ADS9: 36,660 kg

At sea level, the density of air is 1.222 kilograms per m3. Imagine a space with an area of 10,000 m2. A space with a living breath comprising 36,660 kg of air flowing freely within it, energy passing from one particle to another on contact. How much mass would you add or subtract to this space to make it a piece of architecture? Would you add the collective presence of our physical bodies? The beep-beeps of technology? Additional air to increase the barometer of the environment? ADS9 asks how little material do we need to compose space and design architecture?

In a series of work titled, Dibujo sin papel (Drawing without paper) and Reticulárea, Gertrude Goldschmidt, known as Gego, used found industrial materials to draw thin lines that are almost weightless, sketching out the barest contours of spaces. Rather than describing these works as sculptures, Gego, who once trained as an architect, thought of these constructs as highly contextual spatial drawings.Works that are a delicate network of lines defing gravity. For the Sri Lankan-British engineer Cecil Balmond, a simple drawing of a rectangle is no mere static representation of form. Rather, it embodies ‘the energy of one line in relation to the energy of the other line,’ which creates‘a ratio, or frozen time, constricting movements in space.’ For Balmond, the lines of a rectangle are a momentary pause that inscribes an otherwise endless movement of forces.

In 2023/24, ADS9 will focus our design experimentations on an architectonic language of lightness – creating projects that possess a delicate thinness, fragile yet resilient, translucent yet defiant. An architecture that is as thin as whispers, with the sky as its fifth wall. The central tenet of the question posed by the American polymath Buckminster Fuller – ‘How much does your building weigh?’ – is not simply a question about efficiency. Like the work of Gego and Balmond, this question speaks of an architectonic language of lightness that is imbued with meaning. A spatial construct that shimmers alive by tracing the minute forces within its environment. This project is the antithesis of permanence and of architecture – one that even pursues the complete dissolution of architecture. In the absence of architecture, what are the ways - or reference points - for us to define our relationship with each other? The more abstracted dematerialised the architecture becomes, the larger the issues of demarcating space. An architecture of lightness is not an austere project of sub-zero minimalism. Instead, it is a space of ethereal beauty – exuberant, buoyant, irrepressible.

ADS9 investigates the architecture of openness. The studio imagines a boundless architecture, where there is no separation and distinction between walls and space, building and site, bodies and environment, earth and sky. An architecture of openness that exists as a single continuum of everything, everyone, and everywhere.

ADS9 envisions an architecture of openness that can empower our emerging forms of living. The studio questions our fundamental dependence on walls to construct spaces. This reliance leads to the dominance of rooms, each dedicated to a single function. In the absence of conventional walls, doors, windows, grounds, and roofs, it is an architecture that cannot be broken into discrete points, but has to be experienced all at once. It is an architecture that does not seek for clarity, but searches for richness of meanings, ambiguity and generosity. What is the architectonic and spatial language of an architecture of openness? How do you work in an open way to construct a project? How do we entwine open relationships between forms of living and space? What are the relevance and shortcomings of an architecture of openness to us all in the now?

ADS9’s search for an architecture of openness and an architectonic language of lightness has an urgency grounded in our contemporary context and our attempts to forge a seamless continuum with it. Architecture does not end where context begins. The project of architecture as context allows for a form of openness in which one is indistinguishable from the other.

In Term 1, each student will each select and delve into a deep reading of a site. They will gather and set up individual fields of interest and the raw ingredients for their spatial experimentations. Each student will compile a dossier that is not simply a summary of interests, curiosities, and methodologies, it is also the basis for an unpacking of knowledge through studio discussions and seminar readings.

In response, each student will then focus on one of the following paths to develop an architecture of openness: Emerging Forms of Living as Context; Typology as Context; Material as Context; or Environment as Context. What forms of openness and continuum will each focus elicit? How do emerging forms of living redefine lifestyles and value systems in new spaces of coexistence? How can we evolve a site’s typologies that have yet to enter into the architectural canon and give them new relevance? What if a building’s form is solely defined by materials and labour within 100km? Can we imagine an architecture that is subject to such unpredictable fluctuations as the environment itself?

ADS9 has a deep commitment to space and creating architecture that is imbued with an urgent beauty. Space does not simply frame – it is inseparable in how we express, embody, and enable knowledge, ideas, and life. Spatial experimentation is at the forefront of the studio’s methodology. To experiment is to embrace the desire and beauty in the act of creating itself, regardless of where it may take you.

ADS9 experiments with large-scale media, tools, and prototypes that are spatial constructs in their own right. It is a highly iterative process which critically questions design. It is a way of design that goes beyond a representation of the subject to have a hands-on direct engagement with your topic of spatial experimentation. As part of your personal development of spatial experimentation, ADS9 encourages students to reach out to the full arsenal of knowledge, expertise, and tools at your disposal across the different departments aoft the RCA.

The design project is open to the ambitions of our students and will focus on a building with a minimum area of 10,000m2. For YR1, the spatial experimentation will be accompanied by technical investigation. In ADS9, YR2 students pursue deeply personal subjects and obsessions in their work. In response, YR2 students will develop their own personal critical framework and design methodology in order to achieve a high level of architectural resolution.

Tutors:

John Ng has been an Associate Lecturer at the RCA since 2017. He studied architecture at the University of Bath and the AA, where he has taught since 2011. He founded ELSEWHERE and practises architecture in London. His work has been shortlisted for, and has won, a number of international competitions.

Zsuzsa Péter graduated with Diploma Honours from the AA in 2018. She is an Associate Lecturer at the RCA, while also teaching in Studio Díaz Moreno García Grinda at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In recent years she has collaborated on several projects with amid.cero9.

James Kwang-Ho Chung is an Associate Lecturer at the RCA, a Diploma unit master at the AA and a programme head of the AA Visiting School Seoul. He has taught extensively in numerous design studios and has given lectures at various academic institutions in Korea and the UK.