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House: an architectural archive

Part 1 Project 2007
Andrea Fabiana Obiol
 London Metropolitan University | UK
The project, to re-house the RIBA’s Drawing Collection, evolved through a series of investigations which considered the archive as a dynamic entity, inviting interaction. An initially unsited proposition, chamber, established strong formal and material concerns through considering relationships between viewer and artefact. The site of the building proposal, the Boilerhouse Courtyard within the V&A museum, offered the opportunity to critique the institution’s relationship with the city; re-defining spaces of entry and offering orientation. The project considers how two institutions of differing scale and purpose might ‘share’ a site but maintain individuality; how old is juxtaposed with new and how these things are perceived by the public. An interest in architectural ‘character’ developed as a preoccupation with the building’s physionogmy, relative to powerful existing facades. Their tectonic informed a conversation about the unity of material, structure and ornament


This project synthesises a series of concerns in relative to the nature and manifestation of the archive, as contemporary cultural institution. Early briefs critiqued ideas around ‘collection’, investigating the status of representational artefacts and their relationship both to the viewer and that which they represent. Here, powerful geometrical characteristics are established through direct transcription of perspectival drawing techniques into tectonics. Traditional brick construction is developed to articulate these relationships. Its singular materiality defines hierarchies in plan and section, encompassing structure, services and the surfaces of principal rooms. The building is an authoritative intervention. It establishes equivalence with the strong Victorian context, resisting the contemporary orthodoxy of subservience, whilst volumetrically adjusting its innate geometry in relation to found conditions. The diagonal dissection of site articulates the relationship between the two institutions and establishes the longest possible elevation as a new face for the V&A, orientating the visitor to the heart of the complex.
2007
House: an architectural archive especulates on the re-house of the RIBA Drawings Collection.
A series of short briefs at the beginning of the year allowed us to engage with the concept of archive by adopting the roles of researcher, collector and curator. I personally developed and interest in physiognomies that would continue throughout the year
Character: the faces of buildings and developing a way of looking ... 'After the Bechers'
The Chamber brief: an initially unsited moment of the main design brief. It established spatial, material and structural concerns that would be pivotal in the development of the main project.
The chamber proposes a journey and encourages 'looking in'.
The site for the proposal is the boilerhouse courtyard within the V&A Museum, running along Exhibition Road. The site adds a new layer of complexity to the brief and opens up a discussion on how two institutions share a site and remain individual.
In the chamber brief I developed the proposal around a room that guides the visitor towards an object and around a space. This strategy is reiterated in the concept for the new proposal.
Site strategy: a series of investigations testing different volumes. The site is divided in half, allowing for a 'courtyard' space before the entrances to both institutions. Using the power of a diagonal for a dynamic organization of spaces the new buil
The new building proposes a journey from the most public to the most private. The most important features in terms of structure are the facade, a diaphragm wall that becomes the heart of the building and divides the site and a concrete slab that carries t
Cross section through the 'habitable' facade.
Ground Floor plan. The street is brought into the courtyard which leads to the new V&A entrance, directly into the hub of the museum.
Next to the Range Wing of the V&A. Entrance to the museum with the gardens beyond.
Study space in the chamber.
The facade of the new RIBA Drawings Collection is a key element and my interest in physiognomies became specially relevant. The new façade is a distinct character in the courtyard, that relates to the existing by the choice of material, red reclaimed bri
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