- Stage 5 students present city studies on Glasgow,
the ethical city - Stage 3 students offer speculative designs for a music
centre and retreat on the shores of Loch Lomond. - Students can add work to their profiles on the
Showcase for the next 12-months
Students in the Mackintosh School of Architecture have
unveiled a range of thought-provoking responses to the Stage 5 City Study and
Stage 3 ProjectWorks briefs, both of which focus on the area around Glasgow, and
ask the students to adopt a sustainable approach to their designs.
The Stage 5 city studies include a proposal for a building designed to come apart and
be rebuilt elsewhere, or for all the components to be reused in another
construction. As well as addressing the issue of waste in construction, the
design offers an opportunity to animate empty spaces across the city,
especially where communities lack cultural institutions, public libraries and
community centre (Rebecca Hodalova). Elsewhere, there are
designs for a building to support Glasgow’s Refugee and Asylum Seekers Community
(Timothy Khoo) and a response to a site on the Isle of Raasay, a former
mineworks, which whilst supporting the growth of Glasgow’s industry did not
itself reap the economic benefits (Rebecca Robertson).
Stage 3 students have created speculative proposals
for a performance hall and retreat for the celebrated Sistema music organisation.
Based on the shores of Loch Lomond at Balloch, the designs respond both the work
of the charity, whose mission is to transform lives through music, and the history
and geography of the site.
With the current COVID 19 pandemic
situation and the Climate Emergency, we can ask the question, what does this
mean for the current city and the future of our city? Ethics in decision making
and processes relating to the planet, society and in the choices that we make
can no longer be separated from architectural design.
Stage 5 City Brief
Stage 5 students in the Mackintosh School of
Architecture are asked to research and prepare a city thesis as the culmination
of their programme study. Recent studies have explored the European city, with
particular reference to Reykjavik, Dublin, Porto, Madrid and Antwerp. The 2021
cohort have turned their focus on Glasgow, a city which over the centuries has
experienced a continuous process of urban repair, renewal, reinvigoration and
reinvention.
Glasgow offers a rich political, economic, historical,
cultural and environmental framework from which to examine its international
and metropolitan relationships as well as the everyday life of the city. Starting from the historic perspective –
researching how the city developed from early medieval times through dramatic
Victorian expansion and post WWII development, which was unprecedented in its
ambition and scale – the students have gone on to make their own proposals for
its future development.
Through the proposed
infrastructure, this thesis aims to teach communities how to participate and
gives them the means to participate in the creation of their city. By doing so
its provides them with a service rather than a product.
Rebecca Hodalova
In Assembling
Communities by Disassembly Rebecca Hodalova tackles the issue of how today’s construction industry mainly
functions within the principles of the linear economy – a one way system that
essentially transforms resources into waste. A sustainable solution requires us
to move from an extractive to a regenerative circular process.
Assembling
Communities by Disassembly proposes a building
designed to come apart and be rebuilt elsewhere, or for all the components to
be reused in another construction. As well as offering an environmental
approach to architecture, it also offers a participatory approach – encouraging
community involvement in the process.
Glasgow has a
longstanding issue of dislocation, particularly with communities dispersed to
the 1960s developments on the outskirts of the city following the demolition of
many of the tenements. As the city reimagines itself for a post-Covid world,
public involvement will be key.
In her thesis Rebecca
proposes the development of social mobility engine rooms around the city,
seeking to reactivate disused sites. Her prefabricated kit design offers new
opportunities to areas where communities are not being catered for by any
of the existing free cultural institutions, public libraries and community
centres.
A hub for
Assembling Communities by Disassembly is conceived in the old
Bellgrove Meat Market, sitting on top of a railway line. Rebecca proposes a new
Headquarters factory – a place of
prefabrication, education, workshops, and community collaboration. The
architecture of this factory reminisces the historical industrial sheds that used
to dominate this area.
