week 12

The majority of the week was spent preparing for the technology hand in

Tuesday:
Lecture- Simon Warren, Sustainability, main subject was approaches to sustainability and why it is required, stated as a general lecture but provided all resources for further study into the topic.


cross school design week- Missed Wednesday session because i was doing tech work and forgot, this put me at a great disadvantage when i went on thursday i had no group and had not done a site visit, i spent the 2 days mixing with the groups that were there, mainly ended up assisting tim and paul. the friday the majority of people did not arrive, or arrived late because of snow.

end of week went home for christmas, since my parents seemed quite insistent on it.

week 11

final draft dissertation hand in
not much design work got done

Tuesday
Seminar with keith, gained final clarity on the tech project and got to see some of the work the rest of the group had been doing on the project.
Lecture: Digital and Technological Revolutions again with Lesley, this time she had done even less research on the lecture subject and it became blindingly obvious almost immediately she had been given all the lecture content/slides and hadnt bothered to look at them prior to the lecture. Useless.

Thursday:
tutorial with Gary went well, the majority of it was spent cycling through the experiments i had performed and recorded. Gary advised me to select the most relevant pictures/experiments that i use in the building into an A5 booklet to accompany the work that i present.

week 10

Tuesday:
tutorial with Keith, more people turned up and we were able to get more clarity on the project and what the brief required. between the group the majority of information we need has been gathered, although no one can find construction details for the building

afternoon:
Concrete-
David Bennett on behalf of the Concrete Centre

Handcrafted Concrete
*mixing- colour
*pouring- formwork
*finishing

material characteristics and usage

Reduction of CO2 in concrete
- Portland Cement - really high CO2 - 1/6th ingredients
every ton of cement made 1 ton CO2 released

Main way to reduce CO2
- Ground rendated iron ore slag - cement - 50kg CO2 per ton
- Pulverised Coal Ash- 5kg CO2 per ton

can then use recycled glass

-> best way to reduce CO2 in construction is to consider energy use in processing.

Visual Concrete specification
- Specification
- workmanship
- Achievement


Gravel 20mm-4mm inert & non absorbent
Sand 4mm- dust Inert and non absorbent
concrete dust strength and 85% cost


Colour rules:
1. finest particle goes to surface
2. pigments must be finer than cement particles
3. sand colour tints concrete
cement is grey due to levels of iron-> iron levels vary between quarries - stick to same supplier/quarry
4. water content.

everything is measured in m^3 because everything arrives on site pre mixed

cement- 325 is minimum

- weigh materials then convert back to volume

2 parts sand to 1 concrete
- incresing sand increases cost

4parts gravel - course aggregate
- gravel> crushed stone
(rule greater 6 parts to 1 cement - can reduce sand for stone)

80% 20-10mm

woodcrete- wood must be wet to not absorb water needed by concrete

concrete requires 1/4 its weight water to set- rest of waster is used to make sand/gravel homogeneous.

Water- cement ratio must not exceed 0.5

- plasticiser -> makes the concrete repel water for a time making concrete more fluid for a time.

Slump test
- must be between 125-175 drop for walls/ slabs.

Compacting
- 0.5m layers then compact

-placing rate 3m/hr

-drop compactor to bottom then pull up slowly - dont compact the entire thing at the end, only do the layer.


Lecture was very clear and concise, gave very clear a specific examples and instructions for what is possible with concrete and how to achieve it. also made a very clear case for concrete as a low carbon material. all around a very good lecture.





Thursday:

Week 9

Tuesday:
Seminar with Keith, not many people turned up and the lecture was cut short, advised to check the 'AJ details' series for the building construction details (i did it wasnt in there), told how to approch the construction section of the brief.

Lecture: Digital Architecture, possibly the worst lecture i've ever attended. Lesley hadnt read up on any of the subject or checked anything to do with the lecture, she stated that she did really have any knowledge of the subject. most of the lecture was taken up with exploring dead links to videos or watching irrelevant videos.
I was disappointed because if this lecture had been researched it may have helped with my dissertation.


