dancing shadows - explorations in wakefield

Dancing Shadows

[Wakefi eld, interpreted, imagined]

2011-12 | unit four

Published on www.newspaperclub.com ‘Newspaper Club is a service that helps anyone make their own newspapers.’

Dancing Shadows[Wakefield, interpreted, imagined]

Spatial Narratives - From Perec & Aragon to Plan & Perspective

What value does a drawing have in interrogating the city and architecture? Does it have usefulness, purpose or meaning? How do we link this to the use of narrative texts and in particular the works of Georges Perec and Louis Aragon?

Studio Unit 4, at the Department of Architecture & Built Environment, the University of Nottingham, has worked for a number of years through studying and converting written language into speculative architectural drawings.

Of longstanding interest has been the work of the two French 20th century writers Aragon and Perec. Starting with texts, that are both narrative and minutely observational, both city and architecture are interrogated and then translated into ‘architectural’ drawings that are speculative in nature.

Inherent in this approach, and underscoring the ethos, is the fundamental value of speculation through the acts of reading and drawing. Independently, individual thoughts, approaches, patterns of relationships and priorities are developed. These are not driven by conventional architectural or urban thinking and critiques but instead by an individual’s response to narratives or observations made and then the initial expression of these through the acts of study and drawing. In drawing through these ideas the drawing becomes a territory of study, interrogation and a landscape for speculation. This is where things become interesting. Through this type of speculation, is it possible to discover new narratives, new approaches? We believe that it is. Certainly individual approaches to the study of the city and architecture can be made.

Although these ideas and ways of doing have been designed in places, they also result from accidental events and collaborations with students. It has been and continues to be a democratic process, one without dogma.

Perec & Aragon | Of interest to the Unit have been Paris Peasant and the short play L’Armoire a glace un beau soir by Louis Aragon and Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec. More recently the Perec works: ‘Life: A User’s Manual’, ‘A Void’ and ‘An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris’ have been introduced as starting points for investigating and reading the contemporary city. By studying the material content, and the writing techniques used by the authors, architectural meaning, strategies and observations are established. In particular, with Aragon, threshold, and in between spaces are important and become places of useful conjecture. Aragon’s surrealist tendencies allow him to speculate between the real and the fictitious. With Perec the

technique, observations and meanings in the writings become useful frameworks. Space is a doubt according to Perec.

These interests form lines of enquiries that are studied, researched and then interpreted and translated into the architectural language of drawing. The content and technique in the drawing relates directly to the author and to the essential ideas of the translation. Drawings become unique readings of the city; the text of the city explored ‘sectionally’ and spatially. Through this process narratives are developed into the reality of architectural projects. It is vital that these drawings, as the texts, remain in the realm of the duality between reality and imagination. The drawings in themselves become places of conjecture and speculation and consequentially hold great richness and a sense of potency. They set particular and peculiar touchstones, from which architectural propositions follow.In Attempting to Exhaust a Place in Paris, Perec sat in the Place Saint-Sulpice, over a period of 3 days in October 1974, observing everything that went on around him. In Paris Peasant Aragon observes the comings and goings in the Passage de L’Opera in 1924.

Perec observations are precise and accurate, what is it and at what time is it occurring? Aragon on the other hand is as much interested in what might have been or might be as the event itself.

In our process of architectural speculation both approaches have important lessons. It is important that the design development has a structure and a discipline to it. The speculation cannot remain in the abstract. However equally important is the ability to conjecture at the level of the city, the architecture and the detail. What if or what could happen? The narrative and the architecture become richer for the student.

Of critical importance is the requirement that each student through this process, is forced to think and study for themselves.

The Speculative Drawing | Although most architectural drawings are done to have an impact on the intended observer or to provide specific pieces of

information, this is not important here. We are not interested in this or who the intended viewer is. These drawings are about study and research not graphic illustration. We are trying to study and speculate within the drawing. As a consequence the work is fresher and more engaging through its incompleteness and the ability to read into it many things (speculation). The speculative nature, the content, the process of study through drawing and the narrative, these are where ideas are worked out not represented. What can be achieved?

These drawings are done to establish possibilities as well as priorities and to find a brief as well as

an architectural vocabulary; drawings that translate thoughts, research and feelings.Sometimes conjectures are uncertain and sometimes assured. These drawings attempt to capture the spirit and essence of the work. These are drawings of enquiry that can lead to a very personal architecture; “the stuff of angels” as Ted Cullinan once observed.

Peter Cook talks about ‘nag at the essence of the piece’, or in our terms, continually nag at the drawing until it is ‘right’.

| David Short

Foreword / Essay |

Dancing Shadows | 1

The Embedded Hybrid OrchestraLaura Fernandes | pg 22

The Nabe Joshua Philip Jones | pg 26

The Organ Donum Tania Croghan | pg 04

The Muted City Steve Back | pg 33

The Waiting RoomSophie Rose | pg 25

‘Rheum and Foot’ BridgesInhabited Bridges | pg 35-7

Forgiveness Within TraditionRikesh Mistry | pg 29

The Institute of TimeNicholas Lo | pg 21

The Celebration of DeathLéa Turck | pg 27

The Salmon Pilgrimage to the Memoirs of Wakefi eldJoanna Tatlow | pg 24

Cathédrale du PlaisirJessica Dias | pg 30

The four gastronomic protagonists James Rennie | pg 32

An Elucidated Platform for ImprovisationJames Fitzgerald | pg 23

The Rhubarb ExpressEdan Munnelly | pg 28

Soldier & SalmonAbigail Connor | pg 08

The Letters beyond PenitentiaryDianna Tang | pg 11

The Esoteric CityJudy Yeung Yang | pg 06

Life in Fragmented Moments Viktoriya Stoyanova | pg 05

Janus’ Sound HouseNicole Strelcheva | pg 16

‘Chicken Man’s Place’Maria Krasteva | pg 12

The Grieving Fields of Elysium Maksis Riley | pg 17

The Mother’s HouseLihe. Cheng | pg 14

Reverie at Sweet May Laundry Jonathan Wall | pg 07

Atmospheres of the EphermalIsabelle Ratliff | pg 10

Displacement of the Indigenous Elliot Mayer | pg 18

‘Chantry and Hepworth’ BridgesInhabited Bridges | pg 35-7

A Modern Pilgrimage Christiana Garofalidou | pg 09

The Lure of Shadows Charlie Simpson | pg 15

The Stanzaic RegistryBenjamin Youd | pg 13

The Urban ConfessionalSarah Comfort | pg 19

The Halfway HouseHannah Wilkinson | pg 31

Symbiotic SynthesisAnna Law | pg 34

Hepworth Gallery

CathedralHMP Wakefi eld Westgate

Station

KirkgateStation

2 | Dancing Shadows

The realm of the living and the realm of the dead are held in symbiosis, however because of their opposing natures, an intimate bond between the realms is made impossible.

