Field trip to Manchester

11.10.18: The new tall building group took a coach to Manchester for the day to look at the sites that could be used for the first semester. We are also doing a site in Jakarta.

Start of a new project

2 October 2018: briefing of the new schemes for the model, with proposed buildings for Jakarta and Manchester

Structural help from Arups

Only one week to go, and we had help from John Read of Arups , who was checking primary structure for the Manchester projects

Initial designs for Manchester

19 February 2018: the students have moved from large groups into small groups of two and three, this was the first opportunity to demonstrate their first proposals for the five sites in Manchester. All of the sites were covered in some way, in fact one mini group had as many as six different proposals to demonstrate the options. It is important to demonstrate the evolution of the form idea and not just produce a slick drawing of something impressive that has no logic to it. We emphasised the need to keep hand drawing and 3-D sketching, and not rush into using CAD or 2-D as early as this. Once they get an idea, we encourage them to draw, draw, draw and make the idea work better.
We asked them to be quite objective, as if they were doing a feasibility study before briefing architects. This way, they can discover what the sites are capable of in density and urban impact. There was a good mixture of sound calculated proposals and a little bit of what we call emotional intuitive response ideas.
DNC and Mani Lal as tutors.

Final Jakarta’17 review

Monday 22 Jan 2018: we concluded the semester with a Powerpoint of the six schemes, and were very highly pleased with the results. The students will hand in their portfolios on Thursday of this week. The work we have done has no precedent, so a considerable amount of ingenuity and invention was required. More detailed images of the final panels will be posted on the blog quite soon.