Contents

Flimwell Woodland Enterprise Center

Materiality 3 Mario Alcantara Monteiro Set among 50 acres of redundant ancient woodland at Flimwell,
Sound Woodland Enterprise Centre is a series of spaces designed by The
Structure 4 Architecture Ensemble and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios over the last ten
Light and Sound 5 Patrick Nnaemeka Nnaedozie years.
Thermal 6 Thermal
This project aims to promote good practice in woodland management
Ventilation 7 and to prove that timber is still a very capable material. One of its main
Abdullah Uwais
purposes was to regenerate the surrounding woodlands in West Sussex,
Printing which have been neglected since the mid-1980s.

Eden Wan The result is a series of offices and workshops, which are housed under a
Materiality, Ventilation, Introduction, Layout design gridshell vault and in modular units respectively. They are all timber frame
structures that promote the utilisation of local resources.
Gigi Sze-Nga Wong
Structure The main areas that interest us are the workshop units, which are a
reinterpretation of the traditional Sussex timber vernacular construction.

Pop Brixton
Materiality 8 Gary Ka-Chun Fung Situated in the heart of Brixton, Pop Brixton is a temporal space designed
Structure 9 Thermal by Carl Turner Architects for start-ups of independent businesses, and was
completed in the first quarter of 2015 and opened on 29th May.
Light 10
Sound 11 Tera Tz-Yau Kwong
Structure, Introduction, Layout Design, Conclusion Being just a stones throw from roadside markets, Pop Brixton also
Thermal 12 supports local enterprise ranging from food and beverage to retails, and
Ventilation 13 hosts events and activities to engage with the public; hence, 85% of the
Ben Chun-Bun Lau tenants have connections with the local community. The fact that its lease
Ventilation ends in 2017 prompts the structure to be demountable, transportable,
re-usable and recyclable.
Elliot Selfe
Lighting, Sound, Document Editing and Design The multi-cultural public are invited to play a role in this little
community, the technical aspects and green strategies in the
Marco Wai-Cheng Un development and operation are pivotal to provide a contented ambiance
Conclusion 14 Sound, Materiality, Layout design for all users.

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Flimwell
Materials
Structural frame and cladding
Local Timber Polycarbonate Metal

Minimal environmental impact
It is located in the middle of a woodland, so travel distance is minimised
for supplies, which in turn, lowers air pollution.
Trees that are fast growing and have short life cycle are utilised, such as
Chestnut.
An alternative to double glazing glass due to shortage of money. Although metal is not the ideal material
to use in terms of sustainability, small
Glass is reasonably thermally stable whereas polycarbonate can move a amounts of steel and aluminium are
lot when it heats or cools, this means that the joints are susceptible to present in this building. They are mostly
opening-up when they expand. This is acceptable for workshops where air used as metal joints, as they are much
movement is a good thing. more cost effective than wooden joints.
It can also be bent and is acoustically transparent however, it is not so
good for offices, so the last two units - unit 7 & 8, are using glass instead.

Woodland management Polycarbonate roof-light

Coppicing is the process of cutting down tree roots or stump in order to Polycarbonate gable glazing
encourage new growth. It is also beneficial for biodiversity, due to the
range of ages of the coppice growing in it.

If it is otherwise neglected, trees will just die of old age. This projects
aim was to regenerate the surrounding ancient woodland.

Useful Properties
Timber dries the air by absorbing, and releases the moisture back to the
air during winter.
Timber Rafters
Timber has a low specific heat capacity, so it absorbs and releases heat Timber Windpost Beam
slowly. Timber Boarding
Temporary Timber Wall
However the timber used here hasnt been coated with chemical to Cladding(Douglas Fir or Larch)
prevent fire spread (a normal practice), as it will lose its moisture
absorption properties.
Steel coping
Fire marshals came and approved it. As the timber used is so dense that Aluminium Frames
it wont be burnt easily., even if steel does not catch fire it has potential
to melt.