This building proposes that, through surgical transplantation of the organs of the dead within the bodies of the living, a sutre between the realms is created. This bond can augment through architectural manipulation into an understanding, an appreciation and an intimacy with the patient’s own ideas of mortality. Transplant patients, euthanasia patients and recovering patients are manipulated through certain paths within the building that intensifies

their experience of affinity with both life and death,

whereas the surgeons, medical carers and therapists all hold an esoteric knowledge of both realms, therefore are permitted access to all paths within the building and can facilitate the intimacy towards mortality.

The dwellers of the living realm yearn for an intimacy with mortality. The Organ Donum provides for this need: It will respond to the stigmatism of death and suicide, will encourage a more fulfilled life that is

weighted by the responsibility implied by the gift of organ donation, and will offer the release of death to a world in which the life expectancy is becoming longer than it is pleasurable to live.

Tania Croghan

The Organ Donum An esoteric manipulation of intimacy towards mortality | Tania Croghan

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[01] Long Section[02] Plan[03] Skeletal Organic Form[04] Emotive journey through Recovery[05] Sectional Perspective

4 | Dancing Shadows

dementia and those who aren’t. The purpose is to engage different parts of the brain in order to slow down the process of gradual death of brain cells which is causing the condition. For a person suffering from dementia the world changes – from a sequence of consecutive events it turns into scattered fractures of time. Life in Fragmented Moments is one where past and present collide. Although the moments are disjointed, each carries depth and clarity in their singular experience.

The senses are alert and absorb the slightest variations in the surroundings. The centre’s stimuli present the occupier with hints which provoke memories to emerge and sink back into the fabric of the building. Spaces deform under the pressure of this travel in time.

The architecture of the building obeys the laws of fragmentation forming volumes scattered over a hidden garden in the centre of Wakefield. “Muse”

spaces occur offering moments of quiet perception. The stillness and clarity echo into the occupier, transforming these spaces into axes around which the rest of the building revolves.

Viktoriya Stoyanova

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia.“Alzheimer‘s disease affects approximately 5% of people over 65 years, that‘s 2,355 people in Wakefield. It is a progressive, degenerative disease that

affects people‘s , personality and ability to think.”

The Centre for Memory and Aging provides sensory stimulation by the means of specific adult day care

activities. As part of the centre a research team investigates how these activities affect both the members of the centre who are diagnosed with

Life in Fragmented MomentsCentre for Memory and Aging | Viktoriya Stoyanova

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[01] Disintegration Goggles[02] Reminiscence Attic[03] Muse Space[04] Tower Muse Space[05] Model Light[06] Broken Section

Dancing Shadows | 5

Following the concept of hidden inconspicuous and esoteric city, creating a city of hidden elements, using the sense of sound and distractions brought by the cite and therefore attract and direction people into the main building facilities.

From project 1 and 2, investigating the relationship between reality and imagination within the city, moment start from using distraction and the sense of sound to search for hidden space, creating the imaginative of hidden inconspicuous and esoteric city. Emphasize the city phenomenon-escape from reality, showing the complicated and labyrinthine of situation and mind thinking, or in a way the maze are elaborate distribute for using as a pathway for certain reasons in the reality world.Using the sense of sound elements to observe the city is the main focus of my projects, this lead me to think of my building typologies which can be related to sound and music movement.

The most cited motivations for a leisure experience were pleasure and escapism, therefore a leisure

experience can be evaluated on the following criteria. Anatomy (nature, location and duration of the event), moods, emotions and feelings, involvement, cognitive engagement(ideas, beliefs and meanings), sense of freedom and control.

Judy Yeung Yang

The Esoteric CityJudy Yeung Yang

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[01] Spatial Arrangement[02] Stage arrangement.

[03] Structural Study[04] Sectional Study

[05] Sectional Study of Hidden Spaces

6 | Dancing Shadows

The work initially investigated George Perec’s notion of the three stages of memory – the everyday, the collective and the fictive.

During a visit to Wakefield a fictive memory was

imparted to me by a gentleman smoking a cigarette. From that moment a smoking instrument was devised which combines aromas with tobacco to create whimsical landscapes of smell. Smoke laced scents are tasted to conjure fictive memories in a manner akin to

reading the flavours of a fine wine.

The work initially developed a laboratory space where smells and flavoured tobacco could be produced in

liaison with members of the public seeking to recover a particular memory.

Around this laboratory grew a series of spaces which sought to gather the remnants of memory in the stains and scents held on people’s clothing.

Housing the Launder, Locum and the Fumer, the

journey begins with the Sweet May laundry, Kirkgate, Wakefield. People enter to wash away their memory

of idiosyncratic events and return to a sense of collective belonging. The scent of Wakefield’s own

Sweet May soap wafts through the laundry, reinforcing the collective gathering. Initially they confess to the Launder the details of their urban exploit before being granted access to the baths. Once inside they may enjoy the tranquil anointment of water, steam and oils.

Meanwhile their clothes are sterilised, dried and pressed, but not before the Locum has extracted the uniquely scented remnants of their stained clothing. Using this signature of smells a flavour is created

which seeks to summon the tastes of the discarded fictive memory.

This flavour is blended with tobacco and passed

on to be sold in the Fumer’s shop. Those seeking to recollect may visit to purchase a packet of the uniquely flavoured blend. Whilst those with an even

more inquisitive inclination may pass on to the

Reverie at Sweet May LaundryThe Launder, Locum and the Fumer | Jonathan Wall

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[01] Filtered Inscription[02] Enter and Confess[03] The Launder Locum and The Fumer[04] Anamnetic Harvest[05] Miasmic Pipes

Fumer’s secreted smoking rooms to indulge in the landscapes of fictive memory.

Jonathan Wall

Dancing Shadows | 7

The Heterotopia: a place outside a place, where the marginalised are swept, screened and sheltered out of sight, through an accumulation of standardised frontages which impose a prescribed image upon the city and its dwellers.

Yorkshire; with one of the largest military regiments in the UK, Wakefi eld, along with many other northern

cities, see the return of thousands of serving men and women tarnished by the condition of PTSD, unable to function within society; where the simple rattling of a Tesco trolley sends them into debilitating psychological states. With skills which are considered un-transferable, the ex-soliders are consequently sorted amongst these Heterotopias; hospitals, prisons and psychiatric units; out of sight and out of mind.Where the use and application of military skills are lost within civilised society for these returning heroes, this scheme looks to break down the ‘Heterotopic’ façade, within the programme of farming, processing and selling fi sh to revalidate these skills within the

context of the city, whilst bringing a revived energy to the river Calder. The fi sh becomes a biological

bridging to health through Omega three lowering

damaging levels of Cortisol, meaning these dignifi ed

but broken people enable their own recovery through their labour. It also becomes a unit for rejoicing military training as well as an offering of unison between soldier and society in the market place.

The Heterotopia is broken down and re-invented through SOLDIER & SALMON.

Abigail Connor | [email protected]

-At time of publication the project is ongoing.

