PROJECT 5
Towards a productive architecture: A Centre of Production
BRIEF
Semester one has been spent ‘Learning from Thames Valley’, a contemporary realisation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City. The notion of a democratic city has been explored through analysis of the Valley’s productive parks – the office villages, service estates, business parks and production centres. The studio has focused on buildings and spaces that are productive in form, use and their contribution to the wider context.
Your basic brief is to design a new centre of production at a suitable node in a productive park in the Thames Valley.
Developed from your own lessons learnt from TV, the final proposal will be a building, or collection of buildings, that forms a new centre of production, a prototypical place for work in the contemporary city. The architecture will be appropriate for the Valley’s democratic aspirations – popular and communicative, participatory and productive.
You are to develop and gain approval from your tutors for the Final Proposal Design Brief, developed from the supplied template, to ensure you have a clear briefing document outlining your intentions, site, schedules of use/accommodation and precedents. This will be your final brief for a proposal to be developed throughout semester two.
AIMS
To develop a brief based upon:
a) suburban architectural precedents you have researched and experienced in Thames Valley, Silicon Valley, LA and beyond.
b) the needs and aspirations of ‘the publics’ in your site of study
c) the ecology of your productive park
To explore the relationship between use and form.
To develop a design proposal that is both generous and appropriate.
To explore, at a detailed scale, the use of materials and building elements to define an experiential and rich architecture.
To develop an architectural language that communicates with both users and the wider public.
To explore the relationship between your personal aesthetic/formal preferences and an appropriate architecture.
To study and consider the full impact of your proposal – formally, socially, economically and environmentally
To develop an understanding of the inter-related elements that contribute to the construction and maintenance of your proposal
To produce spectacular visual material that successfully conveys your intentions and proposal.
To develop your own design methodology.
