Issuu

School of Architecture, UCL

Summer Show

2025

The Bartlett

Contents 6

Introduction Director: Amy Kulper

Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Programme Directors: Farlie Reynolds, Hannah Corlett, Chee-Kit Lai Year 1 / Uncommon Ground Director: Max Dewdney UG1 / Flora Culture: Recomposing Regenerative Cities Margit Kraft, Toby O’Connor UG2 / On the Mend: Patterns, Assembly and Form through Self-Build Practices Jhono Bennett, Zachary Fluker, Maxwell Mutanda UG3 / After Hours Daniel Dream, Vasilis Marcou Ilchuk, Ifigeneia Liangi UG4 / Unearthing Katerina Dionysopoulou, Billy Mavropoulos UG5 / Cliché Patrick Massey, Bongani Muchemwa UG6 / Contingent Matter(s) Ashley Hinchcliffe, Ben Spong UG7 / Sensational States Joseph Augustin, Christopher Burman UG8 / Entropy Maria Fulford, Jörg Majer UG9 / Gathering Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai UG12 / Settlement: Oculi Hannah Corlett, Niall McLaughlin UG13 / Flight Lines: An Architecture of Trajectories Laurence Blackwell-Thale, William Victor Camilleri UG14 / The Healing City David Di Duca, Tetsuro Nagata UG21 / Multimodal Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

12 24 36

48 60 72 84 96 108 120 132 144

156 168

182 Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Programme Director: Sophie Read 196 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1 CIBSE JBM) Programme Director: Luke Olsen 198 Year 1 / Biodiversity Festival: From Dominance to Cohabitation Klaas De Rycke, Barbara Andrade Zandavali 204 Year 2 / Registration > Adaptation Philippe Duffour, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson 210 Unit 1 / Eutopias (Healthy Utopias) Dimitris Argyros, Agnieszka Glowacka, Anderson Inge, Vasiliki Kourgiozou 218 Unit 2 / Horror Geography: New Worlds Angela Crowther, Samuel Miselbach, Shaun Murray, Julia Torrubia 222 Unit 3 / Self < > Build Daniel Godoy Shimizu, Martin Lema Trillo, Kirsty Sutherland, Graeme Williamson 230 Unit 4 / A Mediterranean Perspective Yasemin Didem Aktas, Samuel Esses, Daniel Ovalle Costal, Baran Tanriverdi, Santiago Vélez 238 Unit 5 / Start Up: A Regenerative Nuclear Island Aurore Julien, Filip Kirazov, Luke Olsen 246 Unit 6 / ACTION Simon Beames, Matthew Heywood, Kostas Mastronikolaou 254 Unit 7 / Future Archaeology Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Yi Zhang 262 Unit 8 / Responsive Tectonics II David Hewlett, Michael Howarth, Annarita Papeschi

272 Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 and Part 2) Programme Directors: Murray Fraser, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martínez Zamora 274 Year 1 / Southwark Tales Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martínez Zamora 280 Studio 2A / Sharing Space Abi Ashton, Laurence Blackwell-Thale 288 Studio 2B / Weather Watchers George Bolwell, Vita Rossi 296 Studio 2C / Roots and Scaffolds: Towards New Forms of Building and Learning Olivia Neves Marra, Jane Wong 304 Studio 3A / Divisions and Margins Murray Fraser, Nicholas Jewell, Michiko Sumi 312 Studio 3B / The Pleasures and Potential of Obsolescence Nat Chard, Emma-Kate Matthews 320 Studio 3C / And the Walls Became the World All Around Kirsty Badenoch, Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi 328 Studio 4A / Origin Johan Hybschmann, Matthew Springett 338 Studio 4B / In Transit Nuria Alvarez Lombardero, Maurizio Mucciola 348 Studio 4C / Step Inside the Tarmac Ride Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Rory James Sherlock 356 Year 5 / Placement in Practice and Research in Practice Module Coordinator: Dimitris Argyros 362 Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Programme Directors: Matthew Butcher, Kostas Grigoriadis 364 PG11 / Naturecultures Laura Allen, Mark Smout

376 PG12 / Corridors of Time: Corridors in Time and Space Elizabeth Dow, Izabela Wieczorek 388 PG14 / Investigative Domain Jakub Klaska, Dirk Krolikowski 400 PG16 / Archipelagos: Forms of Architecture, Relationality and Practice Beyond Extraction Brendon Carlin, James Kwang Ho Chung, María Páez González 412 PG17 / Chronotope Tamsin Hanke, Yeoryia Manolopoulou 424 PG18 / Money Urbana Isaie Bloch, Ricardo de Ostos, Samuel Esses 436 PG20 / The City as a Jungle Marjan Colletti, Tony Le, Javier Ruiz 448 PG21 / Multimodal Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter 460 PG22 / Living Ceramics/Living Cities Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Daniel Ovalle Costal 472 PG23 / Continuous Assemblies Farlie Reynolds, Ben Spong, Maria Fulford 484 PG24 / Super Common Haden Charbel, Nasios Varnavas 496 Design Realisation Module Coordinators: Pedro Gil, Chee-Kit Lai 498 Advanced Architectural Studies Module Coordinator: Adam Walls 502 Thesis Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton 514 515 516 518 519 520 521 522

Our Programmes Short Courses Public Lectures Exhibitions & Events Bartlett Shows Website Alumni The Bartlett Promise Staff, Visitors & Consultants

Introduction In a popular TED Talk, Nigerian author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie articulates something profound, yet deceptively simple: ‘Culture does not make people, people make culture.’ 1 Reflecting on this assertion after revisiting Class, Culture and the Curriculum (1975) by UCL’s Denis Lawton, I’ve come to see it as more than a philosophical statement – it is a call for educators, designers and communities alike. Lawton describes culture as a way of life comprising all human creations – tools, technology, language, literature, attitudes and values. His vision of curriculum as ‘a selection from the culture of a society’,2 together with Adichie’s insight, reminds us that what we choose to teach and how we teach is inseparable from the kind of world we hope to build. Over the last year, these ideas have resonated deeply within our school, especially as we have contemplated how we prepare our students for a changing architectural profession. The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Summer Show captures this same spirit of cultural agency and creative responsibility. It presents the inspired and inspiring work of students from our Architecture BSc, Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies BSc, Engineering and Architectural Design MEng, Architecture MSci and Architecture MArch programmes – each project a reflection of critical thought, imaginative vision and a belief in design as a tool for transformation. Our students recognise that design operates within social, environmental and political contexts, and respond with work that is bold, thoughtful and deeply attuned to the complexities of the world around them. Whether confronting climate breakdown, rethinking housing equity, challenging post-colonial spatial legacies or advocating for inclusive design practices, they are shaping culture through their practice. They leverage the speculative capacity of design to envision a future for the built environment that is more racially, socially and environmentally just.

This catalogue is also a testament to the collective effort behind architectural education: our dedicated design tutors work closely with students, developing the tone, scope and details of their projects. History and theory tutors, design technology tutors, and skills tutors inform the projects’ responses to broader historical, environmental and sociocultural contexts. Our professional services, including education administrators, B-made and print room technicians and facilities staff, also play a vital role in supporting the student journey – by managing the systems and structures that bring their visions to life. Beyond the school, our community thrives because of the networks that support it. From families and friends who sustain students through the intensity of design education, to the alumni whose ongoing engagement connects us to practice and the wider world. This show is, in many ways, a collaborative achievement. We are grateful to our headline sponsor, AHMM – a practice that includes many Bartlett alumni in its team; their continued support helps make this event possible. We also thank Foster + Partners – another firm enriched by Bartlett alumni – along with large-format printing specialists Perfect Colours for their valued support. A special thank you goes to our Exhibitions Director, Jonathan Tyrrell, and his phenomenal team, including our Project Managers Synnøve Fredericks and Hamish Muir, whose logistical and creative talents have helped to present this year’s student work in the physical and digital exhibitions respectively. As you explore the work in these pages, I invite you to see more than drawings and models. You are witnessing a generation of designers who are not waiting to be told what culture is – they are shaping it with clarity and conviction. They understand, as Adichie and Lawton both suggest, that education is not passive; it is a means of making the future.

Professor Amy Kulper Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture

1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, TED Talks (2012). https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists?language=en 2. Denis Lawton, Class, Culture, and Curriculum (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), p.6. 7

The B-made workshop, 22 Gordon Street, 2024.

Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1)

Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Programme Directors: Farlie Reynolds, Hannah Corlett, Chee-Kit Lai Architecture BSc is a highly innovative programme, world-renowned for its creativity and scope. Part 1 is accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB). The programme 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 principles of architecture and explore a wide range of innovative design approaches. Design forms the core of the programme. Its research-based teaching methods encompass a wide range of practices, from participatory approaches to advanced simulations and fabrications, material life-cycle studies, experimental drawings and digital animations. By encouraging experimentation alongside a rigorous design process, we empower students to create complex, multidimensional architectural projects that push the boundaries of undergraduate-level design. The exhibited work in this year’s Summer Show showcases our commitment to addressing the pressing complexities of the built environment. Students explored themes such as ecology, sustainability, spatial equity and the social potential of architecture. They conducted material life-cycle assessments, used data-informed scripting and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse sites, and employed advanced computation to model natural processes. Digital technologies, including animation and game engines, were deployed to explore novel ways of enhancing interactions between humans and the built environment. The programme fosters a vibrant studio culture. Students work across UCL’s workshops, participate in architectural field trips and visits to buildings, and collaborate on live projects with leading cultural institutions such as the National Gallery, both in the UK and abroad. The exposure to diverse sources and first-hand experiences has ignited students’ imaginations and nurtured their creativity. The remarkable rigour and innovation displayed in their research and design work exemplify the endless possibilities and opportunities within architecture, readying them to challenge critically the boundaries of architectural education and the profession. Architecture BSc revolves around four core streams: Architectural Design Projects, Building Technology, History and Theory, and Professional Studies. Emphasis is placed on design throughout all three years. In Year 1, students establish architectural expertise through diverse experimentation and exploration. Working individually and on group projects, they experience the collaborative and iterative nature of architectural design. Simultaneously, they are introduced to different disciplines that deepen their understanding of the architect’s historical, social and environmental roles, complementing and enriching their creative practice.

In Years 2 and 3, students select from a broad range of Design Units, each offering unique approaches to architectural design research and links to industry and multidisciplinary practice. Units explore various themes and agendas, including the relationship between architecture and landscape, digital simulation and fabrication, and the role of narrative, climate and sociopolitical context in design. Students also engage in research practices with housing associations, urban planners and extraction sites across the UK, and study architecture in the Global South. These experiences and distinct methodologies help students to develop core skills and allow them to explore new directions, ensuring a well-rounded and diverse educational experience. By the end of their undergraduate studies, they 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. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the exceptional team behind the organisation and delivery of this flagship programme. Our thanks go to all our teaching staff, as well as our dedicated administrative team – Senior Programme Administrator Kim van Poeteren and Programme Administrator Beth Barnett-Sanders – and our talented Postgraduate Teaching Assistants. We are also grateful to our external speakers, critics, alumni and practitioner collaborators, who supported and inspired us throughout the year at events such as Relay+, our alumni and practice talk series.

Year 1 Students Aya Ahmed, Hudson Akarlilar, Ashraf Al-Hakiim, Mya Ankle, Alexa Arellano, Isabella Arnold, Jacob Avery, Lea Awujoola, Angeline Balbacal, Ian Blashe, Chloe Bong, Esme Brebbia-Yee, Kelsey Paola Brooke, Andres Cabrera Arguelles, Yi Xuan (Harley) Cai, Jahn Liam Ponsica Casilagan, Sum Yuet Evelyn Chan, Qing Chen, Zi Kei Ally Cheung, Dain Choi, Eliza Cholakova, Kae Crisp, Makary Crosby, Rhys Cullen, Evelyn Curd, Eleanor Davies, Bruno De Marco Pose, Laura Eaton, Henry Forton, Chengcheng (CC) Fu, Xiaoding Gao, Taisiya Gareev, Jessica Gibson, Fearne Harris, Rose Harris, Masaki Hayashikawa, Tilly Herkanaidu, Jenna Hussain, Terrence Jia Le, Zihan Jin, Jamie Jones, Antonis Leonidas Kalopedis, Kaito KawadaWilliams, Nicole Kechiyan, Andreas Ladommatos, Hanyun (Linn) Li, Anzhe (Angela) Liu, Jenifer Lopez Borja, Rhu Jing Lor, Hei (Sherman) Lui, Yuxuan Luo, Lana Madi, Jack Mahoney, Karna Majdian, Ishita Mankoo, Alexander McGregor, Ellie McKnight, Aalee Mishra, Orissa

Mistry, Millie Mokha, Yanisa (JJ) Mongkolrattanawong, Hilda Mortezazadeh, Jack Moruzzi, Viola Muhaxheri, Tanjipa Ndhlovu, Ingrid Nyhus, Nathan Oforiokuma, Marni Ono, Tessy Osahon, Nana Osei-Bonsu, Kirsten Pacey, Marilena Papamatthaiou, Ioannis (Giannis) Papanikolas, Yeunjun (Robert) Park, Lily Parry, Mei Ting Peng, Priya Quin-Harkin, Louisa Rois, Rosa Rothwell, Noor Rovere, Louis Anthony Jude Saez, Ivan Samorukov, Faigy Schreiber, Vanya Sharma, Kishan Sharma, Lekha Shriram, Phavinee (Polly) Sirikrai, Miranda Smethurst-Evans, Ipek Mira Sogancioglu, Evie Springer, Allegra Squarzi, Yutao (Willy) Sun, Sunuttee (Prin) Suphadhira, Thee Suthanaseriporn, Kashyap Tadikonda, Jemima Tandavanitj, Preeti Thomas, Edward Toovey, Allegra Tulone, Cinar Ulger, Joowon (Lindy) Um, Vivien Uong, Freya Viney, Kate-Olivia Wakeford, George Williams, Wai Yan (Ryan) Wong, Hayeong (Julie) Yoon, Balthazar (Roman) Zatorski, Yi (Hanson) Zhou

1 12

Architecture BSc

Uncommon Ground

Year 1

Director: Max Dewdney

Year 1 engaged with the ground, looking at it as more than just a neutral backdrop. They conceived it as a contested field shaped by extraction, occupation, climate and collective memory. Architecture was framed as a critical and material practice, capable of responding to deep environmental histories and urgent social needs. Through three design projects, students asked how spatial interventions might emerge through close, site-based observation – working between placement and landscape, and learning to propose architectural responses situated at points of transition, tension and change. ‘Future Relics’, the first project, began in the UCL Geology archive. Students examined geological specimens – rocks, fossils and mineral forms – not only as scientific artefacts but as cultural objects embedded with layered meanings. Through detailed drawing, casting and transformation, each student reimagined their chosen relic, amplifying a particular quality – texture, composition, form or process – into a new spatial proposition. The second project, ‘Antennae: Signals from the Ground’, shifted focus from deep geological time to dynamic atmospheric conditions – the ever-changing qualities of air, weather and light. Students worked collaboratively to design and build 1:1 installations for Camley Street Natural Park in King’s Cross. These structures acted as environmental instruments: sensitive to light, wind, temperature and sound. Collective design and material care were developed in dialogue with the agencies of other beings – human and non-human – foregrounding architecture’s capacity to register, initiate and communicate change. During the Year 1 field trip to Paris, students created short films inspired by Jacques Tati’s 1967 film Playtime and Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée. These works explored architecture through movement, light, rhythm and perception – offering a cinematic take on time and space for the third project. In this final project, ‘Uncommon Ground’, students developed building proposals across ten sites in Hastings, where land meets sea. They explored extraction, civic use and shared ground through tectonic strategies and spatial transformation. Each proposal responded to a specific process – such as fishing, salt harvesting or quarrying – and was shaped by the local geology, seasonal dynamics and public rituals of the coastal edge. Students developed unique programmes rooted in site research, combining material invention with social, environmental and spatial awareness.

Associate Directors Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami – Y1 Associate Director & Acting Y1 Director (Term 1), Isaac Simpson – Y1 Associate Director & Acting Media Studies Coordinator Tutors Alastair Browning, Nat Chard, Ivan Chan, Dovile Ciapaite, Nichola Czyz, Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami, Fergus Knox, Matei Mitrache, Vasili Marcou Ilchuk, Emily Priest, Gavin Robotham, Kay Sedki, Colin Smith, Isaac Simpson, Yeena Yoon Critics Richard Aina, Seran Allen, Joanne Chen, Connor Chiew Weng Sheng, Dominic Coles Saffirio, Emma Colthurst, Tom Davies, Elizabeth Dow, Synnøve Fredericks, Christophe Gerard, Mohamad Hafeda, Rosie Hooper, Steve Johnson, Milda Knabikaitė, Kenny Lau, Sabrina Morreale, Agata Murasko, Elliot Nash, John Ng, Edie Parfitt, Sophia Psarra, Vita Rossi, Era Savvides, Neba Sere, Christopher Tao, Elliot Woolard Special thanks to B-made, Mara Cutas and the Camley Street Natural Park, Tom Davies, Jacqui Glass, James Green, Amy Kulper, Robin Mather, Joseph Paine & UCL Department of Geology, Eoin Shaw

4 14

Architecture BSc

6 Year 1

7 16

Architecture BSc

Year 1

11 18

Architecture BSc

13 Year 1

14 20

Architecture BSc

Year 1

15 22

Architecture BSc

1 Group Models ‘Project 1: Future Relics’. Geological artefacts surveyed and reimagined as cast objects, exploring architecture’s role in material transformation and future memory. Photo: Sophie Percival. 2 Yuxuan Luo ‘Invisible Forces’. Using measurement, the intangible becomes tangible: pressure, time and erosion are cast into solid form, revealing how absence becomes presence in geological space. 3 Yi (Hanson) Zhou ‘The Language of Lignite’. A reconstruction of tree environments, translating environmental forces into tree-ring syntax through lignite’s formation – exploring how external conditions inscribe language into natural material. 4 Mei Ting Peng ‘Tertiary Retention’. Exploring the nautilus as a vessel of time, this project casts organic forms to reveal memory inscribed in material, surface and scale. 5 Vivien Uong, Hayeong (Julie) Yoon ‘The Negative Space Between the Stalactites/Original Colonial Rugose Coral’. Casts reveal voids and fossil structures, tracing spatial memory in geological formations. 6 Ingrid Nyhus ‘A Living Machine’. A collaborative installation detecting canal ‘creatures’ through breath signals, sound and silt disturbance – translating myth, memory and measurement into speculative environmental instruments. 7 Group Models ‘Project 2: Antennae: Signals from the Ground’. Collaborative installations translate hidden environmental signals into sensory encounters. Photo: Sophie Percival. 8–9 Jamie Jones ‘Firing the Found’. A coastal kiln and gathering space occupying a derelict stretch between Hastings’ market square and seafront, reconnecting local material, community and site through fire. 10 Yi (Hanson) Zhou ‘The Oyster Longhouse’. A narrow, open structure recalling fishing vessels, where oyster waste is transformed through communal making, evoking ritual, labour and seasonal reciprocity with the sea. 11 Xiaoding Gao ‘The Salt Farm Gallery’. A tidal-edge structure combining salt production and exhibition, designed to reconnect visitors with the coastal environment through seawater, sun and production. 12 Qing Chen ‘A Non-Theatre’. An informal, temporal theatre in Hastings where performances dissolve the boundaries between actor and audience, spilling beyond the stage into everyday life. 13 Kate-Olivia Wakeford ‘The Secluded Veil of Skin and Stone’. A sauna carved into Rock-a-Nore cliffs, exploring the tension between fragile human skin and rugged stone through warmth, healing and exposure. 14 Group Models ‘Project 3: Uncommon Ground’. A selection of models explore how architecture negotiates processes of extraction, exchange and ritual at the liminal edge between land and sea in Hastings. Photo: Sophie Percival. 15 Ingrid Nyhus ‘Stabilising a Crumbling Cliff’. In White Rock, Hastings, archaeologists salvage remains from an eroding cliff, treating them on site before returning them to the sea. 16–17 Yutao (Willy) Sun ‘Building a Building: The Narrative of Bricks’. A kiln structure explores brickmaking as ritual and architecture where erosion, reuse and lived inhabitation reveal material and form. 18 Eleanor Davies ‘Within the Weather’. A series of layered spaces balance scientific and emotional environmental monitoring with public and private interactions, responding to Hastings’ dynamic shore.

18 Year 1

1 24

Architecture BSc

Flora Culture: Recomposing Regenerative Cities

UG1

Margit Kraft, Toby O’Connor ‘It is possible to build with respect for nature and people.’ Guillaume Habert Plant-fibre materials present fundamental opportunities for urgent and radical shifts in contemporary building practices. This year, UG1 asked: What can our flora do for us – and us for them? Learning to build with the full spectrum of plant matter, we investigated and speculated on sourcing scenarios, life cycles, combinations, transformations and articulations of local trees and other plants as the basis for architectural innovation that responds directly to the climate and ecological crises. Our study trip led us to Vorarlberg in the Austrian Alps. Learning from building visits, artisan makers and large-scale manufacturers, we explored more than 1,000 years of innovation in timber construction in this unique region. We stayed in houses made by Peter Zumthor, visited the materials library at ETH Zurich, met Gion Caminada at his office in Vrin and toured the modular, plastic-free timber housing factory of Baufritz in Germany. Our project focus area is Clerkenwell, London – a representative urban morphological site, where the complex form, structure and history of the city can be traced through its streets, plots and buildings – which students found suited to the making processes of their investigations. As the main material for earthquake-proof pagodas, modular high alpine shelters, the foundations of water cities like Venice, bridges and much more, plant have provided the planet with millennia of beautiful tectonic structures and spaces. From forest and street trees to coppice, grasses, rushes, leaves and husks, what kinds of beautiful architectural practices can emerge by engaging with these incredible resources?

Year 2 Anthony Austin, Emily Browne, Dzifa Dzah, Diala Farmer, Bronwyn Jones, Veneca Samantha Musadaidzwa, Gia Reehal, Yash Rohitkumar Patel Year 3 Beulah Kuku, George Perks, James Tyler, Zaynah Younus Technical tutors and consultants Nick Jewell, Wei Lim Critics Polly Natynczuk (Structure Workshop), Ros Peebles (Okra), Afra van’t Land (Morris+Company), Maija Viksne (Studio Viksne) Seminar research trip Steve Barron (Margent Farm), Felicity Irons (Rush Matters), Willow Coppice, Laurence and Christian (Foxcotte Cambridge) Study trip Gion Caminada (Caminada Architects), Anthony Haag (ETH Zurich), Karlheinz Müller and Oliver Rehm (Baufritz), Patrick Pfleger (House Rudolf Olgiati), Artemis Truffer (Truffer), Family Zumthor London Borough of Islington Trees & Planting team Michael Johnson, James Robinson, Jon Ryan, Francisco White, Paul Zepler

Architecture BSc

9 UG1

12 28

Architecture BSc

14 UG1

Architecture BSc

19 UG1

21 32

Architecture BSc

24 UG1

26 34

Architecture BSc

1, 6–7, 20 All Students ‘Building with Fibres’. A series of 1:1 live building sessions at Global Generation’s Triangle Site and UCL’s B-made workshops exploring local natural materials, fostering empathy, understanding and architectural insight alongside those who work with them. 2–5 All Students ‘Flora Culture Field Trip’. Shared research trip, seminar and research exhibition together with the University of Cambridge Y3S3, exploring a willow farm, Rush Matters workshop and Margent Farm’s Flat House. 8–9 All Students ‘Urban Fibres Field Trip’. A research trip to Vorarlberg, Europe’s leading region timber-building region, exploring centuries of innovation through Zumthor Homes in Vals, a visit to Studio Caminada in Flims and tours of the Baufritz modular timber frame homes factory in Erkheim, Germany and the Materials Library at ETH Zurich. 10–11, 16 Bronwyn Jones, Y2 ‘Thermal Traces’. A veteran rehabilitation spa shaped by labour, trauma and memory that utilises water and willow. A choreography of thresholds, textures and thermal gradients invites gentle transition and a quiet reclamation of the self. 12–13 Emily Browne, Y2 ‘Seasonscape Gallery’. An immersive seasonal art gallery situated in a flower park, where landscape paintings and nature shift with the year, offering the opportunity to experience and appreciate the beauty of all the seasons. 14 Veneca Musadaidzwa, Y2 ‘Sedimentum: Wellness Centre’. A multi-use community wellness centre set above a reed bed filtration system. Natural water purification creates spaces for public relaxation, yoga, treatments and environmental learning, all while favouring lowimpact natural materials. 15, 22 Diala Farmer, Y2 ‘Between Spaces’. A project for the unseen: creating light-filled spaces for teenage girls within an existing housing estate, reshaped through an innovative, living façade made from bamboo, local roundwood coppice and live plant species. 17 Beulah Kuku, Y3 ‘Layering Time’. A flexible, natureintegrated performing arts space, using fabric-formed hempcrete, mycelium and cross-laminated timber to create reconfigurable performance and studio spaces that respond to site conditions, forming a reciprocal relationship between land and space. 18–19, 25 Dzifa Dzah, Y2 ‘Sticks in a Bundle Are Unbreakable’. A collaborative workshop where artisans of all skill levels explore African crafts, transforming the cordwood masonry of the building’s walls into cultural objects – celebrating the diversity, unity and collective creation inspired by the African proverb guiding the project. 21 James Tyler, Y3 ‘Strawable: Centre for Sustainable Design’. Strawable, London’s first prefab factory and sustainable design school, uses surplus straw from nearby farms to create carbon-negative homes, jobs and construction methods in a repurposed market and rail yard. 23–24 George Perks, Y3 ‘Urban Fabric’. Situated upon rooftops near Old Street tube station, Urban Fibres develops and uses nettle-based materials to craft inviting spaces for the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Drawing School. 26–28 Gia Reehal, Y2 ‘Rewilding Play’. A nature-centred communal space where coppiced hazel and natural materials foster community connection – weaving play, learning and exploration into one.

28 UG1

1 36

Architecture BSc

On the Mend: Patterns, Assembly and Form through Self-Build Practices

UG2

Jhono Bennett, Zachary Fluker, Maxwell Mutanda UG2 continues to work on exploring reparative architecture, emphasising the transformative potential of repair and upcycling in revitalising existing buildings and underutilised urban spaces. This approach places materiality at the heart of architectural intervention, advocating sustainable practices that address environmental concerns while fostering community engagement. Central to our methodology is a commitment to understanding the broader urban context and its inhabitants. Students have immersed themselves in local communities, conducting site research through situated conversations to grasp the nuanced needs and aspirations of residents. This participatory design process ensures that architectural proposals are contextually responsive and serve as catalysts for social cohesion and empowerment. This year, the unit actively engaged in hands-on design research, too, with students encouraged to experiment with physical material models that embody the principles of repair and sustainability. Notably, these include explorations of biological membranes from SCOBY – a by-product of kombucha fermentation – as viable building materials; innovative applications of upcycled fabrics to create adaptable architectural elements; the development of ceramic glazes derived from industrial waste materials sourced from surrounding industries; and the transformation of demolition waste into new construction materials, exemplifying the principles of a circular economy. Additionally, participatory design sessions with local children and community members were facilitated, ensuring that the design process remains inclusive and reflective of diverse voices. Mapping small-scale industrial manufacturing processes enabled the integration of multiple programmes within single architectural interventions, promoting a hybrid approach that meets community needs while enhancing the site’s inherent value. UG2 students took design research and developed buildings through people, communities and material flows. The focus on small industrial sites provided a solid foundation for understanding how building proposals can be developed to close the loop of industrial material waste in Haringey, London – retaining materials that are often discarded and reintegrating them into the architectural fabric. This strategy ensures that buildings maintain a direct and meaningful relationship with their communities through material use and upcycling initiatives.

Year 2 Tomiwa Balogun, Elizabeth Bronstein, Dominic Coles Saffirio, Anika Deb, Mia Deville, Rosie Dymock, Yui Kato, Sophie Link, Isabelle Shirley Year 3 Dahui (Dahee) Im, Caitlin McHale Technical tutors and consultants Jane Chew (Year 3), Ruth Cuenca Candel (Year 2) Critics Beatrice De Carli, Katerina Dionysopoulou, Daniel Dream, Margit Kraft, Ifigeneia Liangi, Billy Mavropoulos, Toby O’Connor, Liz Tatarintseva

4 38

3 Architecture BSc

UG2

6 40

Architecture BSc

8 UG2

10 42

Architecture BSc

13 UG2

16 44

Architecture BSc

18 UG2

20 46

Architecture BSc

1, 16, 19–21 Caitlin McHale, Y3 ‘Ceramic Heartland in Haringey’. An amalgamation of artist studios with exhibition and creative enterprise spaces in a light industrial area. 2–6 Dominic Coles Saffirio, Y2 ‘The Flayed Circus’. Waste produced during beer manufacturing at a local brewery is upcycled to grow a protective and performative biodynamic membrane to host a contemporary circus within a hybrid production factory. 7–8 Sophie Link, Y2 ‘Off-Cut Atelier: Furniture Repair Studio’. A furniture repair and off-cut timber yard coupled with an existing timber merchant provides space to host educational facilities for local residents. 9–10 Rosie Dymock, Y2 ‘Composing the Classroom’. An adaptable music venue for practice and performance that provides acoustically tuned spaces to support borough initiatives to provide music lessons for all children. 11, 13 Dahui (Dahee) Im, Y3 ‘Re-Play/Revealing the Mix’. An upcycled industrial shell becomes a playful, imaginative nursery extension in Haringey. Constructed from local demolition waste, clay tiles and crushed bricks, the project reimagines the area’s industrial heritage through sustainable design. 12 Tomiwa Balogun, Y2 ‘Textile Fusion’. Insulation created from off-cuts and waste produced by local fashion industries is fused into structural panels for the development of new and existing buildings. 14 Elizabeth Bronstein, Y2 ‘Liquid Commons’. Reimagining a historic water filtration site as a social hydrotherapy centre to reconnect residents and athletes with water and its restorative powers. 15 Mia Deville, Y2 ‘Marble Mosaic Gallery and Workshop’. Reuse and adaptation of an existing commercial building into an art centre that produces marble mosaics from an adjacent marble factory. 17–18 Anika Deb, Y2 ‘Socially Sustainable Allotment Garden’. Transforming disused land and neglected garden walls into a vibrant community hub for growing and cooking – revitalising space, fostering connection and promoting local food resilience.

