polish consulate

our third year design project was to design a polish consulate in the taymills conservation area of dundee. the project started as group work to masterplan a run down taymills area of dundee. during the masterplan stage as a group we had to address matters of increasing density, traffic, listed buildings, demolishing building, acknowledging the existing buildings of historical mills and a contemporary mosque, changing levels, site access and the sites relation to the rest of the city. as a group we had to decide on a few locations that we thought were appropriate for a proposed polish consulate.

the brief for the polish consulate was complex as it involved a lot of spaces with different degrees of size and public access. we also had to recognise that the building required some security measures. included in the brief was a cafe, a multi purpose venue, a shop, an exhibition space, an education suite as well as offices ranging from the private consulates' office to the small advice offices.

site plan

to help organise my building i decided to arrange the plan around courtyard. creating the courtyard made navigation around the building easy. defined by the brick columns while the vertical circulation was contained in core blocks.i wanted to keep the courtyard clear of 'clutter' but i also wanted vertical circulation to be easily accessed. i created two 'circulation cores' that would also accommodate toilets and storage. creating the cores gave structure to my plan and also resolved issues of fire regulations.

i had decided that my structure would be load bearing brick. drawing and building small models, like above, helped me simplify the structure and the plan simultaneously.

section

above is a section through the building and its external spaces. from the section you can see the hierarchy of spaces; void, circulation, important spaces and small spaces. the important spaces shown below is a meeting room on the left and the multi purpose venue is on the bottom right. the concept for creating a hierarchy of spaces was inspired by alvar aalto's säynätsalo town hall, shown below.

section and diagram of alvar aalto's säynätsalo town hall

below are a couple of perspective drawings showing the small public square at the front of the consulate and the elevation of the consulate looking up the street.

front and street perspectives

another part of the brief was to design a consulate chapel. i had decided that the consulate chapel would be placed in the middle of a large public space as to create two smaller spaces the were more appropriate in size. below is a section of my final design for my chapel. i followed the same concept as my consulate of creating a hierarchy of spaces. i wanted the ceiling low above the seated area so it felt quite intimate and the ceiling above the alter higher to distinguish that as an imprtant space. this idea continued tomy intermediate bottom right. below is my final design.

chapel

dissertation: the lewis blackhouse

for my third year dissertation i chose to write about the history of the demise of a symbol of scottish vernacular, the blackhouse. i soon discovered that there was different forms of blackhouses and decided to focus on the lewis blackhouse as it was the one best documented, it also had the most stubborn residents as they were occupied until mid 1970's.
i really enjoyed researching the building form and the social history of an island. i also learnt so much about the definition of vernacular. i find the lewis blackhouse truly fascinating from its evolving plan to the primitive construction. the best part of the blackhouse is that every design decision has a reason that is based on practicality and connected to their livelihood of crofting. here are my personal favourite pieces of information:

drawing of lewis blackhouse by Bruce Walker

1. where the name 'blackhouse' originates.
by technical definition a blackhouse is a house with no windows and no chimney. traditionally a blackhouse, ‘tigh dubh’ translated into gaelic, was a house that was not a whitehouse. the term was coined during the 19^th century because prior to this time all the houses on lewis were of the same type. it was only when a new building type, the whitehouse, came onto the island did they have to invent a word to distinguish the two different building types. the new houses were called ‘tigh geal’, whitehouse, because of their white lime mortar cement exterior and  the antonym ‘tigh dubh’ was used to describe the old type of house.

section of blackhouse by Bruce Walker

2. they kept the animals and the accumulating manure in the byre over winter.

the cattle’s presence in the house brought with it a number of benefits: it made it easier for the women to milk the cows since they did not have to go outside, they provided warmth and by allowing the cattle manure to accumulate it made it easier in spring to gather it for fertilizing the land. in winter the byre was used as a general dumping ground for waste as human and food waste was added to the cattle dung. while the manure accumulated the floor became uneven so sometimes turf was laid on top to create a new steady level for the animals to gain a footing. witness accounts record that due to the build up of manure the floor in the byre raised so much that in spring it was sometimes possible to see cows’ heads poking through the roof. this might have been due to the cattle eating the thatch or the cattle had ruined the thatch with their horns.

