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WSA On Display 2020

WSA On Display 2020

  • Part I – BSc
    • Year 3
      • Unit 01: Alternative Arrangements
      • Unit 02: The Frontier Town
      • Unit 03: Freshwater and Limits
      • Unit 04: The Productive City
      • Unit 05: Reconfiguring Public Space
      • Unit 06: Blitz
      • Unit 07: Rural
      • Unit 08: Love For One’s Own Home
      • Unit 09: Let the Tide do the Work: A Peoples Palace
      • Unit 10: Grow
      • Unit 11: Archiving Place
      • Unit 12: Zen Dojo
    • Year 2
      • Butetown: Library And Third Space
      • City Centre: School Of Design
      • City Road: Youth Centre
      • Llandaff: Fine Art Gallery
      • Penarth: Respite Centre
      • Pontypridd: Performance Space
    • Year 1
      • Within
      • Beyond
    • Vertical Studio
  • Part II – M.Arch
    • M. Arch Year 2
      • XI Infrastructure Urbanism
      • XII Value
      • XIII Liveable Urbanism
      • XIV Environmental Imagination
      • XIX Growing Structures
      • XV Local Adaptation
      • XVI Craft
      • XVII Verticality
      • XVIII 1.5 degrees
      • XX Designing Histories
    • M. Arch Year I
      • Design in Practice
      • Reflective Practice
  • Masters Programmes
    • MA Architectural Design
      • Unit A – EMUVE Palermo 2020 refugees and migrants
      • Unit B – Synergetic landscapes
      • Unit C – Circular landscapes
      • Unit D – Questioning the Ambivalence of Urban Commons
      • Design Workshops
      • MA AD Lecture Series
    • MA Urban Design
      • Gentrification: Cardiff
      • Community: East London
      • Learning at MA UD
    • MSc Computational Methods in Architecture
    • MSc Sustainable Building Conservation
      • About the course
      • Part A – Whitchurch Hospital Studies
      • Part B – Whitchurch Hospital Proposals
    • MSc Environmental Design of Buildings
    • MSc Sustainable Mega Buildings
      • About the Course
      • Sustainable Service Systems for Mega Buildings
      • Sustainable-Mega Buildings Design
  • PhD/M.Phil Research
    • International Research Community
  • The Curation Process

Unit 04: The Productive City

TUTORS: RORY CORR + BRENDAN HIGGINS

This unit is interested in the energy, output, workmanship, and resourcefulness of the city. It seems pertinent to ask what does productivity look like in today’s city, and what is its civic function? Although it touches on labour, politics and economics, really the aim of the unit is to deepen our collective understanding of material culture. Where do things come from; where do they go; what happens when they get there; and what happens when they cease to be useful?

London has always been a heady mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous – a city which has historically resisted many grand plans and concepts. The year starts with an investigation into the area of north-east London bounded by the North Circular Road, Lea River and Tottenham Town Centre. Skirting the London Boroughs of Enfield and Haringey, this section of the North Circular has since the 1920s carried material into and out of east London to be manufactured, fabricated, processed and sold, keeping alive the local, regional and national economy.

The pocket of space around Brantwood Road is more often seen as a neglected backland than an important conduit. It can seem disorganised, empty and leftover, but there is an energy to it which the unit sought to understand more fully. The students analysed through Surveys and Primer Projects what goes on in this area and why. They studied how it has changed, and how the built environment has been augmented to facilitate the activity, and vice-versa.

Each student chose a small industry to study. These vary but have certain things in common. They involve physical objects which are sold for money. They are businesses which deal with the pragmatics of manufacturing and selling in the city. Proposals had to be viable and rooted in the analysis carried out, be well-researched and well-articulated, and be appropriate for the location in which they are sited. The students wrote their own briefs and developed proposals for large, multi-faceted buildings which had a strong presence in this piece of city.

The unit was an opportunity to make proposals about how this part of town may be developed, intensified, and improved in an intelligent way. The projects speculate on how fabrication, manufacturing and selling may also have a civic face, and how industry, living, workspace, commerce and transport could be skilfully co-ordinated within the same existing, tight urban fabric. Here was a chance to re-cast the acts of work and making back into the forefront of civic life.

MOLLY HUGHES

Tottenham Bottling Civic Front Section The proposition houses a business which deals with…

30 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

EMILY BENNETT

The Printworks The Printworks was formed from an innate understanding of the Industrial…

29 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

JAN STAWIARSKI

The Metalworks Aluminium processing is an industry with a truly crucial role in…

29 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

DOMINIKA MATUSIAK

Tottenham Natural Mill Development of Tottenham Over the last century, Tottenham had been…

29 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

RUBY HOLMES-SMITH

Gin Works A View from Brantwood Road Gin Works aims to tie together…

29 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

SU WU

Tottenham Bakery Tottenham Bakery Exterior The bakery industry is a huge business that…

29 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

Valerija Slahova

Tariff Leatherworks The Workers’ Entrance The facade celebrates a spectacle of weather, light…

28 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

EMILY TYERS

The Brewhouse Situated along Tottenham’s High street, Brunswick Brewery/Cooperage/Pub is in response to…

28 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

RACHEL LIVINGSTONE

Tottenham Hydroponic Farm Site Planimetric This planimetric drawing was created for an in…

28 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

IULIA POPESCU

Ethic Silk of Tottenham Interior Render of the Silk Showroom The silk showroom…

28 June 2020 - 15 July 2020

Natalie Ballone

The Ceramics Factory

28 June 2020 - 15 July 2020
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