Exhibition: Invisible Machines

Bringing together eight designers this exhibition explores the underlying connections between architecture and machines. Having penetrated contemporary life to near invisibility the machine in architectural thought is more elusive than its mechanical image would suggest. In this exhibition various perspectives on the machine in architecture are critically examined through drawings, photographs, objects, film and contextual texts.

This exhibition is organised with support from the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts, the UCL Graduate School and the Bartlett’s Architectural Research Fund.

Contributors: Michael Aling, Tom Foulsham, Ersi Ioannidou, Glenn Longden-Thurgood, Tim Norman, Charlotte Raleigh, Ben Sweeting, Michael Wihart.
Exhibition Blog: http://invisiblemachines.wordpress.com/

Exhibition dates: 8/12/10 – 7/01/11
Opening Bar: Thursday 9/12/10 6pm onwards
Closing Event: Friday 7/01/11 time tbc

Location: The Sallis Benney Theatre Lobby, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 0JY
Map: http://www.brighton.ac.uk/maps/grandparade/

Hackney Churchyard [2010]

This project proposes a small pavilion within St. John's Churchyard in Hackney located at the west gate of the walled garden. The walled garden was contsructed in the 1960s on part of the the cleared graveyard; it has recently been redeveloped and is now predominantly a children's play area. The main entrance is the south gate with the west gate (the site of this project) only occasionally open. The west gate opens onto a passage running north-south and connecting the part of the churchyard around the late C18th church of St John-at-Hackney with that around the site of the now mostly demolished medieval church of St Augustine. This passage is a fairly busy pedestrain thoroughfare for people cutting through the churchyard from Narrow Way towards Lower Clapton Road.

Opposite the west gate the passageway widens out slightly. Facing the gate are an untidy selection of cleared gravestones. Whereas many of these in the churchyard are beautifully set out these give the impression of having been dumped there against the wall in this forgotten corner; several are broken and this comes across as a cemetery for gravestones.

Drawing a section through the west gate reveals a strangely potent relation between the life of the playground and the abandoned gravestones. This is heightened by it being the west gate - at the end of the day's play the sun sets (roughly) over the gate. It is not hard to read (construct) a description of the passing of time and of birth and death into this although as the gate is rarely open this relation is hardly noticeable.

The design proposal is for a pavilion which articulates this relation even when the gate is closed. Using a simple mechanism, 2m high hanging weights move above our head on the east-west axis from the gate to the graves suggesting the relation between the two worlds by the direction of their movement. They collect above the gate within the pavilion and leave, slowly, on the track. The exact movements of the weights are determined by the movement of people on the north-south passageway - a weight moves at roughly a 10th of the speed as a walking person for the duration that person is within the narrowest section of passageway (with the furthest advanced weight moving first, the second only moving when a second person enters and so on). Movement is used to create a spatial analogy between the weight and the passerby who is located by this within the now articulated axis connecting playground to graveyard.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/HackneyChurchyard2010#

cafe bohemia [2010]

This project has a strange trajectory. It began with a series of speculative abstract drawings made using a technique of frottage and cutting and folding paper. Some of the qualities of these reminded me of why light falls from above across the complex curves of Borromini's churches. At the time I was frequenting a local cafe called Cafe Bohemia under some railway arches (my usual haunt being closed for refurbishment). The cafe had a scruffy charm but rather spoiled it with some kitsch-but-not-in-a-good-way touches. I would enter and walk through passing underneath the railway arch to a section at the back which had a large roof light. I love this space. It has some fantastic latent qualities hiding just under the surface. I decided to use some of the spatial protocols I had seen in the rubbings to articulate my reading of the specialness of this space.

