BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1 BLOG

Link to new blog

2010-03-30T20:16:00.001+01:00

www.bsa-y1-habitation.blogspot.com

2009-11-01T22:01:00.002Z

visit the new blog for the 2009/2010 year at:

www.bsa-y1-habitation.blogspot.com

2009-05-20T17:58:00.005+01:00

(image: Owen Street, Tipton by BAM Nuttall)

As part of the students technology module, they were asked to submit a proposal for a brick retaining wall construction situated in Tipton. The winning entry will be fully realised as a live project. The submissions will be judged on design and buildability and judged by the contractor who is to construct the wall, BAM Nuttall.

Congratulations to the three winning entries. View the proposals here

2009-05-08T15:44:00.001+01:00

(image: © BSA)

Review: 05.05.09

Final work for the student's [Birmingham] House was reviewed. Common themes were passive daylighting, sustainable building material and communal external spaces.

See examples of student's work here

2009-04-14T12:05:00.002+01:00

Consultation day 04.04.09

A family consultation event was organised between the school and Birmingham City Council as part of a research programme and to assist the students in the Birmingham House project. The participants were selected to reflect the diverse residents of Birmingham including an ethnic minority family, same sex couple and an elderly couple.

There were 4 main task during the day to get the participants involved in discussing their issues with their current residence and neighbourhood:

SESSION 1

To determine the daily/weekly patterns of different household members of the existing home.

Time: 60 mins

SESSION 2

To determine what changes need to be made to the existing home to better suit the family needs. Discuss the ideal home and to prioritise the spaces of most importance to the family.

Time: 40 mins

SESSION 3

Consider how the house should adapt to the family life cycle and discuss what changes are likely to happen in the home in 15 years time. How should a family house change to suit this?

Time 50 mins

SESSION 4

To consider the ideals of a city ccentre neighbourhood and the attitudes towards diversity and sense of community.

Time: 30 mins

View some of the output the participants created here

All the information is to be collated and distributed to our students to inform the next part of the project where they select a client to design the ideal Birmingham House.

2009-03-21T09:52:00.005Z

image source: © Birmingham School of Architcture

OBJECTIVES

Keep a visual diary of one week designed in any format to inform and understand the living conditions as a potential design generator.

Appraise a selected text concerning the understanding of housing typologies and its relation with living as a function.

View selected work here

Full design brief for a Birmingham House to follow...

School Blog Project

2009-03-14T12:53:00.008Z

Archinect is a website about making architecture more connected and open-minded to everyone.

One of there features is the School Blog Project - recruiting architecture students from all over the world to document on their progress in education.

Birmingham City University has their own contributer in the form of Chris Bravington, a Postgrad Diploma student with the blog under the '8 lies' guise showcasing the Unit's work.

It can be a useful reference for the younger students to see other students who have gone though the same process. Perhaps one of our first year students would like to contribute too!?

8 Lies

2009-03-13T10:41:00.006Z

(all images © BCU)

top: NORD with students/ mid: STEEP matrix/ bottom: Outcome

NORD have a background in self generated work and deal with public consultation. They came to our studio day for a workshop to assist the students in establishing the routine of various stereotype residents and as a result begin to define an architectural programme to fit those residents.

It was important to move away from an automatic response to what we think a house should be. We emphasised activities as infinitive verbs, situations as STEEP* conditions, and avoided the use of room categories.

All this led to some interesting and amusing results! Many thanks to Alastair Forbes and Brian McGinley for their time and effort.

*(Social, Technological, Economics, Environmental, Political)

NORD

2009-03-10T14:17:00.004Z

(image source: KKA @ myninjaplease.com)

As the new studio project kicks off, we are looking at precedents to inspire and inform the students in understanding typology its relation with programme.

Here, Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects demonstrate an adaptable housing scheme based on a modular parallelogram structure that involves changes in lifestyle and/or programme functions.