UG2

1 48

Architecture BSc

After Hours

UG3

Daniel Dream, Vasilis Marcou Ilchuk, Ifigeneia Liangi

This year, we considered the significance of darkness in architecture. Historically, architecture has prioritised daylight, neglecting the potential of darkness and gloom. By examining the cultural, historical and technological factors shaping our relationship with the luminous and the dark, we challenged this bias and explored the atmospheric qualities of night. We examined how poets, novelists and thinkers have perceived night as a space of danger and reverie. Considering the contemporary political factors surrounding darkness, such as public safety and energy consumption, we explored how darkness has shaped culture, identity and urban experience, and how night has been perceived across different eras. This was all done in connection with our ongoing interest in ‘building’ as both verb and noun, and how the design and care of a building is tied to the lives of its architects and occupants. For our field trip and building projects, we explored the nocturnal relationships of Paris and Lyon. Researching poets, writers and designers who have found solace and inspiration in the night, we considered why architects have historically neglected darkness and how it might be reframed in relation to electric light. We examined how focusing on the night can alter our comprehension of time, particularly the working day. We considered the significance of electric light as a starting point for our designs, along with its importance for the design process through rendering. While digital rendering offers unprecedented control over light, it can also create a gap between the image and the actual experience of a built space. We considered how artificial light can be integrated into the design process, and how to better align the magic of rendering with physical experience as we designed buildings that pine for twilight. As a consequence, this year’s projects explored the emotional, sensory and cultural significance of inhabiting the city after hours, with our final buildings serving a civic purpose. The spatial and stylistic principles of these buildings were underpinned by an understanding of perception as subjective, influenced by our individual experiences and cultural background.

Year 2 Matthew Chan, Run Bo He, Zareef Khan, Haena Lim, Youyou (Fi) Shaxu, Antonia Szlosarek Year 3 Khushi Arora, Wing Hei Hayley Chan, Tsoi Wing (Vanessa) Ho, Liana Lumunyasi, Alexandros Photiou, Clara Varela Cuartero, Eleonora Vera, Gracie Whitter Technical tutor and consultant Martin Reynolds Critics Finlay Aitken, Becky Barnett, Monica Burman, Bianca Croitoriu, Daniel Godoy Shimizu, Vsevolod Kondratiev-Popov, Natalia Michalowska, Natalie Rayya, Sayan Skandarajah, Julia Specht, Kelvin Zhang

UG3 is a result of the impact and influence of Professor Jonathan Hill.

3 50

Architecture BSc

5 UG3

6 52

Architecture BSc

UG3

8 54

Architecture BSc

11 UG3

12 56

Architecture BSc

UG3

13 58

Architecture BSc

1, 6 Eleonora Vena, Y3 ‘The Acts of Memory’. An archive theatre for the collection and reanimation of lost objects. A speculative architecture that resists static conservation by staging memory as an evolving, performative act. 2 Wing Hei Hayley Chan, Y3 ‘The Hydrophilia’. The Hydrophilia challenges the practicality and poetic bond between humans and water, using gypsum to create a self-sustaining water cycle and employing weather as an architect of therapeutic architectural experiences. 3 Liana Lumunyasi, Y3 ‘The Thread & the Cycle: A Menstrual Health and Recovery Centre’. Inspired by nature’s cycles and peaceful silk production, the building stands as a cocoon, its form and function nurturing changes in the body and society. 4, 11 Clara Varela Cuartero, Y3 ‘The Women’s Safety Centre’. A feminist reimagining of Montparnasse through public toilet design, reclaiming space for the flâneuse – a woman who idles or strolls around a city – to roam freely. 5 Antonia Szlosarek, Y2 ‘La République B-612’. A children’s night nursery of political expression and social development. 7 Khushi Arora, Y3 ‘Maison Vestige: A Museum of Constructed Belonging’. Honouring the undocumented workers of Paris through a museum that preserves their stories. 8 Run Bo He, Y2 ‘Animal Chin’s Testing Grounds’. Inspired by skateboarding and the ‘Bones Brigade’, the building is a workshop for deployable obstacles, allowing ‘core skaters’ to reclaim the way they interact with the city. 9 Alexandros Photiou, Y3 ‘The Cave: 3000’. An archive that explores the past, present and speculative future of artificial intelligence. 10 Tsoi Wing (Vanessa) Ho, Y3 ‘Pressures of Justice’. A civic courthouse in Paris exploring public dissent through ritual, symbolism, and spatial pressure on the former site of the Bastille prison. 12 Matthew Chan, Y2 ‘The Duplexity of Publishing: A Vision for the Monograph’. A publishing house harnessing the Nietzschean qualities of the Apollonian and Dionysian for two architectural agendas to bridge the industrial and scholarly sectors of Lyon. 13 Gracie Whitter, Y3 ‘The Dance of the Green Fairies’. An absinthe distillery constructed and inhabited by a collective of Montmartre’s cabaret performers.

UG3

1 60

Architecture BSc

Unearthing

UG4

Katerina Dionysopoulou, Billy Mavropoulos

Amid the clamour of modernity’s ceaseless march there exists a lamentable loss, one not often heard but profoundly felt – of the background hum of architectural narratives that had previously been told throughout humanity’s existence. Like a fading echo of ancient euphony, the lineal heritage of our species has been eroded, obscured and, in some cases, obliterated. This lost narrative is not merely a compilation of bricks, mortar and ornaments, but a chronicle of human dreams and aspirations, of our ceaseless crusade for meaning in the spaces we create to inhabit. Just as an archaeologist delves into the depth of the earth to unveil the mysteries of civilisations long past, architects too are excavators of the human experience, sifting through the strata of time to bring to light the buried treasures of our collective memory. This year, UG4 has been unearthing the hearts of stone and steel, listening to the whispers of human antiquities and tales from beneath our feet, gleaning from our forebears the authentic craftsmanship and processes pertaining to spatial formation. In our relentless pursuit of progress, we have too often bulldozed these architectural storytellers to make way for the new, forsaking the wisdom and beauty they held. The act of containing and burying matter is occasionally done by necessity rather than as a deliberate choice, often framed as a measure of protection rather than erasure. But, in doing so, we risk severing our connection to the past and blinding ourselves to the lessons it offers. We forsake the opportunity to draw from the rich reservoir of human experience, to learn from our predecessors’ triumphs and tribulations. Past buildings remind us that we are part of an unbroken chain of generations, each contributing to the unfolding epic of human history. The accumulated achievements of humanity necessitate a process of rediscovery, examination and thoughtful assimilation within contemporary frameworks, continuing the search for superior ways of living.

Year 2 Mattia Bertone, Judith Katherine Brown, Joseph Burt, Jiayi (Charlie) Chen, Olga Grogolova, Conrad Robinson Year 3 Alastair Ang, Sofia Lidia Erpici Del Pino, Pia Greenway, Trent Jack, Jatheep Raj, Michael Sang, Oliwia Skakun, Harriet Wilson Technical tutor Uwe Frohmader Computing tutor Kacper Chmielewski Critics Jhono Bennett, Charlie Caswell, James Christian, Holly Cowan, Zachary Fluker, Bethan Kay

4 62

Architecture BSc

6 UG4

8 64

Architecture BSc

12 UG4

14 66

Architecture BSc

16 UG4

19 68

Architecture BSc

22 UG4

25 70

Architecture BSc

1, 19 Harriet Wilson, Y3 ‘Athenaeum for the Elderly’. This project reimagines how communities can support their elderly population by creating opportunities for interaction between the generations within the Islington Arts Factory. 2, 21 Olga Grogolova, Y2 ‘Reimagining the Bakers’ Hall’. The project focuses on the retrofit of a 1960s building, located on the historic site of the first hall of the Worshipful Company of Bakers, into an artisanal bakery and baking school. 3, 6, 11, 16 Alastair Ang, Y3 ‘Square Mile Circular Housing’. This project proposes a circular, sustainable retrofit of an office complex in London’s Square Mile – once Roman baths and the Coal Exchange – into mixed-use housing. 4 Jiayi (Charlie) Chen, Y2 ‘Through the Lenses, an Optical Odyssey’. The project transforms 68 Cornhill from a commercial office into a museum; an ode to the forgotten history of craftsmanship and scientific discovery. 5, 10 Oliwia Skakun, Y3 ‘Water Botanical Garden’. Occupying a former waterworks that once supplied London, this project explores how water can become central to a building. 7, 14 Conrad Robinson, Y2 ‘Forgotten Vines’. The project is centred on reviving ancestral grape varieties through research, experience and community engagement. 8 Michael Sang, Y3 ‘Dalston’s School of Music’. A Caribbean music school and drum atelier next to the Curve Garden is proposed to enhance the identity and rebuild the community that has been lost in the area. 9, 22 Joseph Burt, Y2 ‘The Sounding Chambers’. Rooted in Camden’s musical past, the project centres around music and repair, providing workshops for musical instrument repairers alongside a listening bar, recording studio, rehearsal spaces and a larger auditorium. 12, 15, 18, 25 Trent Jack, Y3 ‘A Spa for Russell Square’. The project forces an intervention for local hospitality revitalisation in a heavily restricted conservation area, attempting to harness the continued boom in wellbeing tourism, focusing on salt therapy. 13, 23 Pia Greenway, Y3 ‘Haggerston Bathhouse’. A revitalisation of the historic Haggerston Baths, this retrofit project reimagines the bathhouse as a contemporary wellness sanctuary. 17, 24 Sofia Lidia Erpici Del Pino, Y3 ‘From Retail to Rhythm: Reimagining Oxford Street’. The project repositions the former Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street as a vibrant dance theatre and school, countering the street’s decline in retail with a programme that activates the site from morning to night. 20, 27 Mattia Bertone, Y2 ‘143–146 Strand’. The proposed building acts as a dynamic cultural hub dedicated to celebrating and promoting Indian craft and design. 26 Judith Brown, Y2 ‘Wood Street Police Station’. Inspired by Wood Street’s textile history, the proposal seeks to reintroduce textile craft to the City by transforming the police station into a hotel with textile workshops.

27 UG4

1 72

Architecture BSc

Cliché

UG5

Patrick Massey, Bongani Muchemwa

UG5 explores the architectural potential of the cliché – an idea or form that has become overused and predictable. We treat the cliché not as something to avoid but as a starting point for invention. Through inversion and reinterpretation, students uncover new spatial possibilities, question architectural conventions and develop original approaches to design. This year, each student began by selecting a cliché that resonated with them personally – from common sayings to architectural tropes. They developed a unique drawing language to unpack the meaning of their cliché, drawing not to represent but to discover. Using experimental methods and mixed media – including collage, line work, photography and digital tools – students explored how drawing can be a tool for research, design and spatial thinking. Design research was structured around a series of small-scale projects: ‘Furnitecture’, where students designed furniture that redefined spatial use; ‘Tectonic Fragment’, which focused on how materials meet and form; and ‘Threshold’, where students examined transitional spaces. These projects encouraged students to connect abstract ideas with physical and architectural outcomes. In the second half of the year, students developed building proposals based on the idea of cultural exchange. Each project was shaped by a specific form of artistic expression – including tattoos, costume, poetry, puppetry and film – which became the foundation for the building’s programme and spatial character. We called this the Third Thing – the shared act between people that defines the architecture. Students examined existing building types, such as theatres, galleries and libraries, and challenged their spatial and cultural assumptions. Students chose sites in London or Sicily, the location of our unit field trip, which followed a route from Catania to Palermo. The trip gave students insight into the cultural and architectural clichés of the region and expanded their understanding of historical and social context. UG5 encourages students to question the familiar, test ideas through drawing, and propose architecture that is both critical and buildable. This year’s work has opened up new ways of thinking about design as a process of redefinition – one that can inform future practice across scales, media and typologies.

Year 2 Patience Adediran, Maryam Alqassim, Mia Burgess, Siyi Chen, Oscar Lakatos, Kirsty Shi-Yue Liang, Musab Bin Umair Year 3 Ibrahim Charafi, Tahiyah Karim, Chae Won Song, Pimtong (Pink) Tongyai, An Vu, Hiu Ching (Alex) Yam Technical tutors and consultants Ruth Cuenca Candel (Year 2), Mark Tugman (Year 3) Digital skills tutor Rio Burrage Visiting tutor Heba Mohsen Critics Rashad Al Karooni, Nimi Attanayake, Charlotte Burden, Madhav Kidao, Christina Lanz Azcarate, Steve McCloy, Rohini Mundey, Chinmay Potbhare, Farlie Reynolds, Melissa Rezaei, Rosa Rogina, Urna Sodnomjamts, Sally Sun, Mike Tonkin

Architecture BSc

UG5

7 76

Architecture BSc

9 UG5

11 78

Architecture BSc

13 UG5

16 80

Architecture BSc

19 UG5

22 82

Architecture BSc

1 Ibrahim Charafi, Y3 ‘The Auratic Qualities’. An exploration into the perceived value of digital reproductions. 2–5 An Vu, Y3 ‘Speakers’ Street’. A town hall for Shoreditch, reimagined as a space where transparency, participation and discourse intersect. 6–7 Chae Won Song, Y3 ‘Palermo Ceramica’. A proposal for the community-led regeneration of an abandoned chemical factory in Palermo, beginning with a shoreline ceramics studio. 8–9 Hiu Ching (Alex) Yam, Y3 ‘Yesterday’s Nostalgia, Tomorrow’s Education’. A proposal for a cultural centre in Camden celebrating Hong Kong games and toys, drawn from childhood memories. 10–11 Pimtong (Pink) Tongyai, Y3 ‘The Skin Museum’. A proposal for a tattoo parlour and skin museum exploring the cultural significance of ornamentation in Palermo. 12–13 Tahiyah Karim, Y3 ‘Where the Wind Whispers’. A proposal for a poetic sanctuary in Andalusia exploring architecture as performance, sound and spiritual language. 14, 17 Siyi Chen, Y2 ‘Unfinished Futures/Wind Library’. A proposal for an ever-changing public installation in Camden exploring the unfinished nature of art through light, play and collective inhabitation. 15, 18 Maryam Alqassim, Y2 ‘The Cultural Embassy’. A proposal for a new cultural typology across London that reimagines diplomacy through shared Gulf–UK traditions, fostering connection, innovation and interwoven futures. 16, 19 Oscar Lakatos, Y2 ‘Fade to Blue’. A cinematic proposal for a film school along the Sicilian coast that blurs architecture and film-making through submerged spaces, spatial illusions and oceanic clichés. 20, 23 Patience Adediran, Y2 ‘A Fall from Grace’. A provocative proposal for a hedonistic nightclub in Camden that transforms the ‘seven deadly sins’ into immersive architectural experiences of moral choice and psychological descent. 21, 24 Musab Bin Umair, Y2 ‘Palermo Calcio – Orchestrated Chaos’. A proposed stadium for a brutal sport that reimagines space as a dynamic flow shaped by human movement and energy, integrated into the existing city fabric. 22, 25 Mia Burgess, Y2 ‘Myths of the Marionette Theatre’. A puppet theatre in Palermo that merges surreal theatricality with opera house grandeur, using Sicilian myths and an abstract marionette-inspired design to immerse visitors in the city’s spirit and legendary tales.

25 UG5

1 84

Architecture BSc

Contingent Matter(s)

UG6

Ashley Hinchcliffe, Ben Spong

Architecture is a discipline of contingency – and a contingent discipline. As a discipline of contingency, it navigates the complexities revealed by design: circumstances of an unpredictable and changing nature that affect how buildings are conceived, constructed and adapted over time. As a contingent discipline, it is informed by, and makes sense of, other bodies of knowledge – from geometry, history and philosophy to music, law and science. Through contingency, chance and relationality emerge as central themes in architecture, offering great potential to reconsider the terms of architectural practice and production – a question that gains increasing pertinence as the fragility of the world’s ecologies continues to intensify. This year, UG6 took up this question by first making physical and digital apparatuses attuned to contingent conditions on Hampstead Heath in London, our site for Term 1. From material studies that reveal the temporal dimension of matter to positional devices that frame body and landscape, a series of inventive design and fabrication methods were developed – each drawing on individual interests, a key characteristic of the unit’s ethos. Inspired by our field trip across Belgium, where we studied a range of intensely detailed Art Nouveau buildings, weird and wonderful museums, and exemplary contemporary architecture, the larger spatial and material implications of our earlier apparatuses began to grow. These were tested in sites across Belgium and London. Straddling poetic and practical concerns, building proposals emerged that privileged the contingent over the predictive, and the uncertain over the certain. UG6 is an experimental 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 as we discover our architecture.

Year 2 Inés Camba-Young, Aiden Hodgson, Ayla Maydanchi, Caleb Sertsay, Zikun (Jason) Wang, Yingtong Zhou Year 3 Isabelle Borrow, Alexander Harrison, Rosina Hooper, Ella-May Levi, Uliana Orlenok, Mattia Salvadori, Elliot Woolard, Yuhan Wu Technical tutors Ivan Chan (Year 3), Bongani Muchemwa (Year 2) Digital skills tutor Loukis Menelaou Critics Nathan Back, Ivan Chan, Kacper Chmielewski, Filip Dujardin, Maria Fulford, Florence Hemmings, Joe Johnson, Steve Johnson, Kyriakos Katsaros, Stefan Lengen, Isaac Leung, Joerg Majer, Loukis Menelaou, Emma-Kate Matthews, Andreas Müllertz, Elliot Nash, Thomas Parker, Jim Reed, Farlie Reynolds, Joel Saldeck, Henry Svendsen, Michael Tite, Cira Oller Tovar

4 86

Architecture BSc

7 UG6

10 88

Architecture BSc

12 UG6

14 90

Architecture BSc

17 UG6

18 92

Architecture BSc

20 UG6

23 94

Architecture BSc

1, 18 Rosina Hooper, Y3 ‘Settled Ground’. Sited in Bodmin Moor, the project draws information and borders stored in the landscape into an architecture that offers shelter for walkers and makes sense of the environment as they are guided across it. 2–4 Yuhan Wu, Y3 ‘In “Plane” Sight’. Situated in Ghent, Belgium, this dance studio engages in a critical dialogue on spatial voyeurism and performativity, as worlds merge through the architecture’s framing capacity. 5–7 Elliot Woolard, Y3 ‘The Great Globe Itself – Shall Dissolve’. The architecture considers alternate timescales of construction, and a new ‘ruined’ theatre in Hampstead is designed – prepared for future reinterpretations. 8–10 Uliana Orlenok, Y3 ‘Cast in Time’. A three-part proposal for the restoration and replication of building components; comprising a workshop, museum and learning centre located on Fort VII, Wilrijk. 11 Alexander Harrison, Y3 ‘Architectures of Thought’. A dual-occupancy studio home designed to induce daydreaming as a creative beneficiary through different architectural mediums. 12, 14 Isabelle Borrow, Y3 ‘Woven Frameworks’. A weavers’ retreat and wool processing centre shaped by the seasonal rhythms of wool, in a cycle of labour, craft and continuous adaption. 13, 23 Yingtong Zhou, Y2 ‘Ephemeral Boundaries’. Privacy and perception are questioned through a new swimming facility next to the Hampstead ponds. 15–16 Ella-May Levi, Y3 ‘Translating Home’. Six multigenerational dwellings and a shared workshop for Moroccan families in Antwerp. A Belgian façade unfolds into an irregular world of courtyards, ritual and craft. 17, 21 Zikun (Jason) Wang, Y2 ‘Dockyard X: Reclaim, Research, Resurrect’. A speculative project transforming naval relics into a hydrofoil innovation lab. 19 Ayla Maydanchi, Y2 ‘Thresholds of Care and Connection’. A thoughtful proposal for domestic life in the third and fourth age embedded within a secluded, tree-lined setting in Hampstead. 20 Caleb Sertsay, Y2 ‘The Back(up) Plan’. An innovative sculpture repair institute situated in the Middelheim Open Depot, Antwerp. 22 Inés Camba-Young, Y2 ‘Archiving Erosion’. Situated in Antwerp, the proposal is an archive and conservation laboratory that explores how rainfall can be utilised, and records the weather through visual decay. 24 Aiden Hodgson, Y2 ‘Architecture of Restraint’. The boundaries of bodies and buildings are tested through a proposal for a nightclub and park, sited in East London. 25 Mattia Salvadori, Y3 ‘A Prompt to Slow Down’. Drawing on early research in how craft induces a slowing down of one’s practice and perception, the project envisions an urban farm in Belgium constructed from laminated timber.

25 UG6

1 96

Architecture BSc

Sensational States

UG7

Joseph Augustin, Christopher Burman

It could be argued that architecture – like the perceptual neurological signals through which we build our experience of the world – is dependent on contrast. Why is it, then, that so much modern construction results in atmospherically bland, homeostatic, unsenseable spaces?   The unnatural consistency and ‘performance’ of much of our contemporary environment sharply disregards what neuroscientist Michel Cabanac terms alliesthesia, the physiological role of sensory pleasure in helping us calibrate to the environments around us. Indeed, sensory delight may even be a vital biological and social mechanism.   From this perspective we might consider the pleasures of a cool breeze or hot bath as small fragments of a design agenda interested in reconsidering deeper environmental relationships – what architecture might emerge as we amplify, modulate or blur these sensory signals?   Building on previous ongoing interests in material systems, supply chains and civic space, UG7 invited students to pursue sensation – to resolve architectural experiences defined by heightened contrasts and fluctuating states of body, thermodynamics and energy – and then to build mechanisms to test and simulate these modes. Students were also invited to explore the ‘hyperspectral image’ as a means of architectural representation, considering how data produced by thermal cameras, the points of a LiDAR scan or the gaze of machine vision might be harnessed to describe and inscribe new forms of drawing or to document the planetary construction industry and resulting patterns of ecological transformation. Our field trip was an exploration of Andalusian alliesthesia – taking us to Seville, Córdoba and Granada in southern Spain, including visits to the environmental experiments of the Seville Expo ’92 and the Alcázar, engaging with the legacy of Mudéjar architecture and the Mosque-Cathedral at Córdoba, and culminating in a visit to the grand masterpiece of thermal architecture: the Alhambra. Throughout the year, we sought to embrace a primary function of architecture – the modification and moderation of habitable climates – to consider how rich, sensory propositions interact with the unavoidably urgent reality of ecological change and the rapidly shifting patterns of heat, winds and rainfall brought about by planetary warming.

Year 2 Ibtihaz Mahir (Rihan) Ahmed, Seran Allen, Noelia Banuelos Jechiu, Joao Bennetts De Souza, Jaewoong (Justin) Chung, Syed Mahe Hussain, Mai-Ling Mirei Kong, Melisa Melinte, Mushili Wilkie Year 3 Petra Garner, Bonnie Irvine, Marie-Stella Ladanyi, Ateh-Su Nkohkwo, Alexandra Pantouli, Yi Mun (Kristy) Yu Critics Eddie Blake, Pedro Font-Alba, James Green, Bruce Irwin, Julian Siravo, Manijeh Verghese

3 98

4 Architecture BSc

7 UG7

9 100

Architecture BSc

13 UG7

101

102

Architecture BSc

19 UG7

103

22 104

Architecture BSc

26 UG7

105

28 106

Architecture BSc

1, 11, 18, 25, 28 Alexandra Pantouli, Y3 ‘Blocks, Cranes & Assembly’. A Seville school empowers students to transform a small urban plot by providing child-friendly building systems, merging real materials with learning to foster agency and reimagine their role in shaping the city. 2, 4, 27 Yi Mun (Kristy) Yu, Y3 ‘The Rhythm Fusion Lab’. A contemporary dance centre in Seville blends urban dance with flamenco traditions within a climateresponsive design using passive systems – chimneys, evaporative cooling and a thermal labyrinth – to provide adaptable spaces for the arts and community use. 3, 9, 23 Marie-Stella Ladanyi, Y3 ‘The Dance Atelier’. A dance school and performance space in Seville that celebrates both ballet and flamenco through movement, education and community engagement. 5 Melisa Melinte, Y2 ‘Refugio Aromatico’. A sensorial bathhouse integrating traditional incense production with Seville’s cultural heritage, featuring scent-guided spatial sequences, orange peel aromatics and sustainable ventilation. 6 Ibtihaz Mahir (Rihan) Ahmed, Y2 ‘The Wind’s Courtyard’. A contemporary commercial bazaar blending a marketplace, workshops and gardens with Andalusianinspired environmental architecture. 7 Petra Garner, Y3 ‘Seville Intergenerational Co-Housing’. A wide-ranging housing scheme uniting educational and social facilities within a complex of passively cooled housing, developed through technical models for simulating downdraft ventilation effects. 8, 12 Mai-Ling (Mirei) Kong, Y2 ‘Torre de Bronce Brewery’. A social brewing hub supports Seville’s growing microbrewing community with co-working and ‘co-brewing’ spaces, offering access to shared equipment, bars and public performance areas. 10 Mushili Wilkie, Y2 ‘The Sixth Hour’. A new urban sleep centre for Seville exploring the social function of napping and siestas within a series of zones relating to the depth and intensity of sleep. 13, 20, 21 Bonnie Irvine, Y3 ‘The Orange, Reimagined’. A subterranean complex that celebrates the process of waste management by revealing the material flows and industrial processes involved in deriving biofuel from Seville’s orange trees. 14, 19 Jaewoong (Justin) Chung, Y2 ‘Veilbound’. A wedding venue inspired by Spanish marriage traditions connects an existing church and gardens. The new flowing, veil-like architecture is clad in terracotta and houses a wedding chapel and celebration centre. 15 Noelia Banuelos Jechiu, Y2 ‘Saffron Hall’. A new public performance space featuring stained glass ceilings and private practice rooms. 16, 17, 26 Syed Mahe Hussain, Y2 ‘The Mosque of Circulation’. New religious infrastructure for Seville’s Muslim community emphasises water, light and movement, nestling a dome and internal courtyard within a tight urban site while presenting a subtle, porous façade to the streetscape. 22, 29 Ateh-Su Nkohkwo, Y3 ‘GOAL! Net Tension’. A football-inspired cultural centre explores the tension of both British immigrants in southern Spain and the sport’s commercialisation. A tensile fabric roof spans the historic sites and mediates Seville’s hot summer temperatures. 24 Seran Allen, Y2 ‘Sistema Vivo’. A six-storey organic timber restaurant complex that articulates a complete metabolic cycle for food, from growing vegetables, serving seasonal tapas and processing organic waste via composting toilets to fertilising crops. 30 All Students Infrared thermal image of field trip group at the Alhambra, Granada.

30 UG7

107

1 108

Architecture BSc

Entropy

UG8

Maria Fulford, Jörg Majer

In physics, entropy is the measure of disorder in a system. The more chaos, the more entropy. Based on the second law of thermodynamics, it defines the nature of energy and tells us that: not all energy within a system is useful; energy naturally dissipates; entropy increases over time; and, ultimately, the whole universe will burn out and be transformed into an all-encompassing sameness. As a continuation of our interest in time and its effect on the built environment, this year UG8 explored the relationship between entropy and the order of things. Entropy is unstoppable. It is the constant ordering and dispersal of things. It demands the creation of systems and arrangements, but it also gives rise to opportunities for transformation, adaptation and reimagining. This year, students also explored the potential of stone. Stone is an active material, which lays bare the forces of nature over time and offers opportunities for reuse and reinterpretation. For the first project, we visited the Isle of Portland and explored the working mines and abandoned quarries. Students were asked to design an entropic instrument in response to the Isle of Portland that would transform order into disorder. At the beginning of Term 2, we journeyed south and threw ourselves into the chaos and beauty of Naples. Here we experienced entropy: unearthed in the volcanic ash of Pompeii; in its vast underworld of tuff quarries and catacombs; and laid bare in the dense streets of light and shadow. In the final project, students were tasked with designing their own time-based building in Naples that not only responded to entropy but also speculated on how architecture could shape this inevitable cyclical process. Material, space and atmosphere are the foundations of our explorations in architecture. We believe in the thoughtful making of space. We encourage both intuitive and academic responses through making and drawing that blend the physical and digital worlds. We look to create spatial constructions based on an understanding of material and light: dream-like atmospheres represented through strong imagery. Students are encouraged to collaborate and cooperate, while building self-reliance and independence.

