The Hill House by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1902-04) is widely considered a seminal work of early modern architecture. Today, after more than a century of saturating Scottish weather, the house is crumbling from water damage and needing renovation. In 2019, the first stage of works to stabilise the house and rectify its damp walls began in radical fashion with the ’Hill House Box’ by London-based architects Carmody Groarke. Like an oversized architectural raincoat, this roof and chainmesh-walled structure completely encases the house, allowing it to dry out before conservation works can begin. The design also incorporates a series of walkways through the interstitial volume, enabling visitors to observe the old building from new vantage points during its renovation. As such, the enclosure not only forms a protective case, but effectively turns the building - and its conservation - into a museological exhibit.

The architectural interest of the Hill House Box, however, lies in its encounter with Mackintosh’s temporally and stylistically distinct design, and the perverse strategy of placing one building inside another. For this essay, the Hill House and its new box highlight the underexamined architecture of buildings-in-buildings and, in particular, the creation of spaces that are neither interior nor exterior, but both, simultaneously. Drawing upon a diverse array of buildings and texts, this paper will attempt to outline a theoretical framework through which such composite constructions might be better understood. In particular, it will argue that, while there are countless ways that buildings have historically become encased within other buildings, it is within museums and sites of preservation, like the Hill House Box, that these fantastic architectural encounters find their most exciting and emphatic expressions.

Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Public Library is considered an important building in the history of twentieth-century architecture, yet relatively few archival plans have been saved from the library’s extended design process from 1919–25 and its subsequent construction until opening in 1928. This work presents the first systematic review of the available, digitised archival plans from Sweden’s National Centre for Architecture and Design (ArkDes), and explains Asplund’s gradual design and development of the project. Subsequent alterations in the library are briefly summarised, followed by the results from an extensive 3D laser scanning process throughout and around the building as it undergoes a significant period of renovation and maintenance. The results from 3D laser scanning create the first comprehensive and detailed record of the building for supporting future research, teaching, and renovation work. This study emphasises the mutual benefits of combining historical and technological approaches, and conducting academic research in parallel with contemporary renovation projects of historical architecture.

This article follows the fascinating mythology of grace and gift exchange to construct an argument about appearances as transcending the boundaries of things through a form of radiance or shining. The latter is based on the primary figure of the Graces, Aglaea, whose name literally signifies shining. The question arises how the obligatory rules of gift exchange - giving, receiving, and returning - apply to appearances, which leads to a cyclical ’alternating current’ of shining and working. It now becomes clear why the ancient Greeks married the ethereal figure of Aglaea to the sweaty, club footed smithgod Hephaestus: shining things are necessarily linked to the making of shining things. In the magic realm of Hephaestus shining and automation are fully merged: automata are without exception made of gold or silver, while the abundantly embellished objects he creates always evoke movement. At this point in the essay the term ’phenotechnology’ is coined: the work of making things lies in their overworking, which is sharply contrasted to the classic notion of ornament as parergon, as by-work, or in the words of Aby Warburg, as bewegtes Beiwerk. Instead of viewing movement as added on (Alberti) to structure we find that the figural movement of pliant motifs in fact creates structure, a structure that according to Gottfried Semper undergoes ’the mystery of transfiguration’, which reverses the relationship between surface and space: space is the very depth of radiating surfaces.

This paper discusses spatial agency practice within a living lab in Hong Kong. Lab members work in Tai O Village, a historic fishing settlement receiving increased attention due to remnant vernacular housing there. The article presents historical and policy context for ongoing casework conducted with stakeholders in Tai O. It presents Tai O’s history in brief, recent policy developments, and inherent conflicts arising from the interaction of the two. The third section of the article describes informal settlement land tenure conflicts as historical phenomena in Hong Kong. The paper follows this case-specific discussion with global literature review of selected regularisation and settlement upgrading efforts from around the world. These reviews present the article’s thesis that third sector and design-led efforts are critically applicable methods to address informal settlement conflicts that remain due to colonial legacy policies and political inertia. The final section of the article presents ongoing living lab research and initiatives, including collaborative monitoring projects and strategic development proposals. Each living lab initiative presented elaborates the article’s thesis on the interaction between architecture, research, and governance to negotiate complex development transitions. The article contributes to architectural scholarship by summarising unique interactions between history, policy, economics, and demography that engendered the development situation in Tai O. Further, it reflects upon response development methods through architectural science and spatial agency practice, including the role of architectural representation products and discursive distinctions at boundaries between architectural practice and spatial agency practice.

The article demonstrates that the Ger Plug-In, a housing prototype that combines the traditional Mongolian nomadic dwelling, or ger, with new construction, is a viable sustainable and affordable housing product that addresses urgent issues that have arisen from the growth of Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts. These settlements have no water supply, sewers or centralised heating, and households use coal and coke briquettes to heat their homes. The prototype provides the ger with electrical heating,, sanitation systems and improved thermal insulation. The pilot project was constructed in 2017 and on-site field measurements together with numerical simulation have been used to calculate its Energy Use Intensity (EUI). By using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the results show that the Ger Plug-In meets the EUI criteria to be eligible for green mortgages provided by the Green Climate Fund. Household surveys were conducted to ascertain the financial capacity of residents. By proving its qualification for low interest rate mortgages and by evidencing its market demand, the objective is to demonstrate that the product can have scalable impact for the 840,000residents living in the ger districts.

Archio interviewed by Dhruv Sookhoo and Ava Lynam

Kyle Buchanan and Mellis Haward, directors of architectural practice Archio, reflect on their experience developing a toolkit of practices that facilitate co-design of community-led housing.

In this interview, Buchanan and Haward examine the participatory approaches that Archio adopts to negotiate the delivery of enhanced housing outcomes [1]. They describe building trust with residents by interpreting their lived experiences and aspirations through architectural knowledge and practices. Discussion focuses on the co-production of design artefacts as tools that enable community stakeholders to negotiate shared ambitions for their neighbourhood within community-based development and regulatory processes (e.g. development management).

In 2016, Archio was invited by London Community Land Trust and Citizens UK to compete for the opportunity to design and deliver eleven affordable homes on a disused garage site at Brasted Close, in Lewisham, London [2]. Unusually, a “Pick an Architect” workshop was held on the development site, where the public was able to evaluate prospective architectural teams for their ability to engage future residents and neighbouring communities in the collective examination of fundamental socio-spatial aspects of the project. Archio’s successful approach at the pioneering community land trust at Brasted Close anticipated their development of a toolkit of practices that emphasise collaboration during community-led development of affordable housing. These design tools were refine through use across a series of later commissions including a co-housing project at Angel Yard, Norwich and a resident-led estate regeneration scheme at Astley Estate, Southwark.

The use of bio-based construction materials in Haiti could help the construction sector to transition, from non-seismic unreinforced masonry structures towards materials that can reverse catastrophic deforestation, promote ecological regeneration, and help save the soil. Architecture has a role to play in this vision, by creating new designs and incentivising clients to invest in new materials.