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FutureCitySpaces of Transformation

Stage 3 2019-20 / Studio BriefTutors: Kieran Connolly & Luke Rigg

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Synopsis

For the third running of the Future City studio, we will be challenging you to consider the urban and architectural ‘futures’ of the Baltic Triangle, an inner-city area of Liverpool. Branded as the city’s so-called ‘creative quarter’, the triangle is a post-industrial site currently home to a mix of creative organisations, start-up businesses and independent commercial ventures. Seeking to capitalise on the creative energy of the area, a new-wave of regeneration projects are being developed that aim to exploit the Triangle’s unique character in favour of generic, placeless and often unaffordable developments. We will take a strong critical stance toward this atypical form of urban regeneration, which is too often only for the financial benefit of private real estate investors. To counter these dominant socio-economic agendas, we will ask you to propose an alternative ‘future’ for the Baltic Triangle, one that carefully constructs an architectural response prioritising a critical approach to how space is produced and who it is produced for. You will propose a building with strong social and civic qualities and a programme that is inclusive of existing local communities, businesses, charitable organisations, cultural facilities and social groups frequently marginalised in private real estate development.

The studio will champion a research-led focus, whereby your ideas need to be rigorously tested against relevant and appropriate building precedents, material and technical considerations, and theoretical discussions. However, we will also expect you to translate this research into clear architectural outcomes and strategies, proposing spatial programmes and interventions that have a strong connection to the real world. Fundamentally you must be willing to accept that architecture is a political and social endeavour as much as it is an artistic, aesthetic and technical pursuit. In doing so we hope you will produce creative, effective and rich architectural proposals that critique and challenge prevalent attitudes to contemporary city planning and architectural design.

Above: Re-purposed former warehouses and industrial sheds in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle

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Studio Leaders

Kieran Connolly and Luke Rigg both studied at Newcastle between 2007 and 2013, completing their BA and Masters in Architecture at the school.

Luke is a London based architect currently working as a sole-practitioner on various small-scale projects. He has previously worked on a number of city centre masterplans and mixed use developments in the UK and internationally. His main theoretical interest is in the socio-economic and political systems that underpin contemporary urban design, and the role of architecture as a means of critiquing these. He has taught across Stages 2 and 3 in the school in previous years whilst in practice

Kieran is a Teaching Fellow and Ph.D candidate at the school. His research examines the use of standardised building components in architectural design and their relationship to contemporary attitudes toward architectural practice and building construction. He also works for the school’s in-house design and research consultancy, Design Office, where he has been actively involved in the recent redevelopment and restoration of the University’s Armstrong Building. He has taught widely across all stages, involved in previous years teaching in Stages 1, 2, 3 and 6, alongside an M.Arch linked research module exploring themes related to his Ph.D research.

Guest Reviewers

At strategic points in the year and at certain full year reviews of your work, guest reviewers will join us to help you think about your design proposals and offer suggestions as to how to further enhance and improve your work. Your reviewers are likely to be selected from within the school and will be briefed beforehand on the studio themes. You should take the opportunity to receive feedback from external sources with an open-mind and be prepared to articulate your points-of-view clearly and coherently.

Left: ‘The Ideal Rome Show’. Luke Rigg, a masterplan for the Ebbsfleet Gateway site.

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Right: ‘Life, Superceiling’. Kieran

Connolly, extracts from ongoing doctoral

research.

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Brief

This year our studio will be exploring ideas of ‘transformation’ and the role of architecture in the ‘transformation’ of spaces and places. Working on an important and unique inner-city site in Liverpool set to experience generic efforts at urban regeneration, you will be challenged to create a building that investigates and responds to a ‘scenario’ that engages with the existing context, uses and users of the Baltic Triangle. You will be asked to create a sequence of interlinked spaces that deal with the idea of ‘transformation’ across a number of scales taking into account diverse local social groups and the spaces in which they dwell.

