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PG Architecture Unit 07: Good Nature

Unit brief

The idea of Good Nature reflects a desire by this unit to make buildings in the city for human occupation that do not thoughtlessly or unnecessarily displace other forms of life but attempt to co-exist with them.

We will begin the year in search of new standards in how we construct architectural elements, addressing the ecological impact of the materials that we use, how they are sourced and fashioned and how they are brought together to make details and buildings that are both robust and beautiful. The findings will be presented in six unequivocally precise drawings with a strategic quality.

This will be followed by an investigation of architectural composition that is exploratory but acknowledges the performance requirements of the contemporary external envelope. Students will be encouraged to use rigorously conceived proportional relationships rather than dimension to determine design outcomes. It will involve making rough studies before more precise representations are made.

The first semester will conclude with a project for the design of a demountable workshop from a palette of Lean materials for the repair of consumer objects on a ‘meanwhile use’ site on the Parkside Estate in Hackney.

In the second semester, we will build upon the intentions and outcomes of earlier projects to look at the reversibility of construction at a larger scale on an extraordinary site in the Walthamstow Wetlands. Students will be asked to design a fully demountable structure of medium scale for rentable workspace. The site is on a flood plain. This is challenging, but is an opportunity to explore how cities will address future increases in the frequency and intensity of rainstorms due to global heating.

In short, this unit is attempting to reconcile both architectural and ecological intentions with many of the realities of contemporary construction and tries to do so with rigour and enthusiasm. The use of physical models to study architectural and constructional problems will be encouraged in all projects.

Silver car in carpark between railway line and trees

Image: Walthamstow Wetlands 2021 © David Grandorge

Details

Course
Tutors David Grandorge
Ted Swift 
Where Goulston Street
When Monday and Thursday

Architecture Postgraduate Studios

 
1/2
Black and white photo of Royal College of Art

PG Architecture Unit 02: Something Wonderful

Tony Fretton and Jillian Jones

The Royal College of Art building in Kensington Gore is a subtle building in that it is from the modern movement yet takes formal motifs from its surroundings. Unit 2’s project is to design a new building next to it for the Royal College of Art (RCA) according to the brief of Herzog and De Meuron’s new RCA building in Battersea. The objective is for you to design something wonderful!
Small white house floating in water at night with clouds

PG Architecture Unit 03: Folkestone Fun Palace

Pippa Nissen, Marie-Lise Oulmont, Andrea Hickey, Kate Coghlan

This year we are designing a contemporary museum and venue, inspired by Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price’s theoretical designs for a "laboratory of fun" in the 1960’s, to bring culture to a mass audience. A flexible series of events or exhibitions – a machine for culture, within a permanent building that houses other functions that will form the spine of the building and extend to a masterplan for the town. This continues our explorations to reinvent museums.
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PG Architecture Unit 04: Hyper Campus of Redundant Parts

Jonas Lundberg, Nate Kolbe

We are redesigning the London Met north campus as a collective work of many hands. We use generative and multi-authored tools to help construct the work of many hands as we see design and architecture a collective process.
Sepia cut-away axonometric drawing of buildings between 3 viaducts

PG Architecture Unit 06: Lines Through The City

Professor Maurice Mitchell, Dr Bo Tang

We will look at urban lines and change impenetrable boundaries into shared open borders. We will assemble a piece of social infrastructure on sites at Loughborough Junction along a railway line which cuts through the city from Brixton to Peckham. Unit 6’s working methods will be introduced during a field trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales. We will encourage you to find new ways of looking, imagining and representing your ideas, whilst cooperating with fellow students.
Silver car in carpark between railway line and trees

PG Architecture Unit 07: Good Nature

David Grandorge, Ted Swift

The idea of Good Nature reflects a desire by this unit to make buildings in the city for human occupation that do not thoughtlessly or unnecessarily displace other forms of life but attempt to co-exist with them.
Wobbly line drawing of window panels some shaded in blue

PG Architecture Unit 08: Measurement – Arrangement – Intuition

Takero Shimazaki, Paolo Emilio Pisano and Karabo Turner

Unit 8 will investigate the importance of mathematical measurements in architecture. Careful studies will inform exercises in proposed architecture within existing buildings and places. Through repetition, adjustment, trial, and error, we will compose and compare architectural arrangements against the backdrop of what already exists. We will identify tensions and compromises between mathematical measure and the imperfect existing, and consider how the resulting forms affect the wider context.
Aerial photo of hill town buildings

PG Architecture Unit 09: The Artful Vernacular

Stephen Taylor and Theodoros Thysiades

In the spirit of Luigi Snozzi’s urban rules for Monte Carasso, Switzerland we will work in the small town of town of Saint Germain de Calberte, in the south of France. We will study the existing town fabric and local vernacular forms and propose ways to extend it. We will add new buildings and spaces, made sustainable by their timeless quality and contribution to public space. In the first semester you will each design and make a big model of small timber house and one piece of furniture.
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PG Architecture Unit 12: The Garden

Peter St John, Fabienne Sommer, Ben Speltz and James Hand

Sebastian Marot’s book "Taking the Country's Side" speculates on the future relationship of the city and the countryside. His idea of acceptable (and modest) growth is for lower greener development in the city, together with small dispersed centres in the countryside that are self-sustaining. We will work on a brownfield site in rural Suffolk, looking at the architectural possibilities of a small community that brings back together the basic functions of living, working and food production.