Drawing on the City
A collaborative work by Catherine du Toit and Peter Thomas of 51% studios with artist Hannah Collins.
‘Drawing on the City – A walk through history’ is an architectural and sculptural project of seven installations conceived as a route through the changing landscape of Barcelona and St Adria. The route and installations make visible again the cultural heritage and experiences of the people of Barcelona, which has sometimes been overlaid, sometimes forgotten, sometimes displaced …
The new structures embed collective memory and imagery in the cityscape, bringing a continuous and present sense of history to the city by pointing to the real and developing landscape it contains.
Along the route visitors and local residents are able to see and understand the cityscape, becoming aware of essential historical structures and newly developing urban plans.
The work is an active and engaging series of dialogues around the role of the city in the making of communities and individual experience. A positive role is created for both the sculptural scenarios and the audience/participants.
Drawing on the City was exhibited in the Caixa Forum during the summer of 2008. For more information, please see Hannah Collins’ website.
The House of Doors sits at a meeting place between the land and the sea, and makes reference to the sea as a first point of contact for many of the cities early migrants. Floating pale like a ghost, from the moment the first light illuminates the sea to the lower light of the evening, the House of Doors evokes two distinct moments in time: a memory of using doors to build his house in 1962 recounted by a former resident of Somorrostro and a photograph of a home built from 16 wooden doors, taken by Hannah Collins in 2003. The small pontoon tempts swimmers out to use it as a meeting place. For those not swimming it provides a resonant image seen from the shore.
The Portal is the site of the intersection between Cerda’s diagonal, the Tramvia and Avinguda Litoral. It is also a node in a series of walkable and cycable loops linking Barcelona, Barceloneta and Poble Nou with San Adria and Badalona. The portal is an orientation map for the overall project, an extension of the tram platform worked in coloured enamels with each of the seven installations colour coded and linked into the fabric of the city. The portal entices you to explore the neighbourhood, to venture deeper…
In San Adria,at a thriving Tuesday market below the freeway local bird keepers meet to compare, exchange or trade their birds. The Singing bird wall is set in a quiet spot under trees near one of the entrances to the market.
The diverse areas around la Mina were, until recently, home to many horses, kept in backyards and on a horse farm on waste ground. Horses formed an integral way of life in the area and were used to pull recycling carts, for transport and for trade. Recent changes have seen the horses disappear. A place of horses is a happening/event that sees the horses return to la Mina, and is inspired by the work of Muybridge and Asger Jorn at Albisola. A series of identical concrete panels will bear the immaculate detailed evidence of a horse-run through specially prepared troughs on the rivers edge. Once dry they will be tilted and lifted into position on the adjacent retaining wall to form a permanent sculpture.
During the Summer the ground surface of Paseo Cameron is covered in the extraordinary drawing of the children of la Mina. By night-time often the whole plaza of over 200 metres is covered by drawings which are replaced by renewed activity the next day as the drawings fade and are walked off the Plaza. The Wall of Dreams is located in a local cultural centre. It is made from ceramic tiles, various shades of gold in colour which carry imprints of the childrens’ chalk drawings.
Pavilion is a collection of green structures dedicated to providing a series of amenities within the park. It is sited on the raised ground beneath the trees to create a series of discreet spaces which can be open to the sky, shaded by the tree canopy in summer, or in the winter sun.
Whitechapel Art Gallery
We were briefed to modernize the Whitechapel’s back of house, carrying new identity into these spaces in fresh and playful ways. The desire for soft, organic materials and low embodied energy led to the sourcing of a reclaimed gymnasium floor, re-laid throughout with the original sports markings left intact.
The kitchen allows informal lunches as well as more formal staff meetings and presentations, with ‘ideas shelves’ for improvisory mini exhibitions, with pin boards and new lockers for visiting exhibition staff.
The director’s office is reconfigured to allow extra space for meetings. Large transparent sliding screens replace existing painted timber doors to optimise natural day lighting in all offices, simultaneously enhancing the sense of community between team members.
Original desking is kept, and resurfaced, overhead cabinets are re-used for storage and workstations personalised with individual roll out libraries.
Roof spaces will be insulated with locally sourced materials and relined to provide additional storage which will improve both energy efficiency and comfort levels.