the east facing window in the bedroom at 42 arnol, isle of lewis

3. the only window they had was east facing.

when the new croft tenure lease was set by the landlords in late 19^th century it stipulated that the houses must have windows. to comply with the new regulations it became common to find windows in bedrooms, demonstrated in the image below. in particularly windows were fitted on the east wall of the bedroom because people believed it important to be woken by the morning sun as in the old gaelic proverb:

'an iar's an ear, an dachaigh as' fhéarr - cùl ri gaoith,'s aghaidh ri gréin.'

‘east to west, the house that’s best – back to the wind and face to the sun.’ 

4. there was no chimney

the thick smoke from the peat fire, that gives the living room its character, was trapped not only for its heat but also to turn the roof thatch into fertiliser. from inside the living room the roofs a-frame structure is visible. turf, either heather or grass turf, was laid on top of purlins. however not all of the roof was covered with turf  as it was the intention that the thatch, that was on top of the turf, would become impregnated with soot from the rising smoke. the thatch was then removed in the summer and used as a fertilizer for the potato crop. the area of exposed thatching varied and the reason for this is best described by bruce walker:

‘The amount of straw available for re-thatching depended on the amount of dung available from the crofter’s cattle: the number of cattle available depended on the availability of fodder, supplemented in the winter by potatoes and the crop depended on the soot top dressing from the stripped thatch.’ 

5. the front, and only door, opened outwards.

traditionally the front door opened outwards to stop it from being blown open by a gust of wind. if the door was open a strong gust of wind could have damaged the roof and resulted in it ‘taking off’. also the dimensions were made just wide enough for cattle to get through, 0.65 to 1m wide and a height of 1.7m.

study trip: krakow, poland

in october 2009 as a year group we were encouraged to make a pilgrimage to krakow, poland for a university study trip. the purpose of the trip was to study the city plan and to gain an understanding of 'polishness' to aid our forthcoming design project; a polish consulate in dundee.
in groups, we were asked to measure part of a city block to later draw up in section. the purpose of this was to give us an opportunity to study a small part of the city in great detail. below is an example of this work. this part of the city was interesting because of the geometry when the city grid was interrupted by and east-west orientation of the church.

plan

section

Below are some of the places that we visited and also where I took some inspiration from for my forthcoming design project.

clockwise: the courtyard space featured in the section above, collegium mauis, modern church
in communist created suburb Nowa Huta, the courtyard at wawelu castle, the heavy timber
constructed bell tower at wawelu castle.

intervention - youth theatre

the intervention project was the main design project of second year. we were given a derelict building in the centre of dundee, next to the old industrial mills, and were asked to use/extend/demolish the existing building to create a youth theatre.

existing building

as well as a small theatre the programme included a cafe, rehearsal space and workshops. as it was a youth theatre it was important to make the building accessible, open and fun.
following the theme of the year, timber construction, timber had to be the main construction material.
after studying ‘the egg’ in bath by haworth and tompkins i decided that i wanted my theatre to glow and i wanted the light to come from the theatre lights.

series of concept drawings

my initial concept was to have the theatre as a contained space that glowed at night. the idea of the roof was to reflect the emitting light as the underside was aluminum. if i were to return to this project i could emit the balance cantilevered roof and allow the roof of the theatre to be the external roof.

section

the section above shows the main theatre space to the front(left), the reception space in the middle and the rehearsal space to the rear. i created a basement level to accommodate service like toilets, the cafe kitchen,  store rooms and the building services. below is a plan of the ground floor showing the cafe to the front of the building and and external performance area in the courtyard.

ground floor plan

below are some of the small perspective drawing i did to communicate my ideas. clockwise: an internal view of the theatre space, a perspective showing the gap between the existing building and the inserted theatre space, the external performance space showing how the new glass wall slides into the existing building and finally is an image of the front of the building showing the glow from the theatre space.