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Semester 1. Under the Sky and Into the Earth - The Horologist in the City

Part 1 Project 1999
Galley Wu
Manchester School of Architecture Manchester | UK
Semester 1
Under the Sky and Into the Earth - from natural to cultural landscape
The Horologist's place.
An exploration into phenomenological issues helped me to develop many descriptions of the site and to develop, in a poetic way, both program and event in relation to the site.
The characterization of my keeper of time as a photographer who uses a camera to capture time (in the studio), a negative to freeze time (in the cellar darkroom) and a photograph to display time (exhibition) helped me to explore and develop a vertical hierarchy between earth and sky as well as develop issues of centre and boundary, thresholds and axes.
Interior habitation was also interpreted within an earth-sky hierarchy and through levels of intimacy and openness.
I chose watercolour to best express the material, texture, light and shadow, colour and atmosphere of my architecture.

Semester 2
In Loco parent-is: The Salmon and the Wall.
In The Salmon and the Wall project I was interested in the relationships between local people, visitors, the natural landscape and the man made landscape. Programme and event were generated through the understanding of this cultural matrix.
The functions in the building are capable of being reprogrammed in the tourist off-season to the benefit of the local community. This trans-programming is maybe an increasingly significant issue for architecture which unites site-specific intervention with ambient electronic engineering capable of rapid change. The programmatic interpretation includes a salmon breeding research station which would provide a 'real' counterpoint to the use of electronic media in the exhibition facility. The research centre (in the quarry), fish ladder and visitor passage connecting the reservoir, river and the existing visitor centre (with extended functions - internet bar/cinema and virtual imaging facility) were developed as complimentary elements at the scale of the landscape.






Semester 1 - Under the Sky and Into the Earth - from natural to cultural landscape.
The Horologist's Place - Oxford Road Station approach, Manchester.
Galley has displayed great tenacity to acquire a deep understanding of the Unit's phenomenological position and has developed a meaningful and poetic understanding of the geological, physical, historical and atmospheric qualities of the site. He has also successfully characterized the Horologist as photographer and his manner as 'mortal' custodian of the station approach. The first and obvious quality in Galley's work is the care and precision evidenced in the presentation and communication of his project. Contextual relationships and movement through a complex three-dimensional site are carefully considered, developed and refined. Person-Object-Space relationships are meticulously defined and boundaries and thresholds clearly developed with regard to his narrative. Qualities of materiality and light and the characterization of interior habitation add further depth to a very mature submission.
Rick Dargavel.

Semester 2 - In Loco parent-is; The Salmon and the Wall.
This project is significant in that it demonstrates an ability to deal with the scale of a landscape and the insertion of a series of critically defined interventions which collectively construct the programme for the site. The work is characterised with acuity and sensibility at every level which generates a profound, inevitable and mature architecture delivered with authority. The development of the programme incorporates subtle allegoric messages integrated into the narrative of a journey through landscape. Strategy and detail demonstrate the equivalent levels of careful attention and refinement. Galley is an exceptionally gifted student and this project demonstrates his ability to deliver the poetic unity of place through architectural intervention.
Colin Pugh.

1999
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