Latest Drawings

Just some drawings for our scheme with a week to go ... elevation, plan and cross section. We will establish some details and begin to explore the nature of the hand held scale for the review in a week ...

Post Apocalyptic Havant - Process

Simon and I continue to work on our Minor Project for a post-apocalyptic scenario based in Havant. These are images of process and model making, skecthes and recorded conversations of how the levee is engaged in terms of threshold, procession and habitation.

Week 7-8

Post-apocolyotic Havant continues...

We are forming the context of a water levee intervention through the St. Faith's Church in Havant. To immerse ourselves in the scenario we have finalised a single image that defines the nature of this brave new world, where sea levels have increased by 10 metres and society is split between the land dwellers and the sea farers.

Can a new culture of trade and spiritual alignment occur within or on top of this concrete mass that holds back the ravenous sea? We will be looking at the ideas of threshold, linearity and ascending from the ground/water plane to a haven for a new paradigm of society.

Minor Project - Post Apocolyptic Havant

Our new project builds upon the Thesis subject matter we have been working and the Nordic experiences of churches and spaces of spirit. Now we imagine a context in Havant town centre of an increase in sea levels and the associated changes such an event would bring. Again teaming up with Simon Drayson, we have established a 10 metre increase in level which would require a Levy to hold back the waters, thus creating a new coastline. This new edge strikes along a path through Havant town centre but respects the church and the Yew tree, where a new age of spiritual awareness can emerge ....

Just some images of the Orestad Church Competition feedback, Roger in full flow.

Week 4 and 5 - Orestad Church Competition

Weeks 4 and 5 in the Emergent studio were spent working in teams or solo on a real competition brief based in downtown Copenhagen. Here, amongst a masterplanned but unfinished urban sprawl we placed our interventions of church like (but not neccessarily faith based) forms, drawing people from the tube line station towards an urban square.

Simon Drayson and myself got 'married' once we realised that we were interested in the strata of the region, and teamed up to create a series of little buildings using the local stone and clay as driving ingredients. We created our own new brick dim and delivered a story of clay excavation, brick firing and place making amongst the tundra of bush and silver birches just beyond the urban square.

Once leaving the station visitors fix their attention to a bell tower standing along at an angle resolved with due west in the square. Beneath the brick mass a ramp encourages the pedestrian down and across the urban edge into the natural landscape just beyond. Here a Hearth and surrounding Chapels connect the visitor with aspects of nature, phenomena and spirit. The Hearth represents both the furnace of the fired bricks and the heart of the space. The Sky Chapel holds a floating concrete drum at its centre, set just 1 metre from the ground plane, inviting the visitor to duck under and look up to the sphere of air and light above. The Horizon Chapel squeezes the view of the landscape into a sitting position, harnessing the cosy nature of the space.

The crit was in-camera, anonymous and will remain un-marked (all things I agree with). We worked mainly in pencil and graphite, scanning these drawings over a CAD framework to add to the atmosphere. Feedback was excellent for all involved and the boards could be seen on the third floor near to the school office.

Nordic Transgression

The boss (Roger Tyrrell) and the landscape (Finnish lake) ... both wild, scary and not to be underestimated.

Nordic Transgression

Getting close to the detailing during our excursion ... aided by Adrian Carter's guided tour. Hopefully these themes will be explored during my year in the studio, with prototyping and making as crucial parts of the design process.

Nordic Transgression

Random Emergent crew members in transgressive positions around Scandanavia

Nordic Transgression

St. Henry Chapel, just outside Helsinki

Nordic Transgression

Simon examines a cross at the Crematorium, Helsinki

Nordic Transgression

Bell tower doorway

Weeks 1-3

These first three weeks include the induction period for the studio and the Nordic transgression which involved an excursion to Scandanavia. There is a seperate page on the Emergent website about the excursion, however I have posted here some images of our time in Finland and Denmark.

We visited many buildings by architects like Alvar Aalto, Enro Saarinen, Steven Holl and Jorn Utzon. Consequently we have collected as a studio probably over 1,000 images and sketches which have been stored on a studio hard drive for further reference. In the future we will use this information as reference material for the website and of course our own Thesis work.

By the end of these three weeks I was totally knackered, over whelmed but excited about the coming studio year. Onwards ....