In Between The Extractible & The Non-extractible ETS5 Diploma 17 Yee Fei Tan
TS STATEMENT - BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE To explore the role of the slate landscape as a tangible and intangible resource for North Wales in its transition into a post-industrial society. With the economy of ‘thinness’ as the main driving force behind heritage slate production, the ETS projects seeks to embrace fragility and fissility of Welsh slate into the project’s materialisation. The core idea is to ‘improvise’ or ‘re-adapt’ the use of the material in conjunction with its current industrial and geological context. Aims to provide a building process and spatial experience to transcend its long history of heritage standards.
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS METHODOLOGY Material Test 1 - Estsblishing understanding of span, scale without frame Material Test 2 - Combined use of quarried slate and waste slate Experiential Params - tactility, porosity, light, sound, warmth Considerations - watertightness 1. metal cables/support 2. insulationw 3. gabion References - Existing Applications (Slate, and for Structural Systems)
INTRODUCTION DEFINING ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE
LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION AS A TECHNICAL BYPRODUCT
Positioning Architecture within, rather than in relation to the Industry ‘Modernism in architecture emerged as an aesthetic implementation of ideas first developed by engineers and scientific managers’, - Mauro F. Guillén The built environment that emerges from industry has long been the subject of aesthetic enquiry and production. The established representational potential of architecture currently emphasises the aesthetic aspects of the relation between the organisation of industrial production and the rise of modernism. Architects merely re-interpreted scientific management in aesthetic terms. How could we start mobilising it for industry? Architecture as an agent for industry Architecture generates building typologies that facilitate specific forms of work – such as the office, the laboratory, or the factory. While the factory has long been the model for other building types, which had to be ‘like the factory’, the workspaces of the ‘knowledge economy’ today encourage the social nature of collaborative work, while blurring the boundary between life and work. Architecture as a conduit for material economy and industrial circularity Possible shifting professional position of the architect through design and macro-economic context that privileges the manufacturer over the client - Andrew Rabeneck Architecture serves other industries in so far as it is a conduit for the sale of manufactured goods and services in itself. ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
DIPLOMA 17 UNIT ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
REBUILDING A SENSE OF LOCALITY VIA NOTIONS RESOURCE, LABOR AND SOCIAL VALUES
Latent Territories: From the Ground Up Brief Excerpt The research of DIP17 focuses on two main considerations: developing architectural form for its capacity to engage the body; and critically rethinking the politics of how architecture is produced. This year, we will reflect on the implications of material production and manufacturing processes in architecture, in relation to the question of technique. Our ambition is to unravel the associated social conditions, cultural constructs and related political contexts, and to reveal their pervasive role in every design and construction methodology. We will speculate, design and develop sophisticated but affordable spatial and constructive strategies with a social aim, and which represent attempts to engender antagonistic agency. The projects will be at the scale of a cultural project and ambiguously situated at the intersection between architecture, landscape and art. Through research on key architectural precedents and a deep understanding of contemporary and historical manufacturing techniques, projects will respond to a series of historical, socio-economic and environmental issues and discuss their forms of transformative capacity, democratic accessibility and collaborative agency. Tutors: Dora Sweijd and Theo Sarantoglou Lalis
INTRODUCTION PROJECT COMPONENTS
ON LANDSCAPE
1. Current human practice of extractivism - Industrial-Ecological Awareness For long, architecture of the built environment has thrived at the invisible expense of socalled ‘environmental externalities’, where local consequences of production have been disregarded for the communities formed around material production . Robert Smithson understood this very well and produced works that projected the landscape as a space for dialectical thinking, where the construction of a landscape in one place is related to transformation another - a reciprocity - and that between the two places was a space to think and see.
ON COMM
2. ‘Post-industrial landscapes as places Proposal for a Film Center This project believes that the anecdotal co addressed through the adaptation of photodo cultural production in flux with the forces of l land as a form collective social understandin of Photography was founded as a fine-art pr of photographers Hilla and Bernd Becher w Archaelogical response. This suggests the did as a foundation ground for photo-document
Non-site (Slate from Bangor, Pa)
Photography Practice emerging from Indu
In 1968, Robert Smithson collected geologic materials from quarries, mine dumps, and other industrial landscapes (which he called sites). He gathered them as sculptures alongside maps and other site documentation into the gallery space (as ‘non-sites‘). These works projected the landscape as a space for dialectical thinking, where sites are externalised spaces which displace and supply material for urban development and non-sites the concentrated cultural capital.