Thursday:
Crit- Simon Warren and Gary, i was not well prepared and the crit went terribly if gary hadnt been there i doubt i would have got any results, the drawings did not convey any of what i was doing and many of them were unfinished (plano didnt show the schools) or missing (anchor plans/section). Was advised to record and show all my experiments with materials that relate to the project. and mainly to model as much of the project as possible so that the mirrored and curved nature is clear to people viewing the project.

week 8

Tuesday:
Seminar with Keith, information about the building was hard to find for everyone, therefore this seminar was almost exactly the same as the previous week.

Lecture:
Zero Carbon Architecture with Gregg Keefe
covers 2 of his papers:
Bio-fueled heritage:
- A total solution to carbon neutrality in historic neighborhoods
a study of Nelson, lancs.
lecture covered the difficulties of trying to get anything done when the prince's trust and heritage gets involved.
more importantly it covered integrating bio fuel and heat storage systems into historic settings without compromising their heritage.

Synergetic City:
- Urban algae production as a regenerative tool for a post-industrial city.
A study of making liverpool a free energy city.
uses algae as a biofuel to run glass production system in order to provide energy and industry to a city that is in decline. the algae production uses the unused docks, and the glass production uses the derelict parts of the city

was interesting and refreshing approach to zero carbon, using technology and techniques that are not usually considered. really great insight into the technical as well as political aspects of these projects.


Thursday:
Three tutorials in one day, first with Bridget who told me to start over with a new approach, followed by a tutorial with Gary an hour later in which he told me to start again using a different approach to Bridget's. Two hours later was another tutorial with Gary in which he stated i wasnt approaching his approach correctly and should start over.

this was good to have a lot of feedback and new approaches to briefs however being told to start over 3 times in a day was rather disheartening and by the end of the day i was knackered. But i do know how to proceed, until next week atleast

Also Pechakucha night
- was really interesting lecture series, seemed a fun way to present work, fast, however the speed of it meant i didnt get to write notes, alot of great ideas were conveyed. however i feel the set up of these lectures is really to let you know more about the presenter and less about the subject matter. although this is probably because i can not write short hand to take notes and therefore alot of it has not been remembered.





Email recieved

Dear All. Hope that you are working hard. Just a reminder for next Thursday 26th Nov Crit:

This will be a formal interim pin up crit where you will need to pin up all your work from this semester - research/analysis/precedent/development/anchor/chord and event and anything else you have produced.

For the Event, your building, you should aim to present a developed sketch scheme within the site/ landscape development and in relation to your exploration of the anchor.

For this you will look at various scales to put your event in the developed landscape and then zoom in to larger scales which explore your building in more detail with the immediate context.

Aim to show strategic site planning diagrams which illustrate your thinking for site use - issues to show include relationship decision making to adjacent buildings and spaces; routes, environment, scale and massing.

Working in plan and section - show all to scale in context - be clear about your brief.

Look at contextual massing diagrams/ sketch models - volumetric development to understand how your building works

FINISHED MODELS AND DRAWINGS ARE NOT REQUIRED BUT DO TRY AND PRESENT SKETCH WORK IN AN ORDERLY /COHERENT WAY.

Just to put your progression in this unit in context of the semester, you should be aiming to achieve a finished design by the Christmas break so that you have time to refine decision making and present your work for the final semester assessment on the 14th January 2010.

Whatever stage you are at on Thursday, please aim to attend and participate through the day. Any questions - I will be in on Monday or do email me. Best wishes, Bridget

Bridget Hansford BA(Hons) Dip Arch RIBA
Senior Lecturer
Joint BA(Hons) Degree Course Leader Architecture
The Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape & Design
Arts Building, Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9EN
Leeds Metropolitan University

week 7

tuesday:
Vernon lecture on 'Starchitecture'.
- wasnt brilliant or overly interesting lecture, the point of which is that architects sell their name and their association with a style to clients rather than projects which are site specific.
Also often large areas of detail are overlooked to maintain the over all style this is to meet clients expectations.



seminar with Keith for AT3.1 - given building (De Montfort Uni, school of engineering and manufacture, 'Queens building') and was advised to check the library, journals and the internet (obvious really)in preparation for next weeks, main aims are to get plans for the building.