Villa Grow

KKA

2009-03-05T16:16:00.006Z

Module Studio 05.03.09 - 30.04.09

INTRODUCTION

This project will look into typology, taste and programme. Typology can be defined as the study or systematic classification of types that have characteristics or traits in common. In this case, we will be considering houses characteristically specific to Birmingham.

INTERVENTION

The reason for the study of typological models is that they can reveal a cultural logic which transcends regional variance and individual customisation. The ability to adapt basic typologies gives reference to cultural trends. Through these studies, architectural issues of a Birmingham House can be explored.

PROGRAMME

Stage 1: to 19.03

To understand the requirements of the occupant, the students are to produce a visual diary of their week to which, they will assimilate a basic activity programme.

Appraise a selected text from one of the following to understanding the housing typology:

-Pamphlet Architecutre 9, Steven Holl

-Japan Architecture 9, House with no style

-Minimum Dweling, Karel Teige

-The English Terraced House, Stefan Muthesius

-RIBA Research Symposium 2008

Stage 2: to 30.04

Use research from stage 1 to develop a design proposal with regards to [Birmingham] House (details to follow)

2009-02-22T15:13:00.007Z

(Tube map c.1990's)

Itinerary

06.02.09

11:30/ RIBA hq, Portland Place

14:00/ moving tour (underground, DLR)

16:00/ Laban Centre, Deptford

07.02.09

09:30/ Goldon Lane Estate & Barbican Centre

11:30/ Swiss RE & Lloyd's building

14:00/ St. Paul's & Information point

15:30/ Tate Modern

08.02.09

11:00/ Idea Store, Whitechapel

12:00/ Blizzard Building, Royal London

13:00/ Walking tour (Brick Lane & Shoreditch)

15:30/ Architecture Rooms, V&A museum

2009-02-22T14:27:00.006Z

(photo: grey London sky)

View photographs from the london study trip here

Send yours here: bsa.y1.blogthis@blogger.com

2009-01-26T21:58:00.012Z

Stage 1 of Meta-City //part 2 - students are asked to create a photomontage demonstrating 2 themes from their previous findings and influence from the study area. View work

image © Birmingham School of Architecture

2009-01-16T22:26:00.004Z

Module Studio: 15.01.09 - 19.01.09

INTRODUCTION

The city of the 60's was composed of a complex network of flows, interchange and movement. It created territorial divisions without suggestion of occupation. Edges became an extreme condition with a combination of speed and domesticity.

PROPOSAL

Meta-city pt. 1 discovered issues emerging from the analysis. The 'Super-prix' suggested an intervention as an event landscape of leisure, entertainment and speed. Meta-city pt. 2 proposes a paradoxical approach - our intervention will confront our current cultural condition.

INTERVENTION

We take influence from Superstudio's Histogram project. A reductive design using an isotropic surface. The grid is interchangable through location and scale. This neutrality will enable you to consider the brief and context without concern for style.

PROGRAMME

Stage 1: Defining and representing the brief

Produce a single photo-montage which explores and represents 2 relevant theme to your study.

Locate your specific site for intervention with a reasoned argument as to why you have chosen it.

Stage 2: Developing the brief and sketch models

Produce minimum 3 sketch models using the 12m x 12m planning grid. Consider these sketch models through considered photography and supporting sketches to provide a commentary.

Stage 3: Refining and representing the proposition

Represent your scheme through plan, section, elevation and axo/isometric projection. Support your proposal with CAD model renders.

2009-01-16T21:09:00.004Z

Models from afternoon workshop

(images couertsy of sonarc.no)

Jenny Osuldsen from Snohetta visited the first year studio session on Thursday as part of a joint venture between the school and the Birmingham Architectural Association.

First came a brief talk on the University of The Gambia in Faraba Banta - going through the initial masterplan and how the architectural form of each modular building developed from traditional African symbolism.

Next came an engaging workshop with the first year students to create any form from a single A4 sheet of paper. We had 3 minutes in groups of 3 to prepare the model. Results above. An amusing discussion followed. You had to be there.

