cultural waste but also provide a platform for self-discovery and remembrance. This is achieved through the consistent communication of a treatment of all layers of the palimpsest, whether explicit or implicit. This provides a legibility to the building user that enables the individual and dynamic nature of memory to flourish and fluctuate with time.
Architecturally, this can be achieved through the sensory activation of the past, whether it be through visual reminders or ergonomic elements that facilitate close-contact, or even inhabitation.
A generation of wonder in the prosaic palimpsest.
wonder [wuhn-der]
noun the feeling excited by something strange; a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and sometimes awe.
Related: admire, marvel, stare
Origin: Old English wundor; related to Old Saxon wundar, Old Norse undr, German Wunder Dictionary.com https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ wonder#british-wonder-1-noun
How could negative space provide a framework for remembrance and self-discovery?
5. Porto
The study trip took us to the streets of Porto for closer investigation of the urban landscape and documentation of our chosen sites. Defined by rainy days, sole adventures and social nights, the trip was a great restbite from the bustling studio environment, with many moments for reflection and questioning along the way.
On an aimless wander through narrow nooks and open squares, with the rumble of cars emerging from beneath and of a language strange yet familiar.
Light toys with the facades bouncing off glazed brick and azulejo the ville shimmers with a glistening glaze.
Crossing the bridge, a train chugs overhead. A moment of compression, of pedestrian and machine of inferiority to the scale and relentlessness of the ville.
A well hatted man and his guitar permeate the rush of the cité.
A backing track for the passing life, a rhythmic reference.
The extensive construction and repair work taking place in Porto is impossible to avoid. Statues and facades encased in scaffold with draped fabric blowing in the wind creating glimpses of damaged objects, of objects under repair. The organic forms they create caught my eye, flowing in the wind with a definite dynamism. Harking back to the forms generated by the sails of the rabelos catching the wind, they hold a certain timelessness and demand respect, for their bridging of the past and the present. But could they also have a role to play in Porto’s future?
The encased scaffold structures contain a space that fluctuates between positive and negative. That carries an intermediate, meanwhile use.
The city is clearly in a constant need of repair and is subsequently in a constant state of repair, a reality that will continue to prevail. So how might we embrace this mode of transition and tear down the utopic concept of ‘the finished article’?
Jack Garvin 5. Porto
Signs of (dis)Repair
Jack Garvin 5. Porto
Jack
Jack Garvin 5. Porto
Cláudia Escaleira and Jonny Pugh
1. NADA NOVO embraces the premise that reuse principles are not ‘new’, and adopts an ‘anti-new’ agenda.
2. NADA NOVO challenges authorities, schools, industry and designers to respond to the climate crisis by exploring the Anthropocene as an alternative source of materials to the extraction of virgin raw materials.
3. NADA NOVO promotes the reuse of components and reflects on the opportunities it could create in conceptual and construction practices.
4. NADA NOVO confronts the construction industry’s conventional sourcing, storage and material flow practices with reuse strategies.
5. NADA NOVO believes that implementing reuse in construction is a cultural challenge that requires creative engagement and new collaborative models with professional and non-professional publics.
6. NADA NOVO rejects binary concepts of heritage that divide the material environment into ‘high’/’low’ value elements; encourages the broadening of aesthetics of buildings and places.
7. NADA NOVO seeks methods to overcome disparaging connotations of reuse in self-construction contexts.
8. NADA NOVO advocates the adoption of circular practices as a means to more affordable and sustainable housing.
9. NADA NOVO highlights the potential of a radical transformation of the materials economy, via reuse, to tackle social inequalities present in the construction industry.
The rejection of a binary notion of heritage (6) is pertinent to my research as it allows for the unconventional consideration of intangible substance and a greater depth of discussion and perception around value within material culture. As is the premonition of material culture transformation as a social agent (9), with the incorporation of the everyday object -- or as I refer to it, the prosaic palimpsest -- being a working example.
This is a subject area that I look forward to investigating in my second semester elective Material Cultures in Creative Research with the intention to weave my findings into my emerging design proposal.
Nada Novo’s manifesto is an inspiring mode of practice that not only sets a precedent for contemporary reuse within Porto and further afield but also defines a path for pursuit in my architectural career.
Mission to Maintain
Banco de Materiais, Porto
Our visit to Banco de Materiais warehouse felt charged with narrative, on wandering through the collection a sense of complexity and layered time was overwhelming. As if in a walk-through theatre with the material itself acting as narrator of the personal and collective experiences’ embedded within them.
