An extract from the Unit A brief taught at Oxford Brookes University's Architecture Undergraduate course, 2016-2017.
Myth, Rumour and Reality
This year Unit A will be packing its bags and heading to the countryside. The city is historically seen by architects as the crucible of human activity and in recent years has seen more attention than ever before. Meanwhile, the countryside remains an under studied and widely misunderstood territory. Myths about the countryside are perpetuated in visual culture from the packaging of eggs to Country Life Magazine promoting the countryside as a pre-industrial pre-globalised idyllic rural Arcadia. Our focus on the city is creating a ‘terra incognita’ where design and planning decisions are based on misconceptions and outdated ideals. Common sentiment would dictate that the countryside is the domain of the provincial, slow and uncultured. Rem Koolhaas recently said rural areas are ‘changing more radically than our cities’ and closer examination shows that increasingly they operate much more similarly to cities than ever previously thought.
Tiny House
Our investigation of the rural will start in the way perhaps most familiar – as a holiday. The main project of the 1st semester will involve the design of a compact living space of maximum 12m2 for visitors to Dartmoor National Park. Exploiting planning regulation, these roadworthy mini hotel rooms will be designed for 2-3 people to spend up to 3-4 days. At this small scale you will develop a detailed understanding of ergonomics and the space surrounding the human body. We will focus on the materials and construction so by the end you will know the location of every screw in this mobile micro-building. Plans are also afoot to build one of your designs in oxford next summer with a group of students.
The Teign Gorge - Research, Culture and Geography
Accommodated in a couple of barns on the north bank of the Teign Gorge we will spend 3 days exploring this steep and dramatic wooded valley and the vital role the river played in its industrial history. At the head of the valley, Castle Drogo will host workshops and talks from experts in local technologies and industries. During this trip you will site your tiny houses, and survey the sites for the major S.2 project.
Alpine Grand Tour: Sublime Landscape, Exquisite Architecture
We look to Switzerland to see a completely different approach towards contemporary development in a picturesque setting. Over 5 days we will visit a cross-section of alpine architecture focusing mainly on buildings in remote rural locations in the eastern cantons of St. Gallen, Graubunden, and Ticino. You will visit buildings by Zumthor, Olgiati, Caminada and Botta among other alpine masters.
Cottage Industry
The Teign was once home to a plethora of water powered industries and with that precedent we will explore how the housing of industry and work can create a brave new contemporary architecture in this sensitive setting. Based on thorough research of the area and its people you will be free to develop new and unique programs beneath the umbrella term “industry”. We will ask students to develop their projects making models at various scales from landscape through to detail. We will draw on an abundance of contemporary regionally specific building techniques and materials to question the pervasive conservatism within National Park planning as well as wider issues of identity, authenticity and the myth of the rural.
