Bartlett Design Research Folios
Smout Allen Infractus
BARTLETT DESIGN RESEARCH FOLIOS
Smout Allen Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens
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CONTENTS
1 (previous) Set of blocks showing detail point cloud. 2 A World of Fragile Parts, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, 2016.
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Project Details
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Statement about the Research Content and Process
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Introduction
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Aims and Objectives
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Questions
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Context
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Methodology
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Dissemination
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Project Highlights
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Bibliography
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Related Publications
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Project Details Title
Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens
Authors
Laura Allen and Mark Smout
Output Type
Design and exhibition
Exhibition A World of Fragile Parts, Applied Arts Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition (28 May to 27 November 2016) Co-exhibitors Morehshin Allahyari, Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles, Andreas Angelidakis, Factum Arte, Forensic Architecture, David Gissen, Rekrei, Sam Jacob Studio, Scan the World, The Institute for Digital Archaeology, Zamani Project, #NEWPALMYRA Commissioning Body / Client
Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and La Biennale di Venezia
Selection Committee
Bill Sherman, Director of Research and Collections, V&A
Curator
Brendan Cormier, Senior Design Curator, V&A
Collaborators and Consultants
ScanLAB Projects
Budget
£16,000
3 Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens.
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PROJECT DETAILS
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Statement about the Research Content and Process Description
Methodology
Infractus is a design and exhibition piece consisting of six laser-etched crystal models capturing moments in the life of the post-war housing estate Robin Hood Gardens prior to its demolition in 2019. The project was commissioned by the V&A for A World of Fragile Parts – a re-examination of Henry Cole’s 1867 Convention for Promoting Universal Reproductions of Works of Art – at La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition (2016). Infractus took an innovative and critical approach to recording and re-presenting architectural elements, using LiDAR scanning and laser-etching techniques.
1. Research into the V&A Cast Courts collection and nineteenth-century copying and reproduction techniques; research into contemporary digital copying and reproduction techniques; 2. Site recording by LiDAR and photographic techniques; 3. 3D printing and the use of crystal laser etching.
Dissemination
Exhibited at A World of Fragile Parts, Applied Arts Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition (2016). Featured in the Italian/English exhibition catalogue of the same name (Cormier and Thom 2016). Selected and discussed by David Bickle, Director of Design, Exhibitions & Future Plan at the V&A, as his ‘favourite object’ of the exhibition (Bickle 2016). Presented by Smout Allen at the lecture series ‘Kitchen Conversations London: On Destruction and Preservation in Creative Process’, The Wapping Project and The Future Laboratory (2017).
Questions
1. What are the limits and potentials of digital processes as records of built cultural heritage? 2. How can digital tools contribute to and extend existing techniques of preservation and reproduction in museum environments? 3. What alternative creative and constructive approaches might be taken to digital copying? How might these perpetuate material culture for public audiences, now and in the future?
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STATEMENT ABOUT THE RESEARCH CONTENT AND PROCESS
Project Highlights
The work was a commission for the first Special Projects, Applied Arts Pavilion, a collaboration between the V&A and La Biennale di Venezia. Taking as its starting point the 150th anniversary of the V&A’s foundational Convention for Promoting Universally Reproductions of Works of Art for the Benefit of Museums of all Countries, this international exhibition was an ambitious effort to consider the implications of digital technologies for cultural heritage. The debates it initiated resulted in the V&A’s major initiative, The Reproduction of Art and Cultural Heritage (ReACH), launched at UNESCO in 2017. ReACH sets out to create guidelines for how to reproduce, store and share works of art and culture heritage today. This culminated in the ReACH Declaration on 8 December 2017 (V&A 2017). While A World of Fragile Parts was generally important, Infractus also proved to be specifically significant for the V&A as an institution: its highlighting of the imminent demolition of Robin Hood Gardens set the museum on a path of travel that led it to acquire a threestorey section of the estate for preservation purposes. This was then exhibited at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in 2018.