The language of care that they exhibit for disregarded items is inspiring and clearly generates an interest and value in them that would not otherwise be possible had they been sent to landfill as per standard practice. It is this appreciation for found material as a beholder of stories past that if employed critically promises to strengthen an architecture of continuation.
Light and Daydream
Matta-Clark, G., Attlee, J., Le Feuvre, L., Centre for Contemporary Arts, & Architectural Association. (2003).
Gordon Matta-Clark : the space between Nazraeli Press.
Porto Negative
Before visting Porto the assessment of potential sites took the form of a series of overlays onto an inverted plan of the city centre as a development of the idea that the insertion of negative space into space is an inversion of the figure ground relationship.
A process of determining by eye the areas which suffered from a lack of negative space / overdevelopment. Initial experimentation with cuts was undertaken through aerial views of the Vila Nova de Gaia area, partially deconstructing the warehouses of the area to develop a reductive architectural language.
The visual representation of cuts was also explored with red denoting downtakings, drawn as the first layer and then moved to the top on completion.
Time Wasted(?)
However, having spent the majority of my time in and around the port wine cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia - I left Porto feeling unfulfilled by the depth and nuance that I had found. In an attempt to focus my thoughts through immersion I had achieved the opposite and left with an overwhelming feeling of time wasted. Initally I consoled myself with this being a result of the site being chosen for the purpose of locating my project on a map - a superficial basis for exploration. Yet on reflection I should have reviewed my decision and allowed for time to explore alternatives, such as attending the afternoon session of my tutor groups site visits.
However, considering Flores i Prats’ position on the unhierarchical treatment of layers of time, there is a definite value in this time that requires uncovering.
With the dilemma of remaining with the unfulfilling, yet researched site or flipping to the new undocumented site it is important to establish the reasons why I would do so.
What value does personal experience hold in a practice of experimental preservation? Could a lack of personal experience allow for reduced subjective judgement of elements/layers and subsequently greater refinement?
This is of course dependent on the access to third party anecdotes and documentation already undertaken of the internal and external environments.
Vila Nova de Gaia
Jack Garvin 5. Porto
6. Centro Comercial Stop
Site as Palimpsest
329 R. HEROISMO Late 1800s
Completion of residence for D. Maria Coimbra.
RURAL SPACE
16th/17th Century
CEMITERIO DO PRADO DO REPOUSO 1839
First public cemetery in Porto Opened for sanitary reasons
PIDE INSTALLATION 1948
Purchased and converted by Portuguese State.
END OF PIDE 1974
MUSEU MILITAR 1980
Inauguration
JJ. GONCALVES FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 1974
AUSTIN SERVICE STATION COMPLETED 1952
By
Eugenio Alves
for JJ Goncalves
de
Sousa
CC STOP OPENING 1982
CENTRO COMERCIAL CONVERSION 1979-1982
By Central Municipality Porto
BAND INHABITATION 1990s -
Transition from Public to Semi Private.
Memory of Heroismo
“the more often a memory is replayed, the deeper the groove, the easier it is to access”
Christina Edwards
‘The Liberation of the Last PIDE Prisoners in Porto’. https://www.agenda-porto.pt/en/ media/portografia-a-libertacao-dos-ulti - mos-presos-politicos-da-pide-no-porto/.
“It was a great joy. At lunchtime I came here with colleagues to see if the prisoners had left. Some had been taken to Caxias the night before, by stealth. The last was Jorge Carvalho, who had a common offence case against him because when the PIDEs went to beat him, he reacted. They say he bit the hand of a PIDE, blessed!” she laughs.
In tracing the history of CCStop, it is the presence of its neighbour, the Millitary Museum that appears to have the deepest groove due to the former presence of the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE) the secret police force of Salazar’s dictatorial regime.
A particularly notable event occurred on 26 April 1974 when the military arrived on Rua do Heroismo to release the last of the political prisoners. Maria José Ribeiro (see left, pictured with a photograph of her as a prisoner) was imprisoned three times by the PIDE and is now a memory keeper and active member of the Union of Portuguese AntiFascist Resistants (URAP).
With this event located at the Museum’s entrance it is the liminal space between Stop and the Military Museum that is charged with its memory. A story to be remembered and continuously told.
Heroísmo.