Year 2 Clara Castellano Burguera, Alexis Granzo, Leonardo Iovino, Jun Yao (Oscar) Loo, Yesha Panchal, Ethan Sim Year 3 Allysha Alaq, Yury Balabin, Sofia Barbosa Lima, Andi Cela, Hashaam Khan, Gideon Mbowa, Louisa Neal, Tingyi (Tina) Xian Technical tutors and consultants Simon Beames, Cira Oller Tovar, David Pierce Critics Jessam Al-Jawad, Finbar Charleson, Kacper Chmielewski, Matt Driscoll, Sonia Magdziarz, Barnaby Meller, Andreas Müllertz, Jack Newton, Farlie Reynolds, Cira Oller Tovar, Christopher Page, David Pierce, George Proud, David Tigg, Michael Tite, Oliver Wilton Sponsors Tigg Cole, Orms, Assael Architecture

109

5 110

6 Architecture BSc

9 UG8

111

13 112

Architecture BSc

17 UG8

113

21 114

Architecture BSc

25 UG8

115

29 116

Architecture BSc

32 UG8

117

36 118

Architecture BSc

1, 7–9, 16 Jun Yao (Oscar) Loo, Y2 ‘The City Built On Layers’. This project uncovers the buried traces of Neapolis through excavation, weaving them into the present through a subterranean journey where space, light and memory reveal the city’s layered identity. 2–6 Gideon Mbowa, Y3 ‘Subterranean’. Set within the Vallone San Rocco, this project transforms a disused tuff quarry into a winery integrating temperature, form and material into a sensorial and adaptive architecture that choreographs the winemaking journey. 10–13 Allysha Alaq, Y3 ‘A Livella: Naples Between Life and Death’. Located in front of the Fontanelle cemetery in Naples, the building functions as a theatre, reliquary and ossuary. Its design draws on skeletal forms and incorporates materials made with bone ash. 14–15 Alexis Granzo, Y2 ‘The Drying Grounds’. The gastronomy pavilions in Scampia integrate culinary fusion with pasta production, reimagining traditional pasta factories as communal spaces that celebrate food heritage and empower residents through shared rituals, skill-building and spatial storytelling. 17, 22–23 Ethan Sim, Y2 ‘Suit Narratives: A School For Tailoring’. This tailoring school reimagines traditional Neapolitan suit-making as an inclusive and democratised practice, weaving personal narratives and cultural memories into textiles. 18–19 Louisa Neal, Y3 ‘Into Infernum’. Sited on the Phlegraean Fields caldera, this museum-motel honours volcano chasers, drawing inspiration from the documentary Fire of Love, Dante’s Inferno and the Roman god Vulcan, to create a space for volcano enthusiasts and fire worshipers alike. 20–21 Sofia Barbosa Lima, Y3 ‘Echoes in Stone’. A gallery of pigment, stone and shifting perspectives. Visitors walk through layered spaces and witness frescoes in progress in an architecture that captures the act of making and echoes Naples’ material memory. 24–25 Clara Castellano Burguera, Y2 ‘Above the Scala’. Suspended above the Montecalvario Scala, the project proposes a theatre that draws from the language of drapery and the heritage of Naples’ carnivals. Carved stone panels fold and sway like fabric in motion. 26–29 Andi Cela, Y3 ‘The Façade Restoration Institute’. Located at the Port of Naples, this project retrofits an abandoned site into a façade factory, combining adaptive reuse and restoration to address maintenance issues, attract investment, and support long-term economic and architectural revitalisation. 30–32, 37 Yury Balabin, Y3 ‘Naples and Seismic Existentialism’. A monument to the existential relationship between Naples and its unstable geology, expressed through experiential spaces that amplify the nearly imperceptible, constant seismic activity and the integration of scientific research. 33–36, 38 Tingyi (Tina) Xian, Y3 ‘Passage Through Ritual and Erosion’. Set along Naples’ Fontanelle Cliff, this funeral home and crematorium evolves with its eroded terrain, employing adaptive materials to embody transformation, memory and architecture as a temporal, living presence.

38 UG8

119

1 120

Architecture BSc

Gathering

UG9

Jessica In, Chee-Kit Lai

This year, UG9 explored the theme of gathering. Gatherings typically involve connecting with others to acknowledge significant events, achievements or milestones, serving as expressions of the collective mood at particular moments in time. These gatherings can be broadly categorised into three functions: celebration, commemoration and demonstration. They materialise and mobilise people across both digital and physical spaces, forming integral components of art, culture and civic life. This theme emphasises the role of artists as providing catalysts for collaboration, expressions of hope and joy, and voices of protest. UG9 had the exciting opportunity to work on a live project with Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller on his upcoming piece The Triumph of Art. Commissioned by the National Gallery for its bicentenary celebrations, this nationwide performance inspired our students’ Term 1 conceptual project. Students produced proposals for an ambitious collaborative street party in Trafalgar Square, planned for July 2025. In a groundbreaking, cross-programme collaboration with The Bartlett’s Design for Performance and Interaction Masters students, who have taken on the design development and delivery of the final piece, the project investigates the contested histories of both the site and the gallery. It will be exhibited and featured during the July event, which will be free to attend and open to all. Our field trip this year took us across Finland, where we followed in the footsteps of Alvar Aalto. From Turku to Jyväskylä and Helsinki – where our building proposals are sited – we discovered how architecture can serve as a mediator between humans and nature, using natural materials, thoughtfully integrated with landscapes, and able to respond to Finland’s distinct seasons and weather conditions. Our architectural projects draw on Finnish culture, mythology and the beliefs that have shaped its society, as well as its art and design tradition, known for blending craftsmanship with modern innovation while maintaining strong connections to nature and the environment. Our design research developed with an emphasis on cultural context, climate, resources, topography, ways of living and a human-centred approach to architecture.

Year 2 Sze Ho (Louis) Chan, Tim Deleu, Evelyn Jeffery, John Ogunyiluka, Songyan Tan, Sofia Zontone Year 3 Yuan (Becky) Bian, Yau-Yan Chai, Yizheng (Ethan) Chen, Xin Heng (Maggie) Lee, Hei Lam (William) Li, Stanislav Luo, Abisola Rutter Virtual reality tutor Krina Christopoulou Digital skills tutor Alex Fox Drawing tutor Doug John Miller Technical consultant Don Shillingburg (Year 3) Critics Vitika Agarwal, Laura Allen, Bamidele Awoyemi, Barbara Campbell-Lange, Nat Chard, James Kwang-Ho Chung, Danny Collier, Carrie Conningsby, Robert Donnelly, Ben Foulkes, Alex Fox, Marten Hall, Kyriakos Katsaros, Jan Kattein, Andre Sampaio Kong, Jack Leather, James Mak, Doug John Miller, Abigail Portus, Farlie Reynolds, James Robinson, Luke Alexander Scott, Don Shillingburg, Sayan Skandarajah, Kaye Song, Ben Spong, Manijeh Verghese, Alice Whewell, Izabela Wieczorek, Sal Wilson, Jane Wong Partners The National Gallery, London (Emily Stone, Daniel Herrmann), RSHP (Aymee Thorne Clarke, Will Jefferies, Kit Lee-Smith), StuFish Entertainment Architects (Oli Colman), Jeremy Deller, Toby Olié Sponsor Panopus Printing 121

3 122

Architecture BSc

6 UG9

123

9 124

Architecture BSc

11 UG9

125

13 126

Architecture BSc

16 UG9

127

18 128

Architecture BSc

UG9

129

20 130

Architecture BSc

1–3 Yizheng (Ethan) Chen, Y3 ‘Fahrenheit 281’. A construction school in Hernesaari, Helsinki, uses pulp and timber waste to develop and test materials against fire and moisture, creating a passive fire safety methodology. 4 Evelyn Jeffery, Y2 ‘Embroidery Stagehand Theatre’. Inspired by embroidery techniques, the project reinterprets stitching as material study and concept for a community theatre in Vuosaari, Helsinki. 5 Sofia Zontone, Y2 ‘The Knitting Lab’. Set within the Meilahti Villa Area in Helsinki, the project proposes a knitting workshop and community hub, combining intergenerational craft, social interaction and material experimentation, through loop-inspired tectonics and 3D mesh textile. 6 Yuan (Becky) Bian, Y3 ‘Silo Adaptive Reuse’. Located on the southern peninsula of Helsinki, Hernesaari Island, the project is a retrofit of an existing former grain silo, transforming it from a disused industrial site to a vertical hydroponic farm. 7 Xin Heng (Maggie) Lee, Y3 ‘Hanasaari 2030. C’. Located in Hanasaari, Helsinki, atop a now vacant wood pellet power plant, the project reinterprets the space as an art gallery that hosts a collection of paintings, photography, digital media and old machinery. 8 Abisola Rutter, Y3 ‘Architecture of Trust’. The project proposes a net-positive building scheme where an Architecture of Trust is formed by situating a micronuclear reactor and data centre in a silver birch forest near the Viikki Nature Reserve, northeast of Helsinki. 9 Tim Deleu, Y2 ‘Longhouse of Memory’. Sited along the shore of Seurasaari, Helsinki, the project takes inspiration from Viking longhouses and ancient Finnish drinking rituals to create a space for reconnecting through spirit-making and cultural memory. 10–11 Songyan Tan, Y2 ‘Hernesaari Snow Clock’. Located on the Hernesaari port, southwest Helsinki, the project restores contaminated soil through a ‘Snow Clock’ architecture, where varying stages of snowmelt allow the building to act as an ecological barometer. 12–14 Sze Ho (Louis) Chan, Y2 ‘A Mythological Excavation’. A theatre for Kalevala (Finnish oral folklore), excavated from the site’s igneous granite rock, creates an architecture that embodies the local mythology and landscape. 15–17 Hei Lam (William) Li, Y3 ‘Damolition’. Following on from the demolition of the Vanhankaupunginkoski dam in Old Town Bay, Helsinki, the project proposes a water and ecology research lab as a testing ground for multispecies inhabitation. 18, 20 Yau-Yan Chai, Y3 ‘Our Land’. Located in the Herttoniemi allotment neighbourhood, the project proposes a transitional building that grows into permanence, serving as regenerative architecture and a political protest against urban development. 19, 21 John Ogunyiluka, Y2 ‘Keuruunpuisto Sámi Community Centre and Tile Workshop’. Situated in the heart of Puu-Vallila, a historically working-class neighbourhood in Helsinki, this project proposes a tile and brick workshop rooted in Sámi duodji, circular materiality and respectful making. 22 Stanislav Luo, Y3 ‘Morphology of Moisture’. Located in the Old Town Bay nature reserve, northeast Helsinki, the project explores architecture shaped by moisture movement for a slip-cast fabrication centre producing modular ceramics.

22 UG9

131

1 132

Architecture BSc

Settlement: Oculi

UG12

Hannah Corlett, Niall McLaughlin

Each year we create a constitution for a new settlement together, agreeing on shared values, with each student designing an individual building on our collective site. A ‘settlement’ suggests a community of buildings in a particular place, with its own origins, which grows and develops over time. It can also mean an agreement acceptable to all parties. Both meanings require each other. To live together, we must negotiate and co-operate. Individually, settling belongs to our oldest animal intuitions and lies at the heart of architectural experience. Buildings settle, too: they wear and weather, acquire and shape histories. This year, our focus is on understanding the environmental significance of density, light and curation. Our settlement is on the western edge of Regent’s Park, referencing introverted architectures that draw light and hold views. The settlement negotiates a dense urban network, nestled between the ‘sublime beauty’ of Nash’s Outer Circle and the ‘high hopes’ of Somers Town. It manipulates light from the zenith through techniques learned and experimental, and articulates a matrix of controlled connections, born of the environment and our collaboration. We began the year exploring and researching the settlement site, walking and working together to create a shared open record through drawing, photographic studies and modelling. This process established both our collective bonds and our individual perspectives. In collaboration, we defined a wider arrangement of routes and spaces essential to creating a successful place. We balanced individual initiative with communal co-operation, agreeing on core values that shaped our community and its buildings. The design of the settlement evolved through a series of town hall meetings and collaborative drawings, where we presented research and design agendas using a variety of parameters. Each student began by designing a primary space from the inside out, focused on creating an interior that manipulates light through 3D ceiling geometry and controlled apertures. With the settlement framework in place and following our field trip across northern Europe, these designs were developed into detailed buildings that emphasised roofscape and curated light. These buildings responded directly to use, experience, adjacency and the environment, with careful articulation of views and spatial transitions.

Year 2 Tsun Hei (Ernest) Cheung, Airelle Diestro, Warutch Ingwattanapoka, Isaac Insley, William Warwick Year 3 Noel (Angelo) Ferrer, Yang Huang, Nga Chi (Gigi) Lane, Marisa Lau, Jan Siwicki, Joode Umweni, Odin Verden, Fangbo (Brant) You Technical tutors and consultants Finbar Charleson, Matt Driscoll, Anthony Tai, Long Hin Tse, Mark Whitby Critics Negin Amiri, Katerina Dionysopoulou, Jeremy Dixon, Piers Gough, Patrick Massey, Billy Mavropoulou, Bongani Muchemwa, Andreas Müllertz, Eoghan Smith, Mark Whitby Sponsor Fallen & Felled

133

4 134

Architecture BSc

7 UG12

135

9 136

10 Architecture BSc

13 UG12

137

15 AERIAL RENDER The market hall sits on the northernmost part of the square, at the centre of the regents estate.

17 138

18 Architecture BSc

23 UG12

139

140

Architecture BSc

35 UG12

141

37 142

38 Architecture BSc

1 All Students ‘Regents Park Settlement’. Site plan illustrating all proposed interventions, forming a matrix of controlled connections. 2–4 Jan Siwicki, Y3 ‘Regent’s Park Coroner’s Court’. Reworking a hidden site between terrace and estate, a civic programme of courtrooms, mortuary, prayer rooms and public spaces connects east to west. 5–7 Marisa Lau, Y3 ‘Preventative Practice’. An inverted building forms the heart of a preventative health and wellbeing centre threaded with green, permeable armatures constructed from medical waste. 8–10 Odin Verden, Y3 ‘Regent’s Maggie Centre’. Cancer affects more than just physical health. This centre offers space beyond medical treatment, with rooms and gardens that unfold, inviting visitors to cook, sit or simply be. 11–12 Noel (Angelo) Ferrer, Y3 ‘Living Room’. A series of interventions restore dignity to homes affected by neglect; winter gardens create private flexible thresholds and shared volumes open up the existing courtyard. 13 William Warwick, Y2 ‘Chapel Between’. Part crematorium, part chapel, an architecture for grief, reflection and belief straddles the reinstated canal, inviting a personal encounter with loss through light, form and rhythm. 14 Isaac Insley, Y2 ‘School of Suspense’. A former church and tyre store are reworked as a theatre school where rehearsal spaces are suspended above performance. New volumes extend, align and connect. 15–16 Warutch Ingwattanapoka, Y2 ‘Cumberland Market’. A civic scaffold at the edge of the settlement reimagines Cumberland Market as a site of flow and exchange. 17 Airelle Diestro, Y2 ‘Centre for Sight’. Reclaiming the site of Nash’s lost ophthalmic hospital, this eye treatment centre is low and linear yet centrifugal. Light is filtered, diffused or blocked to match changing vision and guide movement. 18 Tsun Hei (Ernest) Cheung, Y2 ‘High Street’. Linking Albany Road to the reinstated canal basin, this project creates spaces to gather, repair, share and rest, shaping a street not of traffic, but of people. 19–23 Fangbo (Brant) You, Y3 ‘Cumberland Ravine’. A staggered intervention born of salvaged brick includes a café, meeting room, and reading and co-working spaces, anchoring a new centre between existing housing. 24–25 Joode Umweni, Y3 ‘Viewfinder’. A central passage creates a link between Regent’s Park and canal. Shaped by camera anatomy, the elevated linear form frames light and view, creating a space for seeing and making. 26–35 Isaac Insley, Marisa Lau, Jan Siwicki, William Warwick, Fangbo (Brant) You, Y2&3 ‘Project 1: Inside’. Manipulating light from the inside out. 36–38 Nga Chi (Gigi) Lane, Y3 ‘Residence’. A long-stay capsule hotel for UCL Hospitals medical students. Built from repurposed personal protective equipment, it offers private pods and communal spaces for recovery and engagement. 39–40 Yang Huang, Y3 ‘Basin for Rest and Repair’. Unfolding across land and water, rammed earth meets digital fabrication, shaping a civic landscape and creating temporary housing and linear infrastructure for boat repair.

40 UG12

143

1 144

Architecture BSc

Flight Lines: An Architecture of Trajectories

UG13

Laurence Blackwell-Thale, William Victor Camilleri A line of flight allows the architect to track their construction’s development through space and time. The movement of materials from points of origin to sites of assembly, a shift from matter to component, the realisation of potential set against the realities of realisation: these moments of transfer and interchange are what we call ‘trajectories’. To trace these trajectories is to construct a drawing through fabrication – a process where the drawing oscillates between capturing surveyed precision and constructing intricately resolved architecture. The interrelationship between drawing for construction and constructions for drawings is our origin for the year, positioning the student in the multifaceted role of the architect-maker. From this vantage point, we collapse registration with process, production with output, and challenge the conventions of architectural completion and representation. UG13 interrogates design methodologies that resist complete control, generating dynamic outcomes on sites that bridge temporal boundaries. Our drawing and making processes are full of agency, enabling discovery as much as prescription throughout the design process. This combination of three-dimensional workshop fabrication, immersive drawing and technical rigour is our proving ground and the foundation of the unit. We see the workshop as a site as well as a production space, the drawing plane as an experiential medium as well as a tool to render the visual physical. This year, we are specifically scrutinising fabricated drawings, where workshop processes generate innovative ways of communicating spatial inhabitation, three-dimensional resolution and building atmospheres. From machines that roam the terrain to incisions within the built fabric or a series of plotted archival landmarks, our architecture deliberately questions materials, details and processes across multiple stages of construction. It is an outlook that engages with ambitious programmes spanning complex time frames on sensitive sites. Our architecture navigates peripheral conditions – from the nuclear testing grounds of the Suffolk coast to Germany’s post-industrial mining landscapes – provoking questions of context, temporality and material transformation.

Year 2 Wing Yuet (Valerie) Chen, Connor Chiew Weng Sheng, Jiawei (Charles) Jin, Kin Gin (Kenny) Lau, Xiaojing (Nicole) Xu, Yuejia (Cassandra) Yan Year 3 Sora Aoki, Jacob Dumon, Milda Knabikaite, KarinaIoana Lacraru, Jiahe (Ryan) Shao, HoiLi (Muraco) To Technical tutors and consultants B-made, Joe Johnson, Amy Kempa, Anja Kempa, Bongani Muchemwa, Jack Newton, Ben Spong, Toby Prest Critics Kirsty Badenoch, Barbara-Ann CampbellLange, Nat Chard, Elin Eyborg Lund, Florence Hemmings, Amy Kempa, Fergus Knox, Ness Lafoy, Emma-Kate Matthews, Emmanuel Vercruysse

145

5 146

Architecture BSc

7 UG13

147

10 148

Architecture BSc

13 UG13

149

16 150

Architecture BSc

19 UG13

151

21 152

Architecture BSc

24 UG13

153

27 154

Architecture BSc

1–2 Milda Knabikaite, Y3 ‘The Third Pagoda’. Sited near Orford Ness, the project archives knowledge regarding historic secret military trials through an architecture that learns from the shifting landscape. 3–5 Kin Gin (Kenny) Lau, Y2 ‘Centre for Salvage’. Berlin’s Tempelhof is dismantled and sold off to the local community through a performative auction architecture. 6–7 Karina-Ioana Lacraru, Y3 ‘Eternity Burdens within New Grounds’. The unstable ground condition of the Garzweiler opencast coal mine becomes a site from which to inhabit lost landscapes through machinic intervention. 8–10 Hoi Li (Muraco) To, Y3 ‘The Ruins’ Atelier’. Beneath Cologne Cathedral a dynamic workshop creates reconfigurable hybrid heritage replicas from excavated fragments. 11–13 Jiahe (Ryan) Shao, Y3 ‘How High is the Gauge?’. Situated in a flood-prone landscape, a training centre and testing ground transforms into a toolkit of deployable equipment for emergency flood response. 14–15 Jiawei (Charles) Jin, Y2 ‘Settling the Matter’. Located on Berlin’s World War II ‘heavy load site’, the project forms a machinic architecture that both observes and responds to ground sinking. 16 Yuejia (Cassandra) Yan, Y2 ‘The Chrono Obscura’. Pairs of pinhole cameras record and augment the shifting landscapes of Orford Ness. 17–19 Xiaojing (Nicole) Xu, Y2 ‘Rippling of the Canal’. Situated along Berlin’s Flutgraben canal, the swimming centre integrates rotating mechanisms and sedimentcollecting forms that accelerate and clean the water. 20–21 Connor Chiew Weng Sheng, Y2 ‘Tracing the Extraction Line’. Between the boundary of the forest and the mine, a self-writing architecture etches inhabitation on the earth. 22–24 Jacob Dumon, Y3 ‘Looking Out and In’. Positioned within an industrial relic, a meteorology centre and photographic archive respond to decay through looking out and in at the building itself. 25–26 Wing Yuet (Valerie) Chen, Y2 ‘The Line That Was’. A series of geometric translations shift lost heritages across the Berlin Wall line as an act of memorial. 27–29 Sora Aoki, Y3 ‘Case Report No.3550_63’. Through the forensic investigation of the 1962 murder of Peter Fechter, a historic spatial narrative addresses unresolved Cold War cases in Berlin.

29 UG13

155

1 156

Architecture BSc

The Healing City

UG14

David Di Duca, Tetsuro Nagata

In UG14, we view architecture through an anthropological lens, studying how societies and individuals remember and forget through the built environment. In previous years, we have focused on the role that nostalgia, rituals, manufacturing and authenticity have played in collective identity. This year, we studied how a city can heal and recover after a traumatic event, and the capacity for memorials to act as a barometer of political consciousness, as well as a tool for empathy. A city historically dubbed the ‘Jerusalem of Europe’, Sarajevo has traditionally been a multicultural nucleus with a diverse ethnic and religious make-up. For four centuries, these communities were able to create a harmonious and prosperous city, culminating in the unifying 1984 Winter Olympics. However, as part of the Yugoslav Wars that tore the nation apart along ethnic lines, Sarajevo became from 1992 the site of the most prolonged siege in modern history, leaving its population without water, electricity and gas. Today, with echoes of this horrific, brutal episode very much in the world’s consciousness, the city is attempting to heal. Part of this process is the honouring through memorials of the pain and anguish that the population suffered during the siege. We visited the city to witness the bullet-scarred urban fabric, and the Yugoslav buildings left to ruin by a government at a standstill. But we also witnessed how, 30 years after the violence ended, Sarajevo is still a divided city of heterogeneous communities, and questioned the dichotomy of preserving the memory of the past while at the same time attempting to repair the wounds of segregation. In UG14 this year, we investigated what the memorials around us, both hidden and established, tell us about the events they describe and the societies that placed them there. We examined different modes of shared remembering and designed our own memorials that wove narratives through the built environment and attempted to translate one person’s experience to others. Finally, we challenged ourselves to transform the urban fabric that experienced this trauma in Sarajevo, to construct new approaches to aid the healing process for the city.

Year 2 Xiujun Chen, Salma Elmi, Katerina Goebel, David Lirio Year 3 Marim Abohendia, Hannah Bailey, Tianyi (Thomas) Bao, Kanwulia Ilombu, Luke Osborne, Irina Pirvu, Oliwia Tys, Renu Uppal, Yumeng Yang Technical tutor and consultant Josef Stöger Thesis supervisor David Di Duca Critics Dylan Duffy, Helen Floate, Damian Iliev, Kevin Kelly, Carlota Nuñez-Barranco Vallejo, Maxine Pringle, Eva Tisnikar

157

3 158

Architecture BSc

5 UG14

159

7 160

Architecture BSc

9 UG14

161

11 162

Architecture BSc

13 UG14

163

15 164

Architecture BSc

18 UG14

165

19 166

Architecture BSc

1–3 Luke Osborne, Y3 ‘Requiem Sarajevo’. Paying homage to the ‘Cellist of Sarajevo’, the project brings together fragments of buildings that once witnessed his performance, to create a stage for modern-day musical programming. 4–5 Hannah Bailey, Y3 ‘A Building Misremembered’. The project counters growing pressure on media freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a newspaper office that uses illusion to question assumed truths and support marginalised journalists to continue their work. 6–7 David Lirio, Y2 ‘Colina Kapa Art Therapy’. Three abandoned houses on the outskirts of Sarajevo are converted into an art therapy retreat for childhood siege victims, using copper and water as mediums to foster healing and conversation. 8 Katerina Goebel, Y2 ‘Project[ing] Community’. Recalling an era of Yugoslav avant-garde art, a visual arts centre transforms a disused cinema into a cultural complex that celebrates the art of the film projectionist. 9 Xiujun Chen, Y2 ‘Grbavica Textile Club’. Next to a site of historical trauma, the project creates a safe space for local women and their children to celebrate weaving and textiles as a therapeutic practice. 10–11 Kanwulia Ilombu, Y3 ‘MileSTONE’. A lithography studio turns stone printmaking into a stage for communal collaboration, while the building’s external skin is eroded to embrace the performative nature of subtractive architecture. 12–13 Renu Uppal, Y3 ‘Spirit and Soil’. A funeral home in Wapping is shaped by ancient animist traditions where the architectural design finds parallels between natural, sustainable embalming methods and timber preservation techniques. 14–15 Irina Pirvu, Y3 ‘The Passage Home’. The design repurposes an abandoned retirement home into a new healing therapy space and communal gardens, showcasing how waste can be transformed into functional and durable architectural components that age over time. 16–17 Marim Abohendia, Y3 ‘The Echoing Green’. Designed around a fictional love story, the project envisions a youth summer camp that fosters unity among Bosnia and Herzegovina’s divided ethnic groups. 18 Oliwia Tys, Y3 ‘Acoustic Harmony’. The building adapts part of a bobsled track into a Scout centre and choral performance space that supports the coexistence of the four main religious groups of Sarajevo, respecting their unique acoustic traditions. 19–21 Yumeng Yang, Y3 ‘Tactile Remains’. A physiotherapy centre built on the ruins of a military fortress and observatory, using soft robotic mechanisms that can dynamically engage with human activity to assist physical recovery.

21 UG14

167

1 168

Architecture BSc

Multimodal

UG21

Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

‘Though nothing will keep us together’ David Bowie and Brian Eno, ‘Heroes’ (1977) The multimodal holds things together. We design by combining different modes – drawings, physical models, digital models or material fragments – to develop an idea. Each type of representation has its code, but it is in the projected space between different media that the design can emerge, formed through intersections, combinations, layering or transduction, combining indeterminacy and abstraction. Drawings are the materialisation of the workings of thought – they may themselves generate thoughts, or they may be a record of something perceived.1 Following Alberti, drawings have often been considered as instructions – Lutyens called them ‘a letter to the builder’.2 More experimental approaches through Tschumi and Libeskind treat them as self-perpetuating systems. We are now in an era when computers can test the assimilation and synthesis of any kind of information, automating signification. How can we now correspond with the machine, using new types of representation to draw with it or write to it? This year, we were interested in students creating their own design processes that reimagined how to be multimodal, and considered how drawings, models and media come together. In all these cases, whether analogue or digital, drawings can be both representational and operational. We asked students to create new ‘codes’ that redefined the possibilities of these familiar formats, creating new forms of drawing and models that could be dynamic, interlinked and generative – and work in new ways when combined. In 1977, David Bowie and Brian Eno recorded ‘Heroes’ with production by Tony Visconti. From a studio overlooking the Berlin Wall, they created a new sound through the layering and overdubbing of musical patterns. This year the unit focused on Berlin, a city that is perpetually considering how to combine and reconcile competing ideas.

Year 2 Mia Alian, Hiroha Aoki, Xingjian Liu,Polina Parshyna, Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao, Yasmeen Yusuf-Burrell, Xinyu (Eva) Zhang Year 3 Oscar Brice, Luke Grbesa, Dhruva Menon, Anoushka Sarma, Charlie Stone, Ngoc Chau Anh Tran, Graeme (Yuan Cheng) Wong Technical tutor and consultant Tom Holberton

1. John Forty and Sophie Read (2019), ‘The Limits of Drawing’, in Desley Luscombe, Helen Thomas, Helen and Niall Hobhouse, eds., Architecture through Drawing (London: Lund Humphries), p.196. 2. Edwin Lutyens. Quoted in Keith Snook, BIM in the Real World. UK: BRE Trust, 2014. 169

3 170

Architecture BSc

5 UG21

171

7 172

Architecture BSc

9 UG21

173

11 174

Architecture BSc

15 UG21

175

19 176

Architecture BSc

21 UG21

177

23 178

Architecture BSc

1–2 Luke Grbesa, Y3 ‘ZØNE-137’. A Situationist techno park that rhythmically activates through environmental cycles and user-triggered transformations. 3 Ngoc Chau Anh Tran, Y3 ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. An activist exploration of blindness is formed through light and materiality. 4 Anoushka Sarma, Y3 ‘Unclassical Music’. Using acoustic simulation to redefine classical music and performance experiences, realised as rehearsal spaces to manipulate and distort sound. 5 Yasmeen Yusuf-Burrell, Y2 ‘Reclaiming Hostile Ground.’ This project thoughtfully revives the communal spirit of Roger Waters’ performance of The Wall, transforming the abandoned grounds of the former Reich Chancellery with sensitivity. 6–7 Graeme (Yuan Cheng) Wong, Y3 ‘Augmented Grounds’. A seasonally responsive terrain for enhanced performance. 8–9 Oscar Brice, Y3 ‘Choreographing the Citizens’ Forum’. A reimagining of the relationship between public discourse, civic performance and audience spectatorship through the dramaturgical concept of Berlin’s ‘SuperAudience’. 10–11 Charlie Stone, Y3 ‘Post Surveillance Narcissus’. Inspired by the ruined Stasi archives, this responsive archival centre uses machine vision recognition to reimagine surveillance as self-reflective choreography in an authoritarian world. 12–15 Dhruva Menon, Y3 ‘The Spreepark Journal’. An addition to Berlin’s Spreepark masterplan, this project integrates a bathhouse, ceramic workshop and ecology research centre, shaped by embedded environmental data and ceramic 3D printing. 16 Polina Parshyna, Y2 ‘The Cycle: Berlin’. A speculative proposal translating speech into space. 17–18 Mia Alian, Y2 ‘Tracing Berlin: An Acoustic Archaeology’. Where time bends into tone, and memory settles in grain. Walls echo with unseen histories as the landscape converges into a living architecture. 19, 24 Hanxiang (Christopher) Tao, Y2 ‘Hydraulic Computable Landscape’. A hydraulic drawing machine is proposed as a response to a dilapidated air raid shelter beneath the site. Using water as a medium, the project generates an ever-changing parkour course. 20 Hiroha Aoki, Y2 ‘Double Vision’. The project creates a generative exchange between an AI’s perspective and its environment – mediated through a ‘window’. 21, 25–26 Xingjian Liu, Y2 ‘New Signal on a Forgotten Hill’. A forgotten listening station is bought back to life by weaving music and form together – transforming new signals into an immersive spatial experience. 22, 23 Xinyu (Eva) Zhang, Y2 ‘Letters With Signature’. The project revives unspoken dialogues in Berlin’s ‘no-man’s land’ to reconcile with the past and rebuild collective memory within this historically charged space.