Soldier & SalmonAbigail Connor

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[01] Heterotopia - Sweep[02] Heterotopia - Shelter[03] Heterotopia - Screen

[04] Censor [05] “unity is .. curing”

8 | Dancing Shadows

Pilgrimage is the main idea of the scheme. The scheme will remind us of the liquorice plantation in the town of Pontefract, near Wakefield, the

preparation of liquorice sweets and herbal tea infusion from raw materials.

The five sites, which compose my building, are

situated one next to another on Bread Street, in the city centre, so that people completing their linear journey will find themselves just opposite the

Cathedral.

The pilgrims, the visitors, will have the opportunity to pause at each stage and have a look into “the pockets”. Each “pocket” represents a moment of the building’s key processes and functions. As the pilgrims enter the building or walk on Bread Street, where the building is located, they will be introduced to all stages of liquorice process. These stages are plantation, cultivation, harvesting, post-harvesting, boiling the liquorice roots, making liquorice extract, body creams and sweets. Visitors can undertake a treatment using the body creams and finally taste the liquorice sweets at the coffee

shop. These activities will stimulate the five

senses. Visitors will see, hear, smell, touch and taste within the space. Viewing the plants growing activates vision. Hearing is activated by the sound of harvesting and post harvesting processes. Since the boilers are located on Bread Street, smell is activated by the vapours of the liquorice roots boiling. The smell will follow them throughout their journey, which will be carried by the winds. The sense of touch is activated through the use of liquorice cream extract. At the end of their journey, pilgrims taste liquorice sweets.

Therefore, without wasting any of their precious time, the visitors have been engaged in a modern pilgrimage which will help them to cope with everyday activities, get out of the anxiety, pressure and uncertainty of their everyday life.

Christiana Garofalidou

A Modern PilgrimageThe Revival of Liquorice Plantation | Christiana Garofalidou

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[01] Made Piece, Relief - Expansion of Basalt Ribbon[02] Plantation Area[03] Short Section - Threshold on Bread Street [04] Boilers, Liquorice Extract in Liquid Form, Stimulation of Smell [05] Making Liquorice Sweets, Stimulation of Taste

Dancing Shadows | 9

Atmospheres of the Ephemeral The Uncharted Theatre | Isabelle Ratliff

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Sense of place is the coming together of the qualities of a space to create a unique atmosphere. The events and people that inhabit places leave behind them an ephemeral trace of emotion, feeling and memory. Where places and their atmospheres intersect, overlap or collide are thresholds that users navigate as they journey through the project.

The centre of Wakefield is

rapidly being swallowed by the wave of standardised commercial chains that can be found anywhere in the UK. In this impersonal context, the aim of the scheme is to create a very personal space where locals to Wakefield can come

together, sheltered from the harsh realities of the city. Through this scheme, mundane local businesses are used to draw locals in from the city to the secretive world of the performing arts. Hints of something unusual are dropped: a costume being dry-cleaned, stage make-up being applied in a beauty salon. Locals are progressively drawn through their local shops to the heart of the project where they meet the unusual world of the performing arts. They catch glimpses of the lives of the performers and progressively inhabit the space together.

Embedded in Wakefield, the

Uncharted Theatre includes locals in the life of the performers and blends all of their emotions and memories into the place.

Isabelle Ratliff [email protected]

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[01] Filters of the Porous City[02] Perspective Plan

[03] Plan [04] Collage Section

[05] Section through the workshop and courtyard

10 | Dancing Shadows

Wakefi eld has the most fathomless history of

criminal justice system with currently over 600 most dangerous adults and juveniles in prison. Inasmuch they spend chronic time behind the bars to disrupt their connections with the communities. They are not prepared for the burdensome and life-threatening process of re-entry.

The power of pauses aids prisoners to settle back into the community after release. In the intermittent city permits us to experience the city in miscellaneous ways. Pause is a part of our discovery process as we abide for more information to formulate our next choice. During the pauses, people will retrospect into the city into the bewilderment that they are environed everyday.

The intermittent city has evolved into a journey of three pauses. They are ‘Forced Pause’, ‘Unsought Pause’ and ‘Sought Pause’. Starting with ‘Forced Pause’, prisoners are forced to pause and confi scated

from the mass population in order to equip for release while still in prison. ‘Sough Pause’ is a role to engage and connect ex-prisoner into the harmony through the formation of public conveyance. The fi nal stage of

the journey is ‘Sough Pause’, it procure free resources for ex-prisoners to rely on for support.

“Remember the prisoners…” (Heb. 13:3)The letters beyond Penitentiary allow public involve in prison ministry. Prisoners fi nd letters from people on

the outside very encouraging and a great comfort. A Pause will establish an enormous different and a letter will amalgamate the community. Pause and see the world differently.

Dianna Tang | http://www.behance.net/diannatwy

The Letters beyond Penitentiary Restoration lives of ex-prisoners in the Intermittent City | Dianna Tang

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[01] Section of the “Forced Pause Alley” [02] The Journey of the intermittent City [03] The Journey of the intermittent City [04] Isometric of “The letters beyond Penitentiary”[05] Behind the Calaboose[06] Perspective Section from the “Sought Pause Manor” to the “Unsought Pause Platform”

Dancing Shadows | 11

The environment we inhabit is critical for shaping our unique identity. The 21st century is witnessing an identity crisis and a cognition change inflicted by the

discrepancy between linear and non-linear thought. The Information Age has changed rapidly our habits leaving us hardly any time to adjust between an analogue and a digital world.

Hidden in the arched railway viaduct of Wakefield,

‘Chicken Man’s Place’ offers an environment where virtual and physical reality can coexist comfortably. It is a social place which combines a glass blowing bar and a neon media centre.

The Slowest Bar takes on Wakefield’s tradition in

glass blowing and offers the visitor a custom blown, personal drinking glass . The observation of the physical process of glass blowing is employed as a relief from the anxiety of multitasking. Thus, the bar establishes boundaries of attention and conditions for face to face communication.

The Neon Signal Box collects digital data from the city and translates it into a physical artifact through neon, which manifests the pulse of the city. The Signal Box is run by the Chicken Man who secretly overlooks his domain, making sure it works smoothly and the balance is kept.

The Slowest Bar and The Neon Signal Box meet in ‘Chicken Man’s Place’ to open a dialogue between physical and virtual, between analogue and digital. It allows people to have a drink and lit by the ever-changing neon pulse of the city, comfortably accept that the future will be confusing but we are the ones to shape it.

Maria Krasteva | www.behance.net/MariaKrasteva

‘Chicken Man’s Place’The Pulse of Wakefield | Maria Krasteva

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[01] Chicken Man’s Habitat - Axonometric[02] Chicken Man’s Place - Axonometric[03] Mechanisms of the Unexpected [04] Box for Incidents[05] Glass Blowing Bar and Neon Installation


Today’s cities are advancing into a realm of unidentifiable uniformity. Identical and pristinely

kept high streets bear little resemblance to their geographical and social situations. Urban dwellers become detached from their city and their neighbours. This breakdown of the social fabric of place can have cataclysmic consequences.