Jack Garvin 6. CC STOP
Austin Service Station
Designed by Eugenio Alves de Sousa for JJ.
Goncalves the original state of the structure was a Service Station for the Austin Brand. Conceived as an ‘expansion’ of the pre-existing single storey garage, the development was extensive and bore no resemblance to the pre-existing. Instead adhering to modernist design principles with a reinforced concrete structure, independent partitions, large spans and circular columns.
Interestingly, the circulation took the form of a curved vehicular ramp at the rear with built in staircase and elevator (see section CD above).
A sculptural trace of the past.
Jack Garvin
Centro Comercial STOP
However, in 1974 JJ. Goncalves began to experience financial difficulties with bankruptcy declared soon after. This led to the purchase by the Municipality of Porto for conversion into a Commercial Centre in 1979 preceding a movement in the 1980s in which large shopping centres were developed as an aspirational element of contemporary life. (Canha) During this conversion the additional floor (housing Porto a Noite nightclub) and an access ramp from street level to basement parking were added. The vehicular ramp was covered with a staircase and commercial units and escalators were installed. The tenure was divided between commercial units, as well as Cinema, Parking and Dance Club.
The conversion was clearly concerned with financial optimisation of the space, leading to a loss of spatial freedom that could be restored.
The Experimental As Found
From the 90s onwards the commercial units have gradually been inhabited by musicians, altering the function, mode of occupation and interior-exterior relationship. From public to private in character, opacity was introduced with the extensive glazing being back painted.
Site Model
The process of making a 1/500 site model by hand (with Rosie Joyce) has been rewarding not only for learnings about the site but also a means with which to get hands on and importantly reduce screen time. It has been a great change of pace and the time I have spent with it is of great value for my familiarity with the context. This was used in the exhibition alongside my concept model (grey) that unintentionally resembled the crippled steel roof of the ABC behind. -->
Concept Model
In an attempt to visually communicate a process of working with time and weaving layers of meaning through abstraction, I chose to deconstruct the clock face. Firstly forming an organic form (red lines) from the 30 degree segments I carved away sections, folding and bending it before looping thin elements through the resulting form in an alternating fashion.
Concept Diagram
The bleeding through of the latticework of the neighbouring cemetery into the site of CCStop and adjacent urban wasteland.
Forming a framework that is rooted in context from which to derive a nuanced series of cuts.
1/1000
CCS Conceptual Cuts
Placing the conceptual model onto the site has aided in understanding the impact on the context, with the aim now to contine this process by producing a series of cut models. These will each be placed into the model and analysed/ documented to allow for a selection of the most effective. Using the model as a tool for design development will be a key element of my methodology moving forward.
Jack Garvin
Conceptual Model
7. Formative Review
Monday 2nd December 2024
I took the formative review as an opportunity to effectively pin my desk on the board in an effort to explain my process and current thinking. This led to a raw, unfiltered view of where I’m at with the series of layered trace enabling interaction with my work during both presentation and discussion. Pinning the model up was especially effective as it allowed for greater engagement with the audience, serving as a strong tool for communicating the conceptual impact when swapping it out my conceptual model with the existing using blue tac.
The presentation structure of 1. Title 2. Conceptual Foundation 3. Research Question 4. Site through Time 5. Future? was successful. I felt the discussion gave me good direction to move forward, particularly with the definition of the city, block, building and fragment scales for pursuit as well as key programmatic precedents such as La Friche and Wonder Cabinet to research. Regarding AT, it was identified that it is now important to define the types of spaces that I intend to form in order to address their properties and capacities in the emerging design proposal.
Eichbaumoper
Mülheim, Germany
“Eichbaumoper characterizes the temporary transformation of the metro station Eichbaum into an opera house. [...] An architectural symbol of reactivation and transformation, a workshop, event space, bar, cinema, art gallery, meeting place, reading cafe. [...] In addition to people’s stories, the noise of the motorway, the rhythm of the passing subway and the inhospitable rooms became defining parts of the Eichbaum Opera, which was performed on site in the temporary opera house in June and July 2009. The theatrical and urban spaces can no longer be separated from one another.”
This precedent is relevant due to its incorporation of the artist/performer into the ongoing narrative and programmatic development of the proposal as well as its urban position inbetween harsh infrastructural boundaries.
