BSc Unit 5 Yr 2: Karen Au, Robert Burrows, Anton Chernikov, Haesung Choi, Eleonora Hadjigeorgiou, Grace Mark, Lucy Rothwell. Yr 3: Jonathan DeWind, Tamsin Hanke, Yong Lik Lee, Young Woo Lee, Nicola Perrett, Marcos Polydorou, Felicity PriceSmith, Harriet Redman, Suyang Xu.
Nothing is Neutral pi·o·neer 1. First person to explore territory: a person who is one of the first from another country or region to explore or settle a new area 2. Inventor or innovator: a person or group that is the first to do something or that leads in developing something new Within many cultures there has often been the desire to pioneer and travel to unknown territory in search for a new beginning. It was the pioneer trails and settlements that discovered unexplored worlds and distinguished the known from the unknown. Pioneering was associated with risk taking, determination and persistence but most of all curiosity. The French philosopher Michel Foucault states that ‘curiosity’ evokes an acute interest in and concern for everything that exists, a sharpened sense of reality, a readiness to find what surrounds us strange and odd; a certain determination to throw off familiar ways of thought and to look at the same things in a new and different way; a passion for seizing what is happening now and what is disappearing; a lack of respect for the traditional hierarchies of what is important and fundamental. This year the unit went on a journey to venture out to hidden territories, new realities, strange and overlooked spaces. We investigated landscapes that inhabit the ambiguous zone between human and natural environment and wonder about the existence of yet undiscovered universes. In true pioneer spirit, we took risks and speculated about inventive, experimental and innovative architectural propositions.
Julia Backhaus and Pedro Font Alba
Clockwise from top left. Martin Tang, Pioneering Weather; Joseph Desjardin, Hook’s Portrait; Megan Townsend, The Warren; Max Walmsley, No-Mansland; Yuchen Wang.