The Dara Building (Grote Koppel), Amersfoort, Netherlands

The Dara Building in Amersfoort, Netherlands, makes a significant contribution to FAT Architecture’s on-going research into the creative potential of historical reference and repetition, in combination with digital and prefabricated construction techniques to generate new meanings in architecture. Griffiths was the lead architect on the project. Its design responded to a number of questions: How can a modern building integrate with and extend the meanings of an historic context? How can differentiation and variety be achieved using repetition? How can precast concrete construction be used to create expressive popular iconography and communicate cultural values about architecture? Can an art-based architectural practice be successful in a market driven environment? Its methodology included numerous site visits to understand the site’s complexity and latent potential, discussions with local planning authorities to get a sense of the Dutch legislation and regulations for historic contexts and typological research, drawing on the traditions of baroque influenced, gable fronted Dutch architecture. A variety of programmatic solutions, spatial permutations, and the three-dimensional complexity of the building and its surroundings were tested through extensive physical model making and other forms of digital visualisation. The innovative external wall and window panels of the building were generated by drawing and re-drawing, then interpreting these design motifs in digital format, which were then transferred directly to Dutch prefabricated concrete manufacturer, Hibex. The architects then collaborated closely with the manufacturer to produce the building’s signature prefabricated façade panels. The building has been favourably reviewed in the architectural media, including in Building Design, Blue Print and Domus. It is regularly featured in lectures and exhibitions about the work of FAT delivered nationally and internationally including at London Metropolitan University in 2009, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2009 and the Strelka Institute in Moscow in 2010

Riverside One, Middlesbrough

Riverside One is an apartment block in Middlesbrough built as part of the regeneration of the former industrial Middlehaven Docks. The brief for the building was to deliver a highly sustainable, landmark housing project exceeding Eco Homes ‘Excellent’, in line with ‘One Planet Living’ sustainability goals. The building addresses the following research questions: How can a memorable building challenge the flatness of generic urban planning within the framework of market driven regeneration? How can the communicative surface perform architecturally? How can environmental principles be incorporated into an art based architecture practice? The design of Riverside One was driven by contextual concerns involving detailed fieldwork and a close reading of the site to discover the narratives of place and the specifics of its history. Found models were then reworked through collagist / dada-ist methods to create a new assemblage that carried with it old associations and meanings and created new ones. Methods used to reorganise existing information into a new constellation were the appropriation of images, references, history and values; collage, juxtaposition and humour. At the same time as this visual, aesthetic research, Riverside One required considerable environmental and technical research to meet its sustainability standards. This involved participation in numerous sustainability workshops and in depth, detail design of the building’s external façade to ensure water and airtightness. Riverside One is a contentious building that has been widely disseminated and debated in the architectural and public media. This includes articles in dezeen, Building Design, Architects Journal and The Guardian. Built at a time of financial plenty and when there was a great deal of optimism about urban regeneration, it is seen as both representative of that optimism and all that was unreal about it. Griffiths was the lead architect for FAT on the project

Persistence and change in the spatio-temporal description of Sheffield Parish c.1750-1905

This paper brings a range of techniques from space syntax and fractal geometry to the question of the diachronic description of spatial structures that are usually considered in purely synchronic terms. Drawing on historical research into the growth of the English industrial city of Sheffield c.1770-1905 it asks how far the spatial configuration of the city’s rural hinterland (its ‘parish’) was implicated in the processes of social change and continuity that unfolded during this period. Time-series data on the development of Sheffield Parish is provided by the syntactical analysis of detailed historical maps, the routes taken by roadbased public transport systems and contemporary newspaper reports. The data is interpreted in the light of Hillier and Iida’s notion of angular, topological and metric “distance concepts” which are said to represent distinctive ‘modalities of scale’ in the emergence of an urban area embedded in the historical spatial configuration of its rural hinterland. In traditional urban geography the growth of cities is conventionally represented as the projection of an expanding built environment onto a blank surface. The discourse that accompanies this teleological notion of urbanization is typically one in which the countryside is ‘absorbed’ by the rapacious city. This language can be misleading, since urban areas whose growth can be regarded as ‘organic’ - in the sense of arising piecemeal over time - suggests the inadequacy of conceptualizing the built environment in a single (synchronic) dimension. The evidence from Sheffield Parish indicates how the differentiation of urban form is constituted both synchronically and diachronically in the description of spatial elements structured at different modalities of scale consistent with prevailing patterns of social practice, some of which relate to innovations in public transportation. The analysis of rural road networks represents a relatively new area of space syntax research. An historical study of this kind helps to ground future work by focusing on the emergent properties of space at the urban-rural periphery without also raising complex methodological questions relating to the application of space syntax methodology to large-scale contemporary urban regions. Rather, the emphasis is on drawing together the theoretical and analytical aspects of the Sheffield case study to assert that if the growing city is legitimately said to have ‘absorbed’ its rural hinterland then it is equally evident that this process of urban transformation can be also described in terms of the persistence of pre-urban road networks, historically embedded in local topography