‘It is the political function of photography to r in other words, according to the current fashi
Photography was first used as tool for illustr buildings in science and engineering. As cam more accessible, it became a tool for social d ties. Eventually, photography becane tool fo to its landscapes and suburban sprawl aesth
1976 - The photographers Hilla and Bernd B The Düsseldorf School of Photography, Ger ical documentation of neglected industrial s forms yielded a new aesthetic that promote medium. ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
MUNITY
ON BUILDING
s to generate new cultural practices’ - A
3. ‘Designing in reciprocity with the Industry’ - Material Constructs
onnection between the two places can be ocumentary practices as a successive form of landscape transformation, learning from the ng. In 1970s, the famous Dusseldorf School rogram in Germany, guided by the practices which were birthed as a form of Industrial dactic potential of the post-industrial setting tary practices.
Having chosen slate as a material, the project proposes a tectonic and construction system which explores alternative material usage in challenge of the economy of thinness in production. This shall expands material language of slate beyond heritage applications, representing an architecture that deconstructs the traditional specifications that established the notion of extractibility in slate. This encourages the industry to move past the heavily nationalisted system of resource circularity, labor conditions and social values.
ustrial Landscapes
ETS 5 - Aim
renew the world as it actually is from within, ion.’ - Walter Benjamin
rating industrial processes, machinery and meras and photographic processing became documentation around mining communior post-industrial documentary, in attraction hetics.
Becher officialised as a fine-art program at rmany. Becher’s geographical and taxonomstructures according to their functional ed photography as a widely accepted art
1. How many forms of secondary or waste slate are identified? 2. What is the range of applications can the project propose? 3. What are the resulted experiential and performative aspects for a film center? 4. How much % recovered slate are used on site, hence, carbon capture? 5. How has the building provided a new relationship or interface between the communnity and the landscape? Expanding material language of slate in conjunction to its current socio-geological landscape. In other words, it is to reclassify slate’s material value (beyond its economical one as the heritage roof shingle) with a more experiential aspect Exploring design possibilities using free form materials uncovered from the slate landscapes, to ultimately address industrial circularity.
[Thesis] The Inextractible Land as a Didactic Resource The Inextractible Land as a living social context for Cultural site
Quarries’ morphological forms become regional landmarks and may be more favored through the local cultural factor behind the transformation. With the ever-changing likes and dislikes of the consumer, this project argues that the repurposing of the ‘‘non-extractible’’ landscape should ultimately generate social values for the locals, in development with economical practice that drove its transformation in the first place.
[Opportunity] Slate Landscape from Extraction to Production
Ratio of waste production to finished products is 10:1 In North Wales, there are estimated to be 730 million tonnes of slate waste, of which 370 million tonnes are in the Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog districts. Current extraction is increasing this amount by 6 million tonnes a year.
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
Current Outlook of Wales
1. Policy The Wellbeing of Future Generation (Wales) Act 2015
3. Social Appeal of the Slate Trail
2. Economic Conversion of Quarries into Tourist Centers
Promoting Industrial Circularity via Community Engagement with the Landscape Current legislative and economic reforms have aimed to attract the external market rather than creating local empowerment with the industrial landscape.
land
re-extraction
economic
re-classification of material
social
re-bonding with the landscape
The project proposes to transform the ‘non-extractible’ site into a communal place for social learning, smallscale production, accessible nature. Aims to establish of socio-economic opportunities through new modes of material consumption and social inhabitation of North Wales - that is currently in transition to the post-industrial stage.
PROJECT COMPONENT 1 On Landscape
Site Context - Welsh Landscape and Slate Production In 1878*, Wales saw a vast expansion in slate production as well, making it the world’s largest slate supplier of century. Welsh slate began to earn the title of ‘the material that roofed the world’. Prior to this, economic development was difficult due to the topography of the country, which made mainland transportation arduous. It is this same topography, however, that heralded the touristic romanticistion of the Sublime Picturesque in the 18th Century, as well as the abundance of slate material made exploitable during the Industrial Revolution. In the recent year of 2021, these post-industrial topography had been officialised as a UNESCO Heritage Site, placing a static preservation of landscape and a futher enforcement of heritage values in association with Welsh slate. These conflicting aproach to the landscape have been found cyclical and ironic through time.