The space at the back of the cafe has a latent vertical and horizontal structure set up by the railway. The space is clearly divided into two horizontally by the railway which operates on a level plane above the world of the city below. In this upper zone was the railway - perhaps the example of an autonomous, rational, causal system (and one that conspicuously breaks down...). In the lower zone was the cafe where I was eating my lunch - perhaps the example of a typical everyday human situation. The space at the back established a vertical axis between the two by way of allowing light to enter from above - although it did this with no drama or excitement. The noise of the trains was also discernible albeit only dimly. This reminded me both of a cosmological structure (horizontal and vertical) but also of the vertical structure of the Bachelor Machines, particularly the punishment mechanism of Kafka's In A Penal Colony which comprised the supposedly rational mechanism of justice above and the body below.

The intervention proposes highlighting the vertical connection between the two worlds of the railway and the cafe. In the final scheme the roof of the back area of the cafe is raised creating a large south facing window. 3 beams (working like levers) span from pin joints with the structure at the window end to a spring and finally are attached to the sleepers of the train tracks above. As the trains run past the gentle movement of the sleepers rocks the beam. This in turn shakes a series of 12 hanging vertical metal pieces which glint in the light from the south facing window. Thus the project firstly creates a vertical space with light from above falling onto the dining space suggesting a cosmological reading. Secondly the the project emphasises the upper world of the railway by making the passing trains interfere with the lighting via the mechanism. Moreover this upper zone is now representative not just of the railway but of the mechanical more generally and, by analogy, the world of the causal, technical and rational which dominates our culture.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/CafeBohemia2010#

see also: 'Architecture and Undecidability - Cafe Bohemia' in PhD Research Projects 2010. the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, UK, pp. 163-167, 2010.

st. alphage gardens (3) [2009]

This project is located at the west end of St. Alphage gardens on the south side of the fragment of London's Roman wall - at what was the west end of the medieval church of St. Alphage London Wall which was demolished in the C16th. Here the ground level drops down to that of the Salter's garden on the north side of the wall with a simple wooden stair connecting the two levels. This project proposes replacing that stair in such a way as to emphasise the connection between the two levels, to dramatise the act of ascending and descending the stair and to recreate something of a west end to the garden which occupies the site of the former church.

The project consists of a steel portico which spans over the stair fixed to the ground at both higher and lower levels. Each column of the portico holds a chime of varying lengths (and therefore notes). The mechanism which strikes the chimes is connected to sensors which record pressure on the treads of the steps. Each time a tread is stepped on the mechanism turns. A set of 1:2 and 1:3 ratio gears then adjusts this for each chime: the first chime will strike every step, the second every third step, the third every sixth, the fourth every eighteenth (the number of steps in the stair - i.e. it would strike once for each person walking up or down the stair), the fifth every thirtysixth (every second person walking up or down the stair) and so on. The last chime (the fourteenth) would strike only after 1296 completed journeys up and down the stair (23328 steps).

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/StAlphageGardens32009#

st. alphage gardens (2) [2009]

This project proposes a mechanical intervention alongside the stair at the east end of St. Alphage Gardens, London. The stair passes from a quiet part of the Barbican highwalk through the line of the adjacent surviving fragment of London's Roman wall (i.e. it crosses London's historic boundary) to St. Alphage Gardens (the site of the remains of two ruined churches). The intervention comprises a gantry which runs parallel to the stair also crossing the line of the wall and a spire like contraption which can move north and south along the gantry. The spire moves in response to people's movement on the staircase - its motor running for the same length of time as someone takes climbing or descending the stair (although it moves very slowly covering only a small distance in this time) and in the same direction (north for ascending, south for descending). The spire makes a gentle bell like clanking sound as it moves (a giant chime gives the spire its height). These movements are generated from the use of the stair in two ways. Firstly they are averaged out - the (continually recalculated) average interval between people using the stair and the average duration of ascending and descending it generate a regular backward and forward motion. Assuming that it will take on average less time to descend the stair than to ascend it the spire will gradually move to the south end and will need eventually to be reset. Secondly specific individual durations and intervals taken from 24 hours earlier generate an additional set of more sporadic movements which replay the events of yesterday.