Transformation is a term often used to describe areas of a city undergoing regeneration. Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle is frequently referred to as site of transformation as demonstrated by statements in news articles: ‘the Baltic Triangle has over the past decade transformed from a forgotten area of warehouses into a creative hotspot.’1 The transformation of an area has too often come to mean the removal of existing buildings, uses and communities in favour of generic and placeless architecture that threatens to erase unique, localised character and identity. This year we are asking you to embed yourself in the site, making detailed studies and readings in order to understand the Baltic Triangle’s position in the wider city, the people who live and work in the area and those who visit it. You will need to consider the role your proposal might play in the ‘transformation’ of its immediate site, the Baltic Triangle and the wider context, not just architecturally but also socially and economically.

Often the transformation of a place is confined to a specific area within a masterplan’s ‘red line’, whilst spaces on the periphery are forgotten or left to ad hoc development. As well as the mega-development Liverpool One to the north, The Baltic Triangle development area is bounded by the oldest, and one-time largest, Chinese community in the UK, an area that has provided housing for migrants arriving in Liverpool since the 19th century. The area is also proximal to the Toxteth area of the city, home to a diverse, multi-ethnic community. Both existing uses and future plans for the Baltic Triangle are, by and large, insular and ignore much of this diverse context. You will need to tap into this identity and understand Liverpool and the Baltic Triangle beyond their physical landscapes, looking closely at the localised cultures cultivated in the city. You will be asked to explore vacant sites in the Baltic Triangle, as well as peripheral spaces along the Triangle’s boundaries where you will identify a site to situate your building.

For your proposal you will be asked to explore one of the ‘scenarios’ on the following pages and your task will be to identify a programme that is relevant to the site(s) you will be working on considering how it might transform the site(s), alongside a theoretical and critical agenda that you will carefully define. Buildings are also transformational in themselves. Constant changes to how we live, work and dwell mean buildings need to provide a variety of spaces and experiences that enable suitable conditions for interaction, encounter and social exchange. Your buildings should be designed for specific activities relating to your chosen scenario producing spatial experiences that are generous, not (unknowingly) exploitative and open to transformation, reinvention, re-use or even times of misuse. You are invited to work creatively and provocatively to produce spatial conditions that explore how your chosen programme can be constructed and experienced, creatively deploying methods and techniques of architectural design and construction. Your facilities should be unique and individual, a chance for you to express your architectural thinking in what will be the final design project of your undergraduate studies.

1. “New masterplan aims to save the Baltic Triangle” (Houghton, 2019)

Scenario 1: City Living

There a several recently completed housing schemes and many more under construction in the Baltic Triangle both for private sale and student rental. These schemes mostly follow a generic pattern of commercially led, high density development, are poorly constructed and have, if at all, token references to the local context and population. In this scenario you are challenged to devise an alternative proposal for future housing in the area considering, amongst other factors that you are to identify, the relationship to the night-time economy & 24/7 culture of the area; who might be living there; alternative & sustainable models of housing; the provision of affordable living; and the diversity of housing types for a variety of potential occupants, from families to the elderly.

Spreefeld Cohousing, Berlin

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Scenario 2: Working in the City

The Baltic Triangle is home to a number of light industrial uses, which have more recently been replaced by artists’ studios and co-working spaces for creative industries. Spaces for artists and creative businesses are valuable assets in city centres, however they are often used as agents of gentrification. In this scenario you will critique the way that these uses are all too often reduced to small, expensive desk spaces constructed using on ‘trend’ materials such as OSB or plywood. You will question whether these kind of environments are suitable places for working in the Baltic Triangle, and whether they are inclusive and affordable environments for the surrounding community. You should also consider the light industry in the area and what role this might play in your alternative future scenario.

Scenario 3: A Place for Community

The current regeneration of the Baltic Triangle is typified by generic ‘themed’ bar/club spaces, various upmarket ‘eateries’ and spaces for ‘competitive socialising’ such as Ghetto Golf and Bongo’s Bingo. As well as pricing out many local residents these are largely weekend and evening-oriented activities. Coupled with an increase in residential developments this is leading to an erosion of the area’s once vibrant 24/7 culture. In this scenario you will question whether the current provision of ‘community’ spaces in the Baltic Triangle is sufficient and inclusive and propose an alternative type of building that prioritises the inclusivity of Liverpool’s diverse communities and focuses on how a building can be designed for use 24 hours day, incorporating both the Triangle’s daytime and night-time economies.

