Teodor Andonov_Y5 | Unit 14 | Bartlett School of Architecture

All work produced by Unit 14

-

www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture

Copyright 2021

The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

@unit14_ucl

andonovteodor@gmail.com

@teodorandon0v

TECH-FOLK: INDEPENDENT TOWNHALL VILLAGE

The Tech-Folk Movement proposes a new independent townhall for Plovdiv, Bulgaria where technocratic innovation and vernacular lifestyle fuse into a new civic model. It builds on the lessons of Revival era marketplace towns which relied on peer-to-peer relationships with no central authority to form a network of autonomous communities.

The Tech-Folk framework provides a comprehensive architectural language by synthesising the character of the local vernacular into a new spatial and tectonic system for urban development which is open, flexible, customisable, and automated. It proposes a design-to-fabrication computational methodology for freeform timber frames based on CNC milling tables and timber panel lamination.

The goal is a vision of a hybrid lifestyle which allows for the simultaneous coexistence of technology and myth, civicness and community, building and landscape.

All work produced by Unit 14

Unit book design by Charlie Harriswww.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture

Copyright 2021

The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmited in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retreival system without permission in writing from the publisher.

SPATIAL TECTONIC 2022

PG14 is a test bed for architectural exploration and innovation, examining the role of the architect in an environment of continuous change. We are in search of the new: leveraging technologies, workflows and modes of production seen in disciplines outside our own. We test ideas systematically by means of digital as well as physical drawings, models and prototypes. Our work evolves around technological speculation with a research-driven core, generating momentum through the astute synthesis of both. Our propositions are ultimately made through the design of buildings and in-depth consideration of structural formation and tectonic constituents. This, coupled with a strong research ethos, generates new and unprecedented, viable and spectacular proposals.

The focus of this year’s work evolved around the concept of ‘Spatial Tectonic’. This term describes architectural space as a result of the highest degree of synthesis of all underlying principles. Constructional logic, spatial innovation, typological organisation, and environmental and structural performance are all negotiated in an iterative process driven by architectural investigation. These inherent principles of organisational intelligence can be observed in both biotic and abiotic systems, in all spatial arrangements where it is critical for the overall performance of any developed order. Ultimately such principles suggest that the arrangement of constituents provides intelligence as well as advantage to the whole.

Through a deep understanding of architectural ingredients, students generated highly developed architectural systems in which spatial organisation arose as a result of sets of mutual interactions. These interactions were understood through targeted iterations of spatial models, uncovering logical links while generating ambitious and speculative arrangements. Sequential testing and the enriching of abstract yet architectural systems were the basis of architectural form - communicating the relationship of all logical dependencies, roles and performances within the system.