ADS5: Tectonic Condenser: Enclosure

ADS5 are obsessed with the poetry of architectural details, the narratives from which they stem, and the narratives that they form.

Throughout the year, we will design, draw, and model buildings at all scales, exploring the poetic and communicative potential of materials and tectonics. We will consider and operate within the complex ethical frameworks we must negotiate as architects. Students will be challenged to weave history and fiction, narrative and poetry, negative embodied carbon design, and a deeper understanding of craft in their design projects, which will also propose nuanced reassessments of societal values.

In 2023/24, the starting point of the studio will be the architectural figure of the Enclosure. Thermal and environmental, spatial and hierarchical, social and political. Doors, windows, walls and roofs, fences, borders, or laws.

Following Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s earlier exploration into constructional form, in his Die Tektonik der Hellenen (The Tectonic of the Hellenes, 1852) Karl Bötticher made a seminal contribution to the architectural use of the term ‘tectonic.’ Bötticher made the distinction between kernform (the bringing together of materials to act as structure) and kunstform (the decorative envelope) as he explored the relationships between the core form and the artistic representation of elements in a Greek temple. Both Bötticher and, writing later, Gottfried Semper in Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Ästhetik (Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, 1861–3), would interpret the tectonic as signifying a complete system, which binds all the individual parts into a single whole assemblage. Materials, parts, and details are all joined and bound into components that, in turn, become part of this entirety.

The studio will focus on the moment these elements combine to create projects that investigate the meanings and possibilities of these assemblages.

In his Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture (1995), Kenneth Frampton discusses details as ‘tectonic condensations’ that are symbolic of the greater whole. Through an in–depth, live–long consideration of architectural details, Edward R. Ford was able to provide five definitions, or types, in his The Architectural Detail (2011) – the detail as abstraction; the detail as motif; the detail as structural representation; the detail as joint; and the detail as an autonomous, or subversive element. Each of these definitions raises a series of questions.

ADS5 will employ and develop on these definitions as a means to interrogate the ‘tectonic condensation’ of the buildings we will study and design. We will examine the constructional, societal, and environmental narratives that are openly expressed, or suppressed, at the moment at which these materials are joined. We will ask ourselves a series of questions. What materials are we joining? What do they signify? And why are we using them?

In asking ‘why,’ we must explore the ethical decisions that architects make when choosing one thing over another.

During the fifth century BC, Protagoras argued there were no immutable values and rules and no ethical grounds on which to impose your values and rules on others. Nevertheless, he also observed that shared values support productive collaboration. There are circumstances when architects, clients, contractors, suppliers, and others may need to collaborate, work, cohabit, or share burdens and rewards. Such instances will require proposition, negotiation, agreement, and establishing an ethical framework that will and ought to be renegotiated over time. We will ask students to propose, negotiate, and agree a framework for their design project, which will be embodied in a single building, whether single– or multi–purpose.

‘Master your craft.’ Giorgio Vasari argued there should not be any collective nouns, rules, or and laws for architecture, art, and sculpture. Instead, he argued each creator should work toward mastering their craft. The design methodology of ADS5 is orientated around manner not style, process not product. We explore interdisciplinary collaborations with input from visiting consultants and specialists in sustainability, structural engineering, and stone and timber construction. The field trip is planned to be an integral segment of the project, allowing an extended period for experimentation and prototyping in materialising the tectonic studies of the studio. We will develop ideas for 2:1 scale stone assembly, which will be built in collaboration with a Lisbon–based quarry and stonemasonry team. We will aim to help construct walls, beams, arches, and building parts with manufacturers and fabricators, thereby exploring the processes of traditional and contemporary craftmanship. But what value is acquiring a skill, or skills, without a design agenda, or moral framework? ‘To what end, but disaster,’ Richard Sennett asks in The Craftsman (2008), ‘do we master our craft without ethical purpose?’

ADS5 encourage students to develop sophisticated design projects that combine a highly resolved technical ambition with a carefully considered ethical and social mission. As tutors, we aim to support students in conceiving, challenging, and developing your own ideas and projects. Our previous student projects have varied from alternative models of housebuilding and reforestation, to the development of a systematic infrastructure for the re-use of old building components, to spaces of human care and healing, and to spaces for agricultural and ecological regeneration.

References:

Karl Bötticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen (The Tectonic of the Hellenes, 1852)

Barnabus Calder, Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency (Penguin Books, 2022)

Edward R. Ford, The Architectural Detail (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011)

Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture (MIT Press, 1995)

Rose Macaulay, The Pleasure of Ruins (Thames & Hudson, 1953)

Gottfried Semper, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Ästhetik (Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, 1861–3)

Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008)

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Emminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere (MacMillan, 1912–15)

Tutors:

Amin Taha was born in Berlin, moved briefly to Baghdad then Southend-on-Sea, before settling in London, where is currently chairperson of GROUPWORK – an employee ownership trust. Before establishing an independent studio, he worked in the offices of Zaha Hadid, Wilkinson Eyre, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, and Richard Murphy in Edinburgh, where he graduated. He has around 25 years of experience in practice, working on varying typologies from single houses, through housing, mixed-use towers, masterplans, galleries, museums and transport infrastructure. Amin continues to teach, write and lecture on architecture and currently also advises pension and investment property funds on sustainability.

Alex Cotterill joined GROUPWORK in 2012 and works on a variety of projects. In addition, he has led efforts in Materials research, working on designs for full-scale mock-ups using laminated waste stone, a by-product of quarries, several of which have been exhibited internationally. He is the Head of Third year in University of Creative Arts and was educated in Bristol, Brighton, and London.

Nerissa Yeung is an Architect at GROUPWORK. She has been experimenting and specialising on stone exoskeleton, vaults, pre-tensioning systems and structural timber across housing, mixed-use, infrastructure and cultural spaces. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture at Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and Diploma of Architecture degree in Architectural Association.