Atelier Summary 2009 – 2010

CLUSTER DEVELOPMENTS AND INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORKS

INTRODUCTION

The atelier proposes to research and understand the networked and connected nature of cities and their inhabitants’ everyday activities as a basis for sustainable architectural design, and aims to develop an awareness of the networks’ energy footprints and how these are linked to the supply of goods or information.

CONTEXT

Existing networks create communities, but also consume energy. Each website visited has an energy footprint that manifests itself as waste heat on a server somewhere on the planet. For each meal consumed, a carbon footprint forms from its journey across the globe.

Shared resources drive sustainable communities. Communities shaped by digital convergence flourish in collaborative spaces. Informal spaces are the new workplaces.

PROPOSAL

Looking at digital and physical supply networks, using Telehouse data centre and Billingsgate fish market as starting points, the performance criteria and social structures of these networks are examined. The process space around the networks may also become the sites for design interventions that reconfigure waste from the fish market or heat output from the data centre to facilitate sustainable energy loops.

How can we design buildings to reduce their carbon footprints in relation to existing network infrastructures as we increase their interaction with their surrounding communities?

METHODOLOGY

The atelier methodology will promote iterative working using digital and physical modelling, changing in scale from design fragments to site strategies, shaping individual and group proposals through a carefully structured and individually tailored pedagogy. The outcomes will be design proposals for cluster developments, related to both their physical context and the energy imprint of the site and its networks.

YEAR PROGRAMME

PROJECT 1

SITE VISITS AND DOCUMENT

Site visit to a hub on the physical and digital supply networks – Billingsgate fish market and Telehouse data centre. Site analysis as a group study document. Choose a fragment to study that contributes to the group document, working to an agreed format.

PROJECT 2

PERCEPTUAL MODEL

Produce an experiential model of the site using any physical media (including movement, sound or light) based on a structured exercise and a personal reading of a chosen location. This perceptual model will become a catalyst for design proposals.

PROJECT 3

SPEED PLANNING

Interact with the chosen site and the atelier neighbours’ sites to develop a site strategy, building models using digital media (Sketch-Up) and testing them on a digital site (Google Earth). Provide a rapidly conceived, constantly evolving and mutable site-strategy, prototyped and tested in the context of other atelier members’ work. Atelier members to review each other’s work in this collaborative virtual environment.

PROJECT 4

BUILDING PROPOSAL

Design a fragment of the building programme in a physical medium. Look at sustainable strategies such as, for example, the use of waste heat from the data centre or waste from the fish market. Use this fragment and overlay the project programme to inform your building design.

Proposals may include collaborative, connected and informal spaces for work, study and learning, communal accommodation, community facilities, facilities related to social networks.

ATELIER FIELD TRIP

The atelier field trip will take place during term two and will be related to the project programme.

VISITING CRITICS AND FRIENDS

Carolyn Roy – Landscape Designer and Performance Artist.

Helena Wright – Renewable Energy Advisor, British-Eco

Stephen Griffiths  – Digital Media Advisor to Salford University

Alison Pooley – Senior Lecturer, Centre for Alternative Technology

Keith Bell – Architect for Telehouse data centre