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
An inquiry of current physical preservation of industry by UNESCO, and the touristic practices endorsed.
PROPOSED CULTURAL CENTRE BRIEF Aim - The Dialectical Landscape as an Autonomous, Collective, and Regenerative Narrative Medium
As the dramatic slate landscape of Wales manifests itself as a reciprocal result of the economy of thinness in slate production, Wales must reposition itself away from the localised/traditional material values attached to slate production. To beyond its nationalised heritage - the following shall happen: 1. Shifting touristic preservation of slate landscape to a generative use of the landscape itself as transformative resouce 2. Geological reflection through photo-documentary program - a successive form of cultural production
Site Program Young filmmaker and photographer residency, in collaboration with local mountaineers, industrial archaelogist, environmentalists, geologists... o platform to cultivate a collaborative nature in the art and science of photodocumenting, borrowing the local context of the post-quarried landscape to foster global narratives of the extractive industry ‘The Dialectical Approach’: inserting the program within the post-extractive site itself as practicing grounds deploys such landscapes as a ‘living social context’ (The Author as Producer, Walter Benjamin) To renew the world as it actually is from within 1. Library and Archive = 300 m2 2. Community Exchange = 350 m2 3. Craft Production = 400 m2
Chosen Plot Situated on an elevated plot upon entry to Llanberis, home to the largest UNESCO-preserved disused quarry, National Slate Museum , and the Grade-I listed landmark of Dolbaldarn Castle. Llanberis is geographically situated between the two other quarry towns which are linked via the presence of slate bedrocks formed in the Cambrian Epoch. In the 18th Century, this site has had a history of attracting dramatic landscape portrayals in the interpretation of the sublime and the picturesque. In the 19th Century, this town became home to one of the biggest slate quarries of the time - Dinorwig quarry. In the 20th Century, the town began shifting away from slate production to the tourism industry. In 2018, a 4-year running Llanberis Film Festival has been discontinued due to funding. In 2021, the slate landscape has been titled UNESCO Heritage site. The plot is situated at the perphery of the UNESCO demarkation, overlooking the the lake, the quarry, and the town at a high vantage point. 1. Town Area - 45.62 km² 2. Population - 2,144 (2020), 18-64 y/o 63% 3. 700,000 annual visiting tourists (2021)
Desired Output: Located at the intersection of the urban-industrial landscape, the proposed complex is a manifestation of an extended slate landscape, an intersectional space between knowledge exchange, craft production, and communal leisure.
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1. Organisational Principle/Pattern according to Slope, Viewpoints, Natural Lighting for Program 2. Tectonical Decision according to physical scale, acoustics, and landscaping COMPOUND 1 - Library and Archive = 300 m2 library room (1) 12m x 9m = 108 m2 archive room (1) 10m x 8m = 80 m2 meeting rooms (2) 5m x 8m = 40 m2 40 m2 (2) = 80 m2 COMPOUND 2 - Community Exchange = 400 m2 auditorium, 150 seats (1) 16m x 12 m = 192 m2 gallery hall (2) 22m x 4m = 88 m2 88 m2 (2) = 176 m2 projection room, round (1) 8m x 8m = 64 m2 COMPOUND 3 - Craft Production = 400 m2 computer labs/classrooms (3) 12m x 8m = 96 m2 10m x 6m = 60 m2 6m x 6m = 36 m2 = 192 m2 infinity studio, U-shaped (3) 8m x 6m = 48 m2 48 m2 (3) = 144 m2
post-production lab (4) 4m x 3m = 12 m2 12 m2 (4) = 48 m2
Lighting considerations BLINDED SPACE (underground) archive room (1) auditorium (1) projection room, round (1) infinity studio, U-shaped (3) post-production lab (4) INDIRECT SUNLIGHT library room (1) gallery hall (x2) DIRECT SUNLIGHT computer/classrooms (3) meeting rooms (2) entrance foyers (3)
RESEARCH On Landscape
‘THE LANDSCAPE ATTRACTIVENESS OF ABANDONED QUARRIES’ - A STUDY - Attractiveness of post-exploitation area as a sign of social acceptance - Manmade Preservation as a natural succession of the ‘picturesque’
UNESCO officially designates Wales' slate areas as World Heritage Site in 2021
landscape attractivenes 1. vertical magnitude 2. human negligence and natural succession 3. boundary contrast with surroundings 4. accessibility 5. legal protection 6. human activity
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Land is a Resource, but it is neither
Infinite nor simply Recoverable.