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Introduction A World of Fragile Parts explored threats facing global heritage sites and how the production of copies can aid in the preservation of cultural artefacts by engaging the long curatorial history of casts, copies and replicas. Its central focus was the ‘copy’: the first section surveyed the history of art and architectural copies with a display of plaster casts and related objects from the V&A’s Cast Courts; and the second presented a ‘twenty-first century cast court’ consisting of objects that used digital technologies for heritage copying. 13 contemporary practitioners were invited to take part in this reimagined cast court, including Smout Allen. The exhibition’s motivating question was: What is the role and function of digital copies today? The historical survey established that the Cast Court collections were intended for educational or exhibition purposes, not in the main to preserve. The plaster copy was the nineteenth century’s ‘mass-medium for dissemination’, exchanged amongst cultural institutions for the improvement of knowledge, and largely untroubled by the questions of authenticity that influence our contemporary appreciation of replica objects (Lending 2018). Yet, over time, the value of the V&A’s copies has shifted as many plaster casts have outlived their originals: the best known example is the full-scale brick and plaster replica of Trajan’s Column (1864), which is now more ‘perfect’ than its Roman original (AD 107–113) that has been severely degraded due to acid rain wash erosion (V&A 2017). Thus, the V&A copies now act as critical backups for their historical originals and are important for preservation efforts.
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4 Erecting the cast of Trajan’s Column, c.1873. 5 Robin Hood Gardens, 1972. The central communal garden showing the large mound built on rubble from the demolished Victorian terraces that the estate replaced. 6 Robin Hood Gardens, 1972. ‘Streets in the sky’.
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Digital technologies, such as ultra hi-resolution imagery, digital scanning, 3D printing and virtual reality are the contemporary processes used in the recording and reproduction of artefacts, paralleling the use of plaster casting, electroplating and photography in the 1850s. These new techniques allow for more detailed recording and analysis of in-situ objects, which thanks to advances in technology and connectivity can then be circulated through digital databases. Rather than being displaced to the museum gallery, digital copies can now be ‘dematerialised’ to the hard drive, prompting the question that underlay the twenty-first-century cast court: What are the alternative futures for the museum and its immaterial artefacts? As the curator of the exhibition – the V&A’s Brendan Cormier – made clear, the intention of this section was to go beyond preservation to explore how digital copies can perpetuate material culture and add an additional dimension to its understanding (Cormier and Thom 2016, p. 21). Smout Allen’s contribution, Infractus: the Taking of Robin Hood Gardens, used LiDAR scan data to record architectural elements of Robin Hood Gardens (RHG), a housing estate designed in 1972 by Alison and Peter Smithson in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. When we came to the site, it was in a precarious state of dereliction and semiabandonment. Rather than attempting to create a pristine record of RHG’s architecture, we instead scanned six places where traces of inhabitants’ lives were visible or vandalism and decay was evident (the title, Infractus, is taken from the Latin meaning ‘broken, weakened or impaired’). The data was then given form using 3D crystal laser etching to create six sets of four glass blocks. Each set rematerialises one point-cloud 3D image.
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7 LiDAR scanner and tripod recording in an abandoned kitchen at Robin Hood Gardens.
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INTRODUCTION
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8 LiDAR scan of a kitchen in the abandoned east block.
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In order to gather photographic and scan material, we obtained access to deserted flats in both the east and west wings of RHG, which had been stripped of any fittings worthy of salvage. Working with what remained, we sought out three types of place for scanning: first, places that spoke to neglect in the management and maintenance of the site: broken windows, peeling paint, security grills and secondary glazing; second, architectural details that the Smithson’s believed would create community and belonging, testifying to the initial optimism of the design, such as kitchens overlooking the central communal garden or windows on street decks (‘streets in the sky’); and third, traces of the lives of RHG’s (often unwillingly) evicted inhabitants: fixtures and fittings such as kitchen tiles, net curtains, carpets, soft toys and DIY repairs. These scanned moments were then rematerialised in six laser-etched crystal models – a process normally used for the creation of cheap mass-produced souvenirs. This medium was chosen for historical reasons – tipping our hat to the plaster cast souvenirs popular in the nineteenth century – as well as to acknowledge that an act of material translation had taken place. In the movement from the Brutalist concrete of RHG to the more delicate reproduction, the imperfections and fragility of the digital copy itself are highlighted. Other exhibitors in A World of Fragile Parts included Sam Jacob Studio, who created a full-sized replica of a refugee shelter from the Calais Jungle; The Institute for Digital Archaeology, who recreated the Palmyra Arch of Triumph, which was destroyed by Islamic State in 2015; and Forensic Architecture and their Bomb Cloud Atlas that modelled and 3D printed four plume clouds from various Middle Eastern conflicts. Taken together, the artists and architects who contributed to
the twenty-first-century cast court did not provide any singular perspective on preservation. Rather, they opened up critical questions about the role and potential of digital copying in a world in which material and cultural heritage is under increasing threat, whether through war, climate change or market-led demolitions.