Thursday:
tutorial with Bridget, i turned up with no work and no real idea for how to proceed and rightly Bridget told me in no uncertain terms to sort myself out and then advised me to try to set my own deadlines for each week, she also asked me to email her my work, for feedback but mainly as proof im doing some




email following tutorial

RE: York Project development‏
From: Hansford, Bridget (B.Hansford@leedsmet.ac.uk)
This message may be dangerous. Learn more
Sent: 14 November 2009 17:36:21
To: James Judge (j.judge6493@student.leedsmet.ac.uk)
Well done James! good to see you getting organised. The preliminary work looks ok - You should try to do the relationship diagram on the site which relates to the space usage and analysis so that you get a good sense of how it works with you urban strategy and link onto/through the wall, sunlight/views/private/public etc. This way you will be working with all that you know on the site. You are showing all at single storey - consider volumes of space - eg the games room will be much higher than the toilets - how is it going to work with the scale of adjacent buildings?

For next Thursday you need to develop the scheme to your first sketch scheme on the site and also in 3D to understand the massing in relationship to its context and landscape. Hope this helps. Regards Bridget

Bridget Hansford BA(Hons) Dip Arch RIBA
Senior Lecturer
Joint BA(Hons) Degree Course Leader Architecture
The Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape & Design
Arts Building, Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9EN
Leeds Metropolitan University

Book Review
Envisioning Cyberspace - Peter Anders
Architecture- the construction of Multi-User Domains (MUD)
-MUD's with high numbers of builders have lowest density populations
-MUD about social interaction not setting?
- Architects trained in: spatial design, community planning, aesthetics, graphic communications.
- will be needed to develop MUD's into more spatial forms



Terminal Velocities: the computer in the design studio by Stan Allen

- the computer in the design studio provokes both extravagant claims and high levels of anxiety
- it there a window of oppertunity between dismay or confusion and the endgame?
- digital technology is currently judged by how well it can render the real
-current architectural rendering techniques only give a narrow perceptual experience and ignore the fluidity of eye movement , peripheral vision, distance interposed between the thing and its representation
-computer simultaneously collapses and increases the distance between archs. 2d representations and buildings 3d reality
-possible to work on 2d and 3d at the same time
- new process of design
- new type of abstraction; not the result of operations of idealisation or reduction but the indifferent order of bits.
one of modern architectures failings has been inability to address the complexity of urban context
- programs dissolving the opposition between order and randomness
-architecture needs to learn to manafe this complexity, which can only be done by giving up some measure of control.

Week 6

Germany-

Day 1-
Monchengladbach - town/city stuck in the 80's

Abteiberg Museum by Hans Hollein 1972 -1982



night spent getting sorted at hostel then a quick look around the city at night. (note- never go in a German goth club)

Day 2-

tour of Frankfurt then exploration of museums.

really interesting shopping centre by Massimiliano Fuksas.











Halloween night - underwhelming, almost no germans were celebrating contrary to what i had been told. got massively drunk on 'mass' and meter beer.

Day 3 -

The Weissenhof Estate: International style of modern architecture houses by Mies van der Rohe, corbusier & others. The Mercedes Benz Museum by UN Studio was really good. The porsche museum Delugan Meissl Associates was less interesting.







Quick visit into the centre of stuttgart; nothing was open but the city was nice and seemed very well laid out, would like to go back and explore further.
Night was spent exploring Frankfurt and getting more night pictures, then hitting the pubs.

Day 4 -

Darmstadt: Art Nouveau park. look at the uni's award winning eco house. talk at the Passive Haus Institute was interesting but the room made it hard to stay awake.
talk at a co housing project - being green as a community achievement.




Day 5 -

The Zollverein Pit: extremely large restoration project of bauhaus buildings the majority of which hasnt been started yet we got lost on the site however some very interesting landscaping. The Essen Aalto Theatre is a very nice, interesting building.





travel back to rotterdam for the ferry home.