Vicco’s Tower
Conceptually this project frames nature in the city. It is a lightweight timber tower on an asymmetric steel stiletto.
Vicco’s Tower frames specific views and creates particular qualities of light in each space. From the study, a ‘panorama’ window frames the garden as a landscape. A double height vertical glass slot shows a London Plane — one of the original avenue planted by the Georgians. A horizontal slot at bath height allows a very private contemplation of the garden. And above the sky.
51% studios’ artist client AK Dolven says: “To be able to bathe in the moonlight and a shower under a tree is something I thought was only possible in the remote place I come from in Norway. With this inside-outside space I can continue these elemental experiences in East London.” . In a dense urban environment, nature gains in focus and beauty: architecture as lens.
Materials have been designed to wear well and age gracefully, with minimal finishing or product applications. Money was spent to ensure adequate glass insulation and a full house water purification system from the pure H2O company to support our clients health and negate the need for adding to the recycling pile with bottled water.
Vicco’s Tower won an RIBA London Award in 2008 and has been shortlisted for the Georgian Group Architectural Award and a Grand Designs Award. RIBA Awards are given for buildings that have high architectural standards and make a substantial contribution to the local environment.
“Vicco’s tower is a rear garden extension of a traditional small Hackney house to give a new stacked kitchen, study and master bathroom in that order for a Norwegian artist living in London. You cannot help being mesmerized by the artist’s own touches so a modest project becomes one of singular aesthetic consistency.
The extension addresses the back garden with an area of nearly 100% glazing in the lower ground kitchen such that it feels almost like one was cooking out of doors. Above this is suspended a two storey solid wood tower containing the more private study, entirely lined with birch plywood followed by a large bathroom which has an entire glass roof and brilliant light.
Altogether a very successful building from modest but sure means.” RIBA website
To see AK Dolvens work, please visit: www.akdolven.com Photographer Vegar Moen is at www.vegarmoen.com
Fairgrounds, Mineral County
Remediation work on this 46 acre site was completed last year, with the outdoor arena being moved to its final position on the lower bench.
The former silver mining town of Creede is located in the Alte Vista Mountains, 10 miles from the source of the Rio Grande. The fairground site’s strategic importance is its location on the floodplain of Willow Creek - it can be seen for miles from the Silver Thread Scenic Highway. The site makes an important contribution to the natural landscape and could become an iconic signature for the town.
The Mineral County Fairgrounds Association approached 51% studios to develop with them a proposal for permanent all weather fairground facilities which could be implemented over time. Each phase will need to function in its own right, allowing for the next with maximum efficiency. We developed a flexible master diagram, using remediation to create an enduring ‘functional landscape’, preserving and enhancing existing views to and from the site.
Facilities will include a multi-purpose all-weather arena, community center and publicly accessible landscape where equal importance is given, and clear distinctions made, between pedestrians, the animals and their trucks.
Local sustainable design research has included a survey of readily available local materials, efficient energy creators such as ground source, solar cells etc, indigenous building traditions such as straw bale and stucco construction, in-floor radiant heat, and natural lighting.
The Mineral County Fairgrounds Association [MCFA] has successfully secured city, county, state and federal grants for the site, as well as overseeing the Voluntary Cleanup Operation.
Dover
In 2006 51% studios received a special commendation for this entry to the Kent County Council urban competition imagining a new future for the city of Dover.
Many roads to cross but I can’t seem to find my way over / Wandering I am lost as I travel along the white cliffs of Dover [from ‘Too many rivers to cross’, the Harder they Come, with apologies to Jimmy Cliff]
Portus Dubris is a town denied its sea frontage, its beach and cliffs and ports — a town thrilling to arrive at by sea, car or truck, but miserable to be in on foot. Yet Dover is also uniquely situated to once again blossom into a first class town — it has history, character, identity and natural endowment in spoonfuls.
This ‘master diagram’ seeks to reconnect the town and its sea frontage by bringing the countryside into the heart of the town and suppressing the relentless traffic thundering along the A20 by burying it between Snargate Street and Marine Parade. The space above the road will be a new car free landscaped public space.
Along with the proposed quayside quarters this represents an opportunity to create a sustainable city to rival anywhere in the world, so that over time our perception of Dover will be first of green and then of white.
Out & About