9 A World of Fragile Parts, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, 2016.
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10–2 (overleaf) Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens.
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INTRODUCTION
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Aims and Objectives
Questions
The research examines the value of 3D copying and fabrication as a strategy for historic preservation and cultural perpetuation. Its aims and objectives were:
1. What are the limits and potentials of digital processes as records of built cultural heritage?
In 2008, Margaret Hodge – Minister for Culture and Tourism and MP for Barking – notoriously refused to list Robin Hood Gardens, instead agreeing with English Heritage (now Historic England) that it was unfit for purpose. Significantly, she also stated that providing a 3D scan of the building would compensate for its demolition:
1. To respond critically to suggestions that architecture and cultural artefacts can be preserved digitally rather than physically; 2. To capture and record Robin Hood Gardens before demolition and re-present it as an artefact in a museum environment;
When some concrete monstrosity – sorry, I mean modernist masterpiece – fails to make the cut despite having expert opinion behind it, let’s find a third way. This is the twenty-first century – a perfect digital image of the building, inside and out, could be retained forever (Hodge 2008).
3. To research the use of digital recording and printing methods as creative alternatives to traditional tools and materials for preservation and conservation in museum environments.
Hodge’s comment was deeply problematic as if 3D scanning ‘solves’ all the issues raised by the destruction of the object, denying the building’s history and its experiential qualities: ‘few models can deal with the peripheral, never mind the multi-sensory experience of being there, and never mind the multi-layered historical weight of a place or space’ (Hill 2008). It was the trigger for Infractus, which sought to expose the limits of the perfect digital copy and challenge the ‘scan and destroy’ mentality. There was no existing digital record of RHG. By the time we recorded it the eastern wing was deserted, stripped out by salvage companies. A ‘perfect digital image’ was thus not possible, even if that had been our intention. Moreover, Infractus was not an attempt to scan the whole estate as per Hodge’s remarks; instead, six moments or episodes were selected in order to re-present particular narratives in the building’s life, including that of its decline and
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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES / QUESTIONS
3. What alternative creative and constructive approaches might be taken to digital copying? How might these perpetuate material culture for public audiences, now and in the future?
neglect. Lastly, re-presenting these moments in glass and 3D etching – an extremely delicate process – highlighted the imperfections and fragility of the digital copy itself, which contrary to Hodge’s assertion that it is ‘perfect’ and ‘forever’ is also subject to error, breakage, obsolescence and decay.
Infractus’ specific approach to creatively engaging with the copy, and audience, was twofold. As detailed above, the scan itself was never intended to provide a perfect or complete copy of the estate, and the rematerialisation of the scans intentionally exposed their partial and fragile nature. While materially satisfying objects in their own right, the delicate glass-etched blocks never pretended to be ‘exact’ copies of RHG, any more than the V&A’s cast of Trajan’s Column exactly emulates stone. With copying, a material translation always occurs, as the original is rendered in another material – usually a fine material translated into a lessexpensive one. We suggest that this translation – the rendering of one material into another – can open up a productive space for reflecting on the original and its evolving meanings. Moreover, just as the Victorians saw value in copies, we treated the artefacts we created from scans as legitimate objects, with distinct auras, materialities and qualities that can independently interest, educate and provide pleasure for audiences. We provided flashlights so that visitors could play light over the glass blocks, picking out and bringing their etched details to life.
2. How can digital tools contribute to and extend existing techniques of preservation and reproduction in museum environments?
