U7 Term 2 Crit

U7 Term 2 Crit

Presenting work in progress for Project 2 | Short Stay.

Date | Tuesday 01 April 2014

Location | Wates House Room 1.01 

Time | 10am

Guests |

Adam Atraktzi | Davis Miller Architects

Matthew Butcher | Post-Works | BSc Programme Leader | Unit 12 

Mollie Claypool | BSc Programme Leader | Unit 19 

Dr Nick Dunn | Professor of Urban Design | Imagination Lancaster

Kate Davies |  Liquid Factory | Unit 23 | AA Diploma Unit 6 

Dr Guan Lee | Grymsdyke Farm | Unit ADS6 RCA | 

Luis Fernandez | Chris Matthews | Atelier One Engineers

Bob Sheil | Head of Dept | Professor in Architecture and Design Through Production

Ensamble Studio's Concrete Cavity Accommodation

This project involves a technique of casting called lost-mould casting. It involves casting around an object and then removing the object to achieve an internal space within solid casting material.

The beauty of this project is that the objects to be lost in this cast are hay-bales and the method of removing such hay is to allow a single cow (over the span of it's lifetime) to eat away at them it is satisfied to move on.

This video documents the process and the resulting accommodation that they were able to produce from the resulting spacial cavity. They cut two flat openings in the casted boulder-like form and fully furnished it with a bed, running water, a fire place and large window glazing.

Adrian Forty wrote that: "Concrete is not a material, it is a process. As well as the ingredients of water, cement, reinforcement and sand, it contains the essential ingredient of human labour". Ensamble Studio have used the ingredient of a cow's appetite as a construction solution.

The process of lost-mould casting isn't limited to concrete, it can be a solution for any material use which requires the shaping of one material upon and around another that is to be removed.