University Smoking Shed. . .

[Brian O'Hanlon]

The Architecture of Procession.

 

 

The Smoking Shed of D.I.T. College of Technology in Bolton Street, Dublin, Ireland.

 

The smoking hut, it greets the student from its perch on a high place each day. Located on the edge of an exterior social gathering space. With the towering heights of the technological college rising in the background. People gather around this tiny little temple - an integral component of a student’s day.

 

The simple structure has an almost Zen-like quality of understatement, its horizontals and verticals express something with a purpose. It’s enclosure, providing a welcome roof on those misty cold miserable days in Ireland. A kind of 'room', which features a large window out to the world and a kind of podium from which anyone can cast their mind's eye for 5 minutes.

 

What do you people think? Any similar examples elsewhere in the world?

 

Brian O' Hanlon.

[Brian O'Hanlon]

Here is the rest of the processional architecture.

 

Discussion about small buildings, and their life beyond their physical selves...

 

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?p=32900#post32900

 

Enjoy, Brian.

[Richard McCarthy]

I am not a smoker so I can't say i am enthusastic having a shed for me to smoke a few peace pipe....

[IC]

The Architecture of Procession.

 

The simple structure has an almost Zen-like quality of understatement, its horizontals and verticals express something with a purpose. It’s enclosure, providing a welcome roof on those misty cold miserable days in Ireland. A kind of 'room', which features a large window out to the world and a kind of podium from which anyone can cast their mind's eye for 5 minutes.

 

 

Hmmm.....then at certain periods of the day it's full of ostracized students doing the most undignified and disgusting legal act in our society which regardless of where you position them, results in pollution of the air and litter on the ground.

 

Sorry, nice shed but it kind of loses its appeal when you apply reality.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

i think the stair detail needs more attention. the treads and risers are to reminiscent of shed or low quality construction that it takes away from the rest of teh structure. also, i do not like the exposed 2x4's overhead. i appreciate what you are trying to do wit them, but pine 2x4's are a poor exposed building material in myopinion. it becomes evidnt in the shot 4 on your first post. if you look down the line, you can see how much they have already warped in comparison to each other.

[Brian O'Hanlon]

Couple of things, The little structure, was placed in the courtyard of a college in this country, cause there is an architectural department, up on the top floor of the building, in the background. I dunno, what student designed it, but I think there were given a trailer load of materials, to build with - that was part of the brief in the competition - I guess, to make it a 'level playing pitch' for the student faculty. So you can clearly guess, how much the students doing this little competition either cared about what it was used for, or how it would weather. Lets just say, they didn't accumulate that much professional liability from the exercise, but as somebody points out on the archiseek discussion thread, how it did give the students some notion of what it was to design and actually build something. Apparently, there is an idea to build several other smoking sheds around the colleges other satallites around Dublin city - Dublin Institute of Technology is a dispersed organisation you see - very dispersed. But clearly, this would afford more student competitions - more opportunities to think about building materials, and different situations, in which to place these simple timber structures.

 

The most sucessful part of the whole undertaking for me, was how the structure attempts to interpret the site, and how you can move around the building, see it from different angles, and you experience different things about this deminutive structure. Anyhow I did my best with photoshop to present a building, with nice clean, plumb straight lines, but I suspect now to my own horror, that the structure doesn't conform to Miesian standards of building execution, in other words, its lopsided. I could do a bit about this, fake it with Photoshop, and I think I should have, but they you guys may not have made the point, that as a structure, it is indeed very flawed.

 

Anyhow, I thought it would be enjoyable, to 'launch' this little Sputnik, of a thing into Cyberspace and just see where it went. :-) In terms of the social aspect of this building - the 'social program' in its brief, I agree, it possibly would evoke some horrific memories for some past students - days when they knew there back was up against a wall - and unfortunately, looked for some kind of escapism, in nicotine - kicked an on/off habit of pulling cigi's, myself in January 2004 and have not looked back since.

 

Best regards,

Brian O' Hanlon.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

well, this is an architecture project. depending on the year of the students in the competition, they need to be aware of longevity, and weathering. whether the weathering is intentional or not. yes, i am sure the competition was about theory and form, but we all know that architecture is a multi-disciplinary study in itself, and a structure needs to answer the questions from its subjective theory driven design to whether it functions as a structure, to whether it will be standing at this time next year. granted the later of those will probably be handled by an engineer when the students enter into the professional world, they still need to be very aware, so that the are utilizing materials that are not only esthetically pleasing but also somehow benefit the structure in itself. and i understand that the material was donated, so you can't really look a gift horse in the mouth, but i don't think that should be the only excuse for creating a structure that while nice and pleasant will only last a year, unless this structure is to be torn down after a year and rebuilt.

in a way this is related to a lot of the problems with construction and architecture in america. cheap buildings that will not stand the test of time. that are inferior to the buildings of yester-year.

...on the other hand, if this is a first or second year project, then no, it does not need to address the aforementioned, it should only address theory and space. ...but if this is fourth year or later project, i really think it should work to take everything into account.

 

but anyway, it is always interesting to see projects like this. we did a few design build small scale projects when i was in school. they were a combination of design studio and our construction classes. how do things go together, how can this work with your design, or effect your design.