26 UG21

179

Design & Creative Practice 3, Story Garden Event, 2024.

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Programme Director: Sophie Read Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) BSc is an undergraduate degree that is unique in the UK university system. For more than ten years, the programme has been a forerunner, offering an alternative form of architectural education which demonstrates that architectural culture is not centred solely on the accredited profession. Unlike a conventional architecture degree, AIS allows students to customise their own course by studying a wide range of optional modules taken in both architecture and other disciplines at UCL. In addition to modules at The Bartlett shared with our professional programmes in history and theory, technology, and professional practice, our students may also select from topics in other departments including anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, planning, education, geography, management and politics. The flexible nature of the degree enables students to pursue their interests both within and outside the built environment, opening out to a wide range of exciting careers and further study options at some of the world’s most prestigious design and research institutions. They can study 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 film-making. Careers extend beyond the built environment, too, and develop from the student’s module choices, which can include human rights or public health, among others. The programme also offers dedicated modules in design and creative practice, architectural research, computing and sustainable city infrastructures, each taught by renowned interdisciplinary designers, film-makers, urban researchers, artists, historians, green planners and policymakers. These modules create a strong identity and community for the programme. There are two module streams which run across 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 and an excerpt of work produced on this year’s Architectural Research III essay-based module can be found on the following pages. This year we have developed a new careers event programme as well – supporting joined-up thinking between modules and awareness of the knowledge, skills and expertise students are building during their degree, in conjunction with their wider career goals. We congratulate our current finalists for the innovative, timely and thoughtful projects you have developed this year. We wish you all the best for the future and are very excited about what is to come for all of you! 182

Programme administrator Beth Barnett-Sanders Architectural research tutors and PGTA Edwina Attlee, Jhono Bennett, Brent Carnell, Kirti Durelle, Nyima Murry, Tom Ó Caollaí, Sophie Read, David Roberts Design & creative practice tutors and PGTA Kirsty Badenoch, Elizabeth Dow, Kevin Green, Alice Hardy, Tom Kendall, Nyima Murry, Elly Selby, Freddy Tuppen, Gabriel Warshafsky, Henrietta Williams Greening cities tutor and PGTA Blanche Cameron, Merve Okkali Alsavada Computing for design and creative practice tutor Bill Hodgson

Architectural Research III Module Coordinators: Jhono Bennett, Brent Carnell

Architectural Research III invites students to pursue an advanced, self-directed investigation into a topic of their choice, drawing on the interdisciplinary nature of architectural research. Through sustained primary research and critical reflection, each student develops an 8,000-word essay that explores architecture’s relationship with broader social, spatial and environmental contexts. In parallel to their individual work, students also collaborate on a group project designed for public dissemination. This year, the cohort collectively curated an exhibition that explored themes of access and experience – bringing together digitised readings, excerpts from their essays and a dedicated website. This online platform continues the legacy of past Architectural Research III cohorts and is available at archresearch3.com. What makes this module particularly distinctive is how it builds on the diverse educational experiences students bring from across The Bartlett School of Architecture and UCL more broadly. As students refine their research skills, they also deepen their understanding of how architecture operates in relation to the complexities of contemporary life. The range and depth of this year’s work are testament to the ambition, creativity and rigour of the cohort. Each project explores new ways of thinking about the built environment and reflects the critical, engaged approach this module encourages. The teaching team has been thoroughly impressed by the clarity, dedication and intellectual curiosity demonstrated throughout the year.

Students Nia Ahad, Sofia Alvarez Manilla Hernandez, Imogen Dawe-Lane, Rushdania Iqbal, Doh Young Jeong, Jiahua (Cindy) Li, Kexin (Rika) Li, Lucy Linton, Zeynep Okur, Nicole Onstad, Tian Qi, Xuanjing Wang, Yiwen Zhao Module tutors Jhono Bennett, Danielle Hewitt, Sophie Read, David Roberts

183

Trans Agency and the Architecture of Resistance: A Study of the Urban Landscape of Tangerine Zeynep Okur Sin-Dee and Alexandra – the two lead characters in Sean Baker’s 2015 film Tangerine – continually re-signify queer identity through their presence and movement, transforming the street itself into a queer space: not by design, but through practice. They resist erasure not only by occupying space, but by asserting their narratives within it. These characters model what Michel de Certeau describes in The Practice of Everyday Life as ‘ordinary resistance’ – where walking, gathering and simply being become forms of rebellion.1 Through these acts, Tangerine exemplifies de Certeau’s concept of strategic spatial subversion. Donut Time, a key location in the film, becomes more than a shop – it is a liminal terrain, a place where lives are made visible and valid despite systemic neglect and hostility. This space, and others like it, challenge the top-down expectations of social order. Designed environments often function according to economic and political logics, but lived experience frequently resists and redefines these intended uses. Henri Lefebvre’s theory of spatial production highlights how

spaces originally meant for social control – such as public squares or working-class neighbourhoods – can be reappropriated as stages for dissent and transformation.2 In queer nightlife, bars, piers and parks have long been co-opted as sites of belonging and resistance, reshaping heteronormative urban space into arenas of queer visibility and solidarity.3 However, dominant power structures frequently attempt to reclaim these reappropriated spaces. Anti-homeless architecture, increased policing and hostile design measures serve to suffocate alternative spatial practices. Lefebvre argues that such efforts are intended to reinforce the ‘proper’ function of space by eradicating unsanctioned uses.4 But these very acts of suppression reveal the contestability of space – its nature as never fixed and always contested. Donut Time, then, is not neutral. It is a battleground of presence and erasure, where trans women of colour, sex workers and working-class individuals negotiate not just survival, but visibility. In this contested terrain, Sin-Dee and Alexandra do more than simply endure: they leave an impression, asserting themselves against the pressure to disappear. As bell hooks reminds us, spaces can become ‘homeplaces’ – sites of resistance, care and community – even amid precarity.5

1. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984). 2. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp.68–169. 3. Jen Jack Gieseking, A Queer New York (New York: NYU Press, 2020). 4. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, pp.68–169. 5. bell hooks, ‘Homeplace: A Site of Resistance’, in Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990). 184

Design & Creative Practice 1, 2 & 3

Design & Creative Practice is a 15- or 30- credit module taught across Years 1, 2 and 3 of Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc. It is taken by Bartlett students and affiliate students, and may also be chosen as an elective by UCL students from other departments. The Year 1 module focuses on building skills through engagement with a live site: this year, the Triangle Site, King’s Cross. Using a shared palette of natural materials to propose new crafts of maintenance and repair for the garden, the students developed ‘acts of care’ for the live site, which were showcased at a Festival of Renewal. Looking beyond a conception of architecture as static and fixed, they imagined lively, open-ended relationships between their work, the site and its inhabitants. Together, they choreographed a day of interactive workshops as a collective celebration with the garden’s community. In Year 2, students continued to experiment across place, time and discipline, seeking radical solutions to current crises. They developed communal acts of care by expanding their bodies beyond the skin, considering the body as self, the body as environment and the body as community, designing and becoming vessels to make visible the systems that link us. In winter, we traced, transposed and remythologised a communal walk along the Regent’s Canal towpath and, in spring, flourished with Calthorpe Community Garden’s cherry blossom. We worked to support grassroots enterprises, foster local connections and empower our designs. In Year 3, students work on collaborative projects in Term 1 before developing individual briefs in Term 2. This year we are focusing on waste streams for packaging, working predominantly with cardboard. After exploring various processes to gain material knowledge, the students created a collection of tables and chairs that were used to host a collective meal for the programme, twinned with a poignant final student presentation event in December in Global Generation’s Story Garden – an alternative to the traditional crit. Final year individual projects always exhibit a breadth of themes and methods, reflecting both the different bodies of knowledge students engage with in different departments and their aims postuniversity: some go into design, while others apply design and spatial thinking to research or work in the public realm and beyond. This year the projects – ranging from parasitical structures that provide homes for migrating swifts to sanitaryware that raises awareness of aquatic pollution – focused particularly on sustainability, material circularity and nature-based solutions to climate change.

Year 1 Christabel Agyepong Ankomah-Adjei, Sophia Goldman, Emmanuella Kantenga, Yen-Hsia (Alicia) Lei, Chongyi Lu, Amulya Madasu, Shahrizada Muhiddinova, Ruby Scaife, Zixu Shen, Justin Tsai, Yuan (Reina) Zhang, Ruotong (Aimee) Zhao Year 2 Nadia Afrin, Nicole Au, Oliver Brown, Martina Ceccarelli, Chiu Ching (Nicole) Chan, Veer Chaudhry, Hanxi (Tracy) Cui, Saskia Diplock, Ying (Ami) Gao, Daniela Ghinda, Yunxin (Fobby) Han, Noel Kim, Sattvika Konic, Sergio Lopez Borja, Lina Patuschka, Grace McCready, Faith Beatrice Salazar, Jimingyuan (Angela) Shi, Arisa Shiraishi, Hannah Mizuki Sievers, Zaiyu (Oscar) Tian, Paramdeep Virdi, Ying (Isabella) Wang, Arthur Wickham, Annabel Kyiga Wilberforce, Ethan Wilson Year 3 Nia Ahad, Sofia Alvarez Manilla Hernandez, Imogen Dawe-Lane, Rushdania Iqbal, Doh Young Jeong, Maria Kinoshita, Jiahua (Cindy) Li, Kexin (Rika) Li, Lucy Linton, Zeynep Okur, Nicole Onstad, Tian Qi, Samuel Quaile, Jakob Vranek, Xuanjing Wang, Yiwen Zhao

185

2 186

3 Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies

Design & Creative Practice

187

5 188

6 Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies

9 Design & Creative Practice

189

12 190

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies

15 Design & Creative Practice

191

16 192

Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies

1 All Students, Y1 ‘Acts of Care’. Natural material techniques workshop at Year 1 live site – the Triangle Site – a community-built garden in King’s Cross run by the educational charity, Global Generation. 2 Zixu Shen, Y1 ‘Acts of Care’. Woven interventions using straw provide care and respite for construction workers on the Triangle Site. 3 All Students, Y1 ‘The Festival of Renewal’. A shared moment during the Festival of Renewal in which students showcase their ‘Acts of Care’ for the Triangle Site. 4–5 Hanxi (Tracy) Cui, Ying (Isabella) Wang, Y2 ‘Senscape: Sense and Symbiosis between Humans and Houseflies’. A wearable device and performance exploring sensory exchange between humans and the common housefly, challenging human-centric perspectives. 6 Yunxin (Fobby) Han and Jimingyuan (Angela) Shi, Y2 ‘Unreality Simulator: To the Dream World’. A dream machine transforms urban environments into daydreams, blurring the lines between inner and outer worlds. 7–8 Sergio Lopez Borja, Martina Ceccarelli, Chiu Ching (Nicole) Chan, Y2 ‘The Triplets of Calthorpe Community Garden’. A ritual to remember what it took to be born and what it takes to stay: support, roots and labour. 9 Oliver Brown, Arthur Wickham, Y2 ‘Uprooted and Re-Rooted’. A mobile canvas roams the City of London, serving as an ongoing participatory platform for exploring connections to green space. 10 Nicole Onstad, Y3 ‘Tidal Flute’. This project draws on hydro-feminist theory and artistic practice, using water infrastructure as a lens to reflect the impacts of environmental shifts on communities in Surrey Quays and Rotherhithe. 11 Jiahua (Cindy) Li, Y3 ‘Duck-mestication’. This project explores empathy in animal-centred design through observation and research, inviting birds into the design process to challenge conventional human-centred practices. 12 Xuanjing Wang, Y3 ‘The Narrow Gate’. Placing within the ruins of St Dunstan-in-the-East, this structure invites the weather, time and human touch to shape it – echoing the church’s own history of endurance and transformation. 13 Sofia Alvarez Manilla Hernandez, Y3 ‘Velas de Cartón’. A votive stand reimagines the traditional Mexican altar using recycled cardboard, embracing the temporality of both material and life. 14 Yiwen Zhao, Y3 ‘Algorithmic Puppeteer’. This speculative design project explores the influence of AI algorithms. This device serves as a metaphor, prompting users to reflect critically on how AI subtly moulds selfexpression and decision-making in contemporary life. 15 Lucy Linton, Y3 ‘Systems for the Handling of Aquatic Deaths’. Exploring the disconnect between everyday waste and ecological harm, this two-part system combines ritual care at the river with a surreal memorial in public toilets, reimagining how we respond to the death of fish. 16 Doh Young Jeong, Maria Kinoshita, Tian Qi, Jakob Vranek, Xuanjing Wang, Y3 ‘Inflated Lunch’. As part of a series of events at the Story Garden, King’s Cross, an inflatable, wearable lunch set is designed to enhance communal dining. Inflatable garments serve as cushions, while gloves double as both soup containers and hand warmers.

Design & Creative Practice

193

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Bio-Diversity Festival, 2025.

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1 CIBSE JBM)

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1 CIBSE JBM) Programme Director: Luke Olsen The Engineering & Architectural Design MEng programme is a world-leading triple-accredited degree, spanning architecture, civil engineering and building services engineering. It is the first programme of its kind to fully synthesise these disciplines throughout all four years of study, doing so through the practice of integrated design. Hosted at The Bartlett School of Architecture, the programme is designed, developed and taught by architects, engineers, and multidisciplinary practitioners and academics from three leading UCL departments: The Bartlett School of Architecture, the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering and the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. This year the programme reached 240 students across the four years. The cohort is balanced in terms of gender and across home and overseas students – a reflection of our commitment to inclusive excellence. We focus on the cutting-edge of work around the built environment, exploring histories and futures of sustainability, regeneration, sociopolitical agency, ethical design, protopian futures and environmental justice. Central to the programme is the interdisciplinary design studio – a progressive laboratory where each unit is guided by a team of three design tutors: an architect, a civil engineer and a building service engineer, teaching integrated design at a 3:1 ratio. Our graduates meet the professional standards of architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 1), civil and structural engineering (JBM and Engineering Council AHEP4), and building service engineering (CIBSE). Our alumni have entered all three professions, with roughly one-third in architecture, one-third in engineering and one-third joining new integrated practices or emerging interdisciplinary fields. The programme is structured to put collaboration first. In Year 1, students work collectively to design, fabricate and inhabit ten pavilions in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This year’s theme was biodiversity, culminating in a Bio-Diversity Festival at Alfred’s Meadow, where pavilions were tested in various ways, often to the point of destruction. In Year 2, the focus shifts to cultivating individual design ideas within one of four design studios. Students addressed a shared year-long brief in Hackney at the WaterWorks Centre Nature Reserve, developing integrated design ideas rooted in environmental sensitivity and technical innovation. Our Year 3 and Year 4 students work together within one of eight autonomous vertical progressive design units, further developing their individual vision as integrated designers and advancing their understanding of complex multidisciplinary challenges.

196

The teaching staff, too, continue to practise integrated design at the cutting edge. Highlights this year include: •

• •

•

In(visible) Energy: an installation at the Barcelona Pavilion by MEng students and staff Luke Olsen (Unit 5), Graeme Williamson (Unit 3), Josep Miàs, Melis van den Berg, Christopher Leung, Martha Stevens, Izzy Watson, Orlando George-Ibitoye, Leon Chew and Sandy Davis (A/V Artist), November 2024. Sixth Somewhat Drawings by Shaun Murray (Unit 2) and BSA staff, exhibited at A83, New York, February 2025. Maetherea: an installation by Cristina Morbi, Francesco Banchini and Fondazione Pinuccio Sciola (Unit 7), exploring stone and sound at the Venice Biennale, April 2025. Territories of Co-Cognition by Annarita Papeschi, Saud Muhsinovic and David Hewlett (Unit 8), investigating automation, ethics and the built environment, also at the Venice Biennale, April 2025.

The programme’s innovative interdisciplinary pedagogy continues to gain academic recognition. Following the publication of our first major paper on integrated education in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education (2021), a second study, exploring graduate and employer experiences, is due to be published later this year. We would like to thank our programme administrator and the whole professional services team, our academics, PGTAs, guest reviewers and lecturers, masterclass leads, external examiners and Industry Advisory Board members for their exceptional contributions throughout the year.

197

Year 1 Students Salma Ali, Dariel Alia, Kristine Alvarado, Erica Asante, 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, Jamie Hewitt, Faozia Hossain, Sarah Irfan, Rebecca Jowett, Erim Kaleli, Claudia Kirk, Jessica Kneale, Theodore Latourrette, Jincheng (Alex) Li, John Liu, Yitong Liu, Mohamed Mboup, Shekinah (Carola) Mejico, Dana Muhieddine, Sahana Muralikumar, Oliver Paxton, Reina Piparaiya, Noemie Robic, Camila RomanVillegas, Eva Rufai, Dylan Ruiz-Reddick, Ameerah Sajid, Rhea Sajilal, Siu Chit (Kris) Soo-Hoo, Neha Suresh, Roan TamberPrior, Yi Wen Tan, Jef Van Bockstaele, Julianne Vaughan, Zhizhe (Zari) Wang, Xuanrun Wang, Yijing (Emma) Wu, Tilia Zamparo, Hon Shing (Hudson) Zhang, Reema Zowayed

1 198

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Biodiversity Festival: From Dominance to Cohabitation

Year 1

Coordinators: Klaas De Rycke, Barbara Andrade Zandavali

First-year students from the Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1 CIBSE JBM) are introduced to the integrated design studio through two modules: Design Make Live and Design Make Information. The modules run in parallel, merging architecture, engineering and making with a wide variety of design skills. Knowledge is acquired through masterclasses and tutorials, as well as through the process of designing and building live pavilions, supported by full construction drawings and an individual ‘next iteration’ design proposal. The modules follow a central theme that is further explored and shaped through a brief defined by each studio. This year’s theme, Biodiversity: From Dominance to Cohabitation, explored how architecture can contribute to multispecies co-existence. Students worked in teams to propose, design and build full-scale pavilions for a 24-hour Biodiversity Festival in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Each project tested ideas in real time with the public, blending architectural vision with engineering principles. The ten student-led projects, guided by five studios, were titled: ‘ABOLO’, ‘Dispersal’, ‘Geometreeds’, ‘Ground’, ‘Like a Moth to a Flame’, ‘Perspectives’, ‘Seeded Respite’, ‘Skinetic’, ‘Volatility’ and ‘Willoid’. The Design Make Live module acts as a microcosm for the construction industry and serves as a test bed for more detailed individual learning and critical inquiry. Running in parallel and intricately intertwined with it is the Design Make Information module, which introduces students to methods used by professionals in the process of designing, making and evaluating the exchange of information to build. The module establishes a bridge between analogue and digital approaches, combining traditional techniques with emerging technologies. Following the Biodiversity Festival, students proposed individual ‘next iteration’ proposals based on the pavilions designed and built by their groups. This marked their first individual design proposal and consolidated the techniques and principles explored across the Design Make Live, Design Make Information and other engineering modules, translating the core concepts from the temporary pavilions to more permanent and ambitious architectural proposals.

Design Make Live tutors Annecy Attlee, Bedir Bekar, Jeet Das, Klaas De Rycke, Dave Edwards, Oliver Houchell, Christopher Leung, Daniel Linham, Luke Lowings, Tim Lucas, Maria Moratta, Luke Olsen, Edward Tristram Scott, Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves, Melis van den Berg, Andrew Edward Walker Design Make Information tutors Pippa Cowles, Josep Miàs (MIAS Architects), Jeanette Osterried, Thomas Parker (ScanLAB), Sandra Smith (Slade), Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu (Tonkin Liu) PGTAs Aidan Davies, Panagiota Grivea, Rei Sekiguchi, Yahvi Shah

199

3 200

4 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

7 Year 1

201

202

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1, 5 Andrea Gajim, Jincheng (Alex) Li, Dana Muhieddine, Sahana Muralikumar, Dylan Ruiz-Reddick, Tilia Zamparo ‘Skinetic’. The project rethinks structure by letting the pavilion’s skin carry the load, creating a minimal, responsive system that prioritises material efficiency and site specificity. 2, 6 Somaya Bakr, Joanna Grace Caero Huayllas, Muhammad Hamza Hashim, Zejia Anastazia He, Sarah Irfan, Rebecca Jowett, Hon Shing (Hudson) Zhang ‘Willoid’. A walkable, oloid-shaped structure made from lashed willow quarters that rotates as visitors move through it, celebrating movement and biodiversity. 3 Jamie Hewitt, Claudia Kirk, Theodore Latourrette, Ameerah Sajid, Neha Suresh ‘Ground’. Inspired by invertebrate anatomy and theatre, this pavilion explores adaptability and transformation through a soft, expandable structure that invites new forms of bodily engagement and spatial interaction. 4 Sophia Cintra, Ruonan Guo, Noemie Robic, Siu Chit (Kris) Soo-Hoo, Yi Wen Tan, Zhizhe (Zari) Wang ‘Dispersal’. Three wind-driven seed dispersal stands launch biodegradable, seed-filled paper propellers, mimicking nature’s randomness and enhancing biodiversity as they decompose. 7 Erica Asante, John Liu, Yitong Liu, Mohamed Mboup, Julianne Vaughan ‘Seeded Respite’. An edible, multisensory pavilion with a spiralling birch column that invites interspecies connection and communal gathering through light, shadow and sensory exploration. 8 Dariel Alia, Kristine Alvarado, Olivia Cheung, Jessica Kneale, Reema Zowayed ‘Like a Moth to a Flame’. Inspired by a moth egg at a human scale, the 3m pavilion is composed of 24 hexagons and six triangles. 9 Faozia Hossain, Oliver Paxton, Reina Piparaiya, Camila Roman-Villegas, Rhea Sajilal, Roan TamberPrior ‘ABOLO’. A bent-wood sphere, tied together by a balloon filled with seeds and water, is tested until it bursts, resulting in a dispersal of new life and biodiversity across the site. 10 Bosco Choi, Shekinah (Carola) Mejico, Eva Rufai, Xuanrun Wang ‘Geometreeds’. An architectural balance of enclosure and openness, rigidity and flexibility, using bamboos and reeds to explore the studio’s brief of ‘Skin and Bones’. 11 Samantha Dufu Muller-Uri, Jana Fathalla, Hugh Gleave, Jef Van Bockstaele, Yijing (Emma) Wu ‘Perspectives’. The lightweight structure invites visitors to crawl inside, exploring movement, light and perception through filtered light inspired by the senses of invertebrates. 12 Salma Ali, Farah El Kurdi, Khadijah Elmansoury, Freya Garrigan, Erim Kaleli ‘Volatility’. Visitors become composers, altering geophony, biophony and anthrophony through movement, subtly disrupting the Earth’s Schumann resonance. 13 All Students ‘Bio-Diversity Festival’. The annual event at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is the culmination of one term of Design and Making, showcasing ten pavilions of student work in the public domain.

13 Year 1

203

Year 2 Angela Abo, Khadija Ahmed, Sin Hang (Ella) Au, Lisa Bianchi, Alexander Chammas, Zoe Chen, Delphine Damiens, Bianca Daniele, Omar Gamil Dawoud, Alec De Trogoff Du Boisguezennec, David De Wolff, Amika Denvir, Boniface Fraikin, Chun Hei (Rex) Hau, Rebecca Hood, Mohammad Shahir Jadhakhan, Henry Gruffydd Justice, Hansini Kammila, Seungmin (Alex) Kang, Romesa Kashif, Bisni Khaibakh, Joowon (Simon) Kim, Rhea Kochhar, Ga Tsung (Gabriel) Lam, Hei Chit (Ivan) Law, Sze Ching (Crystal) Lee, Ling Leelarasamee, Zhiyan (Maren) Li, Guangwei Li, Yanwei (Jack) Liang, Chunxiao (Helen) Lin, Siyu Liu, Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Maria Maciejewska, Aishah Maqbool, Maudie Miles, Shayna Naik, Arina Pavlova, Ahmed Soussi, Dawid Sowul, Ann Stevens, Adriana Trueba Garcia, Rhys Williams, Tom Wynne-Baerwald, Jianing Xu, Defne Yalcinkaya, Trevor Yu, Lookkaew Yu-Prapai, Xinning (Greta) Yue, Claire (Manqi) Zhang, Chentao (Tony) Zhao, Zhuoer (Dora) Zhao, Tianyi (Terry) Zhong

1 204

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Registration > Adaptation Year 2 Coordinators: Philippe Duffour, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson,

The climate continues to change at an ever-increasing rate and weather is becoming ever more erratic. As designers, we must adapt to these emergent and unpredictable environmental conditions. The challenge we set for Year 2 students was, firstly, to record and understand these parameters and, secondly, to posit adaptive architectures that can meet the moment we are living through and, through integrated design, offer alternative futures to consider. The site for the year was Middlesex Filter Beds, a uniquely curious post-industrial landscape in Hackney that is now designated as a nature reserve and earmarked for reflooding. Students began the year with a short introductory project to design and build a registration apparatus to be installed at the Filter Beds. The purpose of the apparatus was to record, make visible or anticipate a state of change in an environmental phenomenon. At a human scale, registration can be described simply as looking and documenting what you see. It can also be the ability to see things that are imperceptible to our normal senses. The objective of the project was to do more than look at a site. We wanted students to become obsessive about the environmental and spatial details of a place – its aspect, precipitation, sunlight, elevation and view – and to record these as a visual output of their registration process. From a biological or scientific perspective, the word ‘adaptation’ is defined as ‘the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment’. An adaptation can also be described, in a more lyrical sense, as the retelling of a narrative or story in a new and unique way. Following the registration undertaken in Term 1, students were invited to develop their own small- to mediumscale buildings that addressed the thematic idea of adaptation through design.

Tutors Fady Abdelaziz, Yota Adelinidou, Philippe Duffour, Dave Edwards, Sam Esses, Matthew Heywood, Michal Kierat, Judit Kimpian, Sahar Nava, Olivia Riddle, Martha Voulakidou, Barbara Zandavali Critics Luke Olsen, Farhang Tahmasebi, Graeme Williamson

205

4 206

5 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

9 Year 2

207

208

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1 Omar Gamil Dawoud, Mohammad Shahir Jadhakhan ‘The Tracking Balls’. This project investigates environmental factors at Middlesex Filter Beds by deploying sensorequipped balls to analyse water dynamics near Hackney Marshes, London. 2 Henry Gruffydd Justice ‘Bamboo Escapade’. A sculptor’s residence hosts willow-weaving workshops for children, using bamboo to create sustainable, undulating spaces that complement the natural environment. 3 Mohammad Shahir Jadhakhan ‘Co-Blending Workshop’. A shared workshop space with resident hosts – small business owners or guides – featuring studio facilities and a gallery to support making and collaboration while showcasing creative work. 4 Xinning (Greta) Yue ‘The Porous Engine’. This project reimagines a distillery as a porous engine: an industrial system shaped by erosion, subtraction and exposure, structured around three interlocking flows: visitors, workers and materials. 5 Alexander Chammas ‘River Lea Agriculture Centre’. This project reimagines the River Lea’s redevelopment by honouring its heritage through public, communal farming spaces, supporting riverboat life with docks, shared facilities, leisure access and sustainable food production. 6 Chun Hei (Rex) Hau ‘Filter Beds Music Studio’. Located on Waltham Forest’s southeast edge, the Middlesex Filter Beds nature reserve hosts two experimental musicians reinterpreting the site’s history through ambient music, using grime sampling and vinyl production techniques. 7 Yanwei (Jack) Liang ‘Dwelling in Focus’. The project proposes a workshop and living space for an optical lens maker, preserving the endangered craft of scientific instrument making within Middlesex Filter Beds’ historic landscape. 8 Tom Wynne-Baerwald ‘Middlesex Bathhouse’. This project envisions a bathhouse and sauna that reconnects visitors with water, landscape and restoration through quiet ritual and sensory immersion. 9 Aishah Maqbool ‘Hackney Creative Arts Hub’. Set on the former Middlesex Filter Beds, this project transforms an industrial site into a creative hub with shared workshops, fostering collaboration, adaptability and artistic exchange under a unified vaulted structure. 10 Hei Chit (Ivan) Law ‘It Is Not Just a Shelter’. A speculative proposal for a water sports centre along the River Lea in Hackney Marshes. 11 Chun San (Carroll) Luk ‘Reclaiming Middlesex Filter Beds through Flavour’. A proposal for an urban farming and fermentation factory that engages the users’ senses to shape their journey throughout the building. 12 Ahmed Soussi, Dawid Sowul, Trevor Yu ‘Visitance’. An interactive installation that invites users to play together while it tracks their key paths in Hackney Marshes. 13 Rebecca Hood ‘The Hackney Boathouse’. The boathouse on the River Lea is a place for rowers, coxes, coaches and anyone interested in becoming part of the rowing community. 14–16 Sin Hang (Ella) Au ‘FABRICOCENE: The Hackney Fabric Studio’. This project proposes a fabric-making centre that harnesses rainwater for dyeing yarns and producing handwoven textiles. 17 Angela Abo, Chun San (Carroll) Luk, Maudie Miles ‘Breeds’. A speculative apparatus that augments the reeds’ breathing phenomena to increase biodiversity in the Hackney Marshes site.

