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Monthly Archives: October 2012

Harry Tweddell: Highgate Ponds Nightswimming Facility

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October 23, 2012
Past Student Work Archive
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Situated within Highgate bathing ponds,the new changing facility explores the idea of designing for nocturnal use.The ritual of bathing also acts as vehicle to re-enact the processes of Noh Theatre – where actors go into a trance-like disclocated state in order to perform – into a contemporary urban retreat.

A series of carefully positioned shelters, containing changing areas, showers and toilets, choreographs the process of adaption to dark, preparing the peripheral vision and gently taking the visitor into a state of darkness, but also following the positions of the Noh Stage.

At the threshold to the water a gently inclined ramp takes the swimmer to the waters edge before they slide into the strange oily darkness. The swimming process is then facilitated with buoys allowing for the necessary process of spotting.

The work is based on extensive research into a vast range of related subjects including Joinery, the Ise Shrine the Tea ceremony, photoluminescent surfaces, Noh Theatre and the wayTanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows describes the darkness of Japanese aesthetic.

The nightswim facility acts like a shrine, creating a transition in consciousness; loose divisions and tactile arrangements act to heighten the senses and engage awareness to the sanctity of nature.The work is a sophisticated exploration into physical experience, the nature of light and the transcendental.

Nichola Czyz: Icelandic Dream Map

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October 22, 2012
Past Student Work Archive
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The project began as an invesitgation in attempting to define, ‘What makes Iceland and Island?’. Influenced by the idea that Iceland is a nation trying to reach out and become mentally ‘attached’ to other countries throughout history, the student’s bedroom was chosen as a site to begin ‘dreaming’ about Iceland as an island, with the anticipation of travelling to the site. The project was explored through an intricate series of large-scale overlaid drawings in seeking to answer this question and identify what makes Iceland unique. Each layer of the drawing explores a concept of islandness. The intimacy of the bedroom was chosen as a site for an embodied process of dreaming about Iceland, with the drawing existing simultaneously in Iceland and in the room.

Matthew Lucraft: Heimaey Survival Guide, Vestmannaeyjar

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October 22, 2012
Past Student Work Archive
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Heimaey was home to the eruption of Eldfell in 1973, which blanketed the small island in several feet of ash and engulfed and destroyed half the town, during the aftermath of the event the islanders went about a lengthy excavation process of their homes, roads and community. The survival guide is a piece of government legislation delivered to every home on the island of Heimaey, acting as an information pack which aids its inhabitants in the event of an emergency. The ‘map’ was created as a speculative piece, exploring themes of survival and propaganda, and gives key instructions as to how to maintain a normal lifestyle during a volcano eruption. The map attempts to build on the Icelandic psyche and their tough anti-panic culture and acts as an antidote to rapid response prevalent anti-terrorism iconography. The survival guide encompasses both literal body protection for use in the immediate event of eruption, and exploratory architectural elements designed with speculation of defending and adapting against the landscape. The map’s basis on Heimaey is simply a case study of a bigger picture. Katla, a volcano found on the south-eastern area of Iceland’s Myrdalsjokull ice cap is due to erupt imminently, threatening Reykjavik and the rest of mainland Iceland.

Past Student Work Archive – Alastair Browning

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October 13, 2012
Past Student Work Archive
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HANEDA VIRTUAL CEMETERY, TOKYO BAY

Tokyo’s waterways were once thriving trade routes and the backdrop for rituals such as the Festival of Obon, where the rivers would be filled with thousands of floating paper lanterns known as Toro Nagashi.The connection with the waterways have, however, gradually been erased from the cities consciousness.

Haneda Virtual Cemetery is located in the industriual hinterland of Tokyo Bay, a physical ‘place’ for ‘virtual assets’, where the deceased are digitally memorialised following their cremation within the city. The building is conceived as the ceremonial end to an urban-scale funeral, with the cremation and bone-picking rites taking place elsewhere in Tokyo. The site is arrived at by boat and can be re-visited in the following years, the landscape forming a publicly accessible wetland park where flora and fauna are encouraged to grow wild.

A series of sunken memorial wells are interconnected by finger-like valleys which allow the mourners to slowly descend below the horizon-line and physically become disconnected from the city. The wells are activated by data-projections onto central pools which can be observed from surounding terraced seating areas.

The scheme occupies the inter-tidal zone; the rising and falling tide periodically floods parts of the Cemetery allowing it to slowly emerge as the floodwater recedes. As the wells illuminate, they form a collection of glowing pixels which communicate back to the city.

The project culminated in an exquisite projection model which explores themes of the immaterial, the nature of Kawai (event space) and new territories which float between digital culture and deat