There is no doubting the value of new digital copying techniques at a time when so much of our global cultural heritage is under threat; the production of a ‘digital twin’ is now an important and accepted element of surveying restoration. Yet, the contention of Infractus – and of the larger exhibition – is that preservation need not be replication; it can also be a creative act. Through the retelling of history for museum audiences, copies can communicate cultural narratives from their moment of preservation. As Brendan Cormier notes, copies are tools for cultural perpetuation that encourage ‘layering, interpretation and an on-going dialogue about objects rather than a singular representation that has to be preserved forever’ (Cormier 2018). Infractus enacted such a dialogue by preserving not only architectural details but those that registered the passage of time, use and neglect, insisting that these moments be seen as integral to the estate’s history and any future retellings.
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Context Infractus was a response to the high-profile campaign to save Robin Hood Gardens from demolition. An outline planning application submitted in January 2012 revealed the widescale Blackwall Reach Regeneration plan, replacing RHG’s 213 council flats with up to 1,575 less-spacious new homes and transferring much of the housing stock from public to private ownership. RHG’s 213 flats were contained in two cranked ten- and seven-storey walls, which ran parallel to the A102 on its approach to the Blackwall Tunnel. The estate was an exemplar of New Brutalism, an aesthetic and architectural philosophy associated with socialist utopian ideologies, and was seen by many in the architectural community as one of the finest examples of twentiethcentury mass social housing. It was, however, considered by the council to be a flawed scheme, a reflection of misplaced utopian ambitions and compromised social ideals. The Smithsons redesigned aspects of the traditional tower block, believing they could exploit the low cost and simplicity of mass-produced materials and pre-fabricated components to provide what they hoped would be a model for future living. The flats benefitted from innovative dual-aspect layouts that exceeded the Parker Morris mandatory space requirements of the time. To recreate the neighbourliness of terraced streets, they created elevated and wideaccess decks to enable street life and facilitate social encounters. The ideal ‘streets-in-the-sky’ concept was not achieved, however, with the decks being built narrower than planned due to budgetary constraints, which also blighted other aspects of the architectural vision.
13 Sketch by Peter Smithson, 1968. Dimensions for a group, illustrating early thinking for the organisation of the public housing estates.
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14 (overleaf) Robin Hood Gardens, eastern wing. The two walls of housing are designed as defensive enclosures, acting as acoustic baffles to traffic noise and enveloping a communal green space. Originally conceived as a poetic abstraction of the English landscape, this green space featured two grassy hills, one large and one small, containing buried rubble from the demolished bombdamaged Victorian terraces on which they were built.
CONTEXT
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Indeed, RHG was branded a failure soon after its opening. The flats became depositories for the socially neglected. Overcrowded, vandalised by residents and deprived of attention by the council, the architecture soon degraded; progressive deterioration caused by pollution allowed steel reinforcing to rust through crumbling concrete, windows were smashed and burnt-out cars were dumped on the hill. Vandalism was seen as a key indicator of resident dissatisfaction with the living conditions. After years of threats of demolition and subsequent campaigns for heritage listing by The Twentieth Century Society, Building Design magazine and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), the architectural community rallied to offer testimony to RHG’s significance. Richard Rogers – who compared the estate to Bath’s Royal Crescent – described the scheme as Britain’s most important post-war social housing development, while Zaha Hadid declared it her favourite building in London. As mentioned previously, our project responds to a significant moment in the estate’s fight for survival: Margaret Hodge’s decisive refusal to list the estate and suggestion that it could be digitally scanned instead. RHG was eventually demolished in 2019. Before this, however, and a year after A World of Fragile Parts, the V&A acquired a three-storey section of the garden and street-facing façade, including the complete repeating pattern of prefabricated concrete of a section of the ‘streets in the sky’ and two maisonette flats with their interior fittings. A section of the salvaged structure was then exhibited in Robin Hood Gardens: A Ruin in Reverse at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in 2018, continuing the dialogue the V&A began with the estate when it commissioned Infractus. On this occasion,
the structure was accompanied by Do Ho Suh’s digital scanning and photogrammetry, which allowed visitors to move along the walkways through the building, depicting and revealing individual lives in domestic interiors.