17 Year 2

209

1 210

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Eutopias (Healthy Utopias) Unit 1 Dimitris Argyros, Agnieszka Glowacka, Anderson Inge, Vasiliki Kourgiozou

‘Utopia’ – derived from Greek ou (‘no’) and topos (‘place’), suggests an unattainable place. ‘Eutopia’ – derived from eu (‘good’) and topos (‘place’), suggests a good place. Visions of utopia have appeared throughout history, as individuals and communities have tried to devise more comfortable and gratifying ways of living. Today, more than ever, health, wellbeing and happiness are key aspirations as we try to counter our collective anxieties, fuelled by such uncertainties as reversing globalisation, international conflicts and climate change. This year, Unit 1 continued its focus on adaptive reuse as a vital means of combatting the environmental burden of new construction, while retaining existing materials as a part of community heritage. A site in two parts was chosen for the year, comprising a listed community building that dates to 1906, the Haggerston Baths, along with its neighbour, an underutilised dockside industrial site that has been trying to transform itself into an arts destination, the Hoxton Docks. The year began with a six-week warm-up charrette, a complete design iteration from blue-sky thinking through to schematic design. This provided students with a valuable opportunity to delve into site research and exercise all of their architectural and engineering design tools ahead of the main project. For the remainder of the year, students developed their personal take on a utopian future through the creation of individual briefs. The project briefs largely focused on community centres of many different types, from creative therapies and culinary education to a garden of memory and a soundscape installation delivering an experience based on the Japanese concept of ma. The unit has a tradition of effective integration across disciplines. Iterative design with an ethos of testing was supported by hand and digital drawing, as well as a wide range of strategies for physical modelling. Learning through making and testing was extensively used, while physical models were subjected to spatial, structural and environmental testing. Students took advantage of both the Innovation Lab at UCL Marshgate and the Environmental Testing Lab at UCL Here East, generating impressive results that significantly advanced their designs.

Year 3 Jingyi Lu, Jianwei (Jerry) Ma, Hana Molokhia, Mumtahina (Nuha) Razia, Jianwu Zhao Year 4 Ana Alonso Banez, Ching-Tai Chang, Grace Gambrill, Devlin Guthrie, Istvan Herczeg, Elisa Scalzone, Hagipan Sivathasan, Aya Souleimani Critics Samson Adjei, Regina Dufu Muller-Uri, Peter Goff, Harley Gray, Oliver Hall, Joe Martin

211

3 212

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6 Unit 1

213

8 214

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Unit 1

215

9 216

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1 Ching-Tai Chang, Y4 ‘Anamnesis: Palimpsest of Memory’. A garden of remembered and forgotten fragments, where layered architecture holds, heals and reinscribes memory. 2 Devlin Guthrie, Y4 ‘Quilt of Kindness’. The project creates spaces that teach and celebrate second-hand fashion, weaving itself more closely with the landscape, people and the charitable initiatives it supports and sustains. 3 Elisa Scalzone, Y4 ‘ARTopia’. The project addresses common mental health issues like anxiety and depression by creating an art sanctuary or ‘utopia’ where art is made, experienced and integrated into therapeutic practice. 4 Grace Gambrill, Y4 ‘Ballad of Resonance: Transmitting Sound through Space’. A project where melody and architecture are intertwined. The design creates a ‘leaky’ sonic experience that resonates within and outwards from its walls. 5 Jingyi Lu, Y3 ‘YouthPath’. The project proposes a creative centre to help teens build positive habits, develop life skills and support personal growth. 6 Ana Alonso Banez, Y4 ‘Eutopian Markets’. A eutopian vision for an urban market comprising both traditional and innovative methods of sustainable organic production. 7 Hagipan Sivathasan, Y4 ‘Kindred Flow’. An environmental choreography of gardens and galleries interlaces the arts, clinical care, co-working and hydrotherapy into the existing fabric; the colonnade’s porous boundaries sustain net-positive performance and nurture shared eutopian prosperity. 8 Hana Molokhia, Y3 ‘Haggerston Euthera’. A reconceptualised Haggerston Baths unites elderly care with youth volunteering, creating a nurturing eutopia of intergenerational wellbeing, purpose and shared community life. 9 Istvan Herczeg, Y4 ‘Rooted in Motion, Anchored in Nutrition’. Health is a way of living. Through adaptive reuse, this project curates spaces where the rhythms of the body meet rituals of food and community.

Unit 1

217

1 218

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Horror Geography: New Worlds

Unit 2

Angela Crowther, Samuel Miselbach, Shaun Murray, Julia Torrubia This project, ‘Horror Geography: New Worlds’, explores how geography – both physical and socio-economic – shapes human experiences, particularly in struggling seaside towns like Blackpool and Morecambe. The term ‘Horror Geography’ suggests a focus on the harsh realities of these environments, from natural dangers like sinking sands and erratic tides to the societal consequences of economic decline and disinvestment. The initiative challenges students to reimagine the value of vacations in these fading coastal resorts. The decline of Blackpool, once a thriving holiday destination, serves as a case study for how external forces – such as technological advances (for example, engineering in the 1800s), shifting economies (for example, cheap flights in the 1960s) and political decisions (for example, funding cuts) – shape the identity and viability of a place. Student projects responded to this hostile geography in various ways, blending speculative fiction with practical urban and environmental design. Erhang Wang’s ‘It’s OK to Cry’ reflects on the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster, designing a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) training ground and sanctuary for migrant workers. Roy Ile envisions a druidic haven, reconnecting people with nature and the elements. Xinzhe (Linoe) Jiang proposes reviving Blackpool’s heritage through communal bathing and steam rooms. Ruen Zhou embraces water-based recreation – kayaking, bodyboarding and sailing – to redefine the town’s relationship with the sea. Zhichun (Joyce) Jin designs a sand museum, turning the shifting landscape into a site of cultural memory. Yue (Angel) Sheng explores a bird and fish observatory, emphasising ecological engagement. These responses highlight different ways of countering social and environmental decline, whether through heritage revival, physical immersion or memorialisation. In doing so, they offer speculative futures that challenge conventional tourism and propose new ways of valuing these landscapes.

Year 3 Zhichun (Joyce) Jin, Yue (Angel) Sheng Year 4 Roy Ile, Xinzhe (Linoe) Jiang, Erhang Wang, Ruen Zhou PGTA Freya Parkinson

219

5 220

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1 Erhang Wang, Y4 ‘The Lost Boys – It’s Okay to Cry’. Reimagined beach scene. A composite drawing showing cockling workers on Blackpool’s beach layered with elements of the memorial, lifeboat station and training pool. 2 Xinzhe (Linoe) Jiang, Y4 ‘Ebb and Flow: Geometry of Sand and Wellness at the Water’s Edge’. Section of transformed central pier. Floating sauna rooms at varying tidal heights foster wellness and a deeper interaction with the surrounding natural environment. 3 Erhang Wang, Y4 ‘The Lost Boys – It’s Okay to Cry’. Promenade view during a storm. The lifeboat station is illuminated during a summer storm as the RNLI crew react to an emergency. 4 Erhang Wang, Y4 ‘The Lost Boys – It’s Okay to Cry’. Interior memorial approach. Visitors ascend a ramp inside the memorial during the annual ceremony to commemorate the Morecambe Bay Cockling Disaster. 5 Erhang Wang, Y4 ‘The Lost Boys – It’s Okay to Cry’. Inside the memorial. A cockling vessel’s remains are suspended within its oyster-aggregate tomb – a ship that will never sail. 6 Xinzhe (Linoe) Jiang, Y4 ‘Ebb and Flow: Geometry of Sand and Wellness at the Water’s Edge’. Cutaway axonometric drawing. The drawing illustrates steam vessels preforming a water cycle during summer on the central pier. 7 Ruen Zhou, Y4 ‘Rhythm Vessels’. Promenade perspective. A recreational water centre with a dynamic roof that responds to the environment. Combining movement, performance and the fluid integration of an engineered architecture with the landscape.

7 Unit 2

221

1 222

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Self < > Build

Unit 3

Daniel Godoy Shimizu, Martin Lema Trillo, Kirsty Sutherland, Graeme Williamson

Unit 3 is interested in testing the experimental building envelope through the development of prototypical architectures, integrated design strategies and refined structural systems. This year, we began with an investigation into the prototype house. Throughout the 20th century, the prototype house has been a vehicle for architectural expression. From Aalto’s seminal Experimental House to the Eames Modular House, there are many and diverse examples to draw from. Where and how we live and work has evolved significantly since the turn of the century, and the need to continue to adapt and reassess our relationship to housing is self-evident, especially in the context of increasingly rigorous environmental design requirements. New types of construction are required to meet lower carbon targets, from 3D printing to off-site manufacture. Students are invited to engage with the full production process, considering how materials come to site and how much waste is generated. As integrated designers, we must consider the potential lifetime of our buildings throughout the design process, including long-term changes in the climate or the demographics of potential occupants. Weathering detail is a key aspect of how a building responds to its surroundings and its environmental exposure, and our design skills must evolve to respond to this ever-changing parameter. In Term 1, students engaged with the studio’s core process of designing through making with a short research project. This began in the workshop with speculative model-building and sectional test models of a speculative building envelope at 1:10 and 1:20 scales. The test could respond to changing parameters such as open or closed, concealed or exposed, floating or moored, stable or unstable, and static or animated. Evolving from these experiments, the building project was sited in Cody Dock – a disused body of water in Canning Town, London, with a rich history of self-initiated activism. Students were invited to develop propositional live/work strategies that offered alternative futures for this dockside area.

Year 3 Sara Akhmetova, Valentina Ballesteros Coral, Adam Bigas, Nadim Bin Nazri, Imaan Dadabhai, Victoria Goraca, Ines Kenny Rubiera, Ramona Kingdon, Jasper Tecklenberg, Yufei (Flora) Wang Year 4 Tianyu He, Antonio Merino Ramon, Yik Lam (Karsten) Mok, Sevde Tavasli Critics Aurore Julien, Luke Olsen, Rupert Scott, Michael Stacey, Oliver Wilton

223

5 224

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6 Unit 3

225

8 226

9 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

11 Unit 3

227

14 228

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1–5 Nadim Bin Nazri, Y3 ‘The Hull’. The Hull reconnects Cody Dock to its tidal edge: a layered scaffold for craft, algae reuse and slow repair. It envisions an alternative future for River Lea waterway users, creating temporary accommodation and boat maintenance. Images show: 1. Algae Tower, environmental study; 2. Section through workshop; 3–4. Exterior views; 5. Building envelope study. 6 Yik Lam (Karsten) Mok, Y4 ‘Cody Dock Climbing and Diving Centre’. A multi-use programme for health and wellbeing that repurposes an existing dock. The building skin becomes a rock face with diving and climbing integrated in an enclosure cantilevered over a filtration pool. Component study. 7 Tianyu He, Y4 ‘The Timberpound’. An all-timber architectural complex integrating a design school, gallery and floating homes on an engineered pool. It offers design education and a live–work community, sustaining and extending the dock’s original use. Component study. 8–9 Sevde Tavasli, Y4 ‘Square One’. An alternative school supporting non-traditional learners through mentorship and community-led chess programmes. Students build confidence, leadership and social skills in a space designed to adapt to changing needs. Competition space and structural components. 10 Sara Akhmetova, Y3 ‘Cody Dock Nursery Farm’. Built by the lock keeper and local community, the Cody Dock Nursery Farm is a safe, nature-rich haven where children play, grow and learn through caring for animals and exploring the dock’s unique landscape. Ground plan. 11 Yufei (Flora) Wang, Y3 ‘Eave Isles’. Eave Isles presents a unique floating village crafted from replicated building forms. Designed for diverse community uses, the innovative assemblage offers a dynamic and adaptable living and learning environment on water. Section. 12 Valentina Ballesteros Coral, Y3 ‘Wings to Walls’. The project invites bees and people alike to share a home by the water; a gentle renewal of Cody Dock through honey, floating gardens and quiet care. Section. 13–14 Adam Bigas, Y3 ‘Archi-pelago’. A tidally synchronised floating community transforms London’s former coal dock into a centre for flood-resilient innovation through integrated, on-site building prototyping. Component study and section. 15 Imaan Dadabhai, Y3 ‘Where the Wall Steeps’. At Cody Dock, a unique architectural refuge, subtly integrated as a tea-processing facility, leverages spatial design and natural light to cultivate healing. The mindful work of tea production forms a therapeutic environment. Component study. 16 Victoria Goraca, Y3 ‘Cody Dock Pathways’. A post-16 SEN school at Cody Dock, designed for vocational learning and belonging, integrates community, care and craft within a curved brick enclosure. It creates a richly collaborative environment fostering skills and wellbeing through thoughtful design. Component study.

16 Unit 3

229

1 230

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

A Mediterranean Perspective

Unit 4

Yasemin Didem Aktas, Samuel Esses, Daniel Ovalle Costal, Baran Tanriverdi, Santiago Vélez The summer of 2024 registered historically high temperatures. This data was alarming in itself, but these temperatures brought with them wildfires and flooding across the world. Experts note that the devastating events of last summer are but a preamble to even more challenging future scenarios. In this context, the evolving agenda of the unit is to engage students amid the climate crisis with adaptive reuse of all forms of built heritage and with designing inclusive comfort. Central and northern Europe seem to have accepted that industrialisation and technological development are the best partners for the welfare state, while countries along the Mediterranean shore have historically been more sceptical in their approach to industrialisation and technology. Perhaps, in the 19th century, large areas of the Mediterranean shore were simply too poor to industrialise at the same speed as England or Germany, but, over time, reluctance to allow technology and industrialisation to shape private lives has become embedded in the collective consciousness. It is now an important part of their cultural and social identity. There are different social aspects through which the Mediterranean attitude becomes manifest, and which have become major structural differences between northern and central Europe and Mediterranean countries. These can be summarised under the concept of ‘slowness’. This sociocultural context intersects with a unique set of hazards that are threatening life along the Mediterranean shore, brought about or exacerbated by the climate crisis. These include flooding – caused by a combination of intense rainfall episodes and a rise in sea level – more frequent and extreme heatwaves, and seismic risk, which is higher across the Mediterranean than in central and northern Europe. All our student projects are based in Valencia, eastern Spain, which was chosen as an example site for multi-hazard design. None of these challenges are new, but urbanisation and the climate emergency are exacerbating their magnitude and impact. With this in mind, Unit 4 encouraged students to turn their focus to the collective knowledge embedded in vernacular design solutions, and to reflect on the links between building technologies, available resources and risk profiles.

Year 3 Darine Adel, Aliza Kabani, Merve Kanidagli, Aasia Kazmi, Marco Michel, Valeria Miraglia del Giudice, Ahmet Sadi Urfali Year 4 Lama Ahmed, Cameron Alexander, Sophie Binti Noor Irwan Junaidy, Louis Boucquillon, Magda lena Kolarska, Flaminia Liguori, Blanca Mercadal Sola, Marjoleine Mooijman Technical tutor and consultant Io Grivea Thesis supervisors Yasemin Didem Aktas, Simon Beames, Clemence Cavoli, José Torero Cullen, Yi Zhang Critics Fady Abdelaziz, James Ford, Duc Le, Bob Sheil, Gennady VasilchenkoMalishev, Jonathan Wong

231

3 232

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

5 Unit 4

233

7 234

8 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

11 Unit 4

235

13 236

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1–2 Cameron Alexander, Y4 ‘The Valencian FarmerDistillers’ Co-Operative’. In restoring Valencia’s historic Palau dels Eixarchs, the co-operative reinstates the flood-ravaged Albuferan hinterlands to the centre of community life. 3 Lama Ahmed, Y4 ‘Perch and Limmer’. Set on the fringes of Valencia, this project reimagines a rural ‘alquería’ as a space where earth and sky meet, uniting birdwatching and stargazing into a quiet choreography of observation. 4 Magdalena Kolarska, Y4 ‘Sensory Bodies’. A transformation of a 17th-century alquería into a cultural and sensory retreat, featuring a hammam with steam rooms, plunge pools and herbal treatments from an on-site orchard. 5 Sophie Binti Noor Irwan Junaidy, Y4 ‘Museo de Alfarería’. A poetic blend of past and present breathes new life into Valencia with a ceramic museum – entwining colour, practice and history. 6 Flaminia Liguori, Y4 ‘Peeling’. More than just a fusion between historical and modern design, the space enhances the sensory experience through a unique blend of architecture and artisan elements. 7 Merve Kanidagli, Y3 ‘Jewellery Craft Centre’. The coliving space and jewellery craft centre are defined by a scalloped façade that grounds the building, enhancing structural integrity and celebrating artisanal making. 8 Ahmet Sadi Urfali, Y3 ‘Exarchs Art House’. An adaptive art space in Valencia combining living, working and exhibiting, inspired by the city’s heritage and creative spirit. 9–10 Blanca Mercadal Sola, Y4 ‘Harvested Architecture’. A spatial narrative from orchard to table reactivates the ‘alquería’ as a cultural bridge between rural tradition and urban life. 11 Valeria Miraglia del Giudice, Y3 ‘New Living for the Elderly’. This project fosters longevity and independence among the elderly through intentional design features that address their physical and mental wellbeing. 12 Marco Michel, Y3 ‘Terra I Mar’. Tinglado 2, a historic port structure in Valencia, is reimagined as a vibrant food market celebrating local agriculture. With zones for rice, citrus and olives, the project integrates museums, restaurants and gardens beneath a thermally responsive terracotta roof. 13 Darine Adel, Y3 ‘Where the Body Finds Its Rhythm’. By providing an environment for physical and mental wellbeing, the building fabric engages the subconscious, shaping the user experience and guiding them through a sequence of shifting rhythms. 14 Louis Boucquillon, Y4 ‘Eixarchs Civic Oasis’. This project reimagines three historic palacios as a unified cultural hub, blending heritage, nature and public life in Valencia. 15 Aasia Kazmi, Y3 ‘Sobremesa: Upon the Table’. This project reclaims Valencia’s Tinglado as a community kitchen, centred around a 10m-wide paella pan. Through communal cooking, it transforms the industrial space into a place for gathering and conversation.

15 Unit 4

237

1 238

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Start Up: A Regenerative Nuclear Island

Unit 5

Aurore Julien, Filip Kirazov, Luke Olsen

In Unit 5, we do research by design in energy, regenerative design, collective empowerment and protopian making, as explored through the moving image. This year we performed a form of acupuncture on an urban site adjacent to Cody Dock, on the River Lea, near Canary Wharf, a site ripe for Tech Valley-style start-ups. We give our students a nuclear cell (10MW combined zerocarbon heat and electricity) to power a new urban island for start-ups and their associated community. This is enough clean energy to power 8,000 homes, a cluster of skyscrapers, a large data centre for quantum computing, a desalination plant suitable for providing clean water for 150,000 people, vertical farms for London City Island or an open university for 200,000 students. We visited Copenhagen, in particular meeting Rambøll – designers of the famous district heating system CopenHill, which is the cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world – and visiting CITA (Centre for Information Technology and Architecture). Copenhagen is the cleanest city in the world and we learned about how it is on target to meet carbon net zero this year. There is one key caveat, however: the energy source is mostly biofuel and waste from other countries, so the city is only now starting to talk about going nuclear for a regenerative future. Unit 5 tackles 80% of the decarbonisation challenge head-on by decoupling from the grid and connecting to either nuclear cells or alternative sources of zero-carbon energy. Working closely with cutting-edge nuclear energy industry leaders ANPEG (Advanced Nuclear & Production Experts Group), the Norman Foster Foundation (NFF) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we invite students to design, present, discuss and review regenerative futures with energy justice at the core, providing energy-just futures for multiple generations. We want to thank our collaborators for their input into Unit 5’s Atlas of Nuclear Islands: Lord Foster, Richard Dilworth (NFF), Iain McDonald and Ruairi McDonald (ANPEG), our Postgraduate Teaching Assistant Yuhan Wu and our guest reviewers: Oliver Wilton, Mpho Matsipa, Will McLean and Io Grivea.

Year 3 Philip Bauer, Eva Bruno, Mengyuan Chen, Nadya Kumar, Cosima Lindley Morodo, Leo (Mengting) Lu, Xikun Ma, Oliwia Eziah Miszczak, Ziyao (Chloe) Yu, Xuan Zhu Year 4 Sofea Binte Shahrin, Wenting Zhao Critics Io Grivea, Martin Knight, Mpho Matsipa, Will McLean, Josep Miàs, Oliver Wilton Partners Lord Foster and Richard Dilworth (Norman Foster Foundation), Iain MacDonald (Advanced Nuclear & Production Experts Group)

239

3 240

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6 Unit 5

241

8 242

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

11 Unit 5

243

12 244

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1, 9 Sofea Binte Shahrin, Y4 ‘Qubit Town’. A quantum computing data centre (QCDC) and residential blocks (Podz) establish a micronation of ‘red hat hackers’ in the Poplar River Park to democratise data. 2, 8 Mengyuan Chen, Y3 ‘Tide Flower’. A British Bangladeshi power station and marketplace that generates energy from organic waste while serving food and commerce to the local community. 3, 5–6 Cosima Lindley Morodo, Y3 ‘Thames Water Rainforest Treatment Facility and Lido’. Powered by a nuclear cell, this proposal rewilds the River Lea allowing locals to drift in filtered crystal waters high above the city and rainforest canopy. 4, 10–12 Xuan Zhu, Y3 ‘Growth Without End’. A metabolistic proposal for the Open University that physically breathes in sync with the academic calendar. 7 Xikun Ma, Y3 ‘Sensory Earth’. A multi-sensory art museum situated in Cody Dock, designed to help users slow down and reconnect with bodily perception amid the high-speed rhythm of urban life.

Unit 5

245

1 246

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

ACTION

Unit 6

Simon Beames, Matthew Heywood, Kostas Mastronikolaou

Concluding a three-year investigation into elemental forces – FLOW, SHOCK and now ACTION – Unit 6 explored theatre as both architectural typology and metaphor. This year’s work interrogated architecture’s relationship with time, transformation and cultural continuity, positioning the theatre as a civic, performative space. In ACT 1, students reverse-engineered architectural components to develop adaptable connection systems designed for assembly, disassembly and reconfiguration. These full-scale prototypes fused technical rigour with theatricality, transforming construction into a choreographed spectacle. Material innovation, decarbonisation and sustainable construction practices underpinned each intervention, embedding narrative potential into structural logic. ACT 2 shifted the focus to critical practice. Students authored manifestos articulating architectural agendas through alternate typologies, obsessions, theatrical foci and symbolic devices. Drawing on Ancient Greek and Renaissance theatres – civic spaces that embodied cultural memory – projects reimagined the theatre for contemporary Paris as inclusive, resilient and rooted in adaptive reuse. Amid ongoing migration and urban change, proposals positioned theatres as platforms for social integration, transforming temporary Olympic infrastructure into lasting cultural assets. Each design questioned how architecture might hold meaning across generations – recording both tangible and intangible heritage through space, material and ritual. Moving from expressive detail to inhabited performance spaces, ACTION explored how architecture can transcend function to become an enduring civic stage – resonant, responsive and profoundly human. Through integrated technical and conceptual exploration, Unit 6 foregrounded architecture’s potential to act not only as shelter or spectacle, but as a vessel of memory, inclusion and transformation. In a city once again in flux, these projects imagined theatres not just for performance, but for belonging – sites where new stories are not only told, but welcomed.

Year 3 Aqeel Aziz, Sebastian Eisen, David Morsel, Esme Thomas-Nicholson, Anna Van Gucht Year 4 Sadie Amini, Eve Freeston-Chang, Lilly Huber, Yann Ling (Madeleine) Lee, Sam Newbury, Louis Polturak, Rei Sekiguchi, Yahvi Shah Technical tutors and consultants Max Ostroverhy, Hetian Zhang Thesis supervisors Fady Abdelaziz, Richard Bonneville, Annelie Kvick Thompson, Joana Soares Gonçalves, Harry Sumner, Gennady VasilchenkoMalishev

247

248

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

9 Unit 6

249

12 250

13 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

17 Unit 6

251

18 252

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1, 18 All Students ‘Action’. A collection of student work from throughout the year including final drawings, prototypes and models. 2, 8, 11 Sadie Amini, Y4 ‘L’Organisation: Reseau de Solidarite et de Redistribution’. The organisation arrives in Paris. Its aerial theatre, woven into Paris’s forgotten railways, combines sentience and spectacle: a modern take on the theatre experience. 3, 14 Rei Sekiguchi, Y4 ‘Théâtre au Clair de Lune Paris’. A moonlit theatre where light, geometry and reflection converge in a quiet dialogue with the night. 4 Eve Freeston-Chang, Y4 ‘Passages’. This project proposes a vertical composition shaped by material memory, acoustic space and collective experience. Rising through a series of tuned environments, the building acts as both a performance space and a park. 5–6 Yahvi Shah, Y4 ‘Bayt al Nahr: Home of the River’. This project cultivates a healing theatre of resilience and refuge, where the Maghreb community’s stories, movements and memories flow with the Seine. 7, 12 Louis Polturak, Y4 ‘Gare Montrouge’. A subterranean nightclub in future Paris, built by a nomadic community, fuses architecture, sound and ritual into a somatic instrument, reawakening the senses through vibration, heat and movement. 9, 16 Anna Van Gucht, Y3 ‘Cast in the Act’. An auditorium carved into the gypsum hill Butte Chaumont, mirrored by a scaffolding counterpart cast from the site’s plaster, invites nonlinear journeys through Goethe’s Faust. 10 Sebastian Eisen, Y3 ‘Grand Performance, Petite Ceinture’. A proposal reimagining Paris’s abandoned railway as a regenerative theatre creating a new urban core that anchors the city through restoration, cultural integration and the revival of craft. 13, 17 Lilly Huber, Y4 ‘Chronotopos (A Matter of Time)’. The adaptive reuse of the Hôtel de Lauzun in Paris into a theatre forms a fourth campus for the Collège de France, where lecture performances translate complex scientific concepts such as dark matter into immersive experiences. 15 Esme Thomas-Nicholson, Y3 ‘Performance Palimpsest’. Reimagining Paris’s forgotten Champ de Mars station, a subterranean theatre sculpted from limestone depths emerges – celebrating material and cultural exchange and acoustically shaped by crafted stone, the proposal invites migrant hands to shape Paris’s underground stage.

Unit 6

253

1 254

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Future Archaeology

Unit 7

Jonathan Jackson, Cristina Morbi, Yi Zhang

This unit explores the regeneration of East Tilbury Landfill through the lens of Future Archaeology – a speculative design approach rooted in ecological repair, material experimentation and spatial storytelling. The project asks students to confront the complex legacy of the Anthropocene by transforming one of its most potent artefacts: landfill. Often dismissed as sites of waste and erasure, landfills are reimagined here as layered, living landscapes – ecological, social and geological – where architecture can operate as both witness and agent of transformation. East Tilbury is a historic landfill, originally a quarry and, since the Victorian era, filled with domestic and industrial waste from London. Today, coastal erosion is causing the site to spill into the Thames Estuary, revealing fragments of Victorian ceramics, glass and other urban detritus. Unintentional mudlarking not only uncovers material memory, but also highlights the urgent ecological risks tied to rising sea levels and unstable ground. Students are challenged to engage with the landfill not as neutral terrain, but as a dynamic, unsettled landscape of toxicity, memory and potential. The unit promotes the use of recycled, reused and bio-based materials – such as Plasma Rock and natural wetland fibres – within architectural proposals that foreground material circularity and ecological sensitivity. The design process begins with the construction of a 1:1 Wardian case: a small-scale, multispecies habitat inspired by the 19th-century terrarium. These models become experimental microcosms for testing climate simulation, material language and interactions between human and more-than-human inhabitants. A custom-built solar simulator accompanies each case, enabling students to explore solar exposure, growth cycles and energy relationships. Engineering innovation is central to the brief, with students addressing the challenges of building on unstable landfill through lightweight, adaptive structures, and understanding and imagining anthropocenic geological layering and their properties. From performative spaces to artist residencies, experimental labs to community infrastructure, each proposal responds to the site with narrative depth and environmental intent. Future Archaeology asks students to design with care, reframe waste as resource and transform a spilling edge of the Anthropocene into a beacon of regenerative possibility.

Year 3 Duaa Alharbi, Chengbin (James) Cui, Liisa Link, Barbie Santiago, Kai Sethna, Zoe Warner Year 4 Estelle Beninger, Aidan Davies, Chung Yan (Joanna) Lai, Louisa Merker, Soyoung Park, Audrey Samaha, Mary-Anthi Stratis Technical tutor and consultant Yuchen Wang Critics Francesco Banchini, Enrico Pontello, Eirini Tsouknida Partner London Wildlife Trust

255

4 256

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6 Unit 7

257

10 258

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

13 Unit 7

259

15 260

16 Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1–4 Soyoung Park, Y4 ‘Sowing Memory’. Reclaiming landfill through agroecological heritage. The project proposes a lab cultivating future-oriented agricultural and material research through a system that transforms waste crops into building resources. 5–6 Mary-Anthi Stratis, Y4 ‘The Unseen’. Exploring unseen phenomena, such as magnetism, through an interactive exhibit on a reclaimed landfill. 7–8 Zoe Warner, Y3 ‘Mucking Marshes Wetlands Research Centre’. Preserving the site’s hydrology and supporting ecological monitoring through passive design, water integration and low-impact timber construction. 9–10 Estelle Beninger, Y4 ‘Fabric of Change’. Recycled textiles and harvested crops are woven into the skin of the building, making the site a living showcase of regeneration and circular design. 11–13 Aidan Davies, Y4 ‘Redistribution Centre’. An architectural guide to protesting environmental crimes imagines locals uniting to redistribute energy, while inhabiting a small forest with self-built treehouses and raised walkways. 14–16 Louisa Merker, Y4 ‘Nimmersatt’. An evolving masterplan that establishes a circular system for material reuse, education, flood adaptation and historical archiving. 17 Liisa Link, Y3 ‘Strata-ville’. Turning away from the standardisation of the past factory town, the focus shifts to the exploration of individual skills through material recovery. 18 Kai Sethna, Y3 ‘Leonia’. A proposal for reclaiming the historical East Tilbury landfill. Emerging from the grasslands, the workshop is low and measured, introducing a spatial language shaped by recovery, reuse and shared making.

