INTER 1

Extended Brief

2023 ­— 24

AA
 DIGGERS
AND
DREAMERS
 CONTENTS

Cooperation: sounds like a good idea. Introduction 6–9

But co-operating for what? Agenda and Working Methods 10–13

Programme
Term 1 14–15
To share tools Term 2 16–17
Term 3 18–19
To save time Climate Matters 20–21
To find your partners in crime Environmental and Technical Studies 22–23
To retrieve a reference Timetable 24
To split burden Reading and Watching List 25
To unload About Us 27
To make an argument
To get through it together

If you want to know more, join us!

previous TABLETOP UTOPIA, Andrii Svorovskyi, INTER 1

4 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 INTRODUCTION

Many hands can make light work.

Inter 1 continues its exploration of the
modes, scales, benefits and fallacies of
co-operating. If we are to look beyond
the fetishisation of cooperatives today,
we cannot only observe them: we need
to start to act cooperatively.

6 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 INTRODUCTION

Architecture is often misrepresented as a story by a single author – the architect

– but the complex reality of practice challenges this narrative. From the extraction
of resources to the processing of material, design, construction, occupation and
maintenance or eventual removal, architecture is invariably placed under the
stewardship of many participants who co-operate with one another – sometimes
willingly, but not always knowingly.

This year, Intermediate 1 will continue its enquiry into the joys and difficulties of co-
operation. We will dwell within this fundamental aspect of human existence and
observe its implications at different scales and at different moments in the design
process. We will search in multiple directions to find traces of co-operation, from those
embedded in the physical structures we inhabit to those represented in the practices
that those structures enable. We will not be overly optimistic: indeed, co-operation can
go wrong. We will need to accept dissent and conflict, and practice negotiation.

Our working method will be grounded by a curiosity in our surroundings and the
inventive material, structural and environmental potential of what is at hand, drawing
and making at 1:1 to the scale of the city. We’ll maintain a focus on London and the
edit, reconfiguration and transformation of its existing structures and spaces. We
will consider this in relation to the contemporary practices that lie in the orbit of
togetherness - be it caring, making, living, sharing and so on. But we will resist the
temptation to use these in the search for an easy consensus, and our projects will
confront rather than flatten complexity. Life often gets in the way of our best made
plans, so we will learn to design for uncertainty, alert to the strange and unexpected
ways in which spaces and buildings are used, adapted, and co-opted far beyond the
aims of the original design.

left Luca Nostri, Ex Acetificio Venturi, Lugo, 2015

8 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 AGENDA AND WORKING METHODS

Our actions will be grounded on few key principles - a set of keywords with a set of
01
associated questions that inevitably intersect and blur with one another:

AGENCY
Who gets to design? Where does the boundary between author and user get drawn?
What distinguishes the creator from the creation?

COOPERATION
What drives our need to act together - is it goodwill or necessity? Is it the same as
02 collaboration? How do we balance between collective interest and personal desire?

RE-DESIGN AS DESIGN
Do we ever start from scratch? Is there really something that can be called ‘original’?
How can we balance between respect and re-invention of what is already there?
03
FUTUREPROOFING
When does design end? When does the architect exit the picture? How many lives and
uses can be predicted for a project? And can you as a designer actively work with
these future scenarios?

05
OBSERVING
Have you ever looked with interest into what surrounds us? What is the difference
between surveying and design? Can the detailed rendition of something that already
exists suggest already possible modifications to it?
04
LONDON
06
How well do you know London - besides your route to school, that is? How do you
design for a city that has resisted most attempts to ‘masterplan’ it? Where can you find
opportunity to reshape, retool and redirect existing activity and resources?

Previous Inter 1 student work:

01 A squatters' table, Andrii Svorovskyi
02 Study rooms in a new town hall for Brent, Bolurin Adedipe
03 Components for a dispersed canal masterplan, Juntao Liu
04 Memory is a strange place, Sheung Yee Fung
05 Shared landscape of back garden student rooms, Nga Lam Liesl Wong
06 Elevation study of an Athens street corner, Marina Matinopoulou
07 Windlotments, Olga Paspati
07
10 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF
 AGENDA AND WORKING METHODS

The unit strongly encourages observation of human behaviour and interaction within
the everyday spaces that surround us as primary drivers for design. We want to
understand how the built environment has been shaped by our activity and vice
versa, how buildings and spaces are nearly always adapted beyond the intent of
their original design, and how we as designers can use these observations to create
architecture that is responsive to what may be to come.

