Selected Student Works
Case Study: A primary school in Viana at the outskirts of Luanda
Perspectives on Humanitarian Aid in Luanda:
the architecture of education in the city of red sand and black gold
(Project by Paulo Moreira, Portugal)Recent urban transformation in Angola’s capital Luanda show dramatic contrasts between high standards of development in the city centre and the deprivation of the suburban slum areas. This research aims to investigate the nature of this conflict by studying both the politics and architectural and urban history of colonial and post-colonial Angola. On a more detailed scale, the project will involve an investigation about the village of Viana in the outskirts of Luanda, for which a design of a primary school will be proposed. The investigation will also entail a testing of case studies of various building projects that have been realized with public participation and integrative educational concepts, which should be applied to the realization of the proposed design. Together with this, the New Primary School of Capalanca will stand as a contemporary interpretation of an existing building founded by my grandmother in early 1960’s in Mozambique, another Portuguese ex-colony.
Paulo Moreira
http://www.paulomoreira.net/index.php?/research/school-in-capalanca/There are 12 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Fri, 09/25/2009 - 23:10
Case Study: Khan Unis Refugee Camp (Gaza)
The Architecture of Permanent Temporariness: Architecture of ‚Resistance’ during the Gaza Blockade
(Project by Abeer Abuwarda, Gaza)On the 4th February 2007 the work of constructing a new neighbourhood of 600 housing units started. With its repetitive houses and parallel roads it looks like one of those common urbanism projects in the Western world. However, practically, this project has not been completed, since the implementation process has been stopped on the 11 January 2007; leaving it in the state of incomplete. Acknowledging the potential moment of the 'incomplete', I am to take a critical stand to the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent re-housing project. Because, what creates that interesting urban condition is not just the project itself; it is the urban environment surrounding the project and the people who will get benefit from it.
In 2005, the Palestinian Authority represented by the Land Authority has allocated 0.870 square kilometres of government land to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to use them for housing projects and other activities falling under its plan for developing and improving the living conditions in Khan Younis camp, Southern Gaza Strip. One of those projects is the UAE-RC project which will serve refugees families from Khan Younis camp living in substandard shelters that cannot be rehabilitated.
Accordingly, my starting point of research will focus on the Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. I will take Khan Younis camp as a case study to understand the urban infrastructure, the socioeconomic issues and the political conflict which made the relation between architecture and urbanism in these zones so obvious. The Palestinian refugees cause and the emergence of Palestinian refugee camps have passed through radical political, social and demographic transformations. To understand and analyze those transformations which participated in forming such urban structures, it is necessary to go back to the historical materials and resources.There are 3 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Wed, 06/03/2009 - 14:36
Case Study: Leadenhall Street
Incomplete pasts, fast futures: High rise top-ups in the city of London.
(Project by Ibrahim Al-Nemeh, Jordan)In the months of autumn 2007, an extraordinary architecture stood as if ‘half naked’ between the Lloyds building and the Gherkin at Saint Mary Axe. Walking through the City Of London on Leadenhall Street, passers by halted at this strange site. At first sight the building appears 'just' incomplete, a building under construction. The conventional mode of construction seems to be turned around. Why are the upper floors already built? The concrete core of the building with lifts, ducts and fire staircase holds the building like a mushroom, a strange formation that allows the passer-by to ‘see through’ the city fabric. Clearly, people are fascinated by this building. Some stop in conversation about it, some take a picture with their mobile phone cameras. Others, driving by on the bus, curiously turn their head and speculate about the past and future of the building. Will all the high-rises in the city ‘lift their skirts’ and allow for an open public space merging green with traffic roads and urban plazas. But was the building not already ‘complete’? People who know the area speak about Marks and Spencer, Barclays Bank and the P & O headquarters that once occupied the space. Where are they now and what is the story?
There are 6 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Sun, 03/29/2009 - 20:58
Case Study: Re-designing St Paul's Walk, London
Challenging the LCC’s Riverside Walk Enhancement Strategy
(Project by Olga Guadalupe Canales, Peru)In 2005, the Cooperation of the City of London (CCL) launched a major Urban Regeneration Scheme called “The riverside walk enhancement strategy”. The plan aims to connect all pedestrian pathways on the whole riverside of the city of London, as well as, to implement activities in all the empty and useless spaces along its path. However, despite its aim to provide a safe, green and joyful urban riverside to its habitants and visitors, the strategy proposes relatively little change for the site. The argument of this project is that this riverside walk needs to be transformed through larger gestures of urban design than merely a new lighting strategy, new seating and urban furniture or the incorporation of ‘planting and biodiversity’.