Cobalt Studios, Newcastle

Baltic Creative Campus, Liverpool

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Site

The Baltic Triangle is an inner-city area of Liverpool formerly densely populated with buildings, warehouses and infrastructures associated with the city’s once thriving docks. It is now home to an eclectic mix of local businesses increasingly geared towards ‘creative industries’ and the service based economy. The Triangle is gentrifying rapidly, becoming a new destination for Liverpudlians, residents of the north-west and those coming from further afield.

Liverpool is a large regional centre in the north-west of England and the fifth most-populous city in the UK. The city plays host to a large number and variety of retail, hospitality and leisure facilities, which form a key component of the city’s service based economy. Alongside these commercial industries Liverpool is also home to significant cultural organisations and two internationally recognised, academic institutions. It is therefore a city of regional, national and global significance and Liverpool’s recent urban and architectural developments reflect its status as an important economic centre.

Historically Liverpool was an important regional, national and global centre of industrial manufacture and commercial exchange, particularly through its ports. In the early 18th century, Liverpool and its docks expanded rapidly as the city profited greatly from the slave trade and tobacco. During the industrial revolution Liverpool continued to grow with cotton arriving from the United States to fuel the textile industry and the UK’s first intercity railway to Manchester. For periods in the 19th century Liverpool’s wealth exceeded that of London with the city referred to as ‘the New York of Europe’. Liverpool therefore became a prominent site industrially, commercially, politically, socially and culturally.

In more contemporary times, however, Liverpool has transitioned from an industrial city to a post-industrial city, following global patterns that have seen industrial manufacture in Western countries shrink in comparison to rapidly developing nations such as China, India and Brazil. Liverpool has been forced to reinvent itself around more service-based economies related to financial services, retail, leisure, hospitality and academic institutions. Liverpool’s former industrial landscape is being transformed into new developments primarily aimed at speculative leased office space and contemporary ‘lifestyle’ residential uses. Largely these developments have been funded by private investors, many associated with the financial power of foreign nations. Typically, the architecture of these new developments is value-oriented, prioritising efficiency in material use and construction methods, creating generic and placeless architecture that threatens to erase the unique local character and identity of Liverpool’s inner-city areas.

It is relatively easy to predict that the Baltic Triangle is also set to experience this erasure of identity. Until the decline of the city’s docks in the mid 20th century the area was used to handle goods transported into the port of Liverpool. The area’s derelict warehouses have since been reoccupied, first by a variety of local light industrial uses, such as car repair workshops, mechanics, welders, and more recently creative businesses such as architects, designers, musicians and independent food and drinks traders. These latter settlers to the area have contributed to its gentrification and led to the Triangle being designated as a ‘development area’ by Liverpool City Council. Now private real estate development is seeking to cash-in on the increased profile of the Triangle as a regional destination, with new developments such as student housing complexes and generic so-called ‘luxury’ residential blocks forcing out existing businesses and communities. The Baltic Triangle Community Interest Company (CIC) was founded in 2010 and developed a manifesto to prevent these creative industries from being displaced by profit-driven developments. The discourse around these contentious developments will provide a suitable location to situate your emerging design ideas and architectural proposals.

< Left: Liverpool docks in 1946 just before they fell into steady decline with the area’s de-industrialisation.

Below: Liverpool’s post-industrial revival showing the same waterside area as above.

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Left: The Constellations event space that is soon to make way for residential development. Since 2014 it has paved the way for new creative industries and has arguably ‘gentrified’ itself out of the area.

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Method

As a ‘research by design’ focused studio we draw our methods from a wide and deep range of sources, ideas and practices. Central to our studio culture is that architectural practice can be used as a tool to critique dominant ideas that shape the contemporary architectural profession.