When timber is thick enough, it is actually safer than Pop Brixtons Accoya vent window
steel containers in terms of fire resistance.
Accoya base board

Accoya joinery throughout

3
Flimwell
Workshops
The workshops were planned to provide some working spaces for local
small and medium-sized businesses. The aim of this project was to explore
ways in which both local and innovative timber products could be used in
a way that could compete with steel and masonry construction.
There were total eight workshops built around a shared courtyard set
within an ancient woodland. The workshops were designed to be flexible
as the basic 6x15m module is tall enough to add an upper level. The
workshops were built in pairs and after each pair was completed, Steve
Johnson, the architect, and his colleagues had time to reflect and refine
their ideas before developing the next pair.
Cruck Frame V.S. 3-Pinned-Arch
Cruck frames resemble the 'A' frames used today except that curved
rather than straight members were preferred so that they followed as
closely as possible the line of wall and roof. Timbers for the frames were
cut from the trunk and main branch, or possibly from a naturally curving
tree. This was then split down the centre to produce a matching pair
of 'cruck blades'. They were then joined at the top to form an arch-like
structure. Although this produced an inherently stable frame, the blades
were usually joined together a little below the apex with a short collar.
Using the basics of a cruck frame, Steve Johnson and his colleagues
generate a new frame for the workshops in Flimwell Woodland Enterprise
Centre (FWEC), which made the frames more stablised by moving away
from the connecting point of the arch and using polycarbonate sheets as a
roof.
Structure
Core Laminated Timber Flat to Curve
It is an engineered wood building system designed to complement The Grid is pushed up from below using scaffolding towers, which include
light and heavy-timber framing options due to its high strength and bending stresses in the laths. The laths are connected at the nodes of the
dimensional stability. grid with a patented system of steel plates and bolts.
Benefits : fast installation, reduced waste, improved thermal performance,
and design versatility, etc.
Gridshell Hall
It is host to a structure, which has generated from the gridshell form,
and although it was not a pure gridshell building as it just has a modular Finger Jointed
gridshell roof.
Each piece of timber needed to be tested to avoid that cause fractures
A gridshell is a structure with the shape and strength of a double- when used in the Gridshell building. The defective sections removed and
curvature shell, but made of a grid instead of a solid surface. The grid the remaining lengths were joined by using finger jointing. The advantage
can be made of any kind of material, such as steel, aluminium, or even of it is to reduce the wasted timbers in the process and the quality of the
cardboard but the Downland Gridshell is made of slender oak laths material is maximised as well.
bent into shape. The gird is actually a double layer, with two laths in
each direction. This is necessary in order to reinforce the flexibility with The finger jointing was also applied in the the gridshell roof too, some of
sufficient cross section for strength. The laths are connected at the nodes the timbers were up to 15m long by using the finger joint.
of the grid with a patented system of steel plates and bolts.
Polycarbonate
ridge purlin
cross tie beam
wind brace
cruck spur
wall plate
wall post
cruck blade Cross braces
sole plate
Cruck Frame 3-Pinned-Arch
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Flimwell
Light and Sound
Natural sunlight goes through the buildings until the sunset. Every
Polycarbonate building has a set of glass and/or polycarbonate panels which allow light
to come inside the space. During night time it switches to artificial light
sources. Despite the amount of natural light the buildings get, it becomes
quite cold when the heating is turned off, due to the empty spaces and
the high ceilings. The buildings are warmed by a heater which uses timber
wood chips as fuel.

Reverberation - an acoustic reverberation is experienced in the space due

to the height, the type of structure and emptiness of the space, however
less reverberation is experienced in the workshops due to the
occupancy of the space by objects. To ensure silence in the office spaces,
double glazed glass was used as opposed to the workshop spaces where
polycarbonate was used instead.

The light and sound conditions of these spaces are entirely linked by the
materials specially. As a way of finding the best option for to put natural
light inside the space, the sound was directly affected by the materials
used (polycarbonate and double glazed glass).

