The Bartlett Summer Book 2026 by The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL

The Bartlett Summer Book 2026

School of Architecture

The Bartlett

School of Architecture

The Bartlett Summer Book 2026

School of Architecture

Contents 7

Introduction Director: Yeoryia Manolopoulou

Prizes

Architecture BSc Hannah Corlett, Chee-Kit Lai 12 Year 1 Memory and Matter Max Dewdney, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami, Olivia Neves Marra 18 UG1 Circular Tectonics Emma Colthurst, Margit Kraft, Toby O’Connor 24 UG2 Bit by Bit: an Architecture of Parts Zachary Fluker, Maxwell Mutanda 30 UG3 Remain in Light Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangia 36 UG4 Continuum Katerina Dionysopoulou, Billy Mavropoulos 42 UG5 Cheap Patrick Massey, Bongani Muchemwa 48 UG6 Situated Speculations: an Architecture of the In-Between Ashley Hinchcliffe, Ben Spong 54 UG7 Here Comes the Sun Joseph Augustin, Christopher Burman 60 UG8 Chance Encounters Maria Fulford, Jörg Majer 66 UG9 The Natural Contract Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai 72 UG12 Settlement Hannah Corlett, Níall McLaughlin 78 UG13 Forecast Factory Laurence Blackwell-Thale, William Victor Camilleri 84 UG14 The Third Eye David Di Duca, Tetsuro Nagata 90 UG21 Recipe and Agency Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

ssay E Student Live Projects: The Indigo Pavilion for The Triumph of Art, 2025 by Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai and John Ogunyiluka

102

rchitectural & Interdisciplinary A Studies BSc Sophie Read 104 Architectural Research III Brent Carnell, Sophie Read, David Roberts 106 Design & Creative Practice 1, 2 & 3

112

In Conversation Kristina Clackson Bonnington, Director of the Designing Equity Unit, with Sophie Read

116

ngineering & Architectural E Design MEng Matthew Heywood, Luke Olsen 118

Year 1 pLAY! Festival Barbara Andrade Zandavali, Klaas De Rycke 124 Year 2 The Alchemic Kitchen Philippe Duffour, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson 130 Unit 1 Adaptive Re-use for a Progressive Laboratory Oliver Houchell, Anderson Inge, Vasiliki Kourgiozou, Christopher Leung, Josep Miàs Gifre 134 Unit 2 The Good, the True and the Beautiful Harry Betts, Samuel Miselbach, Shaun Murray, Nipun Wickramasundara 138 Unit 3 Memory Palace Alun Hurman, Kirsty Sutherland, Martin Lema Trillo, Graeme Williamson 144 Unit 4 Extreme Reintegration Yasemin Didem Aktas, Samuel Esses, Baran Tanriverdi, Santiago Vélez 150 Unit 5 Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda Filip Kirazov, Aurore Julien, Luke Olsen, Olivia Riddle 156 Unit 6 Continuum Simon Beames, Matthew Heywood, Samuel Wilkinson 162 Unit 7 Nuragica Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Yi Zhang 168 Unit 8 Responsive Tectonics III David Hewlett, Michael Howarth, Annarita Papeschi

264

174 Essay Architecture in the Making: the Bartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange (B-made) by Ben Spong

270

180 Architecture MSci Alicia González-Lafita Pérez, Sara Martinez Zamora 182 188 194 200 204 210 216 222 226 230 234

Year 1 Wapping’s Thousand Tales Pete Davies, Egmontas Geras, Matt Lucraft, Giles Tettey Nartey Studio 2A Seasonal Grounds Abigail Ashton, Laurence Blackwell-Thale Studio 2B Super-Natural George Bolwell, Vita Rossi Studio 2C A Thousand Boundaries: on the Politics of Comfort and Protection Olivia Neves Marra, James O’Leary Studio 3A Domestic Futures Murray Fraser, Michiko Sumi Studio 3B Pleasure and Practicality Nat Chard, Emma-Kate Matthews Studio 3C Days of Being Wild Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi Studio 4A Common Ground Kevin Gray, Johan Hybschmann Studio 4B Wish You Were Here CJ Lim, Maurizio Mucciola Studio 4C InfraFrancesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Rory James Sherlock Year 5 Year in Practice Dimitris Argyros, Finbar Charleson, Doron von Beider

240 In Conversation Narinder Sagoo, Senior Partner, Art Director, Foster + Partners, with Josh Rodriguera, Year 2 Architecture MSci student 244 Architecture MArch Kostas Grigoriadis, Colin Smith 246 252 258

PG11 Access to Tools Laura Allen, Mark Smout PG12 House within a Home. Home within a House Elizabeth Dow, Izabela Wieczorek PG13 Strange Climate, Odd Future Ivan Chan, Haden Charbel, Déborah López

276 282 288 294 300 306 312

318

PG14 Expressive Capacity Jakub Klaska, Dirk Krolikowski PG16 Archipelagos II: the Cultural Architecture of Water Security Brendon Carlin, James Kwang Ho Chung, María Páez González PG17 Plasticity Tamsin Hanke, Yeoryia Manolopoulou PG18 Mother Wealth Ricardo de Ostos, Samuel Esses PG20 Twins Marjan Colletti, Tony Le, Javier Ruiz Rodriguez PG21 Recipe and Agency Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter PG22 News from Somewhere South Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Daniel Ovalle Costal PG23 Recursive Operations Maria Fulford, Farlie Reynolds, Ben Spong PG24 Counter-Commons: Between Periphery and Centre Thomas Aquilina, Matthew Butcher, Nasios Varnavas

In Conversation Níall McLaughlin, Professor of Architectural Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2026, with Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture

324 History & Theory Thesis 326 Architecture MSci, Years 3 & 4 Kay Sedki, Azadeh Zaferani 329 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng, Year 4 Liora Malki-Epshtein, Michael Stacey 332 Advanced Architectural Studies, Architecture MArch, Year 4 Adam Walls 334 Thesis, Architecture MArch, Year 5 Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton 344

Endmatter

Summer Show build, 2026.

Architecture is everywhere and shapes all our lives. It matters to culture and society, to public health and our planet, and to the ways in which we imagine our collective futures. To study architecture, one of the most stimulating and important subjects, is therefore to learn how to form and adapt buildings and places by projecting ideas forward. It is fundamentally about developing the distinctive knowledge and expertise of the architect: observing closely, questioning critically, composing and innovating through drawing, making and building, and, most of all, collaborating. It is also about extending architecture’s reach, drawing on its unique spatial language and relational capacity to connect methods and techniques across the sciences, technologies and creative humanities to address shared interdisciplinary questions. The work of our students matters. Many of the projects in this volume have the potential to influence how architecture is thought about and practised, and how it might evolve. Some are speculative, some immediately realisable. Most challenge established assumptions and invite us to look again at our built environment and at the existing situations and resources that we can adapt and reuse. Of course, it is impossible for a single image to convey the depth of work behind each project: the research and experiments, and the critical positions that shaped it. Nor can one publication capture the full richness of a school of our scale and diversity. This book should instead be understood as a collective celebration: a glimpse into the extraordinary energy, imagination and plurality of projects across five of our twenty-three courses during the last academic year. This year, our Summer Book experiments with new content and a new format. It is a work in progress that will continue to evolve. Alongside work from Architecture BSc, Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies BSc, Engineering and Architectural Design MEng, Architecture MSci and Architecture MArch, we introduce essays and conversations, together with selected work from our History and Theory and Technology streams. These additions offer a broader glimpse into the intellectual and creative life of our school. This volume appears at the very beginning of my term as Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture, and it is a privilege to begin by celebrating the work of our students and the community that supports them. My warmest thanks go to our academic staff, part-time tutors, professional services colleagues, technicians and facilities staff, whose expertise, dedication and care make this work possible. I would also like to thank my predecessors, Professor Amy Kulper and Professor Jacqui Glass, who supported our school throughout the 2025–26 academic year; spreeeng, for their thoughtful collaboration on the book’s new design; and our headline sponsor AHMM, and Foster + Partners and Perfect Colours, and for their valued and continued support. I offer my warmest congratulations to all our students, and particularly to those who graduated this year. You leave us as designers, architectural practitioners and thinkers, equipped with the joyful and critical tools of architecture, and with your own emerging values and ways of working. We are immensely proud of what you have achieved and look forward to seeing the projects and new forms of practice you will create. Yeoryia Manolopoulou Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture

Prizes Students across the Summer Show’s five exhibiting courses were awarded prizes for creativity, originality and rigour in their projects. Medals were also awarded by the exam board for projects of outstanding quality, originality and verve. Many of the prizes were generously supported by our partners, including: • • •

Max Fordham Narinder Sagoo Victor Kite Family

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Bartlett Medal Ingrid Nyhus, UG8

Elle Shum Portfolio Prize

Year 3

Anika Deb, UG4 Spatial Equity Prize Syed (Mahe) Hussain, UG3 Activism Prize Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, UG8 Environmental Design Prize

The Bartlett medals were designed by B-made’s Alice Foxen and Joe Johnson.

John Ogunyiluka, UG8 Trevor Sprott History and Theory Prize

Architecture BSc

Songyan Tan, UG21 Portfolio Prize

Domnia Ciocan Speculative Craft Prize

William Warwick, UG8 Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize + Portfolio Prize

Year 1

Miranda Gurrola Ovejas Civic Agency Prize Nika Jagdzijanc Collective Practice Prize Hannah Lim Civic Agency Prize Una Maricevic Materials and Making Prize Gavin Ng Environmental Agency Prize Yi Ching (Valerie) Pang Materials and Making Prize Temidayo Sanda Speculative Craft Prize Brandon Shan Technology Futures Prize Hoi Ching (Claudia) Sung Environmental Agency Prize Maya Sutaria Collective Practice Prize Arpapun (Katinn) Wongphaet Technology Futures Prize Year 1 Bartlett Medal Brandon Shan

Year 2

Ian Blashe, UG21 Portfolio Prize Jack Mahoney, UG6 Award for Ethics and Agency Ellie McKnight, UG9 Portfolio Prize

Yi (Hanson) Zhou, UG6 Award for Ethics and Agency + Environmental Design Prize

Ingrid Nyhus, UG8 Victor Kite Design Technology Prize

Year 3 Bartlett Medal Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, UG8

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Year 1

Evelyn Morris-Julien Architectural Research Prize Keely Wu Design and Creative Practice Prize Year 1 Bartlett Medal Simoni Stefanou

Year 2

Year 1

Year 1 Bartlett Medal Elle Shum

Year 2

Freya Garrigan Portfolio Prize Yijing (Emma) Wu Portfolio Prize Year 2 Bartlett Medal Khadijah Elmansoury

Year 3

Sin Hang (Ella) Au, Unit 7 Portfolio Prize Mohammad (Shahir) Jadhakhan, Unit 4 Sustainability Prize Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Unit 2 Tectonic Prize Year 3 Bartlett Medal Sin Hang (Ella) Au, Unit 7

Year 4

Nadim Bin Nazri, Unit 4 Portfolio Prize Liisa Link, Unit 3 Tectonics Prize Hana Molokhia, Unit 1 Sustainability Prize Year 4 Bartlett Medal Hana Molokhia, Unit 1

Amulya Madasu Design and Creative Practice Prize

Architecture MSci

Nele Plaß Design and Creative Practice Prize

Hwandong Hyun Technology Prize

Year 1

Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao Architectural Research Prize

Nehal Jhawar History and Theory Prize

Year 2 Bartlett Medal Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao

Zihan (Stephen) Lin Portfolio Prize

Year 3

Michael Yip Personal Skills Prize

Ying (Isabella) Wang Design and Creative Practice Prize Kyiga Wilberforce Architectural Research Prize Year 3 Bartlett Medal Hanxi (Tracy) Cui

Year 4

Year 4 Bartlett Medal Téa Texier

Year 1 Bartlett Medal Heng Sim

Year 2

Beatrix Ellerby, Studio 2A Professional Practice Prize Abbey-Rose Smith, Studio 2C History and Theory Prize Ellis Smout, Studio 2B Portfolio Prize

Xining Wang, Studio 2B Portfolio Prize Year 2 Bartlett Medal Xining Wang, Studio 2B

Year 3

Ottoline Martin, PG11 History & Theory Prize: Critical Aesthetics Prize Alex Pérez Escamilla, PG22 History & Theory Prize: Critical Aesthetics Prize + Sustainable Design Prize

Hannah Bryce, Studio 3A Portfolio Prize

Jessica Richard, PG22 Charles Knevitt Award

Neueland Lesdema, Studio 3B Architecture Research Prize

Gus Richards, PG24 Design Realisation Prize: Fabrication Innovation Prize

Elisha Morales, Studio 3C Sustainability Prize Yuichiro Tomita, Studio 3A History and Theory Prize + Trevor Sprott History and Theory Prize Year 3 Bartlett Medal Ryan Chen, Studio 3A

Isratjahan (Siha) Salim, PG22 Architectural Design Prize Joshua Teh, PG22 History & Theory Prize: Environment Justice Prize Timothy Wheeler, PG18 Sustainable Design Prize

Year 4

Year 4 Bartlett Medal Samuel Field, PG11

Eleanor Rudd-Jones, Studio 4C Sustainability Prize

Year 5

Lia Penela Failde, Studio 4A Portfolio Prize + Retrofit Prize

Ethan Starkey, Studio 4C History and Theory Prize Year 4 Bartlett Medal Chanunchida (Pung Pung) Phonoi, Studio 4C

Year 5

Anda Guinea Portfolio Prize Yan Yu (Charisse) Kwong Research Prize Year 5 Bartlett Medal Forrest Xie

Architecture MArch Year 4

Alexandra (Sasha) Audas, PG13 Design Realisation Prize: Entrepreneurial and Delivery Prize Saule Biguzaite, PG13 Design Realisation Prize: Experimental Innovation Prize + Sustainable Design Prize Joan Borrell-Ribas, PG21 Design Realisation Prize: Sustainability (Social and En-vironmental) Innovation Prize

Supakorn Chantakitwattana, PG23 Architectural Design Prize Hei Ching (Eunice) Cheung, PG24 Sustainable Design Prize Camille De Waele, PG11 Ambrose Poynter Prize Ioana Enache, PG12 Narinder Sagoo Drawing Prize Luke Gifford, PG12 Architectural Design Prize + Sir Banister Fletcher Prize and Medal Parin Nawachartkosit, PG11 Architectural Design Prize + Public Engagement Prize Zahra Parhizi, PG20 Sustainable Design Prize Oliver Penny, PG18 The Max Fordham Environmental Design Prize Lauris Svarups, PG17 Sustainable Design Prize William Tindall, PG21 Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize Year 5 Bartlett Medal Parin Nawachartkosit, PG11

George Copping, PG20 Architectural Design Prize Samuel Field, PG11 Architectural Design Prize + Design Realisation Prize: Innovation in Detail Prize Jinyi (Athena) Li, PG23 History & Theory Prize + History & Theory Prize: Social Justice Prize

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Course Leaders: Hannah Corlett, Chee-Kit Lai

Year 1 Memory and Matter Max Dewdney, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami, Olivia Neves Marra

UG1 Circular Tectonics Emma Colthurst, Margit Kraft, Toby O’Connor

UG2 Bit by Bit: an Architecture of Parts Zachary Fluker, Maxwell Mutanda

UG3 Remain in Light Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangia

UG4 Continuum Katerina Dionysopoulou, Billy Mavropoulos

UG5 Cheap Patrick Massey, Bongani Muchemwa

UG6 Situated Speculations: an Architecture of the In-Between Ashley Hinchcliffe, Ben Spong

UG7 Here Comes the Sun Joseph Augustin, Christopher Burman

UG8 Chance Encounters Maria Fulford, Jörg Majer

UG9 The Natural Contract Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai

UG12 Settlement Hannah Corlett, Níall McLaughlin

UG13 Forecast Factory Laurence Blackwell-Thale, William Victor Camilleri

UG14 The Third Eye David Di Duca, Tetsuro Nagata

UG21 Recipe and Agency Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture BSc is a highly innovative course, internationally recognised for its creativity and scope. Part 1 is accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB). The course provides students with a solid foundation in architecture while nurturing creativity and critical thinking. Over three years, our students develop a deep understanding of the core principles of architecture while exploring a diverse range of innovative design approaches. Research-based teaching methods encompass a wide range of practices, such as participatory approaches to advanced simulation and fabrication techniques, material life-cycle studies, experimental drawing and digital animation. By encouraging experimentation alongside a rigorous design process, we empower students to create complex, multidimensional architectural projects that push the boundaries of undergraduate architectural education. The work in this catalogue demonstrates our commitment to addressing the pressing challenges and complexities of the built environment. Students explore themes including sustainability, spatial equity and the social potential of architecture. They conduct material life-cycle assessments, use data-informed scripting and AI to analyse sites, and employ advanced computation to model natural processes. Digital technologies, including animation and game engines, are deployed to explore novel ways of enhancing interactions between humans and the built environment. The course fosters a vibrant and collaborative studio culture. Students work across UCL’s workshops, participate in field trips and visit buildings, landscapes and other cultural sites. They also collaborate on live projects with external partners, working with organisations in the UK and abroad. This exposure to diverse sources, perspectives and first-hand experiences ignites their imaginations and nurtures their creativity, as shown in the remarkable rigour and innovation demonstrated in their research and design work. The course is structured around four core streams: Architectural Design Projects, Building Technology, History and Theory, and Professional Studies. In Year 1, students establish core architectural skills through experimentation and exploration. Working individually and in groups, they experience the collaborative and iterative nature of architectural design. At the same time, they are introduced to different disciplines that deepen their understanding of the architect’s historical, social and environmental responsibilities. In Years 2 and 3, students select from a broad range of design units, each offering unique approaches to architectural design research and connections to industry and practice. Units explore a wide variety of themes, including the relationship between architecture and landscape, digital simulation and fabrication, and the role of narrative, climate and sociopolitical context in design. Students engage in research practices with housing associations, urban planners and extraction sites. As a result, students develop core skills while maintaining a well-rounded and diverse education. By the end of their undergraduate studies, students are fully equipped to engage with architectural design in a sophisticated manner, situating their own practice and research within broader sociopolitical, historical and environmental contexts. Over the past five years, three projects by Architecture BSc graduates have been recognised in the Bronze Medal category of the RIBA President’s Medals. We would like to express our gratitude to the exceptional team responsible for the organisation and delivery of this flagship course. Our thanks go to all our teaching staff, our dedicated administrative team – Beth Barnett-Sanders, Andrea Henny, Zoe Lau and Carol Trent – and our talented Postgraduate Teaching Assistants. We are also grateful to the external speakers, critics, alumni and practitioner collaborators who supported and inspired us throughout the year, including at events such as Relay+, our alumni and practice talk series.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 1 Memory and Matter

Max Dewdney, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami, Olivia Neves Marra

Images top to bottom: Hannah Lim ‘Makers Ecosystem’. Claudia Sung ‘Pigeons, Post, and Afterlife’.

Acknowledgements B-made, Brendan Cormier, Tom Davies, Jacqui Glass, James Green, HENI Gallery, Robin Mather, Alan Penn, Rubén Salgado Pérez, Bob Sheil, Paul Weston Partner V&A East Storehouse

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Critics Felicity Atekpe, Emily Booth, Thomas Budd, Matthew Butcher, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Joanne Chen, Hannah Corlett, George Courtauld, Tom Davies, Anika Deb, Francesca Dell’Aglio, Elizabeth Dow, Ioana Enache, Lia Penela Failde, Synnøve Fredericks, Luke Gifford, James Green, Olga Grogolova, Charles Harrison, Charlie Hayles, Steve Johnson, Jamie Jones, Nicole Kechiyan, Milda Knabikaitė, Ingrid Nyhus, Chee-Kit Lai, Kenny Lau, Linn Li, Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Luke Marriot, Agata Murasko, James O’Leary, María Páez, Thomas Parker, Poli Pencheva, Alan Penn, Simon Pitkeathley, Sophia Psarra, Vidhya Pushpanathan, Dominic Coles Saffirio, Martin Sagar, Neba Sere, Connor Sheng, Rory Sherlock, Julia Specht, Michiko Sumi, Christopher Tao, Kate Taylor, Jonathan Tyrrell, Izabela Wieczorek, Sal Wilson, Forrest Xie, Azadeh Zaferani, Yaowen Zhang, Hanson Zhou, Enrique Zhuo, Matek Zwijacz

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Postgraduate Teaching Assistants Ioana Enache, Julia Specht, Matek Zwijacz

Architecture MSci

Design tutors George Bolwell, Alastair Browning, Ivan Chan, Nat Chard, Dovile Ciapaite, Nichola Czyz, Thomas Kendall, Fergus Knox, Vasilis Marcou Ilchuk, Matei Mitrache, Bongani Muchemwa, Emily Priest, Gavin Robotham, Rory Sherlock, Isaac Simpson, Yeena Yoon

Architecture MArch

Students Andra Anitoiu, Rafaela Antunes Da Silva, Mihkel Archer, Maheema Begum, Finley Bingham, Valeria Bottai, Pauline Braun, Alexandra Burkova, Xiangming (William) Cai, Hayley Chan, Ryan Chan, Sophia Chediak Souza, Jennifer Chen, Xutong Chen, Darren Chong, Domnia Ciocan, Maria Cirio E Barboza, Fiona Coventry, Ben Cullen, Nia Dalena, Lara Dermay, Devansh Dewra, Myra Dhir, Perla Di Pierro Demetilla, Elijah Diomampo, Otto Dubuisson, Mariam Elnaggar, Niejun Fang, Hayasofia Faridooni, Valeriya Filobokova, Giuliana Frigo, Nadia Furlong, Andreas Georgakis, Lito Georgiadi, Samuel Goodman, Shaun Gregory, Miranda Gurrola Ovejas, Colette GutierrezLaperche-De-Crozals, Ching (Vincent) Ha, Tom Hallam, Anna Hanzlik, Dangdang He, Isabella Hemmings, Stefan Hetzel, Rosie Hewitt, George Hope, Swan Htet, Ting-En (Emily) Huang, Lorenz Huber, Amelia Ikwue, Nika Jagdzijanc, Thasandi Kalu Arachchige, Isata Kamara, Naysa Kapoor, Eliz Karadag, Angelica Keung, Nao (Nina) Kobayashi, Gabriel Kuentzmann, Esme La Trobe-Roberts, Fares Labadi, Tsz Ching (Edith) Lai, Xiangfei Li, Shaoqian Liang, Hannah Lim, Ka Ying (Twinkie) Lock, Cecilia Magnocavallo, Alaa Mahmoud, Omar Mahmoud, Anya Malinova, Una Maricevic, Kisa Minga, Hailie Morales Aburto, Marta Morcillo Amoros, Yik Hei (Hayden) Nam, Margarita Nasonova, Gavin Ng, Ha Phuong (Fu) Nguyen, Carmen Nobili, Weiwei (Violet) Ouyang, Sophia Panayides, Yi Ching (Valerie) Pang, Jubin Park, Anattaya (Sainy) Phuangnun, Morgan Prosser, Maariya Ravat, Iren Rivna, Anastasiia Rudnytska, Temidayo Sanda, Brandon Shan, Zhuoer (Blair) Shi, Thea Sorianosos, Konstantinos Stasinos, Mahirah Sulaiman, Aisha Suleiman, Hoi Ching (Claudia) Sung, Maya Sutaria, Millicent Swait, Jada Sykes, David-Ioan Tenovici, Zeynep Tenteoglu, Freyja Tims, Luka Tomic, Nicole Tsoi, Mia Uy, Mikayla Velasco, Sri (Kritika) Vulchi, Wei-Zhong Wang, Clare Wardrop, Arpapun (Katinn) Wongphaet, Eleni Xenou, Yifei (Iffy) Yan, Lucas Yang, Emily Yin, Kyunghwan Yu, Aristi Zacharatou, Borui Zhang, Yizhen Zhou

History & Theory

Across the year, Year 1 highlighted memory and matter as agents in design, moving from object to interior to urban landscape. Architecture is not only about designing and building, but also reading, translating and reworking worlds already embedded in things, spaces and systems. Students undertook three projects, moving from close observation and material experimentation to collective installation and urban speculation, testing how architecture might reveal what is hidden and project new forms of public life. For ‘Incomplete Worlds’, students worked individually to select and reinterpret an object from the V&A East Storehouse. These were viewed not as static museum pieces but as incomplete environments, supporting, containing, organising and carrying hidden narratives. Through analogue drawing, orthographic survey, casting, model-making and rescaling, students explored how the meaning of a single object can shift across scales – from the hand to the room, from the room to the city. These acts of observation, recording and transformation became methods for discovering memory held within matter, and fed directly into the next project. For ‘Agents of Encounter’, students worked in groups to design and fabricate 12 1:1 installations for the Storehouse as part of a Bartlett museum takeover. These site-specific interventions responded to light, acoustics, circulation and sightlines, and engaged with specific objects and displays to amplify, translate or reframe them. Through choreography, interaction and performance, the projects transformed viewing into an active and embodied encounter within the live setting of the museum. A field trip to Brussels extended the questions asked in these first two projects through direct encounters with Art Nouveau museums, interiors and collections. Here, detail, sequence, surface, furnishing and atmosphere could be experienced with intensity, sharpening students’ understanding of architecture at the domestic scale. In the final project, ‘Resonance – Memory and Matter’, concerns from the previous projects were extended to the Camden Highline – an abandoned proposal for a public park built alongside the North London Line railway. Students worked individually to trace material residues, overlooked spaces, invisible labour, waste energy and processes of repair. We asked: How do compact architectural insertions reveal hidden urban processes while making alternative spaces for civic life?

Architecture BSc

Year 1

Memory and Matter

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

1 Group Models ‘Incomplete Worlds’. Students were invited to explore the V&A East Storehouse as a collection of fragmentary objects, systems and artefacts with latent spatial potential. Each student selected an object to survey, rescale and transform. Models include: Morgan Prosser ‘Mask’, which reveals rather than conceals to expose emotion through fragmentation and light; Carmen Nobili ‘Topography of a Kilga’, reimagining an Egyptian water filter used for Wudu as bodily architecture; Brandon Shan ‘Phantom Bipedalism’, transforming an analogue pedal car into charcoal-footed devices that record movement. David-Ioan Tenovici designed a chair choreographed with a light fixture to make patterns on a wall; Rafaela Antunes Da Silva asks how an object might make its holder adopt the posture of a double-bass player; Isabella Hemmings explores the labour behind the beauty; Arpapun (Katinn) Wongphaet ‘From Encounter to Extension’ studies a sewing machine and reconstructs it into a loom; Lorenz Huber ‘Ergonomic Fluidity’ reassembles the Panton Chair through ergonomics and organic design; and George

Hope investigates the Schindler Chair as an incomplete architectural world. Together, these projects transform museum objects into active devices for new memory, bodily encounter and spatial imagination. Photo: Sophie Percival.

Memory and Matter

Architecture BSc

Year 1

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

2 2 Group Models ‘Agents of Encounter’. Twelve installations developed for the V&A Storehouse. ‘De-Loom’ explores preservation and decay through an unwinding knitted ‘skin’ animated by a mechanical structure; ‘Les Remous des Ombres’ reimagines Picasso’s Le Train Bleu through projected silhouettes of dancers, waves, dunes and clouds; ‘Mirroring Dome’ uses eight moving petals to fleetingly reconstruct and reflect the geometry of the Tojjiro roof; ‘Light Forms’ evokes the Agra Colonnade’s bathhouse origins through light, motion and the changing states of water; ‘Ghosts’ reveals the hidden tools, gestures and labour behind museum fabrication and conservation; ‘Active Connections’ transforms weaving into a collective spatial performance using retired climbing rope; ‘The Third Desk’ reframes surrounding collections through adjustable viewing devices that reveal overlooked visual routes; ‘Tactile Constellation’ creates an evolving shadow archive from repositioned replica objects; ‘Within, Within’ reconstructs a domestic fragment of Robin Hood Gardens through memory, translucent enclosure and unfolding space;

‘Patterns of Kaufmann’ translates the office’s forms, materials, patterns and conversations into interactive mechanisms; ‘An Artist’s Studio’ examines the historical confinement of women’s creativity within domestic space and reclaims it as a place of production; and ‘Looking Near and Far’ turns garment-making gestures into a tactile and projected encounter overlooking the Clothworkers’ Room. Together, the works invite visitors to touch, move, listen, observe and reconsider how collections are made, preserved, interpreted and remembered. Curation: Max Dewdney and Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami

Architecture BSc

Year 1

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

3 3 Group Models ‘Resonance’. For this project, students were asked to reveal hidden urban systems along the Camden Highline, designing civic interventions that transform residue, labour, decay and ecology into architectures of repair, production and collective life. Photo: Sophie Percival.

Memory and Matter

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Memory and Matter

Architecture MArch

Year 1

History & Theory

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG1 Circular Tectonics

Emma Colthurst, Margit Kraft, Toby O’Connor

Marc de Wit and Laxmi Haigh, Circularity Gap Report 2022 (Amsterdam: Circle Economy 2022), p8.

Images top to bottom: Rhys Cullen, Y2 ‘The Hythe’. Rosa Rothwell, Y2 ‘An Architecture for Air: Plastic and the Westway’.

Year 3 Noelia Banuelos Jechiu, Hashaam Khan, Beulah Kuku Technical tutors/consultants Alberto Campagnoli, Ruth Cuenca Candel, Nicholas Jewell, Wei Lim

Site visits Minerva Works Park Royal: Tom James (Absolute Beginners), Prashant Patel (Rescued Clay), Freya Bruce (ReCollective), Kaiyil Gnanakumaran and Becky Miller (OPDC); Lancaster West Neighbourhood Projects: David Mulligan (RBKC) Circular Symposium Anastasia Glover and Rosie Hervey, Aidan Hall and Rosalind Peebles; speakers: The Serge Hill Project, Tessa Devreese (ReLondon), Justo Díaz and Guillermo Pozo (Wooden Life), Emma Kaufmann LaDuc (ETH Zurich), Rowland Keeble (Rammed Earth Consulting), Maria Lisogorskaya (Assemble), Ramin Mosayebi (EMI), Ben Stuart-Smith (Okra) Field trip Copenhagen: Justine Bell (Djernes & Bell), Laura Rahbæk Larsson (Vandkunsten), Kim Lenschow (Office Kim Lenschow), Agnes Kjøller Lønborg (Lendager), Pelle Munch-Petersen (Royal Danish Academy), Isabella Priddle (Pihlmann), Sebastian Skovsted (Johansen Skovsted)

Architecture MArch

Invited talks Morgan Lewis (Material Index), Marius Sidaravicius (FoundersKeepers UCL)

Architecture MSci

Critics Abigail Ashton, Hannah Corlett, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami, Julia Feix, Zachary Fluker, Tom Holberton, Níall McLaughlin, Maxwell Mutanda, Alexandra Pantouli, Hugh Queenan, Kay Sedki, Gabriel Warshafsky, Oliver Wilton

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Rhys Cullen, Evelyn Curd, Eleanor Davies, Zihan Jin, Antonis Kalopedis, Terrence Jia Li, Alexander McGregor, Louisa Rois, Rosa Rothwell, Ivan Samorukov, Vanya Sharma

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

The world extracts over 100 billion tonnes of raw materials annually, yet more than 90% is wasted after a single use. With the construction industry currently accounting for 40% of global carbon emissions, architecture must radically shift towards circular systems that design out waste and keep buildings, products and materials in use.1 This year, UG1 asked: What can we do with what we already have? Learning from emerging circular activities in the UK and Europe, we investigated and speculated on sourcing scenarios, life-cycles, combinations, transformations and new articulations of circular materials as the basis for architectural innovation that responds directly to the climate and ecological crises. Architects are in a prime position to define and push cities towards more resilient states of material entanglement: How can we understand and narrate the flows and transformations of materials through tectonics, haptics, space and light? What are the new aesthetics of the Anthropocene, and of circularity in particular? Our focus area, the Westway in London, was both our playground and proving ground, where we learned about historic, current and emerging circular activities to inspire our own experiments. These included visits to the Circular Economy Hub at Minerva Works in Park Royal and to housing-estate refurbishment projects surrounding Grenfell Tower. On our study trip to Copenhagen and Malmö, we explored circular materiality that is highly legible and embedded into the fabric and life of cities. Visiting buildings, practitioners and universities, we explored architecture’s cutting edge of circularity. Engaging with themes of ‘assemblage’ and ‘entanglement’, we developed complex buildings and spatial interventions, speculating on scenarios of radical circularity for the Westway area. These included reimagining the concrete plinth of Ernő Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower; harvesting and compressing street-tree leaves into lightweight paper blocks; weaving everyday plastic bags into façade panels; and casting with waste fabric formwork to make recycled earth and low-carbon concrete structures. Together, UG1’s design processes of reuse, recycling, adjustment and transformation have supported the investigation and demonstration of deep histories and contemporary expressions of circular tectonics.

Malmö: Johan Pitura (Kjellander Sjöberg), Finn Williams (Malmö City Council), ETC Bygg AB, Varvsstaden

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG1

Architecture BSc

Circular Tectonics

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1–2 Alexander Mcgregor, Y2 ‘Start the Waterworks’. By salvaging harmful, unrecyclable domestic appliances and designing with material waste streams, this project investigates hyper-local material sourcing and creates a shared space for collective bathing.

5 Vanya Sharma, Y2 ‘A Roundabout to Recovery’. Responding to the intensity of the Westway, the proposal challenges the perception of infrastructural voids as neglected or transitional spaces by transforming a roundabout into an active public landscape for recovery, relaxation and community engagement.

3 Noelia Banuelos Jechiu, Y3 ‘Play Above Ground: The Youth Club Built for Adventure’. This project proposes a children’s youth club within Maxilla Gardens, inspired by the spirit of adventure playgrounds and informal spaces of exploration, creativity and collective learning.

6 George Perks, Y3 ‘Urban Fabric’. Situated upon a series of rooftops above Old Street, the project weaves a landscape of corridors and large rooms for the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Drawing School through a dense meshwork of structural timber and nettle-derived fabric partitions.

4 Zihan Jin, Y2 ‘Public Healing House’. Located among industrial units beneath the Westway, this project investigates street–tree material flows. It explores how architecture can provide spaces for healing within the city through materials, light and spatial experience.

7–8 Louisa Rois, Y2 ‘Interlining’. This project is a long-term tuberculosis clinical trial facility, set on an unfinished site along the Grand Union Canal. It responds to exposed concrete foundations and rain-filled voids, with a material language of hospital-derived fabric formwork.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Circular Tectonics

Architecture BSc

UG1

Architecture BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

12 9, 14–15, 17 Eleanor Davies, Y2 ‘Within the Concrete: Cheltenham Estate’. This project investigates tensions between brutalism, heritage and transformative deconstruction by reworking the concrete plinth of Trellick Tower to create a community centre and garden landscape. It forms an animated material library of the existing building fabric.

13 11–13, 31 Rhys Cullen, Y2 ‘The Hythe’. Derived from the Old English hyð, meaning a landing place or harbour, the hythe is explored as a place of arrival, exchange and gathering, where materials, goods and people are brought together as an architecture of making, exchange and redistribution.

10, 18–19, 21 Rosa Rothwell, Y2 ‘An Architecture for Air: Plastic and the Westway’. Combining reused steel frames, structural timber and plastic-bag-derived woven façade panels, this project proposes a community-scale recycling facility on the Elkstone Road units in North Kensington, where recycling is reimagined as a public activity, returning material agency to local communities.

Architecture BSc

Circular Tectonics

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG1

Architecture BSc

22 16, 22 Evelyn Curd, Y2 ‘The Wayleave’. Investigating transport and festival salvage, this project transforms an overlooked fragment of infrastructural land beside the railway and the Westway into a civic hub for the communities surrounding Paddington, creating adaptable spaces for occupation, support and belonging. 20 Ivan Samorukov, Y2 ’Gardens by the Dock’. This project combines temporary living for canal boat users with communal wellness, maintenance and social spaces in a terraced landscape animated by canal sediment bio-glass. It creates a new waterfront typology along the Grand Union Canal.

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Circular Tectonics

Architecture BSc

UG1

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

30 23–27 Antonis Kalopedis, Y2 ‘Community Canvas’. This project explores the reuse and repurposing of donor materials that were to be disposed of in demolition, creating a voice for local artists, residents and anyone else keen to contribute to the public artwork. 28 Beulah Kuku, Y3 ‘Thresholds Without Demands’. This project explores a dialogue between in-situ rammed earth and natural fabrics through the construction of a public theatre landscape embedded in Spa Fields, Clerkenwell. It investigates intimacy as a changing relationship between self, others and environment, where connection emerges through participation, observation, transformation and time.

31 29–30 Terrence Jia Le, Y2 ‘Tate Westway’. Starting from the premise that, by 2035, age-related concrete fatigue will force a decision about the Westway’s future, this project proposes transformation through subtraction by cutting into a redundant upper carriageway and reinhabiting it as a new piece of civic infrastructure.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG2 Bit by Bit: an Architecture of Parts

Zachary Fluker, Maxwell Mutanda

Images: Preeti Thomas, Y2 ‘Visible Mending: Exhibiting the Craft of Repair’.

Year 3 Patience Adediran, Chloe Marchi, Veneca Samantha Musadaidzwa, Musab Umair Technical tutors/consultants Jane Chew, Sienna Griffin-Shaw, Sal Wilson

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Emma Colthurst, David Di Duca, Katerina Dionysopoulou, Daniel Dream, Jessica In, CheeKit Lai, Ifigeneia Liangi, Billy Mavropoulos, Tetsuro Nagata, Toby O’Connor, Hugh Queenan, Colin Smith, Gabriel Warshafsky

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Ashraf Al-Hakiim, Makary Crosby, Henry Forton, Yui Kato, Andreas Ladommatos, Hei (Sherman) Lui, Ioannis (Giannis) Papanikolas, Chaya (Faigy) Schreiber, Preeti Thomas

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

UG2 explores architecture as an adaptive framework that evolves in response to environmental, economic and cultural change. It positions adaptability as essential, with buildings conceived not as fixed outcomes but as open systems capable of transformation over time. Grounded in circular economy principles, the unit emphasises Design for Disassembly (DfD), material reuse and hybrid programming, while addressing the need for more resilient and flexible urban environments. Through engagement with the diverse communities of London’s Borough of Hackney, students examined how architecture can empower users and foster new relationships between people, materials and the city. Students engaged with these themes through design research, material experimentation and community engagement. In Term 1, they developed adaptable, temporary community-gathering spaces rooted in DfD principles. Each project responded to a specific user group, informed by local contexts, available materials and Hackney’s layered histories. A sequential design process guided the work, with students developing building elements through models, assembly drawings and connection systems. This culminated in a physical model and a ‘Manual for Assembly/Disassembly’, defining each project as a reconfigurable architectural system. In Term 2, students extended this approach to hybrid housing proposals. The term began with a visit to Paris and its adaptive reuse projects. On their return, students selected sites through community research, focusing on urban infill and disused plots within Hackney. The hybrid programmes responded to specific social needs, ranging from transitional housing models that combine living spaces with storage facilities to short-term accommodation supporting hospital night-shift workers. The unit’s consideration of architectural systems was further explored in a workshop on 3D printing using clay and demolition waste. This introduced a digital fabrication workflow aligned with material circularity, reuse and emerging construction techniques, allowing students to test how waste materials can be reworked into architectural components. This year’s projects demonstrate how adap table architecture can address contemporary urban challenges. By combining circular economy principles with community-led design, students developed proposals that move beyond singleuse buildings towards resilient, reprogrammable systems, positioning architecture as an ongoing and transformative process.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Bit by Bit

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

UG2

Architecture BSc

8 1–2 Makary Crosby, Y2 ‘A Music Education Transmitted to London’. A hybrid housing programme for music teachers that enables the teaching of non-classical music while also promoting local musical culture. The project places mentorship, performance and community at its core with the aim of dissolving youth gang boundaries. 3–4 Hei (Sherman) Lui, Y2 ‘Hybrid Bike Repair and Manufacture Hub’. A structure for a high-end bicycle repair shop and frame research and development workshop. The project is bolstered by the wealth of surrounding manufacturing companies and design creativity within the Hackney Maker Mile.

9 5–6 Chloe Marchi, Y3 ‘The Salvage Lab’. This project operates as salvage yard, making lab, garden centre, exhibition space and dwelling. It collects construction waste, then tests it, transforms it and returns it to architectural use. 7–8 Patience Adediran, Y3 ‘Out of Sync: A Subterranean Sanctuary for Night-Shift Nurses’. A decompression centre for night-shift nurses working near Homerton Hospital. The project responds to the physical and emotional strain of working against the body’s natural circadian rhythm. 9 Chaya (Faigy) Schreiber, Y2 ‘Living Above 85 Mare Street Shop’. The project reimagines a vacant corner shopfront on Mare Street as a hybrid live– work building that revives the commonplace ‘ﬂat above the shop’ typology.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Bit by Bit

Architecture BSc

UG2

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

10–15, 18 Preeti Thomas, Y2 ‘Visible Mending: Exhibiting the Craft of Repair’. Building on the local interest in sustainable fashion, this project proposes a small clothes repair centre in Dalston for two skilled textiles craftspeople to live and work in. The project opposes fast fashion by providing a service for people to have their existing garments mended and maintained, while allowing passers-by to peer into the space and view the craftspeople at work. The reworked fabric canopies are a focal point that make the threshold between public and private tangible, and allow the craftspeople at work to control the boundary with their audience.

18 16 Ashraf Al-Hakiim, Y2 ‘The Youth Deck Skateboarding Camp’. This project takes inspiration from the skateboarding culture found in Hackney, where skating and strong community networks contribute to the local identity. 17 Yui Kato, Y2 ‘Sober Greenhouse: Channel of Recovery’. Located adjacent to the Middlesex Filter Beds in Hackney Marshes, this project began with an investigation into the site’s historical relationship with healthcare.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG2

Architecture BSc

Bit by Bit

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

23 19–20 Veneca Musadaidzwa, Y3 ‘The Domesticated Atelier: Spatial Permanence and Collective Production’. This artists’ village proposes a hybrid live–work housing scheme situated alongside the Regent’s Canal adjacent to Kingsland Road. The project offers a temporary and adaptable response to the increasingly precarious conditions faced by artists within contemporary urban environments.

21–22 Musab Umair, Y3 ‘Problem Gambling Rehabilitation Retreat’. Problem gambling is signiﬁcantly higher among the homeless population, with estimates suggesting that around 11% to 16.5% of people experiencing homelessness meet the criteria for problem or pathological gambling. Often, gambling precedes homelessness, with studies indicating that up to 82% of problem gamblers are homeless. This project proposes a halfway house/ community that prevents addicts from gambling.

23 Ioannis (Giannis) Papanikolas, Y2 ‘Urban Fermentation House’. A live– work brewery for independent craft brewers, offering facilities for production, social gathering and learning alongside residential accommodation.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Bit by Bit

Architecture BSc

UG2

Architecture BSc

24, 26 Andreas Ladommatos, Y2 ‘High-Performance Athletic Oasis in Hackney’. This project proposes a hybrid environment for elite endurance athletes, integrating training, recovery, residential and communal programmes within a single architectural framework. Designed for runners, swimmers and cyclists, the proposal supports high-performance athletic development. 25, 27–28 Henry Forton, Y2 ‘Housing the Transition: Between Storage and Inhabitation’. The objects we own and the way we store, organise and access them have a direct effect on our psychological state. In periods of instability, securing one’s belongings is frequently the first concrete act through which we begin to re-establish order and, with it, a sense of self. This project explores how different people relate to their possessions, what is spatially required by them and how a building might be designed to accommodate them.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG3 Remain in Light

Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi

Images top to bottom: Seran Allen, Y3 ‘Occupato’. Mahe Hussain, Y3 ‘Recognise the Unrecognised’.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutor Martin Reynolds

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Seran Allen, Mia Burgess, Tim Deleu, Syed (Mahe) Hussain, Evelyn Jeffery, Oscar Lakatos

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Mya Ankle, Eliza Cholakova, Zareef Khan, Marilena Papamatthaiou, Lekha Shriram, Phavinee (Polly) Sirikrai, Xinman Xia, Balthazar (Roman) Zatorski

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

This year’s brief was written in collaboration with students from the previous year. It investigates how architectural thresholds – such as windows, curtains and corridors – are constructed to control, protect, exclude or invite projection. Drawing from cinematic examples, we examined how architecture becomes a stage for secrecy and interpretation within these in-between spaces, where visibility, power and intimacy collide, by reimagining their complex histories as spatial characters. In a world increasingly shaped by surveillance, suspicion and mediated visibility, we asked how architecture facilitates both revelation and refuge. How do glances, shadows and gestures construct narratives? How does architecture engineer who sees and who is seen? How does the question of ethics present itself within architecture? We interrogated how architecture choreographs visibility and how buildings regulate perception and presence. Light is a threshold material: it passes through windows, filters through curtains and defines corridors, shaping how space is experienced. In Term 1, we selected sites from within films and developed architectural prototypes working from the window, corridor or door outwards. We explored drawing and modelling as forms of projection rather than description, testing how spatial sequences choreograph gaze, movement, atmosphere and programme. Through precedents drawn from cinema and theory – including Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) and Jonathan Hill’s Immaterial Architecture (2006) – we focused on how architectural details carry ethical and social weight, and how minor spatial decisions can encode values, hierarchies and control. In Terms 2 and 3, students translated their research into civic building projects in Florence or Rome. These projects are both magical and critical, exploring how architecture is mediated not only through space, but also through the ways its thresholds are seen, touched and remembered. ‘Remain in Light’ thus evokes questions of exposure and visibility, suggesting tensions between what is seen and what is allowed to be seen.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG3

Architecture BSc

Remain in Light

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

5 1 Evelyn Jeffery, Y3 ‘In Midst of Concrete Monsters’. Located within the abandoned grounds of a former factory in Rome, this project reimagines industrial ruins as a youth centre and construction landscape for latchkey children. Embroidery, fabric formwork and suspended textiles introduce care, adaptability and softness, transforming the site alongside its users. 2–5 Syed (Mahe) Hussain, Y3 ‘Recognise the Unrecognised’. Positioned between Vatican City and Rome, this project proposes an embassy that challenges fixed notions of recognition and belonging. Using Palestine as a case study, it exposes shifting political realities through architecture. Inspired by The Little Lantern, the project is a spatial mediator that fosters justice, collective responsibility and unity.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Remain in Light

Architecture BSc

UG3

Architecture BSc

6–7, 10 Mia Burgess, Y3 ‘Poisoned Memory: Replication and Reflection Theatre’. Reimagining the abandoned Gigi Proietti Globe Theatre in Rome, this project is an immersive theatrical landscape inspired by Shakespeare. Fragments, props and memories shape the architecture, while a bridge across the historic Porta Pinciana symbolically reconciles division, transforming replication into creative reinterpretation. 8–9 Oscar Lakatos, Y3 ‘The Arno Archive’. A museum and restoration institute on Florence’s Santa Rosa Weir draws inspiration from the 1966 flood of the Arno River. The design of the architecture is derived from analysis of flood-damaged artworks, making the conservation process publicly visible. Informed by hydrodynamic research and studies of the Arno by Leonardo da Vinci, the project transforms the river into both subject and creative collaborator.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG3

Remain in Light

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

13 11–13 Seran Allen, Y3 ‘Occupato’. This project explores the closure of independent cinemas in Rome through Cinema America, framing occupation as collective resistance to privatisation. Inspired by Fellini’s The Voice of the Moon, it reimagines cinema as a community cinematheque, where architecture, film-making and light-sensitive archives preserve memory, connection and civic action.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Remain in Light

Architecture BSc

UG3

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

14–16 Tim Deleu, Y3 ‘Your Expiration, My Elevation: A Protocol for a Post-Facelift Sanctuary’. This project proposes a facelift recovery hotel on Florence’s Arno River, exploring luxury, concealment and transformation. Inspired by the House of Medici, the architecture translates cosmetic procedures into space through controlled visibility, secret circulation and private thresholds. As a result, recovery remains unseen and perfection appears effortless.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG4 Continuum

Katerina Dionysopoulou, Billy Mavropoulos

Critics Charlie Caswell, Francesco Cavaliere, Caroline Charrel, Hannah Corlett, Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi, Laura Mark, Níall McLaughlin, Maxwell Mutanda, Parin Nawachartkosit

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutors/consultants Francesco Cavaliere, Kacper Chmielewski

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Wing Yuet (Valerie) Chen, Tsun Hei (Ernest) Cheung, Anika Deb, Bronwyn Jones, Mai-Ling (Mirei) Kong

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Zi Kei (Ally) Cheung, Kae Crisp, Kirsten Pacey, Noor Rovere, Miranda Smethurst-Evans, İpek Soğancıoğlu, Sunuttee (Prin) Suphadhira, Thee Suthanaseriporn, Vivien Uong

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

Architecture is never a singular event but a condition of perpetual becoming – a continuum woven through time, matter and inhabitation. Every site bears the palimpsest of its former lives: the demolished wall, the reconfigured geometry, the forgotten foundation or the latent narrative sedimented in the ground. To design is to read and reinterpret these inheritances, to inscribe anew without erasure, and to extend the life of the exis ting and the as-found into futures yet to unfold. By 2050, 80% of the buildings in UK cities will be those already constructed today, high lighting the necessity of decarbonising and extending the life of existing architecture.1 The future will not be a tabula rasa, but will be defined by acts of extension, adaptation and continuation. Certain elements transform swiftly – interiors, programmes, technologies – while others yield only gradually – walls, structures, foundations. These discrepant rhythms rarely align, producing moments of shearing in which the slow constrains the fast and the fast exerts pressure on the slow. For the architect, this temporal friction becomes a site of opportunity: to analyse what endures and what is provisional, to imagine how each layer may be adapted or reconfigured, and to reconsider how buildings might extend their lives through cycles of change. It is precisely within this interplay of permanence and transformation that architecture discloses its vitality. Fast learns; slow remembers. Fast proposes; slow disposes. Fast and small instructs slow and large by innovation, while slow and large controls fast and small by continuity. The harmony of a building lies not in permanence, but in its ability to accommodate such slippages. The temporary becomes permanent; the permanent becomes temporary. What endures is not rigidity, but adaptability. Grand, over-specified buildings often collapse into obsolescence, while so-called ‘temporary’ structures persist through endless succession and reuse, their openness granting longevity. UG4 proposes that architecture should be regarded less as a static art than a dynamic act – an ongoing negotiation between designer and inhabitant, intention and improvisation. Successful buildings are not inert husks awaiting replacement but living entities capable of adapting to unforeseen trajectories. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, Retrofitting Homes for Net Zero, available at: committees.parliament.uk/publications/48054/ documents/251274/default/ [accessed 11 June 2026].

Images top to bottom: Sunuttee (Prin) Suphadhira, Y2 ‘Vessel 0.0’. Thee Suthanaseriporn, Y2 ‘Pennington Street Winery & Night Bar’.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG4

Architecture BSc

Continuum

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

5 1, 20, 26 Thee Suthanaseriporn, Y2 ‘Pennington Street Winery & Night Bar’. The Wapping Winery proposes the adaptive reuse of the Pennington Street Warehouse as a combined wine production facility and bar within Wapping’s regenerating dockland context. 2, 24 Noor Rovere, Y2 ‘Leighton House’. This project proposes an extension to Leighton House, which reinterprets the historical home of Victorian artist Frederic Leighton as a contemporary space for the public gathering and cultural exchange of Arab artists.

3, 14 Bronwyn Jones, Y3 ‘The Silver Guild: Casting the Commons’. This project proposes the adaptive reuse of 32–34 Clerkenwell Close as a new civic institution for silversmithing, dining and collective exchange.

4, 17–18 Anika Deb, Y3 ‘Aalo Women’s Centre’. A proposal for a refuge in Whitechapel, supporting vulnerable women escaping from domestic abuse and homelessness. 5, 11, 15 Mai-Ling (Mirei) Kong, Y3 ‘Crafted: A Carpenter’s Cabinet’. A carpentry school in Hoxton Square, which aims to unearth the forgotten identity of the site as a hub for timber craft and culture.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Continuum

Architecture BSc

UG4

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6, 8 Sunuttee (Prin) Suphadhira, Y2 ‘Vessel 0.0’. This project proposes a strategic retrofit of the Royal Docks Impounding Station to create a community wellness club and active water-purification infrastructure that seamlessly weaves historical preservation into contemporary civic life. 7 Kae Crisp, Y2 ‘Praeludium’. This retrofit project is dedicated to the unseen craft of performance. It proposes a space for learning and creative production that nurtures the next generation of theatre-makers. 9 Miranda Smethurst-Evans, Y2 ‘Sutton House Arts Centre’. This project proposes an arts centre in a contemporary extension of the historic Sutton House.

13 10, 16 Zi Kei (Ally) Cheung, Y2 ‘Cookery Workshop’. Located at 32 Southwark Street, this project proposes a cookery workshop and community space in an extension to an existing restaurant. 12 Vivien Uong, Y2 ‘Whitechapel Bell Foundry’. This project celebrates the diversity of Whitechapel and Tower Hamlets by proposing a space for different faiths to practise alongside each other. 13, 22 Wing Yuet (Valerie) Chen, Y3 ‘Ageing with Dignity: Façade Design in Age-Friendly Housing’. This project proposes a retirement housing estate that reimagines the typology as a desirable, low-maintenance urban home for young seniors (55+).

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc Architecture BSc

40 UG4 Continuum

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Continuum

Architecture BSc

UG4

Architecture BSc

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

19, 21 Tsun Hei (Ernest) Cheung, Y3 ‘Market Support Hub’. A market support hub in Tower Hamlets that responds to displacement and urban instability through a protected yet sociable environment for traders. 23 Kirsten Pacey, Y2 ‘House of Making at the Threshold’. This project proposes a retrofit of Aldersgate House to create collective spaces for the purpose of exhibitions, fashion shows and crafting studios.

26 25 Ipek Sogancioglu, Y2 ‘Resonance: Mind, Body & Soul’. This project explores the relationship between architecture, wellbeing and intellectual exchange through the design of a debating chamber and spa facility located within Strand Lane.

24 Noor Rovere, Y2 ‘Leighton House’. This project proposes an extension to Leighton House, which reinterprets the historic home of Victorian artist Frederic Leighton as a contemporary space for the public gathering and cultural exchange of Arab artists.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG5 Cheap

Patrick Massey, Bongani Muchemwa

Images top to bottom: George Williams, Y2 ‘Tiber Island Eel Ranch and Guttery’. Rose Harris, Y2 ‘100 Ways to Cook a Potato’.

Year 3 Ibrahim Charafi, Dzifa Dzah, Gia Reehal, Yash Rohitkum

Architecture MSci

Sponsors McCloy + Muchemwa, Populous

Architecture MArch

Critics Laurence Blackwell-Thale, Rio Burrage, William Victor Camilleri, Joanne Chen, Gladys Ching, Maria Fulford, Jolene Liam, Jörg Majer, Heba Mohsen, Natalie Newey, David Ogunmuyiwa, Anna Pang, Jake Parkin, Ricardo Sosa Mejia, Mark Tugman, Eric Wong, Mika Zacharias

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Technical tutors/consultants Rio Burrage, Jakub Klaska, Mika Zacharias

Architecture BSc

Year 2 Isabella Arnold, Lea Awujoola, Kelsey Brooke, Jessica Gibson, Rose Harris, Orissa Mistry, Millie Mokha, Hilda Mortezazadeh, Kishan Sharma, Freya Viney, George Williams

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students

History & Theory

UG5 encourages students to test ideas rigorously, develop a personal design language and produce architecture that is inventive, critical and generous. Our work explores the architectural potential of cheapness – not as cost-cutting or compromise, but as a critical tool through which to question how value is constructed. Rather than understanding cheapness as an aesthetic style, we view it as a position from which ideas of worth, taste, labour and dignity can be challenged and reordered. This year, UG5 investigated how shifting attitudes to value might generate new spatial, organisational and atmospheric effects. How might architecture produce richness through conceptual precision, material intelligence and cultural attentiveness? For the initial project, Deptford market provided a live context for observing exchange, display and everyday systems of value. Through experimental drawing and mixed media, students developed individual visual languages as tools for analysis and design generation. Drawing was used not only to represent, but also to test ideas and construct spatial arguments. Structured around a sequence of small-scale design exercises examining material junctions, bodily occupation and spatial transition, the project explored how atmosphere and emotional intensity might be constructed through precise architectural decisions. A field trip to Italy extended these questions into a broader historical framework. In Rome, students focused on sites containing ‘forgotten’ ruins: fragments absorbed into the city yet overshadowed by monuments of greater historical importance. These sites were understood as part of the layered urban fabric. Students worked with ruins not as static artefacts, but as live architectural situations, exploring strategies of reuse, attachment, adaptation and spatial repair. In the final building project, students began with the typology of the bank and expanded it into proposals exploring radical sites of value. The bank’s logics of storage, security, accumulation and exchange were tested by reconsidering the sites as embassies, museums, burial grounds, monasteries, markets and spaces for gathering.

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG5

Architecture BSc

Cheap

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1, 6, 24, 31 Dzifa Dzah, Y3 ‘The African Embassy of Braiding’. This project explores braiding as an architectural language, translating cultural rituals and material intelligence into spatial form. It examines braided structural systems and material assemblies derived from Afro hair technologies. 2, 12 Gia Reehal, Y3 ‘The Garment Mausoleum’. A memorial space where garments, memory and ritual are transformed into a richly textured architectural environment. 3 Yash Rohitkumar Patel, Y3 ‘The Sixth Wall’. Entrance to a spice archive and cultural exchange centre, where material reuse and sensory experience shape the arrival sequence.

4 Kishan Sharma, Y2 ‘Echoes of the Block’. Principal elevation of a recording studio and performance venue, celebrating hip-hop culture through the adaptive reuse of an overlooked Roman ruin. 5, 8, 28 George Williams, Y2 ‘Tiber Island Eel Ranch and Guttery’. This project explores the spatial language of mudlarking, industry and public gathering along the River Thames. 7, 9, 15, 22, 27 Kelsey Brooke, Y2 ‘The Departure Temple’. This project presents a funerary landscape where Catholic and pagan traditions are woven together through ritual procession. The architecture frames rituals of mourning within a woodland cemetery and ancient ruins.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Cheap

Architecture BSc

UG5

Architecture BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

10, 18 Millie Mokha, Y2 ‘Let Stray Dogs Lie’. This project presents a dog’s-eye perspective exploring architecture designed primarily for canine experience, perception and movement. It is a sanctuary for the wellbeing of stray dogs. 11 Jessica Gibson, Y2 ‘Wearable Architecture: Conversation Coat’. This project explores how clothing can encourage conversation and social interaction within pubs and drinking spaces. 13, 21, 23, 25 Rose Harris, Y2 ‘100 Ways to Cook a Potato’. A seasonal gathering space celebrating cultivation, food production and communal ritual. The project investigates using potato starch bio-plastic as a temporary architectural material linked to seasonal ritual.

Architecture BSc

Cheap

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG5

Architecture BSc

22 14, 17 Freya Viney, Y2 ‘A Night at the Museum’. A fragmented architectural framework attached to a historical Roman wall through layered interventions. 16 Hilda Mortezazadeh, Y2 ‘Museum: Spice Trade Ceremony’. This project explores spice, scent and cast architectural fragments inspired by Rome’s multicultural markets.

19 Lea Awujoola, Y2 ‘The Secular Santuary’. Atmospheric interior exploring a sequence of spaces for reflection, confession, communal singing and quiet contemplation. 20 Isabella Arnold, Y2 ‘La Volta’. A hidden nightclub embedded within Rome’s ancient wall, occupying the threshold between the city and its forgotten spaces.

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Cheap

Architecture BSc

UG5

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

30 26, 29 Gia Reehal, Y3 ‘The Garment Mausoleum’. The project investigates how folded textiles can transition from flexible surfaces into structural architectural elements. The space includes a workshop where discarded garments are catalogued, repaired and transformed into architectural materials.

31 30 Yash Rohitkumar Patel, Y3 ‘The Sixth Wall’. Section through the spice archive illustrating environmental control, sensory experience and spatial organisation.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG6 Situated Speculations: an Architecture of the In-Between

Ashley Hinchcliffe, Ben Spong

Images top to bottom: Yi (Hanson) Zhou ‘Where Our Paths Cross’. Jun Yao (Oscar) Loo ‘Llobregat Delta Proving Grounds’.

Year 3 Elizabeth Bronstein, Clara Castellano Burguera, Ifsah Chowdrey, Rosie Dymock, Olga Grogolova, Jun Yao (Oscar) Loo, Antonia Szlosarek, Mushili Wilkie, Yasmeen Yusuf-Burrell

Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Critics Joseph Augustin, Jesper Authen, Christopher Burman, Ana Cazan, Ivan Chan, Kate Cheyne, Kacper Chmielewski, Malina Dabrowska, Joe Johnson, Steve Johnson, Kyriakos Katsaros, Agata Murasko, Andreas Müllertz, Elliot Nash, Farlie Reynolds, Dougal Sadler, Joel Saldeck

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Technical tutors/consultants Ivan Chan, Krina Christopoulou, Sal Wilson

Architecture BSc

Year 2 Esme Brebbia-Yee, Andres Cabrera Arguelles, Jack Mahoney, Yanisa (JJ) Mongkolrattanawong, Yi (Hanson) Zhou

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students

History & Theory

With one foot in the here and now and the other in a world beyond, UG6 explored architecture’s ability to hold together situated and speculative forms of knowledge. We explored the space between the world as it is and as it could be, addressing the sociological, ecological and political challenges that shape our sense of place – challenges increasingly unsettled by the forces of globalisation. We began the year by investigating three sites of specific speculative interest: Rainham Marshes, Epping Forest and the City of London. These locations provided contrasting conditions, from fragile ecologies to dense urban fabric, and were explored through close readings of site, material experiments and constructed instruments, culminating in a sited architectural prototype. During our field trip to Barcelona – a city where architectural experimentation meets urban resilience – we studied the radical works of Gaudí, Enric Miralles, Flores y Prats, H Arquitectes, IAAC and others. Barcelona offered fertile ground for us to test methods of placement, projection and speculative making for a building project sited in the city. The unit subsequently developed practical yet poetic building proposals that were hyperspecific to their surroundings but visionary in outlook – buildings that could exist nowhere else yet still point toward potential futures. We asked: What does it mean for architecture to be truly of its place? Not merely to be resting on a site but emerging from it, shaped by its material, cultural and environmental specificities? What does it mean to create an architecture in which place and proposition are so intrinsically bound together that they become inseparable – such that from the architecture we infer place, and from place we infer the architecture? UG6 is a unit that encourages individuals to draw on their own architectural fascinations. By embracing the reciprocity between media, methods and the worlds they create, the unit moves freely between ideas and their realisation, reinventing disciplinary conventions in the process of discovering architecture.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Situated Speculations

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

UG6

Architecture BSc

9 1, 2 Yi (Hanson) Zhou, Y2 ‘Where Our Paths Cross’. A civic intervention along L’Hospitalet’s buried rail corridor that transforms a border condition into shared public ground. The project stitches together neighbourhoods through memory, movement and everyday encounters. 3, 4, 5, 8 Jun Yao (Oscar) Loo, Y3 ‘Llobregat Delta Proving Grounds’. A wetland laboratory and visitor centre choreographing tides, sediment and structure into inhabitable ground. Here, instability becomes a medium for ongoing hydrological research and constructed landscape testing.

