Joseph Simms

a Species of Scaffold

Architecture - BA/MA (Hons)

Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)

josephsimms@hotmail.com

View my portfolio & CV

View my dissertation project - Digital Earth

Follow:

Project description

Situated in the heart of the Clyde Valley. The project begins with the dilapidated ruins of Cambusnethan Priory. Erected in the early 19th century, this neo-gothic manor house has fallen into a state of ruin and disrepair, following 40 years of fire, exposure, and vandalism. This project looks to repair and reinvent the once lavish country home, through a parasitic structural network of re-purposed timber scaffold boards.

This system acts not just as a structure, but a medium for the repair and support of the existing building fabric. The structure may first function as conventional scaffolding, during the long process of careful repair. Later realising a more permanent role as the core tectonic system from which skin, services, space plan, and stuff may be attached and integrated.

Programmatically, the building serves as a small distillery and tasting bar. Accompanied by flexible spaces, which provide a physical gathering place for local community groups, focused around the revival and re-planting of the area’s historic orchards. The distillery and bar provide key monetary streams, which help to ensure the proper maintenance of the historic building, while also raising finances to revive local fruit industries in the area, once known as ‘the fruit basket of Scotland’. More flexible spaces allow for markets to sell local produce and provide office spaces for community groups, while also being able to play host to other events such as exhibitions or educational talks.

Reclaimed scaffolding boards

The project developed following a visit to several Glasgow based salvage yards. The visit allowed for a more refined material palette to be developed, as well as an understanding of the circulation and availability of each material.

Following this trip, I began investigating the possibility of using reclaimed scaffolding boards as a key structural component. Decommissioned after 5 years of use, timber scaffolding boards are abundantly available on the second hand market. They are also highly affordable and come in standardised lengths, lending themselves to a modular system.

1:1 Structural model

The core structural joint was tested by building a 1:1 model using reclaimed scaffold boards, purchased during a day visiting salvage yards in Glasgow. The whole structure is based around this one simple connection. Eight 63mm scaffold board form a deliberately over-engineering column while beams are attached and the whole structure is secured using 20mm diameter coach bolts. The bolts allow for both easy construction and disassembly, leaving the original board almost intact.

Scaffolding structural system

Isometric drawing of scaffolding structure

Exploded axonometric of structural system

1:50 tectonic systems model

Reclaimed windows

A common building element; windows can be easily removed and re-used even when the rest of the building may not be so easily de-constructed. Windows are frequently changed and replaced meaning that there is a healthy market for reclamation, with the general public often selling old windows directly via online services and bypassing salvage yards.

However, to due to the constant material flow and unpredictable nature of the second-hand market, it can be difficulty to specify specific window sizes prior top the project being on site. To overcome this, it may be necessary to specify rough products or sizes, before reassessing available materials once contractors are ready to install on site.

My project proposes a flexible design, not obliging to specified products or dimensions, but suggesting a typology of arrangement based on products currently on the market. In this research, I have taken a sample of second-hand windows from Gumtree, located within a 50km radius of the site, with many being much closer.