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Flimwell
The first two units insulated with a panelised system of sheeps wool
insulation and 35mm-thick Pavatex external sarking board.
The next four units have used Gutex insulating woodfibre board to insu-
late. The buildings are built from a combination of frames, prefabricated
cross-laminated timber panels and Douglas Fir timber cladding. 100mm
GUTEX Ultraherm tongue and groove woodfibre board was trimmed and
screwed directly onto the timber panels. For the roofs, 120mm GUTEX
Thermosafe Homogen was used followed by a layer of 22mm multiplex
top tongue and groove screwed over the top and clad with Douglas Fir
battens and Douglas fir rain-screen boarding fixed directly over the insula-
tion for roofs and walls.
A unit of the workshops
Heat
GUTEX wood fiberboard have low U-value which helps to prevent heat Fuel logs are converted into chips, together with the pieces left in the
loss in the winter and regulate heat gain in the summer. workshops are brought to this boiler thats enclosed inside a recycled
shipping container.
The Woodland Enterprise Centre is heated using woody biomass in an
automated 45kw Airmax boiler.
However, when the heating is not turned on, the place becomes cold and
this is due to heat loss through the polycarbonate sheets on roofs.
45kW Airmax wood chip
- Wood fiber (waste material) mixed with bees wax insulation biomass boiler
- Some of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable thermal
insulative materials are being used
- Warmcell insulation: Fully recycled insulation, made from cellulose fiber
that is obtained from recycled newspapers.
- Heavy timber on the outside of the frame, e.g.. Austra wood, to reduce
heat lost.
A diagram showing the temperature difference in one unit
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Flimwell
Ventilation
Flexibility
Timber framing and the material choice of polycarbonate provides great flexibility. In one
case, the occupants have added an enclosed office at one end of the upper floor. They
also found that the central bay of the building suffered from a lack of airflow and added
a roof vent into the centre of the ridge roof light due to overheating.

The ventilation of the buildings varies between each workshop as they have different
uses. They can choose different combinations of openings to make the workshops suit
their activities.

Passive ventilation
There are doors in both gable ends at ground level and vent windows in the upper level
gables. Together, they take advantage of the physics of heated air inside the building
rising and being expelled through the roof vents and drawing cooler air in through
the lower level windows and doors. They are completely passive ventilation and with
mechanical ventilation only used in the kitchenettes and toilets.

This is a Building Regulations requirement to maintain airtightness in the winter. A bit

excessive for a workshop, but considering there are artists occupying the space and also
offices within the workshops, their lack of body heat generated can be compensated by
the energy preserved by the enclosed environment.

Low Pressure

Tem
pe
rat
ure
eff High Pressure
ect
sv
en
tila
tio
n
Originally, they were designed to take three roof cowls with stack ventilation provided
through these wind scoops located in the central ridge roof light system. One near each
Scenario 4 end and one in the centre of the ridge.
Cold
Sitting still In the end, all of the users of the workshops thought that the wind scoops were too
expensive and decided against them.
Scenario 3
Chilly We however, do not think it compromises its overall performance. Due to its open plan
Light physical activities and the sufficient number of openings, they are able accommodate a wide range of
activities and the amount of air flow can be adjusted very easily by the user.
Scenario 2
Mild
Moderate physical activities Although all doors and windows are closed in scenario 4, the open nature that the plan
provides stack ventilation in which the air comes in from other workshop units, and
travels from high pressure to low pressure. Circulation of air is still maintained in cold
Scenario 1
weather.
Warm
Intense physical activities

7
Pop Brixton
Materials
Pop Brixton is made with low-tech and low-energy materials primarily
Oriented Strand Board and shipping containers. Since the containers are
made of steel, the energy performance becomes a massive issue in of
itself and its affects the surroundings. While the materials used are not
necessarily eco-friendly to produce however, they become more efficient
through re-use with the possibility of the site being demolished and set
up again after the project is over, making this a more sustainable project
than initially thought.

The use of materials in our site affects the following four aspects weve
Polycarbonate The roof of the event space
examined, namely: structure, light, sound and thermal properties.
Also named Lexan, Makrolon, and others.
A low-cost material


It is a kind of plastic
Insulation: heat
(which can withstand the temperature about 125 C)
It is stiff, strong, hard, tough and transparent
Density: 1.20-1.22 g/cm
TYPES OF MATERIALS AND LOCATIONS

Bubble Wrap Roof of the Green House Oriented Strand Board Partitions in the Green House Double Glazed Glass Windows of the container

Made with polyethylene

Formed by adhesives and wood cellulose
Speed of sound inside the material: 5570m/s
Damping absorption 95% wood, 5% wax and resin Sound impedance: 12.3 x 106 kg/m2s
Very light Water-absorbent Heat and sound-insulated
Transparent, non-toxic, free of smell Heat and sound-insulated Low U-value (reduce about 99% of U-value), so
Moisture proof Non-durable; age quickly and easily polluted it can save the energy cost
Anti-static Mainly used in wall, floor and roof decking