However, we can use it in many different ways.
Video Documentation: Landscape The dramatic slate landscape itself as a reciprocal result of the economy of thinness in slate production
https://youtu.be/3G2goqptP7s
Current Production: 35,000 tons /year, supplying 85% of British roofing slates
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Total Peak Production: 485,000 tons/year, with 17,000 men in year 1898
CURRENT PRODUCTION On Landscape
Value of Heritage : From Quarrying to Tourism JW Greaves and Sons Ltd. decided in 1972 to venture into the tourism market, opening the Llechwedd Slate Caverns to the public. It has also formed diversification plans within the energy sector as we explore the possibility of installing wind turbines on the site to compliment the hydro-electric turbines
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UNESCO Heritage (Component 1) - Selected Boundary 1.4 Port Penrhyn
the harbour for Penrhyn slates
1.7 Penrhyn Castle Park
the extravagant neo-Norman dwelling of the Penrhyn family who financed Penrhyn Quarriy
1.3 Penrhyn Slate Quarry Railroad and Penrhyn Slate Quarry Railway
1.6 Bethesda – Village
created by quarrymen who preferred not to live on the Penrhyn estate
two historic systems which exported slate from 1801 to 1962
1.2 Felin Fawr Slate-slab Mills historic processing and engineering complex
1.5 Mynydd Llandygai – Settlement
1.1 Penrhyn Slate Quarry relict stepped benches with extensive areas of slate tipping to either side
planned housing for quarrymen and their families
Chosen for their scale, and the technology transfer and the transformation of a minority rural heritage into a modern industrial society UNESCO title Criteria 1. exhibits an important interchange of human values (1780 to 1940), on developments in architecture and technology v - innovated global architectural roofing - innovated narrow gauge railway operations - advanced railways for transcontinental exports 2. exemplifies a landscape that illustrates, in a dramatic way, the ‘combined works of nature and of man’ through the large-scale exploitation of natural resources. 3. exemplifies the industrial transformation of a traditional human settlement and marginal agrarian land-use pattern
CURRENT PRODUCTION On Landscape
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Current State of Quarries
Berwyn Quarry Operating at a limited scale, but at full range from extraction to custom finishing 1875 - ongoing
1. Small Smale Operation and Manufacturing
Current Output: From Quarried blocks to Bespoke Products
Blaenau Ffestiniog Quarries ‘Untopping’ operations of old underground mines Waste heaps for aggregrate production 1846 - ongoing Peak production : 23,788 tons/year, with 513 employees
2. Untopping Old Mines & Reclaiming Waste Heaps
Current Output: Secondary Aggregates / Synthetic Slate
Penrhyn Quarry Small scale quarrying on new pits Disused pits converted into a tourism ground 1770 - ongoing Peak production: 100,000 tonnes/ year, with 3000+ employees
3. Part Quarry, Part leisure ground
Current output: Roofing Slates
Dinorwig Quarry Disused quarry converted into a park and an hydropower plant since 1969 1787 - 1969 disused Peak production: 100,000 tonnes/year, with 3000+ employees
4. Leisure ground
Current output: NONE
SlateWaste Current Experiments / Application
Roofing slate mining has some characteristics. Slate only needs some cuts to be ready, not like other natural rocks that require further manufacturing such as polishing, consolidating or chemical treatment. On the other hand, the amount of waste in roofing slate mining is rather high. Only between 9-7% of what is extracted is finally transformed into shingles. The rest goes directly to the pit. There has been several attempts to take advantage of the enormous volume of wastes. Some researchers published several papers on obtaining ceramic foams using the slate powder. Other researchers have tried to produce rock wool using this powder mixed with mussel’s shells. More authors have tried producing concrete, bricks or different ceramic materials using wastes. The results showed that it is possible to create new materials coming from slate powder, but this does not mean a real solution to the wastes problem. The amount of powder required is ridiculous compared with the total amount of wastes, and the slate powder did not have any special advantage for any of these industries. It is not really worth for them to use it. In addition, transportation is not very cheap. J.E. Oti from the University of Glamorgan, UK. studied the limitations expressed so far (waste volume vs. used volume, distance) but they also specify all the possible uses for the slate wastes. In any case, it is not possible to provide an outlet for the massive pits. It is something we have to live with. On the other hand, technology and environmental legislation have improved very much the design and arrangement of the pits. Nowadays companies cannot just throw away the wastes wherever they want, and they must provide a restoration plan, which includes seeding. Roofing slate industry is becoming more and more aware of environment; do not forget that CO2 emissions are the lowest of all roofing materials Current uses of Slate Waste 1. Local fill and road building 2. Ornamental crushed rock Slate waste could, theoretically, supply some 50% of UK crushed rock sales. This amounts to a market size of some 59 million tonnes/annum. Penrhyn quarry has recently started to send slate waste by sea from Port Penrhyn to Liverpool and Manchester and it is anticipated that up to 200,000 tons per year could be sent to each destination. It is also planned to establish a rail terminal at Blaenau Ffestiniog from where slate waste from Oakeley quarry will be sent to English markets.