6, 7 Esme Brebbia-Yee, Y2 ‘To Be Remembered By’. This project proposes an emotive architecture of remembrance situated above Montjuïc Cemetery. Exploring preciousness through the personal objects by which people are remembered, stippled metal surfaces shape an alternative space for mourning.

9 Yanisa (Jj) Mongkolrattanawong, Y2 ‘Cradling Confluence’. Set on Barcelona’s Besòs delta, this project is a staycation enclave of terraces, walkways and quiet rooms for Catalonians to retreat. A shifting water landscape cradled between industrial infrastructure and shifting currents.

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Situated Speculations

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

UG6

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

10, 11, 14 Olga Grogolova, Y3 ‘Civic and Administrative Centre in El Poblenou, Barcelona’. This project reimagines an administrative building through the concept of psychogeography. It transforms ordinary civic routines into moments of discovery, curiosity and awe to create a new civic heart for the neighbourhood. 12, 13, 16 Elizabeth Bronstein, Y3 ‘Beyond the Curtain’. This project transforms an overlooked square in Barcelona into a vibrant neighbourhood conservatoire. Dynamic spatial layers blur performer and spectator, making rehearsal, learning and circulation visible, engaging and intrinsically public. 15 Ifsah Chowdhery, Y3 ‘Refuge’. Sited at Ambresbury Banks in Epping Forest, this project reshapes an Iron Age hillfort into a sanctuary for migrants, where carved earthworks mark a hidden border of refuge, ownership and shared ritual.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Situated Speculations

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

UG6

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

22 17, 18 Yasmeen Yusuf-Burrell, Y3 ‘Poblenou’s Paper Archive’. The project is an homage to the demolished Transcementiri neighbourhood in Barcelona, piecing together forgotten historical imagery and exhibiting fragments from local demolition sites as ‘artefacts’. 19, 25, 28 Antonia Szlosarek, Y3 ‘House of the Salt Cycle’. This project is a salt therapy clinic within the marshes of Ca L’Arana, Catalonia. It aims to heal the body and mind by connecting them with the natural processes of salt crystallisation and erosion.

20, 21 Clara Castellano Burguera, Y3 ‘Engram | Tracing Poblenou’s Industrial Memory through Clay’. A student centre and robotic clay-printing facility in Poblenou, Barcelon. Here, architecture is designed to be unmade, reprinted and continuously rewritten.

23 22, 23 Jack Mahoney, Y2 ‘Learning through Matter’. A civic nursery and workspace in Poblenou, which embeds play into carved walls, shared workshops and everyday routines by inviting young children to co-own spaces of making, repair and collective care.

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Situated Speculations

Architecture BSc

UG6

Architecture BSc

24 Andres Cabrera Arguelles, Y2 ‘Retrieved and Reclaim: Siting the Urban Heritage’. A Creative Commons in Barcelona, inspired by Okupa ideals, transforms ruins, spolia and industrial fragments into evolving spaces of making, occupation, collective memory and architectural resistance. 26, 31 Mushili Wilkie, Y3 ‘Cyclical Market’. Multi-use marketplace and community centre based in Gracia, Barcelona, that facilitates connection to people, food and green spaces for local communities. 27, 29, 30 Rosie Dymock, Y3 ‘Tailored Space’. Beginning with fabric interventions shaped by Epping Forest and culminating in an Institute of Heritage Craft in Poblenou, this project explores processes of fitting and tailoring at an architectural scale.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG7 Here Comes the Sun

Joseph Augustin, Christopher Burman

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Acknowledgements UG7 would like to thank Dr Edward Barrett, Jalal Ahmed, João Francisco Sousa, Francisco Amoedo Pinto, OODA, the team at Casa da Música and Porto School of Architecture

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Tomiwa Balogun, Kirsty Liang, Haena Lim, Xingjian Liu

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Aya Ahmed, Jacob Avery, Chloe Bong, Yi Xuan (Harley) Cai, Jahn Casilagan, Carissa Fong, Chengcheng Fu, Fearne Harris, Masaki Hayashikawa, Ishita Mankoo, Aalee Mishra, Viola Muhaxheri, Yeunhae (Ben) Park, Louis Saez, Hayeong (Julie) Yoon

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

Every second, the sun converts 620 million tonnes of hydrogen into 616 million tonnes of helium. The remaining four million tonnes are released as electromagnetic energy that we know as sunlight. Although photons are radiated in all directions, only one in every 2.2 billion travels towards the earth. Yet such is their volume that enough arrive for approximately 120,000 terrawatts of solar energy to be absorbed by our planet, sustaining our finely tuned biosphere and powering all life within it. While, of course, it must never be looked at directly, the sun is at once an object of worship, a source of deep cultural and social symbolism, the metronome by which we organise the days and years of our lives, and perhaps the original architectural client. In the current era, as global heating accelerates, we may also become in creasingly aware – and potentially wary – of its presence. This year, UG7 invited students to ‘set the controls for the heart of the sun’, expanding our collective understanding of solar orientation to include both the cosmically local and the locally cosmic. The unit sought new earth-based architectural propositions driven by heat, light, shade, shadow, human physiology, deep time, deep space and ritual. Our field trip to Porto grounded these investigations in a city shaped by granite, steep topography, Atlantic light and the rich history of contemporary Portuguese architecture. The final building projects began by reconsidering the city as a field of microclimates, prototyping how architecture might transform sensory experience into civic gesture. The outcome is a set of buildings that operate as instruments, calibrating flows of heat, air, light and shade through urban space while cultivating experimental solar material tectonics.

Images top to bottom: Xingjian Lui, Y3 ‘Under Apollo’s Gaze’. Heliodon prototype. Xingjian Lui, Y3 ‘Under Apollo’s Gaze’. Sunbeam testing platform.

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG7

Architecture BSc

Here Comes the Sun

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1–2, 6 Xingjian Liu, Y3 ‘Under Apollo’s Gaze’. Recasting Greenwich Park as a contemporary site of solar ritual, the project uses lenses and mirrors to choreograph sunlight, proposing a new relationship between architecture, movement and cosmic time.

5 Ishita Mankoo, Y2 ‘Where Paths Become Light’. Light becomes both material and wayfinding device within a pavilion of coloured glass, etched surfaces and timber. Shifting fields of colour and shadow continually reshape the experience of moving through the space.

3 Aalee Mishra, Y2 ‘The Lantern of Turning Light’. Positioned beside a cricket ground, the pavilion reinterprets the traditional clubhouse through seasonal light and material warmth. A copper roof transforms the building from shaded summer shelter to luminous winter landmark.

7 Viola Muhaxheri, Y2 ‘The Eye of Greenwich’. Buried beneath the landscape, the pavilion reveals environmental phenomena through reactive copper elements that register changing atmospheric conditions, transforming invisible forces into an architecture of heightened awareness.

4 Haena Lim, Y3 ‘Sun and Time’. Located on the Prime Meridian, the pavilion explores how architecture can make time physically perceptible. Shifting shadows, layered stairways and a hyperboloid tower invite visitors to experience time through movement.

8 Chengcheng Fu, Y2 ‘The Quiet Fold’. Inspired by the mechanics of books, the pavilion unfolds into a flexible reading space within the landscape. Folding timber elements negotiate enclosure and openness, supporting gathering, reflection and shared acts of reading.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Here Comes the Sun

Architecture BSc

UG7

Architecture BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

12 9 Tomiwa Balogun, Y3 ‘Solar Gaze’. Constructed from London clay and glass brick, the pavilion explores light as architecture’s primary medium. By day, it fragments and scatters sunlight; by night, it becomes a luminous landmark overlooking the park.

13 12–13 Jacob Avery, Y2 ‘618 Botanical Bookshop Café’. A bookshop, café and botanical retreat embedded within Greenwich Park. The project explores permanence through post-tensioned Portland stone while dissolving the thresholds between architecture, planting and landscape.

10 Aya Ahmed, Y2 ‘The Solar Hearth’. Reimagining the hearth as an elemental civic space, the pavilion brings together earth, fire and sunlight within a sunken gathering chamber, creating an architecture centred on ritual, presence and collective exchange. 11 Kirsty Liang, Y3 ‘Patterning Light’. Borrowing techniques from garmentmaking, the project transforms kerf-cut plywood into both structure and enclosure. Patterned surfaces filter daylight to create a textile-like architecture for repair, making and collective craft.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG7

Architecture BSc

Here Comes the Sun

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

19 14, 18 Haena Lim, Y3 ‘Biomimetic Surf Resort in Porto’. A biomimetic lattice canopies shelter pools, terraces and training rooms in this proposal for a coastal resort, revealing a masterplan that settles into the sand dunes between the city and the sea. 15 Jacob Avery, Y2 ‘Bio-Propulsion Gardens’. A research canopy launching pollination drones from a lightweight tented structure, cultivating and monitoring an experimental garden beneath its lattice roof. 16 Viola Muhaxheri, Y2 ‘A Lingering Retreat’. An exploded axonometric unpacks a latticed dome over arched retreat, bathing and gathering levels suspended above an existing urban base.

17 Chloe Bong, Y2 ‘Between the Fish and the Stone’. A timber-framed public building threading market, terraces and colonnaded interiors between the working waterfront and historic stone city. 19 Tomiwa Balogun, Y3 ‘Here Are My Hands: The Urban Front Room’. A shared front room set into the existing city, its brick drum and warm interiors making room for gathering, care and community.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Here Comes the Sun

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

Architecture BSc

UG7

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

20, 22, 24 Xingjian Liu, Y3 ‘Ascending Scales’. This project reveals a solar ceramic complex climbing Porto’s hillside. Its timber vaulted halls and dynamic reflector roof focus sunlight onto kilns beneath green terraces and a museum. 21, 25 Yi Xuan (Harley) Cai, Y2 ‘Alegria Yard’. This project is a timberand steel-making yard threaded through existing masonry. The exploded structure reveals workshops, teaching spaces and a tool-lined communal fabrication hall. 23 Yeunhae (Ben) Park, Y2 ‘O Ninho (The Nest)’. A stacked terracotta structure whose exploded axonometric nests dwellings, workshops and communal levels into a warm, perforated vertical community.

28 26 Louis Saez, Y2 ‘Porto Study Threshold’. A study building of loud and quiet zones. Its concrete courtyard, water basin and double-height timber library form a route where movement anchors memory. 27 Masaki Hayashikawa, Y2 ‘The Vertical Training House’. This project is a public Muay Thai house in Miragaia, Porto. Its long section stacks conditioning, coaching and ritual as the body climbs from novice to fighter. 28 Fearne Harris, Y2 ‘The Women’s Commons’. A commons of shared laundries, workshops and hanging cloth courts. The exploded section reveals stacked domestic and communal rooms for collective daily life.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG8 Chance Encounters

Maria Fulford, Jörg Majer

Images top to bottom: Xinyu (Eva) Zhang, Y3 ‘Re-inhabiting Lost Ground’. Ingrid Nyhus, Y2 ‘House of the Gondola’.

Critics Jessam Al-Jawad, Lorenzo Angoli, Jesper Authen, Kacper Chmielewski, Matt Driscoll, Florence Hemmings, Steve Johnson, Ioannis Kanakakis, Emma-Kate Matthews, Andreas Müllertz, Jatin Naru, Jack Newton, Caireen O’Hagan, David Pierce, Juliet Quintero, Anne Schroell, Michiko Sumi, David Tigg, Mike Tite, Lola Wilson

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutors/consultants Krina Christopoulou, Adam Klestil, Cira Oller Tovar, David Pierce

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Inés Camba-Young, Jiawei (Charles) Jin, Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, Sophie Link, Ayla Maydanchi, John Ogunyiluka, William Warwick, Xiaojing (Nicole) Xu, Xinyu (Eva) Zhang

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Hanyun (Linn) Li, Ingrid Nyhus, Jemima Tandavanitj, Kate-Olivia Wakeford

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

A curtain caught in a sudden draft; voices drifting between balconies; the worn hollow of a stone step; light settling across a surface – these are the kinds of encounters that shape our experience of architecture. They emerge through use, arrangement, weathering and time. Rarely planned or drawn, they give depth and meaning to space beyond intention. Architecture is often framed as a discipline of control. Design seeks order, construction seeks precision and use seeks predictability. Yet chance is always present. This year, we considered how design might instead construct the conditions for uncertainty. Positioned within a broader cultural and environmental context, we explored how architecture can remain open, adaptive and responsive to change. We investigated chance as both method and material. Through process-led experiments, we established systems that allowed unpredictable results to emerge. Students worked across drawing, casting, photography and digital modelling, setting parameters while relinquishing control over outcomes. Early exercises focused on repetition and variation, documenting how small shifts in process could produce radically different spatial effects. These studies informed the design of a folly for a chance encounter along the Thames Estuary, shaped by landscape, occupation and atmosphere. In Term 2 (Spring), we travelled from Florence to Venice, examining the extraction of marble in the Carrara quarries, Carlo Scarpa’s careful reworking of Castelvecchio, and finally the sinking city of Venice. Students selected sites and building programmes that invited chance through occupation, arrangement, environment or construction. Design development centred on testing materials, sequencing space, and how light and environment work as active agents in shaping spatial experience. Proposals explored how buildings might remain open to transformation over time while addressing sustainability, reuse and adaptation through material choice, construction and long-term performance. The work produced this year suggests that architecture need not resolve uncertainty but can instead embrace it. By designing for contingency, students proposed spaces that remain responsive, adaptable and alive to change. Architecture is in this context understood not as a finished or standardised product but as an evolving condition shaped through time, use and encounter.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Chance Encounters

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

UG8

Architecture BSc

1–2, 4, 6–7 William Warwick, Y3 ‘Scuola di Scultura’. This project proposes a contemporary school of sculpture, stone carving and drawing. It draws from the traditions of Venetian workshops, where sculpture, architecture and craft were closely intertwined. 3, 5 Hanyun (Linn) Li, Y2 ‘Il Ritornello di Venezia’. The project transforms an abandoned structure in Venice’s Arsenale into a violin-making studio. It explores in-betweenness and reconnects the site’s shipbuilding past with Venice’s timber and musical traditions.

8 Kate-Olivia Wakeford, Y2 ‘Skinning the Landscape’. This project is a traditional tannery that revives bark-dye tanning embedded within Longarone’s terraced alpine landscape. Architecturally, it draws from the landscape, creating an undulating metal roof over a timber structure.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Chance Encounters

Architecture BSc

UG8

Architecture BSc

9–10, 12 Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, Y3 ‘A Vision for the Arsenalotti’. This project proposes a town hall sited within Venice’s Arsenale, which explores conflicting views on Venice’s flood-resilient future and whether architecture can be co-authored through negotiation. 11, 13–14 Ingrid Nyhus, Y2 ‘House of the Gondola’. This project is a union building for gondoliers and gondola-makers at the Rialto Market. It reclaims the gondola as a cultural, political and civic instrument, foregrounding timber craft.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Chance Encounters

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

UG8

Architecture BSc

23 15, 18, 20 Xinyu (Eva) Zhang, Y3 ‘Re-inhabiting Lost Ground’. An end-of-life care project sited in Longarone. The project imagines architecture as a slow act of return to nature. It rebuilds trust between people and landscape, and explores slowness in construction. 16–17 Ayla Maydanchi, Y3 ‘Designing Otherwise’. A Women’s Art Assembly in Venice that provides a civic space for female contemporary artists. The project explores what it means to design in a feminist way and creates spaces for women around their needs.

19, 21, 23 Xiaojing (Nicole) Xu, Y3 ‘Rifugio dell’Acqua Alpina’. A mountain rescue centre and rehabilitation facility in Longarone. The project explores water, weathering and traditional alpine construction to create an architecture that reconnects rehabilitation with landscape and environmental experience.

22 Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, Y3 ‘A Proposal for Rescue Archaeology’. This project draws on printmaking and archaeological cartography to explore the etching of soft ground through natural erosion. The proposed follies are part ruin, part navigational tool, narrating a story of rescue archaeology informed by rising sea levels.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Chance Encounters

Architecture BSc

UG8

Architecture BSc

24 Jiawei (Charles) Jin, Y3 ‘An Elegy for the Drowned City’. A speculative project imagining a future in which Venice is no longer saved by resisting water. Instead, its monuments, material fragments, environmental data and spatial memories are collected over time. As water levels rise, an ark detaches and becomes a floating theatre conveying the narratives of Venice. 25 Jiawei (Charles) Jin, Y3 ‘Shifting Forms’. A ground plotter device that translates a site’s changing surface into fabric movement. This data is reduced into a 5x5 grid and materialised as a plaster cast, producing a new terrain through interpretation rather than replication. 26, 27 Sophie Link, Y3 ‘Obscura delle Acque’. An Immersive Camera Obscura and Courthouse at the Rialto Market. The proposal reimagines the law courts operating analogously to a camera, where apertures, reflection, translucency and controlled darkness shape the user’s experience of space.

28, 31 John Ogunyiluka, Y3 ‘Brusar Un Paese’. An education centre, fish market and ecotourism site on the island of Murano, Venice. The project imagines a landscape of ritual and ecological renewal, reviving reed cultivation, thatching and cyclical burning as acts of remediation and renewal. 29 John Ogunyiluka, Y3 ‘East Tilbury Ẹbu Ìkòkò’. This project explores chance through ceramic processes, including pit firing, glazing and raku. It proposes a ritual space and material system shaped by fire, tide and imprint. Located along the Thames Estuary, it confronts histories of extraction and exploitation by creating a materially hyperlocal architecture that works with natural tidal rhythms and carries narratives across time and place. 30 Inés Camba-Young, Y3 ‘The Fragmented Landscape’. A LiDAR-based project at Coalhouse Fort that translates scanned disruptions into flattened drawings, hidden voids and imagined landscapes.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG9 The Natural Contract

Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai

Images: UG9 and Design for Performance and Interaction MArch student live project, BEAM Camp, New Hampshire, USA. Isaac Insley’s proposal, ‘Draw with me!’, was selected at concept design stage. The interactive drawing machine requires multi-user collaboration to operate, using water to power a system of cams, linkages and rotating parts that translates movement into drawings. Students took part in a fully funded trip to New Hampshire, where they worked with summer campers aged 9–15 to deliver the full-scale installation on site in August 2026.

Critics Julian Besems, Roberto Bottazzi, Pedro Gil, Farlie Reynolds, Elly Selby, Neba Sere, Ben Spong, Jasmin Sohi

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutor/consultant Tom Holberton

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Jack Bowers, Yufei Cheng, Wentong (Iris) Feng, Jessica Georgelin, Yiwen (Yuna) Lee, Kullaphat (Elle) Ngamprasertpong, Sneha Parashar, Alex Pérez Escamilla, Pasathorn Srichaiyongphanich

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Milda Knabikaite, Karina-Ioana Lacraru, Alexandros Photiou, Yumeng Yang

Architecture MArch

This year, UG9 explored architecture through The Natural Contract, a concept proposed by Michel Serres that calls for a reciprocal relationship between humans and the earth. Instead of centring design solely on human needs, students examined how architecture might engage with other elements of the natural world. Drawing from historical and contemporary precedents, the unit explored methods of designing with, rather than against, the living world. Such practices revealed architecture as an interface between human survival and nonhuman habitation. Students tested these ideas through two projects. Project 1, a live project collaboration with Beam Camp in New Hampshire, USA, focused on the design of temporary structures for human and non-human inhabitants. Developed through research, drawing and model-making, the project was realised by Beam campers in August 2026. The main building project, Project 2, was sited within the Stockholm archipelago, where students developed complex proposals responding to climate, ecology and urban development within Sweden’s landscapes. Common themes included architecture as a remediator of contaminated landscapes; the exploration of environmental conditions, from micro to macro, as spatial occupants; the integration of local communities, cultural crafts and traditions, and the immediate landscape; the development of an architectural tectonic through an understanding of layering sound, climate and environmental conditions; and different ways of occupying the city and its legacy. This year, UG9 continued its interest in the circular economy, critical sustainability and materiality. Students questioned permanence in architecture and explored how design can support coexistence with the natural world. Through design research and speculative practice, students developed a personal architectural language that reconsidered human roles, ecological responsibility and the legacy of the built environment for future generations.

Students

History & Theory

“Humanity isn’t just about human relationships. We address our humanity through our relationships with other living creatures on the planet.” Boonserm Premthada

Architecture BSc History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

The Natural Contract

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG9

Architecture BSc

1–3, 9 Warutch Ingwattanapoka, Y3 ‘Ur Skogen, Staden’. This project proposes a timber fabrication facility on the waterfront edge of Norra Djurgården. It is the productive engine of the neighbourhood’s construction, manufacturing the prefabricated timber components for the housing being built across the site. 4–5 Caleb Sertsay, Y3 ‘The Government of the Tongue’. This project presents a mixed-use performance centre in Stockholm, which attempts to revive Azmari performances for the politically marginalised local Habesha diaspora. It also provides a care system for retired educational horses from the adjacent Riddersvik Stable.

6–8 Hiroha Aoki, Y3 ‘Solarium’. A proposal for a a community kitchen and public greenhouse in Fatbursparken, Stockholm. Three tall volumes, each responding to the summer solstice, winter solstice and equinox, cast sunlight down to the ground while storing the light they receive as heat, allowing the building to act as a modulator of heat, light and CO₂. 10 Run He, Y3 ‘Stockholm Ski’. A project for competitive skiing as an urban sport, leveraging the hilly landscape of the sprawling city.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Natural Contract

Architecture BSc

UG9

Architecture BSc

11–15 Ethan Sim, Y3 ‘Provisions for a Remediated Earth’. The building section drawing illustrates the stages of bioremediation throughout the building’s lifespan, showcasing the shift from contaminated land into a green post-industrial landscape. The infrastructure is designed to integrate with the earth and to develop spaces where humans and bioremedial plants can coexist. Explored through a material methodology of archiving contamination and recovery, an architecture emerges where site and skin are the same; it is an ever-changing record of the material ground itself. 16–18 Qing Chen, Y2 ‘How to Occupy an Urban Void: a 21st Century Library’. A library offering new reading and learning landscapes that further interactions between users and knowledge. The section drawing explores a layering and zoning of spaces that control the speeds at which users move through the building that is located within a complex urban infrastructural site.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG9

Architecture BSc

The Natural Contract

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

24 19–24 Connor Chiew Weng Sheng, Y3 ‘Beckholmen Copper Works’. This project responds to the persistent contamination generated by the routine removal of antifouling paint from recreational boats. This maintenance process releases heavy metals into the harbour, where they accumulate within the marine environment. The proposal intercepts this waste stream, filtering contaminated wash water through cultivated mussel beds that bioaccumulate dissolved pollutants. Material samples incorporate evidence of accumulated pollution directly into the fabric. The glass canopy records the harbour’s contamination as a material chronology, beginning with dense, opaque panels and gradually becoming clearer as remediation progresses.

25 25 Mei Peng, Y2 ‘Endless Theatre’. This project examines the theatre and the library as spaces of connection to the ‘other’: media and performance as methods of departure beyond the ‘I’ perspective. The theatre engages with its site not as a liminal passing point, but as a gathering at the edge of the city, reimagining it as unenclosed and closer to the everyday.

Architecture BSc History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

The Natural Contract

Architecture MSci

UG9

Architecture BSc

35 26–27, 30–31 Ellie Mcknight, Y2 ‘Notating Space’. Inspired by Sweden’s rich textile history, this project proposes a folk university where spaces are reimagined through the lens of fibrecrafts and their textile properties, informing spatial logic and thermal properties within the building. 28–29 Isaac Insley, Y3 ‘The Ice House’. A proposal for an art gallery located on Stockholm’s waterfront. The building is designed to grow ice in the winter months, which can then be used to build temporary walls and rooms, reframing the production and consumption of art as a seasonal process. 32, 35 Nana Osei-Bonsu, Y2 ‘Between the Skin Surface’. The project reimagines the sanitorium – historically a space of healing and exclusion – as a site to examine how racialised bodies are positioned differently within systems of care, environment and belonging. The building is designed to calibrate light, shade and air for different conditions, e.g. sun zones to treat eczema.

36 33 Tilly Herkanaidu, Y2 ‘On the Mud’. A day and overnight centre for new families that embraces the Scandinavian culture of ‘childhood-nature’ through shifting ground conditions. 34 Nicole Kechiyan, Y2 ‘Model Studßy’. Inspired by Sámi traditions of making and material use, this building is conceived as a layered protective organism. Fish leather, reindeer leather, fish-skin membranes and bone-infused concrete form a series of envelopes that reinterpret historical practices of shelter, clothing and craft at an architectural scale. 36 Siyi Chen, Y3 ‘A World Lived in Daylight-Above, Preserved in Shadow-Below the Skin Surface’. A memorial for sailors lost in Stockholm’s shipwrecks, the project transforms a series of sonar-derived ‘blind zones’ into spatial generators through a series of analytical drawings and data translations.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG12 Settlement

Hannah Corlett, Níall McLaughlin

1 2

Year 2 Jenna Hussain, Jamie Jones, Karna Majdian, Evie Springer, Cinar Ulgar Year 3 Ibtihaz Mahir (Rihan) Ahmed, Mattia Bertone, Judith Brown, Joseph Burt, Jiayi (Charlie) Chen, Laura Diekmann, Katerina Goebel, Melisa Melinte, Conrad Robinson

Architecture MSci

Sponsor Fallen & Felled

Architecture MArch

Critics Jack Bowers, Katerina Dionysopoulou, Sammy Doublet, Daniel Dream, Matt Driscoll, Julia Feix, Kyriakos Katsaros, Sabrina Li, Ifigeneia Liangi, James Llewellyn, Billy Mavropoulos

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Technical tutors/consultants Tom Budd, Ruth Cuenca, Matt Driscoll, Noel Angelo Ferrer, Kyriakos Katsaros, Forbes Massie

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

Architecture exists most potently when it reflects the pluralism of the world. This year, UG12 considered the city not as a singular, coherent whole, but as a collision of fragments composed of differing social histories, political beliefs and material practices. Rather than seeking harmony or resolution, our work embraced anarchic overlaps and aesthetic contradictions, enabling differing values to exist in parallel. Following Robert Venturi’s preference for “‘both-and’ to ‘either-or’”1, architecture was viewed as a model for ambiguity, richness and layered meaning. We began by investigating ‘tactics’ – small, intentional, embedded acts that shape the built environment from within, inspired by Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life. We dissected the layered urban condition of Hampstead through fragments that functioned as intensive zones for environmental and material research. Investigations were conducted into significant local figures – pioneers of psychoanalysis, radical pacifists and visionaries of speculative literature – who offered transformative worldviews, which were then translated into tactical interventions reflecting the nuances of specific lives, lived tensions and distinct spatial imaginations. In Term 2, we focused on collective spatial thinking and how multiple narratives, aesthetics and scales might coexist in creative friction. We were guided by Chantal Mouffe’s ‘agonistic pluralism’, where architecture is a framework holding multiple perspectives in constructive dialogue rather than seeking to resolve differences.2 A pilgrimage through Germany contrasted Rudolf Schwarz’s restrained concept of Stadtlandschaft (‘urban landscape’) with Gottfried Böhm’s Gegentakt (‘counter-rhythm’) sculptural insertions. Students explored how contemporary architecture might curate tension and negotiate historic context, exemplified by the precision and materiality of Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum and Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, and the civic complexity of Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. The year’s work culminated in a spatial field of difference held together by proximity and resonance. By privileging adjacency over assimilation, strategic propositions operated as a ‘relational field’, suggesting an architectural future that is non-linear, multi-voiced and open-ended. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p23. Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso Books, 2013).

Images top to bottom: Katerina Goebel, Y3 ‘Split Persona, Byron Mews’ Satirical Microclimate.’ Mattia Bertone, Y3 ‘Resonant Ground, Wendling Music Centre’.

Settlement

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG12

Architecture BSc

1–3 Cinar Ulger, Y2 ‘Adapted Cloister, Dominic Priory Residency’. Sited between St Dominic’s Priory and Mall Studios, the residency borrows from monastic spatial logic. Workshops, cellular housing and a Scarpa-inspired gallery remain distinct, layering old and new. 4–6 Jiayi (Charlie) Chen, Y3 ‘Mise-En-Scène, Pond Street Film School’. Drawing from the uncanny character of Triffid Alley, compressed mews openings suspend the visitor between the familiar city and interior worlds, calibrating natural light to celebrate analogue cinematography.

Settlement

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture BSc

UG12

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

7, 9 Conrad Robinson, Y3 ‘Above the Law, Hampstead Law Courts’. Positioned on the footprint of the former Haverstock Hill station, the court defines a public square while engaging the rail edge. Organised as a series of tapered courtrooms, the introverted monolithic form references Sigurd Lewerentz. A raked public gallery overlooks the courtroom to create collective scrutiny, using shifting light to turn civic witness into theatre. 8 Ibtihaz Mahir (Rihan) Ahmed, Y3 ‘The Filtration Wall, Hampstead No.1 Pond’. This project reimagines the historic pond edge as an inhabitable filtration wall, incorporating a launderette and textile and mycelium workshop, redesigning the existing retention and sluice conditions.

10, 12 Joseph Burt, Y3 ‘Suspended Sanctuary, Belsize Tunnel Domestic Refuge’. Situated at the Belsize Tunnel entrance, the scheme proposes secure accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse. Six towers span Victorian retaining arches, structuring degrees of independence and privacy. 11 Judith Brown, Y3 ‘Twin Voids: Belsize Immersive Theatre’. Located in Belsize Park, this proposal retrofits and excavates an unused World War II deep-level shelter 30m underground.

Architecture BSc

Settlement

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG12

Architecture BSc

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

13–15 Jiayi (Charlie) Chen, Y3 ‘Mise-En-Scène: Pond Street Film School’. Interwoven into a dense urban island of mews and yards, this film school transforms residual voids into a cinematic heterotopia.

22–26 Cinar Ulgar, Y2 ‘Adapted Cloister: Dominic Priory Residency’. Structures organise around a central courtyard, inserting timber frames into existing brick spine walls to absorb a 4m drop.

16–18 Melisa Melinte, Y3 ‘Living Threshold: Barnfield Recovery Unit’. Set within a 1940s housing block, a recovery and respite unit supports patients leaving the Royal Free Hospital. Courtyards frame care in a domestic setting.

27–31 Katerina Goebel, Y3 ‘Split Persona: Byron Mews’ Satirical Microclimate.’ Isolated within a walled Hampstead depot, this speculative project proposes a hyperreal microclimate based on Michael Wharton’s ‘Way of the World’ satire column. Controlled viewpoints frame a façade of curated public personas, concealing a fragmented interior of opulent, contradictory lives.

19–20 Conrad Robinson, Y3 ‘Above the Law: Hampstead Law Courts’. A series of tapered courtrooms, the monolithic form references Lewerentz.

21 Evie Springer, Y2 ‘Beyond the Domestic, Belsize Park Housing and Recovery Centre’. Collective infrastructure for shift workers, featuring high-performance acoustic housing with tailored circadian lighting for private rest and a public gallery making invisible labour culturally legible.

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Settlement

Architecture BSc

UG12

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

32–35 Mattia Bertone, Y3 ‘Resonant Ground: Wendling Music Centre’. A music-led community centre, addressing fragmented topography and scarce social infrastructure, that retrofits a garage to create cultural spaces. A ‘box within a box’ structure and layered façade provide vital acoustic insulation. 36–38 Judith Brown, Y3 ‘Twin Voids: Belsize Immersive Theatre’. Subterranean tunnels for performance sequences are bookended by two excavated theatre voids at the existing entrances. 39–40 Joseph Burt, Y3 ‘Suspended Sanctuary: Belsize Tunnel Domestic Refuge’. A system of adaptable shutters gives residents spatial agency. 41–42 Laura Diekmann, Y3 ‘Cultivated Ground: South End Cooking School.’ Sited on South End Green, this project responds to local socioeconomic

divides. Constructed from glass salvaged from Kew Gardens Palm House, it expands the pedestrian realm and teaches the full cycle of food. 43–45 Karna Majdian, Y2 ‘Home for the Exiles: Hampstead Trauma Centre’. Drawing on Hampstead’s psychoanalytic history, this retrofitted modernist building is organised around Internal Family Systems therapy, transitioning from rigid geometries to organic forms. 46–47 Ibtihaz Mahir (Rihan) Ahmed, Y3 ‘The Filtration Wall: Hampstead No.1 Pond’. Developed as a thickened architectural system, it allows water to filter through porous layers of aggregates, soils and mycelium. 48–51 Jamie Jones, Y2 ‘Woven Fibre: Dunboyne Harvest Exchange’. This project brings together a fibre mill, market and cookery school, and allows craft knowledge to be shared across generations through making.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG13 Forecast Factory

Laurence Blackwell-Thale, William Victor Camilleri

Images top to bottom: Dominic Coles Saffirio, Y3 ‘Zuppa Alla Plastica: A Surgery and Soup Osteria for the Molinette Hospital Complex’. Yuxuan Luo, Y2 ‘Insula 1NE’.

Year 3 Jaewoong Chung, Dominic Coles Saffirio, Aiden Hodgson, Youyou (Fi) Shaxu, Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao, Yingtong Zhou Technical tutors Anja Kempa, Jack Newton

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Laura Allen, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Nat Chard, George Christofi, Ilia Cleanthous, Sean Fan, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Florence Hemmings, Joe Johnson, Milda Knabikaitė, Karina Lacraru, Emma-Kate Matthews, Bryan Png Yiliang, Emily Priest, Farlie Reynolds, Ryan Shao, Paolo Zaide

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Alexa Arellano, Sum Yuet (Evelyn) Chan, Alexander Dean, Taisiya Gareev, Anzhe (Angela) Liu, Yuxuan Luo, Yutao (Willy) Sun, Edward Toovey, Yuejia (Cassandra) Yan

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

Prediction formulates an architecture that lies between control and uncertainty. It constructs systems, drawings and fabrications that aim to stabilise change – accounting for geometric, environmental and temporal tolerances. Yet, at its core, it folds human fallibility into the logic of construction. An architecture of prediction is thus a calibrated fiction, built to anchor what drifts while recognising that it is constantly in motion. Prediction allows us to calculate the altitude of a mountain, plot a course, unfold a landscape and imagine what cannot yet be seen. Prediction allows for evolving data that define existing conditions and establish a set of constants from which change is measured and from which futures are projected. These constants are however liable to disruption, deviation and mischief. We consequently find that architecture oriented towards control can be riddled with disorder – mountains that shift, clouds that won’t form, vessels that drift off course. UG13 explored this dilemma: How can the temporality of change be embedded within fragmented forms of inhabitation? How are contingent architectures that carry within them the inevitability of disruption designed? How are enclosures that regulate an unforeseeable outcome fabricated? The unit considered the material and immaterial, haptic fabrication and ephemeral experience. Students explored iterative and collaborative processes across performative architecture, landscape sensibility and workshop prowess. This approach allowed them to work between the analogue and digital, combining threedimensional fabrication techniques with precisiondrawing methods throughout the design process. Rather than being driven by the idea of end result, proposals were arrived at by rigorous testing and sensitive appraisal. We savoured the tactility of the model and the ceremony of the construction, the drawing that tests what it means to inhabit, and the fabrication that challenges how building informs experience.

Architecture BSc

UG13

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

2 1 Dominic Coles Saffirio, Y3 ‘Zuppa Alla Plastica: A Surgery and Soup Osteria for the Molinette Hospital Complex’. A new medical facility dedicated to palate reconstruction surgery and recovery, alongside a soup osteria serving the wider community of the existing hospital. Both spaces use steam for sterilisation and cleaning, challenging the medicalisation of architecture through sensitive ceramic interventions. 2 Yuxuan Luo, Y2 ‘Insula 1NE’. Archaeology and theatrical performance are brought together in a building that revives cultural appreciation from antiquity to the present. Housing the archaeological remains of an ancient theatre, the building supports their study while also providing a contemporary performance venue and event space.

Forecast Factory

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Forecast Factory

Architecture BSc

UG13

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture BSc

3 Sum Yuet (Evelyn) Chan, Y2 ‘Free Range Factory’. The cow is celebrated in both life and death through a project that supports Turin’s Slow Food movement. Located in Parco Dora, a series of elevated fields showcases prize cattle to an auction crowd. Across a central stair, a high-quality butchery and market spaces celebrate Turin’s enduring appreciation for exceptional produce.

5 Alexa Arellano, Y2 ‘A Portata d’Ascolto: Within Earshot of Turin’. A music rehearsal and performance space set within Turin’s Parco Dora, the building is housed inside an old piece of industrial architecture. Its form is generated through a script that translates musical notation into physical space, while the building itself becomes a playable architectural instrument.

4 Taisiya Gareev, Y2 ‘The Fold’. The subterranean geological conditions of the Italian Alps are brought to the surface and made visible. A dynamic roofscape shifts at geological speed, slowly opening to admit water into the circulation spaces surrounding laboratories that monitor the borehole below.

6 Aiden Hodgson, Y3 ‘The Alpine Cattle Barn’. This alpine refuge accommodates farmers driving cattle to higher pastures in summer and ski tourists visiting the area in winter. Raised sleeping areas, an expandable kitchen and barns for the cattle are created through a vernacular building strategy that uses the animals to transport primary building materials across the mountain landscape.

Architecture BSc

UG13

Forecast Factory

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

11 7 Yutao (Willy) Sun, Y2 ‘Porta Velata’. The Turin arcade is a city in miniature. A historic gateway to the city serves as the point of departure for scaling the urban fabric into a series of civic installations: a community kitchen, a laundrette, a library of things and an espresso bar. In negotiating with an existing ruin, the project also raises questions of preservation.

9 Jaewoong Chung, Y3 ‘Fare Forme: An Experimental Building School in Turin’. This centre for innovative building technologies challenges the future of vertical brick construction in Turin, where 3D-printed elements and experimental formwork point towards architecture’s continual orientation towards what comes next.

8 Anzhe (Angela) Liu, Y2 ‘Cartouche Hall’. Turin is home to a globally important Egyptology museum. The project proposes a new wing that spans an existing alleyway, creating spaces dedicated to the repatriation and conservation of the collection. Through these programmes, the building both supports and critiques Turin’s unique cultural heritage, raising questions of ownership and restoration.

10 Yuejia (Cassandra) Yan, Y2 ‘Bunker Conservatory’. The building balances atop an existing industrial ruin, allowing the succession of the gardens below to be studied. 11 Edward Toovey, Y2 ‘Preserving the Apple’. Turin’s Museo Della Frutta displays wax fruit models once used by orchards as standards for evaluating their crops. The project proposes a new home for the collection alongside a seed vault and laboratory, while reinstating the city’s lost orchards in the heart of Turin.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Forecast Factory

Architecture BSc

UG13

Architecture BSc

13 12 Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao, Y3 ‘The Stone of Theseus’. Turin’s mock medieval village is extended with a new stone fabrication and auction house on the historic exhibition site. Supporting the ongoing restoration of its mock counterpart, the project promotes the revival and proliferation of artisanal stonemasonry. 13 Yingtong Zhou, Y3 ‘Grounds for Calibration’. Turin’s burgeoning space industry is expanded with a new centre for celestial study, where rooms are orientated towards passing satellites and observatories nestle among an existing constellation of pilgrimage churches.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG14 The Third Eye

David Di Duca, Tetsuro Nagata

Images top to bottom: Alexis Granzo, Y3 ‘Fragments of Dušan Džamonja’s Spomenik Idioms’. Matthew Chan, Y3 ‘Lest the Dam Weeps (The Weight of the World)’.

Year 3 Mia Alian, Joao Bennetts De Souza, Matthew Chan, Airelle Diestro, Alexis Granzo, Min (Kristine) Huang, Polina Parshyna, Zikun (Jason) Wang Technical tutor/consultant Dylan Duffy Thesis supervisor Danielle Purkiss

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Dylan Duffy, Helen Floate, Stephen Gage, Phoebe Hampson, Barbara (Basia) Nohr, Maxine Pringle, Eva Tisnikar

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Bruno De Marco Pose, Kaito Kawada-Williams, Nathan Oforiokuma, Marni Ono, Paramveer Singh, Kashyap Tadikonda

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

In UG14 we look at architecture using an anthropological lens, studying how societies and individuals remember and forget through the built environment. In previous years, we have explored the roles of nostalgia, ritual, authenticity and trauma in shaping collective identity. This year, we explored non-alignment and the idea of establishing an architectural language defined as much by what it isn’t, as what it is. For more than a century, the architecture of Ljubljana has been shaped by the region’s complex history of multiculturalism, conflict and collective memory. Throughout, Slovenia’s attempts to remain independent from dominant political powers has become inextricably linked with its built environment. While the political landscape has shifted over time, both the city and country have repeatedly attempted to redefine their identities by distancing themselves from the established discourse. UG14 began the year exploring film and the camera lens, identifying events and stories that could be interpreted by multiple viewpoints. We learned that there are often alternative versions of what is considered the truth, each of which may be valid in its own way. Using this logic, we developed architectural manifestations inspired by multiple perspectives. We travelled to Croatia and Slovenia to explore the legacy of Jože Plečnik – the architect responsible for defining Ljubljana’s distinctive hybridised identity, which was liberated from its previous occupiers. We explored the architecture of mediation and how Yugoslavia’s leadership within the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War softened the political and cultural divisions of the time. Finally, we challenged ourselves to reframe some of the overlooked architecture of Ljubljana, with the aim of reflecting a proud but more inclusive impression of the city. In an era of deepening ideological and cultural divides, UG14 learned from the past and witnessed how cities and nations have attempted to symbolise their neutrality by transforming institutional norms established by others. By offering new perspectives on the status quo, we questioned what it means today to design architecture that is pluralistic, engaged and unique.

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG14

Architecture BSc

The Third Eye

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1–2 Zikun (Jason) Wang, Y3 ‘Nocturne: A Romance with Stakeholders’. A vampiric residence overlooking Lake Bled, the project radically seeks to push the boundaries of Slovenian vampire folklore, complemented by a technical exploration of the country’s limestone cave system. 3–4 Mia Alian, Y3 ‘Rooted: Botanical Infrastructure & Living Systems’. A biophilic café and laboratory inspired by the growth patterns of invasive root systems. The project generates immersive spaces that reconnect people with both living and matured non-living organic materials.

5 Kaito Kawada-Williams, Y2 ‘Nothing Wasted’. A Japanese izakayainspired bar and restaurant in Ljubljana. The project aims to reclaim the derelict space beneath the Butchers’ Bridge, while addressing the historical legacy of the site as a place of disposal and waste.

6–7 Joao Bennetts De Souza, Y3 ‘Prosthetic Landscapes of Recovery’. A physical therapy centre positioned adjacent to Ljubljana Castle’s funicular railway. Responsive mesh infrastructures, therapeutic landscapes and digitally informed spatial systems transform recovery into an environmental experience. 8 Nathan Oforiokuma, Y2 ‘The Puppet State’. Beneath the Butchers’ Bridge in Ljubljana, a concealed theatre bar is accessed through a functioning newspaper kiosk. This project investigates architecture as an instrument of control, staging relationships between visibility, authorship and censorship.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Third Eye

Architecture BSc

UG14

Architecture BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

12 9 Marni Ono, Y2 ‘Dinamični Valovi’. A radio station that aims to reconnect the north and south sides of Ljubljana. Representational of the seven main dialect regions of Slovenia, each region is assigned its own recording pod – an acoustic studio that rises and falls when engaged with. 10–11, 14 Alexis Granzo, Y3 ‘Fragments of Dušan Džamonja’s Spomenik Idioms’. A masonry school in a disused aggregate quarry in Ljubljana, dedicated to the construction of spomenik memorials. A theatre, archive and open exhibition of scanned stone façades extend the school into a public landscape of memory and craft.

13 12 Kashyap Tadikonda, Y2 ‘Gibanje’. A museum dedicated to the traditional prekmurska gibanica cake in the historical centre of Ljubljana. The layered construction of the cake was the conceptual starting point for the building. The museum is developed around the tension between contrasting patterns of behaviour associated with food consumption. 13 Bruno De Marco Pose, Y2 ‘The Pentad Centre’. A multifunctional building incorporating café, viewpoint, gallery and meditation space. Using a variety of locally sourced materials, the project is a Postmodernisminspired building that references the five celestial animals of Feng Shui.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG14

Architecture BSc

The Third Eye

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

18 15–16, 19 Min (Kristine) Huang, Y3 ‘Threshold of Clay’. A pottery studio, restaurant and residential spaces in Bow, London. Inspired by clay’s transformation from a reversible material to a permanent state through firing, it investigates architecture as a temporal process rather than a fixed object. 17–18 Polina Parshyna, Y3 ‘Nasproti (Opposite)’. An aquaponic restaurant located opposite Plečnik’s Ribarnica market. Through the negotiation of order and fluidity, history and contemporary use, the project embraces architecture as a space of dialogue rather than opposition.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Third Eye

Architecture BSc

UG14

Architecture BSc

20–21, 24 Matthew Chan, Y3 ‘Lest the Dam Weeps (The Weight of the World)’. The project is an allegory for contemporary Slovenian genealogy and a tale of man’s stewardship of the environment and ecology. Three buildings double as representations of Slovenian identity, with different fates awaiting their evolution across the generational saga. 22–23 Airelle Diestro, Y3 ‘Plečnik’s Fixed Lens’. Constructed above an existing open-air auditorium, this collection of theatres treats Ljubljana itself as a sequence of civic backdrops. The complex allows visitors to experience the city as a choreographed sequence of spaces where theatre and city merge into a continuous civic performance.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG21 Recipe and Agency

Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

Technical tutors Finbar Charleson, Tom Holberton Critics Julian Besems, Roberto Bottazzi, Ioana Drogeanu, Hugo Loydell, Oscar Maguire

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Skills tutors Ioana Drogeanu, Hugo Loydell, Oscar Maguire

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Maryam Alqassim, Sze Ho (Louis) Chan, Xiujun Chen, David Lirio, Songyan Tan, Sofia Zontone

Architecture MSci

Year 2 Ian Blashe, Dain Choi, Rhu Lor, Lana Madi, Jack Moruzzi, Allegra Squarzi, Joowon (Lindy) Um, Wai Yan (Ryan) Wong

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

New agentic AI systems are testing how machines might improvise more effectively and break free from rigid sequencing. Rather than simply generating outputs, these systems act to find new methods themselves. Within this emerging animism, anything from a drawing to a piece of building might have agency. UG21 looked at how we might design within environments that are uncertain and dynamic. What would an architecture that could revise itself look like? This year, students developed their own design process using drawings, physical models, machines and films. This process operated as both recipe and manual, simultaneously constrained and open-ended, to create structure and improvisation in the students’ work. We asked: What happens when we incorporate other agencies into the design process? Do our ingredients behave as intended, or do they begin to pursue other objectives? What happens when architecture is no longer inert or predictable, but develops other alchemical tendencies – when parts spin out of control or dissolve? For the field trip this year, the unit travelled to Bologna and followed the course of the Po River, visiting Milan, Parma and Modena along its course. These cities are renowned centres of precision engineering and food production, which are made possible by a culture of messa a punto, or perpetual fine-tuning. UG21 aims to create a pluralistic design culture, operating across the analogue and digital, recognising how design-thinking takes many different forms. We operate a vertical studio across Years 2 to 5, supporting each student to develop their own unique design approach, while placing value on process and experimentation throughout the year.

Images: Songyan Tan, Y3 ‘Do You Want to Join Egg Park?’.

Architecture BSc

Recipe and Agency

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

UG21

Architecture BSc

8 1–2, 4 Ian Blashe, Y2 ‘The Culinary Institute of Foraged Ingredients’. In this project, navigational logic foraged from the portici is lent to a hillside site, where a point-cloud plate of spaghetti bolognese scales the spaces of a culinary institute: an architecture measured from a meal. 3, 6 Dain Choi, Y2 ‘Chromoteca’. For this project, materials were documented through slit-scan imaging to extract RGB-colour data. Mapping these datasets onto the X-, Y- and Z-coordinate system generated three-dimensional forms that informed the project’s architectural geometry.

5 Allegra Squarzi, Y2 ‘Hydrologic Algae Farm’. This project reimagines architecture as a living infrastructure where water purification, algae cultivation and biomaterial production converge. Through an integrated photobioreactor façade, excess water is transformed into a productive ecological resource, generating algae biomass for paper fabrication.

7–8 David Lirio, Y3 ‘Bologna Museum Lab’. This museum lab lets researchers publicly study university collections, inviting visitors to experience artefacts as a dynamic process. Its design reflects tracked movement and attention across UCL’s museum collections.

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Recipe and Agency

Architecture BSc

UG21

Architecture BSc

History & Theory

15 9–10 Jack Moruzzi, Y2 ‘Pressing an Architecture’. A centre for balsamic vinegar designed between physical and digital making processes. Involving carving and metal pressing, it presents an architecture informed by the agency of its own materiality. 11–12, 22, 25 Xiujun Chen, Y3 ‘Recomputed Bibiena’. Transforming Bibiena’s scenographic illusions through deep-learning spatial reconstruction, the project creates a multisensory Centre for Theatrical Culture, where space is heard, touched, negotiated and inhabited. 14 Maryam Alqassim, Y3 ’Decoding Al Madam’. This plant research facility in Al Madam uses iterative coding and desert conditions to generate architecture. It explores how site context and digital tools can shape new design methods.

16 13, 17, 20 Sze Ho (Louis) Chan, Y3 ‘How to Curate Porticoes’. Galliera Museum of Porticoes presents a co-authored architecture, with agency shared between designer and artificial intelligence. Designed using a latent space, it establishes a framework for curating Bologna’s porticoes and retelling collective histories. 15–16 Sofia Zontone, Y3 ‘Grounds of Absorption’. This project reimagines flooding by capturing floodwater and sediment, transforming them into ceramic materials through filtration and production, and creating architecture that connects landscape, environmental change, research and renewal sustainably.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

UG21

Architecture BSc

Recipe and Agency

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

21 18–19, 21 Songyan Tan, Y3 ‘Do You Want to Join Egg Park?’. Egg Park uses virtual reality and eye-tracking to turn Bologna’s distorted maps into a participatory landscape, responding to different users rather than fixed routes. 23 Lana Madi, Y2 ‘Porta Dolce’. This project maps and suspends fog’s dissolved ions in acrylic as a working method. By reading a substance’s molecular chemistry, it generates architectural form, structure and space.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Recipe and Agency

Architecture BSc

UG21

Architecture BSc

24 Rhu Lor, Y2 ‘Held Ground’. Inspired by the book Fieldwork for Future Ecologies, these drawings map soundscape experiences as embodied field notes, forming the basis for developing a notational system for intuition. 26 Wai Yan (Ryan) Wong, Y2 ‘Where Water Rests’. “If no one belongs here” asks the cistern, “why does the cat return?” This project reimagines Fonte Remonda as a shared refuge, using virtual reality to experience the abandoned cistern through feline vision. Brick vaults, water traces, shelters and paths invite quiet coexistence.

Student Live Projects: The Indigo Pavilion for The Triumph of Art, 2025

The Indigo Pavilion was built in Trafalgar Square as part of The Triumph of Art, a project by Jeremy Deller for the National Gallery’s bicentenary celebrations. Photo by Jessica In.

by Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai & John Ogunyiluka

Live projects at the Bartlett offer students the opportunity to work with real clients on briefs that are public-facing, collaborative and realised beyond the studio. They represent a distinct pedagogical model that extends architectural education into real-world contexts, requiring students to navigate the practical, creative and interpersonal demands of delivering a live brief. From balancing a client’s ambitions with the designer’s vision to managing budgets, fabrication and production, students gain invaluable hands-on experience while developing the confidence to work with makers, communities and external partners. For academic staff, live projects offer a platform to test research agendas in built form, while collaborators benefit from ambitious, research-led design thinking rooted in genuine cultural and material enquiry. Previous live projects at the Bartlett include PG17’s Ghost Chapel, created for the Galway International Arts Festival in 2016, and Skip Garden, a mobile urban community garden developed by UG3 with the charity Global Generation in 2015. “Something extraordinary happens when students are empowered through the design process in a live project. In working together, everyone brings something from their lived experiences, through drawing and making, and creates something new for the public to enjoy.” Chee-Kit Lai, Tutor, UG9 In 2025, students from Architecture BSc and Design for Performance and Interaction (DfPI) MArch had the opportunity to work on a live project with Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the National Gallery as part of the gallery’s bicentenary celebrations. BSc students developed proposals for an ambitious street party in Trafalgar Square. Three projects were ultimately shortlisted and were further developed by the MArch students, who took on the delivery of the final piece. The resulting design proposal, The Indigo Pavilion, reimagined an egúngún procession – a Yoruba tradition that immortalises ancestors and their legacies through costume – which travelled along Whitehall, ending in Trafalgar Square, where the pavilion was built to provide shade and seating for visitors to The Triumph of Art celebrations. The project tells the story of indigo, the valuable blue dye that shaped British colonial expansion. Indigo was a major colonial export and key source of revenue for the East India Company, and its production often relied on forced labour, debt peonage and land dispossession, placing significant burdens on local communities. Yet intertwined with this difficult history is indigo’s role as a catalyst for rich and diverse global textile traditions. The pavilion acknowledges this complex legacy while celebrating the four craft traditions of Yoruba Adire, Indian Ajrak/Kalamkari, Japanese Katazome and Chinese Na Yin – all cultures represented by participating students. The Yoruba proverb Aso là ń kí ká tó kí ènìyàn (‘We greet clothes before their wearer’) captures the belief that textiles transcend adornment, embodying personal and collective identity: to be clothed is to wear identity. The Brief: Gathering The project began with a brief centred around the theme of ‘gathering’ – understood as a collective mood at a particular moment in time – and asked how architecture can act as a catalyst for collaboration, commemoration and demonstration, mobilising people across digital and physical spaces. Working within this brief and its broader research agenda, each student was encouraged to pursue their own line of personal enquiry – whether into gathering rituals, colonial trade histories or traditional craft techniques – situating individual research within a shared pedagogical structure. This balance between a structured brief and personal investigation allowed the pavilion to emerge as both a coherent collective proposal and a genuine reflection of the diverse research interests of the students who made it. “Students not inhibited by experience create new possibilities – they became the client with us, learning and adapting to scale, site restrictions and the scrutiny of the public. Between the cohorts, they created something deeply rooted in the story of Trafalgar Square and its colonial history, but also functional for the space and the event.” Emily Stone, the National Gallery

Each part of the pavilion represents a different culture of indigo craft. Image by Guanjia Li.

Early concept proposal reimagining an egúngún procession – a Yoruba tradition of gathering and remembrance that evokes ancestral spirits through costume to cleanse and unify the community. Image by John Ogunyiluka.

Student Live Projects

Students block printing the final fabric pieces. Photo by Zhen Wang.

The printed fabric was hung from the gently curved timber structure that served as a processional device during the Whitehall parade, before transforming into a shade pavilion in Trafalgar Square. Photo by Jessica In.

Design Development: Collaboration Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai & John Ogunyiluka Throughout the design development process, students engaged in continuous peer-to-peer review, testing and refining proposals. This collaborative, constructive critique culture allowed ideas to be challenged, strengthened and cross-pollinated across the BSc and MArch cohorts, ensuring the final pavilion carried the imprint of many voices rather than a single author. A curved timber structure was developed as a processional device, which combined digital fabrication with traditional timber handcraft, using steam-bent, locally sourced ash from fallen urban trees supplied by Fallen & Felled. Printed fabric was then hung from this structure. The printing process was developed from an initial study of traditional Yoruba wax-and-dye techniques, which was adapted into a block-printing process for the final piece. The patterns selected for the printed fabric were carefully drawn from a study of the different symbols and motifs associated with each culture. From Yoruba Adire, these include ejò and omọnílé (snake and wall gecko), symbolising peace in the home, and oríta mẹrin (crossroads), a junction of four paths associated with liminal spaces, decision-making and the offering of ẹbọ. Japanese Katazome is represented by patterns such as kikkō, which symbolises longevity, strength and good fortune. Chinese Na Yin features auspicious motifs UG9 design review with Jeremy Deller and the National Gallery. including the laurel roundel, blooming peony and ruyi, representing unity, beauty, prosperity Photo by Jessica In. and harmony. Indian Ajrak and Kalamkari are represented by motifs such as bhutas (paisley), palm leaf and chevron, symbolising spiritual energy, vitality and protection. Celebration: Histories, Materials and Hands Rooted in the Yoruba ritual, the pavilion is an act of remembrance within a wider investigation of the contested histories of Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. The resulting pavilion is only the final artefact: the deeper discovery was the shared history of indigo, a powerful thread of common cultural heritage connecting seemingly distinct craft traditions. By reinterpreting four distinct indigo traditions through this shared process of making, the project reflects its own subject matter: different histories, materials and hands brought together to create something collectively new. “The Indigo Pavilion brought a quieter, more reflective aesthetic to the day, it was practical, beautiful and also political in equal measure, a mobile hangout space.” Jeremy Deller, The Triumph of Art

DfPI design review with Jeremy Deller and the National Gallery. Photo by Jessica In.

At its heart, the project was about bringing together students from different courses and cultural backgrounds to engage with a challenging design brief, discovering shared connections and commonalities through the process of making. The pavilion’s continuing life at the Shakespeare Walk Adventure Playground in Stoke Newington is a fitting extension of this ethos, carrying the values of collaborative design and architecture beyond Trafalgar Square and into everyday community use. In August 2026, BSc Unit 9 and DfPI students collaborated on a design proposal for a live project with Beam Camp in the USA, continuing the cross-course collaborative model and extending the school’s live project pedagogy to a new international context. “ The realisation of the idea into the experience and built space was rewarding, particularly seeing people congregating, playing and resting under the pavilion. Sharing elements of my heritage with my peers and the public was personally meaningful and generated discussion and lasting shared memories.” John Ogunyiluka, Architecture BSc student

Students steam-bending ash in the Here East B-made workshop. Photo by Zhen Wang.

Students Ethan Chen, Lane Finlay, Kobe Guo, Ziwei Jiang, Guanjia Li, Stan Luo, Cuihong Mao, John Ogunyiluka, Zhen Wang Tutors Parker Heyl, Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai National Gallery Emily Stone, Daniel Herrmann; Megan Morrison (ABA Engineering); Helen Mugridge, Alice Lockwood (LS Events) Bartlett workshop (B-made) Mark Burrows, Melis Van Den Berg, Hamish Veitch Acknowledgements Grace Hailstone (NG), Christine Riding (NG), Giles Nartey (Bartlett), Lauren Gillet (Bartlett Here East), Refel Ismail (UCL), Fiona Zisch (Bartlett)

Student Live Projects

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The pavilion at Trafalgar Square. Photo by Jessica In.

Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai & John Ogunyiluka

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Course Leader: Sophie Read

Architecture BSc History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architectural Research III Brent Carnell, Sophie Read, David Roberts

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Design & Creative Practice 1, 2 & 3

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

The Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) BSc is a unique undergraduate degree within the UK university system. For more than ten years, the course has pioneered an alternative form of architectural education, demonstrating that architectural culture is not centred solely around the accredited profession. Unlike a conventional architecture degree, AIS allows students to customise their own course of study. In addition to modules at the Bartlett shared with our professional courses in history and theory, technology, and professional practice, students can choose from subjects offered by other UCL departments, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, planning, education, geography, management and politics. The flexibility of the degree enables students to pursue their interests both within and beyond the built environment, opening pathways into a wide range of careers and further study options at some of the world’s most prestigious design and research institutions. Graduates can pursue further study in landscape architecture, set design, urban planning, video games, artistic research, professional architecture, local government, real estate, architectural history, curating, urban regeneration, community engagement, sustainability, property development, public administration and filmmaking. Career paths often develop from a student’s module choices during their studies on AIS, for example in human rights and public health. The course also offers dedicated modules in design and creative practice, archi tectural research, computing and sustainable city infrastructures, taught by renowned interdisciplinary designers, film-makers, urban researchers, artists, historians, green planners and policy-makers. Together, these modules foster a strong sense of identity and community across the course. Two module streams run throughout the three years of the AIS degree: Design & Creative Practice 1, 2 & 3 and Architectural Research I, II & III. Images from the resulting design projects, alongside excerpts from this year’s essay-based Architectural Research III module, can be found on the following pages. This year, students participated in a dynamic programme of AIS-organised events alongside their studies. Highlights included the Term 1 Whole Course Feast, curated by Year 3 students to welcome the new Year 1 cohort; an October careers event co-led with students through a UCL ChangeMakers project exploring alumni pathways beyond AIS; a field trip to Newcastle in February; and, at the end of Term 2, our annual cross-course event Open Conversations, curated around the theme of ‘Bodies, Communities, Planet and Structures’. We warmly commend this year’s finalists for the ambitious, timely and reflective work they have produced. It has been a pleasure to see their projects develop, and we look forward with great enthusiasm to the paths they will forge and the contributions they will make in the years ahead.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Brent Carnell, Sophie Read, David Roberts Architectural Research III is an advanced module allowing students to pursue an interdisciplinary architectural subject of their own choosing, undertake rigorous primary research and write an 8,000-word dissertation. Alongside individual research projects, students collaborate on the production of a group output for dissemination at the Bartlett’s annual summer show. Throughout the year, students hone their interdisciplinary research methods and skills across the Bartlett School of Architecture and other departments at UCL. The final project allows students to synthesise their understanding of the complex ways in which architecture interrelates with society and the world. This year’s projects present an impressive range of investigations into the built environment, reflecting both the strengths of the module and the diversity of the course. The teaching team has been profoundly impressed with the students’ rigour and commitment, and by their development across each area of study.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural Research III

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Students Nicole Au, Chiu Ching (Nicole) Chan, Veer Chaudhry, Hanxi (Tracy) Cui, Yunxin (Fobby) Han, Noel Kim, Sergio Lopez Borja, Rita Tess Mihigo Uwera, Magdalena-Raluca Pop, Jimingyuan (Angela) Shi, Arisa Shiraishi, Hannah (Mizuki) Sievers, Téa Texier, Zaiyu (Oscar) Tian, Haowei (David) Wang, Ying (Isabella) Wang, Kyiga Wilberforce, Jinghan Zheng Module coordinator Danielle Hewitt

2 3 4 5 6

Christopher C. M. Kyba et al., ‘Citizen Scientists Report Global Rapid Reductions in the Visibility of Stars from 2011 to 2022’, Science 379, no. 6629 (2023): 265–68. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (London: Verso, 2014). Indian Institute of Astrophysics, ‘The HDSR Model’, 2024, https://www.iiap.res.in/outreach/hdsr/about/ the-hdsr-model/ Eyal Weizman, ‘The Politics of Verticality’, openDemocracy, 23 April 2002. https://www. opendemocracy.net/en/article-801jsp/ Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). ⏺⏺⏺

Jane Rendell, ‘Principles’, Practising Ethics, n.d., https://www.practisingethics.org/principles. 8 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966), 30–41. 9 Ben Campkin, Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2013). 10 Tim Cresswell, ‘Geography, Ideology, and Transgression’, in In Place/Out of Place (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 7

Between 2011 and 2022, global sky brightness rose by 9.6% per year.1 Against this escalation, a new class of protected territory has emerged: the dark-sky reserve. Two premier sites – the Hanle Observatory in Ladakh, on the Tibetan plateau, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile – sit on Indigenous land where stellar knowledge already constitutes navigational and agricultural infrastructure. The dissertation tests whether darkness can be governed as a commons by Elinor Ostrom’s criteria: collectively and actively reproduced.2 Following Easterling’s account of infrastructure space as architectural governance,3 the observatory is read as an infrastructural protocol whose perimeter exceeds the dome. At Hanle, that perimeter is the 1,073-square-kilometre Light Management Plan – prescribing when households may illuminate and at what intensity4 – reaching into nomadic settlements, monasteries, military checkpoints, and domestic life. At ALMA, the apparatus takes another form: a mobile topological grid of sixty-six antennae distributed across a 16-kilometre baseline on the Chajnantor Plateau, mounted on tracks for continuous reconfiguration. The plateau itself becomes the building. The economic dividend of dark-sky infrastructure – wages, ambassador stipends, astrotourism revenue – accrues locally but does not constitute an Indigenous future: it secures employment without conceding the educational, territorial, or institutional authority such a future requires. Both protections operate through Weizman’s verticality:5 the sky is preserved as Indigenous cultural inheritance while the ground beneath remains subject to the slow violence of lithium extraction.6 Atmospheric warming from astrotourism flights degrades the seeing conditions that the reserves market; the product consumes its own conditions of possibility. Read spatially, the two observatories extend their governance in opposite directions: Hanle outward into domestic light protocols, ALMA inward into the plateau as substrate. Drawing on high-altitude fieldwork at Hanle and critical reading of ALMA’s institutional archive, the dissertation reads the dark-sky observatory as a contested commons – and asks under what architectural conditions Indigenous sovereignty can be reproduced through scientific infrastructure.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Kyiga Wilberforce

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Darkness as Commons: Observatories, Indigeneity, and the Politics of Starlight

Architecture MSci

Hanle Observatory in Ladakh. Image by the author.

Urban sound rarely respects borders. It slips through partitions, travels across property lines, and leaks between public and private thresholds – and it is in these moments of sonic overlap that acoustic hierarchies are revealed: hierarchies that determine not just which sounds are heard, but whose. This dissertation proposes and develops a new critical term for this process: sonic sanitisation – the reordering of audibility in ways that align with regeneration agendas; a situated, positional, and relational7 process through which certain sonic practices are privileged while others are suppressed. The choice of language is deliberate. Drawing on Mary Douglas’s reformulation of dirt as matter out of place,8 and Ben Campkin’s analysis of how regeneration discourse mobilises metaphors of contamination to legitimise urban intervention,9 the dissertation argues that sound is governed through the same moral geography. Central to this argument is the distinction between sound and noise. Noise is inseparable from who is listening, where, and under what conditions. The dissertation argues that sonic sanitisation operates through two mutually reinforcing forces: the internalised positional ideologies10 through which communities come to understand certain sounds as out of place, and the formal mechanisms of planning and noise legislation that embed those judgements into enforceable thresholds. The dissertation traces this across two scales in London: the home and the music venue. At the domestic scale, the ideology of the home – its promise of sovereignty and private autonomy – is examined against noise abatement law, which disciplines interpersonal sound while exempting infrastructural noise. At the scale of cultural infrastructure, the dissertation turns to Corsica Studios in Elephant and Castle. Its closure in 2026, amid a £4 billion adjacent regeneration, is examined through an original interview with co-founder Adrian Jones, whose account exposes sonic sanitisation’s operational logic with unusual candour: music venues are instrumentalised as markers of urban vibrancy before being recast as liabilities, with the burden of adaptation displaced on to the most vulnerable party.

Architecture MArch

Téa Texier

History & Theory

Sonic Sanitisation: Who Can Make Sound in the City?

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture BSc

Design & Creative Practice 1, 2 & 3

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Images top to bottom: Evelyn Morris-Julien, Y1 ‘Soil to Soil’. A mycelial thurible holds and transfers the biological design of the Story Garden’s soil, slowly releasing oyster mushroom spores along the way. Justin Tsai, Y2 ‘Learning from Colindale’. A participatory sustainable construction of earth-bricks that listens to and connects with its locale.

Year 3 Nadia Afrin, Nicole Au, Chiu Ching (Nicole) Chan, Veer Chaudhry, Hanxi (Tracy) Cui, Qi (Kristy) Dai, Saskia Diplock, Daniela Ghinda, Yunxin (Fobby) Han, Ferdinand Keyl, Noel Kim, Sergio Lopez Borja, Grace Macready, Lilly Öhler, Magdalena-Raluca Pop, Jimingyuan (Angela) Shi, Arisa Shiraishi, Hannah (Mizuki) Sievers, Zaiyu (Oscar) Tian, Paramdeep Virdi, Haowei (David) Wang, Ying (Isabella) Wang, Kyiga Wilberforce, Jinghan Zheng Tutors Year 1 Alice Hardy, Gabriel Warshafsky Year 2 Kirsty Badenoch, Thomas Kendall Year 3 Pedro Gil, Kevin Green, Freddy Tuppen Critics and collaborators Laura Allen, Felicity Atekpe, Sylvia Bedretti, Jonathan BenShaul, Enrico Brondelli di Brondello, Tom Budd, Blanche Cameron, Anna Crispino, Elizabeth Dow, Elin Eyborg, Janine Francois, Azalea Harvey, Claire McAndrew, Glen McDonald, David McEwen, Toby O’Connor, Alicia Pivaro, Betsy Porritt, Daniel Rea, Heather Ring, Theo Tan, Josh Todd, Henrietta Williams, Carley Wootton

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2 Christabel Agyepong AnkomahAdjei, Sophia Goldman, Emmanuella Kantenga, YenHsia (Alicia) Lei, Chongyi Lu, Amulya Madasu, Nele Plaß, Faith Beatrice Salazar, Ruby Scaife, Zixu Shen, Fia Smith, Justin Tsai, Allegra Tulone, Yuan (Reina) Zhang, Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao

Architecture MSci

Year 1 Joelle Chan, Livia Daveri, Tatiana Degtyareva, Daniel Drum, Rosie Hall, Jiwon Han, Xiyue (Annie) Huang, Muhammad (Muhtasham) Jowardhar, Aidan Lohr, Evelyn Morris-Julien, Ilia Mouzaki, Zaynab Rahman, Zeinab (Sarah) Shaaban, Sana Soufi, Simoni Stefanou, Yiran Tao, Aqela Tinniswood, Mitali (Raina) Tulsidas, Zachary Wilson, Keely Wu, Jincheng Yang, Han Zhang, Meixu (Louise) Zhou

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

Design & Creative Practice is a 15-, 30- and 45-credit module taught across Years 1, 2 and 3 of the Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc. It is taken by Bartlett and affiliate students, and may be chosen as an elective by students from other departments. Year 1 focuses on building skills through engagement with a live site, including on-site workshops using natural materials; Year 2, focuses on process and experimentation in both independent and group work, in collaboration with local community spaces; while Year 3 fosters research-led and socially engaged design, encouraging students to develop sustainable, public-facing projects relating to architecture and the built environment. Emphasis is placed on consolidating each student’s cross-disciplinary design and artistic practice. This year, Year 1 students worked with the Story Garden in King’s Cross as it prepared to relocate. They began by sifting through material from the temporary community garden, which they then used to identify qualities relating to its culture and character. Each student used natural materials to create a portable vessel for the safe transport of these found objects to the garden’s new permanent home. Working in small groups, students choreographed a theatrical procession celebrating the garden. In Year 2, students addressed contemporary urgencies by questioning standardised responses and reframed ‘emergency’ through the lens of radical slowness, collectivity and resilience. The year was based at Cultivate Colindale, a community garden and reuse centre, where students worked closely with local residents, organisations and gardening teams to understand lived experiences of housing displacement, chronic anxiety and ecological breakdown. The year culminated in a public exhibition of emerging student projects. In Year 3, students focused on trees to explore interconnected material, industrial and ecological systems, and transformed waste and by-products into functional objects. The year culminated in a collectively designed and staged feast. Across the year, emphasis was placed on iterative making, critical dialogue and the development of an independent, research-led practice.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

1, 2 & 3

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Design & Creative Practice

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

5 1 Tatiana Degtyareva, Y1 ‘Clay That Remembers’. A wearable system for making clay impressions creates an archive of interaction between the body and its journey between sites. 2 Evelyn Morris-Julien, Y1 ‘Soil to Soil’. A mycelial thurible holds and transfers the biological design of the Story Garden’s soil to the Triangle Site, slowly releasing oyster mushroom spores along the way. 3 Jiwon Han, Y1 ‘TrelliSing’. A systematic disassembly, reconfiguration and reassembly of a simple garden trellis carries memories of community activity from the Story Garden to the Triangle Site.

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4 Keely Wu, Y1 ‘Vessels of Dispersal’. Clothing for clandestine geranium seed dispersal across King’s Cross by bioactivists, the Order of the Molle.

5 Muhammad (Muhtasham) Jowardhar, Y1 ‘A Tree Without a Home’. A performative carrying device builds a narrative of heroic salvation around the instinct to preserve and care for a felled apple tree.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

1, 2 & 3

Architecture BSc

Design & Creative Practice

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

6 Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao & Zixu Shen, Y2 ‘When One Moves’. A collaboratively built three-branch seesaw for Cultivate Colindale, constructed with The Loop and local volunteers using reclaimed materials. The structure turns play into a shared social mechanism: when one person moves, others are physically affected, nurturing cooperation within a community shaped by social pressure and regeneration. 7 Sophia Goldman & Chongyi Lu, Y2 ‘We Are Here’. An archive of garden maintenance at Cultivate Colindale that retraces the steps of staff and volunteers, repeating their actions and projecting their absence. 8 Qi (Kristy) Dai & Zirui (Leo) Qu, Y3 ‘Into the Nest’. Imitating the nest-making behaviour of local crows, this installation uses discarded building materials to invite community residents to participate in the construction of a symbiotic nest that reconfigures annually.

10 9 Yen-Hsia (Alicia) Lei & Zixu Shen, Y2 ‘What Lingers’. Investigating chronic anxiety as a condition shaped by prolonged pressure, this chair expands conditions of slow transformation by producing states of suspension, uncertainty and subtle instability. 10 Yuan (Reina) Zhang & Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao, Y2 ‘The Air Between Us’. This performance transforms the invisible pressures of housing instability into an embodied experience where breath becomes both a measure of time and a force that reshapes the body. Through participation, the audience becomes part of the quiet, accumulating force of waiting, empathy and displacement.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Design & Creative Practice

1, 2 & 3

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

13 11 Nicole Au, Hanxi (Tracy) Cui, Ferdinand Keyl & Noel Kim, Y3 ‘Codependent Seating’. A seating project for a collaborative feast approached through notions of co-dependence and mutual support as guiding concepts and rooted in the theory of the World Wide Web. Jointless, modular seating can only be realised through acts of collaboration – by humans, in piecing the components together and by the modules themselves, leaning on one another for balance and stability.

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12 Paramdeep Virdi, Y3 ‘Designing for Disappearance’. This project investigates how biomaterials can challenge conventional fast-food packaging systems and in-restaurant consumption behaviours. By recreating takeaway packaging using gelatine-based bioplastics, it evolved into a vast exploration of contamination, bodily interaction, waste and performative eating rituals.

13 Yunxin (Fobby) Han, Y3 ‘The Long Night’. A speculative design project imagining a world where climate catastrophe makes winter nearly unsurvivable. During the coldest three months of the year, energy is scarce, as food cannot sustain normal life. In response, humans begin to develop collective hibernation for seasonal survival.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

1, 2 & 3

Architecture BSc

Design & Creative Practice

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

14 Daniela Ghinda, Y3 ‘Candles Made from Trees’. In this project, tree resin is used to make candles for a collaborative feast. 15 Sergio Lopez Borja, Y3 ‘CHUCHA; NI DE AQUI, NI DE ALLA’. In this project a mobile puppet show tells the lived experience of migrant work, reflecting on identity and integration in the UK. We follow the interaction between a mother and her son, and their run-ins with a trifling spirit. 16 Zaiyu (Oscar) Tian, Y3 ‘CUT. FLOWER’. This project is a film that investigates how plants are represented, translated and mediated within botanical culture. The film focuses specifically on the cut flower industry as an extreme example of this process.

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In Conversation:

Kristina Clackson Bonnington, House of Doors, UCL Quad, 2015. Image courtesy the artist.

Kristina Clackson Bonnington, Director of the Designing Equity Unit, with Sophie Read, Course Leader of Architectural & 112 Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Kristina Clackson Bonnington is a British-Irish academic, researcher and artist whose work primarily examines socio-spatial control, social equity and the built environment. Her practice bridges the gap between contemporary art, architectural design and public policy. Kristina is currently in residence at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is leading the cross-faculty project Future Spaces of Women’s Health: Equity in Public Life, developing a portfolio of socio-spatial proposals that actively promote women’s health in the design of public spaces. As part of her residency, Kristina has been working with Sophie Read and AIS students and alumni on the development of a series of co-making action research events designed to support the development of these socio-spatial proposals. The first of these events took place at the Bartlett School of Architecture in March 2026 and was co-hosted by the EGA Institute for Women’s Health, UCL. The second, in partnership with the newly opened exhibition Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing, took place in June at the Aalto Lounge of the Architecture & Design Museum, Helsinki: “There is a deep resonance between the Designing Equity Unit’s approach to design and the ethos of the Aaltos. For the Aaltos, a well-designed public space was an essential source of collective wellbeing. Elements such as light fixtures, door handles and other details were never secondary considerations, but integral components in shaping an emotionally resonant environment. Every aspect – from the interplay of forms and materials to the use of natural light, framed views, and even vegetation – was carefully orchestrated to engage all the senses. Concerned with the needs of the ‘ordinary person’ in an increasingly mechanised modern world, the Aaltos saw it as the architect’s responsibility to ‘create paradises on earth’”. Petteri Kummala, Head of Research at the Architecture & Design Museum, Helsinki, and Co-Curator of Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing SR: Your practice brings together a mix of technical specialisms – training in architecture and specialist casting techniques – with studies in philosophy, politics, economics and geography. You have also established long-standing partnerships with high-profile institutions and specialist research departments. What unites these for you and how have you developed a practice that is so interdisciplinary and positioned across such a range of institutions? KCB: Much of what I do in very simple terms is focused on how it feels to be here and why, and then considering this from historical and theoretical contexts, which demand multiple points of perspective. These multi-perspective explorations of institutional spaces and practices are then modelled up to identify and explore areas of collective, shared experience. This is further investigated in relation to differing lines of autonomy, power and privilege and how these differences impact individual experience. So, there is quite an involved, complex process of investigation that requires the input of multiple teams. As part of this process, there are times when it is necessary and appropriate to commit to detailed, technical investigations that enable a precise understanding of situations. However, this process is always brought back to what the broader purpose of the work is and ensuring that the communication of investigations is inclusive, accessible and appropriate to the aim of the project. It is the aim of the work that unites what might otherwise appear to be disparate elements and working processes – sculptural processes and policy creation can be excellent partners – and over multiple sites we have demonstrated how this can lead to highly impactful outcomes. For over ten years, I have been running projects that use sculptural and spatial methods to interrogate and develop public policy. Through collective, creative methods of working, we bring together diverse partners and specialisms towards generating solutions that are highly innovative and resourceful. In 2018, in connection to my work with UK Parliament, I was appointed to establish and lead the Designing Equity Unit (DEU). The DEU is a research and design unit that grew out of the installation House of Doors at UK Parliament and exists to deepen understanding of root causes of persistent social inequalities and to develop design solutions towards equitable and sustainable futures. The DEU’s current project, Future Spaces of Women’s Health: Equity in Public Life builds on a decade-long partnership with the EGA Institute for Women’s Health, UCL, and takes up a new residency in the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. This brings to the project a wealth of expertise in both design specialisms and departmental projects that are progressing equity in the built environment. Scale is of great significance to successfully bringing together these differing elements. Scale with regard to scope of project, scale of team and scale of production and outcome – projects range from 1:1 site-specific sculptural outputs to nationwide policy interventions. SR: Scale and references to precise architectural details are of great importance to understanding your work – from knowing that the measurements of the doorway to White’s gentlemen’s club determined the size and dimensions of the main sculptural intervention of House of Doors, to the importance of that being known to fully appreciate the symbolic significance of the sculpture being granted unanimous permission to be installed in the lying-in-state zone of Westminster Hall, a space reserved for the formal occasion of observing and mourning Sovereign loss. You produce guides for participants that communicate these details alongside sharing relevant historic and contemporary models of governance. Your work at Parliament attracted an enormous audience of over 50,000 people and was celebrated for achieving an outstanding level of engagement and impact, leading to the creation of the DEU. Enabling participants to access the significant body of research that informs

Kristina Clackson Bonnington, House of Doors, installed in the lying-in-state zone of Westminster Hall, UK Parliament, 2018. Image courtesy the artist.

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In Conversation

Development of First Conversations event at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, March 2026. Photo by Kristina Clackson Bonnington.

your work appears to be key to this success. Is that something you would agree with? KCB: There is vast literature and numerous records that attest to how the scale of place and systems of governance impact the capacity for societies and individuals to thrive simultaneously. I read around this extensively, exploring how different nations and communities have self-governed or been governed over time. From Plato to John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill to the works of Margaret Atwood, alternative social orders are presented – some appear far from our lived realities and others closely reference contemporary national and global situations. Taking time to study architectural drawings and read historic social records, laws, philosophical texts and fiction enables an exploration of alternatives – to consider how our present and future could be done differently. I see it as part of the success of a work to include the information needed for an audience to access the references used and explore these themselves. Everyone is highly capable of critical, reflective study but there remain barriers to being able to access information and opportunity for study, reflection, communication and creation. Part of my work is about addressing these barriers: making information accessible, and creating spaces and opportunities for critical, supportive and creative thought. SR: You demonstrate your ability to successfully identify and build connections in your work with UK Parliament, which required careful relationship-building to bring together senior Parliamentary stakeholders around the decision to purposefully install House of Doors in the lying-in-state zone of Westminster Hall. How did you approach this and bring people together around a work that could have appeared critical of the institution? KCB: Recognising a collective moment in time that presented an opportunity for shared reflection and exploration of future directions was key – it became a shared effort to successfully convey the opportunity and strength of the project across Parliamentary departments. House of Doors invites the participation of all and makes space for dialogue across political parties and personal beliefs and agendas. Whilst there is a critical aspect, there is also a genuinely open and inclusive approach to the work that brings people together. This approach and the skills required to implement it were highly valued. The process itself became one that brought people together, even before the work had been installed, and has led to enduring connections and impact. SR: What is this residency at the Bartlett School of Architecture now bringing to your practice and the work of the DEU? I am based in a building in Bloomsbury that houses an incredible variety of activity, people, work and events. In many ways, I am back to where I started, as a first-year student studying architecture in this same building. But we are now 20 years later – much has changed and some is the same. When I studied here, courses that enabled access to specialist teaching across departments, such as the Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) course, didn’t exist and I had to look beyond the school to find the necessary parts. I met and studied with incredibly inspirational people including Professor Claire Dwyer and studied in UCL’s geography and philosophy departments, also taking classes at the Slade. Prior to the AIS course, this wasn’t always an easy route to navigate, but it prepared me well for the way I continue to work.

Detail from First Conversations event at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, March 2026. Photo by Oliver Clackson Bonnington.

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SR: I think you have just answered my next question! I was going to ask what you thought had prepared you for working as you do, and whether you would have chosen to study on the AIS course if it had been an option when you were here? It sounds like the way you proactively sought modules and connections between courses was really a precursor for what AIS as an undergraduate degree became. KCB: Yes. The AIS course offers students and the school something really very special. As the landscape of architectural education and training is changing in the UK again, it is also now positioned very interestingly for students to follow an alternative route to registration. From September 2027, it will no longer be a requirement for students applying to an ARBaccredited master’s in architecture to have first done an ARB-accredited first degree (the current Part 1). For me, whilst studying architecture, I was also identifying the importance of being able to continue studying politics and the humanities. I also really valued having previously been at an art school – I had completed my foundation year at Central Saint Martins and had met some fantastic people who had such a vibrancy, courage and creativity about how they worked and approached things – to be able to work in a way that was so joyful and vibrant, but also with such care, empathy and insight was incredible. I wanted to try and find a way of combining these elements towards a way of working that enabled a different approach to addressing complex socio-spatial problems. This art-school ethos, in conjunction with an emphasis on the socio-economic and political, is evident in AIS’s approach to design education. SR: Absolutely, AIS has always afforded students flexibility to study other subjects across UCL and at other institutions like SOAS, alongside architecture (for example, in planning, geography, engineering, economics and art). Not all students will take up this new ARB option – AIS opens up to a much wider series of careers in the built environment, from landscape architecture to design criticism and film-making. But it will be exciting nonetheless for those in the cohort who do want to do an MArch and later qualify as architects. KCB: The intentions behind these incoming changes to professional accreditation are hugely significant – the aim being that these changes will strengthen industries and progress equity

and wellbeing in both the workplace and the built environment itself. Finding a way to have a great time together whilst working on solutions that allow us to live healthy, happy lives and better support one another – that is the collective aim of the projects I work on, and it really brings people together around a common goal and way of being. There is a title for a film that I often think about: Everything Everywhere All at Once. SR: That is a great way of describing the complexities you unite, and I’m really interested in what you said earlier about the necessity of having a clear purpose as reference and anchor to bring these elements together. This is something we often see in our students on the AIS course, who already show a great sense of purpose in their studies and are unusually well equipped, as our external examiners always identify, to work with real independence at undergraduate level. The project that you are delivering as part of your residency here is innovative and ambitious in scope, and has already had really positive impact, both internally at the Bartlett, contributing to changes within the building that promote greater wellbeing, and in the creation of the new spaces of women’s health that you are currently developing with the DEU. This has quickly generated interest, engagement and support, including attention in Finland – a nation recognised internationally for progressing excellence in gender equity. We are really excited to see how this project continues to develop and very grateful to you for sharing your practice with us here at the Bartlett, and particularly with the AIS students, with whom it has such resonance. KCB: It’s been fantastic to see how well this has been received and how much support there is. I’ve just returned from Finland where we delivered a follow-up event to the conversations evening at the Bartlett, and explored what the work of the Aaltos can teach us about designing for women’s health and social equity. It has been fantastic to work with AIS on this project and to see that such a strong student and staff community has grown around the course. It is so important that space and resources are prioritised for this specialist area of architectural study, especially in the changing context of knowledge formation and the need to sustain critical investigation of knowledge production and associated design processes. In the past six months I have worked with diverse teams exploring future spaces of women’s health and how these changes will drive equity in public life – common to all project explorations is the growing recognition, both within and beyond the design sector, of the need to put compassionate design at the heart of problem-solving urgent challenges in society – we need highly skilled, reflective, compassionate, imaginative and resourceful designers who can identify innovative solutions and who have the interpersonal and technical skills to implement them. Delivering the first conversations event at the Bartlett with AIS students was an opportunity to see these qualities in practice. The students were fantastic to work with, demonstrating an impressive, mature and sensitive capacity to co-run a highly impactful event that brought together academics and professionals from across the university and beyond, including those working in architecture, women’s health, policy, law and education. Mirroring the design and research pedagogies on AIS, students supported a live workshop that used drawing and making to enable conversations and shared reflections about the design and experiences of women’s health. The students also showcased their expertise in facilitating interdisciplinary and personal conversations between practitioners working in highly different ways and often separated fields.

Kristina Clackson Bonnington with Sophie Read

Kristina Clackson Bonnington, Hold, charcoal on paper, 2014. Image courtesy the artist.

SR: Before we go, I wanted to ask about drawing – and the drawing Hold in particular, which is so tender and large in expression. Much of your work now is in the realm of spatial analysis, policy and social modelling, particularly in your role as director of the DEU – is drawing still part of your practice and, if so, how does this inform your work? KCB: Drawing is spatial and multi-dimensional. Written form doesn’t hold the same autonomy unless it moves away from standardised references of written form, at which point it arguably transitions and itself becomes a form of drawing. This could become a philosophical discussion, but put simply – drawing allows exploration, possibilities and communication that doesn’t otherwise exist. Drawing has always been a core element of my practice – I was given permission to observe Parliamentary business and daily institutional runnings and it is through drawing that I did this – drawing live sessions in both The Commons Chamber and The Lords Chamber, and taking detailed graphite impressions of the medieval York stone paving in Westminster Hall. Drawing allows you to see better, think differently and to communicate more effectively. I now frequently attend multi-team policy meetings in which I have my portfolios, papers and sketching materials – the ability to share and produce drawings together never fails to bring teams together and generate ideas that are unlikely to develop otherwise. Hold was a quick sketch that I did in 2014, based on John Flaxman’s plaster model displayed in UCL’s Flaxman Gallery. It’s an incredible model but could be easily glanced over and missed. It describes a situation from multiple perspectives with such depth of feeling. We don’t see the space, we see the three figures and how they connect – coming together as one, holding one another. It communicates so much with such feeling – it also speaks to the need to create the spatial conditions that enable people to care well for one another and the environment that holds us. With thanks to the AIS student and alumni team who co-delivered the Future Spaces of Women’s Health First Conversations event with the DEU: Emmanuella Kantenga, Kyiga Wilberforce, Tess Mihigo Uwera, Raina Tulsidas, Tatiana Degtyareva, Amulya Madasu, Christabel Agyepong Ankomah-Adjei, Yiwen Zhao and Sofia Alvarez Manilla Hernandez. Thanks also to the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art and the Lord Speaker’s Advisory Panel on Works of Art.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1, CIBSE, JBM) Course Leaders: Matthew Heywood, Luke Olsen

Year 1 pLAY! Festival Barbara Andrade Zandavali, Klaas De Rycke

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Year 2 The Alchemic Kitchen Philippe Duffour, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson

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Unit 1 Adaptive Re-use for a Progressive Laboratory Oliver Houchell, Anderson Inge, Vasiliki Kourgiozou, Christopher Leung, Josep Miàs Gifre

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Unit 2 The Good, the True and the Beautiful Harry Betts, Samuel Miselbach, Shaun Murray, Nipun Wickramasundara

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Unit 3 Memory Palace Alun Hurman, Kirsty Sutherland, Martin Lema Trillo, Graeme Williamson

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Unit 4 Extreme Reintegration Yasemin Didem Aktas, Samuel Esses, Baran Tanriverdi, Santiago Vélez

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Unit 5 Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda Filip Kirazov, Aurore Julien, Luke Olsen, Olivia Riddle

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Unit 6 Continuum Simon Beames, Matthew Heywood, Samuel Wilkinson

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Unit 7 Nuragica Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Yi Zhang

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Unit 8 Responsive Tectonics III David Hewlett, Michael Howarth, Annarita Papeschi

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The course has also contributed to research on interdisciplinary design pedagogy: L. Olsen, L. Malki-Epshtein, D. Mumovic, D. D’Ayala and S. Oliveira (2021) ‘Transcending disciplines in architecture, structural and building services engineering: a new multidisciplinary educational approach’, International Journal of Technology and Design Education (follow-up due July 2026). Our immense gratitude goes to all our teachers, teaching assistants, administrators, professional services team, guest reviewers, invited lecturers, external examiners and industry advisory board members whose support and expertise continue to shape the course.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MArch

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Future of Design: MEng EAD students Claire Zhang (Unit 5), Ivan Law and Chunxiao (Helen) Lin (Unit 2), and Mingyu Ren (Unit 6), First Prize, IABSE British Group International Competition, Structural Engineering and Bridge Design. In(visible) Energy, an installation for the Barcelona Pavilion, designed and delivered by Luke Olsen (Unit 5), Graeme Williamson (Unit 3), Josep Mias (Unit 1), Melis van den Burg (Studio 1.2), Christopher Leung (Unit 1), Martha Stevens (Units 5&7), Izzy Watson, Orlando George-Ibitoye (Unit 2), Leon Chew and Sandy Davis (A/V Artists). Sixth Somewhat Drawings, Shaun Murray (Unit 2), A83, New York, February 2025. Maetherea, an installation by tutors Cristina Morbi (Unit 7), Francesco Banchini and Fondazione Sciola, designed and made with Stone and Sound, Venice Biennale 2025. Territories of Co-Cognition by Annarita Papeschi (Unit 8), Saud Muhsinovic and David Hewlett, Venice Biennale 2025. Twin House, Graeme Williamson (Unit 3), shortlisted for Dezeen Urban House, RIBA Manser Medal and winner of the Individual House Architect of the Year 2025.

History & Theory

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Architecture MSci

The Engineering & Architectural Design MEng is a co-disciplinary, award-winning, triple-degree course that brings together architecture, civil engineering, structural engineering and building services engineering into one unique course of study (ARB/ RIBA Part 1, CIBSE, JBM). Designed, developed and taught by architects, engineers and multidisciplinary practitioners and academics from three leading UCL departments – the Bartlett School of Architecture (BSA), Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) and the Institute of Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE) – it aims to develop a new kind of practitioner: one who is fluent in architecture, engineering and integrated design. At the heart of the course are its interdisciplinary design studios and units, each taught by three tutors – typically one architect, one civil engineer and one building service engineer – teaching integrated design at a 3:1 ratio. In Year 1, students work collaboratively to design and build ten full-scale pavilions. This year’s projects responded to the theme of ‘pLAY’ for a festival held at Carpenters Road Lock in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Year 2 students develop individual design visions within the studio environment. This year they responded to a shared brief sited in Paris, exploring gastronomy and the food industry in France. In Years 3 and 4, students work together in units, refining their individual designs. Beyond the school, teaching staff and students continue to engage in cutting-edge design, with awards and exhibitions including:

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 1 pLAY! Festival

Barbara Andrade Zandavali, Klaas De Rycke

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Images: ‘pLAY! Festival’. A collection of ten projects designed and fabricated by first-year MEng students, installed at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Tutors Annecy Attlee, Bedir Bekar, Jeet Das, Klaas De Rycke, Dave Edwards, Oliver Houchell, Christopher Leung, Daniel Linham, Luke Lowings, Tim Lucas, Emma-Kate Matthews, Maria Moratta, Luke Olsen, Joana Carla Soares Goncalves, Melis van den Berg, Andrew Edward Walker Masterclass tutors Pippa Cowles, Emma-Kate Matthews, Jeanette Osterried, Thomas Parker (ScanLAB), Sandra Smith (Slade), Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu (Tonkin Liu)

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Partners Canal & River Trust, London Play Design, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Architecture MArch

Students Sofiya Abakumova, Shaima Agbogbodo, Ramyar Alsalihi, Ameya, Oliver-Lucas AraiMuller, Vida Atkinson, Dilyara Badretdinova, Noah Brambley, Ana Branford, Saruta (Lookpad) Buddhari, Xinyi Chen, Chun Long (Bradley) Cheung, Kashika Chopra, Molly Cressey-Rodgers, Attila Doman, Kacper Dzieniak, Davina Ekwoanya, Georgina Ellis, Mariam Elsherbiny, Lena Flach Malaspina, Jimena Garcia Del Poyo Santos, Hao Han, Abdulhamid Himmat, ChingTung (Tong) Hsu, Lingjia Hu, Islam Idrissov, Stefan Jimenez Parapura, Marley Kissling, Alice Knobel, Sawani Korde, Seokhan (Casey) Lee, William Le Voi, Jiaqian (Jessie) Li, Xin Li, Fuen Lin, Urvee Shital Lungare, Sofia Lyngvi, Ioana-Denisa Minzat, Ahmed Mohamed, Layla Mohamed Mahmoud, Seif Montasser, Javier Mugarra Mugarra, Rithika Nair, Arven Nanthakumar, Alissa Pelletier, Cristian-Andrei Petrache, Clement Rahwangi Gough, Dioni Rouni, Leire Rowe-Perez, Jeya Sandhar, Elle Shum, Ellie Song, Henrik St Clair, Wenyin (Winona) Tan, Atticus Tiplady, Phuong Truong, Areej Usmani, Sai Vajrapu, Ivan Voboril, Laurence Walker, Gaoze Wang, Jiayue Wang, Jiayao (Jolynthea) Wang, Ziyan (Bella) Wang, Xiaoyi (Sophia) Wu, Dunming Xu, Shu Ching (Lora) Yeung, Yara Younis, Peiliang (Fred) Zhang, Tanyue Zhang

History & Theory

First-year students from the Engineering & Architectural Design MEng course are introduced to the integrated design studio through two modules: Design Make Live (DML) and Design Make Information (DMI). These modules run in parallel, integrating architecture, engineering and making, while developing a wide variety of design skills and knowledge through masterclasses, tutorials and the design and making of live pavilions. Students create the pavilions using full construction drawings, a masterclass almanac and ‘next iteration’ design proposals. Both modules follow a shared theme that is explored and defined through studio-specific briefs. This year, the theme was ‘pLAY!’ – with a series of installations at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park exploring how architecture can bring people together and contribute to community-building. Working in groups, students designed, engineered and built full-scale pavilions, and invited the public to test them in the park for a day. This year’s ten projects, developed by five studios, were ‘Echo Chamber’, ‘Network’, ‘Drag Path’, ‘Kinetic Improv’, ‘Trigger Shell’, ‘The Cocoon’, ‘Espejos’, ‘A Corda’, ‘Nature Reframed’ and ‘The PolyDome’. Design Make Live serves as a microcosm of the construction industry, providing a platform for students to pursue individual and critical lines of inquiry. Running in parallel is the Design Make Information module, which introduces students to the methods used by professional design teams to design, make and evaluate information throughout the construction process. The module establishes a bridge between analogue and digital techniques, combining traditional methods with cutting-edge technologies. Following the installation of the ten pavilions at the pLAY! Festival, students proposed individual ‘next iteration’ proposals based on their pavilions. As the students’ first individual design proposal, they synthesise the techniques and principles gained through DML, DMI and other engineering modules. The projects translate concepts explored in the construction of the temporary pavilions into more permanent and ambitious architectural design proposals.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 1

pLAY! Festival

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

3 1 Vida Atkinson, Chun Long (Bradley) Cheung, Jimena Garcia Del Poyo Santos, Seif Montasser, Arven Nanthakumar, Wenyin (Winona) Tan, Sai Vajrapu, Tanyue Zhang ‘Drag Path’. A deployable 3D timber structure with perimeter walls that conceal a pavilion inviting play through the transcription of wishes and dreams that are recorded on its walls. Over time, the pavilion deforms and reanimates itself and inspires more people to add to it in this endlessly evolving spatial composite.

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2 Ameya, Ana Branford, Lena Flach Malaspina, Lingjia Hu, Alissa Pelletier, Dioni Rouni, Ziyan (Bella) Wang, Tanyue Zhang ‘Opalite’. A spiral of slender interlocked timber bars mimics biological growth patterns in the form of a conch, which metaphorically echoes childhood memories of beach exploration. The translucent latex covering in marine colours produces a cosy enclosure of dappled light. It is both a plaything and a playspace.

3–4 Sofiya Abakumova, William Le Voi, Ioana-Denisa Minzat, Rithika Nair, Atticus Tiplady, Jiayue Wang ‘Espejos’. A pair of playful devices located on stepped timber seating on opposite sides of the canal across Carpenter’s Road Lock. Each device comprises five identical tetrahedral modules with the potential to be co-joined at each node using simple wooden toggles. This variability offers limitless spatial interaction for children and adults alike. The visually fragmented space is created by the resulting ad-hoc geometrical relationship between hexagonal reflective panels and open framework.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

pLAY! Festival

Architecture BSc

Year 1

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

4 5 Oliver-Lucas Arai-Muller, Kashika Chopra, Davina Ekwoanya, Islam Idrissov, Jiaqian (Jessie) Li, Clement Rahwangi Gough, Elle Shum, Yara Younis ‘A Corda’. Inspired by the spontaneity of play observed in traditional children’s games, the installation is a dynamic system of three self-similar, interconnected structures suspended from the Carpenters Road Lock bridge to wilfully disrupt the passage of pedestrians and cyclists below. Passing over the canal, those on the bridge can exert limited control of these soft, expandable structures, should they wish, inviting new forms of bodily engagement and a momentary transformation of spatial interaction.

6 6 Ramyar Alsalihi, Saruta (Lookpad) Buddhari, Kacper Dzieniak, Hao Han, Xin Li, Xiaoyi (Sophia) Wu ‘Trigger Shell’. Inspired by roadside shrines, this ‘sentient-skinned’ tensegrity structure translates touch into soothing, dynamic soundscapes that beckon and becalm.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 1

pLAY! Festival

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

9 7 Noah Brambley, Molly Cressey-Rodgers, Marley Kissling, Urvee Shital Lungare, Sofia Lyngvi, Cristian-Andrei Petrache, Jeya Sandhar ‘The Cocoon’. A playfully polemical pop-up perceptual airlock – part trap, part Ganzfeld chamber – with an aim to unscramble and reset attention through optical games for distracted passers-by. 8, 10 Xinyi Chen, Ching-Tung (Tong) Hsu, Stefan Jimenez Parapura, Leire Rowe-Perez, Phuong Truong, Shu Ching (Lora) Yeung ’Kinetic Improv’. This project is both a musical instrument and a single-person auditorium. A solo viewer is invited to inhabit the central space while other users of the park curate an improvised musical performance by rotating a series of 18 different frequency rain makers.

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9 Shaima Agbogbodo, Abdulhamid Himmat, Alice Knobel, Fuen Lin, Javier Mugarra Mugarra, Areej Usmani ‘Network’. A tension-net structure using three struts, and two layers of net connected with pulleys and rope, to create a dynamic play experience on the steeply stepped gabion bridge embankment.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

pLAY! Festival

Architecture BSc

Year 1

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

11 Attila Doman, Maryam Elsherbiny, Seokhan (Casey) Lee, Ahmed Mohamed, Layla Mohamed Mahmoud, Henrik St Clair ‘Nature Reframed’. This project engages vantage point and perception of the Olympic Park’s extensive trees and flora by creating different reflections and impressions from an anthropometric-scaled deformable reflector, consisting of an array of individually moveable triangular mirrors. 12 Dilyara Badretdinova, Georgina Ellis, Ellie Song, Ivan Voboril, Laurence Walker, Jiayao (Jolynthea) Wang, Dunming Xu ‘The PolyDome’. This project explores the possibilities of a component-led geodesic dome pavilion. Built entirely from corrugated cardboard, it is largely friction-fitted without mechanical fasteners and incorporates passively activated, airflow-driven, colour-changing infill panels.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 2 The Alchemic Kitchen

Philippe Duffour, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson

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Images top to bottom: John Liu, Y2 ‘Reconstructing Childhood’. Yijing (Emma) Wu, Y2 ‘The Grainfall’.

Critics Stefania Boccaletti, Daniel Bosia, Edman Choy, Mirella Dourampei, Lucia Espinosa de los Monteros, Chiara Faliva, Grace Gambrill, Nate Kolbe, Juliette Loubens, Louisa Merker, Ed Norman, Soyoung Park, Malena Royo Rodic, Rupert Scott, Sevde Tavasli, Ian Taylor, Erhang Wang

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Postgraduate Teaching Assistants Darine Adel, Adam Bigas, Mengyuan Chen, Nadim Bin Nazri

Architecture MArch

Students Salma Ali, Dariel Alia, Kristine Alvarado, Jonas Attal, Somaya Bakr, Joanna (Grace) Caero Huayllas, Olivia Cheung, Bosco Choi, Sophia Cintra, Samantha Dufu Muller-Uri, Farah El Kurdi, Khadijah Elmansoury, Jana Fathalla, Andrea Gajim, Freya Garrigan, Hugh Gleave, Ruonan Guo, Muhammad (Hamza) Hashim, Zejia (Anastazia) He, Dijan Hempel, Jamie Hewitt, Faozia Hossain, Sarah Irfan, Rebecca Jowett, Erim Kaleli, Claudia Kirk, Jincheng (Alex) Li, John Liu, Yitong Liu, Dasan Matthews, Mohamed Mboup, Shekinah (Carola) Mejico, Dana Muhieddine, Sahana Muralikumar, Phoebe Wing Si (Ash) Pang, Reina Piparaiya, Emily Riley, Noemie Robic, Camila Roman-Villegas, Eva Rufai, Ameerah Sajid, Rhea Sajilal, Siu Chit (Kris) Soo-Hoo, Neha Suresh, Roan Tamber-Prior, Yi Tan, Julianne Vaughan, Zhizhe (Zari) Wang, Yijing (Emma) Wu, Anita Yang, Binesh (Kian) Zamani Dadaneh, Tilia Zamparo, Hon Shing (Hudson) Zhang, Reema Zowayed

History & Theory

Year 2 comprises four integrated design studios working to a single meta-brief and site. The year is divided into two parts: a short introductory project and a building project. The design leadership of each studio comprises an architect, a structural engineer and an environmental designer. This year’s field trip was to Paris. Titled ‘The Alchemic Kitchen’, the brief for the year focused on food production and consumption in London. Students were invited to choose between two sites: the historic Smithfield meat market in Clerkenwell and the site of Billingsgate Fish Market in Newham, east London. Both markets are in the process of closing or being redeveloped over the next few years. Food offers a powerful lens through which to view culture at both global and local scales. It connects to memory through sensory experience and acts as a universal medium for communication beyond language. As eating is a shared social activity, food expresses identity, belief systems and traditions, often shaped by religion and ideology. At the same time, issues such as food security reveal its deeply political nature. The science of nutrition and food-production is becoming increasingly complex, shaped by evolving regulations, technologies and innovations such as fertilisers, pesticides and lab-grown proteins. As the global population grows, a pressing question emerges: Can we feed everyone? This challenge is intensified by the climate emergency, which affects agricultural land through drought, wildfires, extreme heat and unpredictable weather. These concerns prompt an investigation into how food is produced, processed and distributed. From livestock systems to crop cultivation, and from preparation to waste management, every stage has environmental, economic and social implications. Food waste, food poverty and alternative protein sources must all be addressed. Students were encouraged to consider their integrated design responses not as static vessels, but as dynamic systems embedded within these networks. Using food as a focus, they explored new material practices, sensory experiences and ecological relationships, creating buildings that were adaptive, responsive and capable of addressing the urgent challenges of our time.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Alchemic Kitchen

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

5 1, 4 John Liu, Y2 ‘Reconstructing Childhood’. This project is a refuge for homeless children and young people on a triangular plot in Smithfield, London. Framed by histories of broken childhood, it deconstructs the demolished Lesnes Estate into a layered, child-scaled mass of accommodation, dining, learning and public memory. 2–3 Yijing (Emma) Wu, Y2 ‘The Grainfall’. This project reimagines brewing as a public, ecological process. Set within Smithfield, the project transforms beer production, food waste, heat recovery and community gathering into one connected system. Brewing becomes visible, educational and social, creating warm public spaces where local residents, workers, families and visitors share culture, energy and care.

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5 Salma Ali, Y2 ‘Pulsar: The Acoustic Fermentary’. Situated in the central void of The Annexe at Smithfield Market, the underground rail infrastructure is repurposed into an acoustic driver for a pickling fermentary. Train vibrations are harvested, controlled and converted into rhythmic movement through a base isolation system, catalysing the bacterial growth in pickling. Through the structural reshaping and cuts of the existing masonry fabric, a series of lightweight hyperbolic monocoque shells are inserted and shaped within the building. They channel and concentrate sound, extending the market’s acoustic activity into a chemical system of waste collection and production.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Alchemic Kitchen

Architecture BSc

Year 2

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6–7 Shekinah (Carola) Mejico, Y2 ‘The Cork Yard’. This project transforms Smithfield Market’s Annexe and market into a women’s refuge and baking school, providing safe accommodation, vocational training and a pathway to independence through sustainable cork construction.

10 Bosco Choi, Y2 ‘The Nourishing Field’. A metabolic sports facility linking Canary Wharf and Poplar through football, urban farming and shared public space. The project combines food production and athletic activity to create a cycle of wellbeing, regeneration and community connection.

8 Khadijah Elmansoury, Y2 ‘Rewoven Creative Reuse Studio’. A textile art hub that transforms discarded fruit and surplus textiles into natural dyes and collaborative craft. Situated between Canary Wharf and Poplar, the project makes urban waste visible as a resource for community-led making. 9 Jana Fathalla, Y2 ‘Carving an Urban Oasis’. Red House Cold Store is transformed into a thermal bathing house inspired by Siwa Oasis and the therapeutic black sands in Safaga, using retained mass, carved light and thermal sequencing to shape a journey from immersion to stillness.

127

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 2

The Alchemic Kitchen

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

14 11 Jamie Hewitt, Y2 ‘RESTORE’. A retrofit of the Red House Cold Store in Smithfield Market into an urban farming hub reconnecting people with food production. A lightweight ETFE greenhouse supports growing spaces, seed exchange and education while celebrating the building’s historic structure. 12–14 Rebecca Jowett, Y2 ‘Urban Growing Haven’. The Red House is transformed into a community farming hub with a greenhouse, rooftop growing landscape and educational spaces. By making food systems visible and participatory, the project strengthens connections between people, nature and the city.

128

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Alchemic Kitchen

Architecture BSc

Year 2

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

15 Freya Garrigan, Y2 ‘Revered Remnant: The Sanctum’. This speculative project explores how food can be a ceremonial medium, transubstantiated by the smoke rising from the sacred fire at the heart of The Sanctum. Through the rise and habits of the fictitious cult The House of Antares, fire safety within the built environment is critiqued, utilising fire as a storytelling tool for reform and transformation within the site and wider community. 16 Freya Garrigan, Y2 ‘Revered Remnant: The Office’. Monastic in nature, by day The Office operates as a centre for fire safety research and consultation, seeking to close exploited loopholes and archaic dogmas in fire regulations. Members provide professional advice through private consultation, while a fire-testing laboratory develops new fire codes.

17, 19 Reema Zowayed, Y2 ‘When the Towers Sleep – The Fire Pit’. This project reclaims London’s night by revealing the hidden labour that sustains it. Inspired by Billingsgate’s labour history and the film The Menu, guests move from spectator to participant, engaging in immersive foodmaking rituals. 18 Freya Garrigan, Y2 ‘Revered Remnant: The Museum’. The House operates a museum with exhibitions on the history of fire and the daily life and work of The House. Situated on a part of the site within the St Paul’s height restriction zone, a balcony on the museum’s top floor offers skyline views.

129

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 1 Adaptive Re-use for a Progressive Laboratory

Oliver Houchell, Anderson Inge, Vasiliki Kourgiozou, Christopher Leung, Josep Miàs Gifre

130

Year 4 Chengbin (James) Cui, Jianwei (Jerry) Ma, Hana Molokhia, Yiyang (Yangyang) Xue, Jianwu Zhao Technical tutor/consultant Michael Stacey Thesis supervisors Philippe Duffour, Fabio Freddi, Jian Kang, Farhang Tahmasebi, Yi Zhang

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Richard Bonneville, Esfandiar Burman, James Ford, Malena Royo Rodic, Michael Stacey, Gennady Vasilchenko-Malishev

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Bianca Daniele, Sze Ching (Crystal) Lee, Methapon (Ling) Leelarasamee, Shayna Naik, Yue (Angel) Sheng, Ahmed Soussi

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

This year, Unit 1 explored the adaptive re-use of an existing Grade II*-listed public library in north London. The site combines two distinct architectural styles: an early 20th-century formal stone building of historical significance and a large 1970s extension constructed in concrete slab and brick, typical of the period. Each part of the library operates according to its own spatial, structural and environmental logic. Students in Unit 1 were challenged to survey and understand these differences, drawing on their knowledge developed from the MEng taughtmodules that run alongside Design Practice 2 and 3 studio modules. The brief asked students to transform the building into a new five-year school for integrated design in the built environment, inspired by Sir Peter Cook and what he has described as the “progressive laboratory”: a place where students and practitioners can generate ideas through empirical experimentation, drawing, making, testing, systematic operation, measurement and analysis. The aim was to imagine facilities that connect architectural design with production processes, encouraging a reciprocal understanding between material performance, technical knowledge and creative design. The students were uniquely positioned to respond to this brief, having spent two or three years studying within the course’s integrated design environment. Unit 1 students drew on this experience to generate their unique responses to the brief. The resulting projects moved between imaginative spatial speculation and rigorous technical testing, combining proposals for spaces, structures and environmental strategies with analysis, experimentation and critical evaluation.

Images top to bottom: Bianca Daniele, Y3 ‘Conexio’. Detail of vaulted ceiling, charcoal on paper, from the Drawing for Discovery workshop. Yiyang (Yangyang) Xue, Y4 ‘Impermanence’. Detail of column, charcoal on paper, from the Drawing for Discovery workshop.

131

Unit 1

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Adaptive Re-use for a Progressive Laboratory

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1–2 Hana Molokhia, Y4 ’Re:Works Islington’. A studio space for a progressive student laboratory on Holloway Road; rendered visualisation of the interior; existing street façade (top) and proposed adaptive reuse (bottom). 3, 12 Yiyang (Yangyang) Xue, Y4 ’Impermanence’. In this project, groin-vaulted corridors extend through the circulation, defining how students move, pause and feel within; exploratory study of surface forms on single-sheet material for the ceilings; rendered visualisation of staircase.

132

4, 7 Methapon (Ling) Leelarasamee, Y3 ’Syntopia’. A progressive laboratory designed for the MEng course. It reduces boundaries between cohorts by designing a visually connected space that allows occupants to observe and interact; analytical study of vertical and horizontal circulation in adaptive reuse of the existing building; study of colour from the light transmission through the coloured-glass arrangement within the building façade.

5 Sze Ching (Crystal) Lee, Y3 ’Spine’. This redevelopment is a retrofit-led educational project that transforms the existing building into a multidisciplinary hub for MEng students; general arrangement floor plan showing studio spaces. 6 Bianca Daniele, Y3 ’Conexio’. This project reimagines the library as a vibrant academic hub, bridging the site’s rich historical legacy and the needs of contemporary education; general arrangement section. 8 Shayna Naik, Y3 ’Confluence’. This project transforms the existing building into a multidisciplinary learning environment where making, research and public engagement intersect. The design is organised around a central atrium enclosed by a glazed timber roof, creating a shared space that visually and physically connects workshops, studios, teaching areas and library spaces; rendered visualisation of adaptive reuse external façade.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Adaptive Re-use for a Progressive Laboratory

Architecture BSc

Unit 1

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

12 9 Jianwu Zhao, Y4 ’Metaxu’. This project opens an unconventional threshold into the world of architecture students, inviting passers-by to witness, encounter and participate in the everyday rhythms of their life and labour; rendered visualisation of a proposed central circulation space for sharing social and intellectual exchange across student years.

13 13 Jerry Ma, Y4 ’Incisions’. This project explores the potential of reinforced concrete and allows cantilevering structures to bring cohorts together; rendered visualisation of integrated proposal of structure, environmental analysis and spatial arrangement.

10–11 Chengbin (James) Cui, Y4 ’Islington Heart’. This project reactivates the library’s civic role while introducing workshops, labs, printing spaces, study areas and shared public routes; principal street elevation onto Holloway Road (top) and extensive rear elevation (bottom); visualisation showing central circulation space connecting students through the progressive laboratory.

133

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 2 The Good, the True and the Beautiful

Harry Betts, Samuel Miselbach, Shaun Murray, Nipun Wickramasundara

134

Images: Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Y3 ‘Of Light and Space’.

Architecture BSc Architecture MSci

Critics Harry Bix, Nat Chard, Thomas Parker, Robin Wilson

Architecture MArch

Year 4 Sara Akhmetova, Sizhe Peng, Mumtahina (Nuha) Razia, Jasper Tecklenberg

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 3 Zui (Zoe) Chen, Hei Chit (Ivan) Law, Guangwei Li, Zhiyan (Maren) Li, Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Maria Maciejewska, Zhuoer (Dora) Zhao

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students

History & Theory

This year, Unit 2 asked, what if a studio wasn’t just a place of work but a place to time travel? Students were challenged to design an artist’s studio as a dynamic, time-responsive space shaped by habit, ritual and creative cycles. Drawing on William James’ and Kevin Lynch’s ideas, we reimagined the studio as a space for joy, curiosity and collaboration. Transforming with the rhythm of daily practice, the studio was conceived as a recursive time machine, where past gestures, present actions and future possibilities coexist. This year’s theme explored the paradoxes of time within the creative process: How can repetition lead to invention? How can routine become transformative? How can creative cycles generate new spatial ideas? Students designed a studio and workspace that supports collaboration, habit and wellbeing, and is grounded in daily ritual and speculative energy. Set in Fish Island, east London – an evolving creative district balancing industrial heritage with ecological transition – students engaged with the ‘retrofit-first’ policy of Tower Hamlets borough by exploring adaptive reuse, low-carbon materials and healthy forms of creative living. Through research, drawing, making, modelling, reflection and dialogue, each student developed a studio as a ‘home for creativity’, culminating in the ‘Reflexive Studio’ project: a dwelling that performs both practically and imaginatively. The unit also went on a field trip to Florence to study artistic routines and environments. Projects include Sara Akhmetova’s exploration of continuity and disruption, engaging with Fish Island’s industrial heritage and creative resilience; Jasper Tecklenberg examined tensions between creative practice and gentrification; Mumtahina (Nuha) Razia proposed interdisciplinary collaboration through the studio as a shared space; Sizhe Peng embraced speculation and uncertainty as productive design tools; Chunxiao (Helen) Lin foregrounded the pleasure of making and material experimentation; Chun San (Carrol) Luk framed the studio as a time machine of recursive futures; Hei Chit (Ivan) Law made performative design decisions visible and testable; Zhiyan (Maren) Li questioned ideas of the good, the true and the beautiful; Zhuoer (Dora) Zhao explored temporal ecologies; Guangwei Li focused on ground, air and infrastructure; Zui (Zoe) Chen investigated habit and ritual; and Maria Maciejewska positioned drawing as both archive and generative tool.

135

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 2

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

The Good, the True and the Beautiful

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

5 1, 6–7 Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Y3 ‘Under the Weave’. Located within the fragmented industrial fabric of Fish Island, London, this project explores how architecture can create safe and collective night-time spaces for women through weaving, infrastructure and environmental thresholds. It foregrounds visibility, passive surveillance and shared occupation, reimagining safety as an inclusive spatial condition that emerges from collective presence rather than enclosure or isolation. The proposal transforms the site into a place where production, care, housing and public life are interwoven and makes women’s labour visible within the urban fabric.

136

2 Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Y3 ‘Of Light and Space’. This project explores the potential of performative natural light as a driver of architectural design. Anchored in the Light School, it demonstrates how light can be used as a design tool by creating spaces that are carved by light.

3, 5 Sara Akhmetova, Y4 ‘The Shift Museum’. This project reimagines Wick Lane Bridge as more than a piece of transport infrastructure. Extending 62m across the site, the proposal takes the form of a living bridge supported by an A-frame truss system. Instead of functioning solely as a route across the A12, it becomes an active civic space that supports encounter, creativity and participation. Exhibition spaces and shared programmes invite occupation by pedestrians, local residents and artists alike. 4 Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Y3 ‘Of Light and Space’. The Light Walkway is an architectural fragment generated through the project’s testing spaces. Derived from the geometries of the building’s experimental zones, it translates spatial investigations into inhabitable form. The walkway demonstrates how processes of testing and prototyping can inform architectural expression, circulation and the experience of light.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

The Good, the True and the Beautiful

Architecture BSc

Unit 2

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

8 Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Y3 ‘Under the Weave’. The Maggie Centre façade walkway explores the relationship between the PTFE shading membrane and the FRP thermal envelope. The section reveals the buffer corridor between these layers, improving environmental performance while creating a transitional space between interior and exterior. 9 Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Y3 ‘Under the Weave’. At the heart of the proposal is a new public yard designed to encourage movement, gathering and occupation. The space strengthens connections between adjacent yards and buildings, allowing people to move freely through the site. A combination of seating, planting and a shallow reflective pool creates spaces for relaxation, play and community activities. Transforming an underused industrial courtyard into a green and welcoming landscape, the yard becomes the social focus of the development.

10 10 Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Y3 ‘Under the Weave’. The south-facing housing units employ a layered façade system that integrates solar control, daylighting and thermal performance. A PTFE overhang provides passive shading to limit summer overheating while maintaining winter solar access. A transparent FRP layer forms the primary thermal envelope, offering a lightweight and highly daylight-permeable enclosure.

137

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 3 Memory Palace

Alun Hurman, Kirsty Sutherland, Martin Lema Trillo, Graeme Williamson

138

Images top to bottom: Delphine Damiens, Y3 ‘The Ol-Factory’. Romesa Kashif, Y3 ‘L’Archivio delle Maree (The Tidal Archive)’.

Year 4 Mohamed Riyad (Aqeel) Aziz, Valentina Ballesteros Coral, Philip Bauer, Liisa Link, Marco Michel Postgraduate Teaching Assistant Kaia Wells Critics Gabe Brown, Ed Norman, Malena Royo Rodic, Rupert Scott

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Acknowledgements Many thanks to our site contacts at Villa Meneghetti: Filippo Zadra and Sara Lamon.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 3 Delphine Damiens, David De Wolff, Boniface Fraikin, Seungmin (Alex) Kang, Romesa Kashif, Ines Kenny Rubiera, Ga Tsung (Gabriel) Lam, David Morsel, Phitchapar (Lookkaew) Yu-Prapai

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

Today, much of what we encounter, exchange and value is increasingly non-physical: images, voices and data streams flicker through our devices, leaving little material trace. Experience itself feels impermanent; files vanish, platforms collapse and memories are overwritten in the constant churn of the digital world. In this condition, the act of gathering or collecting becomes both urgent and unstable. To collect is to hold on to fragments of the world before they disappear. Yet collections are never fixed: they are contingent, shifting and always vulnerable to decay, loss or erasure. Architecture has always been entangled with acts of collecting. Museums, archives, reliquaries, libraries, hoards, databases and even ruins are all architectures of accumulation – systems for holding, displaying, obscuring or monumentalising the gathered object. This year’s project, ‘Memory Palace’, refers to a mnemonic device that uses an imagined architectural space, such as a house, to memorise information by mentally placing images or concepts in specific locations within that space. In the first term, students were invited to define a collection, beginning from a chosen territory, obsession or interest. These collections could be material (objects, ruins, artefacts), immaterial (sounds, memories, atmospheres) or systemic (climate data, algorithms, rituals). The year’s focus then turned to Venice for the field trip: a city slowly disappearing from collective experience. Most of the building projects were sited in a disused Venetian villa in the Veneto. The 18th-century building, formerly a silk factory for culturing silkworms, became the basis for proposals exploring new forms of adaptive reuse. Students developed a wide range of ideological, cultural, performative and environmental programmes for the space. Other projects explored the potential of transient and temporary pavilions associated with the Biennale site. Architecture was understood not as a static object, but as an active cultural instrument – a collector, mediator and narrator. By speculating about collections, students interrogated the political, poetic and material ways architecture orders the world, and proposed new frameworks for gathering, remembering and imagining.

139

Architecture BSc

Memory Palace

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 3

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

5 1–2 Group Project ‘Pen Plotter’. Unit 3 installed a robot drawing machine in the studio this year, which generated pen plot drawings using bespoke coding to create experimental line work. The plotter allowed students to reclaim the ‘made’ drawing (as opposed to printed) as a territory for expression, exploring mark-making as an exploratory representational tool. 3, 11–14 Liisa Link, Y4 ‘Rice Archive’. This project transforms a historic villa complex in northern Italy into a rice research centre focused on cultivation and conservation. The historic villa hosts a rice degustation experience where cultivation, research and cuisine converge. Visitors explore the diversity of rice varieties through tasting, revealing the relationship between genetics, landscape and flavour; masterplan, section and model.