Steel Container itself Concrete - Ground Spray Foam Inside the container


Ductile


Conductive: electric, heat


Insulation: resist sulfate, heat

A common building insulation
Swell Mixture composed by isocyanate and polyol resin
Heat resistant is low Compressive strength Polyurethane is the common insulation in spray foam
It is an alloy that mixture composed by iron and carbon Elasticity: 30-50 GPa It works on the tip of guns and spray the foam out
(carbon is included about 0.0218%-2.06%) 8
Pop Brixton
Structure
Even before one enters, the gigantic faades of stacked-up shipping con-
tainers attract attention already. Manufactured out of weathering steel,
recycled containers are sustainable materials since thousands of
containers have been abandoned at the docks throughout the world
but they have a restricted use of 12 years1. Since the sizes are regulated
internationally to facilitate transporting, the modular boxes are limited to
several types of dimensions and the majority is merely slightly more than
2m wide. Undoubtedly this material is sustainable thus sturdy enough to
build on, however issues with insulation and ventilation arise once the
home for cargo is transformed into a space for humans.
Foundation
Underneath the ground a concrete foundation is built to encompass the
weights of shipping containers. Elongated metal slabs and rods were
arranged in a track form on the ground and concrete was poured into the
frames on 28th January this year and finished in one afternoon.
Additional rods were used to smoothen the concrete with water and later
removed once the reinforced concrete has settled with the steel
framework. Applying reinforced concrete is a rather straightforward
method, but due to its tremendous amount of embodied energy the
downside is that it takes several decades to decompose in landfills,
releasing toxic gas to the environment at the same time.
Arrangement of elongated metal rods as reinforcement
Delivery
The low-cost, low-energy containers were delivered on 22nd February
with cranes on trucks. Then, on-site modifications were performed once
the pre-fabricated materials arrived. It can require as little as 1300 to
buy one used container2 and construction with ready-made substances is
more efficient, hence eliminating the disposal of excessive materials from
the site.
Construction
There are two common methods of stacking up shipping containers when
they are loaded on a cargo ship. Criss-cross lashing secures a group of
containers together by lashing one against the diagonal corner of another
one, forming a bond among them. Freitag Flagship Store in Zurich, also
built with containers, has applied this method both functionally and
aesthetically on the exterior. Stacked-stowage securing is about
interlocking containers with the adjacent ones at the corners where the
pre-made mouths are. The shipping containers in Pop Brixton are stacked
on their corners with twist-lock connections so that they would not fall
apart under strong wind; that explains why it is difficult to make a design
with cantilevers.
Internally, the roofs and openings for windows have to be reinforced
since they are not meant to be stepped on, otherwise the gauge steel
would dent easily if they are to bear the weight of floor slabs. After the
engineers have cut openings for the windows in the walls, the entire
structure would deflect so they have to reinforce them by welding metal
rods through the wall. The physics behind is due to the removal of a big
beam the thin 16cm-thick corrugated sides would dent once there is
lack of support from the roof to the bottom of the containers.
Criss-cross lashing Metal welding
1: De Garrido, L. Sustainable Architecture: Containers 2. Monsa Publications (Mar, 2012)
Stacked-stowage securing
Structure
Section
Heat insulation would be an issue with steel shipping containers within a
small enclosed space. Steel is a heat conductor which, in other words, is
problematic regulating temperature in the interior. All surfaces are
insulated from heat/cold with spray foam so the usable area would
reduce greatly since insulation is added in the interior of the already low
headroom and narrow width.
To hold the foam in shape, a wooden frame is lined in each container
before finishing the interior with oriented strand board. All these has
certainly cut into the usable space, especially discernible to the original
width and height of both 2.35m3, which are much lower than buildings
made from scratch.
Although containers are sustainable in the way they can be used over and
over again, the fact that shipping container homes or the
polyisocyanurate insulation here in Pop Brixton makes the project have
immense carbon footprint upon disposal. Moreover, by using refrigerated
shipping containers specialised for temperature-sensitive cargo, minimal
insulation needs to be added to the roof and the floor.
Section of a slice of the container
2: http://www.viralnova.com/shipping-container-homes/
3: http://www.residentialshippingcontainerprimer.com/Shipping%20Container%20
Plan%20and%20Section%20Details 9
Pop Brixton
Light
Pop Brixton is mainly an outside space and relies nearly entirely on
natural lighting so there are more instances of the light being controlled
than generated.

The most noticeable aspect of light can be seen when entering Pop
Brixton. The sites single entrance faces south meaning that throughout
the majority of the daylight hours, light shines through its doorway
giving a pleasant first impression and illuminating the main entrance
space which is where the seating area and majority of the food shops are.

