Brief 1 « Learning from Thames Valley

Brief 1

PROJECT 1.
SUBURBAN ANALYSIS
Defining TV – the social, economical, cultural and formal context

Town and country, Nolli Plan of Rome, 1748

LEARNING FROM…

Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary for an architect. Not the obvious way, which is to tear down Paris and begin again, as Le Corbusier suggested in the 1920s, but another, more tolerant way; that is, to question how we look at things.

The post-suburban ‘city’, Thames Valley in particular – the example par excellence – challenges the architect to take a positive, non-chip-on-the-shoulder view. Architects are out of the habit of looking non-judgementally at the environment, because orthodox Modern architecture is progressive, if not revolutionary, utopian, and puristic; it is dissatisfied with existing conditions. Modern architecture has been anything but permissive. Architects have preferred to change the existing environment rather than enhance what is there.

But to gain insight from the commonplace is nothing new: Fine art often follows folk art. Romantic architects of the eighteenth century discovered an existing and conventional architecture. Early Modern architects appropriated an existing and conventional industrial vocabulary without much adaptation. Le Corbusier loved grain elevators and steamships; the Bauhaus looked like a factory; Mies refined the details of American steel factories for concrete buildings. Modern architects work through analogy, symbol and image – although they have gone to lengths to disclaim almost all determinants of their forms except structural necessity and the program – and they derive insights, analogies, and stimulation from unexpected images. There is a perversity in the learning process: We look backward at history and tradition to go forward; we can also look downward to go upward. And withholding judgement may be used as a tool to make later judgement more sensitive. This is a way of learning from everything.

Courtesy of ‘Learning from Las Vegas’ by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, 1972

AIMS
To investigate and analyse one subject in the Thames Valley.
To consider how to present an idea visually to an audience.
To gain basic control of Adobe Illustrator to produce clear, useful drawings.
To obtain plan information and learn to manipulate it to gain an understanding of the existing form of a productive park in the Thames Valley.
To consider the elements that make up a beautiful, insightful drawing.
To gain control of 2D Vectorworks to produce professional standard plan drawings.
To research historical information about an from a variety of sources and represent it graphically.
To appreciate what can and cannot be understood when studied from afar.
To prepare a strategy for approaching your site.
To begin to consider how study of an archetype can be used to generate a general approach.

BRIEF

TASK ONE – DEFINING TV
The Thames Valley(TV) has an ancient history of dwelling. Yet its definition is ambiguous, its conception as a single city recent. As a studio we need to understand the nature of this 21st century city, describing and mapping the social, economical, political and spatial elements that define it.

You are to become an expert on one aspect of the Valley. One TV subject. You will research it, map it on the studio’s TV map template and make a short presentation to the studio on the subject.

TV subjects will be randomly allocated on the first day of the studio.

Create and give a 5 minute presentation on the subject to the rest of the studio. It should be produced digitally as a PDF file. It may include statistics, maps, diagrams, images and any other appropriate visual materials, found or created. It should be interesting and informative, succinct and clear.

Construct an A3 drawing that maps your subject in the TV. It should be produced digitally using the provided template as a starting point.

TASK TWO – THE PRODUCTIVE PARK
The Thames Valley is a post-suburban city. In the Valley production (what might be described as work) occupies the multivalent park rather than the prescribed piazza. It occurs in business parks and parked cars, office villages and village greens, live-work networks and networked cottages.

You are to become an expert on one of these productive parks. No-one will have ever known more about this area than you. Its form, its residents, its character, its past, present and future uses.

The productive parks will be allocated on the first day of the studio.

AN ASTONISHING PLAN
“Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756) was an architect and surveyor who lived in Rome and devoted his life to documenting the architectural and urban foundations of the city. The fruit of his labor, La Pianta Grande di Roma (“the great plan of Rome”) is one of the most revealing and artistically designed urban plans of all time. The Nolli map is an ichnographic plan map of the city, as opposed to a bird’s eye perspective, which was the dominant cartographic representation style prevalent before his work. Not only was Nolli one of the first people to construct an ichnographic map of Rome, his unique perspective has been copied ever since.

