Tag: housing

Dating Siza: The Malagueira ‘Cupula’

Dating Siza: The Malagueira ‘Cupula’

Manuel Montenegro

The unbuilt half-dome (referred to by the architect as the ‘cupula’) at the Quinta da Malagueira is the subject of a protracted design process that has lasted for over four decades. At the start of 2020, Álvaro Siza sent a drawing of the half-dome to Drawing Matter accompanied by letter… Read More

Informal Housing in Fars (Iran) and Kuwait, 1974

Informal Housing in Fars (Iran) and Kuwait, 1974

Eric Parry

This is another world – Yazd, a desert town really. It is troglodytic – a response to a hot, dry climate, so it is cut into the ground using mud brick, the wind catchers and domes create the silhouettes. So these pages are about the visit to Yazd – getting… Read More

Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island

Zoe Zenghelis

The Roosevelt Island competition was sponsored by New York State Urban Development Corporation for the urbanisation of an island in the East River of Manhattan. The city grid served as a formal generator for the building types, adapted with controlling geometry to the proportions of the island’s topography. There are… Read More

Eric Parry: Iran, 1974

Eric Parry: Iran, 1974

Eric Parry

If I now open the page – this sketchbook is different to rest because at that time, one had time. There was no planning to any of these. No A to Z or intention of a grand plan. For the months involved there is not much evidence, only a hint… Read More

Commonplace

Commonplace

Nicholas Olsberg

In 1877, London’s Building News reprinted – as the ‘work of two eminent architects, though it cannot be said to be their joint production’ – an elevation, plan, and partial section published by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc as a model town house, noting that this supposed ‘London Residence’ had been adapted – with due… Read More

Netherfield Scroll Two

Netherfield Scroll Two

Michael Gold

What follows here forms the second part of a two-part conversation. It has been extracted from the original email exchange between Chris Cross, Jeremy Dixon, Michael Gold and Edward Jones in relation to the acquisition of the Netherfield Scroll, published in part one. The Netherfield Scroll – which measures 20… Read More

Grunt Group: Unrolling the Netherfield Scroll

Grunt Group: Unrolling the Netherfield Scroll

On 7 April 2018, former members of the Grunt Group – Chris Cross, Jeremy Dixon, Michael Gold and Edward Jones – presented their Netherfield Scroll to Drawing Matter. The 20-foot-long drawing was created c. 1971 for a low-density, social housing estate in Milton Keynes. The following video is a brief… Read More

Netherfield Scroll One

Netherfield Scroll One

Chris Cross, Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones

The following two-part conversation surrounds the acquisition of the Netherfield Scroll – a 20-foot-long drawing created c. 1971 by Chris Cross, Jeremy Dixon, Michael Gold and Edward Jones, otherwise known as the ‘Grunt Group’, for the commission of a low-density housing estate in Milton Keynes. The conversation with Jeremy Dixon… Read More

Behind the Lines 4

Behind the Lines 4

Philippa Lewis

Isabella Puddefoot settled herself on the sofa, picked up her embroidery, and after enquiring about his day at the bank, remarked to her husband Samuel: ‘I do declare I am quite spent; running up and down stairs all day is very trying to my constitution. It is eight flights from dealing… Read More

A Blueprint is… Blue

A Blueprint is… Blue

Neil Bingham

A common error in looking at architectural drawings is to mistake mechanical reproductions for originals. Original and copy drawings both physically consist of two elements: the material (like ink) and the support (usually paper). But – and it may seem obvious to say – lines on paper are made by… Read More

E. S. Prior’s Architectural Modelling

E. S. Prior’s Architectural Modelling

David Valinsky

The very fact that The Builder should publish an article explaining the benefits, the uses and the methods of making architectural models indicates just how novel the concept was in 1895, even in theory. ‘Architecture Modelling’ was the result of the almost unprecedented display of an actual model at the Royal Academy… Read More