18 Unit 7

261

1 262

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

Responsive Tectonics II

Unit 8

David Hewlett, Michael Howarth, Annarita Papeschi

Embracing post-humanist theory, Unit 8 explores an understanding of urban complexity as shaped by the affectual interchanges between living and non-living co-inhabitants. Drawing on a reconceptualisation of our relationship with the environment – where a shift from the human-centred perspective entails an approach to the common good devised through dialogue across a diverse range of domains and agencies – students were tasked this year with developing design responses that, emerging from a radically deeper engagement with spatial dynamics, explored more resilient and sustainable models for urban intervention. Situated on the banks of the River Thames in east London, Trinity Buoy Wharf became the setting for our design explorations, offering fertile ground for testing systemic strategies that engaged with the site’s contextual complexity amid ongoing redevelopment pressures and the challenges of a dynamic tidal landscape. During Term 1, the group investigated the performance of a diverse range of three-dimensional assemblages, examining the correlation between their morphology and the environmental phenomena observed on site. This exploration led to a pavilion proposal designed to accommodate the co-existence of a diverse set of multi-agential users. Proposals included floating platforms that engaged the local community with the river’s aquatic ecosystems, self-forming systems designed to harness the tide for terraforming and open shelters responding to wind dynamics, allowing users to experience varying intensities and engage in sensory dialogue with atmospheric forces. Extending our investigation into systemic design, Unit 8 also visited Denys Lasdun’s University of East Anglia campus, engaging with staff involved in the site’s regeneration to examine its formal organisation, operating across multiple scales, and its capacity to articulate both social congregation and personal space within the university’s microcosm. Drawing on this collective research, students further developed their initial contextual investigations of Trinity Buoy Wharf and the design tectonics explored in earlier stages into site proposals, shaped around individually developed building briefs. Evolved through a series of iterative studies demonstrating the relationship between the proposed building morphology and its spatial, structural and environmental performance, the final designs depict speculative scenarios featuring hybrid building typologies and trans-scalar organisational principles, articulating regeneration through adaptability and plasticity.

Year 3 Eunbae (Lia) Lim, Sizhe Peng, Yilei (Dora) Qiu, Emily Sturgess, Sihan (Sean) Wu, Yiyang (Yangyang) Xue Year 4 Solomon Ayres, Miao (Candice) Dai, Yi Lam (Liz) Wong, Aohua Yang PGTA Melih Kamaoglu Critics Io Grivea, Andrew Jackson, Melih Kamaoğlu, Vincent Nowak, Freya Parkinson, Jake Phillips, Enrico Pontello, Robin Pritchett, Samuel Wilkinson, Mark Zudini

263

4 264

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

6 Unit 8

265

9 266

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

11 Unit 8

267

13 268

Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

1, 9 Yiyang (Yangyang) Xue, Y3 ‘The Buoyancy of Time’. A multipurpose boat station and a museum connecting people and place through dynamic circulation shaped by an undulating floor landscape. 2, 5–6 Solomon Ayres, Y4 ‘Blackwall Shipwright’s Centre’. A centre for reviving shipbuilding craftsmanship, where bio-inspired design meets a landscape shaped by the river’s relentless forces. 3 Miao (Candice) Dai, Y4 ‘Lumen Tide’. A hybrid film laboratory, gallery and studio space dedicated to analogue photography. 4 Aohua Yang, Y4 ‘The Hatchery’. A mixed-use community space designed to support the integrated co-existence of human activity and river ecosystems. 7 Yilei (Dora) Qiu, Y3 ‘The Confluence’. At Trinity Buoy Wharf, where the River Lea meets the Thames, the project bridges surrounding communities – both physically and socially. 8 Sihan (Sean) Wu, Y3 ‘The Moss Library’. The growth pattern of moss inspires the design of a youth library at Trinity Buoy Wharf. 10–11 Yi Lam (Liz) Wong, Y4 ‘Sheltering the Wind: An Outdoor Forest School’. A wind-responsive arrangement of mushroom-like structures forms a connected sequence of protected outdoor learning environments along the riverfront. 12, 14 Emily Sturgess, Y3 ‘The Nexus Wildlife Centre’. Informed by the spatial behaviours of local birds, the proposal for a wildlife centre was developed through rattan models exploring the integration of space and structure. 13 Eunbae (Lia) Lim, Y3 ‘The Aquadome’. A public pool on the River Thames reimagines bathing as a civic experience, blurring the boundary between river and city through a fluid landscape of connection. 15 Sizhe Peng, Y3 ‘The Ark of Trinity’. Set above the River Thames, the boat station and library respond to the river’s rhythms, preserving industrial memory while inviting a public connection to the water.

15 Unit 8

269

Jerónimos Monastery. Architecture MSci field trip to Lisbon, 2025. Photo: Alicia González-Lafita Perez.

Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 and Part 2)

Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 and Part 2) Programme Directors: Murray Fraser, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martínez Zamora Architecture MSci is an innovative five-year programme that integrates the undergraduate and postgraduate study of architecture (ARB Part 1 and 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 and construction challenges facing the future of the built environment, and they learn how to incorporate specialist disciplinary information into creative, sophisticated designs. They also examine relevant world issues through an annual theme that raises broad architectural and social issues, such as global health, sustainable cities and cultural understanding. These themes extend across all years and modules, and are examined from local and global perspectives that encompass historical, current and future challenges. As well as defining the relationship between students’ learning and their participation in design research, the MSci programme offers a holistic approach to education, encouraging connections between the subdisciplines of design, digital/analogue representation, technology, sustainability, professional practice, and history and theory – as well as between the different year cohorts and staff members, both practicebased and academic. To do so, the programme is structured to encourage creative design research and close links with architectural firms, with the final placement year giving students an unparalleled opportunity to test their imaginative ideas in a real-world environment. For students and staff, the programme continues to challenge preconceived ideas of what architecture is and how we use and inhabit space. It encourages a culture of individual research that is explored in an interdisciplinary manner, through testing and reexamining the fundamental elements of architecture. Students are asked to embark on a journey into the unknown and embrace an experimental, forward-thinking approach, always viewed through a global lens. This academic year saw the fifth intake of Architecture MSci students welcomed into the school. It was also momentous in that the very first cohort of MSci students, who had started in the 2020/21 academic year, became the initial group to take part in the fifth-year practice placements. This proved highly successful, with students working on architectural projects and design research in a wide range of practices, including Ian Chalk Architects, Fletcher Priest Architects, Jamie Fobert Architects, Foster + Partners, Morris+Company, RSHP and Sybarite.

272

The MSci’s annual theme for this year was ‘Reducing Inequalities’, providing an opportunity for students from all years to share ideas and research on one of UCL’s Grand Challenges. Platforms for crossprogramme dialogue were provided by our Open Studios events in Terms 1 and 2. These events have been an opportunity to collectively create new formats for group discussions and provide a platform where a collaborative community spirit can develop between years and studios. As ever, we would like to thank our incredible MSci students for taking this journey with us. On behalf of the MSci programme, we would also like to thank our Senior Administrator, Alice Whewell; our Departmental Tutors, Tom Ó Caollaí and Nick Jewell; our Year Coordinators, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martinez Zamora, Julia Backhaus, Deborah Lopez Lobato, Jane Wong and Dimitris Argyros; our Stream Directors, Haden Charbel, Matthew Howland, Guang Yu Ren and Kay Sedki; as well as our Postgraduate Teaching Assistants, Isabelle Donetch, Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, Yuto Ikeda and Ye Ha Kim, for all their invaluable contributions.

273

1 274

Architecture MSci

Southwark Tales

Year 1

Coordinators: Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Sara Martínez Zamora

The programme’s annual theme ‘Reducing Inequalities’ framed the design journey for our Year 1 students. The theme was explored through the lens of equity, considering the specific resources in a given context and the notion of achieving balance to reduce inequality. The design projects were sited in Southwark, London. Over the centuries, Southwark has transformed from a medieval town known for its bustling markets and cultural life into a complex urban district marked by significant socio-economic contrasts. The Year 1 cohort explored the area’s past and present to speculate about possible futures through their architectural proposals. The students did so in two main projects. The first was a group project sited inside and around Borough Market, where architectures from different periods coexist. The students examined architectural elements, exploring how environmental conditions affect their materiality and inhabitation. Through this process, they gained analytical and surveying skills, which were translated into speculative three-dimensional pieces that combined digital and analogue techniques. This initial group project and design exploration set the foundation for the second project, in which the students developed building proposals for Southwark. This began with a site analysis, during which the students created a ‘site interface’: an object that sat between their site and themselves. They did so after a series of material workshops in our B-made workshops, where the students developed their making skills. This analysis led to an iterative design process, which resulted in a small building proposal. Anchoring the initial premise of their project on the mediation between themselves and the site, they researched Southwark from a range of perspectives: historical, environmental and social. In their building projects, the students were encouraged to speculate about architecture in the near future, specifically the year 2035. The final building proposals showcase an ambitious and grounded approach to the future of the neighbourhood of Southwark. They respond to local issues and needs, as framed by the council’s vision for the future of the borough. The result is a broad range of designs that ask unique questions about what architecture will be able to address in 2035.

Year 1 Mayar Abdul Nnabi, Nicholas Abdullah, Kofi Arthur, Alvaro Bartolome Seuma, Will Batten, Saudat Bello, Alex Burder, Eric Chow, Alma Damer, Beatrix Ellerby, Simon Fouché, Sami Hassan, Ilan Huart, Khalid Jatta, Minghao Jian, Zi Ying Lim, Jad Masarweh, Yasmin Namayanja, Thomas Needham, Sindy Nie, Maria Nulud, Evana Ojeleye, Jack Pelling, Mitzi Quartey, Joshua Rodriguera, Noor Shahzad, Abbey Smith, Ellis Smout, Shania Sukul, Yunqiao (Clare) Tu, Sai Vajrapu, Yiming (Sherlock) Wang, Yi Cheung (Talia) Wang, Xining Wang, Regan Wong, Yilong Yan, Michelle Yoon, Nicolas Zapata Susaj Technical tutors and consultants Finbar Charleson, Krina Christopoulou, Sam Coulton, Ruth Cuenca, Christina Dahdaleh, Aurore Julien, Matei Mitrache, Harry Sumner, Andrew Whiting Year 1 PGTA Ye Ha Kim Thesis supervisors Albert Brenchat-Aguilar, Megha Chand Inglis, Olivia Neves Marra, Kay Sedki, María Venegas Critics Nuria Alvarez Lombardero, Tom Davies, James Green, Johan Hybschmann, David McEwen, Matthew Springett

275

3 276

Architecture MSci

6 Year 1

277

8 278

Architecture MSci

1 Zi Ying Lim, Xining Wang ‘Year 1 Building Models’. A selection of Year 1 models explores the theme ‘Reducing Inequalities’ across Southwark sites. Each project proposes unique spatial responses – ranging from public space to housing – collectively addressing equity through thoughtful, site-specific design interventions rooted in community and context. 2 Xining Wang ‘Breathing House’. A proposal for a yoga studio exploring controllable ventilation and natural light in All Hallows’ Church garden. 3 Alma Damer ‘Canopy Walk’. A design proposal responding to wind movement and Southwark’s air pollution. 4 Zi Ying Lim ‘Cosy within Chaos’. A communal retreat in Mint Street Park that blends rest, activity and daily rituals to create a vibrant space for a shared neighbourhood. 5 Regan Wong ‘Modular Microcities’. Crafting layered urban encounters through modular design, bridging past and present in All Hallows’ Church garden. 6 Yilong Yan ‘The Masts’. A structural intervention providing a café and play space with an meditation centre unexpectedly nestled above Nelson Square, Southwark. 7 Nicholas Abdullah ‘Re-Reading Stories’. Collectivising displaced local histories from Southwark through a curated and accessible archive experience focused on light. 8 Kofi Arthur ‘Little Dorrit’s Library’. A public space to cultivate community in Southwark, with spaces to pause, reflect and spread knowledge through literature. 9 Beatrix Ellerby ‘Southwark’s Intergenerational Community Centre.’ A speculative proposal for an intergenerational community hub that responds to the high levels of reported loneliness among residents in Southwark. 10 Will Batten ‘Sanctuary Spaces’. A proposal for a public workspace and library within a historical churchyard, exploring wayfinding and a sense of place.

10 Year 1

279

1 280

Architecture MSci

Sharing Space Abi Ashton, Laurence Blackwell-Thale

This year, Studio 2A interrogates the role of architecture as an ecological mediator between humankind and the rest of the planet’s species. Humans are not the only occupants of buildings, yet little consideration is given to the plethora of plants, fungi, animals and other non-human organisms that reside in our built environment. We see a great opportunity for architecture to open a dialogue with other species. By calling them ‘more than human’, we embrace a worldview that recognises the value of all living things, fundamentally seeing people and design as part of an ecological system rather than in control of it. Seeking to dismantle and challenge the anthropocentric view of urban development, Studio 2A’s architecture places construction as part of an ecological system, where designs foster interspecies relationships between humans and other possible occupants. Using key principles of sustainable construction, including circularity and regenerative design, our architecture promotes the exciting, emerging realm of ecological spatial cascades, where inhabitation of built form uses interdependence and mutual benefit as guiding design concepts. Speculating about the possible interaction of species requires a leap of faith into the unknown, a bold act reliant on a multifaceted ability to embrace risk and enjoy the unfolding situations. This year, the River Lea is our site. The river, historically, was a key political boundary, while today it acts as a linkage between its source in the Chiltern Hills and the heart of industrialised London. With over 750 species of invertebrates alone, the site has the potential to become a test-bed for sensitively placed architecture that fuses human inhabitation with wider environments and habitats. We seek to challenge and develop this overlap at the scale of the river, the size of the human, and, through a spatial understanding of our more-thanhuman interlocutor, to create architecture that is fundamentally driven by its users and its site. Zooming into these building contexts, we engage with the material opportunities of the Lea, questioning its historic use as a trade and supply route, as well as its constant adaptation and manipulation.

Studio 2A

Year 2 Abenezer Abebaw-Mesfin, Luz Alvarez De Estrada Ortuzar, Freya Caine, William Cardoso, Ryan Chen, Rapha De Segundo, Rosemary Jones, Chenhe (Will) Kang, Hugh Kilvington, Amelia Kong, Ziqiao (Joe) Ling, Haoyu (Howard) Shen, Victoria Si-Yu Wang, Landuoduo Wu, Yuzhang Xu, Zeynep Yesildag, Paris Zhou Technical tutors and consultants Kenny Fraser, Danielle Purkiss

281

5 282

Architecture MSci

8 Studio 2A

283

284

Architecture MSci

14 Studio 2A

285

18 286

Architecture MSci

1, 19–20 Ryan Chen ‘Birdwatching Centre’. A community centre in the Lea Valley wetlands promotes interaction between people, waterfowl and water through its architecture. 2 Rapha De Segundo ‘The Bea Valley’. The architecture supports habitat creation and sustainable management of solitary and honey bee species, as well as providing public ecological education spaces. 3 Rosemary Jones, Paris Zhou ‘Symbiotic Waters’. An integrated landscape that enhances water quality and offers purity as a sensory experience, connecting wellness and water with architecture. 4–5 Haoyu (Howard) Shen, Ziqiao (Joe) Ling ‘Voronoi Sports Centre.’ The centre supports climbing and kayaking within an articulated architecture used to grow moss and lichen. 6–7 Amelia Kong ‘The Gin Distillery’. Natural and artificial environments are combined in a series of distillery spaces that question stereotypical forms of wall and roof. 8 Abenezer Abebaw-Mesfin ‘Apian Pavilion’. A biophilic gallery and garden landscape fosters connection with bees through an architecture embedded within its ecological system. 9–10 Landuoduo Wu, Yuzhang Xu ‘Blend In’. An architecture that blurs thresholds between human and natural systems through elevated platforms and birdwatching towers in Tottenham Marshes. 11 William Cardoso, Victoria Si-Yu Wang ‘The Fungi Centre’. Mycelial networks inspired this research and education facility where visitors explore the species through immersive workshops and rare fungal collections. 12, 14 Freya Caine ‘The Observation Cave’. An educational, sensory architecture that promotes human–bat coexistence, offering immersive spaces that prioritise bat conservation, cohabitation and the creation of sensitive habitats. 13 Luz Alvarez De Estrada Ortuzar, Zeynep Yesildag ‘Earth Revival’. The architecture revives the damaged River Lea landscape using compost walls and soil-based design to reconnect people with the environment. 15–18 Hugh Kilvington, Chenhe (Will) Kang ‘The Perch’. Community spaces for canal boat dwellers and pigeons alike, this project celebrates life on the peripheries while providing much-needed civic infrastructure.

20 Studio 2A

287

1 288

Architecture MSci

Weather Watchers George Bolwell, Vita Rossi

‘So many scales and levels of time determined by so many parameters in compartmentalised boundaries (biomes): time for butterflies or for bees … or for geysers to erupt; the speed and duration of currents and tides; the time for clouds to form.’ Diana Agrest, Architecture of Nature / Nature of Architecture (2019) The weather is intrinsic to the built environment. It sculpts our cities, defines our cultures and impacts our daily lives. It has been a source of creative inspiration for centuries, influencing literature, fashion, art, music and, perhaps most profoundly, architecture. This year, Studio 2B have become experts in the weather, zooming into elemental nuances and site-specific natural phenomena around the Isle of Sheppey. We utilised weather as an architectural ingredient, considering, for example, what benefits could come from allowing a performance space to be flooded at certain times of the day, or what spatial pleasures could be derived from a warm summer breeze. Just as our bodies adapt to their surroundings to achieve a consistent temperature, we designed our architecture to do the same – perhaps shivering in the winter when winds blow in from the North Sea, or sweating in a summer heatwave. We considered differences between weather and climate, and focused on time and scale as factors for understanding environmental shifts. Despite the technological and scientific achievements of the 21st century, weather still has the ability to surprise. Studio 2B is interested in this anomalous, unruly behaviour. It is within this uncertainty that we situate our projects. By observing, measuring and analysing the weather, we expose its slippery, elusive nature, and draw parallels to other complex natural systems that continue to evade our absolute understanding. As a studio, we encourage students to look beyond architecture, to learn from a wide range of other disciplines, which this year included meteorology, oceanography and ecology, as well as art and fashion. We took inspiration from cartography, tidal charts and devices such as barometers and weathervanes. We pursue experimental and ambitious working methodologies, and develop individual methods of making to establish a process-driven approach to design.

Studio 2B

Year 2 Hannah Bryce, Oliver Chandler, Thomas Dodd, Neueland Lesdema, Haochen (Kevin) Lu, Hiro Matsuzaki, Elisha Morales, Mei Xin (Jennifer) Ooi, Amanda Paule, Tee Quarry, Noah Spain, Grey Umoru, Ekaterina Varaksina, James Wilson, Tianhao (Steven) Xi, Chuqin (Jenifer) Yang, Shang-Ju (Sean) Yang Technical tutor James Palmer Skills tutor Krina Christopoulou Critics Kirsty McMullan, Jacob Simpson, Ben Spong Thanks to Staff at the University of Southampton’s Boldrewood Innovation Campus, in particular for the tour of the Boldrewood Towing Tank

289

5 290

Architecture MSci

8 Studio 2B

291

11 292

Architecture MSci

13 Studio 2B

293

15 294

Architecture MSci

1, 4, 13 Neueland Lesdema, Noah Spain ‘The Maelstrom Institute’. Situated on the Isle of Sheppey, the institute unites climate research and community engagement, using weather data to communicate through an architectural performance, educating and inspiring climate resilience. 2 Shang-Ju (Sean) Yang ‘Marshlight’. An oyster restoration centre invites reflection on weather, time and landscape. Its architecture evokes nature’s rhythms within a setting shaped by light, tide and change. 3, 9, 17 Tianhao (Steven) Xi ‘The Learn’d Astronomer’. A series of observatories constructed to give different views of the night sky allows for the precise observation of stars, constellations and processions at different spatial and temporal scales. 5 James Wilson ‘Inverted Lighthouses’. The project reimagines the end of life for English ships, creating a breaking yard and museum on the Isle of Sheppey where ethical deconstruction reconnects cultural myths with the declining British maritime industry. 6, 12, 14 Hannah Bryce, Hiro Matsuzaki ‘Form Follows Mist’. Starting with a mist-harnessing prototype, the project develops through atmospheric experimentation, coded drawings and iterative making, culminating in a weather-responsive bathhouse set in Elmley’s fragile ecological and social context. 7, 10 Elisha Morales, Ekaterina Varaksina ‘Seaweed in Stitches’. A testbed for seaweed architecture, where seaweed is the thread, cladding and insulation of the building. The proposal recycles sea debris and invites visitors to workshops on Sheppey’s shifting shoreline. 8, 11 Oliver Chandler, Thomas Dodd ‘Cultivating Change’. The Swaleside site becomes a catalyst for rehabilitating the local agriculture and prison population, utilising the site’s saline conditions to implement continuous architectural change. 15 Mei Xin (Jennifer) Ooi, Chuqin (Jenifer) Yang ‘I Saw the Tide Encroaching’. Following weather-based observations, the proposal explores the relationship between physical environmental movements and the human feeling of anticipation. 16 Amanda Paule ‘The Monument’. The project combines an alkaline hydrolysis crematorium and a public garden, celebrating life through a graceful procession through the building and the transformation of human remains into plant fertiliser.

17 Studio 2B

295

1 296

Architecture MSci

Roots and Scaffolds: Towards New Forms of Building and Learning

Studio 2C

Olivia Neves Marra, Jane Wong In a developed social-market economy like London’s, human knowledge in all forms is a fundamental asset. As higher education is increasingly privatised, this asset has become a valuable commodity. Universities thus play a central role in economic production. On one hand, this scenario made higher education more accessible and no longer exclusive to ruling elites. On the other hand, it consolidated schools as ‘factories’ of knowledge-producers, directly catering to advanced capitalism. Architectural education is currently an integral part of this scenario. Despite our efforts to make our school a free space for critical thinking and experimentation, it remains a gate to the architectural industry and real estate. Practices, in turn, recruit architects with predefined skills to design typologies for equally predefined modes of living. What would architectural education be like if learning and building were rethought as means without end? This year, Studio 2C invited students to design spaces for alternative forms of learning and building. We considered education far beyond the physical and conceptual limits of universities and their curricula to conceive spaces where students, tutors and local associations can learn through thinking and making together. With Roots and Scaffolds, we allude to the mutually reinforcing nature of education. ‘Scaffolds’ refers to our teaching methodology, where students start learning from examples and gradually develop the ability to approach tasks autonomously. ‘Roots’ means the nourishing foundations of all forms of consciousness, growth, reasoning and belonging. In the context of London, ‘roots’ also refers to the historical conditions of land and property ownership – the parceling out of land since the Norman Conquest and then through the enclosure of the commons– which fundamentally dictates the value of development, before bricks and mortar are even laid. Today, this translates into huge social inequalities, not least the housing crisis, but also spatial constraints that curtail civic engagement. Responding to the programme theme of ‘Reducing Inequalities’, the studio considered education as an alternative project of society to challenge the status quo intellectually and practically. Education can promote not only autonomous critical thinking, but also solidarity between students, staff and the world outside this community.

Year 2 James Matthew Alfonso, Constance Attwood, King Clarin, Ilia Dynkin, Mlak Elbuzidi, Tomas Gaunt, Lele (Giovanna) Gong, Hisham Ilyas, Keye Shen, Yuichiro Tomita, Finlay Warrell, Wing-San (Courtney) Yau, Zhiyu Zhang Technical tutor Carolina Bartram Media skills tutor Sam Coulton Critics Nuria Alvarez Lombardero, Abi Ashton, Julia Backhaus, Laurence Blackwell-Thale, George Bolwell, Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Johan Hybschmann, Eleanor Jolliffe, Chee-Kit Lai, Maurizio Mucciola, Thomas Parker, Billy Prendergast, Vita Rossi, Rory Sherlock, Matthew Springett

297

4 298

Architecture MSci

7 Studio 2C

299

10 300

11 Architecture MSci

15 Studio 2C

301

17 302

Architecture MSci

1, 9, 13–15 James Matthew Alfonso, Yuichiro Tomita ‘Bough and the Palimpsest’. Reconsidering the forest as an archive for architectural education. 2 King Clarin, Finlay Warrell ‘Raised by the River’. Rethinking the architecture of student accommodation in Perivale, Ealing, west London. 3 Zhiyu Zhang ‘Rediscovering Horsenden Farm’. An educational centre for social and ecological integration in Perivale, Ealing, west London. 4 Tomas Gaunt ‘A Stich in Time’. Designed interventions to repair, restore, extend and expand a Victorian farmhouse with locally reclaimed materials. 5–6 Ilia Dynkin ‘Poetics of Transgression’. An experimental take on the public bath typology with an emphasis on cruising and the ‘grotesque body’ within the suburban context of West Wickham Common, Bromley, south London. 7 Lele (Giovanna) Gong ‘Beddington Forest School’. A model of self-built spaces for learning, foraging and repairing post-industrial landscapes in Croydon, south London. 8, 10 Hisham Ilyas ‘Covert School: Building as a Means Without End’. Adaptive reuse for a rehabilitation school of building and making. 11 Constance Attwood ‘A Cracked Wall, a Building Craft, and a Communal Table’. Restorative design to renew a Victorian farmhouse in Horsenden Hill, Perivale, Ealing, west London. 12 Mlak Elbuzidi, Wing-San (Courtney) Yau ‘Common Ground’. An intergenerational centre for gardening and cooking inside Jubilee Allotments in Ealing, west London. 16–19 Keye Shen ‘Floating Potential’. Collective domestic spaces and educational workshops for boat dwellers on the Grand Union Canal. 18

19 Studio 2C

303

1 304

Architecture MSci

Divisions and Margins Murray Fraser, Nicholas Jewell, Michiko Sumi

Studio 3A is based on design research investigations around a specific annual theme, which this year was Divisions and Margins. We chose this topic because of the need to understand why human societies are so insistent on creating division and inequality – and for students to devise ideas and strategies that might help mitigate these problems. Divisions are inherently dangerous, as they separate those who have more from those who have less, thus playing a crucial role in the production and maintenance of inequality. Linked directly to division and inequality is the social exclusion that leads to marginalisation, and which typically – but not only – affects ethnic minorities, refugees, single mothers, children, people with disabilities, or those of non-binary gender identity or sexual preference. The myriad forces that are producing marginalisation include state power, municipal power, economic policies, global markets, media structures, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and so on. Marginalities affect every community, every city, every district, every neighbourhood and indeed every household. Particularly relevant to architects is the role that space plays in processes of division, inequality and marginalisation. The idea of a community relegated to the margins – the periphery – is a common metaphor in disciplines like sociology, which are not inherently spatial. Yet this spatial metaphor tells us little when looked at from a discipline such as architecture, where spatiality is foundational. Hence it becomes important to examine divisions and margins in their threedimensional realities, and to trace them over time. Greater precision in spatial analysis can contribute to theories and studies of division, inequality and marginalisation, using our architectural knowledge and skills to pinpoint how marginalisation is implemented spatially through buildings, neighbourhoods and cities, and at different urban scales. This analysis involves visualised techniques such as spatial mapping, interpretative drawing, modelmaking, creative site-writing and more. Our field trip was to Cyprus, the country with Europe’s last remaining divided city, Nicosia. We visited buildings and places within this divided landscape, including the UN buffer zone and deserted areas of Famagusta.

Studio 3A

Year 3 Ruben Alexander, Eunice Dingcong, Annabelle Edwards, Hafiza Hussain, Tate Kiveal, Nadia Kwiecinska, Kim Lee, Ella Man, Ahsanul (Ahsan) Momen, Sophie Murray, Oyindamolaoluwa Olunloyo, Charlotte Pike Thesis supervisors Kirsty Badenoch, Nat Chard, Francesca Dell’Aglio, Dan Dream, Naomi Gibson, Mohamad Hafeda, Ifi Liangi, Déborah Lopez Lobato, Mpho Matsipa, Emma-Kate Matthews, Sara Shafiei Partners Konstantinos Avramidis, Eva Branscome, Popi Iacovou, Guan Lee, Anna Marangou, Anastasia Matheou, Frixos Petrou, Panayiota Pyla, Orhan Tolun

305

3 306

Architecture MSci

6 Studio 3A

307

10 308

Architecture MSci

12 Studio 3A

309

14 310

Architecture MSci

1, 14 Eunice Dingcong ‘The Layers Beneath Our Skin’. A speculative proposal for improving healthcare through architecture and landscape, activating bodily aches and pains as therapeutic treatments against mortality. 2–3 Nadia Kwiecinska ‘Temporal Agora’. Responding to an increasingly disconnected world, the retrofitted Haggerston Baths revitalises the act of clubbing as an inclusive preventative approach to health and wellbeing. 4, 8 Tate Kiveal ‘Estate in Hibernation’. Following the failures of a bureaucratically squashed campaign against estate regeneration on Thamesmead Estate, residents create large-scale barricades as a form of protest architecture. 5, 15 Charlotte Pike ‘Democratising Education’. The architecture of educational institutions in Chalk Farm explores how arts education – from early secondary school age through to lifelong learning – serves as a vital social tool. 6 Annabelle Edwards ‘Connecting Communities: Reimagining Education in Gospel Oak’. The project addresses severe educational inequalities in Gospel Oak, Camden, by fostering social engagement and empowering residents. 7 Kim Lee ‘High-Speed Railway, Low-Speed Change’. On the long-term construction site of the HS2 project in Camden, a group of quasi-temporary buildings emerge to support the surrounding housing estates. 9–10 Oyindamolaoluwa Olunloyo ‘Race and Space’. By weaving culture into the urban fabric, Islington’s Laycock Green is transformed by textile-inspired design – empowering BAME voices to reshape space through identity and heritage. 11–12 Ruben Alexander ‘Solidarity through Structure’. By understanding crowds as organisms, the ritualised architecture of protest can be designed to embrace the icons of political and social justice movements. 13, 16 Ella Man ‘Market Microcosms’. Reimagining London’s markets amid urban regeneration – specifically at Elephant and Castle – this project explores flexible seasonal infrastructures to sustain local trade and livelihoods.

