Nothingness and void have been the focus of the unit investigation into space and how we might contemplate the contemporary city. Void can be understood in terms of not only ‘lack’ but also of temporality, context and states of being. Intermediate 13 has been interested in the void in relation to human experience and habitation within the city – read as a reaction to issues of form for form’s sake – where emptiness can again be recognised as an essential ingredient in a world of multiplicity. Early observation and investigation of voids in painting and architecture revealed the use of emptiness, not just as a compositional and spatial device but also as a means of generating political, social and psychological effects.
Interim states and indeterminate urbanism are explored at Elephant and Castle through Clem’s perpetual development of the Heygate Estate and Fortuné’s proposition to transform the transport interchange into a plane of negotiated flow and possibility. The values of the City of London are challenged by Richard’s academic heterotopia, and Anouk’s process of erasure to reveal a lost river and Harshit’s step-well bathhouse. The void at the heart of Tottenham’s social turmoil is investigated in Alex’s community ‘forum’ while the sublime is explored
in Rachel’s proposition for a vast retail box and Louise’s framed journey towards the horizon in the expansive Lea Valley reservoirs. The interpretation of void as space of potential, stillness and poche in King’s Cross is explored as an ‘empty space’ of theatre by Yiling in her re-appropriation of Camden Town Hall, a vessel of light in Elaine’s pavilion and Regina’s ‘wrapping’ of a proposed office building. The primal is explored in Philip’s proposition for an underworld promenade of darkness within a railway cutting – a place of visceral experience.
Unit Staff
Miraj Ahmed
Martin Jameson
Students
Anouk Ahlborn
Clementine Blakemore
Philip Doumler
Rachel Khalil
Richard Leung
Shi Qi Ng
Alexandra Paritzky
Fortuné Penniman
Harshit Kothari Singh
Elaine Tsui
Louise Underhill
Yiling Zhang
Special thanks To
Assemble
Adams Kara Taylor
Jeroen van Ameijde
Kelly Chorpening
Kevin Cash
Ryan Dillon
Sarah Entwistle
Adam Furman
Teresa Hoskyns
Ikuko Iwamoto
Sam Jacob
Tomas Klasnik
Lefkos Kyriacou
Amy Perkins
Christopher Pierce
Amanda Rushid
Dingle Price
Annette Robinson
Greg Ross
Natasha Sandmeier
Ingrid Schröder
Serie Architects (UK and India)
Nikolay S Shahpazov
Colette Sheddick
Brett Steele
Thomas Weaver
Adam Willis
The Void