15 Signs of dereliction in the estate, some of which were captured in our scans. 16 A salvaged fragment of Robin Hood Gardens purchased by the V&A and exhibited at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition 2018.
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17 Doh Ho Suh’s commissioned film of the estate uses timelapse photography, 3D scanning and photogrammetry to move vertically and horizontally through the building.
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18 The demolition of the estate from 2017 to 2019 was described as a failure by Historic England to not list significant examples of the UK post-war housing programme.
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Methodology 1. Research into the V&A Cast Courts collection and nineteenth-century copying and reproduction techniques; research into contemporary digital copying and reproduction techniques
This project began by thoroughly researching contemporary methodologies for recording and site-surveying, such as triangulation, photography and digital photogrammetry. Similar research was undertaken into modes of artefact production from mould-making and plaster casting methods of artefact production, both historical and contemporary. Technologies suitable for Infractus were ultimately chosen in conversation with the exhibition curators of A World of Fragile Parts and ScanLAB Projects who have unparalleled expertise in scanning material artefacts and buildings and reproducing them on web platforms and in immersive installations and objects.
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19 Casting marks resulting from the use of multiple moulds are visible in many artefacts in the V&A Cast Courts, such as this bust of Piero di Cosimo de’Medici 1453 (sculpted) 1899 (cast).
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METHODOLOGY
2. Site recording by LiDAR and photographic techniques
the Smithson’s design reflects the laser perfectly, but broken glass blocks and the gloss surface of lift shafts give slightly mistaken measurements and noisy data. These
Selected fragments of Robin Hood Gardens were captured using terrestrial, long-medium range, 3D-laser pulse-based scanning, using the FARO Focus3D X330, which scans 360 degrees at a distance of 0.6 to 330 m. The choice of scanner was determined by the dimensions of the site and spaces, as well as by access time to the site. LiDAR scanning is by now a familiar tool for surveying built cultural heritage and is used widely in the field of archaeology and preservation to provide documentary records of vulnerable and inaccessible sites. It is a critical tool in non-contact documentation of cultural heritage, allowing for high-resolution 3D recordings of landscapes, monuments and artefacts (Factum Arte 2013). Laser scanning produces millions of accurately measured points in the X, Y and Z axis, representing the surface of the scanned object. This point cloud of raw data can be converted to CAD and other imaging programs to produce accurate high-definition 3D models with very large data sets. Scanning a space is a relatively simple process that involves placing a terrestrial laser scanner on a tripod. As it rotates, an infra-red laser is bounced off a fast-spinning mirror. The device then records the precise position and distance of each point the laser hits. Each scan contains millions of individually measured points, captured by the scanner as part of a 360-degree sphere of survey information. The resulting high-resolution point-cloud of data is a highly detailed 3D digital model; however, not all surfaces are captured perfectly. The rough-finished concrete of
mismeasurements, normally excluded by rigorous surveying filters, remain embedded. Like maker’s marks, they are telltale signs of a technology that on the one hand captures a meticulous and viable facsimile of the world, while on the other expresses the inherent imperfections of digital precision.
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20–1 Terrestrial LiDAR scanning used in an archaeological setting at Fort Conger, Ellesmere Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This is a key heritage site of pioneering expeditions in the late 1870s and 80s, which is now threatened by climate change and human activity.
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22 Scanning interior and exterior spaces.
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23 Stainless steel lift doors.
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24 A security grill and abandoned soft toy.
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25 A panel of broken glass bricks.
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26 Remnants of a kitchen with exposed plumbing and electrics.
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27 A net curtain folded into secondary glazing.
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28 A triangular window looking out onto the ‘streets in the sky’.