02
We thus place strong emphasis on the use of drawing to record observations and
interests, but will reinvigorate an interest in physical making at a number of scales. A
01 delight in material and intuitive assembly, how things are put together, sometimes
‘improvised’ or ‘accidental’, will be accompanied with a strong understanding of
historic and contemporary realities, practicalities and ethics of material processes and
construction.

Drawing, model-making, 1:1 prototyping, photography and film will be our media,
which we will use as tools for cooperation among us and for our imagined ‘clients’. We
will work across scales and places from the Unit Space to the city, putting equal care in
the drawing of 1:1 construction details, the exploration of materials and their ecological
implications, and the visualisation of larger scenarios for collective life.

04 05

07

03

06

Previous INTER 1 student work:

01 Inhabiting an ancient landfill, Luca Haberstock De Carvalho
02 A landscape of polykatoikies, Marina Matinopoulou
03 An assembly with mutual benefits, Hyunwoo Baek
04 A survey of a steet surface, Wing Nga Tam
05 An adaptive framework of 'domestic' street furniture for a suburban high street, Tung Hua Chen
06 Making Room in Old Town, Yui Ming Cheung
07 Shared landscape of back garden student rooms, Nga Lam Liesl Wong

12 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 PROGRAMME

TERM 1 'ON SITE'

(Observing, Making, Photographing, Talking, Writing, Researching, Drawing)

For the beginning of Term 1, the unit space at the AA and the school at large will be the
main targets of our observations and interventions. Photography, film and drawing will
be the principle media for exploring how space is made through practices that involve
discussion, argument, and active co-working alongside mute co-existence. We will
explore the idea of cooperation, acting ourselves like a cooperative that inhabits the
01 spaces of the school.

A research seminar will run through Term 1 and extend into Term 2. This is conceived
as an opportunity for each of you to explore specific sub-themes of the brief that
will lead you to personalise and tailor it to your interests. The format will be of short
lunchtime gatherings where, in turns, you will individually or in small teams discuss
ideas extracted from readings, projects and precedents of various sorts from within
02
and outside architecture (i.e. cinema, photography, fine arts, philosophy, biology, etc.).
We aim for you to become fluent in finely executed drawing and modelled
observations during the first term. Site visits, conversations and other convivial
moments will provide the opportunity to engage with real cooperatives and
associations operating across different sectors of human life. Towards the middle
of term, we will go to Hooke Park for a workshop that will allow us to move from
observation to making at a larger scale.

By the end of Term 1 each student will have defined their individual outlook, interest
and perspective within the group, which will be expressed through the observational
04 and design explorations to be discussed in the final reviews. These will form the basis
of research questions that each student will further investigate during the Christmas
03 break in preparation for Term 2. By the end of Term 1 Year 3 students will also
have defined a research focus for their Environmental and Technical Studies to be
05 developed with the support of ETS tutors and the help of the Unit tutors.

Previous INTER 1 student work:

01 Safe Space - a series of inhabited walls around the Olympic Park, Congyue Wang
02 Elevation study of an Athens street corner, Marina Matinopoulou
03 An enlarged room cornice for washing and working, Danya Gittler
04 Student housing prototype collage, Nga Lam Liesl Wong
05 Painting Architecture, a community transformation of the Brunswick Centre, Jihyun Choi
06 Clerkenwell corners, Xiaoman Liu
06
14 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF
 PROGRAMME

TERM 2 'AROUND TOWN'

(Siting, Testing, Proposing)

Term 2 expands upon some of the intuitions from Term 1 through a process of finetuning
and research. It includes ‘moving sites’ from the AA and the Unit Space to the city of
London where you will hunt for your final project sites.

The starting point will be a ‘statute’ that each student will prepare during the Christmas
break through the systematisation of the ideas, research and knowledge developed
in Term 1. This will take the form of a written and illustrated piece for which we will
encourage the exploration of as wide a palette of writing and communication styles as
possible (a manifesto, an advertisement, a solicitor’s letter, etc.).