16 Studio 3A

311

1 312

Architecture MSci

The Pleasures and Studio Potential of Obsolescence 3B Nat Chard, Emma-Kate Matthews

This year, Studio 3B explores obsolescence not as a dead end, but as fertile ground for reimagining architecture. We ask how processes, techniques and materials discarded by industrial efficiency might be revitalised – freed from past obligations and recharged with new creative possibilities. Our starting point lies in the tradition of artistic transformation: just as photography released painting from representation, prompting new forms of expression, we see obsolescence as an invitation to experiment. Prior knowledge – of drawing, making, constructing – can inform the invention of new techniques that resonate more closely with the content and context of each project. While digital media are essential to our own practices and offer powerful tools, we also critique their current dominance. Too often, they are used for convenience rather than for their resonance with conceptual or intellectual content. We encourage students to forge connections between idea and technique – to test how methods of making reflect and support architectural thinking. Our brief begins with a short project to help identify individual interests. From there, each student develops a body of speculative research, appropriating obsolete media or processes to uncover their creative potential. In parallel, students undertake architectural research, asking how superseded materials or modes of construction might express emerging ideas – especially in relation to sustainability and the shifting role of the public realm. This year’s programme theme, ‘Reducing Inequalities’, further informs our approach. We examine the erosion of public space, and consider how architecture might nurture new forms of inclusivity. Our field trip to Prague supports these lines of inquiry, offering intense examples of ambitious architecture – old and new – in a city where the public realm is still very much alive. Studio 3B encourages and supports experimental, speculative practice. We value risk, invention and processes of making as routes to architectural insight. Our studio culture supports collaboration, conversation and curiosity – where every technique is a way of thinking, and every act of making is a step towards inventive architecture.

Year 3 Yohana Bekele, Amelia Blanksby, Jianhao Chen, Yi Zhen Chuah, Pauline Comte, Yi Xi (Muvis) Hui, Ryan Long, Lia Penela Failde, Hanna Porooshani Nia, Eleanor Rudd-Jones, Srishti, Ethan Starkey, Louis Thomas Critics Sienna Griffin-Shaw, Ben Pollock

313

314

Architecture MSci

6 Studio 3B

315

9 316

Architecture MSci

11 Studio 3B

317

15 318

Architecture MSci

1–3 Eleanor Rudd-Jones ‘Another Man’s Treasure’. A network of urban reuse centres transforms discarded objects from fly-tipping and obsolescence into architectural elements that blur function, value and meaning through material recovery and spatial distortion. 4–6 Lia Penela Failde ‘Of Space and Image’. This project explores images as spatial generators, using projection, layering and fragmentation to create a library and auditorium that dissolve the boundary between images and architecture. 7–8 Jianhao Chen ‘Architectural Cannibal’. Treating the body as obsolete, this project reimagines architecture as a body-like entity, exploring human–machine interactions that generate spatial experiences through anatomical, mechanical and sensorial hybridity. 9–11 Ethan Starkey ‘Jigs in Other Beginnings’. This project explores architecture as an evolving act of making, using boat-building jigs on Regent’s Canal to create adaptable, occupation-responsive forms that blur fabrication and inhabitation. 12 Pauline Comte ‘Motion Framed’. Prompted by navigating the city on crutches, this project reimagines architecture through photographic techniques that document and distort movement, creating a physiotherapy centre that responds to the diverse ways bodies move through space. 13 Yi Xi (Muvis) Hui ‘Nomadic Imprints’. This project explores dreams and transient spaces through a writers’ retreat – revealing how they distort and reconfigure fragments of memory and emotion to shape our experience of the built environment through impermanence, nostalgia and subconscious imprint. 14 Hanna Porooshani Nia ‘From the Ground Up’. This project rethinks urban ground as a programmable surface, inspired by Persian carpets, revealing hidden narratives and new ways of engaging with the city beyond the dominance of the horizon. 15 Yi Zhen Chuah ‘From Vessel to Vault’. This project repositions ceramics as subject and process using historical techniques and hand-throwing to propose a speculative architecture grounded in the embodied, structural and spatial logics of ceramic assembly. 16 Louis Thomas ‘Resonant Architectures’. Reimagining the tourist centre as an acoustic instrument, this architecture transmits distant vibrations through material resonance, creating a sensory experience of the city based on touch and sound rather than sight. 17 Amelia Blanksby ‘Impressions of the City’. This project uses printmaking to translate architectural ideas, proposing a space that reactivates human interaction through tactile, iterative processes countering the isolating effects of digital culture.

17 Studio 3B

319

1 320

Architecture MSci

And the Walls Became the World All Around

Studio 3C

Kirsty Badenoch, Daniel Dream, Ifigeneia Liangi

Studio 3C works with a foot in the magical and a hand in the practical. This year we framed our design research around the garden as a construct, exploring its cultural, ecological, mythological and architectural relationships. Working within the openness of Year 3 on the Architecture MSci programme, students were free to consider these ideas in ways that may relate to philosophy, art practice, social justice and more. The garden is an architectural cornerstone of both Eastern and Western civilisations. Originally conceived of as a walled estate, it has evolved into a space adjacent to a dwelling, often used for cultivating plants, fruit and vegetables. As human communities settled, the definition of boundaries in nature occurred alongside the construction of homes. As woodlands and greenlands were domesticated as a part of this process, so too was society. Walled gardens often became a space for researching alternative conceptions of nature. Throughout this history, the garden has been a place for scientific study, an oasis for solitary reflection, and a place of storytelling and entertainment. The garden is a meeting place between civilisation, nature and the imagination. Spanning the wild and domestic, it can be a place of experimentation as much as conservation. As such, gardens oscillate between the loam of the world and the ideas we cultivate about it. Throughout the year, we examined gardening as an act of resistance and biography, considering, for example, Derek Jarman’s decision to cultivate plants in a hostile environment. George Orwell’s love for his rose garden was used to frame the social implications of cultivating the surface of the earth and how gardening can resist societal norms. We explored the interplay between stories and gardens to critique the manipulation of environmental conditions to maintain a curated vision of nature. Gardening emerged as the definitive interface between culture and the natural world. The gardener’s role is to respond as nature unfolds, to cultivate, to nurture moments of flourishing and to accept failures. Around this, Studio 3C encouraged projects to use the framework of the garden to develop design approaches grounded in diverse perspectives, needs and contexts.

Year 3 Hamzah Ahmed, Bianca Albeanu, William Applegate, Yuxuan (Nemo) Cai, Bingchen (Bruce) Duan, Abdelrahman Eladawi, Rahul Faizer, Zihan Gan, Daniel Li, Xiyi (Fiona) Lu, Chanunchida (Pung Pung) Phonoi, Yiting Wang Critics Naomi Gibson, Luke Gifford, Sayan Skandarajah

321

3 322

Architecture MSci

7 Studio 3C

323

9 324

Architecture MSci

12 Studio 3C

325

13 326

Architecture MSci

1, 12 Chanunchida (Pung Pung) Phonoi ‘In Search of Memory’s Vessel’. Reconstructing the home through memory, routine and embodied gestures, this project explores how Thai-Chinese rituals and daily practices anchor identity and reshape space as a dynamic living archive. 2–3 Rahul Faizer ‘Grove Interlude: A Meanwhile Theatre for Permanence and Modulation’. A proposal for a temporary theatre to increase biodiversity within Old Oak Common’s development. 4 Zihan Gan ‘The Garden Palimpsest’. Building the history of Camley Street Natural Park, King’s Cross, over 100 years. 5 William Applegate ‘Common Ecology’. A school where students learn from nature, re-establishing a relationship with Ashdown Forest through tradition, design, ecology and interactions with local deer. 6 Abdelrahman Eladawi ‘From Al-Ansari Street’. Set during Egypt’s 2011 Revolution, this project explores balconies and roofs as political spaces, reconstructing erased histories through memory, fiction and social media archives to reveal how ordinary Egyptians reclaimed their built environment. 7 Xiyi (Fiona) Lu ‘Before the Garden Fades’. Reimagining Kew’s Princess of Wales Conservatory through the lens of Alice in Wonderland, this project constructs a speculative botanical archive where visitors shrink, quietly resisting human-centred conservation. 8, 11 Yuxuan (Nemo) Cai ‘The Stillness Between Worlds’. A series of architectural forms to explore the in-between space of cultural exchange, where Xu Zhimo’s poem meets John Keats’ verse, and where the I Ching guides the rhythm of changes. 9 Bingchen (Bruce) Duan ‘Hotel Glanville: Sleeping with Butterflies’. A speculative hospitality project reimagining co-existence between humans and butterflies through architecture, inspired by entomologist Eleanor Glanville. 10 Hamzah Ahmed ‘Shared Stories, Cultivating Heritage’. A transformation of a British-Bangladeshi home in Leicester explores how garden and house façades can become vibrant spaces, nurturing cultural identity and community connections. 13 Yiting Wang ‘Red House, Red Spring (1865)’. A speculative narrative hybridises the Arts and Crafts legacy of the Red House, originally built in 1859 by William Morris.

Studio 3C

327

1 328

Architecture MSci

Origin Johan Hybschmann, Matthew Springett

Architecture is a slow game. Designing and making buildings takes time. The resultant spaces typically have longevity and outlive their designers and makers. With this characteristic endurance comes a responsibility to make marks and design based on informed decisions. We should all aim to improve our cities with architectural interventions that are positive contributions to their given context. This year, Studio 4A explored how to build without ego and for a future that will change beyond expectation. There can be a sense of calm and groundedness in being among historic buildings – a reassurance in understanding the social and cultural resonance of a place that can create feelings of belonging, as well as underlining the notion of stability and continuity. As a species, we are often wary of significant change, with our societal structures designed to create predictable conditions. The challenge now is to innovate and build a legacy without resorting to historicist tropes or replications of the past. How can we look forward with sensitivity to our physical, cultural and social surroundings? Technological advances are rapid, and the impact of an idea, product, space, or social context is often short-lived. It can be important to lean into the positive side of radical, high-paced changes, but we also need to acknowledge the socio-economic and environmental challenges of such fleeting moments. Could the past, more than ever, be an inspiration for a more sustainable future? Could simpler building methods, as well as more locally sourced materials help to counteract decades of inconsiderate technological applications of ‘temporary’ architecture? Could the pace at which the architect develops a design, or the time given to craft and construct a building, have an impact on its relevance and longevity? Studio 4A operated within the threshold between origin and future, and looked into the idea of ‘origin’ in the context of designing for the greater good. We pursued routes to better futures, and encouraged the exploration of innovative and radical ideas, investigating how the past can inspire the future. We discussed ideas of legacy, ego and prediction within architecture.

Studio 4A

Year 4 Jihoon Baek, Jenny Cheng, Anda Guinea, Salyme Gunsaya, James Kennedy, Jayne Lee, Alannah Nethercott, May ParkesYoung, Gini Smart, Raihan Syed, Thaleia Tsoutsos Technical tutor and consultant Kevin Gray

329

330

Architecture MSci

9 Studio 4A

331

12 332

Architecture MSci

15 Studio 4A

333

18 334

Architecture MSci

22 Studio 4A

335

24 336

Architecture MSci

1, 10–12 Jihoon Baek ‘Riddle, Rubble and Ripple!’. The project reimagines Gurnell Leisure Centre to create inclusive floodplain leisure-scapes, using adaptive infrastructure to protect towns and reclaim civic ecology. 2, 23–24 Jayne Lee ‘Upstairs, Where Chinatown (Re)Activates’. In London’s Chinatown, a cultural embassy project reactivates hidden spaces, celebrating community reclamation and agency through memory, performance and pause. 3, 6–8, 21 Gini Smart ‘Tapestry of New Malden’. The project reimagines a disused multistorey car park as a vessel for cultural exchange, where the vibrant heritage of New Malden’s Korean community is celebrated and explored. 4, 5 Anda Guinea ‘Accouchée: Maternal Sangfroid at St Mary’s Hospital’. This project proposes the expansion of St Mary’s maternity unit in Paddington as part of wider efforts to provide funding for hospital maintenance ahead of its planned redevelopment in 2035–39. 9, 20 May Parkes-Young ‘Beyond Recreation’. The project proposes a new typology of community architecture delivering essential domestic services through shared public infrastructure. 13–15 Raihan Syed ‘Crafting (A)New Acceptance’. The project roots the role of arts and crafts in parallel with reclamation and maintenance, empowering children from under-represented backgrounds and challenging access to arts within immigrant families of low-income socioeconomic status. 16–18, 25 Salyme Gunsaya ‘Hot Kiln, Warm Waters, Creating Queer Women’s Spaces’. This project transforms Clerkenwell’s New River Head pumping station into a lasting, atmospheric space for FLINTA (Female, Lesbian, Inter, Non-binary, Trans and Agender people), featuring ceramic studios and bathing spaces. 19 Alannah Nethercott ‘Nocturne Basin’. Drawing on Rotherhithe’s history of swimming, Nocturne Basin becomes a socially inclusive, ecologically sensitive sanctuary supporting those who keep the city running through the night. 22 James Kennedy ‘Obelisk Park’. A community landscape and leisure project in Southwark, London, offering inclusive design with martial arts and sports facilities, a skate park, biomes, a café, exercise areas and accessible pathways. 26 Jenny Cheng ‘Within Sight, Within Axis’. A medical centre that doubles as a social anchor for both the boating community and isolated residents of Paddington, transforming into a canal-side dining space by night for the area’s permanent inhabitants.

26 Studio 4A

337

1 338

Architecture MSci

In Transit Nuria Alvarez Lombardero, Maurizio Mucciola

London has recently experienced an increase in its floating population, with students, migrants, refugees, day labourers, tourists, seasonal workers and digital nomads among those not taking up permanent residence. This situation demands a continuous negotiation with, and incorporation of, plural contingencies, and suggests a new paradigm for housing in the city – one that we refer to as being ‘in transit’. This condition has put existing housing models into crisis, demanding new ways to understand the design of the home. Short-term lodgings are increasingly necessary as an alternative to lifelong homeownership. So far, these needs have been accommodated within the existing housing stock, but this does not cater appropriately to the needs of transient populations. In this context, Studio 4B speculated on new temporary housing models for London by designing transient dwellings that foster a sense of permanence and stability for their inhabitants. We set the challenge of building new typologies for living in transit, taking a non-extractive approach. In recent years, there have been calls for a moratorium on new buildings with the focus put on adaptive reuse instead of building new architecture, as a possible response to an excessively extractive construction industry. This approach demands a new way of imagining spaces, buildings and ways of living, looking toward a non-extractive future for architecture. Following this line of action, the studio questioned whether the demand for new houses could be met by creatively transforming the existing building stock, without perpetuating destructive practices of extraction. Projects worked on the basis that virtually no new construction was allowed, and that the use of virgin materials for construction should be limited to the minimum, only where no alternatives are possible. To achieve this, students explored the reuse of existing unused buildings and materials, as well as reconsidering the concept of spolia, which involves reusing elements of past buildings in new architectures.

Studio 4B

Year 4 Jia Qi Chan, Yan Yu (Charisse) Kwong, Laura Lui, Matan Michaels, Sara Mir, Jasmine Shek, Charlie Timms, Hong Ci (Jennifer) Yang, Yifei Yu, Lizhe (Enrique) Zhang Zhuo Technical tutor and consultant Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves

339

5 340

Architecture MSci

10 Studio 4B

341

12 342

13 Architecture MSci

17 Studio 4B

343

20 344

Architecture MSci

23 Studio 4B

345

25 346

Architecture MSci

1–5 Jasmine Shek ‘Lacuna at the Lane’. A derelict Victorian bathhouse is reimagined as a mixed-use scheme through a non-extractive approach, restoring the building’s civic role in the Hackney neighbourhood as a champion of intercultural synthesis, community-led engagement and increased public access. 6–10 Lizhe (Enrique) Zhang Zhuo ‘Anastylosis’. The project tackles ‘super commuters’ by producing temporal dwellings and exploring the notion of home through physical retrofitting and metaphysical reconstruction of Wapping. 11–13 Matan Michaels ‘Reviving Hackney: The Wick Wellness Retreat’. The wellness retreat examines the retrofit of Hackney’s disused 1970s industrial warehouses. Informed by public consultation, the project reimagines domestic living through a public agora, allotments and housing units with adaptive privacy levels. 14–17 Charles Timms ‘The Night Market’. The project focuses on combatting the systematic relocation, removal and gentrification of markets within our cities by reintroducing market space into abandoned spaces within north London. 18 Yifei Yu ‘New Morgan House’. New Morgan House reimagines an abandoned structure as a hybrid space for media, work and life – balancing openness, reuse and flexibility to serve diverse users and evolving urban needs. 19–20 Jia Qi Chan ‘Whitechapel, Recast: A Residency in Metal, Memory and Making’. A collaborative artist residency transforming Whitechapel’s bell foundry into living, working and exhibiting spaces – supporting metal-based practices through adaptive architecture, spatial equity, shared resources and long-term cultural stewardship. 21–23 Yan Yu (Charisse) Kwong ‘All the World’s a Stage’. The project retrofits an abandoned building into a flexible live-in rehearsal and performance space for transient performing artists. The space encourages performer– public interaction and challenges the boundaries between those on stage and off stage. 24, 26–27 Hong Ci (Jennifer) Yang ‘Restorative Arc of the Transient Healers’. Two abandoned buildings are reimagined as a wellness retreat for healthcare staff, through reusing local materials with relocation and reorientation strategies to foster recovery. 25 Laura Lui ‘Beyond the Pink Walls: A feminist intervention’. This project reclaims abandoned urban infrastructure as a hub for moving and gathering, challenging patriarchal design through adaptable, safe and empowering spaces where women move, meet and belong.

27 Studio 4B

347

1 348

Architecture MSci

Step Inside the Tarmac Ride

Studio 4C

Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio, Rory James Sherlock

It’s easy to see the value of grand edifices and heroic architectural objects. They are held up as beacons of aspiration and quality for good reason. But this exceptionalism also keeps them at a remove from day-to-day life. They are, for the most part, untroubled by the lives of those who move through them or idolise them. Everyday spaces, however, although largely taken for granted, are no less interesting. For all that they are typically considered banal or unworthy, perhaps this is just an indication that they deserve to be treated with a little more care and intelligence. It is our belief that no corner of the city is undeserving of love or attention. Studio 4C looks deeply and recursively at the unconsidered and overlooked spaces that serve as the backdrop to everyday urban life. The starting point for our investigations this year was the Superloop bus route: an infrastructural network that is both peripheral and central, and that threads together many of the spaces of the city that frame the reality of normal, day-to-day existence. What links the sites identified by the students thereafter is their scale: whether a river, an archaeological site, a viaduct or an old railway line, all are large parts of the city in which infrastructure projects were once successfully built and then gradually abandoned. The design projects developed this year therefore confront the dormant but monumental objects of London’s arterial and intestinal flows, seeking to reclaim them through architecture. Students proposed their adaptation into places of possibility that critically reflect their spatial and social potential: by applying processes of anthropological observation, archaeological translation and architectural representation, and by maintaining an ambition to affect the contemporary city at a relevant scale. In doing so, they uncovered, investigated and demonstrated the latent value in parts of London that normally go unnoticed, and, we hope, salvaged a meaningful architecture of the everyday.

Year 4 Tabatha Crook, Charlie Hayles, Nikki Ifeobu-Zubis, Nan (Esther) Mei, Aiala Samula Lopez, Janssen Wong, Forrest Xie Technical tutor and consultant Nicholas Jewell

349

4 350

Architecture MSci

8 Studio 4C

351

11 352

12 Architecture MSci

14 Studio 4C

353

15 354

Architecture MSci

1, 15 Forrest Xie ‘Wavering, Wandering, Wandle’. This project examines the River Wandle’s decline from 4,000 years of human impact, advocating adaptive care and a culture of maintenance over top-down conservation to inspire change across the UK’s 2,200 river systems. 2–3 Nan (Esther) Mei ‘Residual Echoes: Rewiring the Lost Episode’. Tucked behind the Barbican, this project reactivates a layered urban site where the London Wall meets obsolete infrastructure. Transforming the disused Mail Rail into a heat network, it repositions heritage as an active force, where the past powers the present. 4 Janssen Wong ‘The Death and Life of Victorian Infrastructure’. As infrastructures outlive their original purpose, they risk deepening social divides if left unaddressed. Set in south-east London, this project proposes interventions along the Ridgeway centring on a radical retrofit of Plumstead Power Station into a mixed use bathhouse, office and public space. 5–8 Charlie Hayles ‘Fragmented Possibilities’. This project views heritage as a living practice. By building performance spaces directly on, around and within the mostly hidden sites of heritage on Shooter’s Hill, this project turns the act of heritage into a dance in and of itself. 9–10, 16–17 Aiala Samula Lopez ‘Driven to Rest’. This project proposes architectural infrastructure for private hire vehicle drivers to rest while working, addressing a transport sector that prioritises black cabs and overlooks gig workers. It explores how advocacy can be fostered through an infrastructure that mediates regulation and policy, company and employee, 11–12, 14 Nikki Ifeobu-Zubis ‘(Un)Developing’. This project reconfigures Thamesmead’s development by transforming Byron Close beneath the A2041 vehicle overpass into a civic common. Concrete sourced both on site and from a demolished estate is reclaimed, echoing an expanding Thamesmead’s material heritage. 13 Tabatha Crook ‘Subterranean Theatre’. The proposal repurposes an underutilised double-helix car park leased by Camden Council into a dynamic community theatre, showcasing literary works such as Barnaby Rudge to celebrate local history, unite the community and promote social justice through artistic expression.

17 Studio 4C

355

1 356

Architecture MSci

Placement in Practice and Research in Practice

Year 5

Module Coordinator: Dimitris Argyros

The final year of the MSci programme is a paid placement, and this year our Year 5 student cohort has undertaken their placements in excellent practices. These include Fletcher Priest Architects, Foster + Partners, Jamie Fobert Architects, Ian Chalk Architects, Morris+ Company, RSHP and Sybarite. Students have typically spent 75% of their time on the practice’s fee-billable design work, gaining valuable experience in real-life projects, while the remaining 25% has been spent investigating a design research topic that is to the benefit of the practice as well as their own research direction, as developed in the first four years of their studies. Architectural design research plays a significant role in addressing current challenges around global warming, social and economic inequality, and wider geopolitical uncertainties, and the MSci Placement in Practice and Research in Practice module has therefore been a unique opportunity for practices and students to carve out time to ask questions about the wider role and relevance of architecture and our built environment. Every student was allocated an MSci Academic Mentor from UCL and a Practice Mentor. Students worked closely with both mentors to identify a design research topic and to investigate this research proposal. Students typically liaised with their Practice Mentor once a week and met their Academic Mentors once a month. There were also joint tutorials once every term. We were pleased to host two exciting Open Studio events as well, where all the Practice Mentors, Academic Mentors and students attended cross-reviews, sparking excellent debate and discussion. The students have been working across a variety of research topics, including material research and technology, site historical research and contextual mapping, design typologies and strategies, and past practice project archiving. At the end of the academic year, students submitted a research paper, which included mixed media such as drawings, photographs and material samples, and also a practice portfolio that captured the design experience gained from their placements.

Year 5 Maria Paola Barreca, Hanna Eriksson Sodergren, Ismail Mir, Dominic Nunn, Toby Prest, Shuhan (Hansen) Wang, Anna Williams Academic tutors Finbar Charleson, Doron von Beider Practice tutors Nigel Bradbury, Ian Chalk, Tom Clark, Benjamin Koslowski, Yiki Liong, Jack Newton, David Storring Critics Nigel Bradbury, Andy Bryce, Ian Chalk, Murray Fraser, Will Jefferies, Benjamin Koslowski, Yiki Liong, Jack Newton, David Storring, Edward Whiteley, Morgan Williams Parnell

357

5 358

Architecture MSci

1 Maria Paola Barreca Working alongside Morris+Company, this research explores a holistic approach to sustainability in building product development by intersecting ecological design, craft and biodiversity through the medium of clay and community participation. Photo: Sophie Percival. 2 Shuhan (Hansen) Wang Partnering with RSHP, this research undertakes a cataloguing of past RSHP projects concentrating on public realm provision, with an aim of promoting a democratic and diverse densification model for the City of London. 3 Anna Williams In partnership with Foster + Partners, this research investigates the notion of authenticity within the new La Mer beach park development in Dubai, tracing historic and aerial maps and undertaking taxonomy of existing structures. 4 Dominic Nunn Together with Fletcher Priest Architects, this research asks broader questions about undertaking research in practice, looking at the mechanisms through which research is undertaken, the timescales involved and group dynamics. 5 Ismail Mir In collaboration with Sybarite, this project explores the evolving typology of the department store in the context of contemporary consumer culture and urbanism, investigating its transformation from a commercial to a hybrid civic and cultural space. 6 Toby Prest Partnering with Jamie Fobert Architects, this study traces stone’s journey from quarries to London landmarks like the British Museum and Tower of London, viewing collection rooms as artefacts and exploring how new proposals relate to these materials’ histories. 7 Hanna Eriksson Sodergren Working with Ian Chalk Architects, this research investigates Denmark Street, applying new methods of Post Occupancy Evaluation, including Public Life Studies that distil complex experiences and lessons learnt.

7 Year 5

359

Architecture MArch design reviews, 2025.

Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2)

Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Programme Directors: Matthew Butcher, Kostas Grigoriadis

At the core of Architecture MArch is the desire to promote an education that develops each student’s creative, imaginative and critical skills as a means to help them navigate and address the pressing challenges we face in our modern world. These challenges include the threats posed by climate change, the fundamental need to prioritise social justice, and the volatility of global financial markets. To support this emphasis on creativity, imagination and critical thinking, the course offers students unique insights into all aspects of architectural practice and discourse. Alongside fostering innovative and distinctive design skills, the course promotes the development of theoretical and historical thinking, as well as technological, environmental and professional understanding. Students are encouraged to recognise that these skill sets are not isolated from one another, but interconnected, each informing the other. This integrated approach helps them construct and refine their individual understandings of what architecture is – and what it can be. On completion of the Architecture MArch, students will receive both an MArch from UCL and ARB/RIBA Part 2 accreditation. At the heart of the programme, and forming the structure of our Advanced Architectural Design modules 1 and 2, is the pedagogic structure of the Design Unit. It is a model that allows first- and second-year students to be taught together and learn from one another in groups of 16 to 18, working under a specific topic or thematic framework. Each unit is led by two or three Design Unit tutors with expertise across a wide variety of specialisms that draw from experience in an academic setting and in practice. In the 2024–25 academic year, we offered 11 different units, reflecting a diverse range of agendas and approaches. These included units that explore architecture through the lens of innovative developments in materials and structures; those that engage with environmental issues through cultural, philosophical and humanities-based perspectives; and others investigating the impact of artificial intelligence on the way we design, build and inhabit buildings. The course is structured over two years. In the first year of study, alongside their Design Unit, students focus on a building proposal developed through the lens of the Design Realisation module, which, with the support of experienced Design Realisation tutors, tests their individual designs against professional, technical and environmental parameters. First-year students also take part in the Advanced Architectural Studies module, a key part of the History and Theory stream that is taught separately from the unit structure. Students work in seminar groups with dedicated and specialist seminar tutors, with each seminar group focusing on a different theme or area of architectural and design emphasis. 362

The second year of the MArch supports students in developing individual research agendas. These agendas often emerge from the investigations they undertake within their design work and Design Unit, forming the main component of the Advanced Architectural Design 2 module, and are further developed through the Thesis module, which enables focused research on a core aspect of their design. In this module, each student is supported by a specialist thesis tutor, allowing for in-depth exploration that may include technical, historical, theoretical, or interdisciplinary investigations across various facets of architecture. A major development we introduced this academic year is a strengthened focus on architecture’s responsibility to respond directly to the climate crisis. Specifically, we now require first-year students to critically engage with the embodied carbon of their individual design proposals. To support this, we have introduced an extensive new lecture series and carbon clinics within the Advanced Architectural Design 1 and Design Realisation modules, delivered across Terms 1 and 2. This requirement is now explicitly embedded within the learning outcomes of both modules. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all our Design Unit, Design Realisation, History and Theory, and Thesis teaching staff for their immense efforts in delivering the course. Without you, this programme would not be what it is. Special thanks also go to our Programme Administrator Kelly van Hecke, our Departmental Tutor Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani, and all our Postgraduate Teaching Assistants – Omar Abolnaga, Daijia Ke, Ana Mayoral Moratilla, Yichang Sun, Patricia Rodrigues Ferreira da Silva and Luke Marriot – whose dedication is fundamental to the smooth running and organisation of the course.