Comprising a registry office and theatre, The Stanzaic

Registry serves to intertwine the lives of the people of Wakefield, embedding them in the history of the

city. Following the formal and legal registrations of births, marriages and deaths, as well as other events, registrants deposit objects representing their stories into the Archive of the City. In this highly charged personal and spiritual act they become at one with their city.

Tracing the footsteps of the legendary medieval playwright, the Wakefield Master, the Registrar writes

social satires inspired by the deposited objects and the stories that they represent. In the same way as the Master unified various stories around a unique

stanza structure, the Registrar unites Wakefield

through his plays. Acted back in a continuous cycle, the plays capture the essence of the medieval street performances in order to reveal the city to itself.

A play performed by Architecture, stanza structures unite to present a rich processional story. Advancing the Registrar’s desire to celebrate Wakefield, The

Stanzaic Registry connects old and new constructions, celebrates physical interactions, encourages exploration and is not ashamed to display its aging to the surrounding world. Through this it strives to become a resilient remnant, an enduring symbol of the city that will continue to write future generations into the ongoing story of Wakefield.

Benjamin Youd | www.benjaminyoud.co.uk

The Stanzaic RegistryBenjamin Youd

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[01] First Stanza - Study Model[02] First Stanza - Section[03] The Depository Chimney and The Archive of the City[04] The Appropriate Theatre[05] The Monumental Door and Recording Room


The Mother’s House is a particular resort for mothers in Wakefield, which is also one important

way in revealing local female issues. There implicates different kinds of relationships between mother and the others, which referring to certain security levels, thresholds and ranges of activities, which captures a separate world for mothers to work and socialize, even temporary housing. The idea is to protect motherhood from violence that instead of hiding in some ‘secrete retreat’, but running from one cage to another. They would be actually safer from an open context that is under the ‘Public Supervision’. Meanwhile, to break the cycle of isolation, especially those who are eager for a reborn in life that together with other women, they could group together and support each other as well as start building up connections for re-joining the society.

Locating the building near the Wakefield Cathedral

with the direct view towards such comforting presence, which help building up calm and reliable atmosphere along with the sense of justice and dignity. The site used to be a market and gathering place, but now becomes ‘a blank page’ in Wakefield. This

inspires me bringing the cloth market back, selling related handmade products from upstairs’ working mill, with teaching workshops and counselling chamber, in rapping up the core of entering ‘The Mother’s House’ that is controlled by the reception. As maintaining the privacy in public, the atrium becomes a lock for entering the female world, which also forms a transactional area, linking the relatively private and more public sectors in building up internal communication from passage ways and attracting the ‘cross visions’ from the glimpse view, that from now on: ‘NO MAN’!

By all means, The Mother’s House works as a ‘pulse’ for mothers. This is an independent but not isolated world for all women, with a deliberate public sector on the neutral level connects the outside world.

Lihe. Cheng | [email protected]

The Mother’s HouseLihe. Cheng

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[01] Design Axo[02] Development Drawing[03] Concept Drawing [04] Atrium Perspective[05] Development Stick and Paste


The Lure of ShadowsCharlie Simpson

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[01] Audio Walk [02] Awareness [03] Tower perception [04] Perception[05] Perspective[06] Drainer and Audio Realm Axo

“Everyplace you’ve ever been has secrets you’ve never seen.” (Sleepy City (n.d.))

Invisibility need not refer to that which does not exist, nor express unavailability to the eye, but refer to that which is hidden and that which hides from view. We are surrounded by the invisible: engulfed by the imperceptible, the air and the sky.

Worlds bathe in shadow beneath our feet.

The underworld is a playground of opportunity, a parallel world of adventure and excitement. Drainers lurk with child-like curiosity within the shadows of hidden space, fighting to make visible that which is

not.

The notion of a black spot suggests depth; the exact depth of such a spot however is questionable. Within the blackness lies depths of unquantifiable distance;

space is neither near nor far.

“Architecture strengthens the experience of the vertical dimensions of the world; at the same time as making us aware of the depth of the earth, it makes us dream of levitation and flight.” (Pallasma, J. (2005))

The liquorice plant does not exist solely on the ground, nor within the sky, it aches towards and exists between the two domains, behaving as the drainer. Both perceive the ground not as a restrictive boundary, but as a porous membrane through which they are granted access to the imperceptible.

“Walking along, your mind tends to wander. I often get a sense of being out of time; that which governs life above ground is rendered obsolete in an environment where it is neither night nor day. It’s not so much that you lose track of time, as it’s a sensation of losing it entirely.” (SubUrban Sewer Voyeur (n.d.))

This architecture takes hold of the earth-sky and elongates an individual’s threshold of the vertical realm, whilst enabling the Pontefract Liquorice Trust and drainers to co-inhabit a singular build.

Liquorice production is carried out amidst a site sheltered from the city; fresh crops are harvested, dried, and manufactured within the architecture whilst drainers lurk within the shadows on site, existing amidst a buried network beneath the factory and Wakefield.

Charlie Simpson | charlie-simpson.tumblr.com


Janus is the Roman god of transitions, changes and

progression; of doorways, gates and boundaries.

Janus’ Sound House is a project for a place in the city

which is slowing down time, stopping people and giving them the opportunity to observe, (re)discover and imagine. It is a response to the problems of modern life – too much unnecessary choices, stressful and busy reality, virtual relationships and lack of surprise.

The building is sitting outside the edge of a developing area, vibrant of institutional and cultural buildings. It is entering into architecturally unattractive part of the city which hides many unexpected activities.

The program of the building uses sound and silence as key elements to unlock people’s thoughts and emotions and to strengthen their relationships with themselves, the society and the city. Singing spaces for one, dancing stage for groups of people, listening rooms detecting sounds from the city, sound sculptures garden and a silent library of objects are the ‘instruments’ breaking the external noise and offering various and exciting soundscapes,

‘so from time to time at the heart of the merry-go-round the hand which groups the planetary attractions releases the knot that joins the sky’s balloons.’

Louis Aragon

Nicole Strelcheva www.wix.com/nicolestrelcheva/portfolio

Janus’ Sound HouseIn pursuit of chances in the offering city | Nicole Strelcheva

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[01] Exterior Perspective - Corner[02] Section

[03] Level 1 Plan[04] Perspective - Dancing Stage

[05] Perspective - Singing Pod


In Greek Mythology, ‘The Fields of Elysium’ were the ‘final resting place for the virtuous’. This project

reinterprets this narrative of ‘The Afterworld’, providing a secular and contemporary option for coping with the deceased. Offered, is an alternative cremation procedure; bio-cremation, which forms part of a vast, lush landscape within which lie; structures which house the memories of the bereaved, waterways to ‘ferry’ the dead and gardens for the deceased to rest and be visited.

