The Language of Construction

Carolina Borgatti, Diploma, The Cass School of Architecture, 2019

Tutors: Takero Shimazaki and Summer Islam

Student’s Project Description

Sometimes and still more often than not, perfectly good buildings are demolished and replaced with lesser buildings because they aren’t large enough, they don’t exploit the site enough to provide maximum return on investment, they aren’t fashionable enough. The project tries to reinterpret an existing pottery for the creation of a new Town hall, using extensions and additions, to create a new whole. The context of Longton is extremely fragmented with a weak cultural and physical landscape: different typologies are coexisting with no relation to each other. In this landscape, the strategic formalism of Venturi, to “seek a cultural context without really having one”, becomes extremely relevant. The project tries to organise a coherent whole through the use of conventional parts and the judicious introduction of unconventional elements, the mix of which would appeal in a complex unity. In this sense the layering of construction offers the opportunity of acquiring complexities with the use of necessary building components. Understanding the cultural and political climate, the project finds complexity in the use of economic materials and the structure becomes a moment of decoration.