Adding windows to the containers is fairly complicated as it requires a

lot of re-enforcement to keep the structural stability of the containers.
Because of this, the containers never have more than one window which
faces the outside of Pop Brixton. To prevent the spaces becoming too
dark, the containers have large opening hatches and doorways to let as
much light into the space as possible. There is also artificial lighting but Morning
is generally placed towards the back of the container to illuminate the
darker corners that the natural light cannot reach. Shaded area around the site

The roof of the greenhouse is made from a polycarbonate bubble-wrap
which blurs the surroundings but still lets in a lot of light. However, the
uneven, multi-layered surface diffused the light so much that even in
the brightest conditions there are never any shadow cast inside. From
asking customers opinions on the condition (from asking ten people)
eight people said that the light can be uncomfortable and come across as
unnatural and there are no shaded spaces inside, while only two people
said that they like the light conditions due to there being no glare so they
can comfortably sit anywhere in the room without needing to shield their
eyes from the sunlight.
We used Rhino to create a rough scale model of Pop Brixton and then
set the longitude and latitude to generate a 3D model with the correct
lighting settings at particular times of the day.
From this model, it becomes clear that the area which receives the most
light is the office block at the back due to it being substantially higher
than the majority of the site. This is particularly useful as it means that
the working spaces will be well lit creating optimal working conditions.
The screenshots of Rhino to the right are taken at 7am, 12pm and 5pm on
the current date of working on this document, the 9th of December.

Midday

Sun-path diagram of our site The polycarbonate bubble-wrap roof with diffused light Evening 10
Pop Brixton
Sound
Greenhouse: 61dB Square: 71dB Event space
The greenhouse is an indoor space and is filled with The loudest place in Pop Brixton, this is where the The interior of the event space is made from containers which are steel.
seating above containers where visitor can eat their food majority of the public seating areas are. The steel walls of this area are hard and thin so it can produce a clear
or just sit and chat. reverberations during events. However due to the size of the room, this
can be undesirable in many situations with more than 2 things to listen to
simultaneously. Of the events shown at Pop Brixton, the space lends itself
better to speakers and small musical groups rather than the live sporting
events.

Throughout the front half of the site, the background noise only adds to
the busy and excitable atmosphere of Brixton Market. However, towards
the back by the offices, it is significantly quiter so that anyone renting a
container to work in is not disturbed to visitors to the publicly accessible
area.