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Material Future of Slate Composites?
THINNER POSSIBILITIES
Slate-Lite 0.4 mm thick layer of natural slate, adhered to a 0.8mm polyester layer and a fiberglass layer that provide strength, flexibility and dimensional stability.
£ 2.08 60% recycled slate Size : 300mm x 336mm
1.2mm thick 1.50 kg / m² light
Composite or synthetic roofing slates are made of a mixture of commonly used roofing materials this can include materials such as fiberglass, recycled slate, cement and asphalt
£ 3.13 natural slate Size : 400mm x 250mm
Non-typical/ Construction Uses of Slate Sculpturing SCULPTURAL TECHNIQUES
Current market for Welsh slate still used for roofing purposes, both new and replacement while pulverised slate has many uses. Other markets are cladding and flooring for prestige buildings and luxury items like kitchen worktops. Small but relatively expensive items for the tourist industry are also widely produced.
Carving
Chipping
Historical Development of Slate Uses Tools, Material Finishing, and Building Application
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The ‘Splittable’ Nature of Slate Material Properties
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.
Mineral composition mica (in small, irregular scales), chlorite (in flakes), and quartz (in lens-shaped grains).
Low-Grade Metamorphosism - low enough to be cleaved/split with ease - high enough to be structurally strong and impermeable
UNCLEAVED - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - HIGHLY CLEAVED
Slaty cleavages - main direction for splitting Grains - secondary direction for splitting (undesired)
Slate colors - caused by small amounts of iron (red-brown), organic carbon (black), chlotire (green) and other additives, minerals, or mixture.
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Commodification for the Roof The material that “roofed the world” !
Slate for Roofing
1. Cleavability - ease for splitting means more sheets produced 2. Grain elongation - low elongation means stronger sheets 3. High Density - low-water absorbance rate (waterproof) 4. Low ferrous metallic and carbon content - rust and corrosion-proof
The criteria for slate quality is predominantly determined by its performance as a roof. Optimal durability: 120 years+
Commercial Decline 1. Higher upfront cost than synthetic materials (e.g asphalt shingles, cedar shakes, and metal roofing) 2. Heaviness means harder to install 3. Competition from mass-produced foreign imports (Spain, Brazil, China, India)
The rise and fall in demand for Slate production driven by its criteria as roofing material
Past Labor Conditions On Community Slate Production as a Cultural Identity
“As a young boy, I certainly wasn’t aware that I was living in an industrial town to any great extent. There’s no smoke or grime here -
“But the people here are aware of the quarries, even when they are in decline. There is an ambivalence in our attitude to them.
A 5-mins walk lead you into the green countryside. The great slate keeps here are part of the natural landscape.
On one hand, we hear stories of the exorbitant profits of the quarries and on the other, we hear a young man dying of silicosis without any compensation given to the family.”
