TECHNOLOGY + ENVIRONMENT 2B. BUILDING FABRIC

Semester 2, 2024-25

PROJECT 2: A material strategy

This project aims to support your choice of material systems for design projects, by structuring the way you study precedents and the strategies around a specific aspect of performance or communication.

Tectonics has become a fundamental third pole in the use of technology in architecture, enhancing the visual communication of creating buildings by linking the construction processes with structural form. (Sekler 1965). It becomes an often unconscious yet integral component of a designer’s vocabulary, a creative approach that can transcend mechanical and rational conditions of the technology involved (Kucker 1996). Beyond the designer, tectonics can also show an “organisation of physical things which allows the user … to have some sense that this building has been ordered in a way that has some meaning” (David Chipperfield).

Envelope becomes the most apparent means to communicate the process of creating a building and the tectonic resolution can engage its users with the associated design and construction processes. Creating such architectural experiences should be an important contemporary dimension to make people engage with their wider urban environment.

You are asked to explore a detailed strategy of a material system that will inform. the design resolution and materiality in your Design: Any Place project. These two courses have their separate Learning Outcomes (and assessment), but the aim is to explore Technology inquiries in design and, vice-versa, how they can inform. and enrich a project. Establishing stronger parallels between the courses may also help you set up your personal approaches to technology beyond simply good detailing, like a reflection to environmental, cultural or urban conditions.

DESIGN OF A DETAIL STRATEGY

You are not expected to resolve a specific building but (following analysis of precedents) design a strategy for suitable details (envelope and roof) to inform. the resolution of your individual projects in Any Place.

This will be developed through a common tectonic or performance theme (rather than a site) which you will work out in groups of 4. This theme will be an illustrated statement to submit and discuss at your first tutorial. A list of such themes is suggested and they need to be rich in their potential for research. Conditions should be relevant for the Any Place sites in Venice (heritage, constant change in fabric, climate, comfort, range of local materials, scale, housing character, cultural hints etc).

The inquiry of this theme will start with the detailed study of precedents in week 9, which should support the Threshold Section and Physical Building Model explorations in Design Any Place in the same week. Then, a range of details for roof and envelope around a technical theme will be designed (see below).

THEMES

Broad

 Constant change of fabric

 Conservation

 Addition/ grafting/ rejection/ renewal

 Appraisal, re-composition, synthesis

 Shelter

 Relationship with laguna environment

 Degradation

 Embodied carbon

 Global vs local

 Recycling

Material specific

 Cladding around an exposed timber frame.

 Timber and concrete interfaces

 Architectural concrete

 Concrete as the regulator of stiffness across the entire building (mounting around a core in a steel frame)

 Masonry: modularity; massiveness or lightness; communicating that the face is decorative while the load-bearing mass is hidden

 Timber frames as clear expressions of the performance objectives of their constituent elements (forces, comfort) and the assembly process

 Steel as the ultimately logical material

 Modern mass (engineered) timber systems –link many of these attributes

 Rammed earth (see guest lecture)

 Tectonics is the art of connections ?

Other suitable and rich themes can be discussed and agreed with the tutors.

SPECIFIC SITE CONDITIONS

The conditions of the three sites should be familiar to all of you through the Design: Any Place course. If you are a visiting student not taking the Design course please ask for site information or the brief of that project. 3

The envelope should be durable for the specific conditions in Venice (laguna environment) and aim to a comfortable, insulated internal environment. Consider the ground as solid enough, at least similar to the surrounding buildings on the site, so no need for deep foundations.

DESIGN PROCESS

You will work in groups of four and there is a mixture of group and individual work.

 As a group, make a statement about a tectonic expression and desired structural and environmental performance that you would like to explore. This will be developed through the analysis of a precedent.

 By week 9 you should have a clearer idea of the thresholds of your individual building in Venice for Design Any Place, and the associated range of materials, so your group should be ideally formed as a balance between the key technical requirements of each member’s building or ideas.

 Select a precedent or more that has fully developed your theme. First, discuss the design intentions, then make a series of original drawings of key details to analyse their performance and serve as a basis for technical exploration in your Any Place site. This can be supported by research you have been doing for Essay 2 (LO3), where a much broader range is assessed.

 First tutorial/ week 9: bring 3 A3 slides with the above (your statement and the analysis of precedents). This should help you produce a pack of information to support the “Material Strategy” stage you work on in Design Any Place.

