Ruth Oldham, ‘A Multifarious Mountain: The Potential of the Monte Testaccio, Rome’ This text is an interdisciplinary discussion about our different ways of looking at ruined, abandoned and historic sites. One the one hand they can be seen as frozen moments of time, places that represent the ‘past’; or on the other hand, part of the present, to be interpreted and inhabited by a contemporary society. I will argue that there is rarely one ‘correct’ answer. No site can ever really represent one moment of time. I believe physical and imaginative engagement with such sites is necessary and this can only be achieved by treating them as part of our contemporary landscape. My interest in this argument has stemmed from my study of the Monte Testaccio in Rome, an ancient rubbish dump and the site of my design proejct – a new faculty of Archaeology. This site is important because it has not been preserved and presented as a tourist site. Rather, the different roles that I identify can broadly be defined as an archaeological artefact, an accidential artwork and an architectural site.
Sara Shafiei, ‘The Vanishing Elephant’ Harry Houdini’s ‘vanishing elephant’ was the result of carefully evolved illusions for stage, the work of many past masters of deception, and the particular achievement of one little-known showman. Like any great illusionist, Houdini’s vanishing elephant was the result of equal measures of mathematics, optics, psychology and great showmanship – a secret pefectly hidden in plain sight. This thesis looks at the theoretical, historical and psychological aspects of magic and illusion, and examines the possibility of designing an architecture instigated by illusion. It is split into a number of short stories that are embedded into the architectural proposal for a theatre for magicians and specific to time and place. The thesis portrays glimpses of a user’s journey, and illustrates how the foundations of magic and illusion can become an inherent part of an architectural design that foregrounds the engagement of the user in the building.
Steven Wescott, ‘Greenwich Perceptual Observatory’ This thesis explores how obsessive forms of collecting influence space and form in building. By this I do not merely intend to comment upon the object as the catalyst to an architectural effect but I also consider the architectural representation of thinking in a broad sense, be it the language of art or science. One could argue that architecture has an epistemological function because buildings and spaces are representations of humankind’s consciousness at a particular time. Fused with my design work this thesis looks at three members of the Royal Society, founded in 1660 by Charles II for the improvement of knowledge. The collection of work on the natural world by John Flamsteed, Sir Issac Newton and Robert Hooke will be architecturally reinterpreted through text, model and drawings, in order to influence a design for a ‘percepetual’ observatory in Greenwich.