Current Labor Conditions On Community
Research and Development of Slate Products
Mechanisation of Labor from Extraction to Customised Products
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‘new Sasso K600 cnc saw, Laiti automatic cross cutter, GMM axia saws and BM Panda gang saw’
Labour Management and Hierarchy of Occupation 1. Quarrymen Proper Teams of 4 Job rotation between rockface extraction and shed works (splitting and dressing) 2. Bad-rockmen and Rubbish men Teams of 3 Bargaining bad-rock Agreed payment with management, for every ton of badrock
3. Rubbish men Teams of 2 One clears the remaining rubbish from the galleries One makes the giant tips of waste rock around the quarry. Pay is fixed by the ton
The Caban Culture
4. Rybelwrs trainees who wander looking to give assistance 5 years to become a full miner Occasionally paid by the crew
The ‘Caban’ was a designated room in which the quarrymen would gather together to sing, eat, write poems, discuss daily lives and debate about Welsh politics. A president of the Caban is honorably elected, unpaid, to resolve disputes.
“We are determined that quarrying will not end.” -Michael Bewick, director of owners JW Greaves 19 quarrymen at Llechwedd in Blaenau Ffestiniog have been off work without pay since Easter after the rock face became too unstable.
While surveying for new slate beds, Welsh Slate Ltd. now produces roofing slate, architectural & hard landscaping products, aggregates and minerals from both quarried slate and waste heaps.
Uncertain job security Unstable corporate control and ownerships New machineries and more redundancies
Loss of community The closure of quarries equate to the closure of miners’ welfare hall, places that had been social, cultural and intellectual centres of local life
elites
Current Production
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Video Documentation: A Look Inside Current Production
https://youtu.be/mGBy8RWvQyI
The Economy of Thinness A market demand
transported blocks best splitting takes place after fresh-quarrying to avoid drying out
hand-spliting blocks to sheets a process yet to be automated (1 inch slab = 9 sheets3mm)
trimming blocks on saw bed to a manageable size by individual craftsman
1:4 goods-to-waste ratio
Standardised Dimensions Slate spandrels, panels, and wall facings are recommended in thicknesses of 1”, 1¼”, and sometimes 1½”. Standard economical lengths are up to 6’-6” and widths up to 4’-0”.
Thickness 0.8mm thinnest recorded, whereas 9mm is mm commercially practical
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Video Documentation: Traditional Craft and Construction A look into the traditional slating method
Standardised Tools
https://youtu.be/io-oqFCXT8w
Traditional Slate Roofing
Source: British Library
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Technical Requirements of Slate Pitched Roofs
Attachment slate on roofs The benefits of hook fixing are [11] There is no need to create a hole in the tile, which can sometimes weaken the slate. Narrower tiles can be used and hence this makes it easier for the roofer to create roof features such as valleys and domes. Hook fixing is particularly suitable in regions subject to severe weather conditions, such as Scotland and parts of Wales, since there is a greater resistance to wind uplift as the lower edge of the slate is secured.
Data obtained from ‘Roof Construction Manual: Pitched Roofs by Birkhauser’
Architectural Applications
Welsh Miner’s Housing
Welsh Warehouse Walling
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Welsh Fencing
Sculpture
Roofing
Walling
Cladding
Paving
Rustic walling – quarried and manufactured from rustic bed seams. Rustic walling generally gives a rugged natural finish, which is graded and selected to enhance its natural look and usually requires laying by a skilled stonemason. Pillared walling – slate has two workable planes: a cleavage plane and a pillaring line. The pillaring line is similar to the grain in a piece of wood. In good-quality slate, the pillaring line is at 90° to the cleavage plane. Pillared walling is usually produced with a pillared face. The back can be pillared, sawn or gauged. Cleaved walling – split in the same plane as a roofing slate or paving tile with a lightly textured riven surface. In general, cleaved walling is used in either fixed or patterned course heights as any adjustments must be cut with diamond blades. Sawn walling – has a manufactured sawn face finish. Sawn walling is produced to higher tolerances, making it easier to lay, and can be fixed with tighter joint lines than traditional stone walling. Mortar and Adhesives are used to tighten joints
Material Testing - Collecting Samples
Slate The word “slate” is believed to come from the Old French escalate, meaning fragment, from the verb esclater, to shatter.
