Output details

2EmmaToc/Writtle Calling

RESEARCH CONTENT AND PROCESS

--Description--

2EmmaToc/Writtle Calling is a design project taking the form of a temporary radio station, built structure and curated broadcast programme, sited in the Essex landscape during September 2012.

--Questions--

1. How can architecture present the particular historical, cultural and physical qualities of a site through a detailed investigation of vernacular building and landscape types?

2. How can these qualities also be presented as temporal performative architectural materials (especially art, oration, theatre and live music)?

3. How can traditional modes of architectural production be ‘hybridised’ with contemporary art and curatorial practices, and how can this create opportunities for the architect in a wider cultural context?

--Methods--

2EmmaToc/Writtle Calling develops its research propositions through design-led processes, as well as certain curatorial methodologies:

1. Historical, cultural and social fieldwork to establish the programme, form, location and material of the architecture.

2. Exploring the potential of radio and radio waves as an architectural material – testing possible means of broadcasting and maximising distance, quality and content of a radio broadcast.

3. Design informed by local building types and a fine arts curatorial practice that aims to produce live events and a week-long radio broadcast as a space of event.

--Dissemination--

Disseminated through its FM radio broadcast and live digital streaming, an online broadcast, photographic archive and FM radio rebroadcast. Featured in Art Review, Icon, Architects’ Journal, Architecture Today, Journal of Architectural Education, Jazz FM, and Essex Chronicle. Discussed in lectures and presentations at: Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL; Istanbul Technical University; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Gothenburg City Museum; London Metropolitan University; and South Bank University, London. Before completion it was also profiled in Domus Online and P.E.A.R: Paper for Emerging Architectural Research.

SIGNIFICANCE

Received a ‘Grants for the Arts’ award (£10,000) from the Arts Council of England.