RAAD Zine Issue #1 (Mark David Flynn's Portfolio)

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Mark David Flynn's Portfolio of work with RAAD in zine format.

Transcript of RAAD Zine Issue #1 (Mark David Flynn's Portfolio)

Page 1: RAAD Zine Issue #1 (Mark David Flynn's Portfolio)

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My name is Mark David Flynn.

I’m a recent graduate of the Liverpool School of Art & Design where I received my Master’s Degree in Architecture last summer.

I was awarded the Deutsche Bank Award in Architecture 2013 & founded RAAD - a Liverpool-based architecture and urban design collective that promotes the use of under-used spaces in the city through temporary pop-up architecture, exhibitions and events.

This zine is a portfolio of my work I’ve undertaken with RAAD - along with a collection of articles and interviews I’ve written about things or people that interest me.

Thanks for reading.

@markdavidflynn@raadcollective

[email protected]

contents

pop-up cinema 03-04A temporary installation at the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology.

CAPITAL & (EC)CENTRIC 05-06A series of low-cost temporary interventions occupying the spaces in and around a vacant 1960’s Brutalist office block for developers Capital and Centric.

from the ground up 07-08An urban design proposal and pop-up exhibition in a local pocket park, Manchester.

oh.no.sumo! 09-12An interview with New Zealand-based experimental design collective Oh.No.Sumo!

street party 13-14A participatory workshop at the Bluecoat inspired by the terraced street communities of the past.

URBAN POOL PARTY 15-16An article exploring skateboarding as a critique of architecture & the city.

hidden liverpool 17-18A pop-up exhibition collecting memories of Liverpool’s empty buildings to create a vision for their future.

FUTURE CITY 19-20A pop-up exhibition exploring ideas on re-using the city’s empty buildings by local students & the public.

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HELLO.

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pop-up cinemaA pop-up cinema and exhibition space that occupied the under-used ground floor space of the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool.

The project was commissioned by FACT for the Abandon Normal Devices Festival - and later Tenantspin exhibition - for a two week exposition of performances, debates, live events and independent filmmaking.

The installation consisted of 6 CNC-cut wooden panels with draped black curtains, whilst 96 plastic crates were fixed and secured together with colourful ratchet straps to provide staggered seating for 24 people. The movable structure was designed to allow for a number of different configurations; providing flexible spaces for the various programmatic requirements of both events.

An additional roof structure allows for future use as an small outdoor exhibition space in the public square outside the building.

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CAPITAL & (EC)CENTRICA series of low-cost temporary interventions occupying the spaces in and around Churchill House (a vacant 1960’s Brutalist office block) for developers Capital and Centric.

Interventions included a giant playable noughts & crosses game with pink vinyl supergraphics and moveable cardboard pieces - whilst the ground floor spaces were occupied by table tennis tables and swings. The site was de-weeded, existing signage painted pink and hanging flower baskets introduced. The project temporarily reactivated the site before major redevelopment works were undertaken - aiming to draw attention to the lack of civic space for office workers in the surrounding commercial district.

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FROM THE GROUND UP

A series of Situationist architectural interventions into the vacant and under-used spaces of Eccles, Greater Manchester. The proposal consisted of a complex network of artworks, projects, events, interventions, happenings, small gestures, and spectacular intrusions over time, and culminated in a series of meetings with the local community and a pop-up architectural intervention in a local pocket park; showcasing the schemes concepts to the local community.

50 reclaimed wooden pallets were used to form a temporary space with walls and stacked seating in which the local community could provide feedback on the proposals and participate in the design process.

Winner of the Highly Commended Award for Architecture and Interior Design (Creative Conscience Award 2013)

View the short film of the event here - tinyurl.com/fromthegroundupshortfilm

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oh.no.sumo!I spoke to Sarosh Mulla of New Zealand-based experimental design collective Oh.No.Sumo about their architectural interventions into public spaces.

RAAD | You talk about being provocateurs and place makers within the city; What has led you to take the route of a design collective as opposed to a traditional architecture practice?

Sarosh Mulla | We all work in traditional architecture practices as well as within the design collective, but there is substantial freedom in being ‘outsiders’ in that sense. The collective allows us a degree of design freedom which is not always available within the profession. In some ways it is harder than professional practice as you have to conjure your designs from very little, often in the wee hours of the morning. It is as such a format within which experimentation is not only accepted, but demanded.

RAAD | Who and what would you say are your philosophies and inspirations?

SM | We all have different design outlooks and heroes. This means that there is constant debate and discussion around the appropriate solution to a problem. I think what we do come together on is a shared understanding of architecture as more than just the physical space. It is program, experience and activation of latent potential for all of us.

RAAD | What success stories have you had in terms of small scale interventions?

SM | Our installation work has been well received and we’ve been happy to see our students also take up similar approaches. I think really the success of any project is just seeing people use it and enjoy it. Beyond that, we like to feel as though we pushed people to think of their spaces differently.

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‘‘I think really the success of any project

is just seeing people use and enjoy it’’

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RAAD | What difficulties and problems have you faced in realising your projects?

SM | Time, money, stress. All the usual stuff of architecture. It’s all been worth it though. For every problem we’ve had, we’ve always had a moment of luck, or a helpful friend.

RAAD | What importance do you believe small and unexpected interventions have in the urban place?

SM | They act as agitators. Small, quick installations make us think about how we could change the city for the better. These small moves are how big ideas take hold. RAAD | How do you view ‘play’ in both the design process and the end result/use of a design?

