Natasha Marie Clarke

Update

Working on the concept of hiding in plain sight, this will be the view of my building as seen from Commercial Street.

The facade has been set further back so that when viewed from further along the Street the building actually disappears from view. 

This is the facade as seen from Commercial Street when directly facing the building. 

When looking at the Building from Whites Row the facade seems to be flat, lining up with the windows which are above on the main block of building designed by Bennetts, 

When view in plan view or from an angle you can see that the facade is actually not flat but protrudes in to the building building at times.  This relates to Hawksmoors use of shadow in the creation of the the churches.  

It also plays with the element of symmetry which was used in the design of these churches by using an asymmetrical, skewed facade that appears on first glance to be symmetrical.

The staggered facade has allowed me to created secret entrances into the building that will be concealed by blending into the facade.    

Test Renders …

D&D Report

Design and Detail Report

DR Outline

City & Landscape

A. Exploring the context of city and landscape, The use of the Fruit and Wool building during the blitz.

B. The development of the site and how it was included within the regeneration of Spitalfields, 

C. Retaining the existing North facing facade, the sympathetic redevelopment of the site, using brick as the dominant material on site.

Our exploration of City and Landscape used crime as vessel of exploration. The concept of crime brought about the idea of a small closed community as a criminal network, this community developed into a secret society community, with many similarities to that of a criminal network.

2. Architectural Professional Studies 

(Costings to be done once building materials have been short listed)

24th member is the orchestrator and project puppet master,  23 members will act as agents in the procurement of the project, each member dealing with different subcontractors, the structure will be created in batches via different manufactures ordered in small quantities, potential cover story will be that the parts are being used in the development of a potential  sculptural commission.  Each improvement and refinement of design will be sent to a different sub contractor 

Due to the nature of my building the main constraints will be internal. The main factors I have identified is the need to keep the absorb sound created within the structure though a sound proofing system, which is being developed as part of enclosing wall structure, the need to extrapolate natural light within the structure. This will be brought in through a sculptural manifestation on the ground floor external level. Potentially working out how the building will be powered all though it is more likely that power will be obtained through the main building. Temperature control will be an issue especially in the designated computer lab, considering some of the main parts of the building will be held within the plant room

As the building is internal the main structure will be hidden it will not be under jurisdiction of planning laws, however part of the more sculptural elements on ground floor will need to be explored.  Building control will be the main concern as they will want to check the structural integrity of the building. A way around this is  to build a containing substructure containing the enclosing building structure. A good precedent for this is the plant room developed for guys hospital.

3. Design and Detail Construction

How the elements will be constructed, material will need to be light weight easy to construct with the ability to be brought on site discreetly as well as to be prefabricated off of site. How will material choice will affect the acoustics.

Due to the nature of the building means of escape, circulation will be utilised from within the main structure, details will be based upon arrangements for the proposed building. 

Due to the nature of my building the main constraints will be internal. The main factors I have identified is the need to keep the absorb sound created within the structure though a sound proofing system, which is being developed as part of enclosing wall structure, the need to extrapolate natural light within the structure. This will be brought in through a sculptural manifestation on the ground floor external level. Potentially working out how the building will be powered all though it is more likely that power will be obtained through the main building. Temperature control will be an issue if any electrical equipment is required.

The Proposal

Since hand in I’ve been questioning my concept.  Originally I decided to create a secret society formed from the rift when the female masonry lost its last male members.  From this I developed the co-masons a third masonic society that believed that both male and female members needed to unite in order to reach their goal of New World Order.  The following text was developed in order to start to develop my thinking.

The founding of the co masons 

Their ultimate goal is to re-form society into a Communist state and seek retribution from the order of the male and female freemasons due to the negative impact made with the withdrawal of the co mason society. Without the driving force of the two combined forces the implementation of measures made to expedite social these reforms came to an abrupt halt in the year of 1920.  In 1945 still discontent with the expulsion of the male freemason. Sylvia Halfpenny took matters in to her own hands.  Maintaining the notion of a Communist state Halfpenny believed the only way to succeed was through the united integration of both female and male counterparts an took it upon herself to do so. The result of which was ‘The Order of the Co-masons’ formed in 1950.  As the years passed the co masons grew steadily in numbers with operations executed from makeshift offices in and around the city.  As the Order grew it became apparent that the acquisition of dedicated offices would become paramount in order to execute Halfpenny’s carefully developed plans and so the search began.  As a result of extensive research it was decided that the order would relocate as a collective to an area of East London to exploit the opportunities made available from a rich subterranean landscape.  After meticulous scrutiny of several sites it was was decided that the Fruit and Wool Exchange in the heart of Spitalfields would provide the most appropriate.  The by renting a unit within the proposed office and retail development the society could be hidden away from prying eyes.  In preparation of the move The Order were asked to assimilate into the community seeking out employment employment created by Spitalfields Development Group.  By 2005 a small team of the co -masonry society had managed to infiltrate the the community year upon year numbers steadily increased strategically positioning members in order to increase the likelihood for selection of work opportunities created by the development in oder to facilitate the fabrication of a underground structure/ building to act as the new HQ for co mason society.

The next stage was to create an outline proposal for my intervention.  It was at this point when I started to become uncertain of my proposal.  Initially I had planned on creating an underground HQ for this new secret society, however upon reflection I felt the idea of the HQ made it difficult for me to rationalise a building due to an uncertainty in program and scale and in turn made it difficult to design a proposal.  For that reason I decided to come away from the idea from the program of the building and started to question the type of construction methods I wanted to employ.  Based upon the idea of the secret society I decided that I wanted my construction method to be as useable as possible  I wanted my proposal to use a modular system in order to make construction as easy as possible due to the fact that society needs to remain anonymous people with out construction history may indeed need to assemble the structure.  The final hand in sheet I produced illustrated the underground framework.  The framework will act as the vessel in which modules are place.  The modules will be interconnectable and will have an infinite number of combinations  with the ability to grow in size with time.

I then started to realise that my interest actually lay in the construction of a system with this in mind I’m know starting to re-evaluate the type of secret society that I will create.  An initial concept is to develop a new model based from the current economical conditions as well as planning constraints of a conservation area. A new housing model is developed that is cheap and easy to construct, due to the lack of affordable housing in the locality, that is developed by a group of individuals.  The concept of crime is illustrated by the fact that the correct permissions are not obtained to build the structure.