Thus the project compares three different sorts of reading of the event of ascending and descending the staircase - the present (someone walking down the stair), a specific historical event (the machine reenacting the specific events of 24 hours earlier) and the averaged out general rhythm from the project's entire history. The project therefore locates the mundane present event of ascending and descending a staircase within the context of the history of that event and emphasises the significance of the existing stair's placement crossing London's historic boundary.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/StAlphageGardens22009#

bodney road projects [2008]

bodney road projects [2008]

toast rack [2007-2008]

This resolutely mundane project proposed some appendages to the existing toast rack in the house I was living in at the time. The intention of the project was to precisely explore the qualities of an environment that actively provokes customisation from its user - an crucial element in the interactivity of Gordon Pask's Musicolour and Cedric Price's Generator.

The toast rack is given the ability to sense when it is loaded with toast. The longer the toast is left on it (and the colder the toast is getting) the more agitated the toast rack becomes. It starts tapping on the table. The longer the toast is left the harder and more freequent the tapping becomes. If the toast was left there all week the toast rack would be bashing on the table quite furiously to the extent where it would make an indent on the table. Over time these indents would form a palimpsest on the table which would be a recording of its use. Thus the toast rack reacts to its use in order to provoke me to (choose to) act.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/ToastRack20072008#

allotment calendar [2007]

This project is set on a small allotment belonging to Tony set within his cousin's garden which has been in his family for 300 years. The intervention is sited as part of the entrance sequence across the lawn between the steps and the gate. The main context of an allotment is time - the seasons, the length of the day, the time spent working there and how this fits in with the other events of the day. The intention of the proposal is to articulate this context more explicitly.

The calendar consists of a mechanism attached to a simple pergola which scratches marks into the lawn. There are two sorts of mark. The first is an abstract representation of the year in terms of the length of daylight each day. The length of daylight is scored to scale into the grass each day. The mechanism is therefore always located at the present time on the present day within its representation of the year. The second sort of mark is made into the ground whenever some activity is recorded on the allotment (the movement of tools within the allotment would be recorded by fixing RF tags to them). The mark is made at the appropriate place in the calendar for the appropriate amount of time - and therefore of the appropriate length. The mark making would be proportional to the vigor of the activity on the allotment - digging it over creating a deeper mark than doing some watering. This records the activities on the allotment within the context of the seasons and the length of the day. Because the mark making of the calendar occurs simultaneously with the activity on the allotment the link would be clearly discernable.

Over several years the calendar would generate a palimpsest as older marks fade and new ones are made. Perhaps patterns would emerge, perhaps not; either way the recorded event is placed within the context not just of time, seasons and daylight but also of similar events.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/AllotmentCallendar2007#

see also: 'Communication in Design, Communication in Architecture: A Project for an Allotment Calendar' in Communicating (by) Design, Proceedings of the colloquim 'Communicating (by) Design' at Sint-Lucas Brussels from 15th-17th April 2009. Chalmers University of Technology & School of Architecture Sint-Lucas, pp. 539-543, 2009.

unitled [2007]

This is really a set of drawings rather than a project. The drawings are set on the kitchen table of the house I was living in at the time and so this can be seen as a precurser to the later toast rack project. The drawings are for everyday kitchen items although I still remain undeclared about what exactly each one is. The project was much more about drawing itself and as such a continuation of my earlier, and also rather ambiguous, MArch project.

I was developing an attitude to the resolution of form in a drawing where this was contingent (i.e. where it could equally well be resolved in various different ways). My intention was to try to retain this contingency within the final appearance of the object - to make it look like it could have equally been different. My method was to sketch many different possible versions of the same thing over the top of each other and to then choose between these, mixing and matching together from different versions, at the last possible moment with the use of layers of hatching. I find this set of drawings interesting because in their unresolved state they display this process.

drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/Untitled2007#