Currently, Glasgow is the only local authority area in Scotland which
receives asylum seekers. The Commonplace, Terra Firma is
conceived in contrast to dominant and imposing civic forms which the asylum
seeker and refugee communities continue to face
Timothy Khoo
In The Common
Place, Terra Firma Timothy Khoo, winner of the 2021 Bourdon Prize, proposes an architecture that
challenges the status quo which includes misrepresentation of Refugee and
Asylum seeker communities and migration by the media. The language around
migration in many western countries has been weaponised with terms such as the
“Immigrant Crisis”, and is used to instil fear of migrants entering the country
– leaving the asylum seeker and refugee communities stigmatised and painted
with the same brush.
Currently, Glasgow is
the only local authority area in Scotland which receives asylum seekers. The
Commonplace is conceived in contrast to dominant and imposing civic
forms which the asylum seeker and refugee communities continue to face. It is a
non-institutional building with the concept of an “open house” – a concept that
aims to build a society founded on the values of fairness, equality and
opportunity for everyone in Scotland, where everyone matters and all are
included.
The building prescribes a dual
function. Firstly, it will accommodate programmes which function to support and
give agency to these communities: a resource centre, office spaces, casework
support offices, childcare support spaces, language learning spaces,
counselling spaces and emergency accommodation are some of the spaces which
work to provide these communities with support and a sense of respite. These
small services, without red tape, play vital roles in the integration of these
communities with the local Glasgow population. Secondly, the building will
accommodate open and free spaces for the wider community as well as refugees
and asylum seekers to use.
Moving out from Glasgow Rebecca Robertson considers the architectural
relationship between the built and natural environment, looking at the
forgotten industrial remains left upon the landscapes of the Western coastline
of Scotland, that helped create the industrial powerhouse of Glasgow, without
reaping the same levels of post-industrial regeneration.
Considering Patrick Geddes’ concept of the
“region city”, she examines the possibility of elevating and connecting smaller
places related on a regional level to cities – mutually binding the city and
region on a level outwith conventional boundaries, and in so doing enriching
both rural and urban conditions.
Rebecca’s study references local poetry of
place through the poetry of Raasay’s acclaimed Gaelic poet Sorley Maclean,
acknowledging the intrinsic links between culture, nature, and existing
architectural remains. Observing the Isle of Raasay’s unbalanced relationship between Glasgow’s
post-industrial artefact left on the island and the island’s natural
ecosystems, whose fragility is exposed by the threat of climate change, Rebecca
questions the future re-purposing of this industrial mining scar as a Rewilding
centre coupled with regional underwater energy generation as a method of
re-establishing equilibrium – between rural and urban, land and sea, industry
and nature, and today’s consumption and climate change.
StudioWork3 explores the creation of spaces and
places from opportunities that arise at the intersection of energy, landscape,
and culture, and nurtures our understanding of sustainability, strengthening the
ability to generate architecture from an informed understanding of the
relationship between the environment, context, and user. Through it we will
learn to make places that are poetic, beautiful, and meaningful, and at the
same time help to save the planet.
Stage 3 Studio Work 2020-2021
The Studio Work project is central to the Stage 3 architecture
programme. Students build on the previous years’ studio work refining and
strengthening the skills acquired through one design project, which is
developed across a range of scales, from the broader contextual, environmental
and sustainable considerations to the specifics of place, and development of
structure and construction. The Stage 3
students were tasked with developing speculative proposals for a residential
music retreat and a performance hall for Sistema Scotland on the shores of Loch
Lomond with a design position that looks towards a zero-carbon approach.
For her response to the brief Abby Hopes, winner of the 2021 Lynn Scobie Memorial Prize for
Architecture, drew on her own experience of orchestra residential trips as a young person. Her
memory recalls a positive, organic experience, which grew from the gathering of
people, the making of music. No matter the context or circumstances – the
people made it special. Sistema Scotland’s Big Noise programme transforms young
people’s lives through musical education, whilst ‘making do’ within the
constraints of their provided built environment. The creation of a residential
retreat / performance hall in her proposal facilitates the culture of Sistema –
driven by the variety of scales in which they gather. Ownership over space is
central to the concept, allowing the young people to feel a sense of belonging
within the public and private realm of Balloch. To ‘make do’ assumes to settle
for lesser – but with the climate emergency we must use what we already have to
our advantage.
