BSc Unit 5 Yr 2: Pascal Bronner, Robert Brown, Charles Catto, Ronald Cheape, Sulawan Isvarphornchai, Klementyna Klocek, Keiichi Matsuda, Rebecca Tappin, Yr 3: Anna Deacon, Gregory Froggatt, Emily Lewith, Tetsuro Nagata, Itai Palti, Clare Richards, Nicholas Williams.
REIs there a future for the ‘icon’ building? With buildings accounting for 40% of the nation’s energy consumption, can we really afford to go on designing one-off buildings? Most façades are designed to last just 15 years, while office interiors are designed for just 5 years. Is icon architecture the ultimate ‘purchase’ in our consumerist age? Is this architectural approach appropriate given our current environmental crisis? Maybe the future of architecture lies in the ingenious development of not just a beautiful object but the design of a flexible, adaptable architecture that allows for re-use, re-design, and re-invention. Unit 5 re-considered the everyday, finding ways to use the seemingly redundant or forgotten. If it’s broken do you fix it, ditch it or make something new from it? Why is the new model better than the old? Newer … better … faster … obsolete. Do we dispose of, or reinvent for? In the pursuit of progress, are we blind to the possibilities of that which surrounds us?
Isabel Brebbia and Niall Maxwell
Top: Tetsuro Nagata, others: Emily Lewith.