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3. 3D printing and the use of crystal etching
Glass engraving in 330 x 100 x 100 mm blocks was chosen as a method to capture and present the digital data collected from Robin Hood Gardens. Sub-surface laser engraving is used commercially to produce 3D images from 3D point clouds. Two lasers firing thousands of impulses are aimed into the cast glass block. 40 to 80 m fractures are produced where they rectify and create excess heat, each visible as a tiny dot floating in space. Glass with high optical clarity reduces the refractive index, which is important in ensuring the integrity of the image. The printing technology limits the number of points that can be used, as excessive fractures can weaken the glass blocks making them too fragile to exhibit. Indeed, the process required considerable experimentation as many of our test pieces failed, fracturing in the process of their making, and reminding us again of the fragility of the chosen medium.
29–34 (overleaf) Processing the point-cloud data into six sets of four blocks.
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35 Infractus at A World of Fragile Parts, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, 2016. Torches were supplied to light up the point cloud captured in the glass blocks. 36 Detail of laser-etched point cloud.
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Dissemination Exhibition and Publications
Exhibited at A World of Fragile Parts, Applied Arts Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 15th International Architecture Exhibition (2016), which received international press coverage. The project was featured in the Italian/English exhibition catalogue of the same name (Cormier and Thom 2016).
Lecture
· Kitchen Conversations London: On Destruction and Preservation in Creative Process, The Wapping Project and The Future Laboratory (2017)
Media
Selected and discussed by David Bickle, Director of Design, Exhibitions & FuturePlan at the V&A, as his ‘favourite object’ of the exhibition: · David Bickle on Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens (2016). Produced by La Biennale di Venezia and Victoria and Albert Museum. [Viewed 10 December 2020]. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLcCy28DIWw
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DISSEMINATION / PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
Project Highlights The work was a commission for the first Special Projects, Applied Arts Pavilion, a collaboration between the V&A and La Biennale di Venezia. Taking as its starting point the 150th anniversary of the V&A’s foundational Convention for Promoting Universally Reproductions of Works of Art for the Benefit of Museums of all Countries, this international exhibition was an extremely ambitious effort to consider the implications of digital technologies for cultural heritage. The debates it initiated resulted in the V&A’s major initiative, The Reproduction of Art and Cultural Heritage (ReACH), launched at UNESCO in 2017. This set out to create guidelines for how to reproduce, store and share works of art and culture heritage today, culminating in the ReACH Declaration on 8 December 2017 (V&A 2017). While A World of Fragile Parts was generally important, Infractus also proved to be specifically significant for the V&A as an institution: its highlighting of the imminent demolition of Robin Hood Gardens set the museum on a path of travel that led it to acquire a threestorey section of the estate for preservation purposes. This was then exhibited at La Biennale di Venezia, 16th International Architecture Exhibition in 2018.
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Bibliography Bickle, D. (2016). ‘Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens: Smout Allen with ScanLAB Projects, 2016’. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLcCy28DIWw Cormier, B. (2018). Copy Culture: Sharing in the Age of Digital Reproduction. London: V&A Publishing. Cormier, B. and Thom, D. (2016). A World of Fragile Parts. London: V&A Museum. Factum Arte (2013). ‘3D Scanning for Cultural Heritage Conservation’. Factum Arte. [Viewed 7 November 2020]. www.factum-arte.com/pag/701/3DScanning-for-Cultural-HeritageConservation Hill, D. (2008). ‘Robin Hood Gardens is Not the Same as a Digital Model of Robin Hood Gardens’. Medium. 4 March. [Viewed 12 November 2020]. https://medium.com/iamacamera/robinhood-gardens-is-not-the-same-as-adigital-model-of-robin-hood-gardense595790d0948 Hodge, M. (2008). ‘Modern Buildings Must Prove Thier Worth, says Hodge’. Building Design. 26 February. [Viewed 7 November 2020]. www.bdonline.co.uk/opinion/modernbuildings-must-prove-their-worth-sayshodge/3107228.article Lending, M. (2018). Plaster Monuments: Architecture and the Power of Reproduction. Princeton University Press. V&A (2017). ReACH (Reproduction of Art and Cultural Heritage). [Viewed 7 November 2020]. www.vam.ac.uk/research/projects/reachreproduction-of-art-and-culturalheritage#outputs
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BIBLIOGRAPHY / RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Related Publications by the Researchers Allen, L. and Smout, M. (2016). ‘What are the Alternative Futures for the Digital Museum and its Immaterial Artifacts?’. Cormier, B. and Thom, D. eds. A World of Fragile Parts. London: V&A Publishing. pp. 218–9.
