Category Archives: MArch

“Poppy” Pavilion at Dunham Massey

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As we have documented since the start of this academic year, the poppy pavilion project has taken many hours of development and construction to create. Much of the final structure assembly was completed in our store space due to the sheer size of the piece. Alex, Lorena and Nancy assembled of structure in two main parts before transportation to the site.  

 

The group met on a cold and rainy February morning to assemble the pieces at Dunham Massey National Trust park. The poppy was anchored using 3 fence piles which were fixed to the bottom of the structure. The final assembly too a full day and another morning to complete not to mention some frozen hands by all accounts!

The completed structure held its form well and had withstood the recent stormy weather with no problems. The structure along with the other Pavilion projects can be seen on display at Dunham Massey over the coming months.

Well done all involved!

1:200 Castlefield Site Model, Richard Coskie

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Year Six student Richard Coskie has a history of making things from clear cut hand finished materials in our workshop. This project is no exception and as Richard explains, is continuing to influence his design decisions as the project develops.

“My project is an Urban Cultivation Cooperative Centre, located on a site that is nestled between train tracks and the canal, on the old Castlefield junction at the south end of Deansgate. The 1:200 scale site model I have crafted in the workshop from pine, is proving very useful in the development of the project for investigating relationships between different programmes. I hope to display the final scheme on the site model, as well as creating other models at other scales.

The decision to create the site model void of any digital fabrication was an easy choice for me. Firstly, because the site has a low-tech and industrial aesthetic, which is better achieved by sculpting arches from a single, chunky, piece of wood. But most importantly, as a designer, I feel it is important to learn the dimensions of a site, by actually planing the topography to scale, or sawing, carving and sanding the arches to size. For the moments that one is engaged with the manipulation of their model, I believe that it is as vital a time as any for visions to come to fruition.”

We will add some studio photographs of this model in the near future. Find out more about MSAp here: http://www.msa.ac.uk/atelier/msap/

Warrington Town Centre Flow Model, Baljit Panesar

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Baljit is using a slide system to convey the different mapping she has looked at in her study of Warrington High Street.

The key question for this project was ‘What is the future of the High Street?’.

The project has looked at empty shop spaces and their potential for non retail use as a reinvention of the traditional high street. Baljit mapped the variety of creative industries in the Warrington area and is looking at the potential to place them within the empty high street store spaces.

Contested Peripheries Baljit Panesar (5)

Her main site focus is the Garnetts Cabinet Works which is due to be demolished. By using this site as an ‘incubator’ or hub for creative services, Baljit proposes a ‘launch site’ for services that would normally be based outside of the high street with the Garnetts site acting as the gateway for those services.

This working model is constructed as a grid allowing pins to be placed in the board to indicate changes in site flow at specific locations across the high street and bigger city site.Points of intervention can easily be updated by simply relocating the relevant pin.  Each mapped industry or feature has been screen printed onto acrylic slides which are stored in the base of the model and slotted in above the engraved map and below the grid. This model will continue to change and inform as this project is refined and understood, partly due to the creation of the model itself.

Contested Peripheries Sessions

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Every Tuesday morning is now focussed on the 5th and 6th Year Contested Peripheries Group. The sessions so far have allowed students to voice any questions on their projects and refine their ideas through converse with their tutors and workshop staff.

Having tutors on hand in the workshop has been very beneficial to the group and we hope to encourage other Ateliers to be involved in the workshop in a similar way. As projects are completed we will give a more in depth look at their models and how they are being used to inform their designs. 5th year cp (1)

Venice Arsenale Site Model, Matt Arnold

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Matt used stained Meranti hardwood to create the block massing on his model. The majority of the model was hand finished to a high standard with time being taken to sand the blocks a smooth finish. The water in the Arsenale basin is represented with a sheet of frosted acrylic.

The site itself covers the Venice Arsenale and focusses around a small site, as is often the case with Venice, in between a restrictively protected mass of existing historic buildings. Matt intends to use the model as a master to ‘drop in’ his site proposals as they develop with the final model being displayed in place at the end of year exhibition.

Change to Opening Times from Tuesday 28th Jan 2014

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Beginning Tuesday 28th January the workshop will be closed between 9.30 and 13.00 to all students apart from Contested Peripheries Atelier students. This will remain in effect every Tuesday for the rest of this Academic Year.