SM | Play is a tough concept to design with. For instance, if you design something to be specifically be playful it can often fall short of the target and instead be regarded as twee or disingenuous. For us, instilling ideas of fun, discovery and immersion in the process of design tends to lend to more successful outcomes. In the end, you have to be really enjoy the work yourself. RAAD | How do you believe people should play in the city?

SN | They should be like children. Imagine the spaces as what they might be, not simply what they currently are.

RAAD | Why do you believe it is important for people to engage with architecture?

SM | People have no option but to engage with architecture. It is literally everywhere people are. So we feel it is up to designers to push for an engagement which im-proves their lives, which makes them happy and which encourages them to demand more from their public spaces.

You can find out more about Oh.No.Sumo and their work by visiting ohnosumo.com.

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‘‘THESE SMALL MOVES ARE HOW BIG IDEAS TAKE HOLD’’

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street partyA temporary exhibition and participatory workshop at the Bluecoat inspired by the street parties of the past. Visitors to the space were invited to use reclaimed materials to model and discuss themes relating to the ‘Tower and the Terrace’ - and record their comments and feedback on the bunting.

View the short film of the event here - tinyurl.com/streetpartyshortfilm

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URBAN POOL PARTYAn exploration into skateboarding as a critique of architecture & the city.

Skateboarding is perhaps an unusual object for study in regards to architecture and urban design - yet it is an act that through engaging directly with its everyday spaces, simultaneously offers both a critique of the capitalistic spaces of the city - and searches for new possibilities of representing, imagining and experiencing them; skateboarding has a deep appreciation and understand-ing of architecture, regardless of how unconventional or subversive it may be.

The act of skateboarding has always been about the reclamation of urban space - skateboarders implicitly realize the importance of the streets and neglected architecture as a place to act - using the forgotten, abandoned and generally discarded spaces of the city. Emerging from the beach cities of Califor-nia - spaces of the city were re-appropriated; emulating surf moves on the hard surfaces of the city re-imagined as a concrete wave. Acting without license, authority or permission, spontaneous ‘urban pool parties’ were held - occupying abandoned and drained backyard swimming pools - exploiting the ambiguity of the ownership and function of public spaces and redefining them. It is this notion of the ‘urban pool party’ that offers a model for spatial appropriation for architects, urban designers, town planners and urban dwellers - promoting active participation through direct action. Skateboarders are among the most social and spatially aggressive group to reclaim the city for their own appropriation - giving new use to to forgotten spaces. Applied to architecture, public spaces must be reclaimed, urban spaces of the city re-appropriated for new uses and vacant areas reactivated as contemporary urban pool parties - spaces for the flow of ideas, events, activities and temporary architectural situations - to explore building and spaces of the city not as a clearly defined and fixed product or an object - but as the production of emotions, actions, effort and play.

The most notable and successful example of this can be found at the Southbank Undercroft, London. Occupied by skaters in the early 1970‘s it is now an extraordinary collision of Brutalist architecture and splashes of colour - its juxtapositions creating an amazing lived-in architecture. Its walkways and ground-level spaces appropriated by skaters provided exactly the eruption of creativity that the area needed for its re-activation - creating a vibrant, festival-like ambience and a thriving artistic community and a public space which is a free experience for both those watching and undertaking, and free of the constraints of profit or commercial gain. Recently, plans to extend the adjacent Southbank Centre at the expense of the undercroft were met with over 60,000 signatures in the form of an online petition from the #longlivesouthbank campaign - stalling the proposed development; a community having a say and active participation in their public space - preventing its redevelopment into generic commodified retail spaces. Similarly the New Bird skatepark in Liverpool - which began as a DIY project by local skateboarders - with support from the local skate shop Lost Art - is now surrounded by the creative spaces of the Baltic Creative.

The act of skateboarding in itself is the embodiment of the Situationist idea of ludic play - it rejects capitalism and the pre-determined uses of urban space through itseveryday practice. It involves great effort, but produces no commodity ready for exchange. It is highly visual, but refutes the reduction of activity solely to the spectacle of the image. It allows a person to assume the position of a creative adaptive user of a space, rather than a compelled consumer - providing newand distinctive uses - through play and creativity - other than the original function of the space

It is through these ideals of skateboarding and skate culture, that when applied to architecture and urban design - can present new ways of design thinking for the future city; reconsidering conventional conceptions of urban space. Thus just as the practice of skateboarding began in the beach cities of California - we are reminded through it that the urban spaces are a playground - carved out of the city as a kind of continuous reaffirmation of one of the central notions of the 1968 Paris pro-tests and revolts - that ‘au dessous les paves, la plage’ – beneath the pavement, lies the beach.

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hidden liverpoolI was employed on a part-time basis by social enterprise PLACED for the design and build of their Heritage Lottery Funded ‘Hidden Liverpool’ pop-up exhibition at the Al-bert Dock in April 2014. Hidden Liverpool is a year-long project which aims to unlock the memories of Liverpool’s empty buildings to create a vision for their future.

Quote from the Guardian article featuring the exhibition

The entrance space consisted of a fake facade vinyl supergraphic - whilst inside, 20 leaning wooden boards displayed information about each building; of which visitors could add to, or add their own stories and memories using post-it notes or comment cards; attached to string above each board with wooden pegs. 40 cardboard boxes with vinyl lettering were stacked to create a 3D representation of the buildings exhibited.

Reclaimed furniture was used to form an events and social space - which held a series of workshops over the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition had over 2000 visitors, was featured in both local and national press, and was attended by Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson.

You can view the Guardian article featuring theexhibition here - tinyurl.com/exhibitionguardianarticle

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‘‘each building has a peculiar Liverpool

twist... Ideas are a big currency here’’

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