 Once this statement is established and supported, then choose a series of envelope and roof design strategies that support the statement and eventually details that result from this inquiry. Each of you, individually or in pairs, can work on one type, as a comprehensive design of envelope and roof.

 As a group you will need to ensure that interfaces between the roof and envelope work visually and technically (especially drainage), and highlight potential opportunities or conflicts. The discussion of these interfaces is as important as the performance of each system.

 Ensure the submission of the project, once completed, follows a single architectural vocabulary and is edited as a single portfolio.

PARTICULAR POINTS

1. Envelope: Your technical details should support the expression, permeability, insulation and strength of your envelope in relation to a main structure. The theme to explore may involve the expression of the structure as well, i.e. a choice between an exposed or enclosed main load-bearing structure (brickwork or stone masonry for example).

2. Roof: Any theme of roof can be designed in line with the envelope detailing, as part of the same construction project, and ensure primarily good water drainage. The roof as well should be designed for appearance, strength, durability and ease of construction.

3. Joints and sub-structure: Design a suitable support layout for the envelope and the roof and include details for their connection to the main structure.

4. It is fundamental for your learning experience to explore rich details as much as possible. Rely less on “shortcuts” like solid pre-fabricated panels (in concrete or CLT for example) but if you want to study them ensure you have detailed their insulation, cladding or connections in depth.

5. Structure: You should have a clear idea of the main structural system (a steel/RC frame. or load-bearing masonry for example) but not be specific about the layout. You will need an approximation of the size of the beams, columns and the roof rafters (the principal load bearing elements), using empirical rules and typical layouts from the relevant TE2b lectures.

6. Embodied carbon: you can use the spreadsheets or ECC process from project 1 to assess approximately a typical cross section of your envelope or roof system, and justify further its choice compared to other systems. Make good use of the Carbon Footprint Workshop in Week 9 of Any Place.

7. Fire safety: identify the combustible elements in your proposed cladding system and possible paths for smoke to travel. Ensure your details and design strategies can limit the spread of fire through the section and externally, as also smoke.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The submission should be a report in A3 format, divided between group-work parts and individually elaborated ones. The group-work will be 40% of the mark and will include the following:

1. Design statement: a written reflection on the choice and tectonics of a material system or strategy for the envelope and roof, based on technical, site and cultural parameters from your individual Any Place building proposals.

2. Description of the material systems and tectonic communication you plan to explore.

3. Discuss specific aspects and performance of these statements and systems in key details you have identified from precedent(s). Demonstrate performance through your own annotated sketches of design strategies (in 1/100 scale) and key details (in 1/20 sections). This can be a more detailed study of the Threshold and Building Model iterations you develop for Any Place in 1/200 .

4. Development of design: using a mixture of text and sketches (scales as above), discuss how your original statement and your own engagement with technology developed through the previous steps. This can be a reflective text at a similar level as the essays for the TE2b course and can be written in parallel with essay 2 (LO3), as they have similar aims.

5. Interface and thresholds: once you have resolved the individual schemes, discuss the integration or conflicts they arise between them at the interfaces of this exercises, but always as Thresholds with conditions you are working on at Design Any Place.

You do not need to perform. environmental analysis for your strategy unless it is about fundamental design conditions (e.g. daylight for glazing, temperature and moisture variation for cladding, U value resulting from the choice of one type of insulation or exposure vs another).

Individual work: This part counts for the rest 60%. The submission must indicate the group member responsible. The systems detailed are separately developed by one or more students within the group and will cover both roof and envelope.

1. Envelope: details of representative types of envelope if variation is proposed (rhythm, materials range, degree of transparency etc), openings (doors, windows), support area (may include basement and its tanking), fire safety (organisation of opening on elevation, barriers to fire or smoke paths, effects of internal compartmentation). Illustrate the tectonic function and annotate the thermal and acoustic performance, as also watertightness and durability, limitation in fire spread, embodied carbon content evaluation. The support and relationship with the main load-bearing frame. of the building is also an important parameter that informs design so should be annotated too. You will have to provide an axonometric drawing of a representative face in 1/50 showing the build up of the envelope (including the structure) and 1/5 annotated details.

2. Roof: similar to the above, you should demonstrate the performance of your strategy for the roof in watertightness, thermal comfort and drainage. The construction build up of the roof will be shown in a representative 1/50 face (including the structure) and 1/5 annotated details.