While each student will define and refine their individual agenda, the Unit will endure
in its ethos of cooperation by encouraging the sharing of work and ideas alongside
the production of co-authored drawings or models. In the aim to find their own visual
voice, each student will be encouraged to explore a variety of media and engage
01 02
in a continuous loop of observation, representation, testing and reflection. Project
sites in London will give priority to spaces and buildings in need of mending, repair,
and re-design. You will be encouraged to think critically about your design work,
as the accompanying research relating to the topics of the unit, readings and site
observations start to work in unison.

The general purpose of the projects will relate to each student’s individual response
to what cooperation might mean and we will encourage a broad array of possible
readings spanning from the more literal design of spaces for cooperatives (food,
services, housing, care, etc.) to more nuanced approaches to those aspects of
cooperation that call into question the very operations of architecture, such as
organisation of labour or material procurement. Each student will be guided by the
work and ideas of the unit from the beginning of the year, and with the help of the
tutors and your colleagues, you will develop a strong conceptual basis for a building,
landscape or spatial design that confronts and explores how people can work, live,
play and build together, including acknowledgment of all the associated complexities
and discontents. The unit will be open to questions of scale, from taking pleasure in
forensic building adjustments to larger infrastructural proposals.

01 House After Life, Marina Matinopoulou, INTER 1

02 Up Down Camden Town, Sofia Barinova, INTER 1
03 A dispersed town hall for Brent, Bolurin Adedipe, INTER 1
03 04
04 Roman Digs: Unearthing Malagrotta’s Rubbish, Luca Haberstock De Carvalho, INTER 1

16 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 PROGRAMME

TERM 3 'SHOW IT '

(Refining,Representing,Projecting)

The final term is principally organised around opportunities for refinement and the
production of a portfolio. Early on in the term, we will work with each of you to build
upon the ways in which you have been drawing, making and presenting your individual
projects in order to allow sufficient time for this to be worked into iteratively, to create
rich and captivating representations of your architecture.

The work of the unit will be conducted primarily through architectural drawing and
modelled representation, and your design work will be accompanied and supported
by drawing workshops run by us and skilled external consultants. We have a particular
interest in the use of hacking, collage, assemblage, and montage – drawing and
representational methods that can be used as analogy of construction methods
related to reordering, recombination and reuse.

Alongside this, you will continue to develop and distil the essential characteristics
of your proposal into a verbal and visual presentation, allied to a clear theoretical
position and abstract, with the aim that each become adept at communicating your
work to a wide audience.
UNIT TRIP

We are in the early stages of planning our main unit trip

for the year, which as in previous years will be coupled
with shorter one-day visits in London and the UK. This
year we will run an interrail trip through Europe with
multiple stops. We are sounding out the possibility of
exploring the Iberic peninsula in the search for historic,
contemporary and (sometimes) failed examples of
collective life and experiments in cooperation.

As always, we like to think of the trip as a complement

to the unit’s daily design activities and a source of
inspiration, and this is something that we aim to plan
together with you.

left Up Down Camden Town, Sofia Barinova, INTER 1

above INTER 1 unit trip to Los Angeles, 2023

18 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 CLIMATE MATTERS

It is often repeated that around 80% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have
already been built. Most of these are wasteful of resources, and account for almost
one third of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. By taking an attitude that the struggle
for things of urgent consideration within our field as we see it, that of climate and social
justice, is most likely to happen in the environments, spaces and buildings that already
exist, the unit will situate itself within the traditions, practices and contemporary
conversations about repair, adaptation and reuse.

These struggles are collective and creative challenges, and our work will be governed
by a careful but vigorous reconfiguration of the spatial and physical structures that
we might come across, questioning why and for whom they were made, how they
might be recast in more equitable ways, and how their redesign can direct meaningful
change in the built environment.