Wonder Cabinet
Bethlehem, Palestine
Anastas designs the Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem as hub for makers and creatives, Dezeen 2023
“Palestinian architects AAU Anastas have built a production facility and cultural hub in Bethlehem, which brings together the many strands of their cross-disciplinary practice and includes a radio station and restaurant.”
A collaborative platorm for creative practive with adaptability at its core, the Wonder Cabinet sets a precedent for experimentation as a vehicle for knowledge exchange that is embedded in the present with a forward looking gaze.
Jack Garvin 9. Iteration
David E. Nye, American Technological Sublime, Cambridge, Mass./London, The MIT Press, 1994 Monument to the Third International, Vladimir Tatlin, https://arkinetblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/ monument-to-the-third-international-vladimir-tatlin/
“The mathematical sublime is an encounter with something extremely large or of great magnitude, i.e., it is the idea of the infinitely large (which in reality is finite) that one has before things of unique dimensions of or considered huge. [...] In the presence of this apparent infinity, Kant’s subject experiences weakness and insignificance, but then recuperates a sense of superior self-worth, because the mind is able to conceive something larger and more powerful than the senses can grasp.”
“The dynamic sublime has to do with the contemplation of scenes that may raise the element of terror, without one feeling in real
appears to be relatively substantial in the above objects. The mass creates a weight using the equation weight equals the product of mass and gravitational field strength (w=mg). This weight illustrates the earth’s effect on objects due to gravity and is accentuated by the floating illusion – implying it defies gravity. This highlights the relationship between physics and art, between the objective and subjective.
Tatlin also explores the relationship between space and matter by surrounding the structures with negative space, as well as using a corner to add to the three-dimensional quality of the space/ structure.
Vertical taper inwards from internal point in section. Provides emphasis.
Converging tapered cuts in plan.
Breaks up flow yet with continuity.
Conical cut. Suspense or omission, requiring interpretation.
ROCK ‘N’
REUSE
Jack CS Garvin
AT5.2 Detalied Technical Study
MSA Stage 5 24/25
Sustainable Design
The sustainable element to the design revolves entirely around reuse as a means with which to reduce embodied carbon spending. This takes place at a range of scales, primarily with the decision to work with the existing superstructure. Due to this holding approximately half of the total embodied carbon of the found situation, it is where the majority of carbon savings are made. Further to this, the reconfiguration of the tertiary elements on site entails further savings, particularly in the production and transport that would be required for new material.
As the scheme takes a retrofit approach, it incurs serveral challenges to be negotiated in the design process. For example, the balancing of preservation and fit for purpose is significant, with the integration of modern systems such as BODYHEAT requiring extensive piping to be fixed to the superstructure, thus entailing an additional load.
This approach satisfies the need to build less and build light in the case of timber box treatment to reheasal rooms.
Floor Slabs
Reinforced Concrete Cast In-Situ
Secondary Beams
Reinforced Concrete Cast In-Situ
Primary Beams
Reinforced Concrete Cast In-Situ
Primary Columns & Ramp
Reinforced Concrete Cast In-Situ
Tertiary Elements
Aluminium Frame Shopfronts Brick Partitions
Sala Beckett, Flores Prats, https://floresprats.com/archive/ sala-beckett-project/
The reinforcement strategy of the cuts is fundamental to the structural strategy. With the cuts slicing through slab and beam, a ring-beam is necessitated to tie together the severed load paths.
Using cast in-situ concrete with recycled aggregate from crushed structural beams an ambiguity between old and new. With the placement 100mm away from the edge allowing the rough edge to be left as cut.
Hempcrete banister to form continuity in from with concrete monolothic structure. Cuts through both slab and beam creating true negative space.
‘Porto Climate, Weather By Month, Average Temperature (Portugal)Weather Spark’. https://weatherspark.com/y/32397/Aver - age-Weather-in-Porto-Portugal-Year-Round. ‘2D Sun-Path’. Accessed 1 May 2025. https://andrewmarsh.com/ apps/releases/sunpath2d.html.
Building Performance
First Floor In Context 1/2000
The orientation of CCStop lends itself to cuts to the west elevation, with the afternoon sun being unobstructed by the low lying industrial buildings and adjacent cemetary. This allows for the deep plan to be penetrated by natural light and enable passive solar heat gain. As the proposal externalises the interior it is important to consider the thermal comfort of Porto’s climate. It is clear a comfortable level is achieved from May to October during the afternoon.