Week 5

Monday - Submission of 1000 words,


Wednesday – Construction of Presentation including site overview, measured drawings inc anchor, planometric of scheme and precedent.
Started to construct model, did not get finished.
Also preparation for germany including money exchange, purchasing longlife batteries, clearing SD cards, buying adpaters and chargers. And then packing.

Thursday – Crit






- depart for germany

Week 4

Afternoon: lecture on how to write PDP. This almost immediately proved fruitless when it was announced Leslie did not know what was required of the PDP and there were not enough handouts for group activities that had been planned so the lecture was cut short. Conclusion continue to write my PDP in this way

Wednesday- 2nd dissertation meeting in preparation for 1000 word submission, Result of which; Good title, much more focused than previously, notebook should be typed up in an effort to condense my notes and provide clarity.
Rest of the night spent experimenting with models for my anchor

Thursday- Tutorial- assessment of idea; using perspective and mirrors to create selective illusions for the different users of the anchor.
Idea was good but needs a lot of work doing to catch up and develop, Gary gave me a Journal ( AR oct8 09) which gave me several ideas for how to outline and present the scheme as a whole. 1 week until Crit and Germany trip need to be organised; week plan:
- Friday; revisit site in York for photos more specific to idea,then further development of idea
- Saturday; A0 Planometric of entire scheme
- Sunday; write up 1000 words of plan for dissertation
- Monday; Review and correct 1000 words before submission. Rest of the day spent on measured drawing
- Tuesday: Lectures, rest of the day on measured drawing and constructing presentation sheet
- Wednesday: Finish Sheet and build model, pack for Germany
- Thursday: Presentation and depart for Germany

Friday- Site Visit to York, went well, good weather got most of the photo’s needed (in future don’t buy cheap batteries that only allow 5shots per 2)

Saturday- Morning spent in studio attempting to print A0 map in preparation for planometric drawing, rest of the day spent learning to draw the planometric.

Sunday- Notes condensed and typed up. The rest of the day was spent writing up the 1000 words: a plan of the dissertation broken down into chapters in a logical progressive order.

Week review:
Beginning of week wasn’t as productive as hoped but making plans on Thursday and the realisation that there was very limited time to prepare for crit, Germany and submit 1000 words meant that at the end of the week making a timetable and having no option but to stick to it allowed me to be much more productive.

Book Review:
THE Virtual Dimension- architecture, representation and crash culture.
- John Beckmann
Architecture in the age of it virtual disappearance - an interview with Paul Virilio by Andreas Ruby
- architecture in a primary sense has to deal with statistics, resistance of materials, equilibrium and gravity.
-architects work with mass and energy of a building and its structure
- architectural features being replaced by technology i.e stairs with escalators, the architect being replaced by engineer.
- architecture takes place in the 3d. virtual allows for expansion into new dimensions.
-'virtuality... haunting architecture'
- new fictional dimension should be built just as one builds houses.
-architecture in :realspace materiality of architecture :virtualspace transmission of electromagnetic signs.
- architecture no longer subject to gravity but instead electromagnetism.
-architecture will continue to exist but in a state of disappearance, there but unseen.



ANTItechtonics: the poetics of virtuality - William J. Mitchell
Architecture in the real world: physical construction, mass, tactility
architecture of the virtual
*no material to transform- no weathering
*forms and relationships of space are not necessarily stable
*not rooted in the ground
*consist of a light weight enclosing membrane
*joints dont matter
*surfaces have no thickness, fitted together with mathematical precision
- No room for ingenuity in the details
- structural expression and honesty lose all meaning
- no distinction between vertical and horizontal

Retired: tectonics, craft, handtools, local tradition, facade, ornament, helevetica, parti, permanence, learning from luxor(stone)
Rewired: electronics, CAD/CAM, software, global organisation, interface, electronic display, emigre, genome, reconfigurability, learning from luxor(VR)

Week 3

Tuesday- lectures with Keith Basements.
-overview of basement types.
typeA- external tanking
typeB- Monolithic
typeC- drained cavity
-overview of pile types
contiguous
secant
alternatives : sheet steel piling, Diaphragm walls
-overview of underpinning
jack piles
needle beams
cantilevered needle beams

Case Study of Ryland library Manchester Uni.

