Blind Spotting

London, United Kingdom
2010 - 2015
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Through the “Ancient Rights to Light” law, visibility of the sky has been turned into a tradable commodity in the UK, requiring that new construction not block views of the city sky. For this rooftop extension, we proactively turned the neighbor´s quantifiable “ancient rights to light” into a new and useful design parameter. Next to this legal “invisibility” historic preservation demanded for any construction in this protected inner-city neighborhood to literally not be visible from the public realm. Blind-Spotting became the resulting parametric design strategy which actually allowed us to mold these “ancient rights to light” into a “ancient form of light”. While invisible to the surrounding, the design provides an abundance of natural light and exterior views, as well as a roof garden and enclosed courtyard. Out of respect for the strict building code, a new strategy for densification in London emerges.
FAR Frohn&Rojas + Skene Catling De La Peña
Project Team: Marc Frohn, Charlotte Skene Catling, Mario Rojas Toledo, Jaime De La Peña, Max Koch, Danielle Rosman, Amaia Orrico, Theodora Bowering, Natalia Becerra, Lydia Karagiannaki, Daniel Felgendreher, Sam Chisholm
Consultants: Price & Myers, Brooke Vincent and Partners, Max Fordham, Haskins Robinson Waters
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surrounding windows with ancient rights to light
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model series: existing building, maximum invisible volume from the public realm, model based on initial rights-to-light feedback from the specialists
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overlay of more than 100 iterations to identify the maximum stealth volume: invisible from the public realm and in the blind-spot of the rights-to-light law
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study models
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the exterior facade acts as a periscope offering views from the courtyard out over the city
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