Importantly we ask that you recognise that practicing architecture is a social and political act as much as it is an artistic and technical pursuit. The production of buildings is shaped by various political, social and economic motives, which in turn shape the future of cities and their potential prosperity or decline. Architecture is therefore a powerful asset in communicating the values of those who produce it. For example, private real estate developers, it can be argued, view buildings and the land they are built on as financial assets that must generate an operating income in order to make their investment viable. Similarly, local councils, state organisations and sovereign governments complicit with prevalent forms of neoliberal economic policy, frequently use new buildings and urban regeneration schemes as political tools to market their own effectiveness.

We hope you will also recognise this over the coming year, and in turn will begin to develop strategies and methods of working which critically engage with how architecture is made and who it is for. There are many examples of architects, academics and practitioners who have used architecture as a tool to critique larger ideas related to the field and beyond, including so-called avant-garde practices such as Archigram and Superstudio; practice-based academics such as Jane Rendell and Reinhold Martin; and practicing ‘mainstream’ architects like Rem Koolhaas/OMA and Lacaton + Vassal. Each of these spatial practitioners have developed a particular method for critiquing issues related to their theoretical agendas. At the end of the year it will be important for you to also be able to demonstrate appropriate methods and techniques in accordance with your response to the studio brief. You will need to coherently state why your building looks the way it does, the reasons behind your material choices and construction techniques and how your architecture addresses wider societal issues in which you’re speculatively imagining your projects realisation.

The theoretical context described above will be an important consideration in your ARC3015 Theory Into Practice module. You will also be asked to draw from the theory and work of one of the following architects/practices, which represent a range of approaches, from the large and commercially minded to the small and self-organised. These five architects engage with the political, social and economic systems in which they operate, choosing to produce architecture that either critiques issues inherent in the system, challenges the system by proposing alternatives, or even embraces these systems, albeit in a self-critical manner.

1. Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates2. Doina Petrescu/Atelier d’Architecture Autogeree (AAA)3. Lacaton + Vassal 4. Rem Koolhaas/OMA5. Atelier Bow Wow

<Right: Cutaway axonometric drawing through a proposed ‘Home for the Black, Asian & Minority Ethic (BAME) LGBTQ+ Community of Manchester,’ Shalini Tahalooa, Future City 2018-19.

Left: ‘Pragmatopia’, perspective section, Jack Sweet, Future City 2017-18.

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Materials & Tectonics

Alongside your submissions for ARC3013 Architectural Technology: Integrated Construction you are strongly advised to develop a coherent material, technical and ‘tectonic’ strategy in your design proposal. Whilst each of your individual projects will be different and will require a specific and nuanced technical design there are some important themes related to the studio brief you should all consider:

SustainabilityThe climate emergency is the biggest challenge facing our planet and our profession and sustainability design should be at the forefront of your design, material and technical considerations. You should also be acutely aware of the ecological impact and footprint of your building on the natural environment. Sustainable design is strongly encouraged throughout, and this does not imply that you should rely solely on renewable green energy technologies. First and foremost you should aspire to design your building as efficiently as possible creating intensively used spaces that have a good provision of natural light, are not over serviced, wasteful of materials and if possible can be naturally ventilated throughout.

Transformational Space, Adaptability and FlexibilityMany examples of privately-financed, value-oriented commercial building projects that have come to epitomise generic 21st century urban regeneration in the UK are not adequately adaptable or flexible for future uses or changes. Many use cheap, standardised materials that cannot be easily adapted without an expensive and environmentally wasteful strip-out and redesign in order to accommodate a required change of use. You are encouraged to think about how your proposals can be readily adapted for potential future uses and perhaps even to consider if they are flexible enough to accommodate different uses throughout the day.

TectonicsWe will also be asking you to think carefully and critically about the materiality and tectonic quality of your architectural. You will be strongly encouraged to think about how your building will be constructed, what it will be made from, and how the tectonics reflect your response to the site, your buildings users and their experience of it. Importantly you must think carefully about why you are using a particular material or construction system and how you compose different materials and systems into a coherent whole.