SCAVENGED MATERIAL
MATERIAL LIBRARY
Reasons for Defects 1. cleavability 2. grain - secondary direction of splitting 3. mineral composition - mica (in small, irregular scales), chlorite (in flakes), and quartz (in lens-shaped grains) 5. Weather-durable high-tensile rock low-water absorbance thermally stable electric insulator rust-proof durability (120 years roofing)
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Typical Certification
Material Testing -Splitting Waste Rocks
Expanding Architectural Language of Slate
Conceptual Sketches
/Elements/ 1. Traditional Frame with a straight/triangular profile 2. Thin slate as shingles for frame 3. Crushed Slate as filler for 3D fillet/draping 4. Vertical layering of thicker materials to form roof-domes and roof-trenches 5. Metal column/trusses to support bigger spans
Slate Cabin Proposal vs Result by TRIAS
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Challenging Directionality of Assembly
Material Testing - Assembly
Conceptual Sketches
Horizontal
Directionality in Laying Slates
heavy to deploy, but potentially structural
dependency on frame / guide?
Vertical lighter, high-performative cladding
Exploring Forms and Tectonics - Variety of Profiles calling for different construction techniques to follow
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Proposed Assembly Matrix Compressive structure comprising of catenary and timbrel vaulting
Hybridizing Elements
slate arch
slate dome by Goldsworthy
timbrel vaulting
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Slate Vaulting Lineage of Techniques
Timbrel vaulting shell via Tile Bricks Mapungubwe Visitor Centre Architect: Peter Rich Consultant: Philippe Block
Timbrel Construction The majority of the materials come also from the local environment and enhance the identity of the building. Soil cement tiles were locally produced by the indigenous people, roughly shaped stones for the cladding of the domes and the construction of walls. Minimal formwork and no steel reinforcement were used for the vault shaped roofs. <https://architectureindevelopment.org/project/33>
Model for Cultural Skills Transfer Local Material Production - Testing - Labour Training
Construction and Design Principle Form based on Vaulting + Landscaping
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Scale of 18m span vaults
Material System Test - Experiments
Chain System - various catenary arcs for profiling
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Material Systems - Forces and Performance
Chain System - various catenary arcs for profiling
Stack - Heavy load suitable for foundations
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Vault via mortar - thin/light but the uneven and fissile edges of slate makes bonding between tiles difficult
Vault via mechanical joints - alternative to mortar but mechanical joints create higher pressure points, downward, through each tile
Material Systems - Catenary Chain System - advancing
Front Surface of Woven Srf
Back Surface of Woven Srf
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Arch outwards (compression) is achieved post-erection, via additional tensioning
Top Layer - Waterproof over lapping
Bottom Layers are woven to form a continual srf
Surface Tensioning 1 - Dynamic Relaxation
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Surface Tensioning 2 - Compressive form via post-tensioning
Precedents Frei Otto’s Tensile Structures
ILEK, Stuttgart Lightweight Tensile Structure, fibre-cement cladded
Construction Sequence ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
Wooden Plaths are attached for interior enclosure
Research Tensile Structure, Form, Knots Information
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FINAL DESIGN STRATEGY Designing on Slope - 3 Roof Arches blended to the landscape
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TILING STRATEGY Estimating Tile Srf Form and Quantity of units
2200 m2 Surface
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[Waterproofing Layer] 947 2-holed tiles
[Bottom Layers] 1894 4-holed tiles
TOTAL 947+1894 = 2841 Tiles
unrolleded
FORM FINDING STRATEGY Kangaroo Physics via
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
FINAL DETAIL JOINTS, CONNECTION
ROOF TO LANDSCAPING
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ROOF TOP RIDGE
CONNECTION BETWEEN LAYERS
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LAYERINGS OF WOVEN TILES, WOODEN PLATHS, INSULATION - VIA STRUCTURAL MASTS
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Landscaping Dry Stone Walls in the UK
Southern and Central England
The Pennines
Wales
The South West The South West
The Lake District
Scotland and the Isle of Man
Ireland
https://www.conservationhandbooks.com/dry-stone-walling/walls-in-the-landscape/characteristic-regional-walls/
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
MOST STRUCTURAL RETENTION OUTDOOR SEATING
SLENDER RETENTION WALL
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
Appendix
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
Design Intent for Proposed Film Centre
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A cultural space for geological reflection and community building through visual experiences
Tectonic Studies A convex internal enclosure concave external enclosure lighting domes as spatial divisions
Tectonic Studies B convex and concave oblique surfaces - inverted
CENTRAL SPACE
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ENTRY
HALLWAY
Film and photographic spaces for expression, communication, production.
References - Film Centers Requirements and Facilities
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN
ETS 5 | BUILDING A CLEAN SLATE | YEE FEI TAN