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Batik Factory- Production and Indulgence

Part 1 Project 2009
Zeta Freeman
 University of Brighton | UK
The project demonstrates the research and development of a small-scale factory facility producing Batiked silk, situated on Brick Lane in London. Batik is the Javanese art of silk decoration using wax and dyes, the art is rich in tradition and culture and is highly regarded as an art form. The art requires patience and subtle detailing, concepts I have tried to embody in the building.
The facility was to change the normal form of a factory, rather than having the production process hidden this facility would open it up. The boundary between public and private, production and display would become intertwined. The concept of indulgence lies at the centre of the facility, allowing the users to come and be immersed in Batik, with all its rich colours, materials and history. Users create a Batik in an orchestrated series of environments that intensify the experience of each very different and particular stage of the production process. This experience is intensified as the user journeys through the building and Batik process, by abstract glimpses of stages of the process yet to come.
The project subject and form are strongly influenced by the history of Brick Lane and its silk trade, also by Brick lane’s rich and varied cultures and their trade in saris.
The proposal embodies the light and delicate quality of silk and the intricate and specific detailing of Batik, contrasting and responding to the heavy brick mass of the buildings that closely surround the facility on all sides. The facility, a centre for creativity, sits as a ethereal translucent form amongst the busy mass of Brick lane.
There was the ambition from the start to design a specific spatial and atmospheric quality within the facility, the logical process of analysis and design was developed along side this spatial ambition. The result is a facility that allows the user to fully indulge in the process of Batiking, with the architectural tools of material, form and orchestrated circulation used to create specific atmospheric conditions.


Zeta Freeman

The studio's theme “Production and Indulgence” questioned architecture's dual capacity of enclosing [enabling] a production process and exposing [visualising] it to an inquiring and/or consuming indulging public.
Whilst the modern city and a global production process have led to an alienation between production and consumption, the contemporary urban condition has curiously also produced the inverse: economic value of real estate and a natural growth of the city has often led to a heterogenic density where different uses of space overlap.
Through a choice of sites on Brick Lane in London, students were asked to engage with the problematic of producing and consuming goods in the context of a dense inner-city location with its own diverse history of indulgence and production.

This project responded in a fine and integrative way to the observed and researched character of Brick Lane. Choosing a locked site on southern Brick Lane, the project drew on the fabric producing history of the area as well as on its demographic present concluding in the proposal for a small batiking factory selling its products on the spot.
The Batik Factory approached the theme of “Production and Indulgence” in a refreshingly hands-on way. It first immersed itself in the production of an “artefactual database” of dyed and hand-batiked silks. These were analysed to determine the key parameters of the production process and the spatial and material qualities to design for and were also used to collage into working and final drawings. Indulgence was attributed not only to the moment of buying or wearing the final product, i.e. a sari, but also to individual moments in the production process which consequently were treated with great attention to material and spatial detail.
Working closely with the densely built site, the Batik Factory's volumetric and material solution expresses the fine balancing of the requirements of an industrial production process and a building as light, translucent and colourful as its products.

Katrin Bohn
Anuschka Kutz

Tutor(s)
Katrin Bohn
2009
Ambitions 1: Spatial ambition to create an environment that allowed the user to indulge in a ritual activity, removed from distraction of day to day life. Programatic ambition to use the cycle of Batiking to create an ordering system for the building.
Ambitions 2: The material qualities of Batik, particularly the varying degrees of translucency, gave an ambition for the weight and quality of the proposal, which would contrast against the surrounding buildings.
Brick lane and Fournier street: The site is rich with history surrounding the trade and production of fabrics, transpiring into a modern day fabric trade. The site is linked to Fournier street, originally home to Huguenot silk weavers.
Site survey and strategic design response: Site conditions help formulate a design strategy, relating to the desired atmospheric conditions of each space
The building as systems: The building works as a natural ventilation systems, cooling the building and expelling moisture from the drying Batiks. The circulation system leads visitors through the batik process in an orchestrated manner
Response to ambitions 2: The building has three facade materials, used to portray the different types of space within. The materials are developed from the materials used in Batik, silk and wax.
The dying and drying of Batiks: The dimensions and arrangement of the dye room is dictated by the lengths of the saris being Batiked. The length of the dye baths are that of a sari. The drying tower is designed to hold the hand operated pulley dryers.
Lamboo structural system: The building is supported by a Laminated Bamboo frame. Bamboo is a traditional Javanese material, here it has been developed into a contemporary material, with a unique tactility, warm colour and subtle cultural reference.
Ground floor plan: The three main areas of the building are separated by a glass shadow gap, allowing the change of use to be readable from the outside of the structure. From the drying tower there are views up through the hanging silks
First floor plan: Moving from the design room, situated in good light high up in the proposal, to the dye room via an elevated walkway through the drying tower, the user gets a unique view of this vast space and the drying silks.
Section through main production area: Each room has a different scale and floor level. The visible structure in the drying tower contrasts against the clean white walls of the working spaces, the change in wall composition articulating a change in use
Section through shop- threshold between old and new: The shop acts as a transitionary space between historic Fournier street and modern facility. The floor and walls are existing brick, the batiks hang on the walls viewed by means of a shallow staircase
View from Brick Lane: From Brick lane a narrow strip of the proposal can be seen, acting as an enticing, translucent mass, nestled amongst the heavy brick of its surroundings. The view entices passers by, drawing them in.
Long section through facility 1: Mixed scale and media section exploring the facility, its circulation plan and the relationship between the facility and the street.
Long section through facility 2: Showing the relationship between the design room, a space of quiet contemplative work, and the church yard and gardens. The drying tower acts as filtering space between this quiet area and the busy, messy dye room.
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