Ferne McGregor Architecture

Moving on from the previous project, ‘Megastructures’ shifted from the centre of Digbeth to a section of derelict viaduct on the outskirts of the site. A proposed speculative megastructure framework on the viaduct formed the basis for this project, as each student was tasked with designing a single unit to fit into this framework. The dimensions of these units were small, once again challenging students to design within an even more restricted site. Each student designed for a particular community function of their choice, such as education, leisure, or culture, and for a particular client. They were encouraged to design iteratively, particularly through model making, and for the first time tasked with investigating the structural elements of their design through the production of a 1:20 wall section detail drawing or model of the façade of their unit; other design outputs included plan and section drawings, alongside a 1:20 scale final model.

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For my project, I decided to choose retail as my community function as it was something I had no prior experience designing for, but found particularly interesting. After researching a number of independent businesses in Digbeth, I chose the vintage clothes store COW as my client. I researched their business, visited their local store and interviewed a store worker about their needs and customer demographics in order to inform my own design decisions. Alongside this, I investigated a number of precedent studies featuring similarly small retail spaces in order to better understand how to design the internal layout of my own space. The following design process involved a lot of iteration, particularly addressing the façade and window design, alongside an investigation into the design of a staircase leading to an upper staff area, which took up a large amount of the downstairs shop floor area. Through these processes, I was able to refine my design down to a more efficiently working space which responded to the client’s needs and reflected both their design styles and my own.

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In terms of my final outputs for the project, my orthographics were of a similarly successful quality as my other works, although in certain drawings such as the floor plans there may have been room for more detail if more time were available. The drawings are also lacking annotation or representation of materials aside from the detail section, so this could also have been improved. The detail section itself was, in my opinion, a successful first attempt at this type of drawing, as it is represented and annotated clearly. However, there is room for improvement in my choice of line weights, as well as in the actual choice of structural elements, as I have since expanded my knowledge of structural systems. The final model was actually incomplete at the time of the final review, however I was fortunate to be able to complete it in the time between then and my final portfolio submission, and it is now at a standard that I am proud of, particularly for an earlier model. However, due to my choice of materials and overall lack of model-making experience, the thickness of the external walls does not accurately represent the structural build-up of my design, so if I were to recreate this model with my current knowledge I would most likely use a thicker material, such as timber, to represent the external walls and structural elements. Regardless, I believe that the overall design was fairly successful in its conception, representation and presentation.