Unit 5: The House and Garden
Date: 2018 / 2019
A critical shift in the aesthetic of London in the last two decades has been the requirement for private external space. This year our Diploma Studio ‘Unit 5’, at The School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University will study how communal space can be used as a method of improving the connection between interior and exterior for all dwellings, drastically improving the experience of living in high-density.
Collectively we engage with a series of very special singular houses; drawing, modelling and painting the interior passage of rooms from front door to garden. We then develop a project for a small cluster of houses translating spatial research from precedent. This is realised and presented purely through large models; sketch and timber. Timber models promote a consideration of the weight, proportion and positioning of the elements in the buildings construction, celebrating both the accidental and purposeful. Careful photography of this develops representation and the understanding of how powerful the photography of a scaled model can be in forming a sense of interior.
As has been a strong theme in previous years we are fascinated by the British desire for vertical living, flats predominate in new housing which often promotes little spatial delight in the interior. We develop methods to incorporate the spatial ideas from the work in the first semester into a high-density mansion in Central London. The graceful consistency of the Georgian Terrace or the Edwardian mansion is replaced with inset or cantilevered balconies. The mansion project considers a model akin to the private rental sector where spaces offered are serviced and communal.
The year will culminate in a sequence of model photos from home to garden, or visa versa.