The economical approach to thermal comfort comes as a reaction to unecessary thermal comfort standards. We do not need every internal space to be thermally treated - only where necessary. The approach taken is of three degrees of treatment:
A Covered External Open to the elements, B Covered Internal 13-20° C
BODYHEAT Technology that supplies the treated spaces.
Treatment C requires new mechanical ventilation.
Construction & Materials
DIY Timber kit for self build of rehearsal room treatment. Reclaimed timber stud with 100mm hemp wool insulation and cork acoustic panels Wrapped in plywood.
The stud pattern allows for customisable acoustic panel layout, so it can be tailored to the spatial and musical needs. Employing entirely biobased and non toxic material, it is possible to be left in its raw state on the internal face. This permits further reconfigurationand repair works.
Stitch Drilling for precise and intricate openings of diameter 5mm to 1 metre. Using hand held tool and hydraulic rigs a series of overlapping small circular cuts are made in order to create larger cuts.
Keeps vibrations to a minimum so as to maintain structural integrity of remaining structure.
Diamond Ring Sawing for cutting long straight edges and precise corners in floor slabs. Could be employed in the two floor basement (-1, -2) in order to create more generous volumes within the considerably cramped ceiling heights.
Fire & Life Safety
The act of cutting and externalising the internal street has the effect of producing more means of escape from fire. In the existing construction there is only one p’oint of escape with distances of up to 60m from this point. This is excessive and is resolved by the cuts, reducing distances to under 30m.
The Ellipses cut enlarges the existing entrance to make it more obvious as to where to exit the building in the event of fire.
The Semi-Colon cut to the rear creates a clear line of sight and movement to the exterior.
All circulation cores and lift shafts are retained for vertical circulation, proving to be sufficient for continued use.
(B)
The thesis selects Centro Comercial STOP, a former service station that was converted into a commercial centre in the early 80s and is now inhabited by over 300 musicians in the form of autonomous bands. Applying a non-hierarchical treatment to the recomposition of these layers, the intervention takes cues from poetic devices to blend the ‘As Found’ and ‘Un Found’ while aligning the prosaic structure with its experimental inhabitation. Through a series of curved carvings within the rectilinear structural grids, complexity is developed in and through the surfaces of the existing that opens the oppressive space from the inside out by inverting the figure-ground relationship.
3. Centro Cultural Stop
Ellipsis
Jack Garvin
Closing Thoughts
“A minor architecture is becoming space rather than being form. It hums along restlessly, turning away from the stale orders of commodity, originality, permanence, and perfection, and towards incompleteness and immanence.’ ‘Minor architectures are, in fact, opportunistic events in response to latent but powerful desires to undo structures of power.’ They are intentionally ‘improvised, fractional, stripped of decoration and even of grammar.” - Jill Stoner
To conclude the search for a way in which to generate wonder in the commonplace, I wonder whether anything at all needed to be done for Stop’s beauty to be realised. Perhaps this comes back to the travelator of the Line through the City project and speaks to the speed of movement through and outwith a space or city - perhaps it is the moments that we stop that hold significance here.
So, although experimental cuts through structure can become intriguing to the passerby it is perhaps not physically required, but one that speaks to the mentality of the passerby. I would suggest that we are all locked, to an extent, into a metaphorical travelator in the way we traverse urban environments, with a clear destination in mind on every journey, steered by our mobile device bodyparts. Is it here that the cuts should take place?
It has become apparent that futher research is required in the politics of deconstruction.
A call to action then. To get out and look at not what you are expected to but at that which you are not.
The beauty is in plain view, the veil is within not without -- it is not the diamond tipped saw that will generate true wonder but the eye of the beholder.
Bibliography
‘2D Sun-Path’. Accessed 5 May 2025. https://andrewmarsh.com/apps/releases/sunpath2d.html.
Amelunxen, Hubertus von, Angela Lammert, Philip Ursprung, and Gordon Matta-Clark. Gordon MattaClark: Moment to Moment - Space. Nürnberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2012.
Art History Images. Matta Clark- Conical Intersect- 1975- 5. 22 October 2009. Photo. https://www.flickr. com/photos/44018998@N06/4047427692/.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. New edition. Penguin Classics. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
Bessa, Antonio Sergio, Jessamyn Fiore, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Bronx Museum of the Arts. Gordon Matta-Clark - Anarchitect. Bronx, NY: Bronx Museum of the Arts in assocation with Yale University Press, 2017.