For Climate Week (Term 1, Week 6) we are organising a design charette in

collaboration with an allotment community in North London, which we would like to
open up to participation to other unites across the school that share with us an interest
in the potential of reuse and reclaim as tools for creation - something that is written in
the DNA of allotments more generally.

left City Skirting – a restorative strategy for the edge of the River Thames, Meijie Tang, INTER 1
right Tabletop Utopia – a self build timber construction for south London, Andrii Svorovskyi, INTER 1

20 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 ENVIRONMENTAL AND TECHNICAL STUDIES

The unit views the production of the technical study as an intrinsic part of the design
work. As such, the thinking that goes into the technical investigation will be translated
and fed into the main project and vice versa. Given the themes of the brief this year,
along with ongoing concerns of the Unit, we would give particular space and thought
to some of the following areas of study:

— Adaptable buildings and structures designed for change and growth

— Designing architecture with ‘a long life and a loose fit’
— Strategies for temporary occupation and inhabitation
­— Prefabrication
— Designing for deconstruction
— Alterations to existing structures and buildings
— Flexible and/or adaptable architecture
— Rethinking techniques of repair
— Building services and passive alternatives for environmental comfort
— Prolonging building lifespan
— Material, construction and waste cycles

The unit will follow the programme to satisfy submission for Option 2 of the ETS. This
requires a final submission in Week 1 of Term 3 (with a preview submission toward the
end of Term 2). This is to enable sufficient development of your design work in tandem
with the resolution of a technical aspect of the project.

Students are encouraged to ensure they meet regularly with the ETS staff, who are
available to offer a wide range of expertise. It is essential these discussions are
begun early, which the unit programme accounts for, but students should note that the
responsibility to organise and manage their time with ETS staff lies with each individual.

left Samples from technical investigations by previous INTER 1 students

22 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

TIMETABLE READING AND WATCHING LIST
This timetable is an indication of how the Abramson, Daniel M. (2016). Obsolescence: An Architectural History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
individual explorations and deliverables
Clement, Gilles, (2015). The Planetary Garden and Other Writings. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Unit Interviews track alongside the collective activities
W1

Introductions of the unit and school wide deadlines. De Certau, Michel (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tasks 1 + 2 (photography, drawing) It may be subject to slight shifts and Fitz, Angelika, et al., editors, (2015). Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet. Architekturzentrum Wien ; MIT Press.
W2
October

Lunch Presentations adjustments throughout the year as

appropriate, but it should nevertheless Grahame, A., and Taran Wilkhu (2017). Walters Way & Segal Close : the architect Walter Segal and London's self-build communities: a
W3

Workshop
Seminar serve as an illustration of how we will look at two of London's most unusual streets. Zürich: Park Books.
Task 3 (photography) Y3 ETS seminar help you to manage the available time
W4

Workshop
Hands, John (2016; first published 1975). Housing Co-operatives. London: Castleton.
Lunch Presentations over the course of the year.
Hayden, D. (1981). The grand domestic revolution: a history of feminist designs for American homes, neighborhoods, and cities.
W5

Guest Talk
Workshop Pin-Up
Cambridge: MIT Press.

TERM 1
W6

CLIMATE WEEK
November

Lunch Presentations Herbert, G., and Mark Donchin (2016). The Collaborators: Interactions in the Architectural Design Process. London and New York:
W7

Workshop Task 4 (mock-up, modelling) OPEN WEEK Routledge.

Interim Reviews
Task 5 (prototyping) Hill, J. (2003). Actions of architecture: architects and creative users. London and New York: Routledge.
W8

HOOKE PARK
Hirst, P. (1993). Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
W9

Workshop Task 6 (film)

Jones, J. Hasten Slowly and You Will Soon Arrive. The Mysterious Presence of Group Equity Housing Cooperatives. NASCO
W10 W11

Lunch Presentations Krasny, E. (2020). Urban Curating - Care, Repair, Refuse, Resist. S.L.: Transcript Verlag.
December

Y3 ETS seminar
Kropotkin, P. (2006; first published 1902). Mutual Aid. A Factor of Human Evolution. London: Dover.
Final Reviews
Laland, Kevin N. (2017). ‘On the Origin of Cooperation’. The New Atlantis, 52: 70-85.
W12

Study Visit Task 7 (statute-manifesto) CHRISTMAS BREAK Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth: politics in the new climatic regime. Translated by C. Porter. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Pin-Up Lloyd Thomas, Katie, editor. (2007.) Material Matters: Architecture and Material Practice. Routledge.
W1
January

Task 8 (collage-precedents study)

Mariani, M. and Patrick Barron (2014). Terrain Vague: Interstices at the Edge of the Pale. New York: Routledge.
W2

Lunch Presentations Y3 ETS seminar Mericle, Amy, Suzanne Wilson and James John (1994). In Our Own Hands: A History of Student Housing Cooperatives at the University
Workshop Task 9 (site drawings, models)
W3

of Michigan. Ann Arbor: Inter-Cooperative Council.

