Jury + Notes
A snippet from my jury presentation:
"My aim is to create a living cabinet of curiosities for the city to: challenge the conventional superblock housing typology by removing the corridor and more importantly challenge how we inhabit it; encourage and sometimes force the involuntary collection of other people's lives which we reluctantly accept when living in the city; and overall, recreate the correspondence between the residents, the pieces of the city's collection."
Floor plan, 1st attempt: Two living spaces, volumetrically shared while still creating a boundary in terms of access with the location of the kitchen island.
Section, first attempt: By removing the corridor, the organisational structure of the flats instead revolves around an open internal courtyard. Additionally, the living spaces cross and overlap surrounding the open volume creating the renewed correspondence. With a nod to Atelier Bow-Wow, the drawing starts to indicate how these changes alter the way in which we inhabit an urban block - layering the spatial, technical, and social stories woven in a single drawing.
Thanks to jurors Chris Pierce, Chris Matthews, and Tom Weaver the conversation was animated to say the least. Of the many comments and suggestions, these were the ones that stuck with me the most:
The Modernist block serves as typology and precedent. Make nods to it throughout the project rather than rush to the interior
You didn't mention the grid in your drawings, which is the thing that allows the typology. Repetition of the grid allows the multifarious happenings within. How do you interrupt that grid through plan or volumetric ideas rather than surface textures?
Design the architecture rather than the narratives within
You can talk through your superblock by talking about others - in a way a version by which one would describe Merzbau by talking about the bits within. (include photomontage history)
Conversation of
Orthogonal vs. Non-orthogonal
Grid vs. Anti-grid
Superblock vs. Collage
Generic vs. Context