For more on Snohetta, click here

2009-01-05T21:47:00.002Z

(image source: MANIC STREET)

The BBC have reported on a recent poll carried out by EA Games on the seemingly unrelated topic of Britain's ugliest building.

With no great coincidence, Birmingham landmarks feature heavily - the Bullring taking top spot followed closely by the Central Library adding more fuel to the debate in its failure to be protected thus being open to redevelopment. Read here.

Perhaps we should embrace the city's legacy of ugliness as something of a local interest. Do you agree? Proceed here.

Original BBC Article here.

2008-12-12T16:31:00.008Z

(image source: Ikkio Too @ flickr)

The students presented their findings of Birmingham as part of the Meta-City project. Although there were many common themes present in their autopsy of the city, also present were interesting aspects that emerged in their explorative mapping techniques.

See blog posts below:

Study Area 1

2008-12-12T16:28:00.006Z

Concerned with dereliction and surveillance. View work

Study Area 2

2008-12-12T16:22:00.002Z

Coming Soon

Study Area 3

2008-12-12T16:19:00.001Z

Coming Soon

Study Area 4

2008-12-12T16:14:00.001Z

Coming Soon

2008-12-10T23:08:00.001Z

(image & text: stuartwhipps.com)

Stuart Whipps is an independent photographer who lives and works in Birmingham. As part of the ongoing project of Meta-City, Stuart kindly spent some time to talk to the students on his work.

The title; Ming Jue is a reference to the re-branding of MG Rover since its move from the Longbridge plant in Birmingham to the new site for production in Nanjing, China. Originally "Morris Garages", MG now translates as "Modern Gentleman".

Stuart began photographing the plant in 2004. What started as an attempt to explore the relationships between the factory, the workers and the town became a study of absence and change.

This body of work brings together photographs of both the Longbridge and Nanjing plants and though relating to a very specific context, these images speak about transformatin of heavy industry in the 21st century and its wider implications.

2008-12-06T22:02:00.006Z

(image: 1:25 000 land use of Hiroshima/GSI Japan)

As part of the meta-city project, students are carrying out a detailed study of the area surrounding the old Super Prix circuit in Birmingham. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you have to use in your design. Apart from the obvious, maps can represent more than geography. Coincidentally as part of their study tour to the Netherlands, the students studied an extract from Recovering Landscape. It states architecture has a influence on the content of our culture where some designers analyse situations extensively to 'map all the internal and external forces that could possibly play a role in the genesis of a project.' First years take note.

Increasingly they are used to communicate issues relating to the mapped area that go beyond scale and orientation. Google Earth (and similar) allow us to add apps to attach photos, info bytes etc to personalise the reader's world as a distorted ego-centric view. This brings an emotive summary to how we attach memories to our physical environment. These interactive maps graphically illustrate this notion.

We can manipulate maps to visually show selected data that relates to the area drawn. However, 'a map can only capture a fraction of what exists' writes Richard Morrison in his article on the biased methods of cartography. This is true but information selection is vital for a such a project our brave first years are undertaking.

Next week's critique on meta-city will be the culmination of representing their hard and interpretive data to proceed into the following project. Hopefully, it will provide those forces we were talking about earlier.

Useful research web links

2008-12-02T22:02:00.006Z

2008-11-27T22:51:00.006Z

2008-11-27T21:56:00.011Z

A fascinating insight into arguably Birmingham's most prominent architects of the 1950s-1970s John Madin, as part of a BBC series following key British business people. Click here to see the video.

Madin's work ranges from individual buildings such as Central Library, the Birmingham Post and Mail Building (now sadly partly demolished) and the Chamber of Commerce in Edgbaston, to Telford New Town.

Check out the smoking students of Birmingham School of Architecture in the swinging sixties!