Office: 48dB
The office is the quietest place in Pop Brixton, it is situated
out of the way to keep it away from the louder parts of the
site.
Main entrance: 69dB The surface layer inside the general containers are made with OS board,
also there are spray foam and timber inside. It can create soundproof
The area linking Brixton Market to Pop Brixton. between outside and inside.
11
Pop Brixton
Insulation
Shipping containers are constructed with metal which is a very good
conductor of heat. This means the temperature inside can be altered
very easily by the temperature outside. Therefore the inside temperature
can become quite extreme during the day as well as during different
periods of the year. Spray foam is used to insulate the indoor space and
it is defined as a great insulation method for shipping containers because
it lowers the risk of condensation and works very effectively compared
to other types of insulation. However, we found out by asking the shop
owners that the temperature inside the shipping containers can become
quite uncomfortable. The shop owners claim that they feel stuffy in
summer time, and it can get very cold at night time, so they need to keep
the doors shut.
Collecting Raw Data
Temperature measures were taken in different areas within the site,
such as the entrance, gallery, greenhouse, etc. We collected two sets
of data, one from the afternoon and one at night and worked out the
difference for making comparisons. The average temperature difference
between day and night was 4.7C. The area which has the greatest
change in temperature was the space outside the gallery. There was 8.2C
difference between afternoon and at night. It is believed that the reason
was because that space was shined by the sun for most of the afternoon,
therefore in the afternoon when the measurement was taken, the space
was warmer compared to elsewhere on the site. The greenhouse has the
second greatest difference in temperature, which was 6.2C. Although
it has a big change, the temperature inside the greenhouse was actually
warmer by 2 to 3C than the other space at night. It happened the same
in the afternoon, the temperature inside was higher than outside by
about 3C. It is because the bubble wrap roof traps heat, as there were
only small spaces for air to go through. The heat inside the greenhouse is
largely given off by humans.
Temperature measurements at different spots of the site
Seasonal Simulations
The rendered images show simulations of the site with the sun in different
seasons. The containers situated on the southern part of the site suffer
more from the over heated indoor temperature especially in the summer
as the space is directly shinned by the sun in most of the day. Problem
of over heating occur in the greenhouse too, since the greenhouse
(south) is heated by the sun consistently in most of the day. Hence, from
the raw data we collected, the temperature in the northern part of the
greenhouse is slightly lower than in the southern part.
A section of the greenhouse and the containers was drawn to illustrate
the movements of hot air within the space. The containers on the ground
floor are mostly used for tuck shops (with kitchens) which generate a lot
of heat. The shop owners claimed that they feel very hot sometimes
cooking inside the containers despite chimneys being installed in the
kitchens to allow hot air out. The greenhouse is situated on top of the
containers. Too much heat from the sun can get trapped inside the
greenhouse in the summer so the space can overheat very quickly. On
the other hand, the space can get very cold during the winter, since the
bubble-wrapped roof has very little thermal resistance.
Section diagram illustrating movements of hot air within the site
Thermal
There are no temperature control systems operating inside the containers.
The shop owners tend to bring their own ones in, such as small heaters
or fans. From thermal performance perspective, designing architecture
using shipping containers is not an ideal way to build as it is hard to
maintain good level of temperature for the indoor space. Temperature
can be quite extreme during different times of day/year, which can reach
uncomfortable levels, although it is believed that the level of extremeness
has been reduced thanks to the spray foam insulation. Nevertheless, if
some sorts of temperature control systems are in operation, then the
level of comfort will be improved greatly.
Graph showing temperature difference in the site throughout a year
Thermal Performance
A thermal simulation was made using VI-suite, and the graph was
generated to show the daily temperature inside the container thoughout
the whole year. According to the graph, the temperature can reach
a peak point of just above 30C in summer time, which is way above
the comfortable temperature level. People would experience a big
temperature difference during different seasons. For example, in winter,
the temperature inside the container often stays below 10C, and when
it gets towards the end of the year, temperature can drop down to 0C in
some days. To sum up, the temperature inside the container varies largely
depends on the climate.
12
Pop Brixton
Pop Brixton mainly relies on natural ventilation, which is not working well.
Containers inside Pop Brixton will have at least one window and a double
door, which the door is the only element to ventilate a container and the
window inside let light gets in. This is the reason why all shops have to
keep their door open most of the time. But this lead to the next problem.
Temperature inside a shop has no difference with outdoor area. Shop
owners might not feel comfortable to stay in the cold the whole day.
During winter, some of the owners have to bring their own heaters and
even keep the doors shut which can make the container feel airless.
Ventilation
However, during summer time, since containers are good heat
conductors, heat is trapped inside. But the wind speed of Pop Brixton is
not high enough to ventilate those containers. Shop owners said they will
feel stuffy inside the container during summer, even with door had
already opened.
The average wind speed around Pop Brixton is around 8 to 10 mph, which
is not enough to ventilate the containers. Although there are chimneys
for restaurants on the ground floor, owners still feel stuffy during summer
time. Users of the Pop Brixton might not feel comfortable when they stay
there for a long time.
This is an example of natural ventilation, a project in San Jose, Costa Rica,
