Architecture Manifesto 2015

1. Architecture is a process, not an object
If you know the end product before you start, what benefit is the intervention? It is simply constructed from your existing knowledge and experience.

2. Use principles, not manifestations of them
Ask yourself ‘why?’ There is no point refilling a bucket with water, when there is a hole in the bottom of the bucket.

3. Everything is connected
Every place has existing functioning systems, processes and networks. Any intervention must acknowledge and augment these.

4. If you’re not innovating, you’re stagnating
Architecture should improve what was there before, otherwise it makes no sense. There is always a better way.

5. The brief has requirements, so does the site
A brief presents an overt set of requirements. The site has intrinsic requirements, which need extraction and interpretation. Genius loci.

6. Listen and learn
“When you talk you are only repeating what you know; but when you listen, you may learn something new.” - Dalai Lama

7. Architecture should be complex, not complicated
Architecture can be seen as the integration of several entities and systems, every part should co-act. Chaos Theory.

8. Acknowledge context, nothing happens in isolation
A glass house in the desert, probably not the best idea.

9. Architecture evolves, adapts, and changes over time
Subject to time - people, circumstance and the built environment change and adapt. Design to promote and facilitate this change.

10. Open, green public space is cardinal space
People are intrinsically interwoven with nature. A healthy environment acknowledges and integrates this fact, providing space for people to be in nature.

11. Think urban
Architecture sits within an urban fabric, recognise that. Infrastructure should be in place at an urban scale.

12. Understand before you intervene
Respond to what the place/people need. Map, analyse, explore, research and immerse.

13. Architecture creates and takes advantage of opportunities
Opportunities exist everywhere. Engage with them.

14. Don’t accept what has been done without challenging it first
Hypothesise. Speculate.

15. Open Building principles make sense
Design with Levels and Orders of the built environment. Design for capacity and disentanglement.

Re-thinking Healthcare in Cities

Neighbourhoods, Public Space, Communities and Primary Care Service

Professor Phil Astley

The four day intensive workshop with Prof. Astley was centred around healthcare and well-being. However, the principles involved in this were extracted and reinterpreted into out current projects, under their respective topics. Many principles came out of this workshop, with the most relevant to my work being:

• Scenario Planning
• Structure with apparent Chaos
• Planning Networks
• Integration of existing networks and services
• Interim projects on site
• Using art for ownership
• Project definition
• User paths
• Stakeholders vs. Users
• Soft Processes
• Complexity Theory
• Reflexivity Theory
• De-centralisation
• Urban Agriculture

User Paths

Factors of Change

Factor Timeline

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)

Pecha Kuch Presentation

 (turn pages from any corner/click and use arrow keys)

Precedent

"To me the raw media such as earth, stones, mud, dust, and plant matter suggest realities, associations and experiences that could be aligned with an innate awareness of belonging to (African). I experience and claim the raw material as acquaintance, family and as belonging to me, and as representing the fabric of my identity. The personal, psychological and physical interaction with this particular material environment is difficult to express in words. It is an intuitive, sensuous yet also intellectual process during which a collaborative relationship of expression is entered into between myself and the medium with the aim to uncover the seductive ‘voice’ of the material and to find the most appropriate form for the material it can hold and convey" 

Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor Twenty: Stellenbosch, Smac Art, Stellenbosch

Sustainability

Through designing an infrastructure system that operates in an infinite cycle, the infrastructure becomes highly sustainable. Connecting that system to existing infrastructure, and integrating it into the existing networks of the neighbourhood, makes the system more viable, and intelligent, in its initialisation and operation.

An exploration of Transient Infrastructure revealed the transience of seasons. Seasonal change brings with it the loss of leaves from deciduous vegetation. These leaves are then blown around by strong winds, and lay scattered around the city/neighbourhood. 

If these leaves were collected and processed, they could form biodegradable material with potential. If this biodegradable material was used to create art in public parks, it would create an interest and encourage engagement with parks. As time passes, the art would biodegrade into the park, providing nutrients back to the park.

The results reinforce the transience of the infrastructure, through engagement with transient people in the parks and the transient nature of the material.