The project grounds itself within its site, Wakefield,

through the use of the River Calder and the year-long wet climate of the area. The water from these sources literally runs through the project; it forms passageways similar to ‘The River Styx’ making up ‘The 5 Rivers of The Afterworld’, which the bereaved use to accompany the departed to the crossing of the crematorium (Hades). It is then used in alkaline

hydrolysis; the process of bio-cremation, which reduces the corpse to ‘ashes’ without vaporising harmful chemicals in the atmosphere. Finally, the remains are used to irrigate the landscape, acting as an effective fertiliser and allowing the deceased to finally

rest in ‘The Field of Elysum’.

The building expresses the water throughout, revealing its own energy; ‘grieving’ its context, sympathising with its occupants who in turn respond by adding to the landscape. They compile an archive of belongings, and plant trees and flowers which they then scatter

with ashes to fertilise and aid the growth of the fields.

Maksis Riley

The Grieving Fields of Elysium Maksis Riley

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[01] A Scavenged Landscape Development Sketch[02] The Tower of Cocytus

[03] The Scavenger’s Movement [04] Casket of Memories

[05] A Scavenged Moment Conceptual Sketch


I chose to tackle the issue and nominal association of vagrancy, and impermanence of place, by designing a tea-farm that would shelter the homeless community of Wakefield in return for their labour

in the cultivation of the farm. The ceremonial and healing sentiments of tea counterpoise the image of ‘dirtiness’ that impairs the vagrants’ ability to be valued in society. The farm will also grow rhubarb to flavour the tea, making the process more indigenous

to the place.

My work had centred about the study of memory and association of knowledge with a place or experience. The process of remembrance was scaled through from the encountering of something, the attribution to collective thoughts, and the creation of notions that respond to the memory becoming independent to the original experience. My concepts were embedded in the forms of, in Project 1, a metaphorical instrument of association and, in Project 2, an instrument of reinvention.

The project will integrate itself into the community by becoming an example for the reinvention of tea, a recognised sociable pastime, and by not only presenting the experience of the produce on site but also sold through mobile-units (caddies) by the vagrants within the town. The proposal is an expression of an adapted culture by means of this complex scheme, operating around the simple goal of this societal remedy.

Elliot Mayer

Displacement of the IndigenousElliot Mayer

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[01] Instrument of Mechanamnesis[02] Instrument of Mechexplication

[03] Reciprocative form[04] Conception of the Ark

[05] Exploring the Ark


With secrecy making confession necessary, the urban fabric can be understood to contain countless secrets which underpin the city woven through its detail, with spaces acting as containers for the repressed and lost memories of the city, often forgotten and masked as the contemporary city swells.

The Urban Confessional aims to utilise the traffi c

through Wakefi eld Westgate Railway Station to

establish a secular confessional process, whereby the confessions of both the community and commuters are deposited and processed into theatrical plays. Based on Wakefi eld’s theatrical history, the outworking

of these confessions offers these modern Mystery Plays back to the city, reinforcing the cities identity with its own confessional content and offering performances back to both intentional audiences and waiting passengers.

Security central to the creation of confessional spaces, the minimal interaction and fast pace of movement through the railway station offer a degree of self-absorption and anonymity. Whilst anchoring into the ribbon of sunken viaduct arches, the station building upholds the linearity of the railway as a central promenade, drawing and elevating users towards the platforms and theatre space, creating a sense of internal performance within the concourse. With the theatre suspended centrally, the performance echoes within the station, concealed from passing commuters. As railway traffi c declines, evening theatre

performances enliven the station and the entwining of commuters and audience members aim to challenge and encourage commuters to deposit their own confessions and contribute to the confessional performances.

Feeding into the viaducts’ existing punctuations and creating contemporary intimate spaces for both waiting and written confession, the station entwines the processing of the confessions, the writing and archiving of written plays, rehearsal spaces and refreshments, into the solidity and containment of the existing viaduct structure, whilst exploring the divine role of the writer and director within the Urban Confessional.

Sarah Comfort | www.sarah-comfort.co.uk

The Urban ConfessionalSarah Comfort

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[01]Axonometric, Snippet[02] Archaeology of Memory[03] Made Piece[04] Entrance Section[05] Interior Perspective

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The project began with an investigation into the felt landscapes created by the architectural environment. Following this further studies were conducted which centred the processes which create them, and the culture and history of industrial spaces, which left the most engaging signs of occupation within the city.

The scheme developed from this narrative pays homage to the past Mining Industry in the Wakefield

area, whilst reopening the mines to extract coal for modern application, thus enriching the barren landscape and local community through the beneficial

properties of coal. Continuing from the previous projects, the brief connects with the lost spaces in the city, those of rich historical and cultural backgrounds. Out of those explored in the initial phases, the mining industry became the most relevant, described by the Wakefield

Council as ‘Our Fading Heritage’, its marks on the landscape have been erased, and little evidence of the communities that once thrived there remain.

The final scheme incorporates the themes discussed

in the initial stages in a more rigorous manner, in the context of an architectural intervention. The brief developed captures the essence of the industry that previously existed on the site, and by incorporating it into the architecture itself, prevents the history of the mining industry and the spaces themselves being forgotten. Thus providing a new industrial element to the local landscape in order to enrich the surrounding community.

Michael Arnett | [email protected]

The Miners InstituteMichael Arnett

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[01] Exterior Perspective[02] Underground Entrance Plan[03] Sectional Study of Mine Netwrok [04] Cast Projections of Industrial Decay[05] Perspective of Underground Bath Circulation


Looking at lost memories and how they are fading away with time in Project 1, it leads to investigate how these abandon places that lead to lost memories. Take a further look on the alleyways, which acts as a shortcut with an effect of gaining time. Hence a site requires a shortcut route can gain time as it cuts through spaces. The building itself is a reflection

of how time affects the built environment through the three main aspects, i.e. temperature, lighting and materiality. Firstly, the effect of temperature changes in seasonal atmosphere and conditions can hugely affect our living environment. Secondly, lighting can produce some interesting shadows and they change with the sun angle changes throughout the day and the year. Finally, the change in materiality can be observed on the eroding surfaces affect a long period of time. Through reflections based on the three aspects,

the building demonstrates its responses to global warming and changes that are inconsistent. Younger generations can be educated as to the effects of the natural world on their habitat.

Nicholas Lo

The Institute of TimeNicholas Lo

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[01] Section[02] Anticipated Shortcut[03] Perspective Section [04] The Time Container[05] External Perspective


The Embedded Hybrid OrchestraLaura Fernandes

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[03] Leakage of Music [04] Perspective View[05] Sectional Journey

The journey of an instrumentalist is explored to investigate the various realms of the cities that bring forward different acoustic experiences. He is in search for a space of musical inspiration and improvisation and looks to construct his own integrated spatial instrument to fill soulless pockets within the city to

build a musical identity.