The Museum of Copying, Venice Architecture Biennale

The Museum of Copying was an exhibition conceived and executed by FAT Architecture for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. It explored ideas of the copy as a way of establishing common ground between diverse publics over time. This represented a significant moment into themes that have been present in FAT’s work for the past 15 years. Its primary research questions were: Can copying be a creative technique in architecture? What potential does the figural section hold for architecture? How have photocopying, digital media and computer aided manufacture extended the repertoire of creative replication in architecture? Research methods included collaborative and curatorial work in conversation with the other contributors to the Museum: San Rocco and Ines Weizman. The museum challenged the idea of the copy as inauthentic pastiche and proposed ways of understanding and using it in more productive ways. FATs contribution, ‘Villa Rotunda Redux’ is a prefabricated replica of Palladio’s Villa Rotunda. This was designed by extraction and translation of essential information from the original Villa Rotunda into three dimensional material form using new fabrication techniques. It comprises two abstracted quarters of the Villa Rotunda, one a polystyrene mould, the other a foam cast. These were arranged diagonally across from one another, displaying not only the properties of the original, but also the process of their fabrication. This produced an iteration of the Villa Rotunda that was at once recognizable, yet utterly transformed and original. The project was seen by the 178,000 visitors who attended the biennale. It has also been widely reviewed in the popular and architectural press, including Phaidon, dezeen, Architects Journal, designboom, ArchDaily, Architectural Review, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times. On the basis of this project, FAT Architecture have been selected, to curate the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale with Crimson Architectural Historians and Owen Hatherley

Estimate for the fractal dimension of the Apollonian gasket in d dimensions

We adapt a recent theory for the random close packing of polydisperse spheres in three dimensions [R. S. Farr and R. D. Groot, J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 131} 244104 (2009)] in order to predict the Hausdorff dimension $d_{A}$ of the Apollonian gasket in dimensions 2 and above. Our approximate results agree with published values in $2$ and $3$ dimensions to within $0.05$ and $0.6$ respectively, and we provide predictions for dimensions $4$ to $8$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Validation of data analysis routines for a thermal probe apparatus using numerical data sets

Most thermal properties of construction materials used in the analysis of building performance have been measured under laboratory conditions, using a guarded hot box or hot plate apparatus. As a consequence, these properties seldom reflect the impact of actual conditions (especially moisture content) on the values of conductivity and diffusivity. Hence there is a need to develop techniques that allow to take into account local conditions, and measure building material properties in situ. One option available is the use of a thermal probe. The thermal probe technique is based on creating a line source in a material sample, and measuring the temperature rise in the sample in reaction to heat being applied. Obviously the data analysis routines used to calculate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity based on the temperature rise observed are crucial to the success of the technique. Transient thermal simulation of a of a model representing a line source in an infinite material sample has been used to generate a set of numerical data sets to validate analysis routines in conjunction with an experimental thermal probe apparatus. Findings show that by careful application of these routines, a close agreement with simulation input values can be achieved, with errors of less than one percent. This validates the analysis routines and provides a deeper appreciation of the theoretical behaviour of a thermal probe

Design by Chance

The paper proposes and describes a design method using "Chance Operations" as a counterpoint to Romantic ideas about freedom and creativity

The blue one takes a battering why do young adults with asthma overuse bronchodilator inhalers? A qualitative study

Objective: Overuse of short-acting bronchodilators is internationally recognised as a marker of poor asthma control, high healthcare use and increased risk of asthma death. Young adults with asthma commonly overuse short-acting bronchodilators. We sought to determine the reasons for overuse of bronchodilator inhalers in a sample of young adults with asthma. Design: Qualitative study using a purposive extreme case sample. Setting: A large urban UK general practice. Participants: Twenty-one adults with moderate asthma, aged 20-32 years. Twelve were high users of short-acting bronchodilators, nine were low users. Results: Asthma had a major impact on respondents' lives, disrupting their childhood, family life and career opportunities. High users of short-acting bronchodilators had adapted poorly to having asthma and expressed anger at the restrictions they experienced. Overuse made sense to them: shortacting bronchodilators were a rapid, effective, cheap 'quick-fix' for asthma symptoms. High users had poorer control of asthma and held explanatory models of asthma which emphasised short-term relief via bronchodilation over prevention. Both high and low users held strong views about having to pay for asthma medication, with costs cited as a reason for not purchasing anti-inflammatory inhalers. Conclusions: Young adults who were high users of short-acting bronchodilators had adapted poorly to having asthma and had poor asthma control. They gave coherent reasons for overuse. Strategies that might address high bronchodilator use in young adults include improving education to help young people accept and adapt to their illness, reducing stigmatisation and providing free asthma medication to encourage the use of anti-inflammatory inhalers

Microfluidic immunomagnetic multi-target sorting – a model for controlling deflection of paramagnetic beads

We describe a microfluidic system that uses a magnetic field to sort paramagnetic beads by deflecting them in the direction normal to the flow. Our experiments systematically study the dependence of the beads’ deflection on: bead size and susceptibility, magnet strength, fluid speed and viscosity, and device geometry. We also develop a design parameter that can aid in the design of microfluidic devices for immunomagnetic multi-target sorting