Dip/MArch Unit 14 Yr 4: Jonathan Craig, David DiDuca, Subomi Fapohunda, Helen Floate, Geraldine Holland, Eleanor Lakin, Chin Lye, Maxine Pringle, Guy Woodhouse. Yr 5: Michael Hammock, Sam McElhinney, Tetsuro Nagata, Chris Rodrigues, Declan Shaw, Andrew Usher, Nick Westby. MArch: Sam Walker.
The Real Thing Unit 14 is experimental. Our aim is to support individual original work of exceptionally high quality within the framework of time-based architecture, architecture that is designed and understood in 4 dimensions. The unit explores how architecture can be designed to respond to change in the natural and man-made physical world and how this response can be perceived by observers. In 08-09 we specifically examined how architecture coexists with the natural world in the context of the city. Some of the most successful Unit 14 projects have existed in the form of drawn and animated representation. However many important ideas about response and perception can only be examined by constructing “the real thing” i.e. 1:1 fragments or complete installations FIELD TRIPS: In October the unit travelled to the Venice Biennale. The 2008 theme “Out There: Architecture Beyond Building” seemed particularly appropriate to the unit agenda. There was a second trip in April to Aarhus in Denmark when students presented their work at the School of Architecture and when Phil Ayres presented (and gained) his doctorate. YEAR 4 - Beyond the Garden: Phoenix Gardens is an urban park in the centre of London. One of the main functions of the park is to provide a resource for local workers and local residents, especially urban children to interpret and enjoy the natural world. The brief is to design a building that can help observers learn about the natural world using every kind of device and design that can be invented. Students then developed a key idea to become a 1:1 installation. YEAR 5 - Individual Agendas: Students in year 5 should have freedom to establish their own area of interest and their own approach to techniques of representation and testing.
Stephen Gage, Phil Ayres and Richard Roberts
Top: Chin Lye, Defoming: A lattice skin, stiffened using rigid panels, is driven to display automatic and reactive behaviours. Bottom: Elie Lakin, Electro Magnetic Typewriter: The typewriter senses mobile phone messages and, using a set of cams and cranks, writes out a response. Following page, top row, Left: Dave Di Duca, Building As Wall: Dave’s theme is to investigate the use of illusion in architecture. This is a proposal for a building that deploys out of a wall. Right: Jonty Craig, Rise and Fall: Jonty is working with the subtleties of level difference, to define specific interactions between objects and their observer/users.