140

4 Ga Tsung (Gabriel) Lam, Y3 ‘The Space Between the Notes’. A music conservatoire and piano workshop; section through the recital hall. 5 David De Wolff, Y3 ‘Theatre of Preservation’. A theatre school and costume conservatory; long section of theatre exploring performance, circulation and occupation through a layered timber structure.

Memory Palace

Architecture BSc

Unit 3

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

9 6 Valentina Ballesteros Coral, Y4 ‘Threaded Remains’. A contemporary dyeing and weaving workshop focused on material research and bio-based fabrication; interior view. 7 Romesa Kashif, Y3 ‘L’Archivio delle Maree (The Tidal Archive)’. An isometric drawing of this floating theatre showing the form, stage, seating and roof. 8 Mohamed Riyad (Aqeel) Aziz, Y4 ‘Paper Workshop’. Axonometric section through production spaces and drying tower. 9 Delphine Damiens, Y3 ‘The Ol-Factory’. A contemporary centre for scent creation, research and cultivation, inspired by the tradition of the Spezzieri – historical apothecaries and perfume makers. A contemporary and immersive architectural experience, greenhouse interventions are set within the existing

10 structures, preserving the site’s heritage while supporting new programmes for cultivation, scent production and research; exploded axonometric. 10 Philip Bauer, Y4 ‘Glass Atelier’. This project positions a craft atelier within the setting of a historic villa in Venice’s Veneto as an active site of material transformation; the working interior of the atelier, with moulds in progress, refractory clay and machinery arranged beneath the bridge above, where the precision of the engineered frame meets the accumulated material memory of the making process below; brick hall render.

141

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Memory Palace

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Unit 3

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

22 15–16 Valentina Ballesteros Coral, Y4 ‘Threaded Remains’. The dyeing room and indigo sheds respond to the changing needs of cultivation through adjustable fabric canopies and rainwater collection. 17–19 Mohamed Riyad (Aqeel) Aziz, Y4 ‘Paper Workshop’. Axonometric and section through production spaces and drying tower showing a permeable copper façade. 20–22 Philip Bauer, Y4 ‘Glass Atelier’. Model; taxonomy of casts; long section.

142

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Memory Palace

Architecture BSc

Unit 3

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

33 23–26 Delphine Damiens, Y3 ‘The Ol-Factory’. Courtyard and interior view, masterplan and section. 27–28 Ga Tsung (Gabriel) Lam, Y3 ‘The Space Between the Notes’. Exterior view and section through the recital hall. 29–30 Phitchapar (Lookkaew) Yu-Prapai, Y3 ‘Cooking School and Culinary Archive’. Exterior and interior renders of pavilions linking a cooking school, exhibition area, library and restaurant set within the Venice Arsenale.

31–32 David De Wolff, Y3 ‘Theatre of Preservation’. 1:25 structural model of theatre space and section through villa, showing costume conservation and display. 33–35 Romesa Kashif, Y3 ‘L’Archivio delle Maree (The Tidal Archive)’. Aerial view showing the floating theatre within the wider context of Venice, bringing to mind Aldo Rossi’s seminal Teatro del Mundo; rendering and section of floating theatre.

143

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 4 Extreme Reintegration

Yasemin Didem Aktas, Samuel Esses, Baran Tanriverdi, Santiago Vélez

144

Year 4 Nadim Bin Nazri, Jingyi Lu, Leo Lu, Xikun Ma, Yilei (Dora) Qiu, Ahmet (Sadi) Urfali, Sihan (Sean) Wu Technical tutor/consultant George Cottrell Thesis supervisors Klaas De Rycke, Del Hossain, Ivan Korolija, Christopher Leung, Samuel Stamp, Farhang Tahmasebi

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Oliver Hall, Oliver Houchell, Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Max Ostroverhy, Ana Ruiton, Daniel Godoy Shimizu, Gennady Vasilchenko-Malishev, Yi Zhang

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 3 Eva Bruno, Alexander Chammas, Chun Hei (Rex) Hau, Mohammad (Shahir) Jadhakhan, Bisni Khaibakh, Carter (Ann) Stevens

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

In practice, buildings are often conceived as separate parts rather than as fully integrated systems. Over the past century, the construction industry has become increasingly specialised, with structure, envelope and environmental systems designed in parallel by separate disciplines, often resulting in conflicting assemblies. Even when described as ‘integrated’, these disciplines are usually coordinated rather than conceived together. Drawing on Tom Wiscombe’s argument for “extreme integration”,1 this year’s brief asked students to explore architectures in which structure, environmental design and ornament operate as an entangled and interdependent whole in the context of adaptive reuse. Central to our methodology was an investigation into how computational design and digital fabrication can open new pathways for working with existing buildings. This framework challenges conventional distinctions between performance and expression, encouraging new ways of thinking about architecture as a multifunctional assembly. We began the year with a research project centred on multifunctional prototypes. Students developed ‘chunks’ – partial, open-ended fragments that tested how building envelopes might perform structurally, environmentally and aesthetically at once. Through iterative making, computational modelling and material experimentation, these studies prioritised process over resolution. Our field trip to Barcelona allowed students to encounter integrated design at multiple scales, from Gaudí’s fluid tectonics to contemporary adaptive reuse and robotic fabrication. These visits framed the city as a testing ground for negotiating heritage, technology and sustainability. Students then developed adaptive reuse proposals within Barceloneta, a vibrant historic neighbourhood built on reclaimed land. Each project evolved from earlier prototype research, translating experimental strategies into coherent building propositions. The projects sought to connect local culture, emerging technologies and material experimentation with the social and environmental contexts of Barceloneta. Collectively, the work examines how extreme reintegration might confront pressing climatic and socio-economic challenges through radical strategies of adaptive reuse, in which computation, performance and aesthetics are collapsed into new integrated wholes. Tom Wiscombe, ‘Extreme Integration’, Architectural Design (Exuberance special issue) 80 (2, March/April 2010): 78–87.

Images top to bottom: Leo Lu, Y4 ’Geoboid House’. Xikun Ma, Y4 ‘The Old Man and Maians’.

145

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 4

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Extreme Reintegration

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1–2, 4–5 Nadim Bin Nazri, Y4 ‘Cooperativa Archive’. An adaptive reuse of the historic Cooperativa El Segle XX in Barceloneta as a civic co-operative negotiating tourism, cultural preservation and local identity. 3 Leo Lu, Y4 ‘Geoboid House’. An adaptive reuse of Casa de la Marina, transforming the residential complex into a multi-use workshop and office space supporting Barcelona’s emerging tech industry.

146

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Extreme Reintegration

Architecture BSc

Unit 4

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

6–7 Carter (Ann) Stevens, Y3 ‘Escola de la Marina’. A revitalisation of Casa de la Marina into a mixed-use maritime education centre and residential complex reconnecting Barceloneta’s youth with its fishing heritage. 8–9 Sihan (Sean) Wu, Y4 ‘Barceloneta School of Coastal Craft and Material Innovation’. A reimagining of Casa de la Marina as a coastal craft school, featuring a digitally fabricated ceramic façade driven by environmental performance. 10 Yilei (Dora) Qiu, Y4 ‘Returning to the Table’. The project reimagines food as a civic experience in Barceloneta, a neighbourhood shaped by local tradition, tourism and dense urban life, by transforming an existing building into a multifunctional food and craft hub.

147

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 4

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Extreme Reintegration

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

148

11–12 Mohammad (Shahir) Jadhakhan, Y3 ‘La Barceloneta Hub’. A reimagining of Casa de la Marina as a vertical community for innovation, combining residential, research and workshop spaces within a timber exoskeleton.

16 Bisni Khaibakh, Y3 ‘Posthumanist Health Innovation Hub’. A transformation of Casa de la Marina into a health hub where rehabilitation, fabrication and community care are integrated through adaptive architecture.

13–15 Chun Hei (Rex) Hau, Y3 ‘Estraperlo of Power’. A conversion of the Cooperativa building into a community marketplace where antiques, auctions and cryptocurrency trading redefine exchange within Barceloneta.

17–18 Alexander Chammas, Y3 ‘Popular Cooperative’. A revitalisation of the Cooperativa El Siglo XX as a cultural centre combining heritage restoration, community engagement and multifunctional 3D-printed façade design.

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Extreme Reintegration

Architecture BSc

Unit 4

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

19–22 Xikun Ma, Y4 ‘The Old Man and Maians’. A reimagining of the Barcelona waterfront as a myth-inspired cultural and environmental centre, featuring a thermally active 3D-printed stone façade. 23 Boniface Fraikin, Y3 ‘Lo Que Queda’. A marine research centre within the Casa de la Marina featuring a full-height aquarium atrium and topologically optimised structural exoskeleton. 24–25 Ahmet (Sadi) Urfali, Y4 ‘The Harmony of Waves’. A transformation of Cooperativa Segle XX into a communal music venue, featuring a ventilated digitally fabricated façade and spaces for collective listening.

149

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 5 Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda

Filip Kirazov, Aurore Julien, Luke Olsen, Olivia Riddle

150

Images top to bottom: Mengyuan Chen, Y4 ‘Life of Coffee’. Manqi (Claire) Zhang, Y3 ‘Held by Water’.

Year 4 Adam Bigas, Mengyuan Chen, Valeria Miraglia Del Giudice, Xuan Zhu Critics Richard Dilworth, Agnieszka Glowacka, Steve Johnson, Filip Kirazov, Mpho Matsipa, Iain McDonald, John Perski, Kaia Wells, Oliver Wilton

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Partners Richard Dilworth, Filip Kirazov, Iain McDonald

Architecture BSc

Year 3 Angela Abo, Khadija Ahmed, Stavros Borovas, Zichun (Joyce) Jin, Siyu Liu, Oliwia Miszcak, Rhys Williams, Jianing Xu, Manqi (Claire) Zhang, Terry Zhong

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students

History & Theory

In Unit 5, we explore clean energy, community justice, cutting-edge construction, cinematography and self-sufficiency. In particular, we imagine a future in which clean, free energy empowers the communities we work with to thrive in every building, village and city, fostering an atmosphere rooted in resilience and self-sufficiency. Working in harmony with nature, we investigate how architecture can adapt to changing climates and energy patterns found in the genius loci of the islands we explore. This year, students began by exploring the theme of self-sufficiency through the development, creation, testing and filming of a prototype demonstrating self-sustaining action on site. The prototype was deployed at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in north Wales, where students engaged with natural materials, sustainable energy systems and selfsufficient communities. The site for the building proposal was the lake island of Nkombo in Rwanda. Students engaged with the local community through our contact in Rwanda, Filip Kirazov. This connection provided first-hand information and dialogue with the inhabitants of Nkombo, enabling a better understanding of the community’s needs. The students developed their projects in response to these needs, embedding the theme of selfsufficiency within the programme, materiality and environmental strategy of their designs. The projects include a Poly-Cultural Re-Forestation Centre, designed to support local farmers to increase biodiversity through complementary indigenous crops that increase yields while reducing soil erosion; facilities for the fisherman of Lake Kivu and their triple-hulled pirogues, providing adaptable boatyards where they can repair their vessels in response to the shifting landscape; and a coffee factory employing deployable and adaptive architecture to harness renewable energy while maintaining optimal environmental conditions for the production of some of the best coffee in Africa. All of these projects included an element of cinematography, which allowed the students to produce short films, speculative proposals and posters that will be shared with the community of Nkombo.

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Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 5

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

152

7 1–3, 6 Manqi (Claire) Zhang, Y3 ‘Held by Water’. A birth and maternity centre that responds to a local story about unmarried pregnant women being cast into Lake Kivu then given shelter by the Nkombo fishing community.

5, 11 Xuan Zhu, Y4 ‘Weaving the Future’. The proposal brings together collective weaving studios, preparation areas, storage, teaching spaces, market galleries, public learning and celebration areas within a woven observation tower.

4, 10, 12 Mengyuan Chen, Y4 ‘Life of Coffee’. Looking over the serene Lake Kivu from Nkombo Island, Rwanda, the Amashi Terrace is a coffee washing station for growing, processing, tasting and recycling coffee within an active terraced landscape.

7 Valeria Miraglia Del Giudice, Y4 ‘“Mwazukire!” Self-Preservation’. This project is a regenerative hub promoting polyculture farming and reforestation along Lake Kivu’s shoreline, a proven method to reverse decades of deforestation and rapid monocultural agricultural expansion.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda

Architecture BSc

Unit 5

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

8–9 Adam Bigas, Y4 ‘Pirogues Centre’. A hub for indigenous trimaran boats on the shore of Lake Kivu, supporting the next generation to live and work with traditional and high-tech construction methods. Built with local eucalyptus trees in active bending moments, it is constructed on shifting landscapes using digital scanning and GIS to morph and adapt the building continuously with the changing landscape.

153

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Unit 5

Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

154

16 13, 21 Tianyi (Terry) Zhong, Y3 ‘Breathline’. This project overlooks Lake Kivu as a permanent centre for observation, research and preparedness, continuously monitoring environmental conditions while providing critical infrastructure for emergency responses to potentially deadly limnic eruptions.

14, 19–20 Rhys Williams, Y3 ‘Nkombo Observatory’. This project explores how sharing information from the sky above can rebuild collective trust on the ground. The observatory trains local people to enter the data market and boost the economy through collective knowledge.

15, 17–18 Angela Abo, Y3 ‘ISANO, Where the Broken Gather’. This project explores architecture as a space for reconciliation between people, place and faith following the fractured relationship between the Church and community during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

16 Valeria Miraglia Del Giudice, Y4 ‘Self-Preservation “Mwazukire!”’. This project is a regenerative hub promoting polyculture farming and reforestation, along Lake Kivu’s shoreline, a proven method to reverse decades of deforestation and rapid monocultural agricultural expansion.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 5

17 18

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture BSc

Self-sufficiency on Nkombo Island, Rwanda

155

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 6 Continuum

Simon Beames, Matthew Heywood, Samuel Wilkinson

156

Images top to bottom: Cosima Lindley Morodo, Kai Sethna, Anna Van Gucht, Y4 ‘Scarpalicious’. An iterated Carlo Scarpa detail using pressure-formed plastic, assembled as a curated piece that casts caustic patterns into the space. Unit 6 ‘Scarpa Glasses @ Tomba Brion’. The unit mimicking Carlo Scarpa at the Tomba Brion.

Year 4 Sebastian Eisen, Merve Kanidagli, Cosima Lindley Morodo, Barbie Santiago, Kai Sethna, Anna Van Gucht Technical tutors/consultants Maxime Ostroverhy, Hetian Zhang

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Lavanan Ainkaran, Brendan Chang, Tatyana Cheung, Oliver Hall, Meysam Paydar, Jake Philips, Jonathan Schwinge, Rei Sekiguchi, Eirini Tsouknida, Emma Wang

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 3 Omar Dawoud, Amika Denvir, Hansini Kammila, Joowon (Simon) Kim, Ishaan Priyadarshi, Qianmingyu Ren, Trevor Yu, Chentao (Tony) Zhao

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

Unit 6 explores architecture as a slow instrument, a practice that measures time, maintenance and collective care rather than producing sealed objects. Working in Venice, we framed the city not as a static heritage site but as a living system of repair, exchange and memory. The unit asked how architecture might acquire duration through procedure: through joints that invite revisiting, materials that carry histories, and civic structures that organise labour, knowledge and care across time. Students designed a tower and a fragment of settlement, understood as components of a wider network rather than as isolated artefacts. The tower was approached as a civic instrument, registering environmental conditions, hosting vertical exchanges and making maintenance visible, while the surrounding fragment operated as a system of circulation between programmes such as the kiln, garden, repair workshop and market. Projects developed through iterative testing, drawing and making, with an emphasis on how energy, matter and skills move between different sites. The year combined fieldwork, prototyping and collaborative research. The study trip to Venice grounded the work in direct observation of tides, materials and repair cultures. Students produced field maps documenting atmospheres, construction details and temporal rhythms. In the studio, they worked collectively, building shared material ledgers and testing assemblies at multiple scales, from 1:5 joints to working fragments. Digital simulations, environmental analysis and lifecycle thinking were integrated alongside physical experimentation. Projects were structured around distinct time horizons – 5, 10 and 100 years – shaping decisions relating to maintenance, governance and reversibility. Students developed not only architectural proposals but also protocols for use, care and adaptation. The work suggests that resilience is not a fixed outcome but an ongoing cultural practice. By foregrounding maintenance, exchange and collective responsibility, the unit proposes architecture as a civic process: one that remains open, legible and capable of continuous transformation.

157

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 6

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Continuum

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

3 1 Sebastian Eisen, Y4 ‘Energia Alta’. A civic tower emerging from Venice’s Libreria Acqua Alta bookshop. Using grid surplus and lagoon sediment, it stores energy and vitrifies waste into structure. 2 Omar Dawoud, Y3 ‘Il Mare di Mezzo’. A decision-making tower at Venice’s Arsenale. Reimagining a forgotten neighbourhood game, the architecture becomes a civic instrument for collective negotiation, governance and celebration.

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3 Merve Kanidagli, Y4 ‘La Scuola-Archivio’. This project reimagines the Palazzo Ducale in Venice as a living archive. It shelters a weathered fragment, monitors decay publicly and lifts the building to expose its foundations.

4 4 Amika Denvir, Y3 ‘Radici della Laguna’. This vertical garden tower rises from Venice’s canals, providing communal kitchens, allotments and spaces of rest for the city’s unseen but vital working population.

Continuum

Architecture BSc

Unit 6

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

5 Kai Sethna, Y4 ‘Il Grande Forno’. A titanium glass-fabrication tower in Campo San Vio, balancing stacked kilns and faceted forms to restore working labour to Venice’s reflection. 6 Chentao (Tony) Zhao, Y3 ‘Isle of Sound’. This timber tower group listens to Venice, redistributing sound and anxiety across the lagoon to provide quiet, weathered refuges for meditation and emergency response. 7 Anna Van Gucht, Y4 ‘Bit by Bit(umen)’. A Venetian tower using heated, dripping bitumen as a camera obscura and print medium, archiving the tension between preservation and burial.

159

Architecture BSc

Unit 6

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Continuum

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

12 8, 15 Hansini Kammila, Y3 ‘Torre Trame’. A woven tower acting as a porous civic instrument, revealing its internal workings and craft systems to sustain collective life through visibility. 9 Qianmingyu Ren, Y3 ‘The Contrapasso Tower’. This project turns ascent into an alteration of perception, using sensory passages to shift the experience from photographic spectacle to physical, durable awareness. 10 Trevor Yu, Y3 ‘L’oro Bianco e la Festa dell’Acqua’. This project uses timber graduation towers to harvest freshwater, salt and algae, transforming a Venetian desalination infrastructure into a festive communal civic hub.

160

11, 18 Cosima Lindley Morodo, Y4 ‘Una Città Altrove’. Using environmental data, quantum computing and recovered architectural spolia, the tower dynamically expands Venice into new, resilient rule-based settlements as sea levels rise. 12 Kai Sethna, Y4 ‘Il Grande Forno‘. A titanium glass-fabrication tower in Campo San Vio, balancing stacked kilns and faceted forms to restore working labour to Venice’s reflection.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Continuum

Architecture BSc

Unit 6

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

17 13 Sebastian Eisen, Y4 & Omar Dawoud, Y3 ‘Finestra ad Angolo’. This project reimagines Carlo Scarpa’s corner window detail through UV bonding and slumped glass, resolving structural and drainage flaws to cast shifting, luminous light.

18 17 Merve Kanidagli, Y4 ‘La Scuola-Archivio’. Reimagining Venice’s Palazzo Ducale as a living archive, this project shelters a weathered fragment, monitors decay publicly and lifts the building to expose its foundations.

14 Anna Van Gucht, Y4 ‘Bit by Bit(umen)’. A Venetian tower using heated, dripping bitumen as a camera obscura and print medium, archiving the tension between preservation and burial. 16 Ishaan Priyadarshi, Y3 ‘Atramentum’. This project protests against the digital panopticon, offering an analogue tower sanctuary for safe public discussion, writing and recording of the city’s change.

161

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 7 Nuragica

Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Yi Zhang

162

Images: Zoe Warner, Y4 ‘Vigne Celeste’.

Year 4 Darine Adel, Imaan Dadabhai, Eunbae (Lia) Lim, Esme ThomasNicholson, Zoe Warner Technical tutors/consultants Stefano Columbu, Kaia Wells Critics Francesco Banchini, Giovanni Cupani (Arup), Alberto Campagnoli, Günther Galligioni, Katya Larina, Mark Smyth and Sigrún Sumarliðadóttir (Studio Bua), Oliver Wilton Partners Fondazione Pinuccio Sciola, Is Perdas, Nur Time, Associazione Perdas Novas

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Acknowledgements Andrea Granitzio, Claudio Ollanu, Simone Ollanu

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 3 Sin Hang (Ella) Au, Lisa Bianchi, Henry (Gruff) Justice, Yanwei (Jack) Liang, Arina Pavlova, Defne Yalcinkaya

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

This year, Unit 7 explored the Nuragic landscape of Sardinia as a geological palimpsest where architecture, ecology and archaeology converge. Central to this landscape is the nuraghe – a prehistoric dry-stone conical tower that was used as territorial marker, defensive refuge or ritual space. Throughout the year, we developed projects through fieldwork, cartographic and geological studies, and material experimentation. A field trip across Sardinia grounded the work in direct encounters with landscapes, archaeologists, artisans and cultural institutions. In collaboration with Associazione Perdas Novas and Fondazione Pinuccio Sciola, students participated in workshops on a range of subjects that helped form their architectural propositions, including drystone construction. Design research combined physical modelling, structural analysis and environmental simulation, testing form-resistant systems and low-impact material strategies using stone, cork and earth. Students focused on astral archaeology – the intersection of astronomy and archaeology – to design sky observation stations and nocturnal infrastructures, using Sardinia’s low levels of light pollution to frame architecture as an instrument for reading the cosmos. Parallel to this, projects explored archaeology as an active and participatory practice, proposing sites of excavation, preservation and collective interpretation for visitors to engage directly with material traces and processes of discovery. Projects included observation towers, ritual pathways, agricultural infrastructures and spaces for collective making. Each proposal negotiated permanence and impermanence, engaging with cycles of use, weathering and seasonal inhabitation. The unit’s work proposes alternative models for rural futures, where tourism becomes participatory and slow, and architecture a shared cultural interface. By reactivating archaic knowledge with contemporary tools, the unit positions design as a form of experimental archaeology – building with time, engaging with the sky and contributing to evolving landscapes.

163

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 7

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Nuragica

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

7 1–4 Barbie Santiago, Y4 ‘The Landscape of Traces’. An archaeological landscape revealing Nuragic ruins through orientation, archive and atelier buildings, using stone and timber to protect and interpret buried heritage. 5 Arina Pavlova, Y3 ‘Fermentaia: Radical Coexistence’. An abandoned cheese facility and vineyard reimagined for vinegar production, stepping down the hillside uses reclaimed terracotta, granite and clay-bound cisto branches. 6–8 Sin Hang (Ella) Au, Y3 ‘Convivio’. A Slow Food commons that threads through soil, stove and spoon within an excavated terrain, bridging reused agricultural structures through rammed earth, stone and reclaimed timber.

164

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Nuragica

Architecture BSc

Unit 7

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

9, 12 Imaan Dadabhai, Y4 ‘The Walk to the Hollow’. A pilgrimage across three Nuragic sites, using hollowed chambers and excavated voids to guide an ascent through darkness, compression and stillness towards the summit. 10–11, 13 Zoe Warner, Y4 ‘Vigne Celeste’. An astronomic winery, observatory and research institute, featuring basalt and limestone in Nuraghi-inspired structures with vaults, timber and passive environmental systems.

165

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Nuragica

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Unit 7

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

14–15 Yanwei (Jack) Liang, Y3 ‘A Playful Guide to Vernacular Experiments’. A workshop exploring vernacular materials through craft, with stone, timber and cork structures inviting slow tourism and hands-on engagement with the site. 16–18 Henry (Gruff) Justice, Y3 ‘Tractus’. An archaeological and astronomical complex in a Nuragic settlement, built in four material phases along a public promenade linking excavation, conservation labs and a final observatory. 20 Defne Yalcinkaya, Y3 ‘The Holding Ground: A Terraced Campus for Soil, Stone and Shared Practice’. A terraced campus for archaeology, agriculture, architecture and astronomy, where proximity shapes shared learning.

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19, 21 Lisa Bianchi, Y3 ‘La Casa della Tessitura’. A weaving and craft village, redeveloping a former goat shed into a manufacturing complex to combat depopulation through local production and cultural education.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Nuragica

Architecture BSc

Unit 7

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

22–23, 25 Darine Adel, Y4 ‘Filu ‘E Monte’. A processional ascent from road to Nuraghi ruins, staging thresholds of geology, fire and astrology that guide visitors from community to solitude towards the summit sanctuary. 24, 26, 29 Esme Thomas-Nicholson, Y4 ‘The Drop Hollows’. A water observatory inspired by Nuragic well temples, with a stone workshop, a climate library and a subterranean bath, shaped by rainfall and weathering stone. 27–28 Eunbae (Lia) Lim, Y4 ‘Carved Strata’. A stone craft and cultural centre in Sardinia’s sloped landscape, revealing stone’s journey from workshop below to exhibition spaces above, featuring timber frames, arched screens and layered roofs.

167

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Unit 8 Responsive Tectonics III

David Hewlett, Michael Howarth, Annarita Papeschi

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Images top to bottom: Xinning (Greta) Yu, Y3 Aemotectonics: Trinity Buoy Wharf Performing School. Emily Sturgess, Y4 Cob Canopy Centre.

Year 4 Victoria Goraca, Nadya Kumar, Emily Sturgess, Yufei (Flora) Wang, Ziyao (Chloe) Yu Postgraduate Teaching Assistant George Cottrell

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Critics Esfandiar Burman, George Cottrell, Joanna Lai, Jake Philips, Enrico Pontello, John Roycroft, Erhang Wang, Mark Zudini

Architecture BSc

Year 3 Alec de Trogoff du Boisguézennec, Rebecca Hood, Aishah Maqbool, Maude Miles, Adriana Trueba Garcia, Thomas Wynne-Baerwald, Xinning (Greta) Yue

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students

History & Theory

This year, Unit 8 explored the built environment as a layered ecology shaped by the continuous interaction of living and non-living agencies. Drawing on post-humanist thinking, we framed urban and rural contexts not as static backdrops but as dynamic fields of exchange, where wind, water, soil, light and inhabitation participate in the formation of spatial constructs. Within this framework, tectonics operate as a responsive ground, where form, material and performance evolve through environmental feedback, enabling adaptive and sustainable spatial strategies. During the first term, students investigated the relationship between morphology and environmental performance through the study of hybrid material assemblages. Through iterative processes of diagramming and model-making, the cohort explored how spatial constructs can modulate flows of air, light, energy and sound. This culminated in the design of a small-scale pavilion. Developed in pairs, students examined the interaction between selected animate and inanimate agencies, producing responsive structures that made visible processes of colearning through spatial and material articulation. A field trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales provided direct engagement with sustainable construction practices, including rammed earth, timber systems and renewable energy infrastructure. This informed a broader investigation into low-carbon construction logics and inspired individual projects situated either within the Welsh landscape or in London. Final design projects proposed speculative educational environments operating as openended systems – adaptable, participatory and materially responsive – and positioned architecture as an active mediator within complex ecological and social networks. Structural strategies were developed through precedent studies, models, calculations and diagrams, refining efficient forms that balance architectural intent with cost and carbon performance. Environmental performance criteria were established addressing energy, water, biodiversity and internal environmental quality. A fabric-first approach prioritised passive strategies, minimising reliance on active systems, while principles of circularity informed material choices.

169

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 8

Responsive Tectonics III

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

6 1–4 Emily Sturgess, Y4 ‘Cob Canopy Centre’. A forestry teaching centre at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), Wales, designed around horse logging as a low-impact alternative to mechanised timber extraction. 5–6 Aishah Maqbool, Y3 ‘CAT’s Children Learning Centre’. At CAT, in mid-Wales, this project explores how built form can choreograph water across a landscape.

170

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Responsive Tectonics III

Architecture BSc

Unit 8

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

7–9 Maude Miles, Y3 ‘Llwyngwern Quarry: A Centre for Food, Soil and Ruin’. Quick food has become the norm, cost and convenience dictating how we eat and live. This project cuts into a disused slate quarry, carving flat surfaces from broken ground, returning them slowly to soil. Architecture becomes a tool for regeneration: a place to grow, preserve and understand food. 10–11 Ziyao (Chloe) Yu, Y4 ‘Quarry Oasis’. This project reimagines a disused quarry in Snowdonia, Wales, as a vertical ecological oasis shaped by its unique topography, hydrology and solar conditions.

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Architecture BSc History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Responsive Tectonics III

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Unit 8

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

17 12–13 Victoria Goraca, Y4 ‘Machynlleth Forestry School’. A series of buildings sprawling across a clearing near CAT in Machynlleth. It provides social spaces for older and younger residents of neighbouring towns, while providing education on woodland management and environmental care. 14–15 Alec De Trogoff Du Boisguezennec, Y3 ‘Pantperthog Observatory’. This project is a research station on a hilltop above CAT, merging a soil laboratory, astronomical observatory and wildlife observation facility.

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16–17 Adriana Trueba Garcia, Y3 ‘The Middlesex Filter Bed Educational Centre’. This project reimagines a former filter bed site in East London, once used to purify water for the River Lea through layers of clay and silt, as the conceptual driver for a new educational building.

18 18 Nadya Kumar, Y4 ‘Hackney Marshes Textile Workshop’. This project is a community-focused educational campus designed to support young people who are not currently in education, employment or training.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Responsive Tectonics III

Architecture BSc

Unit 8

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

19–20 Yufei (Flora) Wang, Y4 ‘The Light Gradient Conservatory’. This project proposes greenhouse learning spaces embedded into a sloped woodland site, which becomes a device for filtering, redistributing and observing light. 21 Rebecca Hood, Y3 ‘A Bird’s Library’. This library aims to provide safe spaces both for the students of CAT and local birds. 22 Thomas Wynne-Baerwald, Y3 ‘Mwydyn School’. This forest school combines outdoor workshops, cosy classrooms and pathways into the woods to provide a balanced educational experience for primary-age students. 23–24 Xinning (Greta) Yu, Y3 ‘Aemotectonics: Trinity Buoy Wharf Performing School’. Through a series of physical experiments and fluid simulations, zones of acceleration, recirculation and calm are mapped across this site, then translated into architectural form.

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Architecture in the Making: the Bartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange (B-made)

A collection of sculptures, moulds and drawings. Image by Christian Coackley.

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by Ben Spong

Encountering work in the making can be far more revealing than observing its finished counterpart. Unedited and unresolved, its incompleteness offers an invitation for us to engage with the work in a more active way, either by imagining its completion or contributing more directly to its making. This is partly owed to the sense that when you see something being made, or abandoned midway through, it offers an opportunity to get under the hood of the practice behind the piece. We are afforded not only the pleasure of imagining what the work might lead to, but also of joining, conceptually or practically, with the methods, materials, people and thinking that lie behind it. Part of the role of the architect – and perhaps its most unique capacity – is to gather a whole multitude of worlds and make sense of them in telling ways. One of the ways architects do this is through drawings and models, which are similar to work in the making in that they seek to bring about a condition of thought and production where possibility remains open. It is not so much about being incomplete, but rather about producing work that is as much about the making of things as it is about the making of knowledge. As one makes the drawing or model, one makes the idea that is being studied knowable. This is central to the methods and outcomes of architectural education, where, through practice and research, students develop sensibilities for navigating design while simultaneously bringing designs into being. Despite architecture’s aptitude for bringing about this condition, as a discipline it works equally hard to keep this view out of sight, visible only to those already on the inside. There are many reasons for this – the protection of the profession’s assumed authority, the vulnerability that openness brings, and the enduring fantasy of the autonomous architectural object – but perhaps the most significant is the pressure to express architectural value in increasingly explicit terms. To that end, the work architects produce to engage with the world beyond the studio often presents a far more certain and closed account of what architecture is, and what the work describes. From ten-foot-tall renders stretched across construction hoardings to the sub-millimetric precision of construction drawings, architecture appears increasingly resolved. The possibility of it becoming something other than what it already describes is kept firmly hidden. There is, of course, considerable value in this form of explicit knowledge. It enables coordination, allows information to be shared rapidly, manages tolerances and reduces risk. Yet it also privileges forms of knowledge that can be specified in advance over those that emerge only through engagement. Some understandings cannot be fully anticipated before materials are handled, tools are tested or processes begin to unfold. They arise through the continual negotiation between intention and consequence, where ideas are reshaped by the resistance, affordances and behaviour of the materials themselves. If architecture is to retain this capacity, it becomes important to ask how the conditions that allow such knowledge to emerge might be sustained across the broader processes of architectural production. B-made One place where this possibility lives in abundance is B-made, the Bartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange. As both an educational environment and a workshop, it brings together the production of things with the production of knowledge, recognising that making is not simply a means of realising architectural ideas but one of the ways in which those ideas come into being. Here, making shortens the distance between intention and consequence, allowing decisions to be continually tested, challenged and reconfigured through direct engagement with materials, tools and processes. In doing so, B-made affords value to forms of knowledge that emerge through making itself, placing them alongside those that can be more readily articulated through drawings, models or language. It offers a rare place within architectural education where tacit and explicit forms of knowledge are held in productive dialogue, creating an environment in which architecture can be understood not only as something to be represented, but as something to be discovered. Spread across Wicklow Street, Gordon Street and Here East, B-made supports every course within the Bartlett School of Architecture, providing the spaces, technical expertise and tools through which ideas can be tested, challenged and developed through making. While it embraces an unusually broad conception of making, ranging from LiDAR scanning and robotic assembly to printmaking and traditional timber work, it encourages students to establish a productive resonance between the means of production and the architectural questions being explored. The techniques, skills and feedback afforded by a particular material or process become embedded within the work itself, shaping not only how architecture is made but also how it comes to be known. The following passages move between a series of projects encountered on the workshop floors of B-made throughout the past year. Rather than presenting finished works, they return to moments when ideas remained open, revealing the different ways architectural knowledge emerges through making. Christian Coackley (Architecture MArch, PG23) To walk into B-made’s ceramics studio while Christian is working is to encounter clay in an uncertain state. At first glance, it is difficult to tell whether he is dissecting an animal or carving a figure. His architecture possesses a distinctly bodily quality, born both from his remarkable command of clay and from an approach that understands ceramic objects as architectures activated materially and temporally across geological scales. His architecture is made from the ground and imagined deep within it. In making the work, Chris appears to wear two hats: one belonging to the sculptor, the other to the archaeologist. As a sculptor, he gives form to bodily structures – “future fossils”, as he calls them – and imagines their eventual passage into the earth. As an archaeologist, he works in the opposite direction, speculating on the occupations, societies and cultures

Chris worked primarily through slip casting, hand modelling and carving clay. Here, he is caught midway between excavating his architecture from a loosely formed mass of clay and a plaster site model. Image by Christian Coackley.

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Architecture in the Making

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Fragment model of an early test assemblage. Image by Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao.

that might one day be reconstructed from these bodies when they are unearthed and born again. This oscillation between projection and excavation produces a curious temporal uncertainty, one heightened by the behaviour of clay itself, which, even in highly skilled hands, retains a life and logic of its own. Initially, the site of the project lay within the plaster moulds used for Chris’s slip casts. These provided a literal housing for the ceramic figures while grounding the work conceptually in the notion of a charged ground: an architecture lying dormant, awaiting years of pressure, water and erosion before its character might be disclosed. Later, the mythological landscape of Cape Sounion in Attica, beneath the Temple of Poseidon, offered the work a fitting setting in which bodies, fragments and architectures appear suspended somewhere between artefact and organism. Like the ground upon which they rest, Chris’s architectures seem not entirely of this world. Yet on what grounds can we know that they are not from another? And what might we learn by imagining the futures – or the pasts – that they invite us to inhabit?

Ben Spong

Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao (Architecture BSc, UG13) To encounter Christopher Tao’s project ‘The Stone of Theseus’ in B-made is to find stone in a curious state of uncertainty. Neither simply quarried nor fully architectural, it exists somewhere between extraction and assembly, continually asking when a piece of stone ceases to be itself and becomes something else. The project occupies the space between stereotomic carving, commercial stone processing and architectural fabrication, treating fabrication processes as a way of thinking with the material. Working primarily with Portland stone, Christopher moves between different methods of machining. Robotic CNC milling gradually excavates form from a solid block, allowing architecture to emerge through careful subtraction. Alongside this, commercial kerfing and splitting techniques are reimagined for digital manufacture, embedding cuts that later fracture to reveal forms shaped as much by the behaviour of the stone as by the intentions of the designer. The width of a cut, the speed of a tool and the grain of the material each become collaborators in the process. The investigation extends through waterjet cutting, where components are nested so that no clear distinction remains between architectural element and offcut. Every fragment participates in the final assembly. Material that might ordinarily be understood as waste instead becomes another architectural possibility, complicating familiar distinctions between whole and part, original and remainder. Representation follows the same logic. Rather than simply depicting the work, drawings are engraved directly in stone, allowing image and object to be produced through the same material operations. Engraving, cutting and assembly become part of a shared architectural language, echoing the lithographic traditions of the project’s site in Turin while remaining grounded in contemporary methods of manufacture. Like the paradox that gives the project its name, ‘The Stone of Theseus’ resists the idea that identity belongs to a finished object. Instead, it locates architecture within the ongoing negotiation between material, process and transformation. If every fragment retains the capacity to become architecture, then making is no longer simply the production of form, but a continual way of asking what a thing is and what it might yet become.

Portland stone being machined using a KUKA KR 6 robotic arm. Image by Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao.

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Architecture in the Making

Cast pewter rings retaining the remnants of sand and casting flues. Image by Esme Brebbia-Yee.

Hand-stippled tests on 1mm aluminium sheet. This piece models the terrain above Montjuïc Cemetery in Barcelona. Image by Esme Brebbia-Yee.

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Esme Brebbia-Yee (Architecture BSc, UG6) Esme Brebbia-Yee’s work begins with a deceptively simple question: what makes something precious? Rather than treating preciousness as an inherent property of a material, her project asks how it might emerge through proximity, craft and attention – and, in turn, how architecture might cultivate the same quality. Her earliest studies took the form of cast pewter rings and small jewellery-like objects. Working at the intimate scale of the hand, these pieces became a way of thinking through the relationship between material, making and care. Why do some objects invite us into an emotional relationship while others remain indifferent? And if an object can ask to be held gently, might an architecture ask to be inhabited with the same attentiveness? Architecture operates across a very different scale, making this quality both more elusive and more rewarding to pursue. Ecclesiastical buildings often achieve it not only through religious significance but through the careful interplay of craft, material and spatial sequence. During a field trip to Barcelona, Esme encountered this condition in Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, where moments of extraordinary material precision invite close, almost tactile attention, while the scale of the interior continually exceeds the body. Intimacy and monumentality coexist. Back in B-made, these observations were carried into a series of stippled aluminium studies. Beginning with hand-hammered sheets, Esme gradually developed patterns that caught and scattered light like caustic reflections across water. Each mark was both decorative and performative, giving texture to the material while producing an atmosphere that could not have been fully anticipated before it was made. As the work developed, CNC machining allowed the position and depth of each stipple to be precisely controlled, making it possible to extend these effects across larger architectural elements, particularly the folded roof planes of her contemplation rooms. Yet, rather than replacing the handmade, the digital process clarified where each mode of making belonged. Machine-made precision was reserved for expansive surfaces where light and geometry operated together, while handwork remained concentrated at thresholds, doors and window reveals, where the encounter between maker, material and inhabitant becomes most immediate. Mayar Abdul Nnabi and Jad Masarweh (Architecture MSci, Studio 2B) In much the same way that a scientist constructs an apparatus for a particular experiment, there is a strong culture across the Bartlett of making devices through which the world can be studied. As these instruments are made, they become a means of thinking about the phenomena they seek to observe. Their construction defines what can be attended to, what can be overlooked and the ways in which the world might become available to enquiry. In this sense, making the instrument becomes inseparable from defining the question itself. This is the approach taken by Mayar Abdul Nnabi and Jad Masarweh, students in Studio 2B on the Architecture MSci course. Their project centres on Two Tree Island in Leigh-on-Sea, where dark-bellied Brent geese return each winter after migrating from their breeding grounds in the Siberian Arctic. Fascinated by the interplay of wind and the earth’s magnetic field that guides these migrations, they developed a device that translates these otherwise invisible forces into sand-cast forms – a frozen record of the invisible conditions through which both birds and people come to orient themselves within this stretch of the Essex coastline.

Instrument for recording the interaction of wind and magnetic forces at Two Tree Island, Leigh-on-Sea. Image by Mayar Abdul Nnabi and Jad Masarwe.

The conceptual and practical precision of the project emerged together through the iterative development of the instrument itself. Each revision refined not only its construction but also the question it was capable of asking. Early prototypes revealed that the apparatus was still measuring aspects of its own behaviour as much as the environmental forces it sought to observe. A tapered hopper suspended from a slender steel arm constrained the movement of the sand to a single axis, while subtle instabilities within the base and armature introduced unwanted noise into the system. Subsequent iterations became an exercise in calibration. A broader base, reconfigured sail geometry and an elegantly simple ball-bearing hinge allowed the instrument to respond more faithfully to the interplay of wind and magnetism. Bespoke welding jigs ensured that minute inaccuracies in fabrication did not introduce unintended biases into the instrument, while experiments with sodium thiosulphate produced a casting medium capable of preserving the delicate traces left by the moving sand. It is easy to see the sand casts as the outcome of the project, yet the instrument itself holds just as much of its knowledge. Together they remind us that understanding does not arise simply from observing the world, but from patiently constructing the means through which one can converse with it. Attila Doman, Mariam Elsherbiny, Ahmed Mohamed, Layla Mohamed Mahmoud, Henrik St Clair and Seokhan (Casey) Lee (Engineering & Architecture MEng) ‘Nature Re-Framed’ gathers the surrounding landscape of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and returns it in fragments. An array of mirrors catches pieces of sky, planting and people, intensifying the nature around it while making each view contingent on the position of the observer. The work is both an optical instrument and a full-scale structure, developed by students on the MEng course as part of the Design Make Live module. The group began with a fascination for the rigidity of folded triangular plate structures. Early studies tested this principle through a small pavilion-like model made from recycled cardboard. It showed that, as a flat plane, the cardboard offers little structural capacity, but once folded or fixed to other planes, it can carry much greater loads. An interest in the structural capacity of materials organised in a triangular manner remained present in the final installation, particularly in the gusset plates, which consist of three triangular components welded to the main square hollow-section frame. The triangular geometry also became an aesthetic driver for the fractured field of reflections. Much like a Cubist painting, the installation disrupts familiar ways of seeing the world and brings attention to aspects of perception that often go unnoticed. The triangle suggests a solidity and rigidity that gives confidence in the structural performance of the installation, while the fragmented reflections gently disturb the observer’s sense of grounding. The same geometry therefore carries structural and perceptual ideas, allowing each to develop through the other. In a fitting manner, the installation was as fleeting as the reflections it gathered. It had to be installed, disassembled and returned to Here East within a single day. This imposed considerable challenges, particularly around transportation and the limited installation window. In working through these problems, the group conducted multiple test assemblies in the B-made workshops, learning which parts were best assembled off site and which were better left to the site itself. They also built a custom trolley capable of navigating the kilometre of terrain between the workshop and the installation site. A set of simple, carefully coordinated plates provided a mechanical tether between the structure and the existing decking for when the installation was grounded on site. Back to the Drawing Board These five projects are only several examples from a book containing hundreds of others. Each image gathered within these pages carries behind it a much larger body of work comprising conversations, prototypes, workshop tests, failed experiments and discoveries that rarely survive into print. This essay has simply lingered a little longer with five of them. That is, perhaps, one of the quiet pleasures of a book. Its pages cannot contain the fullness of these projects, but neither do they exhaust them. Instead, they offer fragments that invite us to imagine the work that surrounds them. To speculate on the drawings not shown, the models left out, the conversations continued around workshop benches and studio tables. In this light, the images become less like conclusions than points of departure. Few of these projects are intended simply to become buildings, nor should that be taken as the measure of their success. Their architecture already resides in the questions they ask, the methods they develop and the worlds they make imaginable. They remind us that architecture is not confined to the production of buildings, but extends into the ways we come to understand, imagine and remake the world around us.

Ben Spong

Bespoke welding jig used to accurately position the frame during fabrication. Image by Mayar Abdul Nnabi and Jad Masarwe.

‘Nature Re-Framed’ installed at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. Photo: Christopher Leung.

Cardboard mock-up in the MEng studio at Here East. Image by Attila Doman, et al..

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture MSci (ARB/RIBA Part 1 & Part 2) Course Directors: Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martinez Zamora

Year 1 Wapping’s Thousand Tales Pete Davies, Egmontas Geras, Matt Lucraft, Giles Tettey Nartey

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Studio 2A Seasonal Grounds Abigail Ashton, Laurence Blackwell-Thale

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Studio 2B Super-Natural George Bolwell, Vita Rossi

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Studio 2C A Thousand Boundaries: on the Politics of Comfort and Protection Olivia Neves Marra, James O’Leary

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Studio 3A Domestic Futures Murray Fraser, Michiko Sumi

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Studio 3B Pleasure and Practicality Nat Chard, Emma-Kate Matthews

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Studio 3C Days of Being Wild Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi

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Studio 4A Common Ground Kevin Gray, Johan Hybschmann

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Studio 4B Wish You Were Here CJ Lim, Maurizio Mucciola

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Studio 4C InfraFrancesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Rory James Sherlock

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Year 5 Year in Practice Dimitris Argyros, Finbar Charleson, Doron von Beider

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture MSci is an innovative five-year course that integrates the undergraduate and postgraduate study of architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 1 & Part 2) and includes a final year in placement at a leading architectural practice. During the first four years of study, MSci students explore design challenges that the built environment of the future must meet, and learn how to incorporate specialist disciplinary information and creative, sophisticated designs in their work. They also engage with contemporary global issues through an annual theme that addresses broad architectural and social questions, such as ‘Global Heath’, ‘Sustainable Cities’ and ‘Cultural Understanding’. These themes extend across all years and modules, and are examined from both local and global perspectives, encompassing historical, contemporary and future challenges. As well as defining the relationship between students’ learning and their parti cipation in design research, the MSci course offers a holistic approach to architectural education. It encourages connections between the subdisciplines of design, digital and analogue representation, technology, sustainability, professional practice, and history and theory, as well as between different year groups and staff members from both practice and academia. To support this, the course is structured around creative design research and close engagement with architectural practices, with the final placement year providing students with an unparalleled opportunity to test their ideas in a ‘real-world’ context. For both students and staff, the course continues to challenge preconceived ideas about what architecture is and how we use and inhabit space. It fosters a culture of individual research explored through interdisciplinary methods, encouraging students to test and re-examine the fundamental elements of architecture. Students are invited to embark on a journey into the unknown and embrace an experimental and forwardthinking approach to design. This year, the course saw an expansion of the fifth-year placement, with students joining a wide range of practices, including Morris+Company, Feilden Fowles, Foster + Partners, RSHP, TiggColl, AHMM and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, among others. These students are gaining valuable industry experience while developing a research project supported by both practice-based and university mentors. The annual theme for this year was ‘Global Good Health’, providing an opportunity for students across the course to share ideas and research in response to one of UCL’s Grand Challenges. Opportunities to share ideas across the course have been provided by our Open Studios events in Terms 1 and 2. These events were an opportunity to develop new formats collectively for discussion and have fostered a collaborative community spirit across years and studios. As ever, we would like to thank our incredible students for taking this journey with us. On behalf of the MSci course, we would also like to thank our Senior Administrator, Michael Casey-Gillman; our Departmental Tutors, Tom Ó Caollaí and Nick Jewell; our Year Coordinators, Julia Backhaus, Daniel Dream, Jane Wong and Dimitris Argyros; our Stream Directors, Haden Charbel, Matthew Howland, Guang Yu Ren and Kay Sedki; and our Postgraduate Teaching Assistants, Isabelle Donetch, Tumpa Yasmin Fellows, Lia Penela Failde, Tara Abdol Hossein and Natalia Michalowska, for their invaluable contributions throughout the year.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 1 Wapping’s Thousand Tales

Pete Davies, Egmontas Geras, Matt Lucraft, Giles Tettey Nartey

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Images top to bottom: Year 1 ‘Summer Show’. Showcase of the Year 1 design process through a range of media. Photo: Heng Sim. Year 1 ‘Glasgow Field Trip’. Sketches by Enric Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT) outside the Scottish Parliament. Photo: Egmontas Geras.

Postgraduate Teaching Assistant Lia Penela Failde Coordinators Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martinez Zamora, Ellie Sampson

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics and collaborators Will Atkins, William Victor Camilleri, Tom Davies, James Green, Charlie Harris, Lisa McDanell, Ben Spong, Ivana Wingham, Paolo Zaide

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Kenzy Abdelhamed, Rafa Adam, Wasim Alam, Julia Banaszuk, Mateo Beardall-Ainz, Micaela Blanco, Anqi (Angie) Chen, Yutong Chen, Jahan Choe, Tun Lai (Daniel) Chung, Henry Cookson, Dimitrios Coussios, Josias Djonga, Julius Dyble, Sasha Georget-Roukline, Rhys GlynnWilliams, Mattias Harii, Diana Harouei, Miyu Hayter, Theodore Hiorns, Andrew Hopson, Kerim Hudson, Hwandong Hyun, Jimy Ingenhoven, Alexandra Janowska, Nehal Jhawar, Simon Jurado Teran, Sumin Kim, Bhornpat (Namwaan) Laksanakorn, Tsz Ying (Ella) Lam, Chengqiao Li, Mo (Nemo) Li, Ruowen (Mercury) Li, Sebastian Lin, Zihan (Stephen) Lin, Jiarong (Linda) Lyu, Milena Marjanovic, Amaan Mathur, Jonathan Morrison, Beatrice O’Brien, Melis Pakis, Loraine Sambile, Heng Sim, Maria Smirnova, Lingwen Sun, Ziggy Thompson, Elizaveta Turshieva, Nyneishia Tyagi, Zeynap (Derin) Ulgen, Mariya Umar, Artemis Vermeulen-Pantelidaki, Alexander Watters, Scarlett Wright, Tingxi Wu, Boaz Wynne, Ziqi (Carolin) Xiong, Xiyan Yang, Hongyu (Ula) Ying, Michael Yip, Hongming (Gerard) Zhang, Yu Zhao

History & Theory

This year, MSci Year 1 students embarked on a design journey framed by the course’s annual theme of ‘Global Good Health’. Through this lens, they studied the relationship between architecture and the body in two main projects. The first project focused on the relationship between architectural objects and the body. Sited in the newly opened V&A East Storehouse, students examined two significant fragments of architectural history: the Frankfurt Kitchen – the world’s first fitted kitchen, designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926 – and a façade fragment from Robin Hood Gardens – a residential estate in Poplar, London, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1960s. On-site analysis was complemented by desktop research and a programme of guest lectures by professors Eva Branscome and Barbara Penner. Through this process, the students gained analytical and surveying skills, which were translated into speculative three-dimensional pieces combining digital and analogue techniques. In the second project, students shifted scale from the objects found in the archival setting of V&A East Storehouse to the historic waterside landscape of Wapping in east London. Once again, students used the human body as a point of departure and conducted research through the design of a ‘site interface’ – an object that mediated between themselves and the site – which they created in a series of B-made material workshops, from which they acquired large-scale making skills. These investigations informed an iterative design process that culminated in a proposal for a small-scale building grounded in historical, environmental and social research. The site interface served as a platform for the development of architectural proposals that showcase an ambitious and imaginative future for Wapping – one that connects water, innovative material practices and diverse design approaches within a historic setting.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc Architecture MSci

184 Year 1

1 Year One ’Building models’. Prototypes, models and material tests.

Wapping’s Thousand Tales

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Wapping’s Thousand Tales

Architecture BSc

Year 1

Architecture MSci

2, 3, 6 Zihan (Stephen) Lin ‘Not a Corridor’. Reimagining circulation as social space, this proposal transforms an underused park into a sequence of communal and contemplative environments that encourage slower movement, interaction and engagement with nature.

9 Sebastian Lin ‘Leisure Centre’. A waterfront leisure centre in Shadwell’s basin bringing together fitness, community and landscape through adaptable spaces, waterside architecture and a weathering brass façade that evokes the Docklands’ evolving landscape.

4, 7 Sasha Georget-Roukline ‘Temple of Love’. A narrative-driven spa explores separation, memory and emotion through sculptural forms, immersive sensory spaces and atmospheric representation, where architecture becomes both cinematic setting and experiential storytelling. 5, 8 Alexander Watters ‘Wapping Performing Arts Venue’. This industrial-inspired urban theatre in Wapping revitalises inactive space for community interaction. Featuring a cafe, green room and artist studio, it hosts independent performances and enhances local wellbeing.

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Architecture BSc

Year 1

Wapping’s Thousand Tales

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

17 10 Michael Yip ‘A Fear Clinic’. This project treats sleep disorders by studying patients and testing causes of deprivation. Its interiors intentionally evoke fear, growing darker and more ominous as one moves further inside. 11 Boaz Wynne ‘Palimpsest’. Positioned beside Grade II-listed Raines House, the proposal extends its community role through a flexible hall and pastoral dwelling, celebrating heritage while creating inclusive spaces for worship, culture and connection.

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12 Hwandong Hyun ‘The Wapping Exchange’. A workshop, library and residence reinterpret Wapping’s dockland history through material memory, layered thresholds and crafted architectural elements that reveal the site’s enduring culture of exchange.

13 Elizaveta Turshieva ‘Theatre for Librarians’. A theatre and library, this project explores contrasting spatial experiences through experimental representation, inviting visitors to encounter familiar environments anew by questioning perception, atmosphere, participation and everyday rituals. 14, 16 Hongyu (Ula) Ying ‘Perceptual Signal Field’. The project proposes a micro fire station as a small-scale infrastructural intervention, addressing gaps in emergency services while exploring spatial organisation, circulation and new relationships between signals, perception and the built environment. 15, 17 Kerim Hudson ’Raines Mansions’. Refusing to assume the site needs a building, this project uses leaves as generative material – timber structure, biodegradable walls, gentle foundations – to create shelter as a cultural centre and gardens.

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Wapping’s Thousand Tales

Architecture BSc

Year 1

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

25 18 Zeynep (Derin) Ulgen ‘A Turkish Tale in Wapping’. A contemporary hamam in Wapping to engage a new community with the Turkish bathing tradition. Stone, timber, water and daylight guide visitors through this age-old ritual. 19 Julia Banaszuk ‘Journey Through the Void’. This project transforms overlooked urban spaces into a theatrical sequence of movement, ramps, voids and performance, revealing architecture as an unfolding journey of discovery. 20 Rhys Glynn-Williams ‘Re-Learning Nature’. The building creates a space where community, cultivation, culture and nature converge, encouraging people to pause, reconnect and engage in architecture connected to its landscape. 21 Hongming (Gerard) Zhang ‘The Castle’. The project reimagines flexible workspaces through private studies, collaborative areas and shared amenities, using terrain to enhance privacy and adaptability.

26 22 Heng Sim ‘Of Fragments and Fables’. A community-focused proposal celebrating Wapping’s brickmaking heritage through material circularity, evolving construction and public spaces, reconnecting the waterfront with neighbourhood life while embracing the site’s layered histories. 23, 25 Ziggy Thompson ‘Nothing Is Still’. An interdisciplinary arts centre choreographs encounters between artists and visitors through adaptable spaces, layered transparency and kinetic façades, celebrating observation, creativity and public engagement with artistic practice. 24, 26 Jiarong (Linda) Lyu ‘Swedenborg Lighthouse’. A permeable residential sanctuary within Swedenborg Gardens integrates woodland, community living and illuminated shelter, using light, landscape and adaptable façades to balance privacy, safety and social connection.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 2A Seasonal Grounds

Abigail Ashton, Laurence Blackwell-Thale

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Project book tutor Bill Hodgson

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Saudat Bello, Alma Damer, Beatrix Ellerby, Khalid Jatta, Minghao Jian, Zi Lim, Yasmin Namayanja, Luwen (Sindy) Nie, Evana Ojeleye, Jack Pelling, Joshua Rodriguera, Eva (Grey) Umoro, Yilong Yan

History & Theory

This year, Studio 2A interrogated architecture that maintains a conscious relationship with the ground on which it relies and a responsive dialogue with the seasons that shape it. Architecture has increasingly focused on separating itself from the ground and excluding the weather, extending Reyner Banham’s notion of ‘tempering’ internal conditions to a point where inhabitants have become disconnected from the surrounding environment. In response, Studio 2A developed proposals for buildings that offer shifting habi tational arrangements across the year, fostering a meaningful relationship with the ground on which they are situated. Much of our inhabited rural land now exists as a threshold condition between urban centres and highly engineered industrial processes. Rurality no longer denotes solely the stereotypical view of parochial subsistence living. At London’s edges, farmland and woodland meet expanding urban infrastructure, creating abrupt transitions between city and countryside, community and ecology. Within these landscapes, land use is contested and resources are political, producing territories held in tension between natural and artificial agents. Post-industrial regeneration, landscape conservation and community infrastructure converge within the hinterland sites of London’s periphery. The ground at these locations is often a composite of natural and artificial matter. At the same time, their proximity to urban sprawl makes them increasingly susceptible to the effects of climate change. Against this backdrop, Glenn Murcutt’s phrase “touch this earth lightly”1 gains a renewed relevance, offering a useful precedent for an archi tecture that is both environmentally responsive and rooted in place. We asked, what does a sensitive development mean for the communities inhabiting our sites in Tring, where views from one side of a street extend towards canals and railway lines – providing a direct connection to London – while the other looks across chalk land, woodland and rolling fields? By viewing architecture as a mediator between ground and sky, the studio examined how sites, from the micro to the macro, can harness the optimism of a techno-vernacular outlook and foster a design outcome that is both rooted in place and responsive to the needs of its communities. Glenn Murcutt, Touch This Earth Lightly (Duffy & Snellgrove, 2000).

Images left to right: Yasmin Namayanja ‘The Repair Shop’. Zi Lim ‘The Gentle Playground’.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 2A

Architecture MSci

3 1, 2 Beatrix Ellerby ‘The Nesting Quarry’. This bird observation residency is embedded within the chalk walls of Pitstone Quarry. Designed for ornithologists, volunteers and birdwatchers, it uses elevated walkways, layered circulation and nest-like forms to enable long-term observation while minimising ecological disturbance. 3 Zi Lim ‘The Gentle Playground’. This project reimagines Ashridge Estate’s visitor centre as an intergenerational café commons. Shaped by water-flow patterns, the architecture and landscape foster play through movement, exploration and social interaction, encouraging engagement between people, weather and the estate.

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Seasonal Grounds

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture BSc

Studio 2A

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

4 Jack Pelling ‘Canal Clinic’. This project proposes a community health facility for narrowboat dwellers at Cow Roast on the Grand Union Canal. Responding to barriers in healthcare access, it provides check-ups aligned with canal travel. Its form, structure and materials are derived from canal construction, boating culture and the rhythms of life on the water.

6 Evana Ojeleye ‘Astral Projection’. An astronomy retreat shaped by visible constellations and the surrounding quarry landscape. Lightwells, planted atriums, skylights and viewing spaces connect earth and sky, transforming celestial patterns into inhabitable architecture and immersive experiences of light, ecology and observation.

5 Minghao Jian ‘The Threshold’. Situated between open lawn and woodland at Ashridge Estate, The Threshold provides a place for walkers and cyclists to pause, repair and reorient. Ramps, elevated walkways and a roof garden gradually shift movement and perspective, revealing new views through the forest canopy.

7 Khalid Jatta ‘Astral Projection’. An observatory informed by the geometry of visible constellations. Roofs, walls and circulation are shaped by celestial patterns, creating spaces for students and astronomers to learn, observe and collaborate through direct engagement with the night sky.

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Architecture BSc

Studio 2A

Seasonal Grounds

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

11 8 Alma Damer ‘Bird Observatory’. Located within the sensitive landscape of Tring Chalk Quarry, this bird observatory and residency combines sheltered viewing spaces with integrated avian habitats. Observation cabins are positioned along elevated footpaths, immersing visitors in the surrounding wetland ecology while supporting long-term engagement with local wildlife. 9 Saudat Bello ‘The Rebirth of Stone’. Samples from Tring Chalk Quarry are collected, scanned and remodelled to generate architectural forms for a geological orrery.

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10 Eva (Grey) Umoro ‘The Marl Baths: Inhabiting the Quarry’. A bathing complex invites visitors to engage with the restoration of the chalkland ecosystem through a series of internal and external pools.

11 Yilong Yan & Luwen (Sindy) Nie ‘The Isolation’. This project proposes a sailing and paragliding training centre on an island within Pitstone Quarry. Shaped by contours, wind and water, its layered roofs merge with the landscape, while bridges, ramps and docks connect accommodation, learning, recreation and the surrounding environment.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Seasonal Grounds

Architecture BSc

Studio 2A

Architecture MSci

14 12, 13 Yasmin Namayanja ‘The Repair Shop’. Situated on the quiet edge of the Cow Roast Marina, this project builds on the repair culture of everyday canal life and provides a space for narrowboat residents to maintain and reuse everyday household items. 14 Joshua Rodriguera ‘Form Follows Phases’. This adaptable workers’ centre is designed to evolve into a visitor’s centre, supporting Pitstone Quarry’s regeneration into a nature reserve. A stone exoskeleton and reconfigurable timber modules accomodate changing uses over time, reflecting the quarry’s evolving landscape through dynamic architecture.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 2B Super-Natural

George Bolwell, Vita Rossi

194

Images: Xining Wang and Ellis Smout ’The Marsh Cut’.