Co-ordinated ConstructionThe modern building is now made of up numerous building elements and construction systems that need to be coordinated and detailed to create a coherent whole. From the structural frame to the façade treatment, to internal wall, floor and ceiling finishes all of these elements interface with one another at some point and should be carefully considered. Similarly, an integrated lighting and building service strategy will need to be developed and suitably detailed. These should all be considered within the context of your sustainability strategy.

Urban OutlookAs your building proposals will be located on significant city centre sites, what they look like and how they sit in their context will be of great importance. The façades of your buildings will therefore need to be carefully and thoughtfully designed. What will the external fabric of your building be constructed from? How will different spatial programmes be expressed in the composition of your façade? And how will your building respond to its neighbours in terms of scale, form, materiality and connectivity?

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1:100 Sectional detail drawings

< Left: ‘Centre for Wellbeing’, detailed construction drawings, Hok Yin Au, Future City 2018-19.

Right: Detail for a handrail, material and tectonic explorations;

Karolina Smok, Future City 2018-19

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Programme

The ARC3001: Architectural Design module is divided into four key phases across the academic year: Primer, Staging, Realisation, Synthesis. A brief description of the expected outcomes and the work you will be undertaking for each phase is provided below, however a more detailed brief for individual phases will be given to you at the start of each phase.

PrimerThe Primer will begin your design explorations and will be divided into a series of weekly tasks intended to ‘prime’ you with useful critical and theoretical knowledge, design methods and skills prior to developing building proposals during later phases of the project. To start the Primer you will each be asked to choose a scenario from those listed in the brief. This will form the basis for your investigations during the primer and throughout the year. You will start by researching and examining exemplars related to your chosen scenario. We will then shift our attention to our studio site for the year beginning with a studio-wide investigation into Baltic Triangle and the current development proposals before developing an individual method to undertake a close reading of the area. We will travel to Liverpool and Baltic Triangle in the third week of Primer where we will introduce ourselves to the city as well as carrying out your site readings. In the final week, as a studio, you will bring together the studio’s individual readings into a collective resource and primer exhibition.

StagingUsing the information and knowledge gained during the Primer, the Staging phase of your project will see you begin early explorations of what will become the final building proposal that you will go on to refine until its completion in June. This phase will also include the studio study trip, giving you a chance to visit the studio site in Liverpool again as well as visiting Turin. At this stage of the year there will be important considerations you will need to account for. You will need to develop a brief for your building proposal that takes into consideration both the themes of the studio and the inner city Liverpool site(s) we will be working on. These considerations will be both physical and theoretical, with many of you likely to want to tap into the vast pool of cultural ideas associated with communities present in and around Baltic Triangle. The primary programme for your proposal will focus on one of the scenario you explored during primer and will offer variety of different spaces. You will need to think carefully and critically about the type of spaces you wish to create, how they will be used and how they will be constructed by assessing and considering a wide range of ideas.

RealisationDuring semester 2 you will realise your proposed building on your chosen site by operating at a number of scales. This will range from the urban scale of the city and how your building works with, and for, its context(s), to a detail level of how one material meets another. At this stage important decisions will need to be made about your building. How does it sit in its context? What relationship does it have to its surroundings, and potentially the proposals of your colleagues working in close proximity? What does its form, shape, façade and materiality say about your chosen programmes and potential occupiers? And how does your building, its form, materiality, tectonics and programme create ‘spaces of transformation’?

SynthesisAs the project draws to a close you will need to synthesise your experiments into a coherent building proposition that succinctly ties together your theoretical agenda into an architectural proposal that is carefully conceived in terms of its plan, section, elevation, technical details and material consideration.

< Left: ‘The Credible Developer Project’, collage, Harry Groom, Future City 2018-19.

Right: Perspective plan of co-housing scheme, Mathilda

Durkin, Future City 2017-18

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Learning Outcomes

Over the duration of our studio we expect you to achieve a series of key learning outcomes that meet expectations of a final year undergraduate Architecture student and also help prepare you for the next stage of your career, whether that continues into architectural practice or into another discipline. Below are the key outcomes we expect you all to achieve whilst a member of our studio:

1. Production of a mixed-use building that incorporates a range of spaces and clearly demonstrates a response to the brief and the Baltic Triangle context.