Seminar
Ostrom, E. and Ostrom, V. (2014). Choice, rules and collective action: the Ostroms on the study of institutions and governance.
W4
February

Lunch Presentations Interim Reviews

Colchester: Ecpr Press.
UNIT TRIP OPEN WEEK
W5

TERM 2 Pearson, Lynn F. (1988). The Architectural and Social History of Cooperative Housing. London: MacMillan Press.
Task 10 ( (mock-up, models)
Workshop Pearson, Lynn F. (2020). England's Co-operative Movement: An Architectural History. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
W6

Guest Talk
Rendell, J. (Un)doing it Yourself: Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse’, Journal of Architecture, (Spring, 1999).
W7

Seminar
Roark, R. (2021). ‘The Afterlife of Dying Buildings: Ruskin and Preservation in the Twenty-First Century’. Available at: courtauld.ac.uk.
Workshop Task 11 (statute-manifesto revised)
March
W8

Lunch Presentations Sample, H. (2018). Maintenance Architecture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Y3 ETS Interim Jury
Study Visit Scott, F. (2008). On altering architecture. New York: Routledge.
W9

Y2 Previews (M11-T12 March) Sennett, R. (2012). Together. The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
W10 W11

Y3 Previews (M18-T19 March) Sendra, P., Sennett, R. and Hollis, L. (2020). Designing disorder : experiments and disruptions in the city. London and New York: Verso.
EASTER BREAK Thompson, M. and Reno, J. (2017). Rubbish theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. London: Pluto Press.
April
W1

Interim Reviews
Y3 ETS Final Submission How Buildings Learn (BBC TV Series), (199), Stewart Brand
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT AND PORTFOLIO
W2

Lunch Presentations
May

How to with John Wilson, HBO, TV

Seminar
W3

The Rochdale Pioneers, John Montegrande, Adam Lee Hamilton, 2012

At Home in Utopia, Michael Goldman, 2008
W4

Lunch Presentations
Guest Talk Maintenance, Adele Horne, 2012
TERM 3
W5

Rock Clay Sand Straw Wood, Adele Horne, 2015

Final Reviews
June
W6

The Art of Repair, Will Stewart, 2013

Y2 Tables (M3-T4 June) Routine Maintenance, Hironaka & Suib, 2014.
W7

Y3 Tables (M10-T11 June) Nubia Way: a story of black-led self building in Lewisham, Timi Akindele-Ajani, 2022
W8

The Take, Noami Klein and Avi Lewis, 2004

Projects Review
W9

24 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

 ABOUT US

INTER 1 aims to establish a culture of learning that is founded on association and

mutual benefit. We are interested in the idea that working with other people to
accomplish things you can’t accomplish for yourself is not only something elemental
and innate to human behaviour, but is also a craft that should be developed, practised
and honed through time. The unit encourages the sharing of skills, resources and time
in the belief that the most fulfilling experience is built through collaboration rather than
competition, in the hope that we can generate a respectful and generous learning
environment.

The unit is taught by Jenny Hill, Jon Lopez and Francesco Zuddas.

Jenny Hill is an architect, writer and researcher. She is an associate at OMMX, where
she works on a range of cultural and residential projects. Her research focuses on
obsolescence, the search for continuity within change and its effect on identity.

Jon Lopez is an architect and director of OMMX, a practice based in London that
builds, draws and writes about architecture. Alongside his work in practice, he has
taught design during the past decade at a number of institutions in the UK including
Cambridge University, the Bartlett and Central Saint Martins.

Francesco Zuddas is an architect, teacher and researcher. He is co-founder of the

design and research practice urbanaarchitettura. His research focuses on the relations
between architecture, education and the city. He is the author of The University as a
Settlement Principle: Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s Italy (Routledge 2020)
and of numerous articles and essays.

left All Together Now – composite drawing by 2022-23 Inter 1 students

26 INTER 1 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS EXTENDED BRIEF

INTER 1

AA