TOM LEAHY PORTFOLIO 20 0 7 -2 0 11

Countering a Floored typology

core-less unstriated structure framing ephemeral constructions and forming spatial uncertainties, ramped entropic districts jostling juxtaposed within and onto the existing city.

changing

scalea

long

Londonsl

traditional

inear

public

passage

Countering a Floored typology

core-less unstriated structure framing ephemeral constructions and forming spatial uncertainties, ramped entropic districts jostling juxtaposed within and onto the existing city.

changing

scalea

long

Londonsl

traditional

inear

public

passage

U N D E S I G N A LONDON HOTEL TOWER Tottenham Court Road-2011

As we increase the number of towers in our cities, and the prominence of their locations, they must do more. Now, the call for a review of their vertical striation, homogeneity and formal simplicity is long overdue. Commonly, the construction of towers today is not primarily driven by direct consideration of cultural improvement or their physical context, but by the potential for indirect improvement of these things from the economic stimulus they instill. Unfortunately, because of this, alongside the ever-increasing demand for economic contribution, the typology of towers has become unimaginative and derivative and concerns such as cultural improvement or physical context fall by the wayside as add-ons rather than being the core principals of development that make our cities exciting and enriched. This project acknowledges the huge importance of the economic contribution demanded of towers at the same time as debunking the preconceptions about their design that have been attached to these demands so steadfastly. The primary brief was to design a hotel tower, situated above the new X-rail station at Tottenham Court Road. My initial design moves were to question the need for conventional core and slab repetition within a hotel tower. The design resolved itself as a continuously ramp, turning around an atrium instead of a central core, appropriating a range of scales from the varied grains of the surrounding city. As you move up the building, programmatic changes between public and private promote vertical curiosity and integration, whilst a complex and changing structural system offers continuously shifting environments and views. The ramp, if stretched, would be just short of 8km.

from south west

from east (british museum)

PHYSIOGNOMIC FACADE

fitzgrovia

oxford street

site

charing X road

st gi

on a number of projects have recreated ramp as a circulation of flow around through program. This architecture resents reality as a multitude of fts rather than a series of objects

1:500

iles

OMA_ramping voids
casa da musica_porto seattle public library paris public library kunsthal netherlands embassy_berlin

1.500 massing
alternating public program and private hotel with unifying skin.

?
urban complexity urban complexity major routes major routes

Axis of intricacy against ordered regency

mixed grain mixed grain

short cuts and secret spaces short cuts and secret spaces

1.10000-1.1000 the city as fragmented ghosts of small encounters. theHeld in clarity by aghostsdefined patchwork of city as fragmented more of small encounters. major passages. Held in clarity by a more defined patchwork of
major passages.

2 urban grains 21.10000-1.1000 urban grains

12 10 11

8 9

7 2 1

21

20

Servicing & Refuse zones Public served area

SI
H e t e r o t o p i a Dance on Film centre Whitechapel - 2010
An emerging genre, dance-on-film, required a new semi-public building offering space for rehearsals, performance and post-production and a cinema auditorium. The large site, off East Londons Brick Lane, offered the potential for public integration and performance. The crucial relationship between the expression of dance, the medium of film and normal city life was mirrored in the special organization of the building. The main studio spaces were elevated above the street at the front of the site. To enter the building, both dancers and public would be channeled under the studios through intermediary space and enter the building from the back of the site. The movement away from, up, and towards the life of the city divorced and strengthened the dancers relationship with it whilst creating a series of small urban, public spaces without clear programmatic diktat: spaces that this part of East London lacks.

section AA 1.10

upper plan 1.100

Aluminium trim (overlaps shingles, care taken to avoid any flat surfaces where water would stand) wood joists intermediate between steel and skylight fitting. steel ring-beam triple glazed skylight operational remotely cedar wood shingles 600x250x20mm wood batons running laterally 20x20mm waterproof membrane plywood boards 20mmx1200x2400mm verticle wood joists 75mm steel i-beam 40x277mm solid insulation 220mm wood support joists 250x100mm plasterboard with concrete render 20mm

laid sarnafil waterproof roof covering (gutter moulded in) aluminum capping ply 40mm

concrete cladding 100mm (precast in panals of 600x4500mm) ties back to frame 200mm solid insulation load baring insitu concrete wall 250mm waterproof membrane continues aluminum window surround double glazing

concrete floor slab 400mm harlequin sprung floor 100mm (consists of foam pads, cross wooden batons and final wooden planking. 40mm granite floor slabs screed with under floor heating 75mm solid insulation 250mm concrete slab 330mm hardcore 150mm

the section detailed here is a cut through the dance rehersal studios. The construction

0.5m

THE SOUTHBANK
W E E K E N D I N M AY

For a weekend design Charrette led by Spencer de Gray we where asked to look in groups at how Londons troubled South Bank might be improved. We asserted that the area was in fact more suited to being part of the river than the land- and that in fact the large number of railway lines that separated South Bank from south London actually formed the boundary between North and South. We argued that the river itself as purely a transport utility was an unnecessary restraint on the city and its condition could be changed to allow a flood of new cultural institutions. We suggested that the awkward south bank be flooded. Its institutions moved onto cultural arcs and a free trade of unlimited possibility and flexibility be set up world wide. Reducing the need for Bilbao-like excess travel and assuring a constant and stabilising trade in cultural institutions on all the underused waterways in world cities.

E V E N T S A N D E X H I B I T I O N S 2009-2011
As head of exhibition for the ArcSoc Cambridge Department of Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2011, and as head curator of the second year in 2010, I have been accountable for the vast expansion and improvement of the exhibition in recent years. Last year, through fundraising from events and parties, and an intense sponsorship effort, we raised over 40,000. This funded the unprecedentedly successful and high-quality exhibition in July, which was well attended and reviewed.

I N S TA L L AT I O N AND SCULPTURE Barcelona-2008

In 2007-8 I spent a year in Barcelona practicing and studying in the Metafora Diploma School of Contemporary Art. Here, I concentrated on creating sculptures and instillations that aimed to poke fun at the over-conceptualizing of fine art and its institutions. By using mundane, everyday materials with loaded conceptual associations, my aim was to bypass these connotations by creating a higher plane on which the materials themselves could be forgotten and purely their organization appreciated. Light, situation, action, interaction and the ludic became central themes in my investigations.

TO M L E A H Y tom.leahy@cantab.net (+44) 07595044168