Gabriela Meszaros

Gabi is an architectural designer from Slovakia, now based in London. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Bratislava in 2017. Prior to her time at the RCA she collaborated with young London-based practices focused on design and making such as EBBA Architects and NVBL. She worked at OFFICE Kersten Geers David van Severen in Brussels during her year out in 2020/21. Throughout her studies and professional practice her work included a variety of typologies and scales, including some smaller self-build projects.

Her interests in spatial design relate to the banal complexities of everyday life and the simple, enabling generosities of form and material. During her first year at the RCA Gabi attended ADS5: Camping in a High-rise focusing on the design of ambiguous but generous spaces with inherent resilience. In the current academic year her project approaches the theme of resilience and reuse through the investigation and reappropriation of suburban corporate spaces.

The site of my investigation and interventions this year is related to one of the most controversial legacies of the 20th century, the suburbs. Born within this suburban realm, the object of my interest is the remote and independent corporate campus - a special artefact of suburbanity and an emblematic form of pastoral capitalism.

I propose a speculative project for the transformation and regeneration of such a suburban island with the intention to dissolve its degrees of isolation - functional, ideological and spatial - in favour of a more diverse, hybrid entity instead. An island where suburban everyday life could transform and unfold in an alternative way.

Taking the former IBM complex in suburban Portsmouth as my site of investigation, I propose the partial transformation of the existing architecture and landscape. Revisiting the holistic character of the campus typology the proposed transformations focus on three main but by no means independent spatial artefacts - the Garden, the Market and the Collective Home.

Wider context — A suburban island sealed by infrastructure

Existing site plan

Original state

Site photo

The Garden is the first and most extensive moment of transformation. Following the removal and remediation of a major portion of the sealed hard surfaces a new, hybrid landscape is established in place of the former parking lot. An extensive bio-dynamic market garden, public affordances and the existing natural features of the site together form an inhabited, hybrid landscape.

The harvest from the garden feeds into the Market and food hall, which supply the local community and occupants with fresh produce and meals. The Market and the new canopy are the heart of the transformation. The canopy is a partially sheltered public square that replaces and appropriates some of the existing structure of the former reception building. It is the main visual connection and the gateway through the interlinked buildings separating the lake and the rest of the original landscape.

Living unit on the perimeter

Typical residential plan

Central living units (variations)

Central atrium and inhabited corridor

Communal terrace

The terraced pavilions which repeat several times within the complex transform into Homes. These new dwellings occupy the former office floors and aim to introduce an alternative way of residential occupation in this suburban environment. One which is based on the ideas of sharing resources, spaces and responsibilities as opposed to private ownership and suburban estrangement. The transformations of the pavilions negotiate between the existing features and perks of this terraced typology and the challenges of a deep floorplan originally intended for machines as much as humans.

Gabriela Meszaros

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Royal College of Art