The Embedded Hybrid Orchestra is a musical and recreational space exploring the evolution of sound and musical improvisation. It seeks to focus upon the capture and listening of existing sounds dissipating from within an industrial estate of Wakefield, followed

by the creation of new sound by building new hybrid instruments and repairing conventional ones. The instruments are tested and rehearsed with until they are built and embedded into the physical structure of the large performance chamber. This evolving chamber alters the acoustic capabilities of the hybrid instruments.

Musical polyphony is created through the porous spatial boundaries, allowing new internally created sounds and externally captured sounds to be recorded and archived to provide a musically informative, educational and interactive space.

The subtle leakage of sound across the site creates an enriched musical experience for users and visitors by redefining the relationship between noise and sound

and encouraging musical improvisation in collective acoustic chambers.

Laura [email protected]


An Elucidated Platform for ImprovisationJames Fitzgerald

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The city is fabricated much like a billboard; stripped away and built up layer by layer. It is these signs and billboards that distract the eye, and stop the visitor from discovering and exploring the city. The visitor leaves without having a real impression of the place. This project aims to bring this back through stripping away these layers, to reveal the metaphorical signs of materiality, texture, light and structure. This is reflected in the function of the building - doubling

up as a theatre and a workshop. Through a system of the ‘overt’ and the ‘covert’, the two functions merge together whilst also being completely separate. The covert workshops are hidden from the public theatre by the locational materiality of the train station that lies directly alongside the building. The hidden workshops are run by ‘covert directors’ and are there to provide the stage production for the theatre, causing the performers to adapt and work around the constantly changing stage production; a style of improvisation performance is created. This is aided by the connection from the street to the station that wraps around the building, making anyone walking through a prospective client for the building, and emphasising the improvisational atmosphere. This concept of control within the theatre is extended to the audience; the directors can alter the way the performance is experienced, changing the way they sit and see/hear the production.

James Fitzgerald

[01] Main Section [02] Plans

[03] Short Section [04]Revealing Layers [05] Stripping Away


The Salmon Pilgrimage to the Memoirs of WakefieldJoanna Tatlow

The thesis began with an exploration of architectural relics buried within the city. It revealed that forgotten relics, ingrained with intimate markings worn onto their surfaces over time, describe the historical events of a place. The relics and their embodied memories, distinguishing one place from another, have the potential to be relevantly adapted, rather than abandoned, to embed authenticity back into the city of today.

Another forgotten relic of Wakefield is the Atlantic

salmon lost from the River Calder. The scheme proposes a Salmon Hatchery which will instigate the rebirth of salmon back to the river, whilst catalysing Wakefield’s consciousness of and intimacy with the

river environment which the salmon inhabit.

The Salmon instinctively make a return pilgrimage from the sea back to the hatchery to reproduce within pools fed by the river waters. As their cycle of life determines, death of the salmon follows and then their afterlife processing performed within the building; smoking of the salmon meat to be savoured whilst drinking in the river view and tanning of the Salmon’s skin creating delicate leather to bind the cover of journals. The unwritten journals, in the possession of individual city dwellers, are then released into Wakefield to be embodied with personal

memories of their possessors.

After time the journals, ingrained with the intimate markings of personal events, make their own returning pilgrimage from the city to the building to be ceremonially archived. The individual service, archiving the personal relic, marks significant events

in the journal owner’s life; in celebration, in memory or in mourning. The ceremonial promenade into the archive places the relic conclusively at its resting place within a collective library of the memoirs of Wakefield.

Through the touch and reading of the relic’s markings, of the worn salmon skin and of the personal inscriptions, the intimate knowledge contained within the memoirs embed an authentic history of Wakefield

into the city, open for its people to comprehend.

Joanna Tatlow | uk.linkedin.com/in/joannatatlow

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[01] sectional study buried relics of wakefield[02] Short Section - through tannery smokehouse

[03] Short Section - through hatchery pools[04] Programming Narrative of the Brief

[05] South Elevation (extract)

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The ‘waiting room’ hovers somewhere between the concrete and the ephemeral.

A waiting room is a transient space that appears almost non-existent to its user; an in-between world that is a container for a delay in action and during these waiting moments a meditative state can be reached. With a fractured sense of time, the user of the waiting room can fall into a dialect with ones self and is susceptible to uncontrolled thoughts and realisations and this continues until a material event or recognition of time reintroduces the person into the reality of the room.

Wakefield HM Prison is the largest maximum-security

prison in Western Europe. Because of advances in DNA profiling and analysis, many prisoners find

themselves incarcerated decades after the offence is committed and consequently they constitute a growing group of senior prisoners. Project 3 focuses on and attempts to provide an alternative for the much-neglected social problem in prisons of abuse and bullying of senior prisoners at the hands of younger more boisterous inmates by proposing a specifically

designed prison unit solely for ‘elderly lifers’.The scheme provides a duty of care to the waiting room in making life bearable and allowing the inmates to spend in relative comfort, what will be for many of them, their last years of existence.

Sophie Rose

The Waiting Room Sophie Rose

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[01] Building Dynamics[02] Waiting Section[03]Waiting Room [04] Ephemeral Spaces[05] Long Section

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The Nabe follows the journey of six performance protagonists alongside seven acts of cinematic experience. It redefines the concept of the

mediatheque alongside traditional archaic values, to instigate the Nabe as an embodied celebration for performance.

The Nabe is based upon the famed ‘Wakefield

Mystery Plays’ of the Corpus Christi festival. Like the Wakefield Master who scripted the play using bespoke,

theatrical control techniques, the Nabe is based on the plays’ unique nine line stanza, here implemented as a form of architectural consistency that the peripheries of Wakefield severely lack.

The site for this proposal is Wakefield Kirkgate

Station, an emblem for the cities forgotten industrial heritage and now a nucleus for criminal activity. The redevelopment of this dilapidated building ensures the beauty in decay recreates the enticing atmosphere of the motion picture palaces in their prominence. The incentive derives from a dedicated commitment to embodying the Arcadian City, contrasting the ideals of the Romantic Movement with the Industrialists’ to transform perceptions of the degenerate as an Arcadian template for opportunity.

Whilst embodying staged, cinematic, impromptu and holographic performance, it remains pivotal that the proposal remained a working station transforming the commuter experience through a welcoming cultural experience.

Educative youth film council schemes will rehabilitate

the criminal unrest, harnessing their energy into expressive performance projects whilst gaining personal academic qualifications. Exhibition

inspired by local writers such as Stan Barstow or the innovation of Louis Le Prince’s ‘Roundhay Garden Scene,’ also help reinstall the pride of Wakefield’s

forgotten periphery through its profound dramatic past, heightening the sensual response to the collation of entertainment. The Nabe will change the entertainment experience forever and lift Wakefield

from the industrial depression it unfortunately never escaped.

