Armature (design research portfolio)
- Submitting institution
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The University of Kent
- Unit of assessment
- 13 - Architecture, Built Environment and Planning
- Output identifier
- M-0001
- Type
- K - Design
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- July
- Year
- 2018
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Conceived and realised by Ambrose Gillick and Lee Ivett through their practice Baxendale, Armature was the central component of The Happenstance, Scotland’s collateral submission for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018, and took the form of a temporary pavilion in the gardens of the Palazzon Ca’Zenobio in Dorsoduro, Venice. Gillick and Ivett contributed equally to the design and production of this work and Gillick has subsequently spoken and written about it for academic and public audiences.
In response to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara’s (Grafton Architects) Biennale theme of ‘Freespace’, Armature explored the changing identity of Venice, and transformations in the meaning and use of public space. It tested the possibilities of alternative modes of civic engagement through a programmed architectural intervention. This represented a significant refinement of Gillick’s academic research, and Baxendale’s previous work, on the coproduction of architectural space. The installation addressed three principal questions common to this body of work: How can architectural intervention reveal the everyday culture, life and practices of communities of people in Dorsoduro? How might the temporary modification of the Palazzo Ca’Zenobio site invite wider social activity and civic engagement? How might a live-build multi-actor spatial intervention demonstrate a transdisciplinary methodological approach? Armature was constructed of a series of timber towers connected by a timber walkway, producing a narrow but permeable ‘street’, decorated by coloured plywood panels. The structure was built by Gillick and Ivett with assistance and was designed and engineered to enable ‘non-professional’ assembly and disassembly, requiring only rudimentary tools and simple processes in its production, whilst meeting with local building control and engineering requirements. Armature was critically acclaimed, was broadly reviewed in the popular and architectural press, including The Guardian, Dezeen, Metropolis, The Architect’s Journal, The Architectural Review, Disegno and Architectural Digest among others, and received design awards and nominations.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