2. Production of a mixed-use building with an appropriate choice of structure, materials, construction systems and environmental systems. You should be able to substantiate your choices, relating them to local site considerations, architectural ideas of form, mass, detail etc, as well as theoretical ideas pertinent to your project.

3. Development of a mixed-use building with spatial programmes that are carefully chosen and constructed from your readings into Baltic Triangle and clearly demonstrate how spaces will be used and their relationship to each other.

4. Demonstration of how elements of architectural design and practice can be used to critique agendas within, and outside the discipline. The relationship to key societal, political and economic imperatives will be clearly articulated in your proposal, its architectural language and constructional design as well as the written and oral description of your methods and spatial tactics.

5. The ability to select appropriate media and use relevant representational ideas that help to coherently and powerfully convey your ideas. These should not be limited to ‘traditional’ forms of architectural representation such as technical and orthogonal drawings; and can instead include film, collage, sound installations, model-making and critical writing.

Studio Specific Marking Criteria

To assist you in achieving these outcomes, and to help us assess them within your projects, two studio specific marking criteria will be considered at all formal reviews of your project:

A. Scenario Development – how does your proposal relate to your chosen scenario in response to theoretical ideas, spatial use and architectural ideas related to form, scale, material choice and material expression?

B. Social Agenda – how does your proposal demonstrate a clear and original social agenda in response to the studio brief, site(s) and wider societal concerns?

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Left: ‘The Creative Collective’, building elevation in its immediate urban context, David Gray, Future City 2017-18.

Right: ‘Richmond Collective’, building plan in its immediate urban context, Haziqah Howe, Future City 2018-19.

Right: ‘Canal Street LGBTQ+ Archive’, model of central stair and archive spaces, Sophie Wakenshaw, Future City 2018-19.

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Study Trip

The first part of our studio study trip will give you a second opportunity to visit the studio site in Liverpool. During this time we will conduct more in depth site visits around the vicinity of the Baltic Triangle, as well as visiting a variety of proximal inner city locations that have experienced or are currently experiencing urban regeneration. As the U.K.’s first European Capital of Culture in 2008 residents of the city have seen its historic former industrial docks transformed into a retail, residential, cultural, and leisure complex known as Liverpool One, as well as the regeneration of Kings Dock. We will also take in areas of the city classed as UNESCO World Heritage sites, a status that is currently under threat from the proposed £5bn Liverpool Waters regeneration plan as well as other sites around the city. As this may be the final time you visit your site throughout the academic year (though you may of course return during Semester 2), you should take the opportunity to thoroughly record and document the Baltic Triangle area using photographs, drawings and sketches. Though you will not need to have firmly identified your chosen site during the study trip it will be very useful to identify at least two different sites that you can appraise during the remainder of the Staging phase and in time for the Staging review in early January.

During the second half of the trip we will travel to northern Italy basing our visit in Turin, a city with comparable qualities to Liverpool in terms of its regional and national significance, and post-industrial urban landscape. Like Liverpool, post-industrial Turin has attempted to transform itself around a more service-based economy during the 21st century, hosting major sporting and cultural events such as the 2006 Winter Olympics. The city therefore shares many historical socio-economic similarities with Liverpool, being home to a similar pedigree of architectural heritage including numerous sites of commercial, cultural, social, and political transformation; making it a valuable city to experience and learn from in relation to your individual design projects. We will explore Barriera di Milano, an area of formerly derelict warehouses that has seen a community led regeneration including artists’ studios and small businesses that provides an interesting comparison to the Baltic Triangle. Again, we will take the opportunity to visit historic buildings from Turin’s industrial heyday including the F.I.A.T. car manufacturer’s former factory, Il Lingotto, recently transformed by Renzo Piano; and prominent 20th century Italian engineer and architect Pier Luigi Nervi’s Palazzo del Lavoro (Palace of Labour). Milan is only a short train ride from Turin and is arguably a more globally well-known city and one with a prominent design and fashion culture. If you are intending on extending the field trip over the weekend, OMA’s Fondazione Prada, an institution set up by the Prada fashion company and dedicated to contemporary art and culture, is highly recommended. If you do choose to stay in Italy over the weekend, make sure you are back in Newcastle and ready for tutorials on Monday 2nd December.