Lecture was concise, gave clear diagrams of how each type works, photographs where relevant, and details of the case study.



Afternoon - situationists

The Situationists

Phase 1
- some influence on a few groups,
- held several exhibitions,
- all about politics and opinion,
- ideas published through magazines
- hated modernists
- New Babylon, an inhabitable container that could be infinitely expanded for mass produced environments.
- Didn’t like technology and consumerisms as saw it as stifling creativity
- Didn’t think houses should be ugly just because they were cheap.
Phase 2
- The drift- large groups wandering around cities; psycogeographical surveys. Combination of chance and planning
- New ways of mapping on paper; collages of old maps, photos etc. in attempts to make maps with feeling.
- Liked to trespass and attend warehouse parties, explored in aimless hitch hiking
- Liked being drunk
Phase 3
- Aspired to reconstruct the city
- Construct ‘situations’ – combinations of environment and people to produce a transcendent revolutionary consciousness
- 2 approaches – New Babylon and “detournement”



Thursday- Tutorial, Bridge idea reject and new approach was suggested, Not to completely open up the area as I had suggested but instead find a middle ground between that leaving the residential area sealed off, Allow the residents full access between both sides but then use the anchor to filter out tourists.
Saturday – Alexisonfire played Leeds Refectory

Week review-
Somewhat unproductive, no progress made on dissertation, design work was made invalid after tutorial although the practice on CAD and 3dsmax was useful as well as the practice sketching.
Need to be more focused and task orientated so that I can achieve more in the week and also have much more of my designs resolved for tutorials, also need to set aside more time for dissertation

Book review
title: Out of Site: Fictional Architectural Spaces
Publisher: New museum of contemporary art (2002)
Summary and analysis:
-Artists creating fictional architectural spaces and topographies using architectural constructs to investigate how the growth of digital culture virtual reality and global expansion.
-represent exploration of navigating space, both physically and digitally
- no longer distinguish 'real' from 'virtual' or dont find the distinction meaningful.
- urban reality is not single but multiple 'city in a city, secret cultures and societies.'
-architecture of internet and tech. mediated extension of transparent architecture of Michel Foucault .

Week 2 Review

Week 2-

• Tuesday- Lectures

Keith, Structures of roofing Systems, with emphasis on not using flat roofs.



Dan, Synergistics; selective and exclusive systems also CHP.

Book Review
title: Hybrid Space - new forms in digital Architecture
author: P.Zellner
publisher: Thames & Hudson (1999)
Summary & analysis:
Introduction; looks at cultural and social revolution in relation to digital technologies and how they are transforming the field of architecture.
Digital infrastructures inscribed on our mechanical and urban patterns. Architecture becoming an experiment in topological geometries, kinematic sculpting of space.
Blurring relationships between matter and data, real & virtual, organic & inorganic.
Buildings approached from both visual & non visual. users are becoming static, only able to visualize and interact through workstations.
Co-terminus Territories, the real and the virtual. Virtual is Real but not actual, ideal but never abstract. twinning of virtual and real in architecture isn't specific to our time or tech.- i.e. mirror galleries.
Unification of disparate spaces. topology - applies to torus but not a sphere...-relationship between man made and natural

Examples and Case Studies:
NoX: -develop dynamic, mutabke ad evolving design techniques
-design as highly plastic, flexible art in which the building evolves.
-liquid architecture
-'digital genetic engineering'
-forms that exist in the transitional area between biological life and metallic & electronic fauna of modern tech.
- 'matter and space are fused with thier representation in media, where all form is blended with information'
-'soft architecture'
Two trends in arch.

• softness of form, physical turbulence literalised and understood as a phenomenological model of spatialization
• fluidity within the program, softness experienced indirectly through systems of circulation and internal spatial arangement.