The map depicts the city in astonishing detail. Nolli accomplished this by using scientific surveying techniques, careful base drawings, and minutely prepared engravings. The map’s graphic representations include a precise architectural scale, as well as a prominent compass rose, which notes both magnetic and astronomical north. The Nolli map is the first accurate map of Rome since antiquity and captures the city at the height of its cultural and artistic achievements.”

The Nolli Website, http://nolli.uoregon.edu/preface.html
(Note: the site includes an incredibly detailed interactive map of the Nolli plan)

Construct an A1 plan (landscape) that depicts your park in astonishing detail. It should be produced digitally and read well at a scale of 1:1250. It will have an appropriate border, title, northpoint and scale bar. It will be used as the basis for all your future drawings.

You shall use the available resources, including:
• Edina Digimap OS information - the base Ordnance Survey information
• Aerial photography - Plan (maps.google.co.uk)
- Birdsview (www.bing.com/maps/)
• Local maps
• Publications on the area

QUESTIONS

1. What does the basic OS information reveal about the form of your park?

2. How much can a figure ground drawing, without the benefits of a site visit, describe?

3. Nolli’s figure-ground drawing illustrates the ‘public’ areas of the city. It is interesting that these include not only the open spaces but churches and interior courts. Which ‘public’ spaces are included in your park plan? Is the black/white, public/private dichotomy a useful device for your park or are more subtle gradations required

4. Nolli’s plan takes the masonry construction of Rome as its defining edges. The Thames Valley is more materially heterogenous. What defines the edges of the spaces? Explore a number of different edges in your plan, which may include buildings, paths (vehicular and pedestrian), landscape, communication networks, etc

5. How does the information from aerial photographs contribute to your plan?

6. The Thames Valley is thousands of years old and the site of much aerial archaeological research. How might early maps/photographs influence your map.

7. What interests you about your park? Does it have an obvious centre, or heart?

CREATION MYTHS
Everywhere has a story of how it was created, based upon memory, evidence, truth and falsity. The story of your neighbourhood must be researched in parallel with your plan investigations. The wider your investigations, the richer the story. Sources at this stage may include:

• books - London Met library
- RIBA library
- books.google.com
- abebooks.co.uk
- amazon.co.uk

• documentaries, film, adverts - Youtube

- BFI National Library, www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/library/

- Open University, www.open2.net

- TV and web TV

• music - lyrics, many available online

- peer-2-peer programs e.g. Limewire

• radio - live, internet and archive e.g. iPlayer

• web - Office for National Statistics, www.nomisweb.co.uk

- Environment Agency, www.environment-agency.gov.uk

The internet is a vast resource but finding quality has never been harder. We will not accept lazy googling. Sources must be identified and interrogated. High quality and high resolution images tracked down and deployed.

REQUIREMENTS

1. 5 minute presentation (PDF format) on your TV subject

2. A3 map of Thames Valley, mapping your TV subject

3. A1 1:1250 plan of your productive park

4. A3 pamphlet analysing your productive park, including 1:2500 aerial photograph and plans

5. A3 or similar, plans of your neighbourhood analysing its form (3 minimum, 12 preferred)

6. 500 word illustrated description of your own formal interests in the neighbourhood

NOTE: In addition to above formats all six requirements to be submitted on day of crit as PDF files on CD,files labelled:

Your Name_01_01, Your Name_01_02, etc, with final number relating to Requirement Number.

TIMETABLE

1	T 6/10	2pm – brief introduction	ALL
	F 09/10	2pm – Post-suburban city SEMINAR	GS
2	T 13/10	10am – IDA introduction2pm – Project 2 briefing & PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKSHOP	TCGS TC
	F 16/10	2pm – Plan analysis SEMINAR	VL
3	T 20/10	All day, 10am start : CRITS5pm, TV presentations	All
3-4		SITE VISITS – students to organise and visit before 27/10