Joshua Philip Jones uk.linkedin.com/in/joshuaphilipjones

The NabeArcadia’s Local Picture House | Joshua Philip Jones

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[01] Rejuvenation Elevations[02] Arcadian Characters [03] Rehearsal Space Axonometric[04] , [06] Envisioning Montage [05] Beauty in Decay Interactive Made Piece


The Orangery which sits in a graveyard is one of the agile spaces in Wakefield, as explored in the project

‘The Agile City’. Left from the exhibition of ‘The White Knight and the Table of Longing Hearts’, describing the longing between the white Knight and the Captain (his father), is the sculpture of the Captain which sits behind one of the gravestones. The Image created by this peculiar combination made one reconsider ones socially conditioned response towards this particular graveyard. The doleful and burdensome

atmosphere was lifted from one’s shoulders allowing reconsideration of one’s perspective on death.

Different cultures, like the Mexican tradition ‘The Day of The Dead’ see death as part of the circle of life and colourfully celebrate it as such. Admittedly these traditions are very far from our own ‘standards’. It is therefore necessary to place this building very close to the ‘social route’ of pedestrians, to catch their attention and establish an everyday

The Celebration of DeathLéa Turck

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[01]Harriet[02] The Celebration of Death

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confrontation with death as something natural and not negative. Close to the Trinity Walk Shopping Centre such an opportunity was created on a pedestrian route towards the cathedral. It is effectively completing the building front to each side without hindering pedestrians and forms a religious link as well if required.

Léa Turck


The Rhubarb ExpressEdan Munnelly

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[01] Perceptions of the Machine[02] Mechanical Arcade

[03] Site[04] Perspective

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A train station, forced growing shed, and night market. The main intention of the building to be that of changing the perspective of Wakefield through

what to many would be the initial impression and contact that people have to the city.

The machine within the city as well as throughout most of life is often unappreciated within the daily routine. In celebrating the machine through the stations architecture, their materiality and energy, the interesting qualities of the machine can be expanded through the building creating intrigue at two major articulation routes into the city.

In having the two separate journeys of the rhubarb and people intertwined and visible to the other, the station reveals further elements to its workings, as well as showing the energy and functionality to explain the building to visitors.

The station uses a number of key themes responsible for establishing the alternative perspective, which in would turn, make a more successful effort to the regeneration of the city, in using an arcade type structure, as well as layers, and the machine. All of this means that the station can be used as more of a gateway with a strong image.

Not only this but through this station the traditional practice of the ‘rhubarb express’ can be rejuvenated in which allows for 24 hour efficiency of the building.

A night market in which sells the produce of the rhubarb allows an alternative energy in which the building transforms throughout a day within the use of machines.

Edan Munnelly


Forgiveness Within TraditionRikesh Mistry

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[01] Disregarded and Disposable[02] Long Section

[03] Workshops in Circulation[04] Monday Horticulture

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This project explores the celebration of tradition, and creating new memories originating from older memories. ‘Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush’ originated in Wakefield Prison, involving female

prisoners exercising around the one mulberry bush located on the prison grounds whilst singing the nursery rhyme every morning. This ritual or tradition allowed people to come together and have a common bond and creating a community within the confines of

the prison walls. This project celebrates this tradition by creating a rehabilitation facility to allow women to integrate back into society after their prison sentences.

The mulberry tree is the central component of this nursery rhyme that is to play an integral part in the rehabilitation process. This very unusual tree or bush can only be force grown in the British climate; therefore through this forced cultivation of the mulberry tree, the women will be provided with a set of skills that will allow them to progress in the real world.

This Halfway House will create a daily routine for the accommodated women revolving around the mulberry tree and eventually cleanse them of their wrong doings and integrate them back into society. Rikesh Mistry | [email protected]

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Society has a profound effect on a person’s perception of sex, and naturally the concept of purchasing sex is viewed as immoral. The reality of the matter however is that the act will continue to exist despite laws and regulations, and it will continue to occur on the streets, exposing young woman to dangerous situations. If we proceed to neglect the issue, the disreputable world of punters and vulnerable young woman will be pushed further underground, increasing the risks of sex trafficking and abuse.

I am proposing a program that forms a safe and controlled environment for the working girls of Wakefield. Attempting to eliminate the negative

connotations associated with the sex trade by designing a place where the unsavoury world of sex exists within an engaging public space, a train station. The building functions as a train station, bathhouse and a brothel, promoting the acceptance of sex, and urging users to lose sexual inhibitions and engage in sexual activity. The baths provide the initial step, supplying an intimate environment, stripping back the users clothes and encouraging them to feel comfortable within their surroundings. Layers of control exist throughout the building, for example exploiting nudity and the presence of the public, which consequently leave the woman in control. The program ultimately sets out empower the vulnerable ladies of the night. Jessica Dias | [email protected]

Cathédrale du PlaisirJessica Dias

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[01] Made Piece[02] The Awoken City[03] Plan[04] Affective Detail[05] Internal Perspective [06] Sectional Detail


The Halfway HouseHannah Wilkinson

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[03] Emotional Journey of Reformation[04] Heirarchy of Prisoner Spaces

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This project engages with the journey that a Wakefield

prisoner undertakes upon due release back into society. It provides the grounds for reformation through therapy and counselling, encompassing a secured accommodation unit and private bathhouse that is a ‘halfway house’ for the released prisoner to gradually transition back into society, in an environment more privileged than the enclosure of prison life, that still regulates control. This transitional space is also combined with a horticultural orangery that imposes a working environment needed to help develop the responsibilities and social skills required for a successful rehabilitation, reducing the possible consequences of recidivism where the prisoner may reoffend.

In context, Wakefield is a city in much denial of its

criminal ownership, where its prison is concealed behind the prominent viaducts of the Westgate railway line. This informs a relationship with situatedness, where the grounds of this transitional space are a midpoint between a currently disconnected city and prison; bridging the gap between the incarcerated conditions that the prisoner is bound by and the freewill of society.

This provides grounds for the prisoner to develop a greater relationship with society,addressing the broken relationships between the public and the prisoner and the families that the he has left behind. Often, the released prisoner may have to come to terms with the gap that is created between himself and his family, after long periods of no contact time. The reformational orangery provides a space for this, where it can offer the support of a meeting space with greater contact time; essential to the journey that the family takes to gain closure and reconnect with a lost loved one.

Hannah Wilkinson [email protected]://hannahwilk.blogspot.co.uk/


My scheme reinstates Wakefield’s medieval typology

of the chantry. There where once four chantry chapels that stood at the four key entrance points to the city. Only the one situated at the south of the city remains; the chapel of the Virgin Mary, on Wakefield bridge. Through this symbolic typology

I aim to reinvigorate Wakefield’s identity. The four

chantries will become places of comfort within the city; celebrating Yorkshire food. Modest and warming food lies at the heart of Yorkshire’s identity and like the chantries, these traditional recipes have been lost or misinterpreted. The pie, which is commonly associated with bad British cooking, was in medieval times the centre of a feast and becomes an analogy for the chantry; appearing modest from the outside, the contents remain a mystery until the first bite. It is only

after this bite that the gastronomic narrative begins.