‘Cca.Qc.ca/En/Search/Details/Collection/Object/379691’. Accessed 10 April 2025. https://www.cca. qc.ca/en/search/details/collection/object/379691.
CorkLink - cork products direct from Portugal. ‘Expanded Cork’. Accessed 1 May 2025. https://www. corklink.com/index.php/expanded-cork/.
Divisare. ‘Coop Himmelb(l)Au - Wolf D. Prix & Partner · Rooftop Remodeling Falkestrasse, Wien’. Accessed 10 April 2025. https://divisare.com/projects/305869-coop-himmelb-l-au-wolf-d-prix-partner-rooftopremodeling-falkestrasse-wien.
‘Documentation | Opalis’. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://opalis.eu/en/documentation.
Ferreira, Miguel Veiga. ‘Entre Memória e Esquecimento: Por Uma Intervenção Participativa No Centro Comercial STOP’. Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto, 2022.
Flores & Prats. Thought by Hand, 2014.
Garvin, Jack Conor Stewart. ‘The Linguistics of Romantic Materialism: How Can Experimental Preservation Help to Diminish Cross-Cultural and Emotional Waste?’ Glasgow School of Art Dissertations. School of Art, 2024.
‘Gordon Matta-Clark | Artnet’. Accessed 4 November 2024. https://www.artnet.com/artists/gordonmatta-clark/.
Kwint, Marius and Royal College of Art. Material Memories: Design and Evocation. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Malpas, Jeff. ‘Building Memory’. Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, 14 March 2012, 11–21. https://doi.org/10.24135/ijara.v0i0.433.
Matta-Clark, Gordon. Gordon Matta-Clark: The Space Between. Tucson, AZ: Nazraeli Press, 2003.
Portal do Munícipe. ‘Cedência de elementos construtivos do Banco de Materiais’. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://portaldomunicipe.cm-porto.pt/pt/-/ced%C3%AAncia-de-azulejos-pararecoloca%C3%A7%C3%A3o-na-fachada-de-edif%C3%ADcio.
‘Porto Climate, Weather By Month, Average Temperature (Portugal) - Weather Spark’. Accessed 5 May 2025. https://weatherspark.com/y/32397/Average-Weather-in-Porto-Portugal-Year-Round.
‘Porto Desaparecido’. Accessed 27 April 2025. https://www.facebook.com/ PortoDesaparecido/?locale=en_GB.
ResearchGate. ‘Fig. 2 MIDI Notes in a Music Score in Graphical Form’. Accessed 1 May 2025. https:// www.researchgate.net/figure/MIDI-notes-in-a-music-score-in-graphical-form_fig2_256374891.
Santos, Fabio Verissimo. ‘Reconhecimento de Circunstancias Para Um Projecto de Arquitectura. Rua Do HeroÌsmo, 333’. Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, 2013.
‘Semiology and Architecture – Jencks Foundation’. Accessed 27 April 2025. https://www. jencksfoundation.org/explore/text/charles-jencks-semiology-and-architecture-1969.
Sennett, Richard. Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City. Allen Lane, 2018.
Silva, Kevin da. Porto - Cidade Das Três Pontes. 8 May 2016. Photo. https://www.flickr.com/ photos/142686816@N07/26282592144/.
SoundService Oxford (ltd). ‘Thermafleece Environmentally Friendly Acoustic Infill for Stud Walls’. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://www.keepitquiet.co.uk/thermafleece-environmentally-friendly-acousticinsulation/.
Stoner, Jill. Toward a Minor Architecture. Cambridge, Mass. ; MIT Press, 2012.
‘Technical Documentation. | IsoHemp’. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://www.isohemp.com/en/documents. ‘The Liberation of the Last PIDE Prisoners in Porto’. Accessed 23 April 2025. https://www.agenda-porto. pt/en/media/portografia-a-libertacao-dos-ultimos-presos-politicos-da-pide-no-porto/.
Valérie. ‘Ad Hoc Baroque, Marcel Raymaekers’ Salvage Architecture in Postwar Belgium. Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon, Lionel Devlieger & James Westcott’. Text. C.I.II.III.IV.A, 12 December 2023. https://civa. brussels/en/exhibitions-events/ad-hoc-baroque-marcel-raymaekers-salvage-architecture-postwarbelgium.
Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 2nd edition. Museum of Modern Art Papers on Architecture. London: Architectural Press, 1977. Accessed 8 April 2025. https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/ search/details/collection/object/383567.