For those of you who cannot join us in Turin, you should instead visit Manchester, an equally important regional centre close to Liverpool. Manchester, like Liverpool has experienced massive regeneration during the early part of the 21st century. In turn this has spawned a whole host of other ‘development opportunities’ that, like Liverpool, demonstrates the power of private capital in changing the landscape of the U.K.’s most prominent regional urban centres, but also the creep of placeless generic architecture so often constructed when financial profit and value-oriented agendas are considered the most important aspects of a prospective buildings design and construction.

The study trip will take place during the last week of November between Sunday 24th and Friday 29th 2019. We will be visiting Liverpool between Sunday 24th and Monday 25th; travelling to Italy on Tuesday 26th; and visiting Turin (or UK alternative) between Wednesday 27th and Friday 29th. You should aim to arrive in Liverpool on the morning of Sunday 24th and depart Italy on Sunday 1st December in time to return for Monday tutorials on December 2nd. Please make the necessary travel and accommodation arrangements according to this schedule – we will provide a more detailed overview of the week’s activities nearer to the time of travel.

< Left: Liverpool

< Left: Turin during last year’s visit to Il Lingotto

Right: Turin >

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Studio Culture & Wellbeing

It is important to stress that we as tutors and recent graduates recognise that you are still young architects and designers in the making, halfway through your academic architectural education. Therefore we do not expect you to have answers to every problem you encounter, to be perfectly skilled at Photoshop or Revit, or be sure on the methods and techniques for exploring the design of buildings that are appropriate to your ideas. Instead we expect you to display a willingness to learn and ask questions, to be enthusiastic and committed to the work you produce and to retain a conviction in your ideas that can be clearly articulated. Our tutorials across the year will focus on honing these skills and finding the right methods to express each of you as individual designers and architects. These will be supported by studio-wide peer-to-peer sessions in the form of seminars and reviews where you are encouraged to speak-up and offer your opinion on the wider themes of the studio and on the outputs of your colleagues as they emerge during the year. We wish to encourage an inclusive studio culture where all opinions count, student and tutor alike, and where the work produced will display a coherent, studio-wide understanding of the themes and ideas we have chosen to explore.

Throughout the duration of the academic year we will be encouraging you to be working on your projects in a healthy manner that maintains your wellbeing and sustains your enthusiasm for your work. As a subject largely examined through subjective means, an architectural degree (and indeed an architectural career) can frequently cause moments of stress and anxiety. Long hours in the run-up to deadlines, the perceived need to constantly change and refine your ideas in search of the perfect solution and competition with your peers to produce the most seductive render can all take unnecessary and unwanted tolls on your wellbeing. As issues with mental health and architectural education continue to be raised and debated we would like you as members of the studio to take pro-active steps in reducing stress and maintaining your wellbeing. We strongly recommend you work a structured day of no more than 8 hours that includes regular breaks and that you work no more than 5 days per week, always ensuring you have time off your project (and perhaps architecture altogether) to concentrate on other activities.

To aid this we will encourage you to bring your project research, development and proposals to our weekly tutorials in a developing portfolio document that you will continuously update until the final academic portfolio submission at the end of the year. This will save you time, help you develop a narrative to your project and assist in the documentation of your method and process. We strongly encourage you to make one well represented, beautiful drawing, model, video, photograph or other medium of your choice that relates to your project development each week. This will get you into the habit of representing your ideas in ways that are clear and accessible to a wider audience, whilst also enabling you to hone your representational skills throughout the year and hopefully reduce stress around deadlines. However, sometimes things can still become difficult particularly during the final year of your undergraduate degree. If at any time you experience any negative feelings or circumstances which are affecting your ability to work effectively and healthily then you should immediately contact either ourselves, the school’s wellbeing team or Student Services. You can be assured that we as tutors, the school and the University will do all that is necessary to support you if such circumstances arise. You can find more information on wellbeing support in your Stage 3 student handbook, issued at the beginning of year and available on Blackboard.