The scheme’s main function serves as a pie factory, located next to The Virgin Mary Chantry. The factory commemorates the four chantries and celebrates Yorkshire food. The four chantry towers stand adjacent to one another, along the River Calder, working together to produce the pies. These pies are

The Four Gastronomic Protagonists James Rennie

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[01] St John[02] Mary Magdalene

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then taken to the sites of the other three chantries to be sold.

Within each of the towers is an archive that houses recipes from their respective quarters of Wakefield, as

well as a banquet space, where both contemporary and traditional Yorkshire food can be tried and enjoyed.

James Rennie | [email protected]


Steve Back

The Muted CityThe Reclamation of Memory | Steve Back

Steve Back

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[03] The Solitary Smoker[04] Made Piece

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An exploration into the contemporary city revealed that its archaeology is not limited to a geological study or of ancient, lost artifacts. The “clues to the people, events and places of the past” can be conveyed on a much more recent timescale. Imprints of time can be found in things that we usually neglect or turn our eyes away from - the city contains a layer of memories that are assimilated into the city.

A juxtaposition of these clues (an open exit to a bar with sound inside, muted windows, discarded cigarette butts and a dripping gutter) inspired an affecting sense of place in Bread Street and solidifi ed this as the site

for this project. Further research revealed that Bread Street was in some senses ‘the birthplace’ of Indie music. From the cover of the fi rst Indie Record -

“ NUMBER NINE BREAD STREET is a pub ... an obscure little building .. almost hidden in the shadows .... The fi ve bolts are drawn and a yellow block of light falls onto the pavement... The long bar with it’s elbow rubbed sheen stands the press of customers, more talk and blue curls of tobacco haze drift over all.... “

Ultimately this history, and the inspiration of the initial explorations, led to three 3 Key priorities being established for an engagement with this site:

Musical Learning : A place of musical learning and gathering - recreating the most important aspects of the history of the place, together recovering the atmosphere and the social environment lost from the city .

Mutedness: Faintness of being - distance of the past from the present - lack of clarity

Sensuality: Time Imprints - forming a sensual journey that concludes with the sound of music.

And from there a Seven Act Schema identifi ed as

a basis for design; Memorial Imprints, Musicality, Mutedness, Isolation, Fusion of the Senses, Seduction and fi nally Hierarchy (that the structure of the other

acts is clear in the building)...

-At time of publication the project is ongoing.


Anna Law

Symbiotic Synthesis Anna Law

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[01] Developmental - ‘Blind Man’s Journey’[02] Concept Model[03] Music Tectonic

[04] Threshold Studies[05] Developmental - A breathless City

“Freedom fight for mental illness institution...express the message that medicines and injections do not help those mentally ill people....”

Developing ideas from revolutionary medicinal treatments - a combination of specific therapies

that particularly target Autistic children: music therapies, moxibustion/ Acupuncture therapies, speech therapies, Agricultural/ herbal therapies and diet therapies. Through the process of learning, interaction, social communication and the use of natural medicinal treatments, the enclosure that alienates these children from the real world slowly opens up. Engage them with various subject matter to help them get familiarized with the world and prepare them for a smooth and successful integration into society.

The spirituality of the site, as well as the historical, play a big role in the functioning of my building. Reintroducing and enhancing the functions within these two historical buildings; ‘Orangery’ and ‘The Unitarian Chapel’ allows people to acknowledge and to treasure it. The integration of existing and contemporary create a new function for helping the serious current social problems of Autism - specifically for children, our future.


Dancing Shadows[Wakefield, interpreted, imagined]

This Page [01] David Hart[02] Bob, Chang Cui[03] Yiran Ma [04] Simas Ozolincius [05] Adam Lampon

FOLLOWING SPREAD Hepworth Bridges [01] , [07] Simas Ozolincius [02] Rachel Lucido[03] George Jamieson [04] Wendy, Yuet Lo[05] Peng Qin[06] Bob, Chang Cui,

Foot Bridges[A], [B] Max Bolton[C] David Hart[D] Max Bolton[E] Miles Broadbent

Chantry Bridges[01] Yiran Ma[02] Alice Thompson[03] Fiona Stewart[04] Rachel Jones

Rheum Bridges[A] Clara Bagenal George[B] Mia Johnson[C] Mingjun Zhang[D], [F] Ryan Kelly[E] Michael Nicholson

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Inhabited Bridgesa connecting, transitional, or intermediate route or phase between two adjacent elements, activities, conditions, or the like.

‘Inhabited’ bridges, or ‘Living’ bridges as they are sometimes described, are rare typologies of buildings. Most well known are the Rialto Bridge in Venice and the Ponte Vechio in Florence. The Chantry Bridge in Wakefield is one of few examples in this country. Its

uniqueness therefore is something to acknowledge and reflect upon.

Wakefield encapsulates many of the urban problems

and conditions that a number of our cities are experiencing as we move into the 21st century. In response to a ‘bridge building’ brief, the year two students of unit 4 have proposed a range of building projects which seek to trigger debate about, and offer possible solutions to, these problems, and the future of

spaces within our cities. Centred around four themes – foot, rheum, Hepworth and chantry – their intention was to investigate a range of regenerative strategies, appropriate to the ambiance of the place and project a useful vision of the future, balancing private, public and institutional requirements.

Working alongside year three students, the starting point was a unique ‘reading’ of the city of Wakefield,

expressed as ‘experience sections’: the layering of physical experience and typography with observation, memory and speculation. Taking from this collective work a personal response, each student developed their own ‘priorities’ for the project; what they sought to achieve in the context of the brief. These could have been spatial, experiential, functional, aspirational, responsive or poetic, with each explored through a series of workshops examining, among others, key moments

and threshold conditions in their proposed building where these priorities may manifest themselves. These studies were expressed as speculative drawings, spatial explorations in two- and three-dimensions and the evolution of an architectural ‘vocabulary’.

The workshop sessions ran in parallel with year three students, and groups were established that encouraged collaborative working and the cross-fertilisation of ideas between the year groups. Our architectural approach as a unit is founded in appropriateness, tested through ‘situatedness’, in the context of place. Recurrent themes

in response to Wakefield are evident in both year’s

work, as is the testing of ideas through speculative drawings but each project is unique, a personal

response to the brief presented efficiently,

effectively and evocatively.

| Amanda Harmer


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Foot Bridges

Hepworth Bridges


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Abigail ConnorAnna LawBenjamin YoudCharlie SimpsonChristiana GarofalidouDianna TangEdan MunnellyElliot Mayer

Hannah WilkinsonIsabelle RatliffJames FitzgeraldJames RennieJessica DiasJoanna TatlowJonathan WallJoshua Philip Jones

Judy Yeung YangLaura FernandesLéa TurckLihe. ChengMaksis RileyMaria KrastevaMichael ArnettNicholas Lo

Nicole StrelchevaRikesh MistrySarah ComfortSophie RoseSteve BackTania CroghanViktoriya Stoyanova

Dancing Shadows2011/12 | University of Nottingham Bachelor of Architecture - 3rd Year | UNIT 4

dancing shadows - explorations in wakefield

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