TAREK

Begining to look at how the cells would connect vertically, a set of stairs is encorporated into the vertical support.

Yesterday morning I met with the Parish Priest of the Brompton Oratory. A very kind and insightful man. When I asked him what the difference between a monastery and a prison was, he quite candidly said, not much, the main and extremely important difference is that one is involuntary, whilst a monk is in a monastery entirely of his own volition. I was also reading a book, entitled "Life in a Monastery", it outlined, a rough timetable (Rule), and the basic buildings (program), that would take place in said place. They are:
Church
Cloister
Dormatory
Refectory
Kitchen
Lavaborium
It is also important to have circuits for procession, and realize that the monk is entirely void of any personal posessions, he doesn't even own his cassock, it belongs to the order. Having said that I propose that the basic unit become Dormatory, Cloister and Circulation. Since a Monk has no personal belongings, the assigning of a cell is unnecissary, and any given monk can sleep in any given cell, wherever there is a free bed. Thus the bed will be imbeded into the wall, and can be pulled out to be used and stowed, during the rest of the activites. When the bed is put away, the space will work as a cloister, with the hub that separates the units acting as a carrol.

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Trying to work with max, a couple of uh! renders, but...

working out how the mesh onto which the concrete will be sprayed works. Looking at it, it seems a bit thick, which suggests it could possibly be built of steel sections and welded together, instead of a mesh which is formed in place

working on a finer mesh, onto which concrete could be sprayed. First version as a single mesh, developed into layers, with the concrete shell

looking at how the bed can twist out of the wall, looks very uncomfortable, needs to be worked on

Trying to explode the shell, and show it as cladding in an axo view

from the rendered explosion, to the drawn:

begining to pull out information from the 3D model. Starting from the left; structural frames, structural steel mesh; perspective drawing of single unit. Above it is a diagramatic sketch of circulation, and below, the different layers of matterial, steel mesh clad (sprayed in concrete)

Since the steel mesh will be pre fabricated to ensure that they join correctly on site, some kind of edge had to be designed. The joint is perforated so that each rod fits in place and then that is joint to its mirrored counter part. The joints overlap and are bolted to each other. On top of which the concrete is sprayed.

deforming the landscape around the monastery, that can work as a processional circuit and offer 'pockets' of rest to the outside comunity

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