Tutor contact details:kieran.connolly@newcastle.ac.ukluke.rigg@newcastle.ac.uk

Right: Internal rendering of proposed

‘New Manchester Architecture Centre,’ a civic building with debating chamber,

library, exhibition and co-working spaces, Jingyi Zhou, Future

City 2018-19

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< Left: Studio Primer exhibition, Future City 2018-19.

Below: ‘Centre for Food Waste’, section through distribution centre, restaurant, auditorium and market, Will Tankard, Future City 2018-19

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Reading Materials

Cities

- Fezer, Jesko. 2013. Civic City Cahier 6: Design in and Against the Neoliberal City, (London: Bedford Press)- Hatherley, Owen. 2011. A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, (New York: Verso Books)- Hatherley, Owen. 2013. A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain, (New York: Verso Books)- Klingmann, Anna. 2010. Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press)- Koolhaas, Rem; Boeri, Stefano; Kwinter, Sanford; Tazi, Nadia; Obrist, Hans-Ulrich. 2001. Mutations, (Barcelona, Actar)- Martin, Reinhold. 2016. The Urban Apparatus, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press)- Martin, Reinhold; Baxi, Kadambari. The Multi-National City: Architectural Itineraries, (Barcelona: Actar)- Sinclair, Iain. 2012. Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, (London: Penguin Books)- Steger, Manfred B.; McNevin, Anne. 2013. Global Ideologies and Urban Landscapes, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)- Sudjic, Deyan. 2016. The Language of Cities, (London: Allen Lane)- Tonkiss, Fran. 2013. Cities by Design: The Social Life of Urban Form, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press)

Theory

- Auge, Marc. 2009. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, 2nd edn (New York: Verso Books)- Foster, Hal. 2011. Design and Crime: (And Other Diatribes), (New York: Verso Books)- Foster, Hal. 2013. The Art-Architecture Complex, (New York: Verso Books)- Kaminer, Tahl. 2011. Architecture, Crisis and Resuscitation: The Reproduction of Post-Fordism in Late- Twentieth-Century Architecture, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)- Kaminer, Tahl. 2016. The Efficacy of Architecture: Political Contestation and Agency, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)- Koolhaas, Rem; Foster, Hal. 2013. Junkspace with Running Room, (London: Notting Hill Editions)- Lefebvre, Henri; trans. by Donald Nicholson-Smith. 1991. The Production of Space, (New York: Wiley-Blackwell)- Mould, Oli. 2018. Against Creativity, (New York: Verso Books)- Murphy, Douglas. 2012. The Architecture of Failure, (London: Zero Books)- Self, Jack; Bose, Shumi. 2014. Real Estates: Life Without Debt, (London: Bedford Press)

Materials

- Atelier Bow Wow. 2007. Graphic Anatomy, (Tokyo: Toto Publishing)- Borden, Gail Peter; Meredith, Michael. 2011. Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)- Deplazes, Andrea. 2013. Constructing Architecture 2013: Materials, Processes, Structures, (Basel: Birkhauser)- Koolhaas, Rem. 2014. Elements, (Venice: Marsilio)- Leatherbarrow, David; Mostafavi, Mohsen. 2005. Surface Architecture,(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press)- Lloyd-Thomas, Katie. 2006. Material Matters: Architecture & Material Practice, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)

Practice

- de Graaf, Reiner. 2017. Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press).- Koolhaas, Rem; Mau, Bruce; Werlemann, Hans; Sigler, Jennifer. 2002. S,M,L,XL, (New York, Monacelli Press)- Kries, Mateo; Müller, Mathias. 2017. Together! The New Architecture of the Collective, (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Musem)- Lacaton, Anne; Vassal, Jean-Philippe. 2015. Freedom of Use, (Berlin: Sternberg Press)- Petrescu, Doina. 2007. Altering Practices: Feminist Politics and Poetics of Space, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)

Right: ‘Bloom Street Housing Cooperative’, detailed section; Chris

Carty, Future City 2018-19

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Cover image courtesy of Will Tankard, Future City 2018-19