Skills tutor Krina Christopoulou Technical tutor Steve Johnson

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Critics Abigail Ashton, Julia Backhaus, Laurence Blackwell-Thale, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Haden Charbel, Ben Hayes, Matthew Howland, MateiAlexandru Mitrache, Olivia Neves Marra, James O’Leary, Thomas Parker

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students Mayar Abdul Nnabi, Kofi Arthur, Alex Burder, Eric Chow, Simon Fouchères, Sami Hassan, Ilan Huart, Jad Masarweh, Muhaimin Mohamed, Maria Nulud, Noor Shahzad, Ellis Smout, Xining Wang, Michelle Yoon

History & Theory

Studio 2B explores how architecture can form a symbiotic relationship with its surroundings, focusing on weather and climate as visceral forces that directly influence how we design. Our investigations span multiple scales, from ecological interactions to long-term climatic shifts. We consider how architecture responds and adapts across immediate, seasonal and generational timescales. By observing, measuring and interpreting the environment with bespoke instruments, students reveal the unpredictable behaviours of the natural world and identify design opportunities within this uncertainty. This year, we drew inspiration from UK and Icelandic landscapes and folklore. Environmental phenomena have historically given rise to myths that embed climate and terrain within cultural identity and collective imagination. In January, we travelled to Reykjavik, experiencing first-hand the extreme climatic conditions that have shaped Icelandic architecture and patterns of inhabitation. By examining weather systems and mythologies from around the world, we explored how climate informs belief systems. We asked, how might climate change reshape our shared cultural and psychological landscapes? As a studio, we encourage students to look beyond architecture and engage with a broad range of disciplines, including meteorology, oceanography, ecology, art and fashion. This year’s design proposals are situated in Leigh-onSea. Located at the mouth of the River Thames, the town experiences dramatic environmental transformations driven by the daily rhythm of the tides. We took inspiration from cartographic mapping, tidal charts and devices such as barometers and weathervanes, and pursued individual, experimental and ambitious working methodologies to establish a process-driven approach to design. We examined how factors such as wind, sun, soil, vegetation and rainfall can inform our architecture through analysis across spatial and temporal scales. Despite long-standing and often destructive efforts to assert control over the natural environment, weather continually resists predictability. To embrace this stubbornly unruly behaviour is to reframe our relationship with the environment – a relationship that is increasingly contested as technological developments challenge conventional distinctions and further blur the boundaries between human and natural systems.

195

Architecture BSc

Super-Natural

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Studio 2B

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

6 1–2, 4, 7, 19 Xining Wang & Ellis Smout ‘The Marsh Cut’. A film school using Leigh-on-Sea as its cinematic backdrop. Weather, wind and erosion continuously transform the architecture, creating evolving landscapes for learning, filming and environmental engagement. 3 Ilan Huart ‘Water Requiem’. A bathhouse that raises awareness of pollution incidents through monitoring of the local water quality. The tidal pool is used for bathing when clean, and transforms into an infection clinic during outbreaks.

196

5 Kofi Arthur & Muhaimin Mohamed ‘Reflections on Nature’. The instrument questions the relationship between artificial and natural within the woodland setting. The project proposes reflection not as a literal capture, but as a critical method for understanding environmental hybridity.

6 Noor Shahzad & Michelle Yoon ‘Finding the Wisp’. This project aims to connect environmental mythology with sensory technology, offering an atmospheric ‘encounter’ that reimagines the origins and movements of the will-o’-the-wisp on the marshland site.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Super-Natural

Architecture BSc

Studio 2B

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

10 8, 15 Simon Fouchères ‘Crystallising the Invisible’. This project proposes a halotherapy centre lifted above the Thames Estuary saltmarsh on piloti, where salt-brick architecture weathers, erodes and is returned to the landscape that made it.

11 11, 27 Mayar Abdul Nnabi ‘Charge Meets Earth’. A dual programme integrating concepts of earthing and human magnetoreception in a series of spaces. The project curates a ritualistic psychosomatic therapy space and researches humans’ relationship with the Earth’s magnetism.

9, 12, 28 Kofi Arthur ‘Daimochi Pavilion’. This project is an outdoor cinema and amateur film club. It explores robotic timber fabrication to create a temporary structure that supports its ancient woodland site. 10 Jad Masarweh & Mayar Abdul Nnabi ‘Magnetism and Navigation’. The instrument materialises the relationship between the site’s magnetic fields and its natural wind patterns through a series of site-specific sand casts.

197

Architecture BSc

Studio 2B

Super-Natural

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

19 13 Ilan Huart & Maria Nulud ‘Creek Navigation’. The instrument uses mechanisms to achieve movement independent of human intervention and aims to turn locomotion into a continuous act of making. 14, 20 Noor Shahzad & Michelle Yoon ‘Grounds for Change’. This project proposes an environmental parliament on Two Tree Island’s saltmarsh, featuring four ecological chambers orbiting a circular debate hall and a bifurcated voting walkway, transforming political decision-making into a visible, accountable public act.

198

16 Eric Chow ‘Fostering Habitation’. This project proposes a bird healthcare and ecological support centre located on the sensitive mudflats of Leigh-on-Sea.

17, 21 Jad Masarweh ‘Casting an Island’. An artist residency, gallery and workshop exploring excavation and casting transforming Two Tree Island’s marsh conditions into architectural terrain using concrete, aluminium and glass.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Super-Natural

Architecture BSc

Studio 2B

Architecture MSci

27 18 Ilan Huart ‘Water Requiem’. A bathhouse that raises awareness of pollution incidents through monitoring of the local water quality. The tidal pool is used for bathing when clean, and transforms into an infection clinic during outbreaks.

28 26 Muhaimin Mohamed ‘Belfairs Timber Works’. The proposal approaches architecture as a support system within the woodland, combining a space for production and research.

22, 25 Alex Burder ‘Lobster Radio’. This project proposes a new centre for music in Leigh-on-Sea, conceived as a civic destination dedicated to the creation, performance, recording and sharing of sound. 23–24 Sami Hassan ‘Floating Shells’. The key moments of a bathhouse and fish smokery are separated and rearranged, intertwining both programmes and enveloping them in a non-Euclidean grid shell structure.

199

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 2C A Thousand Boundaries: on the Politics of Comfort and Protection

Olivia Neves Marra, James O’Leary

200

Images top to bottom: Abbey-Rose Smith and Thomas Needham ‘Aquonica’. Concept perspective. William Batten ‘The Clearing’. Site investigation studies.

Media skills tutor Sam Coulton

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Abigail Ashton, Felicity Atekpe, Julia Backhaus, Laurence Blackwell-Thale, George Bolwell, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Ruth Cuenca Candel, Francesca Dell’Aglio, Ben Hayes, William Hodgson, Matthew Howland, Johan Hybschmann, Steve Johnson, Thomas Parker, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Vita Rossi, Ellie Sampson, Matthew Springett, Sara Martinez Zamora

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutor Sal Wilson

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Nicholas Abdullah, William Batten, Taslima Islam, Thomas Needham, Mitzi Quartey, Abbey-Rose Smith, Shania Sukul, Yunqiao (Clare) Tu, Yi Cheung (Talia) Wang, Regan Wong, Nicolas Zapata Susaj

History & Theory

Since the 17th century ‘comfort’ has commonly referred to physical ease, soothing and alleviation. Yet in its original Latin, confortare means ‘to strengthen’. For much of human history, comfort was therefore associated with reinforcement, bracing, assembly and building up. Comfort is intrinsic to architecture and central to humanity’s domestication of nature. Because humans never really ‘feel at home’ in the world, the pursuit of comfort is a search for the impossible. This desire has contributed to the boundless extraction of natural resources, the accumulation of capital, urban sprawl, austerity, social inequality, anxiety and mental illness. Yet, it has also motivated the development of resourceful forms of knowledge and practice aimed at nurturing our lives through repair, restoration and rewilding. In architecture, the concept of protection is rooted in the fundamental human need for shelter. Building is about shielding us from the rain, wind, heat and cold, creating environments that allow life to thrive in inhospitable conditions. Protection encompasses structural integrity, ensuring buildings can withstand natural disasters, environmental stresses and time. Materials, orientation and form are carefully considered to enhance resilience and durability, with protection serving not only as a functional necessity but also as a guiding design principle. Studio 2C rethinks comfort beyond luxury and extractivism. Through experimental design, students critically examine the relationships between protection, comfort and technology, considering a building’s full life-cycle – including extraction, manufacture, design, construction, occupancy, retrofit and/or reuse. This year, Studio 2C continued its research into the London periphery through original investigations of the Lea Valley. We began with a visit to Walthamstow Wetlands, a notable project of rewilding and reuse. From there, students explored the Upper Lea Valley, where wet woodland, wet meadows and marshland have been transformed by reservoirs, railways and highways. Under the guise of efficiency and comfort, sprawling urbanisation has often produced landscapes of spatial and social inequality, characterised by ecological disintegration and pollution. Against this backdrop, we asked how architecture might approach comfort and protection critically and creatively.

201

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Studio 2C

Architecture MSci

A Thousand Boundaries

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1 Yunqiao (Clare) Tu ‘A School of Gardening’. This project is set on the edge of the Walthamstow Wetlands. The design uses the site’s natural slopes and footpaths to shape circulation and create sheltered outdoor spaces; paper model showing an overview of the school within its surrounding topography. 2, 6, 9 Nicholas Abdullah & Nicolas Zapata Susaj ‘A House for Rod and Line’. A guildhall for Walthamstow’s anglers: architectural section; interior perspective showing the fly-fishing gallery and display of fishing equipment; interior perspective showing the generous banqueting hall, with retractable lantern, highlighting contrasts in scale and atmosphere.

202

3–4, 12 William Batten ‘The Clearing’. A convivial and restorative space on the River Lea for canal boat dwellers, which balances defensive aspects with a reverence for nature. Reeds become components of the architecture through the seasonal rituals of gathering and drying; 1:1 relief and site maps made using embossed lead and aluminium panels; perspective of the square where reeds are collected; internal render of the highly ventilated drying hall. 5 Regan Wong ‘The Loom’. This retrofit project is a mixed-use facility occupying the interstitial space between two warehouses. Moments of architectural tension are created between new and existing spaces; model. 7 Mitzi Quartey & Shania Sukul ‘The Wetland School of Foraged Food’. Axonometric 3D model showing classrooms and open spaces sitting under an undulating roofscape.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

A Thousand Boundaries

Architecture BSc

Studio 2C

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

8, 11, 13 Yi Cheung (Talia) Wang ‘Under the Second Roof’. This project retrofits an existing warehouse in Blackhorse Lane into a hybrid live–work environment for both creative and traditional industrial workers, beneath a new steel truss roof. Through flexible modular spaces, shared infrastructure and environmental buffering, the project reimagines industrial space as a place not only for production, but for belonging, occupation and everyday life; the perspective shows how the roof apertures dramatically light the landscape below. 10 Abbey-Rose Smith & Thomas Needham ‘Aquonica: A Hydric Landscape for the Post-Comfort Era’. This project is set 100 years in the future across Leyton Marsh, in an inundated flood scenario. Boats approach from the left as the glow of UV-filtration systems reflects onto the water, signalling the building’s function in filtering floodwater for hydroponic cultivation.

203

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 3A Domestic Futures

Murray Fraser, Michiko Sumi

204

Critics Eva Branscome, BarbaraAnn Campbell-Lange, Vidal Fernandez, Jörg Majer, Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Sara Martinez Zamora, Giles Nartey, Joshua Scott, Graeme Williamson, Mika Zacharias

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Partners Guan Lee (Grymsdyke Farm), Jack Sardeson (Perkins&Will)

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students Abenezer Abebaw-Mesfin, Constance Attwood, Hannah Bryce, William Cardoso, Ryan Chen, King Clarin, Raphael De Segundo, Ilia Dynkin, Rosemary Jones, Hugh Kilvington, Keye Shen, Yuichiro Tomita, Yuzhang Xu, Courtney Yau, Zeynep Yeşildağ

History & Theory

How should we live in our homes? What kinds of dwelling are needed for future generations? These are vital questions. Human occupation of the home has changed dramatically over time and continues to vary widely across cultures today. In the ancient settlement of Çatalhöyük, deceased family members were buried beneath the floors, causing the floor level of homes to rise with every generation. And, for millennia, people shared their dwellings with livestock as well as domestic pets. Walter Benjamin described the capitalist bourgeois home as a private universe of desire and consumption. Throughout the 20th century, Western homes became places for consumption and display. In 1950s America, the television was a domestic icon; today, open-plan kitchens permeate media images. We asked: What balance should our dwellings strike between physical form, health, moral values and patterns of social inhabitation? Emanuele Coccia suggests: “A home creates an intensity that changes our way of being, and everything which forms part of its magic circle. Architecture or biology are of little importance. We don’t build homes to protect ourselves from bad weather, or to pass them down to our children, or to satisfy our aesthetic taste. Every home is a purely moral reality.”1 Yet this statement underestimates the role of architecture, with private dwellings constituting around 70% of our built environment. Moreover, not everyone in the United Kingdom has some where to live – approaching 400,000 people are homeless today – and the quality of dwellings remains varied. Coccia’s account also tends to treat the home as an interior space, whereas it is essential to conceive of it as an environment, atmosphere and aesthetic object within an urban surrounding or natural landscape. We asked: What does domesticity mean today? How is it affected by new technologies? What new ideas, materials and forms might architects envisage? These questions connect directly to the MSci annual theme of ‘Global Good Health’, recognising that our physical and mental health is profoundly shaped by how we live in our homes. Emanuele Coccia, Philosophy of the Home: Domestic Space and Happiness (London: Penguin, 2024), p6.

Images: Ryan Chen ‘Dichroic Dwellings’.

205

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 3A

Architecture MSci

Domestic Futures

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

5 1 Keye Shen ‘A Table as a House’. This research-by-design project reimagines mahjong as social infrastructure, translating domestic gathering into a slower and more participatory form of publicness. 2 Raphael De Segundo ‘Educational De Segundo’. A partially submerged nursery at Hounslow Urban Farm that transforms Heathrow aircraft noise into an acoustic landscape for play, learning and sensory education. 3 King Clarin ‘Detergent, Deterrence and Disorder’. A public laundry house and council housing retrofit in Dalston that reimagines washing as a shared ritual for a healthier, more social domestic life.

206

4 Courtney Yau ‘Not Your Typical Home’. A hybrid housing proposal that rethinks the relationship between home and work, using shared labour spaces and flexible thresholds to support care, rest and community.

5 Rosemary Jones ‘The Playable Landscape’. A paediatric rehabilitation centre that integrates play, therapy and family life within a therapeutic landscape to support children’s physical and emotional wellbeing.

Domestic Futures

Architecture BSc

Studio 3A

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

6 Hugh Kilvington ‘Domestic Distillation’. A speculative urban croft in London that uses De Stijl-inspired spatial experiments to reunite domestic life, productive labour and human-animal coexistence. 7 Abenezer Abebaw-Mesfin ‘Menoriya for the Ethiopian Diaspora’. A student housing, church and community centre for Ethiopian students in London, using cultural continuity and collective living to address loneliness and belonging. 8 Ilia Dynkin ‘The Nest – Ultimate Dwelling’. A mixed-tenure courtyard housing proposal in Limehouse that reimagines dwelling as a sheltered interior, balancing comfort, affordability and shared riverfront life.

207

Architecture BSc

Studio 3A

Domestic Futures

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

14 9 Yuzhang Xu ‘Cohesion of Qi’. An adaptive reuse student housing project in Bloomsbury that transforms airbrick and Qi-inspired ventilation into a spatial system for collective living and environmental wellbeing. 10, 12 Ryan Chen ‘Dichroic Dwellings’. A Holloway Park housing proposal that uses heliostats, sun tunnels and iridescent atriums to make natural light to benefit health and social life. 11 Constance Attwood ‘The In-Between’. A Deptford housing proposal that transforms stairs and thresholds into social spaces, using tidal rhythms to connect movement, wellbeing and collective life.

208

13 William Cardoso ‘Systemic Ecologies’. An East London housing proposal that links rainwater circulation, hydroponic furniture and domestic planting systems into shared cycles of care between residents and plants.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Domestic Futures

Architecture BSc

Studio 3A

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

16 14 Zeynep Yesildag ‘Lace, Dust, Memory’. A respiratory health clinic that reimagines crocheted doilies as architectural filters, connecting domestic memory, visible care and cleaner air. 15–16 Hannah Bryce ‘Stitching the Threshold’. A community health proposal along the River Thames at Limehouse, stitching housing, kitchens, gardens and ritual spaces into a network of diasporic care.

209

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 3B Pleasure and Practicality

Nat Chard, Emma-Kate Matthews

210

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MSci

Partners Kyle Bloxham Mundy, George Bolwell (Do Ho Suh), Jesper Authen, Niall Hobhouse (Drawing Matter)

Architecture MArch

Critics Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Tom Fotheringham, Egmontas Geras, Florence Hemmings, Joe Johnson, Alex Pillen

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students James Alfonso, Thomas Dodd, Mlak Elbuzidi, Tomas Gaunt, Lele (Giovanna) Gong, Hisham Ilyas, Phoenix Koo, Neueland Lesdema, Hiro Matsuzaki, Mei Xin (Jennifer) Ooi, Ekaterina (Katherine) Varaksina, Victoria Wang, Finlay Warrell, Landuoduo Wu, Chuqin (Jenifer) Yang, Zhiyu Zhang

History & Theory

This year, Studio 3B continued to develop individual experimental research practices, with a particular interest in how ideas become things, and how things become ideas. Our brief examined how architecture can operate between necessity and delight. It asked how practical needs might become sites of cultural and sensory richness. At a time of ecological constraint, we focused on how architecture might cultivate forms of pleasure from limited means, proposing alternatives that are both responsible and compelling. Central to this is a methodological interest in how ideas take material form, and how making, in turn, generates ideas. Throughout the year, students developed design research through experimental modes of working, with a research project running alongside and informing their architectural proposals. Beginning with a site in London, students used workshops to establish positions, programmes and lines of enquiry. Alongside this, each student identified or developed a practical skill – such as cooking, instrument-making or performance – as a way of testing how knowledge from outside architecture might inform their design work. Through iterative experiments, drawings and models, projects explored how conceptual intentions could be embodied directly within architectural proposals. Students worked across both analogue and digital media, encouraging a thoughtful use of computational tools alongside physical making and drawing. Collaboration also formed an important part of the year, with students collectively making a site model. Earlier this year, we visited Venice to study the work of Carlo Scarpa and Canova, alongside the craft of gondola design and construction. We also visited Do Ho Suh’s studio in north London and the Drawing Matter archive, encountering examples of work in which ideas are embedded directly within material, process and form.

Images: Neueland Lesdema ‘Somatic Object’.

211

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Studio 3B

Architecture MSci

Pleasure and Practicality

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

212

1–2 Neueland Lesdema ‘Somatic Object’. This research-by-design project investigates perception through the lens of psychoanalysis, examining how geometry, material transformation and abstraction shape psychological interpretation, spatial experience and architectural design language.

5, 23 Chuqin (Jenifer) Yang ‘Bodily Performance’. This project explores the theatrical richness of everyday actions through a spinal health centre, where body-sensitive spaces and viewing apertures reshape experiences of care and visibility.

3, 6–7 Landuoduo Wu ‘Inside Another Mouth’. This project presents an architecture of misalignment, where a familiar exterior conceals unexpected interiors, reshaping bodily perception through the spatial experience of the mouth.

8, 14 Tomas Gaunt ‘The Wreck of Former Boundaries’. This project explores physical rehabilitation through a ruined architecture that connects patients to an underlying archaeology beneath the city, creating spaces that acknowledge and respond to their situation.

4 Srishti Srishti ‘Between Bodies’. Suspended between slaughter and surgery, this project traces the transformation of porcine heart valves into human transplantation.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Pleasure and Practicality

Architecture BSc

Studio 3B

Architecture MSci

9–11 Hiro Matsuzaki ‘Lost in Translation’. This project investigates the transition between orthographic and perspectival systems as a generative approach to architectural design, developed through iterative drawing, CNC fabrication and material experimentation. 12–13 Mlak Elbuzidi ‘Second Body’. This project explores architecture as a prosthetic extension through a final plan drawing and an iterative metal armature, which together suspend a ceramic mass.

213

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 3B

Architecture MSci

Pleasure and Practicality

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

18 15 Victoria Wang ‘Forest Hide and Seek [Sensory Refectory]’. This project investigates how sensory architecture can support comfort, agency and neurodivergent experience, using iterative acts of making and representation to explore blur, participation and withdrawal. 16–17 Phoenix Koo ‘Another Body’. This project explores architecture as a living system through architectural–creature hybrids with organic interiors that prioritise exploration and spatial discovery over conventional functional organisation.

214

18 Thomas Dodd ‘Ice Baths and Field Conditions’. This project investigates continuity as a design methodology, using field conditions to explore how spatial experience, material processes and intuition generate architecture through relationships rather than form.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Pleasure and Practicality

Architecture BSc

Studio 3B

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

19, 22 Hisham Ilyas ‘Holding What Matters’. This project explores the relationship between ritual and architectures of care, examining how architectural thresholds can articulate memory, faith, protection and belonging. 20–21 Ekaterina (Katherine) Varaksina ‘Weaving Form’. Using gauze as both a material and a design methodology, this project explores how textile logics can inform architectural form, materiality and spatial organisation.

215

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 3C Days of Being Wild

Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi

216

Images top to bottom: Haochen (Kevin) Lu ’Between Sleeve and Eaves’. Oliver Chandler ‘Activated Thresholds’.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Critics Christian Coackley, Barbara Nohr

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Luz Alvarez De Estrada Ortuzar, Freya Caine, Oliver Chandler, Chenhe (Will) Kang, Amelia Kong, Ziqiao (Joe) Ling, Haochen (Kevin) Lu, Elisha Morales, Amanda Paule, Haoyu (Howard) Shen, Xiaotian (Walter) Shui, Noah Spain, James Wilson, Tianhao (Steven) Xi, Shang-Ju (Sean) Yang, Paris Zhou

History & Theory

This year, Studio 3C explored the history of architectural design in relation to the history of books. Publishing – a discipline concerned with both content and form – has played a central role in the development of architectural practice. From antiquity and the Renaissance to the innovations of the 20th century, book design has shaped how architects conceive ideas alongside architectural designs. Books have long served as generators of architectural discourse, fostering dialogue between words and images. This year, we reimagined what it means to be an architect today. We invented hybrid practices such as gardener-architects, archivist-architects, furniture-architects, scenographer-architects and storyteller-architects, some of which were autobiographical, while others addressed broader cultural, ecological or social concerns. Alongside this, we studied buildings and artefacts made for books, including archives, libraries, scriptoria, desks, book cradles, reading rooms and binderies. During the Renaissance, architects were often expected to design clothing, theatre sets and even food alongside buildings. Reflecting on this history, the studio asked: How is the slowness of architecture informed by faster disciplines such as cinema and fashion? And in what ways are furniture and everyday objects inseparable from the spaces they inhabit? Architecture was thus explored through rhythm, ritual, care, set-building and film-design. Studio 3C investigated how design can be shaped by personal histories and non-standard concerns. It creates space for architectural practices rooted in individual propensities rather than institutional norms. The relationship between words, drawings and buildings has long been contested; the studio challenges the assumption that language is secondary to sensory experience, instead proposing that language constitutes a parallel reality through which we experience the built world. Studio 3C values curiosity, risk-taking, experimentation and hybrid methodologies. Design is understood as a process of discovery, in which making, modelling, drawing and rendering generate ideas rather than illustrate conclusions. This year’s projects explored identity, memory, ritual and spatial experience, and worked across both real and fictional sites.

217

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Studio 3C

Architecture MSci

Days of Being Wild

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1, 3, 6 Tianhao (Steven) Xi ‘A Temple for Dreaming’. A project speculating on the role of divination as a practice for the prediction of the future and the reconstruction of the past. 2, 4–5 Noah Spain ‘Paradigmatic Perception’. This project asks how ideology shapes architectural perception, using the lens of 17th-century Amsterdam’s competing medical paradigms. 7–8 Oliver Chandler ‘Activated Thresholds’. This project studies how early jazz publishing mobilised symbols, colour and composition to frame the visibility of the genre’s spaces, performers and audiences.

218

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Days of Being Wild

Architecture BSc

Studio 3C

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

9–10 Luz Alvarez De Estrada Ortuzar ‘On Light’. This project draws on Dutch Golden Age painting and 1990s French film to explore the use of light in domestic space. The project highlights the supernatural and cinematic charge of light as significant in everyday life. 11–12 Haoyu (Howard) Shen ‘Nostalgia Alley’. This project uses album covers from Midwest emo music to explore ideas of memory, domestic space, representation and nostalgia in contemporary Shanghai. 13 Haochen (Kevin) Lu ‘Between Sleeve and Eaves’. This project explores the boundary between cultural apropriation, identity and hybridity through fashion, ephemera and architectural re-dressing.

219

Architecture BSc

Days of Being Wild

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Studio 3C

Architecture MSci

22 14, 16 Amelia Kong ‘The Nursery of Solace’. This project combines traditional Singaporian architectural elements that elongate the user’s interaction time to explore the spatial experience of living alone.

Leendert Hasenbosch as a designed pilgrimage through Ascension Island, questioning how mythology, obituary and suppressive religious action transform cultural narratives of death.

15, 17 Amanda Paule ‘Perspectives’. This project explores the limitations of 2D orthographic projection through a series of 3D translations between the tracing, modelling and rendering of everyday objects.

21–22 Freya Caine ‘The Seed Arcade’. This project is an architectural game world in Amsterdam where players win, lose and trade plant seeds across immersive levels. Inspired by Dutch painting, light shapes space and movement, while fantasy plants evolve into space.

18–19 Ziqiao (Joe) Ling ‘The Block House’. This project explores the boundary between 2D comic illustration and architecture. Inspired by Dutch artist Joost Swarte’s ligne claire style, the project translates flat, equal-weight line drawings into a modular 3D building system.

220

20 James Wilson ‘Saint-Making: Five Pilgrims in the Ritual of Becoming St Leendert’. This project recasts the diary of marooned homosexual sailor

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Days of Being Wild

Architecture BSc

Studio 3C

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

30 23–24 Chenhe (Will) Kang ‘Language & Tea’. The project challenges conventional teacher-led spaces and explores a pedagogical framework grounded in Total Physical Response, using the highly ritualised and physically engaging practice of Chinese Gongfu Tea as the primary medium for language acquisition. 25–26, 29 Xiaotian (Walter) Shui ‘Rehearsing the Everyday’. Built on Venice’s first public theatre, now a garden, this project responds to a city whose public life is retreating. It reimagines home as an open theatre: rooms attached to the façade invite residents and visitors to transform domesticity into performance. 27–28 Shang-Ju (Sean) Yang ‘Memory in Fragments’. This project explores how architecture reconstructs fragmented memories through drawing, objects, rituals and spatial interventions. Rooted in personal history, it

31 examines memory as continually reshaped through recollection, misremembering and shared experiences. 30–31 Elisha Morales ‘Queertopia’. This project imagines queerness as the norm, rethinking colonial architecture in the Philippines through fluid identities. Blending contemporary and precolonial Filipino understandings of gender and sexuality, it envisions buildings and objects as living entities, celebrating individuality, multiplicity and self-expression.

221

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 4A Common Ground

Kevin Gray, Johan Hybschmann

222

Images: Eunice Dingcong ‘Capture of the Fleeting’.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Technical tutor/consultant Andrew Whiting

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Hamzah Ahmed, Bianca Albeanu, Ruben Alexander, Yuxuan (Nemo) Cai, Jianhao Chen, Eunice Dingcong, Annabelle Edwards, Kim Lee, Lia Penela Failde, Isabel Toms, Thaleia Tsoutsos

History & Theory

‘Common Ground’ was the guiding theme for Studio 4A this year. We positioned architecture as an agent of social change, encouraging students to design beyond the limits of their sites to actively enhance their urban contexts. Each site was understood as a landscape of overlapping interests, and each building as a landscape in itself. Alongside carbon performance and economic accountability, we foregrounded social sustainability as a core design concern. We encouraged students to integrate the concept of time into their initial design considerations: How long do you intend to design? Is your building intended as a temporary measure for a better future, or did you plan to incorporate potential changes? Projects were conceived as temporary catalysts, adaptable frameworks or enduring anchors that build identity and safeguard community. We promoted counter-programmes and multi-programme spaces that expand public access, resist excessive commercialisation and embed architecture within the cultural life of local communities. Architects have a responsibility to extend their thinking beyond the confines of their own projects, as buildings inevitably have an impact on their environment. This year’s objective was to enhance the context when altering a site. We proposed architectural and landscape designs that counteract ‘selfish’ design practices and improve the connection between local communities and between buildings, as well as enhancing the broader discourse on architecture as a catalyst for social change. We aimed to reinterpret and redefine the concept of an ‘exposition’ to concentrate primarily on the construction of buildings that serve as models of socially and design-driven initiatives within their respective contexts. In doing so, students considered forward-thinking experiments that draw inspiration from London’s rich cultural heritage. Regardless of scale or ambition, the studio discussed if it was possible to use architecture to enhance a location, create something exemplary and contribute positively to the city. We asked: How could one design with this objective in mind?

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Common Ground

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Studio 4A

Architecture MSci

8 1, 3–4, 7 Eunice Dingcong ‘Capture of the Fleeting’. This project reimagines the historic Wapping Pumping Station and Shadwell Basin as part of a new cultural landscape centred on water, performance and atmosphere. Here, water is not simply a backdrop but an active architectural and phenomenological agent. 2, 5–6, 8–9 Lia Penela Failde ‘Low Level: Between the Visible, Invisible and Possible’. Bishopsgate Low Level reimagines a hidden railway landscape as a suspended public terrain, where architecture, infrastructure and landscape converge to create opportunities for discovery and new forms of collective life.

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Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Common Ground

Architecture BSc

Studio 4A

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

10–11, 13 Yuxuan (Nemo) Cai ‘Gilbeys Yard New Urban Prototype’. This project renews an existing estate through modular vertical extension and adaptive reuse, creating a community-focused landscape that supports nature, everyday life and future growth without the need for demolition. 12 Annabelle Edwards ‘Within the Wall’. This project reimagines urban housing as a landscape-led community, where residential blocks frame shared civic spaces, biodiversity corridors and facilities that support ecological restoration, social interaction and wellbeing. 14, 16 Ruben Alexander ‘The Assembly of London’s Citizens’. This project proposes the first building designed specifically for a new form of direct democracy. Sitting in dialogue with the Greater London Authority, it draws people and civic energy from the Docklands into a new space for democratic participation.

18 15, 18 Jianhao Chen ‘Body Landscape: Reimagining HS2 Old Oak Common Station as Community Infrastructure’. This project reimagines Old Oak Common station as a living bridge, transforming a transit barrier into active public infrastructure while stitching together the fragmented urban fabric through community spaces above the railway. 17 Kim Lee ‘Architecture as Choreography: Rhythms of Tottenham Green’. This project features systems that respond to movement, expression and gathering. A semi-permeable framework engages the social rhythms of Tottenham Green, hosting an intimate, subterranean layer of lightweight structures that contain an art gallery, workshops and dance studios.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 4B Wish You Were Here

CJ Lim, Maurizio Mucciola

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Images top to bottom: Rahul Faizer ‘Perennial Institute’. Nadia Kwiecinska ’The Fourth Wall: Remediation of Convoys Wharf’.

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Technical tutor Joana Goncalves

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Students William Applegate, Yi Chuah, Bingchen (Bruce) Duan, Rahul Faizer, Zihan Gan, Tate Kiveal, Nadia Kwiecinska, Ahsanul Momen, Hanna Porooshani Nia, Yiting Wang

History & Theory

Studio 4B situates its work within the poetics of decay, engaging with the fragile urban landscape of London – a global city shaped by cycles of prosperity, neglect and reinvention. Philosophical traditions, from the Japanese concept of wabisabi to contemporary urban theory, affirm that beauty emerges from transience and imperfection, suggesting that decaying environments can foster authenticity and intimacy. John Ruskin, in The Stones of Venice, likewise critiqued rigid precision, asserting that true beauty resides in the expression of imperfection. Against the backdrop of the climate emergency – with increasingly frequent flooding, unpredictable weather events and shifting seasonal rhythms – we asked: How might architecture and urbanism reimagine our cities through strategies of adaptive reuse? Design proposals were at once socially generous, resourceful and attentive to the fragile beauty of ageing and decay. Rather than turning to demolition or unsustainable forms of regeneration, Studio 4B embraced reuse, spolia and adaptability as foundations for new futures. Decay was embraced as an architectural condition, with fragments, remnants and ruins not being viewed as detritus but raw material for creative and technological innovation. Students investigated how elements can be dismantled, relocated, transformed and reassembled, generating new forms of architecture from the remains of existing structures. In this context, the act of disassembly became as important as the act of design. Rather than treating ageing as a failure, the studio investigated how weathering and corrosion can enrich space-making by asking, how can we design buildings that age gracefully, reducing maintenance demands while increasing poetic resonance over time? Framed by the annual theme of ‘Global Good Health’, we explored how architecture engages with overlapping scales of wellbeing: communities under pressure from gentrification; the planet through non-extraction and climatic response; and the discipline through the recognition of productive uncertainty as vital to intellectual wellbeing. The aim was not nostalgia, but reinvention. By refusing demolition and embracing decay, we designed architectures and futures where both people and the planet flourish.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

Studio 4B

Wish You Were Here

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

5 1 Yiting Wang ‘Rehousing, Restitching, Restoring: A Network of Care in Limehouse’. The proposal retains the historic brick façade and inserts a lightweight steel structure behind it. The removal of the ground floor creates an open garden threshold, while a new vertical extension establishes additional space for collective making activities above. 2 Hanna Porooshani Nia ‘Nomadic Urbanism: A Framework for Future-Conscious Densification’. In this project the existing building is treated as a new urban ground capable of supporting future growth. Rather than demolition and replacement, new architecture emerges from, and builds upon, what already exists.

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3, 5, 9 Zihan Gan ‘Stitching the Everyday’. This project proposes the retrofit of three vacant retail units on East Street into a hybrid care and market-support centre. Curved and extended timber beams connect the street and interior spaces, with canopy above them, creating a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Artificial lighting is required for both buildings, which close at 5pm, and the street. Light fixtures are arranged according to the beams and installed on specially designed roof members. 4, 7 Rahul Faizer ‘Perennial Institute’. This project is a proposal for 195 Mare Street, reimagining one of Hackney’s oldest buildings as a civic health and community hub. The rear atrium has a trio of planting beds filled with tall flora like bamboo, reeds, canes and flowering climbers. The lift shaft is glazed, surrounded by a steel structure and metal mesh, similar to the fourth floor.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Wish You Were Here

Architecture BSc

Studio 4B

Architecture MSci

6 Nadia Kwiecinska ‘The Fourth Wall: Remediation of Convoys Wharf’. A temporary remediation and public engagement project for the contaminated brownfield site at Convoys Wharf. The visualisation of the industrial contamination build-up is overlayed with the ‘soft vs. hard’ grid intervention concept, proposed for the mastersite. The soft grid serves as a rewilding guideline for reclamation and healing of the land by introducing remediative plant species, while the hard grid brings an order for the building and transport systems, sitting as lightly on the contaminated ground as possible. 8 Bingchen (Bruce) Duan ‘The Rhubarb & Honey Line’. This project turns two abandoned warehouses and one office building in Silvertown into a productive community farm. After removing the warehouse roof, the central courtyard becomes a fully open bee garden, providing a sheltered outdoor habitat for suspended hives and free flight. The hives can be lowered when required for maintenance and honey collection.

10 10 Yi Chuah ‘Celebration of Love, and Everything Between’. This project reimagines the former York Road Underground Station as a civic event space for life’s major transitions: birth, union and death. View from the Islington-Camden boundary, where the station becomes a civic threshold, rising from its retained shell into a vertical landscape. Lightweight cables and open platforms create a soft, permeable structure for gathering, ceremony and reflection between ground, sky and city.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Studio 4C Infra-

Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Rory James Sherlock

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MSci Architecture MArch

Technical tutor/consultant Nicholas Jewell

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Amelia Blanksby, Pauline Comte, Abdelrahman Eladawi, Yi Xi (Muvis) Hui, Hafiza Hussain, Oyindamolaoluwa Olunloyo, Chanunchida (Pung Pung) Phonoi, Charlotte Pike, Eleanor Rudd-Jones, Ethan Starkey, Louis Thomas

History & Theory

Studio 4C explores the city as an idea shaped by disciplines beyond architecture, and infrastructure as the critical life-systems that sustain it. We are interested in diverse economies of value beyond finance, ideas as a currency of exchange, complex dispositions of urban space and long-term, nuanced and multi-layered strategies to shape the future city and the lives of its inhabitants positively. This requires us to acknowledge architects as more than just building designers, to wear many disciplinary hats at once, and to work collaboratively to affect favourably the intricate web of intersecting processes that shape the built environment today. This year, the Thames Tideway Tunnel – a 25km-long super sewer running beneath the River Thames – was the locus of our investigations. Through direct processes of observation, translation and representation, students explored ways of seeing and valuing the often overlooked. The studio aimed to uncover the hidden potential within the most unlikely places, expressing it through the production of beautiful, intelligent and articulate spatial projects. The projects produced throughout the year employed a range of critical and analytical tools to understand the systems that facilitate the sustainable transformation of a city. By identifying and recording latent value in the parts of the city that normally go unnoticed, each project proposed a bold idea about the role of the architect in shaping urban futures. Using the MSci course as a laboratory for the development of viable models for future practice, students critically reflect on, inform and challenge the systems, ideas and practices of everyday life that shape a city and its inhabitants.

Images top to bottom: Ethan Starkey ‘The Incompleat Angler’. Eleanor Rudd-Jones ‘A Cemetery of Layered Time’.

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Architecture BSc

Studio 4C

Infra-

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

3 1 Eleanor Rudd-Jones ‘A Cemetery of Layered Time’. This project begins with a simple proposition: everything that lives must die, but nothing is ever truly gone. Set within Nunhead Cemetery, this project explores architecture as a process of transformation through stewardship, reuse and decay, where materials, memories and rituals continually circulate between death, growth, loss and renewal.

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2 Yi Xi (Muvis) Hui ‘Between the Visible and the Concealed’. This project retrofits overlooked subterranean spaces beneath Smithfield Market into a Map Restoration Centre for the future London Museum. Working with existing infrastructures, it transforms former service voids into spaces for conservation, archiving and public engagement. A dedicated transportation rail system reveals the movement, preservation and restoration of cultural heritage.

3, 6 Chanunchida (Pung Pung) Phonoi ‘Anatomy of Hidden Rivers’. Situated beside Abbey Mills Pumping Station in the Lower Lea Valley, the project reimagines water infrastructure as a civic landscape where bathing, learning, monitoring and stewardship unfold alongside the movement of water. Hidden hydrological systems become visible through public occupation, transforming environmental maintenance into a shared cultural and spatial experience.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Infra-

Architecture BSc

Studio 4C

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

4 Amelia Blanksby ‘Sailmaker’s Press’. This project reimagines the historic industrial building at 777 Commercial Road, Limehouse, as a communityfocused publishing house. Responding to rapid residential growth and industrial decline, it transforms former manufacturing spaces into places for printing, publishing, workshops, studios and events, creating a platform for local storytelling, exchange and collective cultural production. 5 Ethan Starkey ‘The Incompleat Angler’. Taking its title from Isaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, this project draws upon angling as a practice of attentiveness to the River Lea. Through a network of architectural and landscape interventions, it responds to ecological decline, adapting existing infrastructure to support conservation, education, stewardship and collective action.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 5 Year in Practice

Dimitris Argyros, Finbar Charleson, Doron von Beider

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Images top to bottom: Forrest Xie ‘Moving a Barn’. Jia Chan ‘Stone, its Alternatives, and their Afterlife’.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Andy Bryce, Herman Calleja, Kevin Carter, Claire Devanney, Manuel Gonzalez-Nogueira, Peter Greaves, Shireen Han, Darron Haylock, Maia Lemlij, Andrew Macintosh, James Nutt, Timothy O’Callahan, Mai Omi, Kate Prudence, David Storring, Alastair Walker, Bill Webb, Simon Wimble, Neil Young

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students Jihoon Baek, Jia Chan, Jenny Cheng, Xan Goetzee-Barral, Anda Guinea, Salyme Gunsaya, Charles Hayles, Divine-Dione (Nikki) Ifeobu-Zubis, James Kennedy, Yan Yu (Charisse) Kwong, Jayne Lee, Nan Esther Mei, Matan Michaels, Alannah Nethercott, May Parkes-Young, Jasmine Shek, Raihan Syed, Charles Timms, Janssen Wong, Forrest Xie, Lizhe Zhang (Enrique) Zhuo

History & Theory

The final year of the MSci course is spent in paid placement, where students typically commit 75% of their time to the practice’s fee-billable design work, gaining valuable experience on real-life projects. The remaining 25% is dedicated to investigating a design research topic that benefits both the practice and the student’s own interests developed over the previous four years of their studies. Architectural design research plays a significant role in addressing contemporary challenges, including global heating, social and economic inequality, and wider geopolitical uncertainties. This year in practice therefore provides a unique opportunity for students to question the wider role and relevance of architecture and the built environment. This year, the Year 5 cohort increased to 21 students, and we are delighted that they have undertaken placements within a range of outstanding practices, including Able Partners, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Carter Gregson Gray, Foster + Partners, Feilden Fowles, Group Ginger, Lyall Bills & Young Architects, Make Architects, Morris+Company, nimtim architects, RSHP, Scott Brownrigg, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), TiggColl, vPPR Architects and XUL Architecture. Each student was supported by an academic mentor from UCL and a mentor within their practice. Working closely with both, students identified and developed a design research project. Typically, students met their practice mentor each week and their academic mentor monthly, alongside joint tutorials held once each term. We were also pleased to host two Open Studio events, bringing together practice mentors, academic mentors and students for cross-reviews that generated lively debate and discussion. Students explored a diverse range of research topics, including material innovation and technology, approaches to circularity and social value, site historical research and contextual mapping, and various design typologies and strategies. At the end of the academic year, each student submitted a research paper incorporating mixed-media drawings, photographs and material samples, alongside a practice portfolio documenting the professional experience and design work undertaken over the year.

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Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Year 5

Architecture MSci

Year in Practice

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

5 1, 5 Jihoon Baek ‘To Home, To Hold: Reconstructing Housing as Preventative Health Infrastructure’. A non-displacing peripheral retrofit of post-war housing in London, restoring the home as preventative health infrastructure through environmental buffers, shared thresholds and partnerships that address cold, damp and social isolation. 2 Charles Timms ‘Material Trace’. Despite the growing appetite for circular design, reuse and retrofit, key enablers such as circular hubs are lacking within our communities. Material Trace, a collaborative research project between Morris+Company, UCL Engineering and the Bartlett School of Architecture, explores the role of circular economy hubs within our cities and outlines a design guide for their future.

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3 Forrest Xie ‘Moving a Barn’. Working with Feilden Fowles architects, this project follows the story of Waterloo City Farm, which has been dismantled

and transported and is soon to be reassembled at a new site in Tulse Hill. It critically interrogates the sanitised and idealised narratives around circular economy and disassembly. 4 Lizhe Zhang (Enrique) Zhuo ‘No Time To Waste’. This project is a call to action for new buildings made from old, salvaged waste materials. In collaboration with Foster+Partners, it examines construction waste in the UK, challenging a built environment that profits at the expense of waste. Through fieldwork, interviews and a case study building facing demolition, it asks: what are the methods of reuse and what’s stopping us?

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year in Practice

Architecture BSc

Year 5

Architecture MSci

6 Yan Yu (Charisse) Kwong ‘It Takes a Village (to Raise a Child)’. This project asks how socio-spatial design can create said village. The thesis approaches childcare as socially vital work that should be undertaken collectively. Ethnographic fieldwork at urban third spaces with community contribution reveals strategies for caregiving-friendly design. 7 Raihan Syed ‘Sharing Soil: Seeking Permanence Through Material Memory’. Across three volumes, the thesis argues that home is made through shared material practices, not permanence or ownership. Objects hold memory and belonging, through use, repair and rearrangement. In collaboration with Carter Gregson Gray, it asks whether modelmaking can sustain memories amid precarity. 8, 14 Divine-Dione (Nikki) Ifeobu-Zubis ‘Your Turn’. Institutions, education and licensing requirements construct the architect’s authority, elevating

10 them above laypeople and reinforcing the notion that they possess specialist insight into how people should live. 9 James Kennedy ‘The Façade of Smooth Delivery: Dynamic Practice Under Demand, Scale and Workflow Breakdown’. This research reflects on the six-month delivery of a detailed master plan within a global architecture firm, using data mappings to examine workload, team growth, knowledge hierarchies and the realities of early professional practice. 10 May Parkes-Young ‘Biophilia: Bringing Nature into Secondary Schools’. This project explores biophilic design within secondary education, looking at how its many benefits can be used to improve the education and lives of young people. By using these principles, a stronger connection between young people and the natural world is created, cementing a better education and brighter future.

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Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 5

Architecture MSci

Year in Practice

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

11, 18 Anda Guinea ‘Biophilia: Bringing Nature into Secondary Schools’. This project explores biophilic design within secondary education. It looks at how it can be used to improve the lives of young people by forging a stronger connection with the natural world. 12 Jia Chan ‘Stone, Its Alternatives, and Their Afterlife’. Stone in luxury retail suggests permanence, value and continuity. From extraction to removal, permanence is produced through design, specification and assembly. This project repositions stone as a circulating material rather than a finish.

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13 Nan Esther Mei ‘Regeneration in Northern Market Towns’. This project shows how adaptive reuse is shaped by real funding and heritage constraints. Focusing on northern market buildings, it highlights how these reprogrammable interior civic spaces drive post-retail urban regeneration.

15, 20 Jayne Lee ‘Between Street and Building: Thresholds, Urban Use and the Inherited Public Edge’. This project brings history, ethnography and everyday routines into heritage discussion and reframes inherited public life as evidence for a more empathetic and situated approach to future architectural intervention. 16 Charles Hayles ‘The Conference Yet to Happen: People, Buildings and the YMCA’. This publication stages a conference that never happened, assembling YMCA conversations into five design sessions where CEOs, managers architects and residents confront overlooked questions of design. 17 Matan Michaels ‘The Measured Mind’. This project proposes a neurophysiological consultation tool using VR, GSR, pupil dilation and eye tracking to create spatial profiles, helping architects translate unconscious client responses into early design conversations.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year in Practice

Architecture BSc

Year 5

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

19 Salyme Gunsaya ‘Human Trace: Learning from The Loop’. This research examines how circular economy practices generate value beyond waste reduction, carbon savings and measurable outputs. 21 Janssen Wong ‘The Caspian in Change’. This project explores landscape urbanism and water levels along the Caspian Sea, proposing an engineered system as flexible gradient between urban and fluctuating water territories. 22 Xan Goetzee-Barral ‘Worth Keeping’. This research explores how reuse adds social value to architecture, focusing on commercial retrofit projects. 23 Jasmine Shek ‘Deeds, not words’. This project examines community consultation in developing socially mixed communities on privately developed brownfield sites in London.

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In Conversation:

Narinder Sagoo sketchbook pages, courtesy the author.

Narinder Sagoo, Senior Partner, Art Director, Foster + Partners, with Josh Rodriguera, Year 2 240 Architecture MSci student

Narinder Sagoo is head of the Design Communications team at Foster + Partners, where he is responsible for the visual representation of all the practice’s projects, from sketches through to photorealistic representation. Narinder studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture between 1997 and 1999, joining Unit 21 under CJ Lim and Christine Hawley. JR: When you joined the Bartlett for your postgraduate degree, were there any predetermined passions and ideas that you wanted to pursue? NS: At school, I wasn’t particularly strong academically, but I used drawing to find passion in the most difficult subjects. Visualising helped me remember things that I was learning. Making was also a part of my childhood. My grandfather was a carpenter; my father was a metalworker and my mother and grandmother were seamstresses. It was a highly creative environment, so when it came to studying architecture, I found this amazing world of drawing and making together. JR: How did the Bartlett shift how you understood making, designing and drawing? NS: I started to untangle my preconceptions of what architecture was at the Bartlett. I started to see things more precisely. I remember the first week was this filtering of egos and experience. All you had was your ability to draw, think and design. CJ Lim and Christine Hawley were the perfect combination. Christine would make us truly design buildings, asking us where the front door was or where the toilets were. At the same time, CJ would be driving us to perfect our skills in storytelling and drawing, expanding our minds and our critical thinking, but also our ability to use imaginative explosion to create narratives. Narrative-building is special at the Bartlett. JR: What advice would you give to students on balancing human experience and narrative in a building? NS: I think they must be considered simultaneously – the experiential, the technical, the environmental, spatial values and materiality. Sometimes it’s not just about the building itself, it’s about everything but the building – things that are outside the site boundary. You must think about not just the community, but the city and the impact it will have on society. I found that using different media became a helpful way of thinking about all of those issues. Drawing at scale and gradually changing scales, from macro to micro and even meso, throughout the design stages is useful but can be quite linear. I find sketching and experiential drawing useful, because then it becomes less about architecture and more about framing an emotional narrative. It’s important to think about steel, glass, concrete, timber, etc. and how those things come together. We’re in the business of creating environments that improve people’s lives, enrich society and leave the planet better than we found it. What I really love about architecture is that it’s about people. Throughout an entire project, in models and drawings, my advice would be to put people first, not just in the narrative but in the storytelling – go beyond drawing little characters at the eleventh hour to give scale.

Josh Rodriguera and Narinder Sagoo. Courtesy Foster+Partners.

JR: This people-first approach to design resonates. My mother and father are nurses who emigrated from the Philippines. Resilience, empathy and care is needed for that job. I’d like to think I take these values forward with how I design. You mentioned that drawing is something that inspired you from a very young age. But were there any values that were instilled from your background that informed what and why you design? NS: I think I was quite lucky growing up in an environment that was hand-to-mouth and about living within your means. Most of my family is from East Africa. My father’s generation were incredibly resilient, but also sustainable in everything they did – growing their own food, living on a farm, keeping chickens and eating food that followed the seasons. If we needed furniture, we made it; if we needed to fix a car, we would winch out the engine and take it into the dining room – rather than this idea of fast fashion, fast fabrication, where you can order this or that part and have it delivered to you the very next day. As a child nothing was in abundance. I didn’t really have the luxury of travelling or going on holidays. Drawing became a tool for escapism, giving form to things that only existed in my imagination. I saw my mother and father using drawing as a way of designing. My mother made all our clothes. I really enjoyed growing up in a much richer, resourceful household. I think that’s the foundation of everything I do, and everything we do as a practice, as a team – it’s sustainable living. If everyone could live that way, regardless of their social or financial status, the world would be a much better place. I spend most of my personal time trying to recreate that environment at home. It’s so important that we don’t lose our ability to fix, design and create things that don’t exist to meet our needs. That balance of analogue gives us a richer life. It allows people to enjoy moments together. We could have done this interview online or on the phone, but it’s so much nicer being together in the same space. Things like AI are constantly trying to speed everything up, but I’m much more interested in slowing it down and appreciating the value and depth of human experience, serendipity and the mistakes in life that lead to beautiful things. JR: Particularly when considering drawing, how would you strike a balance between the analogue and digital, especially in the context of AI? NS: I’m very lucky to work with some incredible young people. We talk about these fast shifts that are happening day to day, week to week, because the progression of AI is that fast. You almost need to talk about it every day to keep on top of it. Although many tasks get taken over, those that come directly from the mind to the hand, like drawing and craft, are

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In Conversation

irreplaceable. It involves collaboration, listening and questioning. Most of the time, we use drawing not to give answers but to ask questions. The most valuable thing is to sit with a client or a team of engineers, anthropologists and landscape architects, and be that person who can listen and write down thoughts and ideas, bringing them together into sketches and drawings, which are not really solutions but recordings of a narrative starting to be built. And that’s done slowly. JR: As someone with a great passion for drawing, what were your emotions when AI technologies started to be rapidly introduced? Were you anxious? NS: Not really. Perhaps it’s good to have a certain level of fear, but to enjoy it in the sense that you’re dancing with it in terms of how you use it. If anything, those human skills, those slower, human-paced, empathetic skills, which include listening, questioning, conversation, making mistakes and going in different directions – those are becoming even more valuable than ever before. But we must be able to balance with transformative tools that allow us to do those things ten times faster. It’s that human balance that I think you always need. Empathy between humans is irreplaceable. I find it the most valuable, not just in daily life but in our profession of design. Teamwork is the lifeline for everything. Technology helps us do everything with the precision of a surgeon, but there’s a balance between the two. I’m interested in what you think about transformative technologies. As someone in your second year at the Bartlett, do you have a fear of what the profession might be like in another five years’ time when you finish? It’s much easier for me to just plan the next 15, 20 years, but you have your whole career ahead of you. JR: Even using digital techniques besides AI is something I find challenging to balance. I try to make myself accountable when I’m relying too much on Rhino. There are dis cussions about using AI to communicate a resolved design in certain lectures, and I try to ask the same question that I do when using digital mediums in general: what am I losing when I’m using it? Is it a crutch or is it something that’s driving the design towards something good? I already have a lot to learn about what architecture is and what it means to me and sometimes learning not just how to use these tools but when to use them is a difficult balance. NS: As a student, learning, curiosity, critical thinking, the sense of being lost for ideas at certain points and using your powers of imagination are so important for finding a direction. If you replaced this curiosity and critical thinking with a few clicks of a button, that would take away the entire human network that normally would, through experience, start to formulate you as a designer, as a critical thinker. Essentially, you would just never establish that network. Then when you go on to work in a team in practice, even if you are using AI, that collaboration with other colleagues gives you some checkpoints in terms of how you’re using it and what the value might be in doing so. Having such a diverse team at Foster + Partners, not just in its abilities, but also in thinking, means that we’re constantly checking in on each other. You’re held accountable throughout the entire process. JR: I’d like to unpack when you joined Foster + Partners after graduating from the Bartlett. You previously stated that you wanted to work with Norman Foster and not for him. What exactly does that entail? NS: I think the big switch from academia to the profession is that it’s no longer about you; it’s more than just you. It’s a collaboration, with everything from there on being a team effort. I always think the only hierarchy is good ideas and excellence of skills and abilities. Being humble is perhaps not second nature within the education system because you’re always highly competitive and trying to do the very best. Humility, balanced with skill and experience, can give quite magical results. That idea of working with someone and not for them really comes from that. Very rarely, I find my colleagues even talking in the first person – it should always be about how do we do it. At the Bartlett, I think your connection to your peers and being able to share your projects, means that even within a highly competitive environment you guys stick together. I remember my final weeks at the Bartlett, when I’d finished my project and I wanted to carry on drawing. We had almost two weeks until external examiners and the show was yet to come, we all stuck together and helped each other with projects. A friend took the most beautiful photographs of my models, and I helped him draw these quite complex sensory stories about sound and smell. That togetherness and teamwork is very special at the Bartlett.

Narinder Sagoo and Josh Rodriguera. Courtesy Foster+Partners.

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JR: What sort of advice would you give to someone who was in the position that you were in when you had just completed your Part 2? NS: Make your passions be heard. Your research over the last year or two, the most curious part of your brain that has brought you alive as a young architect, don’t let go of it, bring it into the practice and let other people know about it. Often, there’s an attitude of putting your portfolio under your bed or sending it to your parents’ house, and your models disappear. There’s a symbolic shift between academia and the profession. I think it’s important that you take everything you’ve learned as an individual and bring it to the team in practice. We have a graduate show at Foster’s, where you can display your portfolio and your final project. It’s a fantastic way for us to see the quality of people we’ve taken into the practice. It becomes about inclusive thinking, an inclusive, transparent world. You don’t just become the last person to join the practice – for that moment, you become the most important person who’s joined the practice. You also get to engage with Norman and senior colleagues.

I think you should be as selective as you can be in the environment you work in. It’s tough getting jobs, particularly if there’s a global shift in politics or the economy is doing strange things and people might not be recruiting. But the interview process, the selection process, is two-way. You must select an environment that meets your needs as an intellectual, as a creative.

Narinder Sagoo with Josh Rodriguera

JR: How would you advise recently graduated students who don’t feel their voices are heard in their environment? How should they be assertive and how should they make statements? NS: I think the only way to make statements is through your work, and to relentlessly pursue the growth of your passions and skills. The idea of standing out, of being unique, of expressing your personality as a human but also as a designer and an architect, can take your entire career. What you must pursue, relentlessly, is learning. I think one of the toughest things to do is to allow yourself to be heard and your skills to be seen and recognised. There’s no reason why that curiosity, self-expression and passion that you’ve had in your time as a student can’t continue. If you have that mindset, you’ll always be producing work that improves and matures with time, experience and other people’s input. If you have the opposite mindset, of thinking the learning’s over and now I just do what I’m told, it’s very hard to make a mark in a professional environment. JR: Earlier, you said something about leaving your portfolio behind. I think one thing that I have struggled with is living up to expectations that I set for myself. I was someone who happened to have a successful first year at the Bartlett, even winning an award, but there was a struggle that I went through in the second year to live up to that. In first year, it was very much me exploring my ideas, my passions, and in the second year, when you get into the whole culture of units and studios, it becomes a bit more of a balance, a discussion. At the beginning, I struggled with balancing my own ideas with my tutors’. It was a learning curve, taking part in a dialogue and letting it be a collaborative process. NS: This has been something discussed with colleagues at the Bartlett. After school and A-levels, it becomes not just about you but also other people. It becomes this more open, selfless environment. I think that shift you’re experiencing is natural. It doesn’t last forever, but to go through the discomfort of giving away some of your own ideas and joining expec tations with others while still finding a way of pursuing your own passions throughout it, is entirely possible within a team. That makes the team brilliant rather than chaotic. JR: To go back to my question regarding the idea of leaving behind the portfolio, how do you find a healthy balance between recognising your own worth and what you’ve achieved, but also having humility and being forward-looking and open? NS: It’s like walking along the edge of a blade: you must carry both. On one side, I have things I really love doing and I want to do those every day, which I think is always possible. On the other, are the demands of a client, the project, the time and cost, teamwork and all the unfamiliar environments that you might be thrown into. But to be able to balance the two, I think there’s nothing selfish about it: always make sure you’re doing something you enjoy, find the fun. I’ve always thought of success as being something that will last forever. It takes an entire career, an entire life, to achieve what people sometimes think of as something quite short-lived. I think success is not about money and status and so on, it’s about continuous growth. For me, it’s longer-term, and I worry that maybe some people are rather impatient and want to achieve something – they want status or involvement or recognition on a project or within a team. It comes with time, maturity, experience and humility. So, you as a person, a character, an architect, a designer or whatever your contribution beyond the profession might be, becomes even more powerful.

Drawing from sketchbook. Courtesy Josh Rodriguera.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Course Leaders: Kostas Grigoriadis, Colin Smith

PG11 Access to Tools Laura Allen, Mark Smout

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PG12 House within a Home. Home within a House Elizabeth Dow, Izabela Wieczorek

252

PG13 Strange Climate, Odd Future Ivan Chan, Haden Charbel, Déborah López

258

PG14 Expressive Capacity Jakub Klaska, Dirk Krolikowski

264

PG16 Archipelagos II: the Cultural Architecture of Water Security Brendon Carlin, James Kwang Ho Chung, María Páez González

270

PG17 Plasticity Tamsin Hanke, Yeoryia Manolopoulou

276

PG18 Mother Wealth Ricardo de Ostos, Samuel Esses

282

PG20 Twins Marjan Colletti, Tony Le, Javier Ruiz Rodriguez

288

PG21 Recipe and Agency Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

294

PG22 News from Somewhere South Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Daniel Ovalle Costal

300

PG23 Recursive Operations Maria Fulford, Farlie Reynolds, Ben Spong

306

PG24 Counter-Commons: Between Periphery and Centre Thomas Aquilina, Matthew Butcher, Nasios Varnavas

312

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

The Bartlett’s Architecture MArch (Part 2) is a professionally accredited two-year course prescribed by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and validated by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). At its core, the course focuses on teaching students advanced skills in designing buildings. This is informed and complemented by dedicated modules in technical and environmental studies, alongside historical and theoretical investigations. Year 1 focuses on delivering prescribed outcomes relating to sustainability, fire and life safety design, professionalism, ethics, history, theory, and, most importantly, building design. Year 2 adopts a research-led approach and is structured around two modules: a historical and theoretical thesis and a design project that encourages speculative thinking and challenges conventional definitions of architecture, design and sustainability. In recent years, following guidelines issued by the ARB for all architectural education institutions in the UK, sustainability and nature-sensitive approaches to architecture have become an integral part of the design, technical and theoretical modules in Year 1. Teaching in these areas is delivered by industry, practice-based and academic experts on biodiversity, material life-cycles, embodied carbon, social and environmental ethics, and the principles and future impacts of the climate emergency more broadly. The course’s long-standing success in the annual RIBA Awards – among the highest honours in architectural education and practice – has continued. Professor Níall McLaughlin, who taught a unit on the Architecture MArch course for 15 years between 1994 and 2019, was awarded the 2026 Royal Gold Medal, architecture’s highest honour, for his body of work spanning three decades of practice. His portfolio includes outstanding projects such as the Alzheimer’s Respite Centre in Dublin (2011), the Bishop Edward King Chapel in Oxford (2013) and the New Library at Magdalene College in Cambridge (2021). Finlay Aitken, tutored by Professor Tim Waterman, was awarded the RIBA 2025 Dissertation Medal for his thesis Remaking the Extractive Island: Landscape, Custom and Misrule in Shetland. This thesis examines the historical evolution of ‘island-making’ in Shetland as a spatial and cultural practice linking identity, landscape and extraction. It ultimately proposes ritual and custom as alternative forms of environmental agency in response to marine exploitation. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all our design, design realisation, history and theory, and thesis teaching staff for their immense efforts in delivering the course. This course would not be possible without their contributions. We would also like to thank our Course Administrator, Kelly van Hecke; our Departmental Tutor, Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani; and our Postgraduate Teaching Assistants – Khorshid Meihami, Daijia Ke, Ana Mayoral Moratilla, Patricia Rodrigues Ferreira da Silva, Jennifer Tran and Oliver Brax – whose hard work and dedication are fundamental to the smooth running and delivery of the course.