Stephen Perrella
Mobius House-
- exploration of hypersurface and how we dwell in relation to communications media
- neither interior space nor and exterior form
- intermingling of; tech. , consciousness, instrumentalities(form and space),economy, representations(images), identities.
to form a deep, dense swirling topology of real and mediated human affiliations: known as Hyperspace theory
-new heterogeneous interactive realms of human experience that bridge real and virtual
- rather than use another dimension it is suggested that the virtual folds into our 3
-cartesian notions of space-time are no longer relevant to architectural development.
- 'real and ideal aren't separate realms, the divisions sustained by transcendental metaphysics, both divisions now impleat'
Hypersurface Panel Studies-
-attempts to create physical representations of the hypersurface

Decoi
Aegis-
- exterior 'skin' to translate the interior of a theatre to the exterior as a fluid pattern
Hysteria Protera Electroglyphs-
-trapping lines derived from the rotation of animated amorphous forms.

The Attila Foundation (Kas Oosterhuis)
transPORTs2001-
- capture intertwinning of physical and virtual
- spaceframe formed of pneumatic bars individually controlled like muscle tissue.
- Co- evolving Sentient technologies, techno-ecologies and body buildings.

Reiser and Umeoto
-relationship between theory, tech. and architectural practice
- binary opposition between; structure and ornament, programme and form, topology and performance.

Macros Novak
- mathematical modeling of dataspace
- how physical space is being transform by virtual space
- 'liquid architecture'
- 'transarchitectures'

• Wednesday; Dissertation tutorial

Went well, discussions about virtual tech. and experiences of reality.
Results of Tutorial: Possibilities for subjects/titles
-What is reality?/What is Architecture? - is too vast for dissertation
- comparison of real and virtual hierarchies - virtual has a hierarchy based on programming ability
- investigation into illusions and whether they are obsolete in a virtual world
Next tutorial on the 21st; should have
-title/question and outline
- precedent and background
(look into International Journal of Architectural Computing)

• Thursday; Studio day

Presentation of photo-montage:
did not go well, poor presentation and montage was not what tutors had hoped for. need to verbalize ideas better. Need to write down and practice what i am wanting to say/convey.

Results of photo-montage:
start presentation with a verbal/visual hook.
redo photo- montage with aim to use it as a diagram showing strength of the link and the insignificance of the wall.

For next week:
Landscape strategy
measured drawing; Anchor 1:50, Site
Group: 1:50 model of wall

Week 1 review

Week 1 -

• Tuesday- Intro to lectures; Keith doing Structures, this week reviewed structure types
  
  
  
  . New lecturer Dan on synergistics, this week was an intro to synergistics.










• Thursday- Site visit to York for 1st part of AD3.1;
  

City walls divide city into 3 distinct sections- inside the wall, outside the wall, on the walls.

Intention: enriching the City
Reaction: Photomontage to show personal interpretation of the issues of the site and the historical context.

Action Plan

Skills Assessment:

• Drawing: needs improvement on accuracy, speed and style? especially regarding drawing of facades and perspectives. Can be achieved through practice on whilst developing design projects.
• Sketching: needs improving in style and depiction of life. Practice is required, can be done as part of design work as well as in spare time.
  
• Handwriting: Generally needs improvement also need to learn to write in varying fonts. Mainly can be achieved through exercises in free time as well as on design drawings.
• Computer Skills: Typing and Photoshop are ok and will be maintained through continuous use. AutoCAD and 3D studio need practice and improvement, which can be achieved by using them along side drawings during design process. Need to relearn ArchiCAD and Revit and practice on them, possibly select preferred program to continue practicing because of time constraints.
• Reading: Skills are Fine just need to find more time to read.
• Research: needs to be more efficient and use more Books and journals with less reliance on the internet, also need to learn to pick relevant sources with more ease. This will be achieved through practice whilst researching dissertation and Tech. Case study.
• Time Management: BiG problem with time management and making best use of my time. I will need to make a weekly timetable and stick to it as much as possible, it will need to take into account uni work, deadlines, free time and social/living requirements.

BA(hons) Arch, 3rd year: PDP- intro....

I have chosen to use this blog for my PDP. So far i am on week four of 3rd year and have decided to move my pdp online so that it is easily accessible and harder to lose.
The 1st several post will be catching up with the previous weeks and the corresponding dates may not be correct.