Shanty village in India (left), and shanty project in Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, Scotland, (right).
Hola, me llamo Scott. Soy estudiante de arquitectura en Escocia en la universidad de Aberdeen, (Scott Sutherland School of Architecture). Llevo cuatro años estudiando en la Universidad, pero ahora estoy en La Coruña realizando un año de prácticas.
Our introduction to architecture in Scotland is to construct a building of our own. The project is to build a small shelter on a limited budget (€80) in groups of 6 students in the grounds of the university. With such a small budget it is necessary to obtain most of the construction materials from our surroundings. The brief for the building is to be something like the shanties or favelas seen in the developing world – homes that are made from natural materials or rubbish that is close to hand, as their occupants have little or no money to buy materials. We therefore have to use items that we can find in the university campus, which is set in a forest on the banks of a river outside the city centre. As such the homes end up being made from tree branches, plastic sheets, plywood and even an old boat sail. The project is intended to teach students about the elemental principles of architecture; shelter and security from the natural environment, principally the weather. It is also the first time that most students make something of a scale to accommodate people and work with basic construction and structure. The assessment of how successful the finished building is, is based on whether we are able to sleep for one November night in the shelter with only a sleeping bag.
My group’s project in the photograph above passed this test. We were able to fit all 6 people and remained dry for the night. It also remained quite warm as the heat generated by the people inside was retained by two layers of plastic that made an air pocket for insulation.
If you have any questions about our project, I will be happy to answer them.
I think that is a great way to introduce students to architecture, because it helps you to understand better what architecture is. And it also helps you to have your own architectural biography, which is very important for us, as J. R. Alonso said in the first class. Thank you for your collaboration.
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ResponderEliminarI remember when i was 13 years old, my friends and I built a shanty on a pine forest near my village. Our budget was 0€.
ResponderEliminarWe used some pines as pillars and shelter limit. We built the structure with branches and we covered walls and roof with cytisus scoparius, an abundat plant in my village.
Inside, cardboards lined the floor and halfwall to shelter from Ourense's cold.
I remind it now, and it was my first contact with architecture.
I would like to ask you about the constrution process, What did you to do in first time, to collet materials or to desing shanty?
We started with trying to come up with a design as a group, but quickly realised that the form of the structure was going to be decided by the materials we could gather. With a forest being our surroundings we could only get natural materials to make a structure. So the design process was actually trying to fit a selection of irregular tree branches into a stable arrangement. Really it became more like a puzzle than architectural design.
ResponderEliminarI think that would by my greatest criticism of this project as it introduces students to architecture in a way that is not design led. So really it could be said that the lesson of improvisation over planned design is not suitable for student architects at all.
However, I do feel that overall it was a positive way to start an education in architecture. This project, combined with a lesson on drawing a 1:1 scale version of the Vetruvian man, makes working with the human scale the centre of our studies. After staying a night in one of these it also gives you first hand experience of why the insulating and waterproofing of a building is so important!
Do you think, that this first architectural task can be analyzed in terms that we study in Introduction to Architecture? In terms of “utilitas”, “firmitas” and “venustas”, in terms of geometry, in terms of Order, in terms" of architectural type ", in project terms…
ResponderEliminarWhat do you think about this?
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