This is due to a change in teaching structure which,in the not too long term, will benefit all students. Our efforts will be focussed on delivering specific advice based on the whole groups needs whilst being exclusively available to answer questions as a group and to individuals.

These sessions will aim to focus on the theory of modelmaking and question your approaches based on what you are trying to achieve.

Necessary inductions or refreshers concerning machine operation will also be given.

The workshop will re-open as normal from 14.00 to all students.

Here are our amended general weekly opening times:

Monday: 09.30-13.00 (One hour Lunch Break) 14.00-16.30

Tuesday:14.00-16.30

Wednesday: 09.30-13.00 (One hour Lunch Break) 14.00-16.30

Thursday: 09.30-13.00 (One hour Lunch Break) 14.00-16.30

Friday: 09.30-13.00 (One hour Lunch Break) 14.00-16.30

Saturday/Sunday: Closed

We look forward to getting started!

Jim & Scott

Manchester City Master Plan Model, Architecture of the Processional City, Atelier VI

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Back at the start of December we covered one groups start on their master plan block model of part of Manchester City Centre during the still ongoing spate of block models being made in the workshop. The project was part of ‘Architecture of the Professional City’, Atelier VI at Manchester School of Architecture. You can find out more about their studies on their Blog by clicking here.

City Master Plan Models

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Making continues this week in the workshop with most students focussed on creating city master plan models.It can be helpful when making master plans to lay out scaled plans to place components in place and ensure everything has been cut. If you want accuracy it is essential to have well scaled plans printed to understand the size of your project on a bench in front of you.
When dealing with master plan models more often than not you will find an abundance of components littering your desk space. The best was to keep track of these to is to order them and separate them into districts. This may suit a group project as individuals can be given responsibility over separate areas of the model. This group used plastic bags to distribute components as they were cut to avoid mixing them up.

Here Jim is using the band saw table on an angle to create roof pitches on a block model. It is likely that when producing block models there will come a point when a machines limits will not be sufficient to get the angle you require.

Overcoming these aspects of modelmaking can be time consuming but is of course necessary to ensure consistent accuracy of your models. Should you feel you’re unsure about how to achieve a particular angle don’t hesitate to ask our advice.

 

The Peak Pavilion Project

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This project consists of 8 ‘peaks’ which each point toward a significant battle of the first world war. Each peak will feature poetry written by patients at who stayed at Dunham Massey during its use as a hospital for wounded soldiers coming back from the front.  As with the other ongoing pavilion projects, this concept began in physical form as a sketch model.  Structural details were designed and refined through a series of test models. This example shows the internal frame construction to support each pillar in the circle.

After test models were made at small scale the group went on to make some details at 1:1 to test assembly and strength in reality. This section below shows how the framework inside each panel would be fixed. These kind of 1:1 details are great design theory tests and offer as close an insight as possible to the finished look without building the full structure.

Making components for this project, much like the concrete mould construction on one of the other pavilions required the mass production of specifically angled cuts using our circular saw.Due to the acute angle required for the top ends of each piece we were unable to cut the required angle using machines. In order to achieve the correct angle the group used a custom made mitre jig and hand saw to cut the correct angle at the end of each component. This proved to be a hand saw learning curve for most of the group after falling into the common misconception about using a hand saw – small fast movements will reduce the effectiveness of your cutting. Taking time to get used to using the main length of the saws teeth and allowing the saw to do the hard work always proves much more effective and less exhausting! 
 The panels for each peak will be assembled using screws into pre-drilled holes (below) which will be plugged to make them less obvious. The main panels of each peak will be cut using a large CNC bed at FAB LAB Manchester. As with the other pavilion project developments, we will keep you up to date as things progress.

Campo San Martino, Venice Site 1:200 Master Plan Model

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This year 6 Group project uses Jelutong block to create the busy built up area of Venice, Italy where the focus site of their brief is located. Once complete individual site study models will be placed in context to demonstrate their relationship to the existing constructions and canals in the area.

Dividing up time consuming tasks like mass producing bespoke block model shapes can be sped up by involving all team members as long as everyone has a clear understanding of what is trying to be achieved overall.