This project aims to revise the CCL’s enhancement strategy through a careful consideration of historical large-scale urban proposals that aimed to vitalize this part of the northern bank of the Thames. One of the most important design propositions was developed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. Wren planned a riverside garden promenade that could be approached from the waterfront. Upon arrival, the City of London would present itself as a beautiful ‘stage set’ for his church spires that surrounded the monumental St Paul’s Cathedral. Another very important scheme for the post-war renovation of London’s riverside was proposed by architect and urban designer Gorden Cullen. Cullen’s sketches and drawings provided a particular inspiration for this design proposal.There are 6 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Fri, 09/25/2009 - 23:14
Case Study: The missing piece in the De la Warr Pavillion
(Project by Sansern Kiattivejsoonthorn, Thailand)
There are 2 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Wed, 05/27/2009 - 14:36
Case Study: Battersea Station
(Project by Jacob Ripper, Canada)
Battersea Power Station stands powerfully on the South bank of the River Thames in London, overlooking the surrounding boroughs of Wandsworth, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and Lambeth. The disused power station is an imposing building and is the largest brick building in Europe. It is located on a 38-acre site, set back from the river’s bank. It is a popular London landmark and a source of controversy dating to its opening in the 1930s through its closing in 1983, and up to present time. This project investigates the history of the power station, proposals for redevelopment, and reasons this landmark building has not been successfully redeveloped in the 25 years since the power station was closed.
An active role was taken in various mapping exercises in bounding and finding the visual connections between the surrounding areas and the power station. Photographs were taken through a process of physically walking around and discovering direct (but easily accessible) sight lines to the power station.
Posters were designed to be instruments of provocation. They were printed and posted in the areas surrounding the Battersea Power Station. The aim was to incite people into action through raising questions and proposing different, sometimes abstract, suggestions for the future of power station. Several of the images that depict the destruction of the power station may cause local residents to become upset because they value the power station, or may bring out the opinions of those who wish to see some other use for the site. Each poster directs the viewer to visit an online discussion forum set up to address these concerns.The poster designs took inspiration from Russian constructivist propaganda posters because of their lucid designs and ability to convey a message clearly, but leave room for individual interpretation. These designs will hopefully intrigue and lure people into further inquiry. The project continued these designs, but shrink them into a smaller card sized publication with the intention of them appearing as a series. By placing these “limited edition” cards regularly in post slots, telephone kiosks, and other sites it intended to create involvement for those people who wish to collect all the cards.
A major feature of active research and design for this thesis project was supposed to be a series of interviews with important people who have experience working on development efforts of Battersea Power Station. In reality, on two people from one organisation agreed to meet for an interview. An essential part of the interview process was to ask the interviewee to draw and explain the various power relationships and influences between the projects, people, and organisations involved. A simple diagram was prepared showing the past and current proposed developments at Battersea Power Station, the architects and developers behind them, and other involved organisations. The interviewee was given one of these diagrams and asked to fill in the gaps, draw connections, modify anything that has already been drawn and explain these adjustments as they make them.
Using the drawings and information gathered from the interview, a very large annotated and illustrated diagram of all the involved organisations and the connections between them was constructed. This is a unique research project that will increase the knowledge base around Battersea Power Station beyond that of which already exists.
There are 3 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Sat, 05/30/2009 - 15:16
Case Study: Edgware
Edge Where? – How to create a greenbelt peripheral district.
(Project by Jonathan Lovelace, Britain)In 1955 the Metropolitan Greenbelt created a fixed periphery to the city and suburbs of London. Before, old peripheral landscapes had become new city neighbourhoods and their remnants integrated into the civic infrastructure. Now there was a possibility that time, the time of the city that is, could actually stop at this point, staring outwards towards open fields. What actually happened, and has been happening ever since is that London leapfrogged further out to a where it was not traditionally recognised. To places like Ipswich (84 miles), Peterborough (75 miles), Swindon (81 miles), Southampton (62 miles), and Calais (94 miles).
The remnants of pre-war city expansion are found at the broken arches of Brockley Hill station, a proposed stop on the Northern Line extension to Bushey Heath. The route traverses the fully urbanised district of Edgware passing the fully rural landscape of Brockley Hill, and terminates in the peripheral and infrastructure-rich administrative border territory close to the village of Elstree.
In attempting to understand this space, I propose a newly intensified neighbourhood, not of residences, but working peripheral uses. The greenbelt will work (more closely) with the city. The re-enactment of the un-built railway will focus attention on the wider city periphery, and offer a body of knowledge on this often neglected space which has rarely been satisfactorily understood.
Key themes will look at Boundary and Ownership, Planting and Landscape, Rural Underuse and Working Neighbourhoods, Hinterland and Infrastructure.
There are 14 images in this gallery.
Last updated: Mon, 03/30/2009 - 20:51
Case Study: Rainham's forgotten Barges
(Project by Fitzgerald Tibi, Nigeria)
There is 1 image in this gallery.
Last updated: Mon, 03/24/2008 - 23:06