2008-11-26T20:16:00.004Z

(photo source: Rob Johnson, Brimingham101.com)

LAUNCH

Project 2/ Meta City/ 13.11.08 -11.12.08

View subsequent post for progress

NL Photos

2008-11-23T19:25:00.009Z

Here and here are some of my photographs from the trip.
Thank you all for this great architectural adventure!
M.

2008-11-20T19:04:00.009Z

Itinerary

15.11.08

00:00/ Gosta Green, Birmingham/ Depart

13:00/ Amsterdam/ Check-in/ ARCAM visit

16.11.08

am/ East Harbour visit

pm/ Het Oostern Pavillion visit

17.11.08

10:00/ Amsterdam/ Depart

12:00/ Almere/ Arrive/ Almere Poort visit

14:00/ Almere/ Depart

16:00/ Rotterdam/ Check-in/ Kop van Zuid visit

18.11.08

am/ NAI visit

pm/ Sonneveld Haus & Kunsthal visit

19.11.08

10:00/ Practice visit

12:00/ Rotterdam/ Depart

23:59/ Gosta Green, Birmingham/ Arrive

2008-11-20T18:27:00.000Z

Thermostat - Nieuwe Bouwen style

Scheepvaart En Transport College

Malwina

Schouwbergplein

Art space - Red Light District

Cladding on house in Borneo Sporenburg

Bar interior of Lloyd Hotel

de Kunstlinie theatre, Almere by SANAA

2008-11-20T17:13:00.003Z

(Nederlands Metselwerk/Dutch Brickwork)

2008-11-11T17:04:00.005Z

(photo: Bert Hardy, Picture Post/Getty Images)

Culture critic Stephen Bayley writes for The Guardian the following article as a brief synopsis on the impact of Sir Herbert Manzoni and his idealist motivation for the reinvention of post-war Birmingham. However Birmingham's current urban reinvention will take a different, more small scaled approach.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jun/29/architecture.regeneration

2008-11-07T13:41:00.002Z

Module Studio Practice 1/2.10.08 - 6.11.08

PROCESS

Process means a series of actions or steps towards achieving a particular end. In embarking on the process of design, architects react to external influences such as the physical, historical, political or environmental context in which we are operating. The project tests the students' abilities in an experimental closed framework, that of Fold/Form. The accidental and unknown will be the result.

SPACE

The act of defining and enveloping space, the creation of an envelope, embodies the very basic process of enclosure offered by natural or artificial form. Making a fold in a surface creates planar relationships of space and volume. The resultant forms raise the issue of scale relative to the human form.

PROGRAMME

Fold/Form is based on an evolutionary process, composed of a sequence of transformations. These phase Transitions represent critical thresholds where qualitative change takes place and can be summarised as follows:

Transition 1: Matter & Function

A single plane of A4 paper is transformed into a 'volume'. These volumes can be actual or implied in that they may not be fully enclosed.

Transition 2: Algorithm of Process

The paperfold is unstable and evolving. An unfolded version shows us the traces of actions we have previously taken. The succession of transformations generate an algorithm of form. Documentation of which, includes time as a variable. We can then see the act of folding as an event rather than static.

Transition 3: Spatial, Structural, Organisational Diagrams

Space emerges from the multiple operations we have applied to the paper. This exercise looks at a different language to describe our findings related to topography, separation, spatial succession, enclosure and contiguity.

Transition 4: Architectural Prototypes

The resultant paper form does not yet know its own purpose. The architectural prototype will begin to emerge once we apply spatial, structural and organisational meaning. The students are to think about a programme for their schemes and ways of communicating the spaces with additional components of human occupation.

2008-11-07T13:00:00.002Z

(IMAGES COMING SOON)

2008-11-07T12:30:00.001Z

(IMAGES COMING SOON)

2008-10-31T12:54:00.021Z

(photo source: BBC Birmingham)

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher was our new Prime Minister, Villa were challenging for the League title and Alien was released in cinema. But an event in Brum was to eclipse all of this - Telly Savalas, aka Kojak, narrated a film about the city.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/tellysavalas.shtml