which is a hot country. The roof between the two containers is made from
the scrap pieces of metal taken to make the windows. This not only
creates an internal sensation of openness but also provides a cross
ventilation which is surprisingly sufficient enough to never have to turn on
the air conditioning. Although the climate of this project is totally
different from Pop Brixton, the way it makes use of cross ventilation
effectively solves the overheating problem and could work in either
scenario. When comparing this project with Pop Brixton, this project
provides a pleasant place for client to stay while Pop Brixton has less
consideration about ventilation as the containers generally have open
fronts and are never filled with more than 2/3 people at a time.
13
At first sight, it appears that the depths of technical considerations for Pop
Brixton and Woodland Enterprise Centre are at poles apart the latter
being very sustainable while the use of materials of the former one is
totally opposite. However, with deeper analysis, we have approached a
conclusion that both sites are sustainable in their own ways, either before
or after construction.
Structurally speaking, the design forms of both sites are predominantly
influenced or affected by structures or feasibility of construction. The
containers are stacked and secured with a method which restrains the
site design to be corner-to-corner. On the other hand, the locally-sourced
timber structures are part of the design in Woodland Enterprise be it
a cruck frame, three-pinned arch or a grid-shell structural roof since
they are visible. In other words, its construction method puts a constraint
on the design of Pop Brixton or perhaps informs the design, while the
structure of the other site makes up the design. Moreover, Pop Brixton is
constructed out of pre-fabricated shipping containers, so excessive
construction waste is inevitable. Even though the shipping containers
perform poorly in other technological areas, they prove a wise choice for
being demountable, transportable and reusable.
Lighting is often unconnected with structure but not in one of the sites.
Pop Brixton has strived to give users the ultimate comfort despite the
innate structural constraints in containers, while Woodland Enterprise
is given more flexibility to take advantage of natural light. On one hand,
glares towards the roof of the green house in Pop Brixton result in
sunshine that is over-the-top, on the other hand no openings for natural
lighting can be applied to the top of the containers since the walls would
deflect; therefore, artificial light is the only option even under scorching
sun and burning steel containers. To recompense for the darkness inside
the containers, the architect has strategically orientated the containers to
south-facing, resulting in maximum sunlight captured by the occupants
sitting outside those cafes. Conversely, in the site context of Woodland
Enterprise, natural sunlight can penetrate through the polycarbonate
roofs effortlessly as the Centre is in the middle of the woodlands. Lighting
is taken into the architects consideration while design the cruck frame,
leaving some gaps on the top for sunlight to shine through.
Flimwell Woodland Enterprise Centre, is again, offered with more options
to ventilate the building. Natural ventilation is the main source of bringing
air current into the building since doors and windows can be placed
anywhere inbetween the structural columns. But in the case of Pop
Brixton, cross ventilation is hard to achieve without cutting into the
container walls which would require strengthening them. Vents are
present in kitchens but the smell and stuffy air cannot be dispersed easily
since they are not at a higher level than the green house. To sum up,
ventilation is yet to be improved in Pop Brixton as there are cooking
activities going on, unlike Woodland Enterprise, which is primarily used
for still events like college classes. Without good ventilation to help
Conclusion
circulate the air, temperatures tend to rise in afternoons which can lead to
the thermal issues. Heat is not a palpable problem in Woodland
Enterprise since it has got double-glazed windows and wooden walls that
are both non-heat conductors by means of radiation and conduction
respectively. However, the materiality of Pop Brixton is undeniably prob-
lematic, both the containers that are made of steel and the
bubble-wrap roof of polyethylene are at their extremes. The
containers conduct heat too quickly meaning the envelope of the stores
housed in containers are either too hot in summer and the reverse in
winter, the latter traps heat for too long resulting in an uncomfortable
space.
Acoustics are not the primary concern for either site as neither is
acoustically-dominated. Nonetheless, one interesting point to note is that
the architects decision for lighting actually affects the quality of sound in
Woodland Enterprise. The opening for lighting in the ceiling also allows
inhabitants to hear the birds songs and the music of nature. While being a
particularly loud site, the background noise is welcome at Pop Brixton due
to it being a social space, therefore the sounds of music and talking add to
the friendly public atmosphere.
From our analysis, we can conclude that both sites have their own merits
in turns of sustainablility, ranging from applying natural lighting and
ventilation to using recycled and locally-sourced materials, yet still a
handful of shortcomings in Pop Brixton largely due to its innate
materiality and temperamentality. Even though this document suggests
that Woodland Enterprise performs better in all criteria discussed, Carl
Turner Architects have attempted to compensate the issues of Pop
Brixton with the fact that many components of the containers can be
disassembled and transported to another location, thus fully
inhabitable for further use. Also, together with the fact told by, Architect,
Steve Johnson that Sweet Chestnut trees across East Sussex would
re-grow after being knocked down and relatively quick within thirty
years these are the solutions towards sustainability.
Technical drawing of the polycarbonate windows to keep
the bird song audible
Ventilation Diagram of Flimwell Workshop Ventilation Diagram of Pop Brixton greenhouse
14
 2015-16

Pop Brixton
Flimwell Woodland Enterprise Centre

Mario Alcantara Monteiro

Gary Ka-Chun Fung
Tera Tz-Yau Kwong
Ben Chun-Bun Lau
Patrick Nnaemeka Nnadozie
Elliot Selfe
Marco Wai-Cheng Un
Abdullah Uwais
Eden Wan
Gigi Sze-Nga Wong

Special thanks go to our tutor - Tony Roberts