BSc UNIT 2
SPONTANEOUS PROCEDURES
Image Credits: Top Image - Mexico City urban sprawl www.dailymail.co.uk; Bottom image: B-Pro, AD, Research Cluster 6 The Bartlett
BSc UNIT 2
SPONTANEOUS PROCEDURES
Aleksandrina Rizova & Soomeen Hahm
Unit Theme:
This year UG2 will explore the notion of spontaneous procedures on an architectural and urban
scale through digital simulations, analogue prototypes, material tests and digital fabrication.
Students will develop highly spatial and architectural individual agendas which are informed by
sophisticated urban, spatial and material research. Through understanding of algorithmic design
methodology UG2 will juxtapose organised and spontaneous systems – could we design through
transformation, adaptation, re-organisation? We will be looking at the interface between static and
in-flux, local and global, bottom-up and top-down, natural and artificial.
Project 1 - Research:
We will start with small scale analogue and physical prototypes informed by a procedure - a
making technique. Students will develop new digital skills allowing them to simulate and translate
analogue models and fabricate their findings. These initial constructs will be then developed into
architectural spatial systems – resulting in intricate structures, elaborate skins and integrated
inhabited spaces. We will be running digital workshops to help students develop 2d and 3d
modelling skills as well as get familiar with digital fabrication tools. We will shift quickly between the
analogue and the digital encouraging students to combine different techniques in order to achieve
highly articulated spatial hybrid constructs. At the end of the project each student will develop
unique prototypical procedure that will evolve further in the main building project by bringing in new
parameters such as programme, context, local materials, etc.
Project 2 - Building Project:
In January we will visit Mexico City – a large metropolis with ever-growing population. We will start
with urban investigation looking at growing patterns in the urban context and comparing natural
occurring slum areas with much more defined modernist city blocks. We will draw inspiration from
the way the city has evolved over time and the interaction between natural and urban landscapes.
We will explore Mexico as a spontaneous urban system and will ask students to respond to its
emerging contradictions. The sites for your main project will be in Mexico City and may go beyond
the centre to the periphery. We are interested in the transitional states between heavy and light,
organised and self-organised, static and adaptive in the city – how can your architecture respond
to these urban situations and allow for future re-organisation? How can your building establish a
procedural language that can plug-in and evolve? How will your architectural system respond to
urban problems such as pollution and high population density - do you need to extend, rebuild,
pre-fabricate, how can you apply traditional materials and methods of production in an efficient yet
advanced way?