ARCT30010 Architectural Design V

Academic Year 2023/2024

Module Description:

This module is a response to the development of the Resilient Design Curriculum across the first three years of the undergraduate programme. It’s an inter university project and will be undertaken in conjunction with 3rd year students of Architecture at the University of Limerick. Our shared programme seeks to develop a robust and questioning design studio culture that can provide coherent architectural responses to some of the challenges posed by human induced climate change.

Background:

Clare island lies at the entrance to Clew Bay in County Mayo some 5km from the west coast of the Irish mainland. It covers an area of 1,600 hectares (a little more than sixteen km2). Most of the cultivated land is found towards its eastern end, while the western side of the island is bare, subject to high winds and dominated by the high ridge of Knockmore Mountain, attaining a height of 465 metres. The scenery is spectacular and the history dense. The island’s rock surfaces were scoured by glaciers in the last Ice Age (30,000 -12,000 yrs ago) and a mass of glacial sediment was dumped on its southern slopes as the ice retreated. The cliffs of Clare Island are listed as an area of international scientific importance, sheltering rare arctic-alpine plant communities and seabird breeding colonies.

Over the last century the fortunes of farming have been governed essentially by developments in the wider world outside of Clare Island: but one of the most remarkable things about the island is the completeness with which the pattern of traditional farming a hundred years ago is preserved in its landscape. With the gradual abandonment of arable farming the ridged fields reverted to grassland, which acted as a protective seal on the earlier patterns of ridges. In recent decades farmers have concentrated mainly on sheep, the close grazing of which is optimal for the proliferation of the high nature value waxcap flora this kind of grassland supports, and which does not require the same degree of labour-intensive attention as arable farming. Much of the ridged farm-scape has however been lost to encroaching bracken and soft rush, and there has been significant regression to peat formation, often resulting in the suppression of the waxcap flora.

The deterioration of this unique landscape is a serious loss; but it is one that can be halted and reversed. The information and insights provided by the two Clare Island surveys provide the necessary data for the development and implementation of an agri-environment programme specific to Clare Island that will lead to a new model for farming and management of the environment on the island. A key element in the restoration of large areas of agricultural grassland is recovery through carefully targeted changes in the stocking regime and systematic drainage, thereby greatly extending the area of grazing available. This grassland hosts the island’s rich waxcap flora, much of its archaeological heritage, and the material evidence of the extraordinary arable landscape that was reformed by the Congested Districts Board’s re-direction of the island’s agriculture at the end of the nineteenth century.

Programme:

Collective live / work / stay accommodation. Just as the landscape will be transformed under the proposed new ACRES programme, the physical infrastructure of the island must transform in response to the challenges posed by climate change, evolving farming practice, migration and sustainable agri-tourism. The proposal is for collective accommodation for 4-6 farming families (consisting of 2-5 persons) to be provided in a single structure, most likely over several levels, loosely based around the concept of the Rundale collective village system. Established typologies including familiar domestic spatial arrangements and the nomination of rooms should be avoided, instead your design should explore solutions derived from first principles to encompass a climate based response that considers orientation, site, ground, soil, heat, humidity, temperature, air, wind, water, light, material, waste, composting, recycling and seasonal weather patterns. The building’s functions from cooling and heating to sleeping, eating and working should be provided for by either the fabric of the building or by utilising passive strategies and not through the provision of additive technologies or furnished elements. It should form a simple robust structure, in sympathy with the surrounding landscape, rooted to place and capable of standing unattended.

The families are involved in the local farming cooperative and raise their animals on the commonage. They may not all be in residence year round, in which case the available space can be rented to tourists to provide an alternative source of income. Some residents may also work from home, this could involve generating added value from the raw materials and by product of farming and land management. Accordingly, the structure should incorporate the necessary outhouses for animals, material and equipment to fulfill the various functional needs of the residents and their employment.

Structure:

Student activities are generally studio based and attendance in studio is mandatory. Working individually, in assigned groups and in shared workshops you will carry out a combination fieldwork, research and design over a period of 12-weeks. The programme has 3no. connected stages of development leading to one coherent proposal. In each, you are asked to develop, test and then document coherent design strategies through model and drawing.

01 Site 1:500 / 1:200
Sept 11th Monday - 06th Oct Friday
Workshop group work Clare Island 13th-16th September

02 Built Form 1:50
09th Oct Monday - 03rd Nov Friday
Workshop group work 26th-27th Oct Curators Slovenian Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/15f495JrjAt0U9RdDWetCGmkF2isOdL3G?sort=13&direction=a

03 Envelope 1:25
06th Nov - 1st Dec Friday
Workshop Venice group work 16th-20th November (provisional dates).

Submission:

At the end of the module each student is required to submit an individual, collated and organized physical portfolio of work. The portfolio must include all drawings, photographs of models, sketches and sketchbooks that demonstrate the required outcomes. In addition, each student should produce a collated digital guide document that succinctly describes and reflects on the work the student has made over the trimester with reference to the work of their peers. This document should also be formatted and printed at A3 size.