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Urban

Part 1 Project 2014
Zuzana Sojkova
 University of Kent | UK
The brief for my Urban final design project was to make an architectural proposal for a School of Music and Fine Art in Rochester, England, consisting of a variety of building types including a concert hall, library, gallery, café, offices, seminar rooms, workshops, music practice rooms, student accommodation, as well as open public space.

The site between its cathedral and Norman castle, on the lines of a Roman camp, was treated as a place of transition with heavy vehicular traffic rather than a historically important space. A mixture of various issues provided a recipe for a challenging and exciting project proposing an improvement not only for its inhabitants but also for tourists and literature enthusiasts, who seek to visit this town due to its association with Charles Dickens.

The development attempts to conceptually bring together Rochester´s historical and industrial side. The masterplan is derived from an analysis of sieges of the adjacent Norman castle with a building form representing different warfare strategies. Together with an incorporation of a former Roman wall, it thus serves an educational purpose and tries to find new modern ways of using historically important architectural elements. It engages the landscape by reintroducing water into a former castle ditch and honours the past by enhancing the perception of the existing historical monuments. Shipbuilding and nearby dockyards provide a precedent for rainwater collection, water level control mechanisms, wastewater treatment and for music practice rooms positioned on moveable platforms. The choice of materials such as weathering steel, glass and concrete also reflects area’s industrial heritage.

The whole composition is according to futurist principles seen as an organism, constantly in motion, intertwined with a number of circulation routes and interconnected through its insides. The site can be therefore discovered without the danger of being soaked by English rain. It attempts to abolish the importance of façade and provides a viewing tower and walk-on roofs enabling people to appreciate Rochester from a different perspective, as a whole composed of a myriad of architectural and natural fragments. Every part plays its practical and aesthetic role.

Tutor(s)
2014
Demonstration of the concept derived from the warfare strategies. Fire - circular architectural form of seminar rooms and the use of red glass. Crossbow bolts - slender rectangular student flats hanging from the replica of a former Roman wall pointing to
Traffic diversion and external/internal circulation.
Basement floor plan.
Ground floor plan.
First floor plan.
Second floor plan.
Third, fourth and fifth floor plan.
View from the site entry. Library partly reflects the cathedral, the shape of the viewing tower points towards the castle. Perennial plants are used throughout the site to enhance sustainability and atmospheric quality all year round.
Onsite wastewater treatment, water level control and the employment of experimental structural glass. Water is reintroduced in the place of a former castle ditch. Water surface enhances the environment aesthetically and incorporates mechanisms for wastewa
Masterplan derived from a castle geometry, circular and angular shapes alternate. This division was emphasized when a square tower was destroyed during a siege and replaced with a circular one that could better deflect the missiles. Plans of the student
View of a director´s flat, student accommodation units, offices ,seminar rooms and music practice rooms. Due to the influence of Futurism both on design and graphic representation, the man in a hat is a young Sant´Elia appreciating the development.
Student flats are constructed in pairs to balance each other when seemingly hanging from the wall. The concrete floor slab is thus thickened in the middle and anchored in the wall with steel supports. Each flat is spread across three floors and accessed f
Construction details and an isometric drawing with colour-coded music practice rooms, recording studios and light wells with workshops in between. Music practice rooms are positioned on moveable platforms thanks to which a student can adjust the level of
Photos of the model made out of balsa wood and concept sketches.
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