The beauty of music is that it can be played
anywhere without the need for a specific environment or space. Euan Clark’s proposal looks to offer coherent objects and
spaces, both internally and externally, that promote the spontaneous playing of
music. Sistema has a clear philosophy to provide an environment that nurtures
young, disadvantaged children through the medium of music, that impacts on
their whole being and development. For the Balloch community, his proposal
reinstates a physical and visual link with the pier that has become abandoned
over time. Its strategic positioning and elongated fingers stretch into the
landscape creating a physical axis that encourages the public to use the pier
again
In Framing and Containing Mentor
Voyatzakis looks to extend and facilitate overarching events.
Unravelling sequences of events that took
place in Balloch is necessary to realise its significance. Namely geographic
phenomena, a human historic response and present local culture as a
consequence. Meanwhile, appreciating Sistema’s ethos is the first step of
empathy, in order to cultivate and grow their values. Building a community and
giving meaning to children through playing music. Transcending the notion of
energy for physical to spiritual, structure and construction aim to trigger an
emotional response to its users, to set the scene.
Essentially, the scheme is a reminder, through
the use of metaphors. It is articulated by a series of basalt splaying columns
and perpendicularly arranged timber beams, with the roles, of framing and
containing.
Ellie Cunningham’s design, Reflections l Balloch is
based on a desire to provide a safe, intimate environment for vulnerable
children to retreat to in a beautiful landscape. The design focuses on
creating a strong connection with its environment, providing extensive views to
the outside world, as well as multiple points of access to its surroundings –
directly to the Loch’s shores. The project establishes a transparency through
both buildings, giving transversal views in both directions taking advantage of
its stunning location. This transparency is enhanced internally by void spaces,
balconies and suspended walkways which allow visitors to catch glimpses of
playful moments suspended in the treetops. The form of the proposal
takes inspiration from the linear nature of the site and aims to provide a new
public space in which to interact with the historic nature of Balloch pier and
jetty, which juts out and disappears into the water. The various roofscapes of
the proposal aim to subtly emulate the distant hills and provide various
volumes suited for different activities. The fins around the buildings give a
regular, linear rhythm to the proposal as a whole. Externally these guide the
path of circulation around the building and blur the line of internal and
external by providing semi-sheltered spaces, while framing views to the Loch
beyond.
Thomas Whiting’s design is an exercise in
folding and unfolding. Thick, heavy walls fold and wrap to create two distinct
buildings atop a small mound. They reference the heritage and context of
Scottish castles in rural landscapes with thick walls, splayed windows and a
direct pragmatic response to the surrounding site. The residential building has
thick straw bale walls for the children to inhabit. A public courtyard connects
the residential to the performance hall, and serves as a transition space from
the public to the private. The performance hall is enveloped by a wall of
service and circulation space, which it intersects at one point to offer views
of the surrounding wood and river. Furthering the project’s cultural agenda,
the hall is entirely flexible for a variety of performances, not only for the
charity, Sistema, but for the people of Balloch.
With a critical and speculative design
approach, Vincent Pu Zhang’s proposal projects a future scenario for the
children of Sistema Scotland while also replaying history by a meaningful
geographical line. The envisioned system allows ever greater affordability,
connectedness, and playfulness for the users. His design proposal aims to
identify and respond to four main areas for the theme of Culture: 1) Tackling a
spiritual crisis for faith and spiritual fulfilment. 2) Developing
individuality and personal identity. 3) ‘Retreat but advance’, putting art at
the service of society. 4) Encouraging equality and inclusivity, adaptable to
any background, class and culture. The ‘plug-in’ system replays and redefines
what has been understood as capsule/pod buildings that have in history always
effected sheer visual expressions without the ideal practicality. The project
also experiments and investigates the use of carbon fibre for building
structure in the envisioned scenario.
See work by students from Stage 3, 4 and 5
Architecture in the Mackintosh School of Architecture at:
https://gsashowcase.net/glasgow/mackintosh-school-of-architecture/
Ends
Lesley Booth
07799414474
@GSofAMedia