Project 03, 2nd Edition Modern Construction Case Studies - Precedent: Leicester Engineering Building designed by James Stirling

Project 03: Rethinking Modernism through Making, Tectonics, and Social Engagement

Project 03 reinterprets the spatial and conceptual logic of James Stirling’s Leicester Engineering Building—not as pastiche, but as a critical continuation of modernism’s social and material ambitions. While Stirling’s building was conceived within an academic context, oriented toward the education of engineers and architects, Project 03 positions itself within the commercial sphere: a hybrid workspace for start-ups and established enterprises engaged in design and fabrication. Yet the architectural discourse it invokes—of tectonics, type, and social purpose—remains deeply anchored in modernism’s project of collective betterment.

As in Stirling’s design, Project 03 deploys a typological distinction between tower and podium: the former organizing cognitive and administrative work in vertically efficient plates; the latter accommodating workshops dedicated to material production. This spatial bifurcation enables a phenomenological reading of architecture as experience, in line with Juhani Pallasmaa’s assertion that “architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world” (The Eyes of the Skin, 2005). The podium, with its horizontal, grounded massing, becomes the site of tactile engagement and making—a counterpoint to the abstract planning and oversight held within the tower.

The conceptual grounding of the project finds resonance in Hannah Arendt’s distinction between labor, work, and action in The Human Condition (1958). Here, “work” denotes the human capacity to build durable worlds through the transformation of materials—a framing that aligns with Project 03’s ambition to cultivate a space where making is both practical and symbolic. The facility supports a continuum from artisanal craft to industrial prototyping, positioning itself as a contemporary ars fabrica: not simply a site of production, but one of cultural and social articulation.

Further, Project 03 operates as a Latourian assemblage—a network of humans and nonhumans, tools and ideas, routines and improvisations. As Bruno Latour argues in Reassembling the Social (2005), sociality emerges from the interactions between heterogeneous actors; it is not a backdrop but a performative condition. Architecture, in this sense, is not merely a container for activity but an active participant in shaping relations. Project 03 foregrounds this through its adaptability, transparency of structure, and spatial openness, inviting continual reconfiguration.

The tectonic expression of the building is central to its critical intent. Drawing from Kenneth Frampton’s theory of tectonic culture (Studies in Tectonic Culture, 1995), the project emphasizes material specificity and structural legibility—not to aestheticize construction, but to reaffirm the cultural value of the built process. Structure is not concealed but celebrated, echoing Stan Allen’s notion of “material practice” as a productive ground between abstraction and contingency. As Allen notes in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (2000), architecture gains cultural relevance through its responsiveness to site, systems, and use—its capacity to register the interplay between idea and material reality.

Yet the project avoids the trap of historicism. As Alan Colquhoun cautioned in Essays in Architectural Criticism (1981), the modernist legacy must be approached not as a stylistic repertoire, but as a dialectical engagement with historical and social conditions. Project 03 embodies this ethos, adapting modernism’s ethical imperative to contemporary realities: a shift from centralized industry to distributed innovation, from institutional authority to networked agency.

The connection to Stirling is both intellectual and personal. Having presented his student work to Stirling, Newtecnic director Andrew Watts came to understand modernism not simply as a set of forms, but as a rigorous, evolving inquiry into how architecture can serve society. Project 03 extends this tradition—through its programmatic openness, tectonic clarity, and commitment to making—as both a space of production and a proposition for living differently.

References:
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.
Frampton, Kenneth. Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture.
Allen, Stan. Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation.
Colquhoun, Alan. Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change.