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG11 Access to Tools

Laura Allen, Mark Smout

246

Year 5 Sophia Adderley, AnaMaria Cazan, Camille De Waele, Charlotte Henrich, Rohan Humphrey, Parin Nawachartkosit, Kacper Sehnke, Elise Wehowski, Nicole Zhao Technical tutors/consultants Rhys Cannon (Gruff Architects), Stephen Foster (Foster Structures), Martha Voulakidou, (Buro Happold) Thesis supervisors Hector Altamirano, Alessandro Ayuso, Camillo Boano, Iain Borden, Eric Guibert, Jane Hall, Danielle Hewitt, Tim Waterman, Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics David Bickle, Laurence BlackwellThale, Rhys Cannon, BarbaraAnn Campbell-Lange, Xintong Chen, Kostas Grigoriadis, Will Jefferies, Chee-Kit Lai, Vanessa Norwood, Colin Smith, Tim Waterman, Zifeng Ye, Paolo Zaide

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Samuel Field, Claudiu-Liciniu Horsia, Ottoline Martin, Aleksandra Tarnowska, Cosmo Wezenbeek, Jingwen Zheng

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

In 1968, the countercultural thinker Stewart Brand founded the Whole Earth Catalog (1968–72) with a simple yet radical ambition: to provide “access to tools”. Conceived as a compendium of resources, it sought to empower readers “to conduct [their] own education, find [their] own inspiration, shape [their] own environment, and share [their] adventure with whoever is interested”.1 Its legacy is as much methodological as it is historical. The Catalog’s model of open, decentralised knowledge outlived the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, later shifting towards urban tools and global perspectives while anticipating the collaborative platforms that underpin today’s digital world. This year, we used the Whole Earth Catalog as both precedent and provocation, structuring an introductory project and informing building designs. Drawing on the unit’s past research into environmental and future-facing themes, students were encouraged to pursue inventive architectural approaches in which conceptual and pragmatic thinking intersected with playful and experimental methods. We asked, how can architecture act as a tool that blurs object, system, and environment to address planetary-scale issues? Questions of experimental practice and the relationship between nature and culture took us to Turin and Milan. Through their histories of radical experimentation and layered legacies of industry, counterculture and conceptual art, these cities provided a framework for understanding how future architecture might operate as a tool: practical, experimental and speculative. Students approached architecture as an active way of engaging with existing conditions, as well as those of near or speculative futures. Materials and craft were treated as transformative tools, while architecture was framed as a methodological practice providing the means for interpretation and transformation. The resulting projects range from buildings constructed from agricultural waste to environmental architectures that monitor air quality or capture atmospheric conditions. Others reimagine civic spaces as sites of performance and governance or propose produc tive landscapes that evolve across timeframes in response to climatic shifts. Guided by the ethos of the Whole Earth Catalog, we can understand architecture as an assemblage of relationships, practices and environments. See https://wholeearth.info for a nearly complete archive of Whole Earth publications.

Images top to bottom: Ana-Maria Cazan Y5 ‘Ecologies of Repair’. Samuel Field Y4 ‘Forest Instruments: Taxonomy of Tree Value’.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Access to Tools

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

PG11

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

248

5 1 Jingwen Zheng, Y4 ‘Subnature to Supernature’. Building on David Gissen’s idea of subnature, which describes the atmospheres and materials architecture habitually excludes, this project explores how the invisible agents of architecture – air, heat and smell – become active shapers of space.

4 Nicole Zhao, Y5 ‘Assemblage for Piazza Crispi’. A new civic framework in Turin’s Barriera di Milano reimagines community as a network of everyday spatial practices, transforming ad hoc urban occupations into an architecture that celebrates collective inhabitation, negotiation and social exchange.

2 Charlotte Henrich, Y5 ‘22nd Century Post-glacial Landscapes’. Ablation Control Stations within the Moraine Valley of the former Miage Glacier, investigate life without glaciers in Alpine valley communities. Controlling and testing future ecosystem habitat qualities, a series of labs are established alongside forested and cascading meltwater landscapes.

5 Claudiu-Liciniu Horsia, Y4 ‘Reflective Dissent: Towards a New Machinery of Space’. A prototype tool investigates and generates architectural responses to Turin’s underground and residual spaces, using light, material experimentation and making to translate hidden urban conditions into adaptable interventions informed by the city’s layered history.

3 Aleksandra Tarnowska, Y4 ‘Tools for Regenerative Architecture’. Agricultural waste serves as a tool for developing regenerative architecture rooted in locality, circularity and long-term stewardship of resources.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Access to Tools

Architecture BSc

PG11

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

6 Parin Nawachartkosit, Y5 ‘Ordinary Grounds: Mediating the Right to Remain’. A civic workshop and community framework in Kentish Town that reworks difficult everyday sites into spaces for making, learning, repair, gathering and local support.

8 Cosmo Wezenbeek, Y4 ‘I Can Change the World with My Two Hands’. A Community Production Theatre explores how architecture can use play and collective making to transform underused urban spaces, enabling local people to design, assemble and adapt their own cultural infrastructure.

7 Camille De Waele, Y5 ‘Crafting Resistance: Turin’s Campus for Crafts’. A post-industrial printmaking project, starting with an Arts and Crafts-style print inspired by car production in Turin that evolved into the design of a craft campus in one of the city’s abandoned Fiat factories.

9 Kacper Sehnke, Y5 ‘Residual Territories: A Field Observatory for Climatic Registration’. Six inhabitable research stations engage flooding, sediment movement, airborne pollution, heat and humidity through capture, delay, deposition, saturation, drying and release, allowing environmental change to accumulate as visible spatial and material evidence.

249

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

PG11

Access to Tools

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

250

10 Rohan Humphrey, Y5 ’The Urban Farm Project’. By situating imagined nomadic tribes within the future landscape of Turin, this project uses speculative worldbuilding as a critical methodology to rethink architecture in the context of accelerating ecological collapse, post-industrial decline and shifting human–nonhuman relations.

12 Ottoline Martin, Y4 ’Meanwhile City: Play, Movement and Urban Interpretation’. A regional planning department located within Turin’s disused Palace of Work reframes planning as a collective, playful and participatory activity, using adaptable construction, reuse and environmental controls to engage communities.

11 Jessica Ho, Y5 ‘The Serafini Convivium’. A rural revival, enacted through food, envisions a neo-peasantry commons. The Convivium’s spatial logic mimics the synergies of a layered forest garden, where ecological complexity and sustenance are intrinsically bound.

13 Samuel Field, Y4 ‘The Next Rotation’. A phased forest-grown architecture explores how Britain’s next woodland rotation can shape new material practices, transforming mixed-species forests into a 70-year public infrastructure that responds to ecological change, climate resilience and domestic timber production.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Access to Tools

Architecture BSc

PG11

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

14 14 Elise Wehowski, Y5 ‘Hijacking the Hill: Constructing with Atmosphere’. A steep hillside in Turin is reimagined as shared civic terrain, using atmosphere, movement and lightweight interventions to design different levels of care through spaces that support counselling, housing, making, food and collective exchange.

16 16 Sophia Adderley, Y5 ‘AirStories: Invisible Atmospheres and the Politics of Air’. Reimagining architecture as a civic instrument that records and performs atmospheric change, AirStories transforms invisible pollution in Turin into public evidence, repositioning the atmosphere as a civic commons requiring collective stewardship, accountability and care.

15 Ana-Maria Cazan, Y5 ‘Ecologies of Repair’. Inspired by natural processes, this life-support tool restores and sustains damaged landscapes, demonstrating how architecture can operate as an environmental instrument that supports the gradual regeneration of post-industrial ecosystems.

251

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG12 House within a Home. Home within a House

Elizabeth Dow, Izabela Wieczorek

252

Technical tutors/consultants James Hampton, James Nevin Thesis supervisors Edwina Attlee, Murray Fraser, Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos, Constance Lau, Lakshmi Priya Rajendran, Rokia Raslan, Vicky Richardson, Oliver Wilton, Guang Yu Ren

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics and collaborators Alessandro Ayuso, Giorgos Christofi, Jason Coe, James Hampton, James Hepper, Lo Marshall, Giles Nartey, Tania Sengupta, Sayan Skandarajah, Carolina Vasilikou, Silver Wang, Stamatis Zografos

Architecture BSc

Year 5 Tara Abdol Hossein Zadeh, Luke (Kotaro) Bean, Amanda Carnovale, Pui Lam (Benson) Chan, Ioana Enache, Scarlet Fernandes, Cristian Francioso, Luke Gifford, Juntao Liu, Ilinca Stanescu

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Masaki Hattori, Yigao Liu, Barbara Nohr, Lilika Rea

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

Drawing on Jonathan Hill’s understanding of “the home [as] the origin and archetype of architecture”,1 PG12 explored the notion of home beyond its contemporary and purely domestic framing, revealing more nuanced and layered readings of its public functions and its multiplicity of scales, times, meanings and programmes. Drawing on the visual logic of mise en abyme – when an image contains a copy of itself that repeats into infinity – and insights gained through a field trip to the Netherlands, the unit examined how the ideas and actions of home and house reflect and refract broader sociopolitical, ecological and cultural conditions. Students investigated how the act of dwelling is simultaneously personal and collective, material and imagined, intimate and public, oscillating between past, present and future. The cabinet house and the doll’s house served as metaphors for this recursive condition: miniatures that replicated, distorted and reframed the domestic realm. PG12 encourages students to carry out individual design research without prescribed methods. Thinking, writing, testing and representation operate together, prioritising not only how ideas are communicated but also how they can be materially realised. Each project imaginatively and empathetically explored the year’s themes through distinctive programmes, inventive material strategies and varied modes of enquiry, representation and narration. Year 4 students located their design projects in London. The site of Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens housing scheme served as a catalyst for proposals that interrogated the rationale for demolition and reconsidered the social role of housing and community. Through alternative approaches to construction, students explored questions of regulation, materiality, social relationships and economic constraints. Year 5 students were encouraged to select their own sites as an extension of their individual design research agendas. Through this site-led approach, students developed bespoke design briefs within diverse geographical, cultural, political and historical contexts. Across these settings, students challenged normative assumptions about domesticity and engaged with questions of memory, heritage, preservation, identity, displacement, environmental and spatial justice, collective responsibility and the politics of habits and rituals across domestic, rural and urban life. Jonathan Hill, ‘House and Home’, in Jonathan Hill, Immaterial Architecture (Routledge, 2006), p26.

Images: PG12 Summer Show installation, 2026.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

PG12

House within a Home. Home within a House

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

254

5 1 Luke Gifford, Y5 ‘Hybrid Reveries: Childhood Fictions for Rural Assemblies’. Through memory and oral histories of a Keralan Anglo-Indian childhood, the project proposes cultural solidarity, supporting care, storytelling and belonging.

3–4 Tara Abdol Hossein Zadeh, Y5 ‘Keep Driving, There’s No Place to Get to’. Rearticulating Iranian rural landscapes drained by extractive systems, the project hybridises heritage and non-places through memory and the reimagined future.

2, 6 Cristian Francioso, Y5 ‘81 to 83 Perth Road’. Luigi’s unchanged Wood Green home informs an adjacent architectural reconstruction, a memory cabinet, where familiar places, routines and photographs support his care.

5, 8 Ilinca Stanescu, Y5 ‘Politics of the Ruin: Reclaiming Heritage Through Industrial Systems’. Situated in Roșia Montana, the project positions repair as a material and political act, reframing heritage through preservation, stewardship and care.

Architecture BSc

House within a Home. Home within a House

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

PG12

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

10 7, 9 Ioana Enache, Y5 ‘The People’s Palace’. This project narrates Bucharest’s history, spoken and written by the people. By day, testimonies translate into architectural maquettes; by night, the archive animates the Cântarea României void through theatre. 10 Lilika Rea, Y4 ‘The Market of Mending: A Living Expo of Repair’. Set in Chrisp Street Market, a repair school, expo and workshops reuse materials to embed memory through ritual and reassembly, negotiating Japanese and British repair philosophies.

255

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG12

Architecture MArch

House within a Home. Home within a House

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

256

17 11–13 Luke (Kotaro) Bean, Y5 ‘The One Hundred Year Home: A Mnemonic Survey’. Observations of ageing, comfort and environmental adaptation of the home in Hagi, Japan, emerge through continuous revision and hand- drawing.

15–16 Pui Lam (Benson) Chan, Y5 ‘Nine Lives Beyond the Ashes: A Bamboo Sanctuary’. After Wang Fuk Court’s fire in Hong Kong, architecture becomes an act of redemption, rebuilding community through bamboo, memory and repair.

14, 19 Juntao Liu, Y5 ‘A Home and More Than a Home’. Transforming vacant office towers into collective living, this project adapts 20 Canada Square through housing, shared amenities and community.

17 Barbara Nohr, Y5 ‘Transitional Objects’. Set in Limehouse, a new house mediates memory and change, preserving overlooked spaces, stories and collective memory.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

House within a Home. Home within a House

Architecture BSc

PG12

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

18 Masaki Hattori, Y4 ‘Prototype and Echo: Reimagining Erasure’. Situated within Robin Hood Gardens, the project explores unbuilding as an act of active heritage through rebuilding, occupation, material reuse and inhabitation.

21–22 Yigao Liu, Y4 ‘The Precariat Anchor’. Responding to a new London working class, the project proposes new social infrastructures, making visible the labour and domestic lives often rendered invisible within the urban fabric.

20 Scarlet Fernandes, Y5 ‘Dear Kurdi: Towards Hydroterritorial Remaking’. Conceived as an architectural apology, the project proposes hydro-territorial remaking of Kurdi, reconnecting water, ritual, memory and displaced families.

23–24 Amanda Carnovale, Y5 ‘Patching Poggioreale: The Textile-Based Repair of a Sicilian Ghost Town’. A new masterplan of fabric-formed cast interventions, a new museum, a festival and a repair institute, enabling structural repair and social healing.

257

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG13 Strange Climate, Odd Future

Ivan Chan, Haden Charbel, Déborah López

258

Images top to bottom: Mateusz Zwijacz, Y5 ‘The Pink Scare: Paranoia Manifested through Vernacular Futures’. Harvey Cantrell, Y5 ‘A Cynical Quantum Migration’.

Year 5 Harvey Cantrell, Tabatha Crook, Gabriela Esguevillas F Bujarrabal, Ina Ioan, Angie Lee, Clément Lefebure, Aniko Nebozuk, Mateusz Zwijacz Technical tutors/consultants Martin Reynolds, Olivia Riddle, Ioannis Rizos Thesis supervisors Peter Karl Becher, Paul Dobraszczyk, Dan Dream, Polly Gould, Lakshmi Rajendran, Guang Yu Ren, Joana Soares Gonçalves, Oliver Wilton

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Guest speakers Marina Otero Verzier, Grandeza Studio

Architecture MSci

Critics Felicity Atekpe, CJ Lim, Nicholas Masterton, Ana Nicolaescu, Daniel Ovalle Costal, Martin Reynolds, Jonathan Tyrell, Tim Waterman, Stamatis Zagrafos

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Alexandra (Sasha) Audas, Ayisha Belgore, Saule Biguzaite, Emmanouil Konstantinou, Andrew Seah, Josef Slater

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

The history of human civilisation has been shaped largely by the stability and predictability of weather patterns associated with specific geographic locations. Cities have historically grown in response to how agriculture, livestock, resources and habitable conditions intersect, and in turn have informed the development of architecture, social structures, industries, politics, protocols, rituals and economies. Today, a new climate regime is playing out – one characterised by uncertainty and unpredictability. This shift demands a reconsideration of the old ways of living, prompting the question: What will these strange climates and odd futures look like? This year, PG13 explored climate-fiction (cli-fi) and world-building, and engaged with questions of economy, ecology, society, technology, energy, infrastructure, media, AI and automation. Its research was concerned with two primary topics: cli-migration – the forced migration of people due to changing climatic conditions; and autonomous ecologies – the automation, rights and participation in discourse of nature. At a conceptual level, the unit examined strategies of preservation through adaptation. We moved away from the idea of nostalgic return and instead embraced imminent realities, recognising that some things will inevitably be lost, while others can and should be preserved through a practical yet sensitively tuned strategy. At a practical level, this is translated through processes of decoding and recoding and the data analysis of behaviour, materials, resources and narratives. The current state of the world can be seen as a narrative, in which local and global trends lead to a small handful of predictable outcomes. The unit thus utilised ‘odd-lib’ architecture, defined as the introduction of something spontaneous and unpredictable in future outcomes. We posit that, by virtue of these architectures being both odd and unplanned in the common imaginary, they can generate possible alternative and more favourable futures.

259

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG13

Architecture MArch

Strange Climate, Odd Future

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

260

1 Angie Lee, Y5 ‘The Sleeping Mountain Gods, the Cement Giants and the Returning Forest’. A forest monastery in Ipoh, Malaysia, resists quarry expansion by turning waste into sacred ceramics, blending ritual and cyclical ecological care into peaceful resistance.

6 Andrew Seah, Y4 ‘Repent / Rebuild / Rewild: Dragon Bathhouse at River Sil’. This project transforms an abandoned Spanish coal plant into a civic bathhouse. It cleans polluted runoff, turns ash into material and uses a dragon-inspired timber structure to stabilise the river.

2, 4 Aniko Nebozuk, Y5 ‘The Fantasy Line’. As glass towers replace Vancouver’s heritage, The Fantasy Line builds homes on SkyTrain guideways. A vision to repair the Canadian dream: residents use DIY kits from salvaged fragments of the old city.

7–9 Gabriela Esguevillas F Bujarrabal, Y5 ‘[Anarch]ive of Skeletons’. This project selectively demolishes an abandoned Athens concrete frame to create a collaborative space resisting gentrification. Rubble is upcycled in a hybrid, phased construction that reflects local building culture.

3, 5 Clement Lefebure, Y5 ‘Warm Embrace’. This project uses a Shetland data centre’s waste heat to manufacture a warm seaside microclimate. This deadpan resort asks what amenities visitors will accept in exchange for unseen AI surveillance.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Strange Climate, Odd Future

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

Architecture BSc

PG13

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

16 10–11 Ina Ioan, Y5 ‘PONTIA: The Offshore State’. This project repurposes an abandoned Black Sea gas rig in 2040 into a micronation where environmental criminals rehabilitate the marine ecosystem through research and labour, creating a hub for ecological justice.

17 16–17 Tabatha Crook, Y5 ‘The Game’. Global projects often ignore local and traditional communities. This project designs a fun, accessible game to represent their voices and help them adapt to geopolitical changes.

12–14 Emmanouil Konstantinou, Y4 ‘The Pyro Shield: A Climate Engine’. This Galician wildfire infrastructure uses nature to protect nature. Acting as a fire station and mist-humidification network, it uses LiDAR analysis to deploy cloud-seeding ahead of fire fronts. 15 Ayisha Belgore, Y4 ‘Distributed Resilience’. This Galician mountain winery uses fermentation heat to power a fungi reactor, restoring scorched soil after forest fires. A stone vault protects a vine DNA archive, brewing a resilient fire wine.

261

Architecture BSc

PG13

Strange Climate, Odd Future

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

25 18–19 Josef Slater, Y4 ‘Pixels in the Dust’. Speculating on near-future climate migration, this project wraps Galicia’s Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in a modular steel scaffold to ease overcrowding while restoring ritual and myth. 20–25 Harvey Cantrell, Y5 ‘A Cynical Quantum Migration’. In Svalbard, a quantum-data hub uses resomation – dissolving bodies for computer cooling – to mask its heat. This folk-tech hybrid warns against treating death as a resource to accelerate Arctic warming.

262

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Strange Climate, Odd Future

Architecture BSc

PG13

Architecture MArch

26 Mateusz Zwijacz, Y5 ‘The Pink Scare: Paranoia Manifested Through Vernacular Futures’. This Chicago-based Polish Embassy spans the Kennedy Expressway to reunite a divided diaspora. It acts as a temporary parliament in geopolitical crises, utilising digital craft as a cultural framework. 27–29 Saule Biguzaite, Y4 ‘Where the Fire Grazes’. In this project, Galician wild horses graze to prevent wildfires, while their manure powers a village via anaerobic digestion. Furthermore, abandoned stone houses are transformed into a landscape-integrated power plant. 30–31 Alexandra (Sasha) Audas, Y4 ‘#MakeGaliciaIndependentAgain’. Built in a failed masterplan, this 2065 Galician civic village reclaims a white elephant site as a self-governing infrastructure. It uses communal rubble-cast panels to house a decentralised parliament.

263

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG14 Expressive Capacity

Jakub Klaska, Dirk Krolikowski

264

Images top to bottom: Adam Lynes, Y5 ‘The King’s Vision for a Timber Britain’. Archie Koe, Y5 ‘Bath Spa’. Sam Martin, Y5 ‘Embankment as it Could Be’.

Technical tutors/consultants Francesca Harris (Max Fordham), Jakub Klaska and Ludka Majernikova (Klaska ltd), Tom Newby (Buro Happold) Thesis supervisors Carolina Bartram, Kenny Fraser, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Constance Lau, Tim Lucas, Michael Stacey

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Critics Andrew Abdulezer (Seth Stein), Dennis Brezina (Zaha Hadid Architects), William Gordon (Foster + Partners), Natasha Kearney (Minifie Architects), Tom Newby (Buro Happold), Ho-Yin Ng (Amanda Levete Architects), Victor Orive (Zaha Hadid Architects), Lenka Petrakova (Zaha Hadid Architects), Pavel Streblov (Penta Real Estate), Daniel Wright (RSHP)

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 5 Hissah Almousa, Minh Quang (Dominik) Do, Archie Koe, Adam Lynes, Sam Martin, Mohamed (Yusuf) Rafi, Yifan Wang, Jordan Wright, Wing Lai (Jason) Yip

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 4 Faisal Aljalal, Daniel Febvre, Lewis Goodwin, Gabriel Vollin, Ho Wong (Caleb) Wong

Architecture MSci

Students

History & Theory

PG14’s work this year focused on the expressive capacity of architecture – its ability to commu nicate, evoke and shape experience through both discipline and practice. Our investigations unfolded through iterative experiments in which discovery and speculation become catalysts for architectural application. Design was understood not only as technical resolution but as a search for representational richness, symbolic potency and expanded aesthetic possibilities. Through this investigative process, constructional logic, spatial innovation, typological organisation, and environmental and structural performance are negotiated as carriers of meaning. Architecture is understood as more than a solution to a problem, emerging as narrative potential, generating spatial systems of resonance and intensity through sets of mutual interactions. By observing and examining historical and contemporary architectural trajectories, students project near-future scenarios. Positioned as avantgarde, their projects seek to reveal architecture’s expressive capacity in its fullest sense: as a medium of imagination and vision but equally as a communicative and transformative force shaping how futures are represented and experienced. PG14’s methodology employs both bottomup and top-down strategies, allowing sophisticated architectural systems to emerge in response to a specific problem. Central to this process is practical experimentation and intense exploration through both digital and physical models. These studies aim to assess system performance and the direct application to architectural space. This emphasis on applied research fuels the process of design and allows us to develop highly considered architectural propositions. Our investigations and proposals are both local and global in scale. The brief and site are important parts of the individual design and help demonstrate that the contribution of an architect to progress is one of the keystones in shaping our society for the future.

265

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG14

Architecture MArch

Expressive Capacity

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

1, 7 Adam Lynes, Y5 ‘The King’s Vision for a Timber Britain’. Reimagining London’s infrastructure through a royal architectural agenda, this project revives King Charles’s 1989 ‘A Vision of Britain’ into a model for sustainable, timber-based architecture. 2, 16 Archie Koe, Y5 ‘Bath Spa’. This project is a civic mobility hub fusing Gothic, Georgian and landscape logic, extracting Bath Abbey’s ribbed vaulting into a timber–stone composite of market and station.

266

3 Faisal Aljalal, Y4 ‘The Civic Garden Station’. Connecting movement, climate and landscape in the heart of Kuwait City, this project reimagines Jibla station as a shaded civic garden, with transport below ground and a dhow-inspired timber canopy above.

4, 8 Gabriel Vollin, Y4 ‘The Living Station’. A Gare de Nîmes Retrofit, this project reactivates the 19th-century station with restaurants, retail and gardens, merging Nîmes’ Roman heritage with glulam structures. 5 Yifan Wang, Y5 ‘Performing Courtyards’. This contemporary urban infrastructure reactivates historical teahouse culture and reconnects Chongqing’s underused theatres and heritage sites through elevated routes and flexible timber structures adapted to the mountainous landscape. 6 Ho Wang (Caleb) Wong, Y4 ‘Crouching Water’. The bundled glulam timber structure of this Victoria Harbour performance theatre forms a civic presence and reactivates cultural life against Hong Kong’s skyline.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Expressive Capacity

Architecture BSc

PG14

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

12 9 Lewis Goodwin, Y4 ‘After Monumentality’. The Blything Moot Hall redistributes governance to a local scale through a linear procession of compression and release, culminating in a dining chamber for shared decision-making. 10, 18 Mohamed (Yusuf) Rafi, Y5 ‘Souq 2.0’. Regrowing Al-Balad through the tectonic evolution of Hejazi architecture, this project evolves the Roshaan lattice and coral stone construction into a civic anchor for markets, public space and craftsmanship. 11, 14 Wing Lai (Jason) Yip, Y5 ‘The Sevenfold Forest’. This project revitalises Daikoku into a waterfront promenade and civic hub. It reimagines Daikoku Pier as an urban forest and cruise terminal, inspired by Kenzo Tange’s 1960 Tokyo Bay Plan.

13 12, 15 Sam Martin, Y5 ‘Embankment as It Could Be’. This project reveals Embankment Underground Station beneath a cascading park, folding hospitality spaces into London’s Victoria Embankment. 13, 19 Jordan Wright, Y5 ‘London Urban Stadium’. A new stadium typology, featuring fragmented massing that blurs boundaries between stadium and city. The project weaves Borough Market, parks and streets into the design.

267

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

268 PG14 Expressive Capacity

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Expressive Capacity

Architecture BSc

PG14

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

17 Minh Quang (Dominik) Do, Y5 ‘South City Park’. Petržalka’s Southern Civic Masterplan replaces a highway with a tramway and linear park, moving from a metropolitan Galleria gateway through a civic plaza and market hall to a sports hub.

269

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG16 Archipelagos II: the Cultural Architecture of Water Security

Brendon Carlin, James Kwang Ho Chung, María Páez González

270

Images top to bottom: Silas Leowald, Y4 ‘New Foresting’. Camilla Ludwig, Y5 ‘Ride/Revel/Repair: Reworking Common Riding as an Infrastructure of Landscape Repair’. Marie Faivre, Y5 ‘The Bog Meitheal’.

Year 5 Lorenzo Angoli, Marie Faivre, Sum Ho (Angus) Hong, Sami Kassim, Camilla Ludwig, Reece Murray Technical tutors/consultants James Mak and Jongwon Na (Of Architecture)

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Tomiris Batalova, Roberto Boettger, Matthew Butcher, Ben Foulkes, Lidia Gasperoni, Anastasiia Kalinina, Tanuj Kohli, James Mak, Valerio Massaro, Tyen Masten, Mpho Matsipa, Ben Mehigan, Sabrina Morreale, Ioana Petkova, Kay Sedki, Rory Sherlock, Frederik Weissenborn

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Maithila Bandem, Laura Blazyte, Sammy Doublet, Silas Leowald, Enzo Matto, Alexandria Pattison, Tomass Stripinis, Samuel Twaite, Cameron Wilkie-Allan, Bosco Wong

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

Given time, water will seep through and dissolve everything that tries to contain it. Yet water is never simply H₂O: it is resource, commodity, coolant, data and, for many, living kin – a capricious, sentient entity that, depending on how it is treated, can nurture or destroy civilisations. Across cultures, water has long been a locus of hybrid practices: never merely a technical or economic resource, natural substance or chemical compound, but always cultural and cosmological, shaping and being shaped by the worlds through which it flows. The United Kingdom’s mounting security crisis is, at the deepest level, about water: floods, droughts, contamination and biodiversity collapse are inseparable from social, political and psychic crises. Yet technofixes alone – more technology, more storage, more data – cannot address the root of the problem. Beneath them are centuries of enclosure, dispossession and distancing from common lands, as well as from embodied and situated ways of seeing, knowing and relating to one other, to watery landscapes and to the nonhumans we depend on, enjoy and care for. This year, PG16 experimented with the imagination and design of an archipelago of Experimental Hydrocultural Zones. We inves tigated how, as architects, we can align ourselves with – and serve as co-designers for – emerging practices and movements seeking to reimagine relationships with waterscapes in crisis. Tecto nically, epistemologically and ontologically, the unit developed hybrid projects that challenge the understanding of architecture as an object, instead proposing it as a web of relational mediums operating at the scale of a hydrosocial territory – from cloud to source, and from tap to sea. This approach extends the scope of the architectural project beyond conventional building typologies. It requires engagement with infrastructure and forms of knowledge and practice previously reduced to domains – technical, cultural, political, religious, natural and scientific – that were treated as though they were distinct.

271

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Archipelagos II

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

PG16

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

1–4 Marie Faivre, Y5 ‘The Bog Meitheal’. This project constructs an archipelago of maintenance spaces for environmental restoration in Ireland’s Midlands. 5–6, 9–13 Camilla Ludwig, Y5 ‘Ride/Revel/Repair: Reworking Common Riding as an Infrastructure of Landscape Repair’. Set within the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve in southern Scotland, this project asks how an inherited civic ritual can become an operative system of landscape repair. 7–8 Reece Murray, Y5 ‘Re-Homing Death: End of Life Doulas, Care and the Displaced Architecture of Death’. This project proposes a pilot residential end-of-life doula centre within Victorian terrace houses opposite Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith.

272

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Archipelagos II

Architecture BSc

PG16

Architecture MArch

14, 19–20 Sami Kassim, Y5 ‘Rights of Passage’. This project explores the intersection between private land tenure in Finland’s Åland Islands and allemansrätten, known as ‘everyman’s rights’, through a bolstering and modification of existing island infrastructures that broaden the Nordic right to roam. 15–18 Lorenzo Angoli, Y5 ‘Floating Grounds: An Archipelago of Risk and Security on Lake Iseo’. This project proposes an architectural mediation within a landscape defined by constant instability on Lake Iseo, Italy. 21–23 Sum Ho (Angus) Hong, Y5 ‘Steel, Stone, Silt and Stem’. This project recommons Shui Hau Village through a mixed water and tourist infrastructure, staging immersive negotiations between leisure and ecological conservation.

273

Architecture BSc

Archipelagos II

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG16

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

24–26, 39 Samuel Twaite, Y4 ‘Somerset House Takes a Much-Needed Bath’. This project aims to reclaim the river as a space for people. 27–29 Enzo Matto, Y4 ‘El Patio de la Sal’. This project reclaims Gibraltar’s hidden water infrastructure through salt, bathing and subversion. 30–32, 40 Cameron Wilkie-Allan, Y4 ‘The Court in the Forest’. This project focuses on the growing Rights of Nature movement, specifically the regeneration of temperate rainforests in the UK.

274

33–35 Bosco Wong, Y4 ‘The Stoic Arms, Sentinels of the Shifting Tides’. This project is an asset transfer architecture, contemporary pier and harbour parliament space of maintenance.

36–38 Maithila Bandem, Y4 ‘A New Water Temple: Subak Blueprints for a Dam’. This contemporary dam translates water into an abstract hydraulic system detached from the ritual and ecological relations that once structured its use.

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Archipelagos II

Architecture BSc

PG16

Architecture MArch

41 Sum Ho (Angus) Hong, Y5 ‘Steel, Stone, Silt and Stem’. This project recommons Shui Hau Village through a mixed water and tourist infrastructure, staging immersive negotiations between leisure and ecological conservation. The photo depicts the now-submerged Shek Pik Village on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, before it was flooded for a reservoir in the early 1960s. 42, 47–48 Laura Blazyte, Y4 ‘Bogs: A Love Story’. This project proposes a cultural architecture of national water infrastructure in Caithness, Scotland. The photo shows the interior of a historic barn, possibly the Laidhay barn in Caithness, Scotland. 43–46 Sammy Doublet, Y4 ‘Walking on Silver Water’. This project proposes architectures of safe passage, tidal navigation and islanding on Morecambe Bay’s shifting terrain.

49–51 Alexandria Pattison, Y4 ‘A Centre for Interpretation of Loss and Coastal Erosion’. This project focuses on archaeology, research and emergency housing on the UK’s dissolving coastline. 52–56 Silas Leowald, Y4 ‘New Foresting’. An architectural assembly of the collision between commoning, tourism, forest regeneration, legislation and the county show.

275

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG17 Plasticity

Tamsin Hanke, Yeoryia Manolopoulou

276

Year 5 Mateusz Asmus, Hoi Chun Fan, Chuhan (Paris) Feng, Marten Hall, Mille Klovning, Yutong (Sabrina) Li, Natalia Michalowska, Adam Stoddart, Lauris Svarups, Supawut Teerawatanachai Design realisation tutor James Daykin Consultants Anna Bardos, Richard Heath, Jose Torero Cullen, Michael Woodford

Architecture MArch

Critics Jessam Al-Jawad, Christine Bjerke, James Daykin, Mary Duggan, Maria Fulford, Katie Kasabalis, Madhav Kidao, Jack Newton, Era Savvides, Renée Searle, Anne Schroell, Jonathan Tyrrell, Victoria Watson, Oliver Wilton

Architecture MSci

Thesis supervisors Peter Bishop, Finbar Charleson, Paul Dobraszczyk, Jane Hall, Jan Kattein, Guang Yu Ren, Vicky Richardson, Oliver Wilton, Stamatis Zografos

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 4 Benjamin Grafham, Merlin Hone, Tunku Nadya Khyra, Erine Lellu, Shucen Liu

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Students

History & Theory

Plasticity is the capacity to receive, give and break form, whether form is conceptual, built or experienced. It describes an openness to transformation, adaptation and rupture. Archi tecture is itself a project of plasticity. Every built intervention leaves an inscription, and every material carries the history of its transformation. To receive form is to recognise how we are shaped by social, biological, cultural and historical forces. To give form is to exercise agency through imagination, creation and transformation. To break form is to seek rupture, resistance and reinvention. Plasticity therefore differs radically from flexibility as a deterministic architectural principle or a habit of neoliberal adaptation. Flexibility submits to external pressures, whereas plasticity contains the power to resist, deform and reimagine established structures. As Catherine Malabou writes, plasticity is “an agency of disobedience to every constituted form, a refusal to submit to a model”.1 This year, PG17 positioned architecture within this philosophy and within wider ecological, material and cultural systems of change. Landscapes, technologies and buildings evolve through continuous interaction with environment and society. Human imagination is plastic, shaping and being shaped by the worlds we inhabit. Architecture can offer reparation through design – just as the brain is able to heal through neuroplasticity – becoming an active protagonist in transforming ways of living, sensing and belonging. Students explored the restorative and radical potential of plasticity as ecological, seasonal and programmatic elasticity; as a social and political configuration; and as a material condition of building. We paid close attention to the life-cycles of materials, the emotional resonance of place and the sensory dimensions of construction and inhabitation. The year unfolded through three phases: ‘Give Form’, ‘Break Form’ and ‘Sense of Place’. Through design research and hands-on making, students developed early proposals before critically dismantling and reformulating them into full architectural projects following a field trip to Barcelona and Olot. PG17’s ambition is to cultivate future practitioners who are intellectually rigorous, materially inventive and socially responsive: architects capable of developing practices with knowledge, emotional depth and the potential for meaningful disobedience. Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain? (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p6.

Images top to bottom: Chuhan (Paris) Feng, Y5 Primary School in Chongshan, China. Lauris Svarups, Y5 River Parliament in Barcelona, Spain.

277

Architecture BSc

PG17

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

1 1 Lauris Svarups, Y5 ‘River Parliament in Barcelona, Spain’. As modernity conceals nature and digitalises life, Barcelona’s River Parliament rises from floodwaters, embodying the forces of nature and mediating between land, sky, water and soil.

278

Plasticity

Architecture BSc

PG17

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

2 Chuhan (Paris) Feng, Y5 ‘Primary School in Chongshan, China’. This project challenges the rigid, prescriptive school typologies in China. Here, ground, building and children come into being together. Learning unfolds through movement, play and attentive engagement with an aniconic environment.

4 Marten Hall, Y5 ‘Civic Artery in Spalding, England’. In response to the civic voids of neo-traditional suburbia, a linear network of collective infrastructures is proposed that repair community life and reimagine the future of suburban growth.

3 Merlin Hone, Y4 ‘Workers’ Commons in Banyoles, Spain’. This project proposes a post-tensioned architectural system using reclaimed local stone, while reactivating hydraulic lake channels to structure a stepped civic landscape comprising a market, union centre and communal dining hall.

5 Erine Lellu, Y4 ‘Cinematic Retreat in Garraf Massif, Spain’. A cinematic retreat where architecture frames, edits and reflects the changing landscape of the Garraf Massif, transforming environmental conditions into material for filming and occupation.

279

Architecture BSc

PG17

Plasticity

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

280

10 6 Mateusz Asmus, Y5 ‘Junction Systems for Domestic Manufacture and Assembly, Anywhere’. This project treats architectural education as a space for developing judgement through testing, failure and making. Coherence emerges through practice rather than imposition. Value lies not in polished outcomes but in the growth of the designer through iterative engagement.

9 Yutong (Sabrina) Li, Y5 ‘Care Home in Beijing, China’. A care home for all age groups across different timescales in central Beijing, responding to the re-evaluation of the home versus the institution. Relationships are explored through symmetry, reflection and mirroring in media such as physical modelling, photography, drawing and collage.

7 Natalia Michalowska, Y5 ‘Ethnographic Centre and Residency in JoŚcie, Poland’. The Born To Die project is a celebration of change and the necessity of death for regrowth. This inevitable rule of nature has been honoured by many indigenous practices. Situated in Poland, the project draws inspiration from local folk culture rooted in pagan traditions.

10 Tunku Nadya Khyra, Y4 ‘Ceramics Reclamation Facility in La Bisbal D’Empordà, Spain’. This project explores dust as an archive of experience, which can be celebrated through a membrane-based cleaning process that restores architectural brickwork and ofsets building maintenance needs.

8 Mille Klovning, Y5 ‘Youth Centre in Coripe, Spain’. This project is generated from flamenco notation. Responding to the depopulation crisis in rural Spain, it translates the village’s heritage into a tangible architecture.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Plasticity

Architecture BSc

PG17

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

11 Adam Stoddart, Y5 ‘Civic Infrastructure and Housing in Heyford, England’. By transforming instruments of warfare into infrastructure for welfare, a decommissioned RAF base is adapted into a housing development that challenges the site’s past in favouring ecology, technology and community. 12 Hoi Chun Fan, Y5 ‘Geology Visitor Centre in Sai Kung, Hong Kong’. Inspired by Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Borges, this project explores neuroplasticity through drawing and magical realism, transforming the High Island Reservoir in Hong Kong into an enchanted landscape. 13 Shucen Liu, Y4 ‘Archaeological Museum in Shanghai, China’. A living archaeological museum within an abandoned dry dock, where blandness and delayed perception structure an evolving spatial field shaped by archaeology, landscape, public occupation and future discoveries.

14 Benjamin Grafham, Y4 ‘Silviculture Centre in Garrotxa, Spain’. This project proposes a contemporary model of stewardship for Catalonia’s forests through the creation of a Silviculture and Sustainable Material Centre. The Visitor Centre and Timber Transport Hub sit atop the hillside in the shell of an old farmhouse. Part of the farmland has been transformed into a valuable wetland landscape. 15 Supawut Teerawatanachai, Y5 ‘Forest Association in Olot, Spain’. This project proposes architecture as a catalyst for local forest networks by repositioning itself within the locality of timber production. It explores how locally rooted practices can strengthen regional resource landscapes and influence the wider supply chain.

281

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG18 Mother Wealth

Ricardo de Ostos, Samuel Esses

282

Images top to bottom: Diego Milner, Y4 ‘The Decommission Court: Politics of Erasure’. Physical model showing blast-formed steel façades, projected monument figures and spaces of controlled visibility, establishing architecture as both instrument and evidence, and critically exposing rather than concealing the physical and ideological remnants of conflict. Timothy Wheeler, Y4 ‘Serbian Steel: Post-Industrial Dis(assemblies)’. Gypsum composite façade mock-up, made from salvaged barge centrifugal pumps and Smederevo steel formwork. This dual-use strategy effectively transforms obsolete maritime waste into both the physical mould and the operational engine of the site remediation.

Year 5 Nazar Bohoslovets, Rares Comanescu, Mikaella Konia, Oliver Penny, Nathan Verrier Technical tutors/consultants Robert Haworth, Nick Ling, Jack Moreton, Loïc Weisser, Michael Woodrow Thesis supervisors Hector Altamirano, Paul Dobraszczyk, Ievgeniia Gubkina, Oliver Wilton

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Tamika Batalova, Nerma Cridge, Oliver Domeisen, Vladimir Milenković, Manuel Gonzales Nogueira, Elena Pascolo, Claudia Pasquero, Theodore Spyropoulos, Nicholas Zembashi

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Alexandra Barbu, Thomas Feistl, Yixuan Geng, Lemuel Gonzales, Pedram Hajian Nejad, Soeng Wing (Rachel) Lee, Diego Milner, Tician Turi, Amelia Vera-Sanso Talbot, Timothy Wheeler

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

How do you display your wealth? Within architecture school, activism often champions circular economies, bottom-up practices and a DIY aesthetic. Here, wealth is understood as distribution. In parallel, today’s society favours a culture of ostentation, exemplified by the lifestyles of social-media influencers. Our cities also indulge in displaying wealth in diverse ways, from world fairs to Formula 1 races or 20th-century socialist monuments. Here, wealth is accumulation. This year, PG18 asked: Are these wealth projects forever in opposition – the redistributors and the accumulators? Are we architects destined to study social spaces, yet professionally deliver shadows of wealth? PG18’s brief asked students to consider what wealth is in the city and how they might design architectures that investigate its manifestations. The brief established four wealth factions that students could choose to explore: accumulators, redistributors, transformers or speculators, and they adopted an urban reliquary based on their chosen faction and its associated philosophy. Multi-materiality, across both physical and digital processes, was key to the PG18 approach. Students’ initial reliquaries explored wealth through texture, ornament and the amalgamation of component parts. During Term 1, the reading of key texts, alongside drawing and making, supported the development of each argument. We investigated both cultural and material expressions, addressing the challenges of establishing intergenerational and ecological spaces. We aimed to foster a dialogue between tradition and forward-thinking ecology. Our unit field trip to Belgrade, Serbia, gave students the opportunity to investigate wealth within the context of a post-socialist city shaped by a unique and complex history. Together, PG18’s projects ask: How can we create with joy while interrogating the wealth behind our own institutions?

283

Architecture BSc

Mother Wealth

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG18

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

11 1–7 Oliver Penny, Y5 ‘Through the Danube’. This project positions a mega-dam as an enabling infrastructure that reconfigures the river as a continuous political, ecological and energy system through which energy-based sovereignty can emerge. Contextualised by the legacy of Yugoslavian dams, it speculates on the emergence of a hydro-state. Here, diplomacy is not solely tied to technocracy but to the river’s health and flows. It proposes architecture as a framework linking cultural, civic and economic wealth.

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8–9 Tician Turi, Y4 ‘Medovača: Distilling Ecology Through Culture’. Across Serbia, declining pollinator populations threaten one of the foundations of ecological wealth: pollination. While environmental pressures continue to intensify, a lack of public engagement with beekeeping has further weakened the relationship between people and the ecological systems. At the centre of the proposal is Medovača, a traditional Serbian honey brandy. By increasing

the cultural visibility, production and consumption of the drink, demand for honey rises, supporting beekeeping and pollination. 10–11 Rares Comanescu, Y5 ‘Concrete Spectacle’. This project transforms Belgrade’s abandoned power and light thermal station into an independent theatre for emerging artists, makers and audiences. The building becomes a machine for producing culture, reimagining industrial infrastructure as a new civic landmark. The project explores how material, cultural and industrial wealth can be converted into spectacle and collective experience. Concrete is treated as a cultural archive, carrying traces of ambition, ideology, neglect and renewal.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Mother Wealth

Architecture BSc

PG18

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

12–15 Diego Milner, Y4 ‘The Decommission Court: Politics of Erasure’. This project investigates cycles of destruction and creation as enduring cultural conditions within the former Yugoslavia. It distinguishes between non-consensual destruction, defined by war and conflict, and consensual deconstruction enacted through democratic reform and institutional accountability. Operating through parallel processes of ideological and material deconstruction, systems of violence and denial are subjected to legal scrutiny, while explosive remnants are dismantled and redirected. 16–18 Thomas Feistl, Y4 ‘Common Grounds: A Restoration Centre for Urban Material Regeneration’. This project asks, what responsibility does a new generation hold towards an urban environment it inherited but did not create? Constructed from reused façade panels, reclaimed structural systems and recycled rubble, the building performs the very processes it

20 advocates. By reconnecting people with the material substance, it seeks to cultivate a renewed sense of belonging and intergenerational responsibility. 19–20 Yixuan Geng, Y4 ‘The Speculative Commons’. This project is a civic-commercial building set within New Belgrade’s socialist residential fabric. The project responds to the tension between Yugoslav collective planning and the contemporary expansion of speculative capital, using gambling not only as an extractive mechanism but as a spatial and economic system that could be redirected towards public knowledge and community life. The project asks whether risk can be transformed from private profit into a collective urban tool.

285

Mother Wealth

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG18

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

286

27 21 Nazar Bohoslovets, Y5 ‘Common Grounds’. This project begins from the belief that a city depends on active exchange between its people, spaces and the systems that sustain everyday life. When that exchange breaks, the city falls out of balance, and its shared vision grows uncertain. Common Grounds offers a renewed vision for the city’s core: redeveloped local spaces connected by cycling viaducts, with a central building at its heart. Its three directions are cultural life, local community and shared public events.

25 Lemuel Gonzales, Y4 ‘The River’s Trace: Institute for Alluvial Futures’. Situated at the confluence of the River Sava and the Danube in New Belgrade, this project questions a centuries-long pursuit of hydrological mastery that has sought to stabilise inherently dynamic landscapes. Positioned on existing flood-control infrastructure, the project operates as a research institute, public forum and environmental observatory. The design explores how the built environment can accommodate transformation rather than prevent it.

22–24 Mikaella Konia, Y5 ‘Unfolding Domestic Wealth: “The Community Kitchen”’. In Block 61, domestic wealth lives behind repetitive façades, in the colours, objects, food and rituals of everyday life. The project brings these hidden traces into a shared community space. Set in New Belgrade, it introduces a community kitchen for growing, preparing, cooking and sharing traditional Serbian food, transforming private domestic value into a collective space.

26–27 Soeng Wing (Rachel) Lee, Y4 ‘The Aquatic Remediation Centre for the Sava’. Historically, the Sava has been the heart of Belgrade, shaping the city’s identity and people’s everyday life. However, decades of pollution and waterfront development have weakened the relationship between the city and the river. This project combines water-based research and musselharvesting facilities with land-based public programmes.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Mother Wealth

Architecture BSc

PG18

Architecture MArch

28–29 Alexandra Barbu, Y4 ‘SODEM Project: Shadows of Digital Bodies’. This project operates within a broad condition where economic, digital and cultural values are continuously transformed through spatial expression. The building operates as a public stage, where programme is openly expressed beyond political bias. Its spatial organisation reveals processes of media creation, research and debate, turning activities typically concealed within opaque digital networks into accessible and transparent public events.

33 Amelia Vera-Sanso Talbot, Y4 ‘On Turbulent Ground: Establishing a Centre for Contested Histories in Belgrade’. This project proposes a new civic institution for the public to study, debate and deliberate on the country’s historical past, disconnected from the influences of the state. It envisions an architecture of bricolage, constructed from salvaged demolition material, interwoven with memories of war, turbulence and unwanted artefacts, and integrates the bombed remains of the former National Library of Serbia.

30–32 Timothy Wheeler, Y4 ‘Serbian Steel: Post-Industrial Dis(assemblies)’. This project focuses on disassembling the massive maritime infrastructure of Yugoslav-era oil tanker barges. Situated on Ada Huja, a former landfill site in Belgrade, the project takes the form of a mixed-use industrial-civic shipyard and material laboratory, which is organised across four environmental zones: a maritime infrastructure zone, a steel workshop, a mechanical remediation zone and a civic zone.

34–36 Nathan Verrier, Y5 ‘Vessel: Culture Capital’. This project explores architectural instruments of cultural continuity in Savamala, Belgrade’s historic creative district. It examines how communities, institutions and large-scale redevelopment assign different values to the same urban territory. It proposes architecture as a framework linking cultural, civic and economic wealth, enabling communities to shape the city’s future transformation.

287

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG20 Twins

Marjan Colletti, Tony Le, Javier Ruiz Rodriguez

288

1 2 3

Year 5 Hoi Yan (Evan) Cheng, Magdalena Herman, Evgeniya Kulakova, Daniella Nicolaides, Zahra Parhizi Technical tutors/consultants Tom Clewlow, Kyriakos Katsaros, Elisabetta Maria Patanè, Michael Woodrow Year 4 practice tutor David Edwards Thesis supervisors Sean Hanna, Abel Maciel, Filomena Russo, Michael Stacey, Adam Walls

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Acknowledgements Pavlos Fereos, Fereos Architects; Markella Menikou and Michail Georgiou, University of Nicosia

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Blenard Ademaj, Ege Ankarali, George Copping, Wentong (Iris) Feng, Arushi Kulshreshtha, Nicholas Phillips, Harjan Singh Matharu, Jolina Thome, Derek Rhisa Valotto De Lima, Zhi Qi (Tina) Wu

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

PG20 is a ‘growth-oriented’1 unit that treats archi tecture as a time-based system – programmable, interactive and intelligent – and asks how design evolves through feedback, use and context. Sameness is our experimental baseline, with paired propositions revealing how material and systemic constraints (nature) are activated, transformed or suppressed by climate, culture, policy and everyday occupation (nurture). Working within a ‘postdrawing’2 paradigm, students used computational and cinematic techniques to model 4D scenarios and examine architectural behaviour. Emerging tools, including AI and machine learning, supported the enquiry. We built digital twins in 3D and 4D environments, animated and simulated timebased behaviour, and tested interactivity through game engines. Physical making ran alongside this work through rapid prototyping and 3D printing, allowing comparisons between virtual performance and material effects. In Year 4, we focused on systematic thinking and prefabricated construction, designing bespoke carbon-friendly assemblies that could adapt, diverge or converge over time. Guided by ‘antifragility’,3 we stress-tested proposals against uncertainty, exploring how water, light and material systems shape atmospheres, public space and environmental response. Our Term 2 field trip to Cyprus offered a living case study of the ‘twin’ condition: divided heritage, Greek and Turkish influences, and the split capital of Nicosia made geopolitical duality legible in space, fabric and daily practice. By treating twin projects as paired experi ments, we built critical literacy around technology and ethics: who controls data, how models encode values and how lived practices can be studied with care. Students began to frame design as a negotiated relationship between stability and transformation, where identical starting points can yield radically different futures. Looking ahead, we will extend the twin framework towards richer ‘phygital’ feedback loops, deeper engagement with environmental intelligence, and clearer protocols for consent, privacy and bias when human behaviour becomes part of the model. For PG20, architecture is an evolving system within society. Carol S Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Random House, 2006). Marjan Colletti, ‘Worldcrafting: An Affective, 4D, Postdigital Neobaroque Architectural Design Pedagogy’, in Of Affect: 2025 Architecture & Film Symposium Proceedings. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder (New York: Random House, 2012).

Images top to bottom: Zahra Parhizi, Y5 ‘Neo-Zoroastrian Cosmotechtonics’. Evgeniya Kulakova, Y5 ‘Liminal Machinery’.

289

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

PG20

Twins

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

3 1 Magdalena Herman, Y5 ‘Urban Phenotypes’. This project demonstrates how a shared programmatic brief and set of principles can express radically different characteristics in response to local climate, culture and material knowledge. 2 Evan Cheng, Y5 ’Counterpoise’. A rotating station orbiting the moon rebuilds daily life for its crews, recycling mission waste into familiar objects that ease cognitive fatigue. 3 Zahra Parhizi, Y5 ‘Neo-Zoroastrian Cosmotechtonics’. A Tehran masterplan exploring Zoroastrian elemental ethics, shaping ecological repair and collective urban resilience.

290

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Twins

Architecture BSc

PG20

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

4, 6 Daniella Nicolaides, Y5 ‘HRAUNMÓT’. This project transforms active volcanic eruptions into a continuous construction process, casting inhabitable basalt components directly from molten lava on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula. 5 Evgeniya Kulakova, Y5 ‘Liminal Machinery‘. A procedurally generated xenotransplantation facility, whose plan morphs from a clinical grid to a sacred cluster where the geometry of biocontainment is already the geometry of the sacred.

291

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Twins

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

PG20

Architecture MArch

7 George Copping, Y4 ‘Between Crescent and Cross’. A Gothic ruin reimagined as both a church and a mosque. Twin AI models invert traditional architectural agency, asking what was initiated by the machine. 8, 10 Wentong (Iris) Feng, Y4 ‘The Repository of Residual Things’. This project reframes architectural reconstruction as an analogue of human memory through cycles of loss, distortion and selective reassembly. 9 Ege Ankarali, Y4 ‘Biopolitics of the Buffer’. An agricultural research laboratory in Cyprus’ buffer zone, made from a modular system of raw clay. It features adaptable research spaces that transform a contested landscape into a shared ecological and scientific infrastructure.

292

11 Arushi Kulshreshtha, Y4 ‘The Parasitic Twin: Morphologies of Ecological Remediation’. This project reimagines Varosha as a living remediation laboratory, where biomineralising architecture, inspired by parasitic twin morphologies, drives ecological repair and transformation. 12 Nicholas Phillips, Y4 ‘The Industrial Twin Landscape’. This project harvests desalination brine to produce hydrophobic salt blocks. An architecture of salt emerges, featuring a factory, hotel and conference centre. 13, 15 Derek Rhisa Valotto de Lima, Y4 ‘Synthesis & Seam’. An anti-fragile vertical dojo in Cyprus, where architecture, nature and Jiu-Jitsu co-evolve through growth, resilience and environmental stewardship.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Twins

Architecture BSc

PG20

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

14, 16 Blenard Ademaj, Y4 ‘Photosynthetic Organism’. A living architectural organism in Nicosia, uniting climate, structure and biodiversity through recursive subdivision. Reimagining architecture as adaptive infrastructure, for reconciliation. 17 Jolina Thome, Y4 ‘The Ambivert’. An architectural exploration of introversion and extroversion, sustainability and additive manufacturing with natural and local materials in the form of a community centre. 18–19 Tina Wu, Y4 ‘Calibrated Aperture’. A border crossing that transforms surveillance into encounter, using digital perception to reconstruct the unseen buffer zone as a shared civic ground.

293

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG21 Recipe and Agency

Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

294

Year 5 Yun (Ella) Hong, Gabriel Machado, Jesse Parkinson, Simon Rosbach, Mateo Rossi Rolando, Rafiq Sawyerr, William Tindall Practice tutor (design realisation) Tom Holberton Structural engineer Brian Eckersley Additional technical support Ioana Drogeanu, Hugo Loydell, Oscar Maguire

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Julian Besems, Roberto Bottazzi, Ioana Drogeanu, Hugo Loydell, Oscar Maguire

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Joan Borrell-Ribas, Yufei (Faye) Cheng, Cosimo De Barry, Kate Taylor

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

New agentic AI systems are testing how machines might improvise more effectively and break free from rigid sequencing. Rather than simply generating outputs, these systems act to find new methods themselves. Within this emerging animism, anything from a drawing to a piece of building might have agency. PG21 looked at how we might design within environments that are uncertain and dynamic. What would an architecture that could revise itself look like? This year, students developed their own design process using drawings, physical models, machines and films. This process operated as both recipe and manual, simultaneously constrained and open-ended, to create structure and improvisation in the students’ work. We asked: What happens when we incorporate other agencies into the design process? Do our ingredients behave as intended, or do they begin to pursue other objectives? What happens when architecture is no longer inert or predictable, but develops other alchemical tendencies – when parts spin out of control or dissolve? For the field trip this year, the unit travelled to Bologna and followed the course of the Po River, visiting Milan, Parma and Modena along its course. These cities are renowned centres of precision engineering and food production, which are made possible by a culture of messa a punto, or perpetual fine-tuning. PG21 aims to create a pluralistic design culture, operating across the analogue and digital, recognising how design-thinking takes many different forms. We operate a vertical studio across Years 2 to 5, supporting each student to develop their own unique design approach, while placing value on process and experimentation throughout the year.

Images: Joan Borrell-Ribas, Y4 ‘Campo Incompiuto Unfinished Field’.

295

Architecture BSc

Recipe and Agency

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG21

Architecture MArch

296

6 1 Kate Taylor, Y5 ‘Holding Conditions’. This project generates architecture through balance, material constraints and fabrication feedback, repurposing materials from Caorso Nuclear Power Plant into flood-adaptive infrastructure, a boat workshop and a photovoltaic landscape.

3–6 William Tindall, Y5 ‘Learning to Draw Again’. This project develops a method for translating hand drawing into architectural form through machine vision, point clouds and physical modelling, treating AI misreadings as productive spatial evidence.

2 Gabriel Machado, Y5 ‘Fragments of Wandering’. This project is assembled through gathered traces of wandering in the city and explores how movement through uncertainty can become a tool for architectural production.

7, 11–12 Mateo Rossi Rolando, Y5 ‘Nuove Nuvole’. The form of this botanical garden at the Tecnopolo di Bologna is produced entirely by weather simulation. Bologna EPW data drives a particle system and emergent density fields determine envelope, height and programme.

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Recipe and Agency

Architecture BSc

PG21

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

8 Jennifer Yang, Y5 ‘From Fragment to Folded Form’. This project unravels the layered memories of a historic theatre site in Bologna, remoulding architectural fragments into a landscape where performance and play intertwine. 9–10 Cosimo De Barry, Y5 ‘Cineteca del Fiume’. A cinematheque, café, film archive and outdoor cinema sited on the Po River floodplain in Northern Italy, within an ongoing ecological restoration of a reconnected oxbow lake. The building’s geometry is generated by a parametric drawing tool built from satellite data along the entire river: the Po draws the architecture.

297

Architecture BSc

Recipe and Agency

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG21

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

298

17 13 Jesse Parkinson, Y5 ‘A Silvia’. The project translates text into architecture by reading LLM token confidence. Expected and surprising words generate spatial, material and colour behaviours, creating architectural forms reinterpreted through a user–machine feedback loop.

15 Rafiq Sawyerr, Y5 ‘The Systems Beneath’. Inspired by Parmigiano Reggiano’s DOP, spatialDOP is a platform that senses, specifies and certifies light, sound, heat and scent, countering platform homogenisation to produce the most atmospherically calibrated building: a trattoria.

14 Yufei (Faye) Cheng, Y4 ‘L’architettura dipende’. This project uses artificial intelligence as an iterative design method, moving from domestic experiments to urban analysis and fragment interpretation, accumulating architectural knowledge that informs subsequent design decisions.

16–17 Joan Borrell-Ribas, Y4 ‘Campo Incompiuto ‘Unfinished Field’. This project reinterprets Aldo Rossi’s unfinished San Cataldo Cemetery through weaving, machine learning and environmental data, transforming incompletion into a civic landscape of collective memory.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Recipe and Agency

Architecture BSc

PG21

Architecture MArch

22 18 Yun (Ella) Hong, Y5 ‘Catching Fog’. This project translates physical mist into architectural mass using YOLO networks and parametric extrusion. In Ferrara, mist tectonicises into a multi-species habitat, achieving true environmental co-existence.

20–21 Simon Rosbach, Y5 ‘Autocheiromorph’. This project uses Kinect motion capture to drive real-time gesture-controlled 3D printing, building a toolkit that links bodily movement, material resistance and toolpath manipulation across desktop, clay and robotic fabrication.

19 Luke Ryuichi Saito Koper, Y4 ‘The Monomodal Assemblies’. A regional museum seasonally repositioning itself within the former Berlin-Staaken airfield, where heritage now only remains in faint, almost indiscernible traces.

22 Jun Zhang, Y5 ‘WAVE FIELD’. This project is a brainwave-generated landscape theatre extension for Laban Theatre, translating EEG responses into open stages, intimate performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, gardens, water and movement.

299

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG22 News from Somewhere South

Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Daniel Ovalle Costal

300

1 2

Year 5 Yuxin Hu, Laura Lui Structural consultant Alejandra Albuerne Design realisation tutor Han Hao Thesis supervisors Danielle Hewitt, Constance Lau

Architecture BSc Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Critics Íñigo Cornago Bonal, Deluo Chen, Liza Fior, Faye Greenwood, Han Hao, Lucas Néstor Hoops, Houda Jeoual, Yuqi Liew, Jonah Luswata, Inés Miño Izquierdo, Maxwell Mutanda, Barbara Penner, Alexis Pereda Chánez, Alicia Pivaro, Juan Carlos Sanabria

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Year 4 Najla Alayyoubi, Aristodimos Antimissaris Castro, Rana Budianta, Haomeng (Oliver) Cheng, Ria Deshmukh, Jamie Francis, Guo Lim, Rohini Mundey, Alex Pérez Escamilla, Jessica Richard, Isratjahan (Siha) Salim, Sophie Siney, Joshua Teh

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Students

History & Theory

Societies across the so-called ‘Global North’ are in crisis, struggling to come to terms with stagnant economic growth amid a landscape of deindustrialisation and climate emergency. These crises emerge in the wake of more than two centuries of linear industrialisation, enabled by colonial endeavours and extractive capitalism. Historically, industrialisation in the North was devoid of democratic scrutiny or meaningful public debate, with William Morris’s News from Nowhere (1890), which offered an alternative vision of society, labour and production, a notable exception.1 This year, PG22 invited our students to look South for alternative paths to industrialisation. Inspired by Morris’s imagination and informed by scholarly critiques of industrialisation and capitalism, students reimagined the relationship between technology, industry and the environment. The brief was situated within the contested concept of the ‘Global South’ – a more nuanced term than its predecessor the ‘Third World’, but still reinforcing a binary that obscures internal diversity and agency. Our brief explicitly embraces this plurality, drawing on asymmetries operating at multiple scales: between nations, such as Germany and Greece; within nations, such as northern and southern Italy or Spain; and beyond Europe, in contexts such as Mexico’s industrial north and the largely rural state of Chiapas. Central to the brief is the condition of coexistence, often associated with the Global South, where craft economies and consumerist cultures exist side by side. The unit adopted anthropologist Tom Boellstorff’s concept of ‘surfing binaries’ as a model for navigating such tensions.2 Against this backdrop, the unit critiqued the uncritical export of Northern building standards and design cultures – from modernist universalism to contemporary sustainability frameworks – as a form of architectural ‘pollution’ that suppresses local knowledge and innovation. PG22 proposed a set of South Sensitive Tactics: context-driven strategies rooted in circu larity, bioclimatism, cooperativism and ecological respect. News from Nowhere is invoked as a literary precedent – imagining an urban future in which labour, value and colonial institutions are fundamentally reimagined. William Morris, News from Nowhere (London: Penguin, 1993). Tom Boellstorff, ‘Queer Techne: Two Theses on Methodology and Queer Studies’, in K Browne and C Nash (eds) Queer Methods and Methodologies (London: Routledge, 2010), pp237–242.

