“Funnily enough, I think Sir John Soane might have liked the Digital Age,” says Robert Stern, Founder and Senior Partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, referring to the neoclassicist architect as perhaps the “first modern architect,” one who had both “a firm grasp of history, especially of Classical Rome” and “a sense of his own destiny and ability to influence the future.” One need look no further than the archival documentation of the Bank of England, a building since lost to time, for evidence that his approach was a means of trying “to out-jump or out-guess the future.”
Soane’s Bank of England: Aerial cut-away view from the southeast, drawn by Joseph Michael Gandy (1830). By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects is one of several companies that have joined forces to revisit this seminal project, decades in the making and remaking that is widely considered to be the Englishman’s magnum opus. Working with Sir John Soane’s Museum — with the support of HP, NVIDIA®, Autodesk®, CASE, and CGarchitect — they have compiled original drawings from the museum’s archives into reference kits for participants in a crowdsourcing effort known as Project Soane.
For the next three months, participants are invited to contribute to the BIM reconstruction of Sir John Soane’s Bank of England in Autodesk® Revit®. As participants work on two facades and two of the building’s most admired rooms, updated files will be made available in the reference kits via Autodesk® A360®; Revit experts at CASE will oversee the process in order to ensure accuracy, consistency, and completeness. What better way to demonstrate the potential of a collaborative modeling tool than to crowdsource a singular historically significant building that exists only as a memory?
Soane’s Bank of England: View of the Consols Transfer Office as built, drawn by Joseph Michael Gandy with figures added by Antonio van Assen (1799). By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
The historic building has long been recognized as a major work of neoclassical architecture. As Surveyor to the Bank of England from 1788 to 1833, Soane had a hand in rebuilding every nook and cranny of the historic building, including extensions that doubled the size of the building, over the course of nearly half a century. Unfortunately, only portions of its exterior wall remain today, following the demolition of the interior in the 1920s, when it was replaced by a building by Herbert Baker.
“The Bank of England is a huge and complicated building,” says Melissa DelVecchio, partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects. “To reconstruct what had been lost is really too big a project for any lone scholar.”
Soane’s Bank of England: View of the Tivoli Corner (1807). By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
This is precisely what makes it a perfect opportunity for this crowdsourcing effort, open to anyone worldwide, from students to hobbyists to professionals. David Fano, CEO and Managing Director of CASE, notes that “in software development, platforms like Git allow many different people to manage code.” Likewise, Project Soane is leveraging Autodesk A360 as a building collaboration platform, providing a unique opportunity for anyone to contribute to the very first collaborative modeling effort of its kind.
By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
In this first of two phases, $20,000 worth of prizes will be awarded to participants acknowledged for their contributions in the following categories: Most Innovative Use of Revit, Historical Accuracy, Greatest Student Contribution, and Most Active/Supportive Community Member; there are no fees to participate.
In addition to drawings and plans, Soane’s storied design also endures in renderings by Joseph Gandy, whom Soane worked with throughout his entire career and, as DelVecchio puts it, “had a very imaginative way of showing Soane’s buildings. It turned out that that’s the way we understand Soane’s work, primarily because many of the buildings were destroyed.”
By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
DelVecchio continues: “We thought that not only could Soane’s work inspire a new generation of architects who will now be able to understand it through digital modeling, but that Gandy’s work could inspire new forms of artistic expression from the renderers who are participating in the competition.”
Rendering wizards will have the chance to show off their creativity come December, when the crowdsourced Revit models from the first phase will be available for them to visualize; stay tuned to Architizer to find out more details about the second phase at a later date. For the current phase of Project Soane, participants have until November 15, 2015, to contribute to the BIM reconstruction of Sir John Soane’s Bank of England.
By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Whether you choose to work with a team or as an individual, you’ll effectively be collaborating with fellow architects from around the world in the crowdsourced effort to model the bank. Beyond the momentous collaboration in itself, Thomas Kligerman, President of Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, adds that participants will also “learn about something old in a way that would help them think about the future,” highlighting the potential for collaborative platforms to revolutionize the way people view buildings and learn about them.
For now, Kligerman likens it to being part of the first expedition to the North Pole or reviving a species that has gone extinct: “In a lot of ways, it’s uncharted territory. This will probably be easier than resurrecting the woolly mammoth, but no less exciting.”
This article is brought to you in partnership with HP.