Contextual Articles Cormier, B. and Thom, D. eds (2016). ‘Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens’. A World of Fragile Parts. London: V&A Publishing. pp. 186–7. Cormier, B. (2018). Copy Culture: Sharing in the Age of Digital Reproduction. London: V&A Publishing. pp. 1–26. Hill, D. (2008). ‘Robin Hood Gardens is Not the Same as a Digital Model of Robin Hood Gardens’. Medium. 4 March.
Related Writings by Others Biennale Architettura 2016 – International Exhibition (2016). ‘A World of Fragile Parts’. Google Arts & Culture. Cormier, B. (2017). ‘Against a Pile of Ashes’. V&A Blog. 15 June. Gray, M. (2017). ‘Why it’s Time to Talk Seriously about Digital Reproductions’. Apollo Magazine. 15 December. Olesen, K. (2018). ‘From Urban Vision to Museum Piece’. Cairns, G. ed. AMPS Proceedings Series 15: Tangible–Intangible Heritage(s): Design, Social and Cultural Critiques on the Past, Present and the Future. 2. pp. 97–102.
Printed article
Online article (clickable link)
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Image Credits
Bartlett Design Research Folios
All images © Smout Allen, unless otherwise stated.
ISSN 2753-9822
Photo: Richard Stonehouse Isobel Agnes Cowper. V&A Archive, MA/32/29, Guardbook negative 9876. © Victoria and Albert Museum 5–6 © Sandra Lousada/Mary Evans Picture Library 7–8, 29–34 ScanLab Projects 13 The Alison and Peter Smithson Archive. Gift of Smithson Family, 2003. Robin Hood Gardens. Folder BA184. Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. 16 © Victoria and Albert Museum 18 Video © Dezeen www.dezeen.com 20–1 Courtesy of CyArk 1, 3, 10-2, 36
© 2022 The Bartlett School of Architecture. All rights reserved.
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Text © the authors Founder of the series and lead editor: Yeoryia Manolopoulou Edited by Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Barbara Penner, Phoebe Adler Picture researcher: Sarah Bell Additional project management: Srijana Gurung Graphic design: Objectif Layout and typesetting: Siâron Hughes Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the material reproduced in this publication. If there have been any omissions, we will be pleased to make appropriate acknowledgement in revised editions.
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2015 SERIES
Bloom Alisa Andrasek, José Sanchez House of Flags AY Architects Montpelier Community Nursery AY Architects Design for London Peter Bishop 2EmmaToc / Writtle Calling Matthew Butcher, Melissa Appleton River Douglas Bridge DKFS Architects Open Cinema Colin Fournier, Marysia Lewandowska The ActiveHouse Stephen Gage Déjà vu Penelope Haralambidou Urban Collage Christine Hawley
House Refurbishment in Carmena Izaskun Chinchilla Architects Refurbishment of Garcimuñoz Castle Izaskun Chinchilla Architects Gorchakov’s Wish Kreider + O’Leary Video Shakkei Kreider + O’Leary Megaframe Dirk Krolikowski (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) Seasons Through the Looking Glass CJ Lim Agropolis mam
ProtoRobotic FOAMing mam, Grymsdyke Farm, REX|LAB Banyoles Old Town Refurbishment Miàs Architects Torre Baró Apartment Building Miàs Architects Alzheimer’s Respite Centre Níall McLaughlin Architects Bishop Edward King Chapel Níall McLaughlin Architects Block N15 Façade, Olympic Village Níall McLaughlin Architects
Hydrological Infrastructures Smout Allen Lunar Wood Smout Allen Universal Tea Machine Smout Allen British Exploratory Land Archive Smout Allen, Geoff Manaugh 101 Spinning Wardrobe Storp Weber Architects Blind Spot House Storp Weber Architects
Regeneration of Birzeit Historic Centre Palestine Regeneration Team
Green Belt Movement Teaching and Learning Pavilion Patrick Weber
PerFORM Protoarchitecture Lab
Modulating Light and Views Patrick Weber