Images top to bottom: Jessica Richard, Y4 ‘The Kayan Fair Trade Market’. Rohini Mundey, Y4 ‘The Migrating Railway City’.

301

Architecture BSc

PG22

News from Somewhere South

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

302

1–2 Laura Lui, Y5 ‘From Stitch to Silence: The Home, Living and Working Archive of London’s Garment Culture’. This project retrofits Haringey Civic Centre into a living archive of garment labour, migration and textile culture, embedding collective production, housing and cultural identity through architecture recording occupation over time.

5, 8 Guo Lim, Y4 ‘Kampung Bakau: Collective Living in Amphibious Commons’. A proposal reimagining Penang through amphibious cohabitation and environmental resilience, using biomaterials and preservation of aquaculture traditions to connect fishers and urbanites within existing mangrove ecologies.

3–4 Alex Pérez Escamilla, Y4 ‘¡Toma Tomate! Reassembling Mediterranean Domesticity within an Agro-Urban Territory’. Using the tomato as a lens, this project develops a retrofit housing model in El Ejido, combining cultivation, shared infrastructure and socio-environmental repair to redefine north–south exchange through resilient collective living.

6 Rohini Mundey, Y4 ‘The Migrating Railway City’. Tracing twice-migrant journeys from India through Kenya to London, this architecture explores railway labour and Indian homemaking through evolving East African Asian diasporic identity across generations amid migration.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

News from Somewhere South

Architecture BSc

PG22

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

7 Jessica Richard, Y4 ‘The Kayan Fair Trade Market’. This project redefines tourism as cultural exchange, creating an architectural framework where Kayan communities can preserve tradition, generate sustainable livelihoods and share their heritage with dignity.

11 Sophie Siney, Y4 ‘Reclaiming Time Through Collective Care’. A women-led cooperative integrating childcare, education and toy production, creating opportunities for employment, collective care, cultural knowledge exchange and long-term social, economic and community resilience.

9–10 Yuxin Hu, Y5 ‘Her Hands Build Spaces: A Craft-Based Spatial Network in Langde Miao Village’. A women-led craft and care community in Miao Village, where embroidery informs architecture and shapes networks connecting locals and visitors through making, participation and growth.

12 Rana Budianta, Y4 ‘Reclaiming Bantar Gebang’. This project presents the transformation of Bantar Gebang landfill from open dumping into a circular e-waste upcycling landscape, empowering the existing waste-picker community by extending their sorting expertise into repair and production roles.

303

Architecture BSc

News from Somewhere South

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG22

Architecture MArch

17 13–14, 18 Aris Antimissaris Castro, Y4 ‘Sun, Sea and Clay: Sifnos Beyond Tourism’. Against the ‘sun, sea, sand’ tourism model, the project seeks to revive local ceramic craft and stonemasonry, uniting stone, ceramics and water in a building that promotes self-sustaining production beyond tourism’s logic. 15 Najla Alayyoubi, Y4 ‘Connective Rawasheen’. A Community Majlis in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, reinterpreting Hijazi rawasheen as spaces for craft, gathering and cultural exchange, carrying traditions of shade, ventilation and hospitality into contemporary community life.

304

16 Joshua Teh, Y4 ‘Turning the Tides: At a Collective Edge’. A community hub in Mevagissey drawing on Bajau Indonesian coastal vernacular, collapsing the distance between catching, eating and knowing into a single shared edge at the sea. 17 Isratjahan (Siha) Salim, Y4 ‘Blind Spots: The Right to Rest’. This project is a proposal for a distributed urban food infrastructure set in Woolwich. It rethinks how food is produced and delivered by transforming residual spaces into collective kitchens and welfare hubs for riders, small food businesses and the local community.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

News from Somewhere South

Architecture BSc

PG22

Architecture MArch

19 Jamie Francis, Y4 ‘Turning the Tides: At A Collective Edge’. A community hub in Mevagissey drawing on Bajau Indonesian coastal vernacular, collapsing the distance between catching, eating and knowing into a single shared edge at the sea. 20 Ria Deshmukh, Y4 ‘Ayurvedic Rituals’. An Ayurvedic retreat where weaving, cooking and wellness integrate themselves through seasonal material circularities and interactive woven façades to rejuvenate the socio-ecological rhythms of the River Lea’s transient and local communities. 21 Haomeng (Oliver) Cheng, Y4 ‘Threads After Obsolescence’. This project reimagines Foshan’s industrial heritage through bamboo construction and communal production, weaving memories of silk, local craftsmanship and slower rhythms of living into a bottom-up future for Lingnan culture.

305

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG23 Recursive Operations

Maria Fulford, Farlie Reynolds, Ben Spong

306

Digital imaging tutor Jörg Majer Structural consultant Brian Constant Environmental consultant Anthony Chilton Thesis supervisors Paul Dobraszczyk, Kenneth Fraser, Stylianos Giamarelos, Jenia Gubkina, Jane Hall, EmmaKate Matthews, Lakshmi Priya Rajendran, Michael Stacey, Adam Walls, Oliver Wilton Critics Thank you to our collaborators and guest critics: Jesper Authen, Charles Blanchard, Theo BraderTan, Niamh Cahill, Nat Chard, Finbar Charleson, Benjamin Faure, Egmontas Geras, Kostas Grigoriadis, Penelope Haralambidou, Florence Hemmings, Kaowen Ho, Joe Johnson, Phil Joseph, Kyriakos Katsaros, Chee-Kit Lai, Jörg Majer, Caireen O’Hagan, Chris Page, Thomas Parker, Vita Rossi, Joel Saldeck, Luke Alexander Scott, Michiko Sumi, Cira Oller Tovar Acknowledgements Special thanks to Steve Johnson for his ongoing support of PG23, technical and otherwise, and to our generous hosts in Greece: Manolis Stavrakakis, Navine G Dossos and James Bridle. Extended thanks to the entire B-made team and to Drawing Matter for our inspiring workshop early in the year.

Images top to bottom: Cara Russell, Y5 ‘Learning by Ear: Resonant Landscapes on Whiddy Island’. Christian Coackley, Y5 ‘Future Fossils’.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Practice tutor Steve Johnson

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 5 Orla Buck, Rory Cariss, Supakorn Chantakitwattana, Christian Coackley, George Cottrell, Rob Gowing, Jinyi (Athena) Li, Daniel Perski, Cara Russell, Kaia Wells, Leyun Zhu

Architecture MSci

Year 4 Lucy Ayres, Nathan Cartwright, Miruna Porosnicu, Victor Williams Salmeron

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

As a unit committed to designing through making, PG23 is intrigued by the way ideas emerge through engagement with the processes and materials with which we work. Part of this is due to the belief that making encourages us to attend more closely to the world around us, giving matter a voice otherwise muted by the predictive desires and pseudo-accuracies of typical architectural production: measurements defined to impossible degrees of precision or renderings that promise a complete building before it is even built. Throughout this year, we have developed a sensibility to the voices of materials, objects, places, people and non-humans. We asked: How might they participate more fully in architecture? How might the uncertain and contingent lives held within the matter and media we work with recursively correspond with the idea itself? As part of our research, we travelled to Athens, where we walked the woven stone paths designed by Dimitris Pikionis, studied the seminal Rodakis house on the island of Aegina, and traced the Greek myths from the Acropolis to Corinth. Our encounters with the material and mythical landscapes of Greece became the catalyst for our building projects, which looked to weave new plausible pasts and futures into the diverse contexts in which they are sited. Global in scale, our projects reconsider how buildings come into being and the role they play in our ever-changing world. PG23 seeks to reveal previously unimagined futures for architecture by challenging its disciplinary core. In a world where spatial boundaries are entangled with aggressive politics and an uncertain climate, the need to critique architecture’s inbuilt methodological biases has become increasingly urgent. Through recursive modes of enquiry, each student developed a framework for expanding the sensibilities and ethics of the discipline, proving that resonant architectures emerge when we allow the physical world to actively participate in its own making.

307

Architecture BSc

Recursive Operations

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

PG23

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

308

1 Victor Williams Salmeron, Y4 ‘Impressions of a City’. The scheme investigates urban inheritance in Athens through a planning office, challenging preservation and erasure while responding to a city divided between monuments and disconnection.

5 Rory Cariss, Y5 ‘Up Close, At a Distance’. Concerned with the interplay between the acts of design and making, this piece of research uses sited, multiscalar fabrications to explore the prototype’s potential within an architectural design process.

2–4 George Cottrell, Y5 ‘Through Thick and Thin’. Neither preserving Athens as a museum nor severing its past, this project develops a contemporary vernacular through timber veneer moulding, digital fabrication and situated fidelity using existing architecture as moulds.

6–7 Leyun Zhu, Y5 ‘Unscripted Grounds: Between Acts/Scenes Unseen’. Building and landscape become inseparable conditions of performance, dissolving distinctions between performer and spectator through an assemblage of choreographed conditions, continually redefined by occupation and repeated return.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Recursive Operations

Architecture BSc

PG23

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

11 8, 10 Christian Coackley, Y5 ‘Future Fossils’. Set at Cape Sounion, an unworldly temple explores deep-time architecture across a 1,000-year time frame. By casting figural building elements into limestone, it proposes an adaptable material archive resilient to future sea-level rise.

12–14 Daniel Perski, Y5 ‘Jag är inte rädd för mörkret (I Am Not Scared of the Dark)’. The project proposes a hauntological architectural practice as a potential answer to contemporary crisis. This is centred on a Swedish youth centre, which reanimates lost spaces for the teenage coming-of-age experience.

9, 11 Cara Russell, Y5 ‘Learning By Ear: Resonant Landscapes on Whiddy Island’. Resonant instruments developed through studies of Irish sessions ground a propositional sonic landscape and its spatial fragments, advancing an embodied listening methodology that challenges visual‑dominant pedagogy and cultivates environmental attunement.

309

Architecture BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Recursive Operations

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

PG23

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

23 15 Lucy Ayres, Y4 ‘Rewilding Tourkovounia’. This project proposes an ecological research institute embedded within the disused quarry of Tourkovounia, where quarrying operates as a fabrication logic through three buildings. It aligns long-term environmental strategies with rewilding to encourage future growth. 16, 19 Rob Gowing, Y5 ‘Chasing the Blue’. Taking cues from traditional hikari-tsuke techniques, the project develops a stone and timber architecture sited at the Dionysos quarry to the north of Athens. Carved stone and timber gives rise to a temporary architecture for disaster relief.

310

17, 20–22 Rory Cariss, Y5 ‘Up Close, At a Distance’. Concerned with the interplay between the acts of design and making, this piece of research uses sited, multiscalar fabrications to explore the prototype’s potential within an architectural design process..

18 Jinyi (Athena) Li, Y5 ‘The Philoxenic Palimpsest’. Confronting emerging gentrification in the Athenian district of Psyri, this research proposes ‘useful tourism’. Visitors engage in local crafts to retrofit derelict structures, disrupting overtourism and fostering community reinhabitation. 23 Miruna Porosnicu, Y4 ‘Under the Olive Tree’. Located in Aegina’s ancient olive groves, this sustainable rammed-earth research station translates ultrasonic tree signals to protect vulnerable pistachio farming from climate breakdown and tourism, while also empowering the local community. 24–25 Orla Buck, Y5 ‘Shallee Nocturne: Rarities from A Tarnished Land’. This project is sited at Shallee Mine, Tipperary, where heavy metal toxicity lurks despite state intervention. It positions architecture as a means of coexisting with unremediable damage.

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Recursive Operations

Architecture BSc

PG23

Architecture MArch

26–27 Nathan Cartwright, Y4 ‘Athenian Dramaturgies’. Drawing on Sophie Calle’s claim that events can “happen” without being fully “true”, the building investigates deceit as an architectural condition where programme and material assembly entangle reality, projection and knowledge of Athens. 28–29, 31 Supakorn Chantakitwattana, Y5 ‘Contra Construct: Improper Tools for Improper Architecture’. This project critiques deterministic architectural drawing by reimagining architectural practice through Thailand’s vernacular traditions, proposing material-led design tools that embrace indeterminacy and tactile architectural production. 30, 32 Kaia Wells, Y5 ‘Laybyes and Labyrinths’. Working with Lewisham’s residents, this project proposes a topography for a restful city neighbourhood that combats the rising sickness and burn-out associated with modern life.

311

History & Theory

Architecture MArch Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

PG24 Counter-Commons: Between Periphery and Centre

Thomas Aquilina, Matthew Butcher, Nasios Varnavas

312

Images: PG24 Summer Show installation, constructed using second-hand scaffolding, concrete blocks and ratchet straps.

Thesis supervisors Brent Carnell, Murray Fraser, Fernando Gutiérrez, Luke Lowings, Tim Waterman Critics Felicity Atekpe, Oli Brenner, Silvia Commisso, Tom Coward, Alison Crawshaw, Ursula Dimitriou, Albane Duvillier, Pol Esteve, Amy Kulper, Mpho Matsipa, Sabrina Morreale, María Páez González, Lorenzo Perri, Chris Pierce, Sophia Psarra, Era Savvides, Neba Sere, Dubravka Sekulić, Colin Smith, Edoardo Tibuzzi, Sebastian Tiew, Ed Wall, Stamatis Zografos Partners Thanks to the people and practices who hosted PG24 during our field trip to Athens: Dimitris Antonakakis (Atelier 66), Haris Baskozos, Stelios Giamarelos, Thanasis Oikonomou (Studio Thanasis), Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou (Point Supreme), Stavros Stavrides, George Tigas, and Marina Xenophontos.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Technical tutors/consultants Jenna de Leon, Dean Irvine, Edoardo Tibuzzi

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Year 5 Gregory Brookhouse, Park Jin Chan, Hei Ching (Eunice) Cheung, Alon Shahar, Julia Specht

Architecture MSci

Year 4 Maria Bystronska, Campbell Carmichael, Win Ki Chan, NanHao Chen, Laura Maczik, Gus Richards, Joshua Roberts, Tin Wo (Reece) Tsa, Yangbixi (Jade) Wu, Yaowen Zhang

Architecture MArch

Students

History & Theory

This year, PG24 asked the question: How do we design in shifting landscapes between the periphery and the centre? We began here, in London, looking closely – walking, filming, etching, drawing its centre and, perhaps more importantly, its many peripheries. For us, these peripheries were not only physical locations like Sutton, Thamesmead or West Norwood, but also cultural, social and emotional spaces inhabited by communities that have historically been, and continue to be, marginalised and overlooked. Building on last year’s ‘Super Common’ theme, PG24 sought to define collectively the idea of ‘Counter–Commons’. The projects presented here express this concept in distinct and individual ways, each articulated through a unique architectural language. This language embraced temporariness and hybridity, as well as models for communing and self-governance. Together, we explored London’s peripheries as sites of alternative histories, engaging with migrant, queer and diaspora spaces, as well as looking towards other global locations, and confronted questions of memory, reconstruction and heritage. What all our projects have in common are distinct forms of community-building and ideas of custodianship. The influence of our field trip to Athens is also evident in several schemes. PG24 sought to counter established norms, while also learning from various forms of resistance. From water systems and land remediation to urban food production and off-grid living, our work explored tensions beyond the periphery and centre to encompass ideas relating to the civic and domestic, preservation and reuse, global and local, ethics and aesthetics. Against dominant modes of architectural practice and well-established architectural language, the unit sought to uncover new and unexpected architectures emerging from the edge. In doing so, these projects gave form to the Counter–Commons.

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Architecture BSc

PG24

Counter-Commons

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

4 1–2 Tin Wo (Reece) Tsa, Y4 ‘My Home Changes Every Two Weeks: A Boater’s Infrastructure Port’. This project is a speculative off-grid metabolic port for the River Lea’s narrow boating community, framed through counter commons: a decentralised mode of living that reduces dependence on urban infrastructure. The proposal combines boat shelves, repair docks, service infrastructure, governance spaces, bridges and seasonal childcare to create a new common for the River Lea boating community through shared infrastructure and governance.

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3 Alon Shahar, Y5 ‘The Way of a Kite’. Set in the Otef Aza region, this project reimagines memorial as a route rather than a destination. A 70km cycle path connects landscapes, communities and sites of loss through water points, repair stops and fragile kite-like pavilions, creating spaces where grief, ordinary use and acts of care can exist together.

4 Gus Richards, Y4 ‘Common in the Soil’. Set in the context of the deconstruction of Port Talbot’s blast furnaces, the project responds to the polluted soil that the industry has left behind and the vast quantity of contaminated demolition waste being created as the town’s industrial heart is dismantled. Tracing these pollutants through plant growth, willow trees are introduced as pollution extractors. Combining their timber with rusting steel, the project proposes a material system to re-inhabit the site.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Counter-Commons

Architecture BSc

PG24

Architecture MArch

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

7 5 Yangbixi (Jade) Wu, Y4 ‘Backstage London: Adaptations of Industrial Sheds in West Norwood’s Craft Ecology’. At West Norwood’s industrial zone, the everyday acts of making and performance that sustain the city remain hidden and peripheral. This project brings the labour of local makers and craftspeople back into public life, not as spectacle, but as something to be valued and shared. Architecture becomes a device for visibility and encounter, turning production into a common culture. 6 Campbell Carmichael, Y4 ‘Tides of Exchange: Architecture and the Migration of Billingsgate’s Market Community’. This project emerges from the ongoing relocation from Canary Wharf of Billingsgate Fish Market and its trader community. Reflecting on this moment, the project asks how this historic community and its role within the city might move into the future, developing through explorations of material reuse and localised food supply.

8 7 Nan-Hao Chen, Y4 ‘Remembering the Misremembered: Countering the Erasure of Brutalist Social Real Estate in Thamesmead’. Positioned against the stigmatisation and common erasure of peripheral Brutalist social real estate, this project establishes a counter common in South Thamesmead. Through a localised, circular-economy intervention, it preserves the area’s architectural and social heritage while reinforcing community agency. 8 Park Jin Chan, Y5 ‘Meanwhile in Penang’. In Penang, Malaysia, the UNESCO listing of George Town has paradoxically eroded the very culture that made its heritage meaningful. Countering this, the project proposes a community centre conceived as a performative event space, where architecture becomes a framework for communities to reimagine what the city might yet be.

315

Architecture BSc

PG24

Counter-Commons

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

12 9 Maria Bystronska, Y4 ‘Alton in Play: A Catalogue for Collective Spaces’. This project responds to the social and spatial decline of the Alton Estate by creating a community-led building that gives residents greater control over their shared environment. A permanent glulam and CLT structure forms the civic and organisational core, from which residents can select from a catalogue of attachable spaces. Play operates as both a programme and a design strategy, encouraging the building’s transformation through collective decision-making.

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10 Hei Ching (Eunice) Cheung, Y5 ‘Public Land Grab: Reclaiming the Urban In-Between’. Across London, privately owned developments and pseudo-public spaces have increasingly enforced boundaries on public life. This project responds by reclaiming brownfields in Hackney and Stratford, and proposing a working botanical garden and scientific research institution that remediates these urban voids while returning them to public use.

13 11 Gregory Brookhouse, Y5 ‘The Watering Hole: A Model for Decentralised Water Ownership’. This project proposes a decentralised model of water ownership in Chingford, where domestic infrastructure becomes a mechanism for collective governance. By exploiting water-efficiency policies, the project employs a strategy of hyper-conformity: while appearing to reduce demand on the public network, its decentralised design aims to reduce dependency on centralised provision and reclaim agency over water. 12–13 Yaowen Zhang, Y4 ‘Haunts of a Displaced Home’. This project reconsiders Robin Hood Gardens through the lives of its residents. Using Gaussian Splatting, the project reconstructs these domestic memories as atmospheric fragments rather than clean architectural models to inform a resident-assembled system. Rather than recreating Robin Hood Gardens exactly, it reconstructs the domestic experiences that redevelopment often erases.

Counter-Commons

Architecture BSc

PG24

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

History & Theory

Architecture MArch

16 14 Julia Specht, Y5 ‘Perverse Encounters’. This project proposes a lesbian-orientating device – a nightclub and storehouse in which four custodians of suppressed queer history arrange bodies, objects and stage machinery so that each night the building produces a different lesbian orientation in the visitor. The building proposal is for a lesbian and FLINTA institution that holds four historical lesbian realities in various states of deployment and storage. 15 Joshua Roberts, Y4 ‘London Waste Machine: A Factory for Reclamation and Reuse’. Influenced by the uncanny, involuntary and dissonant tableaux of disused furniture in junkyards throughout Canning Town, this project proposes an alternative manufacturing industry of local creation and material reclamation. The proposal is at once a factory, a novel material research facility, a common space and a physical bridge, constructed entirely from reclaimed materials from the surrounding industrial landscape.

17 16 Win Ki Chan, Y4 ‘A New Place Called Home: Crafting Hong Kong Immigrants, Identity in Sutton’. This project reimagines the derelict Fox and Hounds pub in Sutton as an unofficial embassy that works to preserve the stories, memories and experiences of immigrants from Hong Kong. The scheme examines how diplomatic architecture expresses state power through monumentality and controlled access. 17 Laura Maczik, Y4 ‘Dancing on the Fringes: Protesting the Marginalisation of Queer Spaces’. Raves and dance play a crucial role in queer expression and identity, yet queer club spaces have always been pushed to the margins of larger cities, and, as the peripheries of London continue moving outwards due to regeneration, these spaces are starting to disappear. The project aims to prevent further redevelopment of industrial zones – important sites for transgressive queer nightlife – into residential estates.

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In Conversation:

Níall McLaughlin, Professor of Architectural Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2026, with Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Director of the 318 Bartlett School of Architecture

YM: Níall, first of all, congratulations on receiving the Royal Gold Medal. It is one of architecture’s highest honours, recognising not simply a body of work, but a lifetime of contribution to architecture. Your buildings have been celebrated internationally for their enduring quality, and your influence as an architect extends well beyond the buildings themselves, as you are also a committed teacher, writer and speaker. It’s a real pleasure to have this opportunity to speak with you. I’d like to start at the beginning. You have often mentioned your teachers at University College Dublin as a huge source of inspiration. Who were they and how do you connect with them today? NM: When I started architecture school at 17, I hadn’t had an education in art. I didn’t come from a house with a strong visual culture. The first-year architecture studio master, Shane de Blacam, was not long out of Louis Kahn’s office in Philadelphia. He’d worked on the Paul Mellon Center, and he had this extraordinarily clear and unambiguous position on what it was to be an architect. His training was quite conservative in that we spent the whole first term copying drawings by the great masters, by Kahn and Mies van der Rohe and even David Hockney. We spent the second term making models of structures, and only in the last term were we allowed to design anything. But through that we were taught a kind of reverence for architecture as a discipline. There was something about his manner, and the deep seriousness with which we pursued the discipline, that made me think that teaching is not so much about imparting information as it is about offering yourself as an example to the students. He had such a pure sense of what architecture should be: a discipline centred on construction, on the act of making buildings. A very important part of my education was that our teachers were making complex buildings in the city at that time. They taught me that there are thoughts that you can only have if you’ve been on a building site and worked through the problems and processes of making a building and communicating your ideas to builders, seeing them realised and understanding that it’s an imperfect performance that you’re involved in, a form of practice that’s ongoing and is embedded in the realities of the city you’re in and the construction industry as it stands. In the third year, I had Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, who are Grafton Architects. They were just starting out. They had a strong belief in public space and civic life and the idea of the city as something that architects could contribute to. I remember them driving up to my house to collect my model because they were going to show it in a library as an example of what could be possible. At that time, Dublin was very run-down, economically backward and struggling to find a civic identity. In my fourth year, I had Sheila O’Donnell, who had recently returned from James Stirling’s office, and Robin Walker, who were very different from each other. Sheila came from that London culture of the early 1980s, and Robin was almost purely Miesian in his thinking. I became very attached to Robin: he imbued me with that singular focus on architecture capable of embodying the deepest philosophical ideas through realised material and social practice. And, finally, John Tuomey was around all the time – a great example, a great critic and incredibly enthusiastic about bringing students along and creating a contemporary culture in the school. I was very, very fortunate to have all those teachers. YM: How exactly did you transition from these learnings to starting your own practice? NM: When I graduated, I went to Scott Tallon Walker, an exacting Miesian practice, for a couple of years, which was a huge privilege. When I left, I felt that I couldn’t endorse a complete and holistic vision of architecture right down to the finest details and then continue to pursue that as a singular thing for the rest of my life. I had to go away and to some extent make myself up in my own terms. And that’s something I’ve often taught – you’re teaching students to have the courage and the confidence to find their own voice, to not immediately find a way of working, but to look for a set of processes and ways of thinking that are likely to lead to a way of working in due course. When I came to London, I began teaching almost straight away – at the Bartlett, then Oxford Brookes; then I moved back to the Bartlett and have been here for 37 years. So teaching has always been central to my own practice. I had an opportunity to do some house extensions in London, accidentally meeting a client on a night bus, another somewhere else, and I leapt at it through a combination of teaching and working from my drawing board at home. It was quite interesting because I was new in London, so my main community was the makers and builders, and the students. That probably reinforced a desire to be at a tangent or outside the main drift of things, to make myself up on my own terms. I often call those first buildings trial pieces, the kinds of pieces that an artist might make when they’re thinking about making a major work. I think of the first decade of practice as being like that – you’re trying to work yourself out by practising and then reflecting. That was a very interesting and productive period in my life. I realised that I could also do standalone projects that I invented, drew up and put out as ideas. It was that combination of real and imagined projects that I did in the first ten years that probably gave me my first foothold on the ladder of developing a practice. YM: What you describe is similar to what young architects do today: a combination of work, teaching and small commissions or ideas competitions. Sometimes it does not work. What gave your practice its remarkable quality, developing consistency and strength over time? What would you say was particular and powerful in this development of your practice? NM: I don’t want to indulge in a kind of exceptionalism. I would like to find a way of teaching young practitioners how to become successful in whatever register they choose. I’d like to have a chance to think as part of the Bartlett about how we would do that, because there are

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many things you can do, which have to do with networks, publishing, the way you present yourself and how you come to attention, and how you build up your skills at the same time as you’re trying to develop a voice. I think that’s a very important transitional stage in any architect’s career: the moment you move from being a student learning from a tutor within a particular ethos to operating out there in the market, dealing with whatever life throws at you and trying to convert that into work that shines out beyond the humdrum, all while reading and developing your own mind and imagination. It’s such a fruitful period that first ten years of practice, and it’s the time when people can learn a lot about how to launch themselves, both in terms of how they’re understood externally and how they understand themselves. I think it’s that combination of self-knowledge and projection that should be a furtherance of the education of an architect. The thing you say that’s not true is that my work at that time was consistent. In fact, it wasn’t consistent and, oddly, there are some inconsistencies in that work that still crop up in my work now. My training at University College Dublin was very much founded on the American interpretation of classic modernism. It had a kind of Beaux-Arts, almost Schinkelesque classical underpinning, and it was founded on a deep understanding of material practice and detailing. It had a sort of conservativism to it too. Then I started studying and teaching at the Bartlett, where they didn’t care about that at all, where there was a strong narrative culture behind architecture – the idea that the building was somehow founded in stories about the site. It was a totally different formal language, the opposite to what I’d studied. If you look at the early projects, you can see they are tugging in completely different directions in terms of their architectural imagining. I was quite happy to let that play out because I was experimenting with what I wanted to be. YM: And what pointed you towards success? NM: It goes back to this fundamental point – that I was educated by people who are making buildings, and they taught me to understand that architecture has its own ways of embodying ideas. It’s very different from a lot of the teaching culture in the UK, which is ideas about architecture or architecture being used to illustrate ideas about other things. I was taught that architecture has its own unique form of knowledge, which comes out of the process of the building art. I think this knowledge gave me an advantage as I developed in my career. In the early 1990s, the sense of being lost, the sense of not knowing how or whether it would turn out, the sense that I might have to give the whole thing up, was so alive. And some of the embarrassing errors of judgement that I wouldn’t want to share with anybody, these get edited out of the conversation. You can try things out, fall over, right yourself and go again, and out of that will come a mode of practice that could only have been acquired from having those experiences. From this comes a process of reflection, which allows you to develop more certainty and confidence as you go on. I remain quite uncertain about my own work, even at this stage in my life as I enter my mid-sixties. I remain uncertain about where its real integrity and authenticity is. I remain uncertain about my over-willingness to please from time to time. I remain uncertain about the fact that I often grasp too quickly at ideas and don’t wait long enough for the better idea to come. The things that I teach my students in their second and third years, I feel about myself at this moment. That doesn’t go away. I think the perspective of me as a successful practitioner, who embodies a certain clarity of intention, doesn’t match me as a private individual who’s looking at myself from the inside. I see myself in a much more uncertain set of terms.

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YM: After the first ten years, the projects were becoming more consistent. How did that come about? After this experimentation, you took a particular direction, even within your uncertainty and doubts and your constant questioning of your work.... NM: I’m going to keep poking at the habits of biography that assume that somebody is the author of themselves, because it tells a lie to young practitioners and students that what they should be doing is inventing themselves in a certain set of terms. Is the consistency that occurs in my work later in my career the result of a set of fine and wise judgements I made about myself or was it imposed upon me by a series of commissions, which led to further commissions that pushed me into a world where some aspect of my work that was apparent earlier on became prioritised over another aspect? I think you have to be very careful about seeing yourself as so comprehensively an agent who determines your own career, and you have to see yourself in part as somebody who benefits or suffers from certain accidents that have a self-reinforcing character. I remember years ago, in 2008, I went for an interview with Paul Williams for a Sure Start project near Heathrow and didn’t get it, and it really made me question what we were doing. But then, a couple of years later, he put me forward for the shortlist at a project in Oxford. That eventually led to projects with 18 or 19 Oxford and Cambridge colleges over the following decade. There is a material and formal consistency between those projects that comes out of those commissions: the Chapel at Cuddesdon, the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, the library at Magdalene College, Jesus College, the Song School, they all point towards a mature style. But the thing is, it’s a way of building and making that was very appropriate to working at Oxford and Cambridge. Those clients came with a diffuse set of desires and needs for their colleges, which aligned with something about my education and one of the trial pieces I’d been making. It reinforced that branch of the tree. And suddenly that branch of the tree became the trunk rather than the twig, and that developed and strengthened. And someone says, what happened to all those slightly strange and quirky projects that Níall McLaughlin used to do? Because now he’s doing this rather monumental, formal, crafted material stuff. But what would have happened if Paul Williams hadn’t been at that interview?

Some of the stranger and more interesting projects we did between 2000 and 2010 were done under a government policy for regional development in places like Hull and Castleford and Preston. They had a quirky character that came from being in run-down, industrial cities in the north of England. But then the government stopped that policy and that kind of work just wasn’t around anymore. What would have happened if the government had doubled down on that policy and given more opportunities for people like me to develop the buildings I did at Hull and Castleford? So I think that idea that you’re an agent of your own career is only true to an extent. You have agency, but your agency is playing against the world. I think that a practitioner has to have a repertoire of responses that makes them able to thrive when the opportunities present themselves, rather than setting out their stall and saying, this is what I’m going to do and everybody has to subscribe to that.

Níall McLaughlin with Yeoryia Manolopoulou

YM: I can see how the circumstantial nature of practising in the world complements your agency as an architect. Thinking about this and the contemporary challenges we are facing, and thinking about the Royal Gold Medal, invites reflection: for you, in the current circumstances, what is vital for architecture today? What are the elements of your practice that you want to continue to protect and what would you like to change? NM: Having the confidence and patience to allow change to occur through interaction with different voices is a technique that I’ve developed over 30 years that I have immense confidence in. Creating a studio and a collegiate culture within which I can design among other people, making big models together, good buildings will come out of that. I’m fortu nate that the commissions now are no longer just coming from Oxford and Cambridge, but from Australia, Canada, the Middle East and Europe. The challenge for the future is the massive threat created by AI. Alongside the climate crisis and the abstraction of the construction industry, the use of these new technologies is going to fundamentally change architectural culture. The intellectual challenge for me now is the idea of a world where the combination of robotic technologies and AI can make more sophisticated objects without the kind of agency that architects used to have in that process. I feel that a lot of the things that I treasure about the rather beautiful era that I was given to live and work in, when so much was possible for someone like me to thrive in, will be difficult to reformulate for a new generation of architects who will have to reinvent the discipline. I find that hugely challenging, both for the people within the architectural profession, their lives and careers, and for the discipline of architecture. Because the thing that’s most precious about it is that it’s something we have ingeniously made from our own haptic skills and imaginative resources – and what will it be when they are taken away from us? YM: For a school of architecture as well. NM: I do little experiments, like going into the AI assistant Claude and asking it how an architect like Níall McLaughlin is going to thrive in the future. It eventually concedes that architects like Níall McLaughlin won’t exist in the future. How can we orientate our students to have the resilience to be architects who can retain some of the values that I was educated in and that I’ve tried to teach students all my life? How can we do that in a world that’s dominated by these new technologies? I think that’s a cliff we have to climb. YM: Because you’re talking about a haptic and social understanding of the world and tacit knowledge as architectural experiences that matter to us, what does it mean to travel and encounter buildings directly? Are buildings and places teachers in some way? NM: I’ve travelled with students and with teaching partners, and we’ve learned together by visiting buildings. I’m lucky in that I was trained into a discipline of literacy – how to know where interesting architecture is and has happened around the world. For example, this year we went to Cologne and the west of Germany and looked at this amazing array of buildings that were made in the mid to late 20th century by German architects whose names most people have forgotten. Going to those buildings, spending time in them together, talking about them, drawing them and remembering, finding ways to remember them and to think deeply about them, has been central to my ongoing education as an architect. Not only am I teaching my students, but I’m also learning from witnessing these buildings and from seeing how the group I’m with is witnessing them as a shared experience. If you take any building of mine, I can point you to a building or number of buildings that I’ve been to that are its sisters. I see the buildings that I make as being almost like remembered versions of other buildings that I’ve been in. I often quote James Joyce, who says that imagination is memory. I see that as being central to the experience of making buildings. Sometimes the building’s sister is not something that looks superficially like it. It might have been a feeling; it might present itself somatically or acoustically, or maybe there’s something deep in the plan of it that makes it like that building. That sense of experiencing other buildings is central to my identity as an architect. YM: I’ve enjoyed at least 20 field trips with you when we have directly experienced buildings together, and I’ve seen you carefully observing and analysing them. It has been an incredible experience of learning for me. But since you’ve mentioned James Joyce, can we cover poetry and literature? What role do they play in your work? NM: I was brought up with a strong love for literature and in particular poetry, and it’s very much part of my imaginative bedrock. Having said that, I’m very sceptical about putting an equal sign between a poem and my buildings, because my buildings are not built versions of some poem or some piece of literature. But in a way that I can never quite put my finger on, there is a strong identification between my buildings and certain poems or pieces of literature. Sometimes that comes before the fact, sometimes it comes after. At the same time,

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I keep bringing poetry back into descriptions of my architecture in one way or another. I can tell you that certain buildings could not have been designed if certain poems had not been written, because those poems gave me proto-architectural images that I was able to then try and find a way to realise in material, social, architectural form. For example, for the Bishop Edward King Chapel at Cuddesdon, I read a Seamus Heaney poem to my team, and we quite literally worked to create this image out of the poem and find an architectural realisation of that image in the building. The cafe we did at the end of Deal Pier became fused with Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘At the Fishhouses’, and there was some kind of gestalt in that poem that fused on to the building, and now I can’t separate them. The important thing that I would say to architects and to students is that I don’t think that architecture is primarily a narrative discipline. When you finish a building, you can’t stand beside it telling everybody everything that you read before you designed it. I often quote, and I remember with some pain but with great self-realisation, something you said about an essay I wrote about the Chapel at Cuddesdon. You said, “Well, Níall, you end up with a building on one hand and all these words on the other hand and you expect people to make an equivalence between them.” I thought you were dead right about that. You can’t do that. So somehow, they stand together. They’re both aspects of my imaginative world. Maybe I should be more critical or try and find some formula for how they interact, but I haven’t found it yet, except to say that it’s fruitful and it helps me to imagine things, to tell stories about things I’ve imagined or to find ways of explaining them after they’ve been imagined. YM: Perhaps what is powerful is that, through poetry or literature, you make stronger connections with your collaborators. You invite them to co-imagine with you. Poetry and architecture are not equivalent but maybe they help you and the group come together into forming a common sense of a project. NM: That’s interesting, but if you take that point and regress it back into the individual, it probably begins with helping some parts of myself to connect with each other as well. I’m equally interested in shared ground happening not just between you and other people, but within yourself, between parts of yourself. YM: One of the remarkable things about your career is that the buildings are only part of the story. Alongside your building practice, you’ve spent decades thinking about architecture through lectures, essays, conversations and exhibitions. These activities seem inseparable from how you define yourself as an architect. For example, you have often spoken and written about architecture in relation to performance and time. Could you summarise this interest, particularly in relation to Neolithic times? NM: If we look at the current condition of architecture, and ask how it differs from, say, 100 years ago, we can look at the manifestos that were being put out by the architects of that time. These tended to insist on the architectural object as a uniquely authored artefact whose form and visual language possessed a certain agency – it could change the world by being the object that it was. I’m often very critical of buildings being conceived of as instruments that can change things. I don’t think that’s their proper role. That was a large part of modernist discourse, prioritising the object and its unique identity as something that has an individual authorship based on vision and mastery. We live in a world in which those tropes no longer have the same purchase; we must think about an alternative paradigm within which we can conceive of architecture, one which has to do with the idea of creative reuse. If we see ourselves as people who inherit building stock from previous generations, and we work on it, care for it, reinvent it, maintain it and pass it on to future generations, then we see architecture not as the work of an individual mind but as a kind of performance that occurs across time. The individual author situated in a unique moment becomes a procession of authors who interact with each other over time. That’s a different way of thinking about what architecture can be. I go back to Neolithic examples. When we went to Orkney and we looked at the Ring of Brodgar, we saw what looked like a grand static monument in the landscape. But when I went back and read the archaeological reports, those great standing stones actually had impermanent foundations, and it’s likely that they were moved around all the time. What you’re seeing is not a static artefact, but a cut from a performance, like a still from a film, which I found really beautiful. Why would a society have invested almost a third of all their social and material resources into making this performance of moving rocks? Archaeologists speculate that perhaps this construction had begun to replace blood as a way of holding communities together. So the act of building created investments and bonds of mutual obligation that allowed communities over wider areas to be invested in each other. Therefore, you see the agency of architecture as enactment, not as object. If you asked me how future practitioners can resist the blandishments and perils of AI, I would say that technology can only make better objects. There’s something else which is human ritual performance, the purpose of which is to bind communities together. That is far more resistant to those kinds of technologies. What technology is doing is alienating us from those collective performances. That’s why I want to make this strong bond between, for example, architecture and theatre. The principal thing about them is that architecture and theatre do the same thing. They make a contained space, which separates an inner world from an outer world, within which rituals can occur. But we make small worlds, which embody the dilemmas that come out of our social lives together. That’s the fundamental vocation of architecture, and that’s why I think it’s so like theatre.

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YM: And yet, these new technologies make their own communities. They don’t only produce objects, they produce communities – but they are communities that are very different. Shifting our conversation, I would like now to discuss your role as a teacher in the school. We’re very fortunate to have had you in the Bartlett’s community since 1989. You’ve taught at least 37 generations of students. I was extremely lucky to teach with you for 20 years, at least, which was an incredible part of my own development. NM: There’s an engagement that I’m looking for. There’s a way of being helped to see new ways of conceiving the world that I would not be able to do if I closed myself down into the locale of my own practice. Teaching allows me the opportunity to reset my own imaginative world again and again by being exposed to ideas and being questioned and interrogated by students. I find that enjoyable. What’s happening is you’re learning together. It’s not primarily about imparting information, but it’s like a mutual witnessing activity. We’re spending time in each other’s company, experiencing the world, setting ourselves projects, working through those projects and becoming ourselves by doing that together. It’s not just the students that are becoming themselves; it’s you and me also. It’s that mutual interaction that makes it a living fire to teach. And that’s why I keep coming back to the flame. However complicated my practice and my life becomes, I can’t let go of that.

Níall McLaughlin with Yeoryia Manolopoulou

YM: We’re grateful for that. So how do you think the current generation of architects should be taught? How do you think we should teach? NM: I go back to this idea of unfolding practice. I think you have to trust a broad community of people with diverse interests, some of them making mistakes and the projects not working out, some of them having huge and unexpected successes, and being able to watch that with a critical eye, learn from it, disseminate the successes and remember not to repeat the failures. There are certain things that I think are central to being an architect. They are rooted in the building art. What I would like everybody to be taught is not how to detail buildings or how to become a skilled architect who can find employment on the first day – of course, these things are important, but what I want to do is to weld skill on to imagination and to understand how the acquisition of skills expands your imagination. Seamus Heaney makes a beautiful comparison between craft and technique. He says craft is the acquired skill, the ability to do the thing, but technique is the ability to have new ideas through being able to do the thing. Technique is what is realised from being able to do the thing. I think that the danger of architectural education is that often it produces a higher-level theoretical overview, but if ideas aren’t grounded in technique, then they don’t have purchase in the world. That’s why some schools produce lots of good students, but not good practitioners. I do think there’s something about the balance between speculation broadly speaking, literacy and a grounded understanding of how buildings are made, which is more than just workshop culture but actually being on building sites, and architecture education has to find a way of holding those three things together. YM: Things have changed: we have AI, we have unprecedented environmental, social and climate challenges. What is it that architecture schools need to do that perhaps is not like what we were doing before? NM: You asked me why, through all the trials and tribulations and false starts and so on, I managed to produce a successful practice. It’s because all of that thinking, whether it comes from literature, poetry, theatre or my interest in time and performance, is grounded in an understanding of how buildings are made. I trust a school like the Bartlett to always produce these very innovative ways of conceptualising what architecture might be in the future. My fear is if it isn’t grounded in the experience of making buildings in the world, there’s a danger that the whole thing is just going to drift off like a hot-air balloon and become incredibly vulnerable to AI. Architects must have fundamental skills that become the foundation for all their speculation. Architecture has its grounding in all the buildings that have been made before. I feel that education should introduce architects to that hinterland. It also has its grounding in the fact that it’s a social material practice, which is about the messy and troublesome building, the politics, the economics, the law, all of that. If it loses touch with that, it becomes a rather disconnected general discipline, and that’s where it’s most vulnerable to the new technologies. YM: That’s very clear. Thank you very much for the conversation. And thank you so much on behalf of the Bartlett’s community for your long and ongoing contributions to our school.

All images: Níall McLaughlin and Yeoryia Manolopoulou at Níall McLaughlin Architects. Photos by Lucy Pope.

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Architecture BSc History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

History & Theory Thesis

Architecture MSci, Years 3 & 4 Kay Sedki, Azadeh Zaferani

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Engineering & Architectural Design MEng, Year 4 Liora Malki-Epshtein, Michael Stacey

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Advanced Architectural Studies, Architecture MArch, Year 4 Adam Walls

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Thesis, Architecture MArch, Year 5 Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Architecture MSci Years 3 & 4 Kay Sedki, Azadeh Zaferani

Architecture MSci was established as the first integrated course in the UK to anticipate new ARB criteria and respond to paradigm changes in pedagogy. The course repositions priorities in history and theory as an integral to architectural education, recognising critical thinking, research methodologies and an understanding of historiography as essential to architectural learning. The history and theory modules are structured to integrate horizontally with the design and technology streams within each year cohort, while maintaining vertical coherence across all four years. This approach enables students to progressively develop disciplinary knowledge, research skills and the capacity for independent inquiry. The modules seek to decentre and reconfigure conventional architectural historiography and pedagogy through revised reading lists and references, a diversification of voices in topics and varied teaching methods. It aims to deliver a framework that is relevant to the needs and challenges of 21st-century architectural education, while responding to planetary concerns. Across all four years, MSci modules establish connections between history and theory, design and technology through a collective agenda, including an annual theme, a shared brief, joint reviews and lectures. MSci history and theory aspires to address the diversity of students’ cultural backgrounds, abilities and interests through new approaches to module content, teaching methods and output, with an aim to offer equitable learning experiences. We believe our teaching can only be effective if it is relevant to the incredibly diverse students who each bring unique experiences, understanding and abilities. The four consecutive history and theory modules are: Year 1: Global and Planetary Histories Year 2: Architectural Constellations Year 3: Integrated Architectural Thesis Year 4: Architectural Future(s)

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Module tutors Stelios Giamarelos, Megha Chand Inglis, Emily Mann, Olivia Neves Marra, Lo Marshall, Maria Venegas Raba, Nina Vollenbroker, Adam Walls, Stamatis Zografos

This dissertation proposes that the military funeral cortège constitutes a primary architectural structure, arguing that the coordinated movement of human bodies through urban space fulfils the Vitruvian triad of utilitas, firmitas, and venustas through temporal rather than material means. Using the State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 as its principal case study, the argument is advanced through a comparative diachronic analysis that also considers the funerals of King George VI in 1952 and Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. The methodology draws on remote sen sing and broadcast footage as a form of site survey and employs architectural drawing as an analytical instrument to translate choreography into plan and section. London tends to be read through its geology, the stone of Whitehall, the iron of its bridges, the brickwork of the Victorian terrace. Yet on the morning of 14 September 2022, a different form of architectural order imposed itself on that familiar fabric. As the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II was conveyed from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, the street ceased to be merely infra structure and became, for the duration of that journey, a sacred interior. The ‘moving monument’ describes the structure that produced that transformation. This structure is composed not of masonry but of bodies, duration, and rhyth mic precision. Its walls are formed from ranked lines of service personnel. Its nave is The Mall. Its altarpiece is the gun carriage. The theoretical framework engages four principal lenses: Gordon Kipling’s work on the medieval royal entry, Bernard Tschumi’s conception of the architectural event, Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson’s social logic of space, and Aldo Rossi’s formulation of the urban artefact as a repository of collective memory. Taken together, these frameworks reveal that The Mall and the processional routes of central London operate as a civic armature, spatially activated by the cortège into what is here termed a ‘moving cathedral’. The dissertation concludes that architectural permanence need not reside in stone, but may be found equally in the repetition of ritual form, and that the moving monument constitutes a legitimate and under-theorised category of architectural production.

Misfit: Settler Colonial Spatial Orders and Indigenous Relational Governance Resurgence Victoria Wang Tutor: Azadeh Zaferani This dissertation examines how settler colonialism spatially reorganises Indigenous land into systems of property, control, and extraction across North America, and how these processes restructure Indigenous social relations and governance, producing conditions of misfit. It further investigates how Indigenous resurgence practices reassert relational governance within and against these imposed spatial conditions. The study reconceptualises Rosemarie GarlandThomson’s concept of misfit as a condition produced through colonial tactics used to exclude Indigenous bodies. The research adopts an interdisciplinary and spatial methodology, combining cartographic, archaeological site, and photo graphic interpretation across multiple scales. The dissertation analyses the staged processes of land dispossession across the continent now known as North America, including pre-emption, removal, allotment, and consolidation, and examines how these spatial transformations restructure social relations, focusing on Cherokee spatial organisation and the imposition of settler spatial order. Fairy Creek, a contemporary Land Back movement located within unceded Pacheedaht territory on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is presented as a case study demonstrating how Indigenous communities seek to restore decision-making authority and relational governance within territories structured by colonial extraction. The findings demonstrate that settler colonialism is an ongoing spatial project that transforms relational land into extractable property while simultaneously producing environments that cannot sustain Indigenous governance systems. Misfit emerges through this imposed incompatibility. However, Indigenous governance persists through embodied and spatial practices that reassert relationality, responsibility,

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

James Matthew Alfonso Tutor: Emily Mann

Top: View of Oklahoma City’s growth three weeks after the Land Run, photo taken in May 1889. Bottom: Settlement prior to the Land Run, photo taken 22 April 1889. Source: City of Oklahoma City, n.d. Founding of Oklahoma City. Available at: www.okc.gov/Government/Records/ Oklahoma-City-History/Founding-of-Oklahoma-City (Accessed: 1 Feb 2026).

Architecture MSci

The Moving Monument

Architecture MArch

Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral cortège with differentiated blocks. Image by the author.

This dissertation reads The Battle of Algiers, a 1966 film directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, as an architectural text in which urban space structures how bodies appear and disappear within the colonial city. While the film is often approached as a political account of the Algerian War of Independence, its narrative is equally organised through the spatial conditions of the Casbah, a dense architectural environment where vision is repeatedly interrupted and movement unfolds through courtyards, stairwells, and rooftops. Central to this reading is the concept of occlusion. In optical terms, occlusion refers to the obstruction of sight; in medical language, it describes the blockage of cir culation within the body. In the colonial city, these meanings converge. Architecture interrupts vision while also slowing the movement through which authority attempts to circulate. Occlusion therefore describes a spatial condition produced by the built fabric of the Casbah, where masonry thick ness and inward-facing courtyards delay perception and destabilise the visual regime on which colonial surveillance depends. Close film reading and auditory analysis of the soundscape become the methods through which these architectural conditions are examined. By following the movements of characters through the spaces they inhabit, the film reveals how thresholds organise the shifting relation between con cealment and exposure within the colonial city. The dissertation therefore asks what architectural knowledge emerges when cinema is read through this spatial lens, and in what ways exposure and occlusion reframe understandings of contested urban space. Occlusion operates across several registers. At the scale of architecture, it refers to the dense morphology of the Casbah; at the level of colonial discourse, it describes the inability of colonial institutions to perceive Algerian experience outside imposed categories; at the level of spectatorship, it raises questions about what any individual viewer can recognise within the film. By bringing together colonial urbanism, critical theory, and close film analysis, the dissertation demonstrates that occlusion is not merely a visual condition but a spatial arrangement that redistributes knowledge and unsettles the regimes of recognition on which colonial power depends.

History & Theory

Mlak Elbuzidi Tutor: Albert Brenchat Aguilar

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

The City Withheld: Occlusion in Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966)

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

and continuity within unceded territories across North America. The dissertation concludes that Indigenous resurgence does not resolve misfit within colonial systems but instead exposes and interrupts them, offering alternative frameworks for organising land and life. In the context of ecological crisis, relational governance presents a necessary and viable foundation for future spatial and political practices. By bringing together settler colonial studies, Indigenous resurgence, and critical disability theory, the dissertation demonstrates that restoring the land-body connection is essential to any viable future.

Translation: Building Intercultural Meaning Within Architectural Discourse Yuichiro Tomita Tutor: Edwina Attlee On 25 January 1995, Itō Toyō presented to an audience at the Architectural Association in London1. He began with an apology for his English and asked for translation. This brief moment raises questions about the power dynamic between languages, the frustration of an anglophonic audience unable to hear the architect’s authentic voice directly, and the perceived hierarchy that places trans lated texts as secondary to source texts. Japanese architects frequently choose to deliver lectures in English within the Anglosphere, a political decision shaped by the global dominance of English as a lingua franca. This dissertation argues that inter lingual translation is central to forming architectural discourse and knowledge across Japanese and English contexts. It challenges the modernist assumption that words are a lesser reflection of architectural reality. Instead, translation is understood as a culturally and politically charged, and equally creative, practice. The international circulation of Japanese architecture is a recent phenomenon, and for audiences unable to encounter these works in situ, architecture is understood through images, texts, and lectures. Translation inevitably mediates architectural ideas across linguistic and cultural borders. The transmission of Japanese architecture is often framed through the rhetoric of difference and otherness, a dynamic recalling Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. Japanese architects have actively imported Western knowledge systems, and translation becomes one of the primary mechanisms shaping what and how architecture is described and understood. Drawing on translation theories from Roman Jakobson, Walter Benjamin, and Lawrence Venuti, and reflecting on Roland Barthes’s celebration of otherness in Empire of Signs, the essay adopts a montage-like structure consisting of three scenes: the translation of the word architecture into Japanese, the English translation of Isozaki Arata’s Japanness in Architecture, and the author’s experience interpreting

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a dialogue between a Japanese architect and an English-speaking intern. Across these scenes, the essay asks what happens when an architectural idea is translated, how that alters or produces new forms of knowledge, and what role the translator plays in the production of meaning. 1

The naming of Japanese individuals in this essay retains the custom of writing the family name first and the given name second.

Angling as Situated Practice Ethan Starkey Tutor: Emily Mann

The essay reveals how a 16th-century biographer and trout are shaping the future of our riparian spaces. Through a dialogue set at Amwell Magna, the oldest angling club in the country, the didactic prose frames the current state of rivers in the UK and encourages the reader to contemplate their future. This work is a didactic prose on angling, incorporating both fiction and non-fiction in a dialogic form. Angling, practised by the author on the River Lea, becomes the setting for this research and its argument. It asks: what is the role of anglers as custodians of the future of our riparian spaces? The essay draws inspi ration from Amwell Magna Fishery, the oldest angling club in the country and the place where Izaak Walton fished. Walton, the author of The Compleat Angler, wrote a dialogue between Piscator and Viator that positions the angler as a conceptual device for learning. Seeking, in a sense, to continue Walton’s work, this text positions the anglers of Amwell Magna as Piscators, the author as Viator, and the architectural future as the driving force and context. The cover and proposed structure are merely suggestions for where to begin or end; the pages fold accordingly. Designed to be easy to fold and hold, the booklet leaves one hand free to hold a fishing rod or rest in a pocket. In its folded state, the format partially conceals the next page, allowing the reader to concentrate on the main text while keeping one eye on the river to watch for rising trout. The left-hand page is kept largely blank, except for footnotes and illustrations, while offering space for notes by the angler contemplating a day’s fishing.

Essay book by the author.

Towards the Horizon

Lia Penela Failde Tutor: Kay Sedki This essay examines how habitual movement reduces urban experience to efficiency and recognition. It argues that attention sustains the horizon as a perceptual condition through which space gains depth, continuity, and relation, and that learning to see, rather than merely look, allows the city to unfold beyond immediacy. Contemporary modes of navigation, driven by efficiency, repetition, and anticipation, narrow perception, reducing space to a sequence of tasks and arrivals. What is diminished is not sight itself, but the horizon, understood not as a distant line or scenic view, but as the perceptual condition through which space unfolds from a situated position. Central to the essay is a distinction between looking and seeing. Looking operates through recognition, allowing movement to proceed smoothly while flattening experience. Seeing, by contrast, is framed as an attentive practice that loosens expectation and makes absence, interval, and extension perceptible. Drawing on phenomenological and theoretical accounts of perception, the essay positions the horizon as a fragile and contingent structure, produced through attention and easily collapsed by speed, repetition, and infrastructural mediation. London is used not as a comprehensive case study, but as a field in which the horizon is repeatedly obscured, fragmented, and intermittently restored. Towards the Horizon extends this inves tigation by translating the essay’s perceptual concerns into the physical and graphic structure of the book itself. The square format unfolds into a series of partial horizons, requiring the reader to navigate images, text, and intervals with the same attentiveness the essay calls for. Only when the book is fully opened does a composite horizon emerge, not as a fixed view but as something constructed through movement, attention, and negotiation between what is visible and what withdraws. In this way, the book becomes both argument and enactment, demonstrating that the horizon is not given, but continually worked towards.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci

Undertaken in the fourth year of the Engineering & Architectural Design MEng the EAD Dissertation is probably the most student-centred module within the MEng. Each student selects a field of research interest and matches this to a tutor from the Bartlett School of Architecture, the Bartlett Faculty’s Institute of Environmental Design Engineering (IEDE) or UCL’s department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE). MEng EAD, a triple accredited integrated master’s, accredited by ARB/RIBA, CIBSE and JBM. MEng graduates can pursue careers as architects, engineers and environmental engineers. The dissertations range from history and theory of engineering and architecture through to material science. A specific typology can be researched in depth, for example a new model for affordable housing in the United Kingdom. Or specific engineering issues researched in a physical and typological context – for example the seismic risks to mosques in Morocco. Structural systems can be developed and physically tested – including the development and testing of timberstone composite floor systems. Environmental engineering focused dissertations range from climate resilience in Brazilian favelas to the indoor air quality of timber buildings. Dissertations focusing on experimental making range from robotic reclaimed brickwork to laser powder bed fusion of siliceous materials. The dissertations are inventive, critical and thoughtful research that augments the work students undertake in design studio. The EAD Dissertation offers the opportunity to focus and inform the student’s career in the built environment, combined with the potential for publication and the undertaking of a PhD.

Dissertation tutors Yasemin Didem Aktas, Esfandiar Burman, Klaas De Rycke, Pedro Ferriera, Fabio Freddi, Matthew Heywood, Del Hossain, Oliver Houchell, Aurore Julien, Farhang Tahmasebi, Jian Kang, Jonathan Kendall, Ivan Korolija, Christopher Leung, Annarita Papeschi, Wendel Sebastian, Joana Soares Goncalves, Michael Stacey, Sam Stamp, Yi Zhang

Architecture MArch

Liora Malki-Epshtein, Michael Stacey

Postgraduate teaching assistant Shayeeka Alam

History & Theory

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Year 4

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Anna Van Gucht Tutor: Oliver Houchell

(T)reading Space explores how architectural narrative, and authorship can be transformed through computational and algorithmic processes. Drawing on a combi nation of architectural theory, and works of fiction and poetry, it attempts to position contemporary questions of artificial intelligence within a broader conceptual framework. It argues that creativity has long depended on systems of translation, and that architecture, as an allographic practice, produces meaning through successive transformations between drawing, building and experience. Through case studies ranging from historical instruments to generative art works, this work documents a transition from architecture as a fixed narrative object to a network that creates narrative through interaction and iteration. This is further tested through a design experiment: an interactive maze where spatial growth is driven by user behaviour and algorithmic rules. The project demonstrates that author ship is not lost, but redistributed across designer, system and user. In the age of artificial intelligence, architecture becomes less about producing fixed forms and more about constructing the conditions through which meaning can emerge.

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

(T)reading Space: Architectural Narrative in an Algorithmic Age

The Closed Loop: A Mutual Housing Model for Britain

Architecture MArch History & Theory

particularly due to pounding between minarets and the main prayer halls. The research initially reviews and elaborates on the field observations from the EEFIT Morocco Mission carried out in 2024. Pounding between the minaret and the main structure is identified as a critical failure mechanism. Subsequently, the work numerically investigates the seismic performance of a real case-study structure and performs parametric analyses to shed light on the optimal design of the cou pling effects between the minaret and the structure. An Oasys GSA model is first developed for the entire structure. Successively, a detailed OpenSees model is developed for the minaret, coupled with a simplified model for the main structure. This combined model is used to perform non-linear time-history analysis in an Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) fashion, using a set of 44 ground-motion records to account for earthquake input uncertainty (that is, record-to-record variability). The IDAs adopt an optimal Intensity Measure (IM) that accounts for the dynamic responses of both structures and is tailored to investigate pounding effects. Peak relative displacements between the minaret and main structure were evaluated across varying seismic intensities and separation distances, and fragility curves were derived to quantify pounding probability. The results show that, for the considered case-study structure, pounding can occur at moderate seismic intensities (0.1–0.2g), with separation distance identified as the key parameter controlling the pounding risk. Increasing the gap significantly reduces the probability of pounding. A performancebased framework is proposed that enables designers to select separation distances based on the seismic design intensity and a target pounding probability. The research provides a practical strategy for mitigating pounding in Moroccan mosques.

Jasper RA Tecklenberg Tutor: Michael Stacey

Observed pounding between a minaret and prayer hall in a Moroccan mosque, highlighting the seismic vulnerability of these religious structures. Photo: EEFIT, 2025.

Mitigating Seismic-Induced Pounding Effects in Moroccan Mosques Hana Molokhia Tutor: Fabio Freddi

Historic and recent seismic events in Morocco (for example the Agadir Earthquake 1960, and the Al Haouz Earthquake 2023) have highlighted the vulnera bility of mosque structures,

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The UK is short of 4.3million homes, and the state now spends £33billion annually subsidising rents instead of investing in affordable homebuilding. The standard explanation blames insufficient supply and excessive regulation. This dissertation argues the deeper problem is one of system design: since 1980, housing has been converted from social infrastructure into a vehicle for wealth accumulation, and the system now depends on house prices rising indefinitely to remain stable. That dependency is precarious and unfair: a correction destroys homeowners’ savings overnight, while renters require falling prices to become homeowners themselves. Affordable housing supply is tied to rising housing prices through mechanisms like Section 106; mass homebuilding is fragile and shock-prone; and capital that could fund productive business investment is instead drawn into mortgage lending.

Victorian terraces, a post-war estate and the City of London, 2026. Image by the author.

