A Chimeric Nursery | London, UK | Unit 21 | 2022

Awarded the Year 3 Portfolio Prize

george.neyroud.19@ucl.ac.uk

In a disagreement over the preservation of Christ church Spitalfields a newly designed and built nursery is now the subject of demolition. My project explores new grounds for collaborative design by using machine learning to generate bespoke plans within a new site, St George in the east, with the hope of appeasing both sides of the argument.

The project sets up machine learning models that are derived from Hawksmoorian design, which have the possibility of producing bespoke church plans given a new site, the output plans are instilled with the language of Hawksmoorian design. The building must also satisfy the inhabitants, so additionally the children become an author alongside me, as the architect and mediator. By oscillating between hand drawing, clay fabrication and digital modelling the building becomes a chimeric object of a brand-new language, with the blended information of the three authors now distilled in a new nursery within the empty church walls of St George in the east.

A Bespoke Building

The central space and bespoke teachers chair, formed from a 3-d scan of the teacher it becomes spliced, meshed and then formed.

The Chimeric Nursery

This film explores the revealing of this new object that finds itself in the centre of grade 1 listed St. George in the east.

Pix2pix sets

The three trained models have the ability to synthesise new bespoke churches given a site, With Hawksmoor acting as author.

A Collaborative Building

The building involves three Authors, other than the architect and Hawksmoor it directly involves the inhabitants of the nursery.

Final plan and sections