The result is a system that fails to house people fairly and misallocates capital, limiting growth. The dissertation traces this settlement to its roots in classical and neoclassical economics – where land was reclassified as capital and where rent was legitimised as ‘interest’ – right through to the British legislative sequence that produced the pre sent arrangement. It then examines Vienna’s century-old non-speculative housing sector as evidence that a genuine alternative is workable at scale, not just in theory. Inspired by Vienna and the building societies of the past, an alternative is pro posed for Britain: a mutual social housing system – competing limited-profit housing associations, financed through a closed lending pool built from public and tenant capital, and a novel mortgage-lite mechanism that lets residents build transferable, inheritable housing equity without a mort gage’s speculative leverage. The aim is to preserve what ownership offers – security, a retirement asset, something to pass on – and make it accessible to all, while freeing British capital for productive uses to build the economy and develop infrastructure rather than inflate land values.

The (Other) Architectures

Kai Sethna Tutor: Oliver Houchell The (Other) Architectures investigates the architectural and engineering translations of monotheistic theology, using Zoroastrianism as an analytical lens to evaluate the fitnessfor-purpose of sacred spaces over time. As diasporic communities increasingly rely on the adaptive reuse of secular structures, this study asks whether repurposed buildings

Laser Powder Bed Fusion of Siliceous Materials: Towards their Application in the Built Environment Sebastian Eisen Tutor: Klaas De Rycke

The building industry faces severe environmental pressure, with its high carbon emissions demanding urgent material and manufacturing innovation. While the second digital revolution introduces digital fabrication technologies that promise a shift toward bespoke, material-efficient construction, real-world implementations remain scarce and heavily reliant on processed, carbon-intensive materials. Markus

Cost Effective, Environmentally and Culturally Responsive Roof Solutions for the Improvement of Climate Resilience in Favelas located in São Paulo, Brazil Valeria Miraglia Del Giudice Tutor: Joana Soares Goncalves

This dissertation investigates the impact of roof design on indoor thermal conditions in self-built housing in the favela of São Remo, São Paulo, with a focus on developing

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

To answer this central question, the research combines physical experimentation, architectural speculation, and strategic roadmapping. First, a speculative design framework extrapolates the unique geometric and material freedoms enabled by large-scale LPBF, exploring new architectural typologies ranging from landscape integration down to multi-layered wall assemblies. Next, physical experiments were conducted using a commercial CO₂ laser on non-pre-processed silica sand under minimal infrastructure conditions to establish a printing methodology and identify the material’s core engineering characteristics. Finally, the report outlines a development roadmap that connects these initial physical experiments to the broader speculative design vision, identifying the steps required to transition from small-scale testing to full-scale architectural execution. The findings confirm that LPBF of unprocessed siliceous materials is a technically feasible construction metho dology. Physical load testing demonstrated compressive strengths comparable to natural sandstone with predominantly closed-cell porosity, proving its structural viability under minimal pre-processing conditions. Ultimately, while this research successfully proves the foundational feasibility of using raw sand and recycled glass as structural components, significant further development and testing are required to resolve remaining technical challenges before full-scale archi tectural elements can be realised on site.

Architecture MSci

A visionary image showing the potential of the explored technique at an architectural scale. Image by the author.

Architecture MArch

can operate as legitimate architectural copies of traditional Zoroastrian fire-temples (Atash Behram), or whether severe geometric and material deviations inevitably cause a collapse into a Baudrillardian simulacrum. To empirically assess this, the research proposes a seven-axis taxonomy of the copy, synthesising theories from Mario Carpo, Richard Sennett, and Jean Baudrillard. This structure underpins a comparative analysis between a purpose-built historical baseline (the Iranshah Atash Behram, India) and a diasporic iteration (the Zoroastrian Centre, London, housed in a 1936 Art Deco cinema). The methodology combines diagrammatic mapping of procedural, perceptual and environmental thresholds with LiDAR scanning, which generated a high-fidelity digital surrogate of the Grade II* listed cinema, to overcome the lack of available drawings. The findings represent a shift in how architecture can facilitate ritual. The purpose-built temple acts as an immanent architecture – where geometry and passive thermodynamics objectively enforce sa cred protocols. Conversely, the diasporic adaptation functions as an invitational archi tecture – characterised by friction – and the negotiation between ancient rituals and the decadent volumes of the Art Deco cinema. It is found that the diasporic adaptation successfully maintains its operational fitness-for-purpose. However, its legitimacy is not secured by the architecture alone. It relies on the subjective cognitive effort of the congregation to actively override the secular architecture, reading cinematic thresholds as sacred boundaries. Ultimately, the survival of the diasporic copy is a negotiated condition, fortified not only by physical construction, but by the resilience of the community, and the faith they hold.

feasible and context-sensitive strategies to mitigate overheating. After thoroughly understanding local customs, culture and material availability, thermal simulations were conducted in Grasshopper and Honeybee for a typical base case dwelling and analysed to understand the role of incident solar radiation on roof performance. Results demonstrated that solar gains through the roof are a dominant driver of indoor temperatures, particularly on upper floors, with limited ventilation and high exposure exacerbating overheating. A series of roof strategies were syste matically evaluated across three stages, using ceiling temperature, operative temperature, cost, and construction complexity as key performance metrics. These strategies were grouped into four categories: thermal mass, insulation, shading, and reflectivity. Findings show that shading and reflective approaches are generally the most effective in reducing peak temperatures, while insulation strate gies exhibit varied performance and thermal mass is constrained by structural feasibility. Cumulative strategies combining multi ple approaches were also explored, revealing that hybrid solutions can offer improved performance while maintaining practical feasibility. Notably, adaptations of common systems, such as fibre cement roofs enhanced with insulation and reflective finishes, proved to be both effective and accessible. The research further integrates feasibility considerations through a costcomplexity-performance matrix and presents findings in a scenario-based catalogue, enabling residents to select strategies based on their specific priorities and constraints. Overall, 12 roof strategies were identified that reduced ceiling temperatures from a baseline of 48 °C to below 30 °C. However, costs per m² ranged from R$50 to R$400, highlighting significant variability and implications for feasibility.

History & Theory

LiDAR-scan of the tiered stalls of the old Grosvenor Cinema, Rayners Lane, beneath the main prayer hall of the Zoroastrian Centre. Image by the author.

Kayser’s Solar Sinter provided a critical provocation by demonstrating how additive manufacturing can harness abundant raw desert sand and solar energy. Taking Kayser’s vision as a direct point of departure, this dissertation extends his experiment beyond the desert toward structural architecture. It investigates whether Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) of unprocessed siliceous materials – specifically raw silica sand and recycled glass – can establish a viable, lowcarbon Direct Digital Manufacturing method for sustainable construction.

View of the urban landscape in the favela of São Remo, São Paulo. Image by the author.

Ultimately, the study demonstrates that there is no singular optimal solution. Instead, a range of adaptable, climateresponsive strategies is required to address the diverse needs of informal settlements. By translating technical analysis into practical guidance, this research aims to support more informed decision making and restore agency to residents in improving the thermal performance of their homes.

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Advanced Architectural Studies Architecture MArch Year 4 Adam Walls

The Advanced Architectural Studies module, part of the first year of the two-year Architecture MArch course, focuses on architectural histories and theories. It provides a space to reflect on architecture within a broader critical, intellectual and contextual field – simultaneously producing and being produced by it. Here, we explore architecture’s connections to other disciplinary and knowledge fields, from the scientific and technological to the social sciences and humanities, spanning empirics and theory, design and history, the iconic and the everyday. The module engages students with architectural history and theory as a critical framework to inform design, as a parallel domain for testing approaches, and as a discrete field of architectural inquiry. It focuses on three key aspects: a reflective, critical and analytical approach; research instinct and exploratory methods and research as a form of practice; and skills of synthesis, writing and articulation. It also provides a foundational platform for the student’s final year thesis. The lecture series introduces students to the research of the module’s seminar tutors, covering topics such as architectural ornamentation, global cities, Iranian domestic spaces, housing and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and architecture and film. These lectures are complemented by the core of the module: a set of themed seminars. These span multiple global architectural histories and theories, and engage with buildings, urbanism, landscapes, design, art, film, ecology and the climate emergency, politics, activism, technology, production, representation, spatial and material cultures, public participation and urban regeneration. Drawing on both seminars and lectures, students ultimately develop a critical enquiry on a topic of their choice, culminating in a 4,500-word essay.

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2025–26 Seminars Architecture On & Off Screen, Christophe Gérard; Flexible Bodies, Flexible Selves, Tijana Stevanović; Conversations About Change, Daisy Froud; The Political Lives of Domestic Objects, Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani; Architecture, Commerce and the Global City, Nicholas Jewell; Socialism in Architecture. Architecture in Socialism, Jenia Gubkina; Architectural Splendour, Oliver Domeisen; Architecture and the Image of Decay, Paul Dobraszczyk Tutors Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani, Paul Dobrasczcyk, Oliver Domeisen, Daisy Froud, Christophe Gérard, Jenia Gubkina, Nick Jewell, Tijana Stevanović Postgraduate teaching assistant Patricia Rodrigues Ferreira da Silva

“The greatness of architecture lies precisely in the richness of its reading as a human act, in its irreducible complexity.” Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza Torres Blancas rises as a dense body of exposed concrete, its cylindrical volumes swelling and receding as though grown rather than assembled. Heavy, textured, and resolutely grounded, it proposes itself as a vertical city where dwellings, circulation, and collective life are compressed into a single architectural organism. Conceived in a Madrid marked by repression and inti midation, the building neither escapes nor rejects its historical moment. Instead, it quietly calibrates it, suggesting that Spanish modernity might emerge not through rupture, but through negotiation with the weight of the past. This essay takes Oiza’s proposition literally, reading Torres Blancas (1961–68) as an architectural text through which Spain’s relationship with death, memory, and modernity can be understood. The building’s spatial progression of descent, ascent, and resurrection becomes both narrative and method, transforming movement through the tower into a reading of Spain’s cultural condition during the final decades of Francoism. The investigation draws on Yuri Lotman, the Soviet-Estonian semiotician who explored culture through systems of boundaries, repetition, and translation. While his distinction between closed and open cultures provides a point of departure, Torres Blancas suggests that Spain resists this binary. The essay instead proposes two intertwined conditions: a persistent Baroque-Catholic Culture A, shaped by ritual, repetition, and an intimacy with death, and a Culture B, a negotiated modernity that absorbs external influence without relinquishing inherited symbolic structures. Read alongside figures such as Federico García Lorca, Camarón de la Isla, Rosalía, and C. Tangana, the tower reveals how architecture, music, and literature repeatedly return to the same cultural questions. Death does not disappear with modernity. It is continually reinterpreted. Descent confronts the visitor with ritual and constraint; ascent negotiates openness; and the rooftop com pletes the cycle through light, distance, and release. Rather than presenting modernity as a break from history, Torres Blancas proposes a distinctly Spanish mode of renewal, one in which the past is neither erased nor mo numentalised, but resurrected into new architectural and cultural forms.

Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Alex Pérez Escamilla

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Torres Blancas and the Negotiated Modernity of MidTwentieth Century Spain

This essay examines the ruination of Pekan Papan, a former tin-mining town in Perak, Malaysia, and argues that it is not simply the result of economic decline or the pas sage of time, but the consequence of selective historical remembrance shaped by colonial extraction and postcolonial heritage practices. Rather than viewing the town through the romantic lens of the architectural ruin, the essay reads Pekan Papan as an ongoing material condition produced by uneven distributions of power, care, and neglect. Through comparisons with nearby sites such as Batu Gajah, Kellie’s Castle, and the preserved TT5 Tin Dredge, the essay demonstrates that heritage preservation is not determined by material durability alone but by the kinds of historical narratives architecture can support. Buildings associated with governance, technological progress, elite ambition, and national development are preserved because they reinforce coherent and celebratory accounts of Malaysia’s past. In contrast, Pekan Papan’s architecture records histories of migrant labour, colonial extraction, racial segregation, and economic exploitation that remain politically and culturally difficult to incorporate into dominant national narra tives. Its abandonment therefore reflects an active process of selective remembrance rather than passive neglect. The essay further contends that unre solved sites such as Pekan Papan possess critical value precisely because they resist narrative closure. Through analysis of practices such as urban exploration, it argues that embodied encounters with uncurated ruins can generate forms of historical understanding unavailable within institutionalised heritage sites, provided they avoid reducing decay to spectacle or nostalgia. Ultimately, the essay concludes that architecture’s role is not to fix, beautify or monumentalise, but to frame attention, to insist that the architectural afterlives of extraction, labour, and selective remembrance continue to be seen, questioned and carried forward. Looking away allows ruination to become erasure; attending carefully is to accept the histories architecture still holds as they fall apart.

Architecture MSci

West façade of Torres Blancas by Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza. Image by the author.

Architecture MArch

Joshua Teh

authorship represented in Kiefer’s practice by both films seems to approach what Andreas Huyssen identifies as a dangerous conceit in Kiefer’s artworks: a tendency toward totalisation. Huyssen warns that symbolic universes within Kiefer’s works risk recalling the “phantasmagoria that fascism itself is the ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk, in which history, myth, architecture, and affect are fused into a single, overwhelming aesthetic system.” This essay argues that such critique can similarly be applied to Kiefer’s studio-worlds and practices, which begin to resemble a total artwork in their ambition and coherence, a condition that renders Kiefer’s singular authority both compelling and profoundly uncomfortable. The essay questions whether Kiefer’s practice could be understood as an attempt to reactivate forms of singular authorship and expression rendered historically problematic, his monumental self-orientation perhaps a response to the “complete disorientation of the world post-1945”. The discomfort generated by Kiefer’s practice may therefore be precisely the point: an encounter deliberately staged from a singular perspective, mobilising the Gesamtkunstwerk itself as a provocation. While Fiennes’ fragmented structure reproduces the self-contradicting decaying monumentality of Kiefer’s practice, Wenders’ framing consolidates its coherence and authority between sites, works and scales. As such, Kiefer’s works and studio-sites may remain materially unfinished – burned, eroded, and continually reconsidered – yet operate within a systematic, repeated, and controlled studio-world directed by the artist. The Gesamtkunstwerk of Kiefer’s practice thus appears less in the stability of its forms than in the consistency of its system: reproduced across sites and media, while its contents resist closure through continual intentional decay. Kiefer’s practice thus seems to operate within this unresolved contradiction, between totalising ambition and productive material disintegration.

History & Theory

Ruination Without Remembrance: Architecture, Extraction and the Unresolved Afterlives of Pekan Papan

Encountering the Gesamtkunstwerk: Filmic Reconstructions of Anselm Kiefer’s Practice Ottoline Martin

Through the lens of two documentary films – Anselm by Wim Wenders, and Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow by Sophie Fiennes – this essay explores how the logics of monumentality, isolation, and singular

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Architecture BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Architecture MSci Architecture MArch History & Theory

Thesis Architecture MArch Year 5 Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton The thesis enables Year 5 Architecture MArch students to undertake research in an area of particular interest to them. In doing so, they address architecture and relevant related disciplines such as environmental design, humanities, engineering, cultural theory, manufacturing, anthropology, ethnography, computation, the visual arts, physical or social sciences and urbanism. The year begins with a short study of research methods. Students then develop individual research proposals, which are reviewed and discussed with module coordinators and design tutors. Following this review, students undertake their research in depth. They are supported by specialist tutors who are individually allocated according to each student’s stated research question and proposed methodology. The result is a study of 9,000 words or equivalent that documents relevant research questions, contexts, activities and outcomes. The thesis is an inventive, critical and directed research activity that augments the work students undertake in the design studio. The symbiotic relationship between thesis and design varies, ranging from one that is evident and explicit to one situated more broadly within a wider sphere of intellectual interest. The thesis typically includes one or more propositional elements, such as dis cursive argumentation, the development of a design hypothesis or strategy, or the development and testing of a series of design components and assemblies in relation to a specific line of inquiry or interest. Past graduates have gone on to further pursue their thesis research interests through a variety of pathways. These include writing papers for presentation at academic conferences and in academic journals, developing external projects, undertaking PhDs and working as specialists in industry. We anticipate that several theses from this year’s academic cohort will be developed into external publications or projects.

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Thesis tutors Hector Altamirano, Edwina Attlee, Alessandro Ayuso, Carolina Bartram, Peter Karl Becher, Peter Bishop, Camillo Boano, Iain Borden, Roberto Bottazzi, Brent Carnell, Finbar Charleson, Paul Dobraszczyk, Daniel Dream, Kenneth Fraser, Murray Fraser, Stelios Giamarelos, Joana Soares Goncalves, Polly Gould, Kostas Grigoriadis, Jenia Gubkina, Fernando Gutiérrez, Eric Guilbert, Jane Hall, Sean Hanna, Danielle Hewitt, Jan Kattein, Constance Lau, Luke Lowings, Tim Lucas, Abel Maciel, Emma-Kate Matthews, Anna Mavrogianni, Claire McAndrew, Lakshmi Rajendran, Rokia Raslan, Guang Yu Ren, Vicky Richardson, Filomena Russo, Michael Stacey, Adam Walls, Tim Waterman, Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton, Stamatis Zografos Thesis module tutor Fernando Gutiérrez Postgraduate teaching assistant Ana Mayoral Moratilla

Hydropower & Climate Change: Territorialising Extra-Active Landscapes in Greenland Oliver Penny Tutor: Oliver Wilton

The climate emergency has produced a broadly accepted position around the necessity of renewable energy. Solar, wind and hydropower are frequently assumed to be static systems, operating as neutral

Map of potential hydropower sites around the Tasersiaq catchment area, based on information from the Greenland government. Image by the author.

By combining theoretical analysis, interviews and spatial mapping, trans formations are examined across multiple scales. This identifies limitations in existing frameworks describing renewable energy systems and considers renewables as a fun damentally land-based practice. In response, the thesis proposes Extra-active Landscapes to describe how renewable energy operates through the continuous activation of environmental conditions rather than their depletion. In Greenland, land use and climate are inherently linked. Ultimately, the thesis argues for a more precise and nuanced understanding of hydropower to better understand its wider spatial implications in an emerging Arctic frontier. In Greenland, climate change simultaneously threatens ecological systems while generating new forms of land value, positioning hydropower as both an instrument of decarbonisation and a mechanism through which Arctic space is politically and materially reor ganised. By critically analysing Greenland, it highlights the need to understand how emerging Extra-active Landscapes are interpreted, governed and designed in the fluid context of ongoing climate change.

The industrial model village, the pheno menon from which Bournville emerged, had reached its height when Bournville was founded by the Cadbury family in 1895. Built by wealthy business owners in the absence of a welfare state, many of these model villages are still operating today. Bournville, characterised by a leafy array of Arts and Crafts houses, continues to be one of the most sought-after areas of Birmingham for social and private residents alike. As the social housing stock in the UK continues to diminish, Bournville, almost completely exempt from the government initiatives Right to Buy and Right to Acquire, has retained 48.5% of its housing stock as socially rented homes. As a blend of Arts and Crafts, the Garden Cities movement, and the forward-thinking economic shrewdness of George Cadbury, Bournville operates as a radical vision of the future, frozen in time. The Bournville Village Trust (BVT), a registered charity managing over 3,400 social homes, has been the custodian of the village since 1900 and has maintained its reputation as an aspirational and attractive part of Birmingham. Considering the ongoing housing crisis, independent social housing developments like Bournville provide an opportunity to study alternative ways of designing and managing housing as we look for new ways to build. Through a diverse range of primary sources, it is possible to understand the contemporary operation of Bournville, a place which is constantly evolving in its aspirations. Additionally, through the theo retical framework of the ’Arts and Crafts Utopia’, exemplified in William Morris’ News from Nowhere, and supported by utopian and anarchist analysis such as that of Marin, Foucault and Kropotkin, it is possible to cast Bournville in a new light and question what lesson it could teach us.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Camille De Waele Tutor: Robin Wilson

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

In this thesis I investigate the traditional Irish music seisiún as a socio-spatial, sonic practice within the cultural and architectural context of the city of London. Through an embodied ethnographic methodology – listening, photography, automatic writing, recording, and reflective drawing – I examine how the seisiún takes form through the expectations, actions, and spatial negotiations of musicians and active listeners. I view the seisiún as a cultural spatial practice shaped by relationships and the diasporic experiences of the Irish community. My research shows that pub environ ments, informal systems of communication, and venue-specific cultural framing signifi cantly influence how the seisiún unfolds, is organised and understood. I reveal how patterns of proximity and circulation central to the coherence in this mode of musicking can unsettle typical performer–audience distinctions. I demonstrate throughout the fieldwork how communication through gesture and posture along with the material qualities of the interior contribute to the intimacy and social cohesion of the seisiún. Through reflective drawing, I revisit the seisiún to articulate the spatial and affective qualities to exceed what can be captured through sound recording alone. I portray the seisiún within the broader diasporic patterns of continuity and belonging in London. I argue that the traditional seisiún emerges when social, sonic, and architectural conditions align, revealing how a cultural space is both produced and sustained through this practice.

Lessons from an Arts and Crafts Utopia: unpicking the political and architectural underpinnings of Bournville Model Village

Architecture MSci

Cara Russell Tutor: Emma-Kate Matthews

Photo of the bakery on Sycamore Road, Bournville’s high street, which is overlooked by the village green and was designed by Henry Bedford Tyler 1905–1908. Image by the author.

Architecture MArch

Fuaim na háite: how architectural, acoustic, and social conditions shape the traditional Irish music seisiún in London

History & Theory

Janelle and others, The Blythe Hill Tavern. Image by the author.

overlays across vast areas of otherwise ‘unproductive’ land. The relative blind spot of renewable systems’ broader impacts in academic discourse has led to a skewing in the argument for their deployment in some cases, foregrounding their well-explored decarbonisation contributions. Yet the rapid expansion of renewable infrastructures is also generating new markets, financial assets and geopolitical tensions, creating emerging frontiers of spatial transformation. This thesis examines how hydropower infrastructures transform land use, value and occupation within emerging hinterlands, focusing on Greenland as a rapidly changing Arctic frontier. The research asks: what vocabulary might more precisely describe renewable energy entanglements beyond contemporary extractivist simplifications, and in what ways are climate change and hydropower development driving new forms of territorialisation that reconfigure land use, value and governance in Greenland?

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History & Theory

Architecture MArch

Architecture MSci

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Ageing Homes, Ageing Bodies: Adaptive Retrofit for Improved Thermal Comfort in Japanese Homes Kotaro Bean Tutor: Rokia Raslan

Since 1965, the catchwater network for Shek Pik Reservoir functionally incarcerates the natural streams across South Lantau. Contemporary restoration schemes aim to revert the a-signifying rupture to restore the ecologies for humans and non-humans through farming and marine conservation. Image by the author.

Regeneration of the flowing waters and forests: reviving cultural landscapes amidst the shift from technocratic control to collaborative ecology in South Lantau Island, Hong Kong Angus Sum Ho Hong Tutor: Anna Mavrogianni

This thesis examines the evolution of eco logical management in Hong Kong, arguing that its protected landscapes function as spaces of “ecological biopolitics”. Historically, infrastructures like the Shek Pik Reservoir reduced nature to functional units for urban supply, displacing traditional agriculture. Tracing the shift from colonial utilitarianism to contemporary mana gerialism, the research frames this enclosure as landscape “incarceration”. This reflects Ackbar Abbas’s “culture of disappearance”, where the state commodifies heritage through “kitsch” remembrance, transforming cultural landscapes into capital for mass tourism rather than sustaining productive local life. The central conflict lies in how this biopolitical logic, enforced via the proposed South Lantau Eco-recreation Corridor, is resisted by local communities. In villages like Shui Hau, residents leverage the Lantau Conservation Fund for acts of “recommoning”, reclaiming land from a mere scenic backdrop into a biodiverse, researchfocused ecology. To explore this dynamic, the thesis investigates three primary questions: 1. How has historical water infrastructure alienated local agency? 2. How might the Ecorecreation Corridor extract village heritage for mass tourism? 3. How can regenerative stewardship balance conservation with local traditions? Methodologically, the study combines archival research with interviews of villagers and NGOs (WWF, Hong Kong Bird Watching Society). Framed by Peg Rawes’s “architectures of care”, the research suggests spatial practitioners must develop ethical frameworks to support both social wellbeing and biodiversity. Ultimately, the thesis proposes a “dualuse” management model for post-colonial Hong Kong. Drawing on stewardship pre cedents like Mai Po wetlands and Hoi Ha Wan, this model challenges the binary of state-led conservation and commercialisation. By weaving conservation directly into village practices, it empowers locals to actively shape their environment and offers a blueprint for a non-extractive, collaborative ecology.

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20th-century ruins at Shallee. Image by the author.

Figures in a Sacrificial Landscape

In the context of an ageing population and a warming climate, questions of comfort and health in domestic architecture are becoming increasingly urgent. In Japan, this condition is intensified by the convergence of a rapidly ageing society and an ageing housing stock, much of which is already regarded as thermally inadequate, with performance projected to further decline over time. Despite growing interest in healthy ageing within architecture, the thermal environment of the home remains comparatively overlooked. Contemporary responses also tend to privilege mechanically regulated indoor environments over adaptive modes of living.

Orla Buck Tutor: Jenia (Ievgeniia) Gubkina Silvermines announces itself quietly, details settling slowly, only then to register all at once. The landscape reads as nature, sharing its grammar, but what is seen in the recognition of the supposed constant that is the natural world however is not felt. What reveals itself as palpable, is in fact something unfamiliar. Patchworks in the earth communicate, red rubble of heavy metal contamination holds its ground where no green can grow, one central stone leeches a taunting verdigris against the flora of its manufactured edge, as the staining residues, forced to the surface and left, confess themselves to those who know how to read it. Tuning into the fabricated, tens of thousands of extracted cylindrical core samples have fallen from their shelves, accumulating, improperly returning to the ground as a false footing, scattered across the surface of its own absence. In the palimpsest of architectural ruins that fleck the land, strange mineralites attach themselves to crumbling concrete walls, spreading and darkening them to twin the black limestone long since removed from beneath. What is discerned in the logic of the details, is then understood in the landscape, a gestalt shift occurs. In the wild precipice above, in solid rock, are two impossible doorways. Stranded above a landscape that is now overwhelmingly, wholly artificial, the ground has been carved away beneath. The whole landscape has been cut, excavated, tunnelled and ruptured across centuries. And yet, it is not strictly binary: the architectural and the natural have, in the periods since companies departed, begun a slow process of becoming one another in each absence. What was imposed on the land and what preceded it are finding, in abandonment, an uneasy coexistence, not harmony exactly, but a new tension, a strange beauty that is absolutely inseparable from the knowledge of what produced it.

Axonometric of the proposed retrofit design. Image by the author.

This thesis is situated within that tension, investigating how the thermal performance of Japanese homes can be improved through adaptive retrofit stra tegies to better support healthy ageing. Grounded in the case study of the author’s grandmother’s semi-traditional rural home, it uses a single dwelling as a lens rather than a prototype to explore ageing as a dynamic relationship between occupant, building, and climate. Through spatial reconstruction, environmental simulation, and design-led testing, the existing house is analysed before a series of spatial and material retrofit strategies are systematically evaluated under present and future climatic conditions. The research culminates in a design proposal illustrating how these interventions enable the house to adapt alongside its occupants over time. The findings demonstrate the signi ficance of spatial configuration and passive interventions in improving thermal condi tions and supporting healthy ageing. In doing so, the thesis positions retrofit as an architectural opportunity to support ageing-in-place within a fragile, declining rural context, while remaining attuned to seasonal rhythms and the environmental conditions in which both the building and its inhabitants continue to change.

This thesis examines how architectural assemblages enable or constrain democratic practices in public space within regenerating urban areas. It argues that indeterminacy, the openness of a spatial arrangement to unscripted interaction, negotiation, and appropriation constitute an enabling con dition for democracy, shifting the lens of public space scholarship from governance and ownership toward the spatial and material conditions through which demo cratic capacity is produced. The research explores this argument through investigating the transformation of Hackney Wick and Stratford under the London Legacy Development Corporation, examined through two contrasting case studies: Queen’s Yard and Fish Island Village. Drawing on behavioural mapping and photographic documentation, alongside policy analysis and archival research, the thesis uncovers how governance structures materialise in built form and how spatial configurations shape patterns of occupation, interaction, and exclusion. Democratic capa city, the research argues, is not an inherent quality of public space: it is produced or foreclosed through the socio-material configurations of the assemblage itself. The findings show that indeterminacy is not a quality practitioners can simply introduce or exclude, but a condition that emerges through the continuous intersection of material configuration, governance structure, and accumulated social practice over time, one incompatible with how public space is currently produced under market-led regeneration. Queen’s Yard’s capacity emerged through improvised occupation that no design brief could have prescribed, yet the same openness that allows appropriation by some renders it unwelcoming to families, older users, and those outside its night-time economy. Fish Island Village, by contrast, forecloses appropriation through its completeness alone. The thesis concludes that indeter minacy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for democratic publicness. It argues not for restoring the condition of the industrial edgeland, but for how architects and planners might carve out conditions within development-led systems that allow assemblages to remain open, adaptable, and capable of appropriation over time.

A tapestry exploring the architectural characters encompassing the rural landscape in my mother’s childhood stories. Image by the author.

Drawing on interviews with my mother and her sisters, the thesis develops a series of critical fabulations that reconstruct childhood experiences in rural Kerala, foregrounding vernacular storytelling as an alternative historiographical practice. These narratives are read alongside selected Anglo-Indian stories by Ruskin Bond to demonstrate how fiction operates as a form of cultural memory and political resistance. Building on this rich Anglo-Indian literary catalogue, the thesis privileges oral history over colonial and nationalist archives that have historically marginalised the com munity. Throughout the work, my mother’s childhood perspective – ”the small voice” – periodically interrupts the text, revealing the continuous dialogue between fiction and lived experience. In doing so, the thesis argues that Anglo-Indian fiction preserves a distinct domestic culture and proves hybrid Indianness is real, distinct and of immense value.

The Forgotten City: A Revival of Timber Bridge Construction in London Adam Lynes Tutor: Tim Lucas

Timber once defined London’s infrastruc ture, but the Great Fire of London prompted a shift to alternative materials and favoured standardised forms over traditional craft. In doing so, a deeply embedded culture of carpentry and material intelligence was lost. Despite a renewed interest in timber construction, the application of timber for infrastructure in the UK remains largely unexplored. This thesis examines the decline of timber bridge construction in London and considers its potential revival in the context of current forestry schemes, sustainable building practices and the pressures of climate change, while exploring the material, structural and cultural opportunities that timber bridge construction could offer. The central question of this thesis is: What would a timber bridge look like in London today? The thesis identifies a gap between contemporary mass timber sys tems and the nuanced, adaptable logic of traditional craft. The investigation is framed through a lens of longevity and circular economy, questioning whether historic typologies can offer insight into more resilient infrastructure. To address the central area of interest, the research revisits historic timber bridge typologies in England alongside those in Europe that informed their development, particularly those developed by Swiss craftsmen in the 17th and 18th centuries. These investigations consider and appraise the relationship between structural per formance, craftsmanship and durability. A comparison of case studies highlights principles of load paths, structural redun dancy, joinery, and repairability that could inform contemporary design. The methodology combines digital testing, structural modelling and analytical diagrams to extract principles from casestudy analysis, supported where relevant by physical testing, fieldwork and interviews. The outcome proposes a synthesis between modern engineering and traditional craft, demonstrating how timber bridge cons truction in London may be approached through a strategy of resiliency, adaptability and circularity.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Eunice Cheung Tutor: Fernando Gutiérrez

Design research fragment for a mixed species, three-point arch through truss, with integrated redundancy strategies. Image by the author.

Architecture MSci

Designing the Unfinished: Assemblage, Indeterminacy and Democratic Public Space in Hackney Wick and Stratford

Architecture MArch

Photos of Fish Island Village (left) and Queen’s Yard (right), 2026. Images by the author.

This thesis explores how critical fiction can reimagine Anglo-Indian domesticity as a site through which Indianness is narrated, preserved, and contested. Bringing together oral histories, literary analysis and creative writing, it argues that Anglo-Indian stories produce alternative histories that challenge narrow definitions of Indian identity. Rather than locating Indianness solely within religion or nationalism, the thesis demons trates how domestic practices, storytelling, and relationships to the rural landscape constitute equally meaningful expressions of belonging. The research is situated against the backdrop of the 2019 104th Constitutional Amendment, which removed reserved parlia mentary representation for the Anglo-Indian community, and the rise of Hindutva, whose nationalist discourse increasingly equates Indianness with Hindu identity. As a cultural minority shaped through colonialism, Anglo-Indians occupy a precarious position within these contemporary debates.

History & Theory

Luke Gifford Tutor: Edwina Attlee

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architecture BSc

Hybrid Reveries: Childhood Fictions in Search of Solidarity – the Ghosts of Northland

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This page: 76 Southbank by AHMM for Wolfe Commercial Properties Opposite: 1 Broadgate by AHMM for British Land Photographs by Tim Soar

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris is the proud main title sponsor of the students’ Summer Show

Storytelling through space

Endmatter

Our Courses

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Public Lectures

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Exhibitions & Events

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Bartlett Shows Website

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Alumni

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The Bartlett Promise

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The Bartlett School of Architecture Society

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Staff

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Our Courses The Bartlett School of Architecture currently teaches undergraduate and graduate students across 25 courses. You will find below a list of our current courses, their duration when taken full time and the course leaders. More information, including details on open days, is available on our website.

Undergraduate Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Three-year course, led by Farlie Reynolds Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 & 2) Five-year course with a year placement in practice, led by Alicia González-Lafita Perez and Sara Martinez Zamora Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Three- or four-year course, led by Sophie Read Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1, CIBSE, JBM) Four-year course, led by Matthew Heywood, Luke Olsen and Sam Stamp

Postgraduate Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Two-year course, led by Kostas Grigoriadis and Colin Smith Architectural Computation MSc 12-month course, led by Ava Fatah gen. Schieck (interim) Architectural Design MArch 12-month course, led by Tyson Hosmer Architectural History MA 12-month course, led by Barbara Penner and Robin Wilson Architecture & Historic Urban Environments MA 12-month course, led by Jane Wong Bio-Integrated Design MSc/MArch Two-year courses, led by Marcos Cruz and Brenda Parker Cinematic & Videogame Architecture MArch 12-month course led by Penelope Haralambidou and Luke Pearson Design for Manufacture MArch 15-month course, led by Peter Scully Design for Performance & Interaction MArch 15-month course, led by Lidia Gasperoni and Jessica In Landscape Architecture MA/MLA One-year (MA) and two-year (MLA) courses, led by Laura Allen and Mark Smout Situated Practice MA 15-month course, led by Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno and Daniel Ovalle Costal Space Syntax: Architecture & Cities MSc 12-month course, led by Kayvan Karimi Urban Design MArch 12-month course, led by Roberto Bottazzi Architectural Design MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year course, led by Nina Vollenbröker

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Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year course, led by Tania Sengupta Architectural Space & Computation MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year course, led by Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Architecture & Digital Theory MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year course, led by Mario Carpo Architectural Practice MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year course, led by Murray Fraser

Professional Studies Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 3) 10- to 23-month course, led by María Páez González

Short Courses Whether you are considering a future career in architecture, going on to further study, or adding to your professional skill set, our short courses cater to individuals from different backgrounds and of different ages who are seeking to learn more about the research, design and practice of architecture in flexible and creative ways. Our short courses utilise UCL’s state of the art facilities and are led by international experts and members of the Bartlett’s community who are leaders in their respective fields, supporting participants to undertake both specialised and broader forms of learning. Fire Safe Design for Architects Fire Safe Design for Architects empowers architects to take control of designing fire-safe buildings. Participants gain vital knowledge and skills to understand the complex and changing landscape of regulations in professional practice. This is the only in-person course specifically created for practising architects in the UK and demonstrates the Bartlett’s commitment to responding to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations. It provides practical steps for architects in fulfilling their obligations under the Building Safety Act. Landscape Architecture This five-day short course provides an introduction to the practice of Landscape Architecture, and our commitment to an agenda of climate-focused landscape design. Through a design- and produc tion-led approach, the course aims to address sustainability and deal with real-world challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate change and ecological crisis. The course is particularly beneficial for students preparing a portfolio for Landscape Studies at Masters level in the UK and internationally. For ages 18+. Bartlett Summer Schools Our on-campus Summer Schools offer 14-16 and 16-18-year-olds an immersive and hands-on learning experience for those looking to understand more about architecture within the Bartlett’s campus environment. In collaboration with the Bartlett Outreach Team and UCL’s Access and Widening Participation Team, we also offer a course within the Sutton Trust Summer Schools, helping to widen access to higher education for students from underrepresented backgrounds. Visit our website to find out more: ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/study

Public Lectures CRUNCH Bartlett’s flagship seminar series, CRUNCH is curated by the Directors of Public Programme, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar and Déborah López Lobato. This year’s theme of ‘Imminence’ invited speakers to explore what is just around the corner, what feels too close, or what may already be here. Against a backdrop of multiple crises, the series asked how architecture can imagine futures beyond urgency, cultivating practices of care, resilience and repair. Geology of Imminent Repair Kathryn Yusoff (Queen Mary, UoL) and Kabage Karanja (Cave Bureau), chaired by Prof Murray Fraser and Prof Eva Branscome (Bartlett) Extraplanetary Habits: An Imminent Frontier? Barbara Imhof (Universität Innsbruck), Irene Gallou (Foster + Partners) and Alan Smith (UCL Space & Climate Physics), chaired by Prof Marjan Colletti (Bartlett) Oblique Architectures: the Combinatory Urbanism of Iwona Buczkowska Iwona Buczkowska with respondent Nichola Barrington-Leach (NVBL), chaired by Dr Robin Wilson (Bartlett) Site: Form, Structure and Technique Luis Callejas (LCLA Office) with respondents Dr Diana Salazar Morales and Tamsin Hanke (Bartlett), chaired by Prof Mark Smout and Prof Laura Allen (Bartlett). Co-convened by Prof Yeoryia Manolopoulou (Bartlett) Imminent Energies Julia Barfield (Marks Barfield Architects), Iain Macdonald (HKS Architects) and Ele Carpenter (Umeå University), chaired by Luke Olsen (Bartlett) The Practitioner Prof Níall McLaughlin with respondent Prof Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno (Bartlett), chaired by Prof Amy Kulper (Bartlett) Architecture and Environment Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA), chaired by Prof Murray Fraser and Michiko Sumi (Bartlett) The Metabolic Home Lydia Kallipoliti (Columbia University GSAPP) with respondent Prof Barbara Penner (Bartlett), chaired by Haden Charbel (Bartlett) 在大陆 On Land Liu Jiakun (Jiakun Architects) with chair and respondents: Guang Yu Ren (Bartlett) and the Bartlett School of Architecture Society Learning through Displacement: Pedagogies for the Colonial Present Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti (DAAR) and Lobna Al-Sana (architect and artist), chaired by Dr Mohamad Hafeda (Bartlett) The Architecture of Imminence Swati Chattopadhyay (UC Santa Barbara), with respondents Christina Garbi, Vaishnavi Gondane and Aylin Gürel (Bartlett), chaired by Dr Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos (Bartlett) Imminent Archives: Expanding Architecture’s Canon Gus Casely-Hayford (V&A East) with respondent Dr Mpho Matsipa (Bartlett), chaired by Prof Amy Kulper (Bartlett) Depth and Belonging Ijlal Muzaffar (Rhode Island School of Design) with respondent Chris Moffat (Queen Mary University of London), chaired by Prof Catalina Ortiz (UCL Urban Laboratory)

Inaugural Lecture: Professor Barbara Penner Barbara Penner’s inaugural professorial lecture reflected on feminist architectural history through biography and commemoration, tracing exile, resilience and agency in the life of the ‘unconventional architect’ Ella Briggs. Introduced by Prof Jacqui Glass, Dean of the Bartlett, followed by a discussion with Prof Iain Borden.

Landscapes in Dialogue Landscapes in Dialogue is a public lecture series from the Landscape Architecture courses. The series comprises curated but informal talks from practitioners and academics. Speakers from a range of disciplines are invited to reflect on their work in progress, working methods and the process of working with landscape. Speakers included: Geoff Manaugh (BLDGBLOG), Alistair Bayford (Frosts Landscapes), Liza Griffin (DPU), Christie Swallow (artist).

Situating Architecture Situating Architecture is an architectural history lecture series affiliated with the Bartlett’s Architectural History MA. It is open to students and the public and showcases the latest research of leading architectural scholars with a particular focus on applying new and diverse methodologies and critical theories to architecture and cities. Speakers included: Nina Vollenbröker (Bartlett), Nick Beech (University of Birmingham), Vimalin Rujivacharakul (Tsinghua University, Beijing), Daniel Ryan (University of Sydney), Natalia Romik (architect, artist, curator), Aaron Cayer (Cal Poly Pomona).

Bartlett Research Conversations The Bartlett Research Conversations series features research presentations from students undertaking the Architectural Design or Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD courses. Students are joined by senior academics from across the school, including PhD course leaders and supervisors, alongside members of the wider Bartlett and UCL community. This year research was presented by: Nerea Amorós Elorduy, Natalia Romik, Hanchun Li, Jocelyn Wang, Laurence Blackwell-Thale, Giorgos Christofi, Deniz Özbek Koçak, Kıvılcım Göksu Toprak, Ruining Xie.

Space Syntax Space Syntax features researchers sharing their findings, discussing ideas and showing work in progress from the Bartlett’s Space Syntax Laboratory. Guests to the series included: Lucía Elizondo Jiménez and Ruben Garnica-Monroy (Tecnológico de Monterrey), Lucía Martín López (Rey Juan Carlos University), Chenyang Li (Bartlett), Lanqing Gu (TU Darmstadt), Nick Dalton (Northumbria University), Julie Zook (University of Illinois), José B Paiva Neto (COPPE/UFRJ).

Constructing Realities The Constructing Realities series explores the design and making of our built environment, examining how invention, creativity, collaboration and technology are shaping the future of the spaces we live in. Speakers this year included: Michael Mueller (Alison Brooks Architects), Andrew Waugh (Waugh Thistleton Architects), Klaus Bode (Klaus Bode Consultancy), Graeme Williamson (Graeme Williamson Architects), Cristina Morbi (Maetherea), Gary Elliott (Elliott Wood), Julian Harrap (Julian Harrap Architects), Gwilym Still (Max Fordham), Peter Goff (Buro Happold).

Enlarging the Computational Spectrum Enlarging the Computational Spectrum is a lecture series dedicated to uncovering the profound and evolving consequences of computation and AI in architectural and artistic practice. Speakers this year included: Ludovico Centis (The Empire), AA Cavia, Catherine Mason, Sotirios Kotsopoulos (NTUA), Kas Oosterhuis (ONL), Rebecca Fiebrink (UAL Creative Computing Institute), Maya Christodoulaki (TU Vienna), Bernard Geoghegan.

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Exhibitions & Events The Bartlett School of Architecture delivers a varied programme of exhibitions and events throughout the year, bringing together students, researchers, academics and practitioners to explore ideas shaping architecture and the built environment. In 2025–26, this included conferences, symposia, seminars, work shops, film screenings and book launches, alongside exhibitions and installations showcasing research and creative practice across the school. Here is a snapshot of some of the events that took place throughout the year. The inaugural Design Open event, Design Matters, 12 November, celebrated the breadth and depth of design practice across the school through an ‘open table’ presentation. More than 20 architects, designers, makers and researchers shared work and discussed what matters most in their practice today. This year’s PhD Research Conference and Exhibition, 24 February–10 March, marked the 25th anniversary of the Architectural Design MPhil/PhD and 25 years since the graduation of its first doctoral candidate, Professor Jonathan Hill. Current PhD candidates and alumni contributed a student-led programme commemorating the milestone. The exhibition also launched the new Jonathan Hill Architectural Design PhD Prize Fund, with Anna Switaj announced as its first recipient. UCL East Cinema held two film screenings for the department. Aequare. The Future that Never Was, 27 February, with director Sammy Baloji, explored the intertwined crises of climate change and ecological extractivism in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while the animated short Grounded, 11 March, examined climate justice as something lived, uneven and deeply political. Led by the cross-faculty Designing Equity Unit, Future Spaces of Women’s Health, 17 March, invited participants to contribute to collaborative works redesigning and reimagining public spaces to address women’s health needs. The co-making event considered how these spaces could help advance equity in public life. The Research Cluster for Disability, Deafness and Neurodiversity in Architecture held its first series of seminars and workshops in 2026: Crip and Civic Pedagogies, 6 and 13 May and Disabling the Archive, 20 May and 3 June. Working with disabled practitioners and organisations, the events examined research and design practices at the intersections of body/minds, race, queerness, ageing, pedagogy and architecture, both within and beyond the institution.

UCL200 2026 marks UCL’s 200th anniversary. Founded in 1826 as the first university in London, UCL is celebrating two centuries of learning, innovation and change through a programme of events, exhibitions, lectures and installations. The bicentenary programme looks back at UCL’s history while also asking what comes next. The Bartlett School of Architecture contributed through a series of events and installations. Architecture staff and students took part in the faculty-wide UCL200 exhibition London Intersections, 26 March–15 May. Bringing together more than 60 exhibits across four themes – Ecologies, Habitations, Mappings and Reclamations – the exhibition looked at how built environment research shapes London and influences everyday life. Commissioned as part of the UCL200 Public Art programme, Spolia Index by Kreider + O’Leary was unveiled on 17 June and is now permanently installed in the Wilkins Building Cloisters. The artwork considers the reuse and afterlife of architectural fragments and forms, reflecting on the layers of history embedded in UCL’s buildings and campus. The year also saw the launch of the Survey of London’s latest monograph, published to mark UCL’s bicentenary, University College London: The Bloomsbury Campus (UCL Press). The book is the first comprehensive account of UCL’s buildings since its foundation in 1826. Its launch event, Building UCL: From Foundation Stone to Future Sustainability, 22 June, discussed the architectural history of the Bloomsbury campus alongside questions about its future. Visit our website to see all upcoming events: ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture

Book Launches Form Follows Fuel, 25 February 2026 Authors Barnabas Calder and Florian Urban introduced Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age, exploring how energy has shaped architecture and architectural history. Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire, 6 March 2026 Dr Aaron Cayer’s book traces the rise of US-based architecture and engineering corporations, such as AECOM, as well as their impact on professions and politics after World War II. He was joined in conversation by Juliana Yat Shun Kei. Urban Violence and Marginalised Communities, 13 May 2026 Published by UCL Press, contributing authors and editors Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram, Stamatis Zografos, Márcio Júlio da Silva Mattos and Zoe Holman introduced the book, exploring how urban violence manifests in different forms and affects marginalised communities. The event included a discussion with Andrew Feinstein, author of the volume’s foreword, chaired by Sabina Andron. Design Open: Design Matters, Paul Smoothy.

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Bartlett Shows Website

The Bartlett Promise

In September 2020, the school launched its bespoke digital exhibition environment, presenting the Bartlett Summer Show 2020. Since then, 25 further student shows have been shared digitally, including this year’s Summer Show. Each digital exhibition has attracted thousands of online visitors from across the globe, with the Summer Show 2025 content viewed more than 250,000 times. The digital exhibition space was designed by creative agency Hello Monday, working together with the school’s exhibitions and communications teams, to create a unique online experience for the visitor. Hello Monday delivered a virtual show space that allows the user to explore the work spatially, within exhibition rooms, and in detail on student project pages. Students have the opportunity to display their work using video, high-definition imagery and 3D models, alongside detailed narratives. With each exhibition, the digital environment is refined to improve the visitor experience and encourage greater engagement with the student work displayed. Projects are now searchable by thematic concern, with all previous shows available to browse from a single landing page. In line with our commitment to inclusivity, we have recently implemented a fully accessible route to all project pages, in accordance with the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The Bartlett’s digital show environment has won web design awards from both the Awwwards and Favourite Website Awards, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Archiboo and D&AD Awards in the Digital Design category. In 2022, the website picked up two additional awards: a Silver Lovie and the People’s Lovie in the Schools & Education category. The Lovie Awards, named after Ada Lovelace, recognise European internet excellence in the fields of culture, technology and business.

Across higher education and in industry, the built environment sector is not diverse enough. Here at the Bartlett, we promise to do better.

bartlettarchucl.com

Alumni The Bartlett’s diverse and vibrant alumni play a vital role in the life of the school as staff, visiting lecturers, mentors, sponsors, donors and participants.

The Bartlett Promise Scholarship was launched in 2019 to enable UK undergraduate students from backgrounds under-represented in the Bartlett Faculty to pursue their studies with us, with the aim of diversifying the student body and ultimately the built environment sector. In 2020, it was widened to include Masters and PhD scholar ships, and in 2021, it was extended internationally to include Master’s students from Sub-Saharan Africa. We want a Bartlett education to be open to all, regardless of means. The scholarship covers full tuition fees for the degree programme, plus an annual allowance to cover living and study expenses. All Promise scholars also receive ongoing academic and career support during their studies. In addition, the Bartlett Promise Sub-Saharan Africa Scholarships provide a comprehensive support package, including travel to and from the UK and study visa costs. Sara Shafiei, Vice-Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Bartlett says: The award is a promise from the Bartlett faculty to future generations of scholars of the built environment – that we are wholeheartedly committed to taking bold and innovative steps in addressing underrepresentation of students from diverse backgrounds within built environment higher education and industry. We are delighted that The Bartlett Promise continues to grow and play a significant role in attracting the very best students, who continue to enrich our community in extraordinary ways. To be eligible for a scholarship, candidates must have an offer of a place on a Bartlett degree programme. When selecting scholars, we consider the educational, personal and financial circumstances of each applicant and how these relate to the eligibility criteria. Full details of the application process and eligibility criteria can be found on our website. ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/bartlett-promise

All Bartlett School of Architecture alumni are invited to join UCL Alumni, a global community of more than 495,000 former students, to keep in touch with the school and access a range of benefits, including special discounts, UCL’s Portico magazine and more. Registered alumni have access to: • Thousands of journals available through UCL Library • A global network of friends and colleagues through the worldwide alumni community • Free mentoring and the opportunity to become a mentor yourself • A jobs board exclusively for the alumni community • Lifelong learning options, including professional development opportunities Alumni interested in running events should email architecture. comms@ucl.ac.uk to discuss how we can help support you. aoc.ucl.ac.uk/alumni

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The Bartlett School of Architecture Society Founded in 2020, the Bartlett School of Architecture Society is the official student-led society representing architecture students across the school. We aim to strengthen the student community by amplifying student voices, encouraging collaboration and creating opportunities that extend beyond the studio. By connecting students across different courses and year groups, we seek to foster a more inclusive and supportive school culture. This year, one of our main priorities was to bridge the gap between architectural education and professional practice. Our programme of events also aimed to support student wellbeing and highlight the diverse career pathways available to graduates. Through lectures, discussions, workshops and social events, we brought together students and practitioners from a range of disciplines and backgrounds. Over the course of the year, we welcomed speakers from leading international practices, including Herzog & de Meuron, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Cake Architecture, Cobe, Stufish Entertainment Architects and Gendo AI, alongside many other inspiring voices from across the industry. We were also proud to collaborate with the school’s CRUNCH talk series on a lecture by Liu Jiakun, 2025 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which was attended by more than 1,000 people. We strengthened connections within and beyond the Bartlett, collaborating with the Architectural Association, the Bartlett Urban Planning Society on historical architectural city walks, and the Society of Engineering and Architectural Design. The Society continues to play an important role within the Bartlett, providing a platform for students to lead and initiate events that reflect their own interests. We are grateful for the dedication of our committee members, the enthusiasm of our student community and the continued support of Bartlett staff. We look forward to seeing the Society grow, bringing new ideas, meaningful collaborations and opportunities to future Bartlett students.

A talk with Cake Architecture on atmospheric experiences in architecture.

Symposium with Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

President Sze Ho (Louis) Chan Vice President Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao Treasurer Evelyn Jeffery Events Thomas Feistl, Olga Grogolova, Kin Gi (Kenny) Lau, Ethan Sim Welfare Alexis Granzo Media David Lirio, Hei (Sherman) Lui, John Ogunyiluka, Zikun (Jason) Wang Historical Architecture Stepan Adamenko, Neel Le Meur

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A sketching picnic during Welcome Week. All images courtesy the Bartlett School of Architecture Society.

Staff, Visitors & Consultants A Mariam Abdi Vasilija Abramovic Yota Adilenidou Phoebe Adler Ava Aghakouchak Yagmur Akyuz Alejandra Albuerne Rodriguez Wardah Ali Laura Allen Fawzeyah Alsabah Barbara Andrade Zandavali Simone Antoniazzi Thomas Aquilina Dimitris Argyros Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani Abigail Ashton Felicity Atekpe Annecy Attlee Edwina Attlee Joseph Augustin Nestor Azevedo Pestana B Julia Backhaus Kirsty Badenoch Matthew Barnett Howland Beth Barnett-Sanders Sarah Barry Carolina Bartram Stefan Bassing Paul Bavister Simon Beames Richard Beckett Bedir Bekar Julian Besems Cephas Bhaskar Vishu Bhooshan Peter Bishop Laurence Blackwell-Thale George Bolwell Iain Borden Federico Borello Roberto Bottazzi Matthew Bowles Eva Branscome Albert Brenchat-Aguilar Alastair Browning Hannah Bryce Thomas Budd Christopher Burman Mark Burrows Matthew Butcher C Paola Camasso Blanche Cameron William Victor Camilleri Alberto Campagnoli Barbara-Ann CampbellLange Ben Campkin Brendon Carlin Brent Carnell Mario Carpo Dan Carter Martyn Carter Michael Casey-Gillman Tommaso Casucci Ivan Chan Megha Chand Inglis Haden Charbel Nat Chard Finbar Charleson Xinyu Chen Canyang Cheng Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno Crystal Chow Krina Christopoulou James Kwang-Ho Chung Sandra Ciampone Dovile Ciapaite Mollie Claypool Marjan Colletti Emma Colthurst Peter Cook Hannah Corlett Sam Coulton

John Cruwys Marcos Cruz Ruth Cuenca Nichola Czyz D Daniel Da Silva Christina Dahdaleh Amica Dall Van Ahn Dang Bianca Daniele Satyajit Das Peter Davies Tom Davies Adam Davis Jamie Day Ricardo de Ostos Klaas De Rycke Helbert De Sousa Costa Denis Delaney James Delaney Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio Edward Denison Tim Dennehy Pradeep Devadass Max Dewdney Ashley Dhanani Ilaria Di Carlo David Di Duca Richardjohn Dilworth Katerina Dionysopoulou Paul Dobraszczyk Patch Dobson-Perez Oliver Domeisen Teagan Dorsch Elizabeth Dow Sarah Dowding Daniel Dream Camille Dunlop Shyamala Duraisingam Kirti Durelle Claude Dutson Tom Dyckhoff E David Edwards Sherif Eltarabishy Samuel Esses Lisa Etamoje F Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Donat Fatet Laura Fawcett-Gaskell Alberto Fernandez Gonzalez Tim Fielder Christopher Fischlein Zachary Fluker John Forty Alice Foxen Cesar Fragachan Pinzani Janine Francois Kenneth Fraser Murray Fraser Synnøve Fredericks Helene Frichot Daisy Froud Francesca Froy Xiaowen Fu Maria Fulford G Suzanne Gaballa Stephen Gage Gunther Galligioni Mark Garcia Mauricio Garcia Ustoa Lidia Gasperoni Christophe Gerard Egmontas Geras Christina Geros Octavian Gheorghiu Mona Ghoreshinejad Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos Pedro Gil Hannah Gill Agnieszka Glowacka Ruairi Glynn

Alicia González-Lafita Perez John Gold Polly Gould Kevin Gray James Green Kevin Green Sienna Griffin-Shaw Sam Griffiths Kostas Grigoriadis Sam Grinsell Jenia Gubkina Eric Guibert Peter Guillery Srijana Gurung Fernando Gutierrez Seth Guy H Mohamad Hafeda Tamsin Hanke Sean Hanna Penelope Haralambidou Alice Hardy Thea Heintz Florence Hemmings Andrea Henny Jason Henry Lucy Hetherington Danielle Hewitt Parker Heyl Ashley Hinchcliffe William Hodgson Tom Holberton Rosemary Hook Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami Sam Hopkins Tyson Hosmer Del Hossain Oliver Houchell Demin Hu William Huang Johan Hybschmann I Jessica In Cannon Ivers J Reuben Jacob Muskan Jain Nikki Jamalinik Clara Jaschke Will Jennings Nicholas Jewell Joe Johnson Steve Johnson Helen Jones Nina Jotanovic K Nikoletta Karastathi Kayvan Karimi Jan Kattein Jonathan Kendall Thomas Kendall Yana Kitova Jakub Klaska Fergus Knox Marcin Kosicki Margit Kraft Kimon Krenz Dirk Krolikowski Dragana Krsic L Alex Lacatusu Chee-Kit Lai Mani Lall Katya Larina Zoe Lau Tony Le Guan Lee Erine Lellu Christopher Leung Jiadong Liang Ifigeneia Liangi CJ Lim Yubo Liu Enriqueta Llabres-Valls

Alvaro Lopez Déborah López Lobato Luke Lowings Tim Lucas Matthew Lucraft Abi Luter M Iain Macdonald David Maciver Laura Maczik Jörg Majer Alexandru Malaescu Shneel Malik Emily Mann Yeoryia Manolopoulou Mengdi Mao Vasilis Marcou Ilchuk Lo Marshall Sara Martinez Zamora Patrick Massey Robin Mather Mpho Matsipa Emma-Kate Matthews Billy Mavropoulos Claire McAndrew Donald McCrory David McEwen Níall McLaughlin Khorshid Meihami Yaoyao Meng Adam Meyrick Josep Miás Gifre Luke Michael Frederic Migayrou Douglas Miller Shahram Minooee Sabery Dawn Mitchell Matei-Alexandru Mitrache Cristina Morbi Philippe Morel Maurizio Mucciola Bongani Muchemwa Shaun Murray Maxwell Mutanda N Tetsuro Nagata Giles Nartey Filippo Nassetti Parin Nawachartkosit Olivia Neves Marra Vincent Nowak O Thomas Ó Caollaí Toby O’Connor James O’Leary Merve Okkali Alsavada Yossie Olaleye Luke Olsen Don Onyido Femi Oresanya Mae Oroszlany Adriana Ortegon Sanchez Daniel Ovalle Costal P Fernene Pacquette María Páez Vasileios Papalexopoulos Annarita Papeschi Thomas Parker Claudia Pasquero Jane Paterson Luke Pearson Paul Michael Pelken Alan Penn Barbara Penner Emma Perry Guillem Perutxet Olesti Drew Pessoa Anca-Liliana Petrescu Louise Phillips Neil Pinder Abel Pinheiro Cavalcante Maciel Jr Alicia Pivaro Lyn Poon Andrew Porter Maija Powell

Sayon Pramanik Rebecca Preston Emily Priest Lakshmi Priya Rajendran Ishaan Priyadarshi Sophia Psarra Stamatios Psarras R Balaji Rajasekaran Sascha Rashof Dhan Rathod Peg Rawes Sophie Read Aileen Reid Guang Yu Ren Jane Rendell Gilles Retsin Farlie Reynolds Daria Ricchi Harriet Richardson Julie Richardson David Roberts Felix Roberts Paul Roberts Gavin Robotham Daniel Rodriguez Garcia Vita Rossi Merijn Royaards Javier Ruiz Rodriguez S Kerstin Sailer Hadrien Salat Diana Salazar Morales Joel Saldeck Anete Krista Salmane Mbango Mispa Same Essaka Ellie Sampson Peter Scully Kay Sedki Elly Selby Tania Sengupta Neba Sere Sara Shafiei David Shanks Bob Sheil Rory Sherlock Naz Siddique Philipp Siedler Isaac Simpson Yip Siu Colin Smith Helen Smith Paul Smoothy Mark Smout Valentina Soana Joana Carla Soares Goncalves Dana Sousa-Limbu Noah Spain Amy Spencer Ben Spong Michael Stacey Tijana Stevanovic Rachel Stevenson David Storring Anna Stroe Ignacy Styszko Michiko Sumi Harry Sumner Yichang Sun Sunny Sunny T Philip Temple Emmy Thittanond Colin Thom Elinor Thomas Xinyue Tian Sebastian Tiew Siew Ee Kathryn Timmins Michael Tite Göksu Toprak Victor Torrance Alessandro Toti Jennifer Tran Martin Traunmueller Carol Trent Martha Tsigkari

Marios Tsiliakos Freddy Tuppen Samuel Turner-Baldwin Jonathan Tyrrell V Sumayya Vally Melis Van Den Berg Kelly Van Hecke Nasios Varnavas Tasos Varoudis Laura Vaughan Hamish Veitch Maria Venegas Raba Amelia Vilaplana De Miguel Jordi Vivaldi Piera Nina Vollenbröker Gabriel Vollin Doron von Beider W Andrew Walker Adam Walls Jue Wang Susan Ware Gabriel Warshafsky Tim Waterman James Watkins Patrick Weber Hangchuan Wei Rosamund West Paul Weston Cosmo Wezenbeek Saralyn White Christopher Whiteside Andrew Whiting Daniel Widrig Izabela Wieczorek James Wilkie Gen Williams Henrietta Williams Rhys Williams Graeme Williamson James Williamson Amy Wilson James Wilson Robin Wilson Sal Wilson Oliver Wilton Jane Wong Ling Wu XYZ Yanning Xiang Zoe Xing Yeena Yoon Sandra Youkhana Katerina Zacharopoulou Emmanouil Zaroukas Rana Zein Dominik Zisch Fiona Zisch Stamatis Zografos

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ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture Find us on Publisher The Bartlett School of Architecture Editors Phoebe Adler, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Srijana Gurung Proofreaders Simon Coppock, Karen Francis Graphic Design spreeeng (Carlos Romo-Melgar & John Philip Sage) Bartlett life photography by Richard Stonehouse, unless otherwise indicated. © 2026 The Bartlett School of Architecture No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. We endeavour to ensure that all information contained in this publication is accurate at the time of publication. The views, information and opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of University College London or its employees. ISBN 978-1-9195023-1-1 The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 22 Gordon Street London WC1H 0QB +44 (0)20 3108 9646 architecture@ucl.ac.uk

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