363

1 364

Architecture MArch

Naturecultures

PG11

Laura Allen, Mark Smout

‘There is no border where evolution ends and history begins … Instead, there are turtles upon turtles of naturecultures all the way down.’ 1 PG11 is a site of creative thinking where conceptual and pragmatic approaches to architectural design intersect with experimental and playful methods. This year, we continue to explore the intersections of land use and users, architectures, technologies, infrastructures and ecologies, navigating spatial and conceptual dimensions. The concept of ‘natureculture’, introduced by evolutionary biologist and cyborg scholar Donna Haraway, provided this year’s theme and framework. ‘Natureculture’ refers to the entangled histories and divides between nature and culture, as well as the interdependent needs of human and non-human entities. Haraway’s notion challenges the familiar separations – nature versus culture, and human versus non-human (among others). These long-standing dichotomies have underpinned Western scientific, technical, political and architectural thinking, creating distinct and enduring systems of knowledge. Haraway’s reconfiguration reveals alternative and forgotten material entanglements, suggesting that removing these boundaries requires a radical integration of disciplines such as art, design, architecture and science.2 Our brief presented three observations on Rome that expose the complexity of human/environmental relationships and serve as a provocation, and a physical, cultural and political context for our work. The Authentication of Time: Rome’s layered landscape of ruins, monuments and modern interventions defies Time. It is both elegant and decayed, sacred and irreverent. The city stores historic rubble – too meaningful to discard, yet too obsolete to reuse – revealing tensions between preservation and progress. How can architects engage with Rome’s material past without fetishising or discarding it? Unexpected Nature: Once a botanical pilgrimage site, the Colosseum hosted 420 plant species, seeded by ancient trade and spectacle. Rome’s landscape evolves through human and non-human forces. How can architecture reveal these hidden ecologies? Peripheries and Thresholds: Rome’s ancient and modern infrastructures link urban and agricultural zones. The Agro Romano’s corridors blur city and countryside, shaping borgate romane where nature and urbanisation collide. How can architecture navigate these shifting thresholds?

Year 4 Ana-Maria Cazan, Camille De Waele, Charlotte Henrich, Rohan Humphrey, Parin Nawachartkosit, Kacper Sehnke, Elise Wehowski, Nicole Zhao Year 5 Xintong Chen, Lavinia Fairlie, William Hodges, Lily Kerr, Jane Li, Sarah Nolan, Freya Parkinson, Wing Tin (Cyrus) Shek, Yuchen Wang, Ian Wille Technical tutor Jennifer Dyne Practice tutors David Kohn Architects, Stephen Foster Structural engineers Foster Structures, José Torero Cullen, Michael Woodrow Fire & Life Safe Design, UCL Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering Martha Voulakidou Environmental consultant Buro Happold Thesis supervisors Paul Dobraszczyk, Daisy Froud, Polly Gould, Jane Hall, Jan Kattein, Michael Stacey, Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton Critics Will Jefferies, CheeKit Lai, Guang Yu Ren, Jack Spencer

1. Donna Haraway, The Haraway Reader (London: Routledge, 2004). 2. Naturecultures, Radius Centre for Contemporary Art and Ecology, Delft, available at www.radius-cca.org/nl/exhibitions/naturecultures-chapter-2-the-glass-city [accessed 2 May 2025]. 365

3 366

Architecture MArch

4 PG11

367

6 368

Architecture MArch

8 PG11

369

10 370

Architecture MArch

12 PG11

371

372

Architecture MArch

17 PG11

373

20 374

Architecture MArch

1 Xintong Chen, Y5 ‘Teatro Teatrino’. Theorising a subversive speculative feminist theatre in Rome, within the ruins of Rome’s so-called Temple of Minerva Medica. 2 Nicole Zhao, Y4 ‘School for Living Ruins’. A proposal sited on the Baths of Titus that challenges conventional systems of heritage care. 3 Lavinia Fairlie, Y5 ‘Reviving the Hidden Confluence’. This project envisions a regenerative infrastructure where the Tiber and Aniene rivers meet, integrating architecture, ecology and water management to reframe the river as a vital cultural and ecological system. 4 William Hodges, Y5 ‘Licence for a (Likely) Lithopolis’. In the peripheries of Rome’s hinterlands lies a rich material environment of Italy’s travertine quarries; this project reimagines extractive legacies as material stewardship, terraforming abandoned sites into new-found urban archipelagos. 5 Charlotte Henrich, Y4 ‘Typha Tales of (Un)taming Swamps’. A carbon-positive pioneer project in the Italian Pontine Marshes for the healing of nature and humans alike. 6 Sarah Nolan, Y5 ‘Corviale’. A masterplan and plug-in proposal reimagining Rome’s Corviale housing megastructure, carving a new social infrastructure to extend its life while reconnecting it with the landscape and community. 7 Freya Parkinson, Y5 ‘Flora & Fantasy’. Reimagining the eternal city, the fourth Rome confronts climate change and overtourism by exploring the fetishisation of nature and proposing a return to an agriculture-based economy. 8 Wing Tin (Cyrus) Shek, Y5 ‘Mōns No.9: Plastic Paradigm’. This project envisions architecture as artificial nature, turning waste into systems and landscapes that reflect modern disposal habits and promote sustainable, closed-loop design solutions. 9 Parin Nawachartkosit, Y4 ‘The Apollo Complex’. Speculative fabulation transforms a derelict 1950s cinema into a polyfunctional platform – cinema, dance school and library – unfolding narratives within a complex site to develop a vocabulary for Rome’s evolving future. 10 Ana-Maria Cazan, Y4 ‘The Aqua Forum’. An exploration of Rome’s water heritage, which seeks to revive the River Tiber as a central, celebrated force in the city’s urban life. 11 Jane Li, Y5 ‘Palimpsest of Waste’. This project repositions synthetic waste as a spatial and cultural agent, transforming Mira Lanza into a waste-processing site that redefines plastic as infrastructure through reuse and production. 12 Yuchen Wang, Y5 ‘The Wedding of Casina’. A speculative design of flood ceremonies and urban myths. 13–14 Kacper Sehnke, Y4 ‘Reciprocal Palimpsest’. Speculative methodology digitally scripts new and repurposed stone pieces into novel forms, driven by parametric control inspired by classical Roman sculpture. 15–16 Ian Wille, Y5 ‘The Keyhole Society’. Amid bureaucratic inefficiencies, the project subtly engages with the rich architectural context of Rome. Using legal loopholes, the site becomes a testing and manufacturing ground for experimental architectures. 17 Elise Wehowski, Y4 ‘Ecologies of Healing’. A children’s wellbeing centre on Janiculum Hill transforms a disused amphitheatre into a timber-structured landscape of empathy, play and recovery. 18–19 Rohan Humphrey, Y4 ‘Time in Transit’. Speculating the reanimation and reimagination of lost monuments through staged transitions to revitalise Rome’s peripheries. 20 Camille De Waele, Y4 ‘Orto Urbano’. An alternative reuse project which positions domestic community-led agriculture at the heart of Rome’s derelict Flaminio Stadium. 21 Lily Kerr, Y5 ‘Atmosplay Grounds’. A tectonic system that integrates particulate matter filtration within pavilions, offering a spatial strategy for environmental remediation and enhanced public wellbeing. PG11

375

1 376

Architecture MArch

Corridors of Time: Corridors in Time and Space

PG12

Elizabeth Dow, Izabela Wieczorek ‘We can learn from novels that freely move backwards and forwards in time and between types of time. We can also conceive alternative architectural histories if we acknowledge the time frame of related disciplines, whether thousands of archaeological years or millions of geological ones. Assembled from materials of diverse ages, from the newly formed to those centuries or millions of years old – and incorporating varied states of transformation and decay, a building is a time machine.’ 1 Unit 12 has been travelling through time and space, with a stopover field trip to Madrid – a city known for its urban corridors. This year’s investigations have focused on the formation of buildings and cities around corridors, examining how the corridor – with all its layered meanings – can inform architectural potential and shape spatial experience. The corridor has the capacity to cross time and space, linking hours to days, rooms to buildings, weeks to years, neighbourhoods to cities, decades to centuries, regions to countries. The corridor is a witness, glimpsing and overhearing; and a conduit, offering a shortcut or a lengthy dérive, providing a temporary sanctuary or long-term escape. By reaching beyond conventional conceptions of the corridor as a linear experience, which mirror how time is similarly conventionally charted, the potential for spatial invention and surprise is enabled. The corridor is an instrument of modernity and, besides its prosaic meaning, it also has symbolic dimensions, reflecting political and social dynamics. The phrase ‘corridors of power’ – commonly associated with the seat of government and coined by C.P. Snow in 1964 – has acted as a timely prompt for the unit to re-examine the ‘power’ of the architect in a world of overstretched and inequitable resources. In response, the buildings designed in Unit 12 this year have challenged architectural and cultural preconceptions through unique and innovative programmes, unearthing exciting consequences and unexpected outcomes that are both relevant and wide-ranging.

Year 4 Luke Kotaro Bean, Amanda Carnovale, Pui Lam Chan, Ioana Enache, Maria Garrido Regalado, Luke Gifford, Juntao Liu, Zak Samak Year 5 Karolina Adamiec, Lillie Coxon, Jiahan (Ada) Ding, Gabriel Edyvean Heard, Hoi Long Lai, Jason Lai, Lok Leung, Eleanor Mettham, Jordan Panayi, Kun (Anna) Pang Technical tutors and consultants James Hampton, James Nevin Thesis supervisors Oliver Domeisen, Daniel Dream, Christophe Gerrard, Danielle Hewitt, Constance Lau, Guang Yu Ren, Vicky Richardson, Tania Sengupta, Tim Waterman, Oliver Wilton Critics Kirsty Badenoch, Sabina Blasiotti, Barbara-Ann CampbellLange, Giorgos Christofi, Penelope Haralambidou, Niki-Marie Jansson, Lesley Lokko, Kai McLaughlin, Rahesh Ram, Constance Lau, Arinjoy Sen, Tania Sengupta, David Shanks, Sayan Skandarajah, Dominic Walker, Gabriel Warshafsky, Michael Woodrow, Tianzhou Yang

1. Jonathan Hill, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Designs on History: The Architect as Physical Historian, ed. Jonathan Hill, Design Studio Series, Volume 3 (London: RIBA, 2021), pxvii. 377

3 378

Architecture MArch

5 PG12

379

8 380

Architecture MArch

10 PG12

381

13 382

Architecture MArch

15 PG12

383

17 384

18 Architecture MArch

21 PG12

385

23 386

Architecture MArch

1 Jordan Panayi, Y5 ‘Rural Assemblies: Discarded Landscapes, Discarded Cultures’. A speculative response to the ongoing colonisation, subjugation and marginalisation of inland Portuguese territories in light of a new contested land-use law. 2, 4 Kun (Anna) Pang, Y5 ‘The Museum of Liminality: (Mis)translations of House and Home’. A speculative proposal confronting hybridity’s erasure in official heritage by crafting a new spatial language woven from memory and silk. 3 Luke Gifford, Y4 ‘Grafting Abajo: A Surrealist’s Guide to Architectural Fiction’. A mental health care facility operating within a surrealist theatre. 5 Ioana Enache, Y4 ‘AETHER TERRA’. A sanctuary among shifting climates, where seeds sleep, adapt and await the future Spain. 6 Maria Garrido Regalado, Y4 ‘The Theatricality of Fire’. A speculative proposal in the heart of Madrid. A series of ritualistic spaces where fire is exhibited, reimagining safety and awareness within a dense, complex urban fabric. 7 Luke Kotaro Bean, Y4 ‘Memories of The Spanish Earth’. Rooted in the spirit captured within the documentary The Spanish Earth, the project reimagines the rural village of Fuentidueña reconnected with its environment and community. 8, 10 Gabriel Edyvean Heard, Y5 ‘Drawing from Delphi’. A site-obedient reinscription of Dodona, this project transposes Delphi’s sacred spatial strata through drawing-led enquiry, transhumanist typologies and hydro-social rituals within a landscape shaped by Vlach memory and temporal palimpsest. 9 Amanda Carnovale, Y4 ‘Performative Wool’. By exploring nose-to-tail construction using the by-products of sheep, this project develops self-sustaining architectural systems that support the migrations of nomadic shepherds in Spain. 11, 14 Hoi Long Lai, Y5 ‘Hong Kong’s Deathscapes’. A proposal that reimagines death through architectural interventions in Hong Kong’s urban landscape and integrates funeral spaces into the everyday. 12–13 Karolina Adamiec, Y5 ‘The Roundabout of Women’s Rights’. A speculative response addressing reproductive rights in Poland by connecting rural women with feminist discourse, without imposing ideological alignments. 15 Lok Yan Leung, Y5 ‘The Futurist Cookbook: Reimagining Smithfield Market’. Reimagining Smithfield Market as the capital of the cultured meat cuisine in London. 16 Juntao Liu, Y4 ‘Growing Memorial’. An unconventional memorial space on the site of the former Carabanchel Prison, preserving traces of a complex history while offering new cultural infrastructure for the local community. 17–18 Eleanor Mettham, Y5 ‘Spicula Rosarum’. A micromegalic ‘House for Alice’ sits in a state of metamorphosis, exploring an ornamental architecture able to alter our perception. 19, 21 Jason Lai, Y5 ‘A Memorandum of Tolerance: 2052 The City of New Londinium’. A design fiction reclaiming the Bourse as a shared space, offering hope for collective tolerance in a divided world. 20 Pui Lam Chan, Y4 ‘Cintrón’s Neo-Taurino Plaza’. A redevelopment of Plaza de Salvador Dalí exploring the duality of protesting and preserving Madrid’s bullfighting heritage. 22, 24 Jiahan (Ada) Ding, Y5 ‘Negotiating Borders: The Reindeer Consulate of Gifting’. A speculative consular architecture unfolds through gift-giving along the border river. 23, 25 Lillie Coxon, Y5 ‘The Unreliable Narrator: Truth Twisters and Truth Seekers’. A landscape to dispute intentional deception through alternative material and heritage temporalities.

25 PG12

387

1 388

Architecture MArch

Investigative Domain

PG14

Jakub Klaska, Dirk Krolikowski

The term ‘investigative domain’ refers to the in-depth research and the utilisation of findings that we use in PG14 to reveal the underlying, invisible systemic logic of architecture. Only by understanding the relationships and constituents of this whole system through intense experimentation can it become accessible and manipulable. The focus of this year’s work evolved around the intrinsic desire of the profession for systematic investigation: the architect’s exploratory, intellectual process of iterative learning through informed experiment, catalysed by potent discoveries and ultimately the search for an architectural application. Architects’ fundamental agency and core competencies enable them to anticipate the future as the result of the highest degree of synthesis of observed underlying principles, underpinned by strong research. Constructional logic, spatial innovation, typological organisation, and environmental and structural performance are all negotiated in a highly iterative process, driven by intense architectural investigation. Through the deep understanding of principles, we are able to generate highly developed architectural systems of unencountered intensity, where spatial organisation arises as a result of sets of mutual interactions. Observation, as well as re-examination of past and contemporary developments across civilisations, enables us to project near-future scenarios and position ourselves as avant-garde in the process of designing a comprehensive vision for what is forthcoming. PG14’s projects take shape as research-based, imaginative architectural visions, as buildings driven by speculation. Our methodology employs both bottom-up and top-down strategies in order to build up sophisticated architectural systems, tailored to a specific problem. Pivotal to this process and a key defence against charlatanism is the concept of practical experimentation – an intense exploration through digital and physical models that assess system performance by means of direct application to architectural space. The emphasis on applied research fuels the process of design, allowing us to develop considered architectural propositions with great momentum.

Year 4 Minh Quang (Dominik) Do, Archie Koe, Adam Lynes, Sam Martin, Aniko Nebozuk, Mohamed Yusuf Rafi, Jordan Wright, Wing Lai (Jason) Yip, Mateusz Zwijacz Year 5 Gyuhyeon Choi, Peter Garfath, Kieran Hayes, Hans Kei Kaeppeler, Leo Kauntz Moderini, Christopher Langford, William Pope Technical tutors and consultants Florian Gauss (knippershelbig), Ludka Majernikova (Klaska Ltd) Thesis supervisors Carolina Bartram, Peter Karl Becher, Peter Bishop, Fabio Freddi, Tim Lucas, Michael Stacey Critics Andrew Abdulezer, Dennis Austin, Andy Bow, Mikey Forward, Clive Lewis, Gilles Retsin, Patrik Schumacher, Harry Spraiter, Dan Wright Partners Arup, DKFS, Foster + Partners, knippershelbig, Klaska Ltd, Populous, RSHP, Seth Stein Architects, Zaha Hadid Architects

389

4 390

Architecture MArch

8 PG14

391

392

Architecture MArch

PG14

393

15 394

Architecture MArch

18 PG14

395

22 396

Architecture MArch

26 PG14

397

28 398

Architecture MArch

1, 3, 8, 18, 20 Peter Garfath, Y5 ‘Breakwater Axis’. A form-driven timber and concrete investigation materialised as a speculative extension to the Cape Town shipping port and wider harbour quarter. 2, 13, 16, 30 Mateusz Zwijacz, Y4 ‘Nobody Wants the Olympics’. A Winter Olympics opening ceremony stadium is redeveloped into a festival site in the Tatra Mountains, Poland. 4, 7, 9–10 Kieran Hayes, Y5 ‘The Docklands Gateway’. Exploring novel fabrication methods using laminated timber for a river transport terminal in Canary Wharf. 5 Minh Quang (Dominik) Do, Y4 ‘Trnava Civic Sports Hall’. Civic hub integrating sport and culture rooted in local material reuse built on the legacy of the Sokol movement. 6, 11–12 Archie Koe, Y4 ‘The Hypær Derby’. A horse racing stadium with a central paddock and an outer racetrack: betting inside, racing outside. 14 Sam Martin, Y4 ‘The Court of Data Ethics’. A new Cambridge college dedicated to debate, research and data ethics, rooted in the growing role of AI within the educational domain. 15 Leo Kauntz Moderini, Y5 ‘Alpine Fusion’. A nuclear power plant, town hall and spa in the Italian Alps. 17, 24 Mohamed Yusuf Rafi, Y4 ‘Ihya Yacht Construction Hub’. A yacht construction hub and souq that revives the forgotten maritime heritage of Saudi Arabia. 19, 23 Wing Lai (Jason) Yip, Y4 ‘The Worship of Fighting’. A vernacular bamboo tectonic martial arts arena in Hong Kong, rooted in bundling principles and traditional Chinese timber construction. 21–22 Adam Lynes, Y4 ‘CRIT HQ’. Headquarters for the Colorado River Tribes in Arizona, consisting of legal chambers and an economic development centre for trading water rights. 25–26 Gyuhyeon Choi, Y5 ‘Hangang Inflorescence’. A pavilion archipelago reinterprets traditional Korean timber framing as civic infrastructure, bridging Seoul’s spatial divide along the Han River. 27 Aniko Nebozuk, Y4 ‘Spray Lakes Mountain Rescue Base’. A centralised rescue base for mountain, fire and avalanche services accommodates public learning and relaxation in the Canadian backcountry. 28 Christopher Langford, Y5 ‘Zürich Schwingen Stadion’. A pioneering permanent complex dedicated to the alpine sport of Swiss wrestling, embodying its cultural heritage and national identity within a contemporary setting. 29 William Pope, Y5 ‘London City Freeport’. The site of London City Airport is redeveloped and expanded into a special economic industrial district with integrated residential and civic typologies.

30 PG14

399

1 400

Architecture MArch

Archipelagos: Forms of Architecture, Relationality and Practice Beyond Extraction

PG16

Brendon Carlin, James Kwang Ho Chung, María Páez González ‘Politics is not made up of power relations; it’s made of relations among worlds.’ Jacques Rancière1 The first year of this new iteration of PG16 looked at how architecture might move beyond subservience to the ‘projects’ of state and corporate patrons, and instead think with of ‘archipelago’ as a heuristic figure of future possibility. Archipelagos – clusters of islands separated by the very things that connect them – have long served as critical nodes in imperial and colonial networks. Today, they remain sites of layered entanglements between politics, ecology, culture and cosmology, and have become flashpoints where technopolitical assimilation is contested, and multispecies communities experiment with new ways of perceiving, relating, knowing and building. From this vantage point, we ask: Can architecture occur beyond dominant ontologies of technopolitics and extractivism? If so, how might it amplify commoning and support alternative ways of knowing, owning, governing and stewarding land and resources? By what means, and at what scales? These questions shaped the studio’s work across diverse island geographies – the Canary Islands, the British Isles, Bermuda, Indonesia and Taiwan. Students engaged with concerns such as water sovereignty, littoral commoning, ritual practices, conviviality and cultural heritage. Projects ranged from the rehabitation of ancestral shorelines in the Canaries, to making space for Gombey dancers who joyfully reclaim public space in Bermuda, to examining data and quantum infrastructures tied to protectionist agendas and visions of future sovereignty in the British Isles. Across these interventions, we worked with the archipelago not as metaphor, but as method. Through this approach, architecture can no longer sustain its status as an uprooted object, but becomes a contingent process shaped by material, ecological and cultural relations. As the students’ work shows, what is at stake in these experiments is architecture’s capacity to amplify situated knowledges and ‘doings’ – indigenous ontologies, festive occupations, ritual negotiations and ecological repair – while exploring how the infrastructures of late capitalism might become platforms for cultural hybridisation, for the co-existence and tension of multiple ontologies and epistemologies, and, ultimately, for the survival of multispecies life – and the creation of more joyful, meaningful worlds.

Year 4 Lorenzo Angoli, Gregory Brookhouse, Park Jin Chan, Hei Ching (Eunice) Cheung, Sum Ho (Angus) Hong, Sami Kassim, Natalia Michalowska Year 5 Finlay Aitken, Patricia Bob, Shou-Hui Chen, Kayley Gibbons, Tristan Hubbard, Zuzanna Rostocka, Seyedeh Rana Tabatabaie, Jiawei Yao, Kai Yi (Kelvin) Zhang Technical tutors and consultants James Mak, Jongwon Na, George Ramsay Thesis supervisors Paul Dobraszczyk, Jane Hall, Sean Hanna, Lakshmi Priya Rajendran, Vicky Richardson, Tim Waterman Critics Tomiris Batalova, Matthew Butcher, Cyan Cheng, Maria Fedorchenko, Ludvig Holmen, Tanuj Kohli, Rai Leironghua, James Mak, Valerio Massaro, Tyen Masten, Mpho Matsipa, Inigo Minns, Jongwon Na, Olivia Neves Marra, Davide Sacconi, Isabella Synek Herd, Giles Tettey Nartey Partner OF Architecture

1. Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1999). 401

402

Architecture MArch

9 PG16

403

13 404

Architecture MArch

17 PG16

405

406

Architecture MArch

24 PG16

407

28 408

Architecture MArch

32 PG16

409

34 410

Architecture MArch

1, 25, 26, 33 Jiawei Yao, Y5 ‘Sacred Highway’. Making room for traditional Tibetan rituals amid the state infrastructure of the Amne Machen Mountains. 2, 4 Kayley Gibbons, Y5 ‘Dancing Over the Line’. Exploring contemporary cultural expression, identity-making and architecture in post-colonial Bermuda. 3, 5 Park Jin Chan, Y4 ‘Litoral Liminality’. Blurring coastal boundaries through spatial hybridity, seasonal rhythms and community stewardship on the northern coast of Gran Canaria. 6, 7 Sum Ho (Angus) Hong, Y4 ‘Bathing with the River Wandle’. Challenging the atomisation of bathing practices as a biopolitical tool to induce isolation and containment, and the ensuing taboos surrounding nudity. 8, 9 Lorenzo Angoli, Y4 ‘Enarenado Institute, La Geria, Lanzarote’. An agricultural architectural type supporting the cultural and agricultural resilience of Lanzarote’s volcanic landscape. 10–11 Shou-Hui Chen, Y5 ‘From Artillery to Architecture’. Investigating the misuse of post-war infrastructure on the liminal island of Kinmen. 12–13 Gregory Brookhouse, Y4 ‘Boat Racing Stadium Longhouse’. A hybrid infrastructure in Dadahub, Central Kalimantan. 14, 16 Sami Kassim, Y4 ‘Mobilising the Malpais’. Thinking against metabolic rifts and political infrastructures in the wake of the 2021 Tajogaite eruption. 15, 17, 35–36 Finlay Aitken, Y5 ‘To the Lowest Stone on the Shore’. Commoning Shetland fisheries. 18, 20 Seyedeh Rana Tabatabaie, Y5 ‘Potato Architecture’. Ontologies of seeding, planting and eating – from the Andes to Kent. 19, 21–23 Kai Yi (Kelvin) Zhang, Y5 ‘Quantum Dilemma’. Reimagining the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) as a campus that both portrays and contains technology’s inherent contradictions and pastoral tensions. 24 Tristan Hubbard, Y5 ‘St Levan’s Data Bounds Beating’. Situated interventions along the St Levan parish boundary as ambiguous spaces for multiple functional uses, participation and mythopoetic territorialisation. 27–28, 34 Natalia Michalowska, Y4 ‘Common Sweet, Common Salty’. A water canal as a stage for communal practices of maintenance, ritual, enjoyment and water stewardship. 29, 30 Hei Ching (Eunice) Cheung, Y5 ‘Living Where Others Pass’. Support facilities for the Virgen del Pino Romería pilgrimage in Gran Canaria. 31, 32 Zuzanna Rostocka, Y5 ‘The Phantom Island’. Mythology, folklore, protest and ritual as means of protecting the common octopus kin.

36 PG16

411

1 412

Architecture MArch

Chronotope

PG17

Tamsin Hanke, Yeoryia Manolopoulou

Architecture is found in the unity of building and way of life. When a building fails to connect with life, it risks losing its significance. PG17 is interested in the immediacy of architecture – the building as chronotope, from chronos: ‘time’ and topos: ‘place’. To experience an embodied and immediate chronotope involves circumstance, atmosphere, intimacy and social possibility, all grounded by the relative permanence of the building. We question the commodified trends of hyper-realistic visualisations that dominate architectural production today and the pervasive role of the architect as mere image-maker. Approaching digital ‘world-building’ with a healthy scepticism, we turn to the tacit power of the thinking hand, pursuing forms of practice grounded in direct experience. Making and craft are not limited to the handmade; this is why we develop iterative and experimental processes with multiple tools and technologies, including computation. In PG17, we look at how environments of innovation emerge within groups of people. As well as developing individual projects, we encourage the students to support and challenge each other through collaboration, expanding the possible scale and breadth of their work. We started the year with an architectural ‘score’, moving from individual design responses to given prompts, to collaborations in pairs, then larger iterations within four groups, culminating in the entire unit working as a collective. Just as a music score can mediate between composer and performer to allow improvisation, our drawing notations became a medium through which all student voices converged, enabling collective spatial constructions. We learned from the buildings of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto and the design cultures of Finland, before returning to London to develop individual projects on contrasting sites around Deptford High Street, the River Lea in Clapton, Abbey Wood, and Murphy’s Yard in Kentish Town, with an emphasis on studying margins. Margins mark borders between conceptual, material and cultural entities, and refer to minor conditions, leftovers and fringes outside the mainstream. These site-specific proposals made manifest approaches to practice that seek to influence how architecture is defined beyond the boundaries of the university.

Year 4 Orla Buck, Chuhan (Paris) Feng, Camilla Ludwig, Alon Shahar, Adam Stoddart, Lauris Svarups, Supawut Teerawatanachai Year 5 Andia Chan, Peter Holmes, Richard Kirk, Ying Tung Ng, Eleanor Pavier, Konrad Pawlaczyk, Amy Peacock, Zekun Tong, Adrian-Daniel Truta, Giacomo Vinti Design realisation tutor James Daykin Environmental engineer Anna Bardos (Max Fordham) Structural engineer Sophia McCracken (McCracken Consult) Crafting composition workshop Sonia Magdziarz Photography workshop Joe Johnson Thesis supervisors Edwina Attlee, Paul Bavister, Peter Bishop, Paul Dobraszczyk, Daniel Dream, Daisy Froud, Tim Lucas, Guang Yu Ren, Oliver Wilton Critics Thomas Aquilina, Kirsty Badenoch, Matthew Butcher, Hannah Corlett, James Daykin, Colin Herperger, Madhav Kidao, Anna Liu, Emma-Kate Matthews, Alex Pillen, Javier Ruiz Rodriguez, Elliot Rogosin, Michiko Sumi, Michael Tite, Victoria Watson Partner B-made

413

414

Architecture MArch

6 PG17

415

8 416

Architecture MArch

10 PG17

417

12 418

Architecture MArch

17 PG17

419

19 420

Architecture MArch

21 PG17

421

23 422

Architecture MArch

1 Ying Tung Ng, Y5 ‘Refracture: Constructing through Deconstruction’. An alternative approach to urban heritage reimagining deconstruction as an act of construction. 2–5 Adam Stoddart, Y4 ‘As Below, So Above’. By upcycling a concrete hardstanding that conceals East London Waterworks’ layered past, a new public park shaped by material memory and ecological recovery is proposed. 6 Chuhan (Paris) Feng, Y4 ‘Sited-Siteless, Building as a Filter’. A proposed theatre acts as an environmental filter – modulating light, sound and movement – shifting between presence and autonomy. 7 Eleanor Pavier, Y5 ’15 Electric Yard’. This project challenges ultra-processed foods through a culinary school, library and market that support local businesses, encourage home cooking and celebrate Brixton’s rich cultural diversity. 8 Amy Peacock, Y5 ‘Human Landscapes’. A project exploring the construction of landscapes by human and geological processes through the redevelopment of a golf course into an accessible park. 9–10 Peter Holmes, Y5 ‘Another’s Yard’. A scored masterplan for housing on the site of an existing builder’s yard acknowledges the inevitable co-authorship of design, while considering what we are willing to live alongside. 11 Orla Buck, Y4 ‘Mere Matters’. Reclaiming Southmere Lake’s edge, the project combines land, water and memory in an evolving civic-ecological commons through an adaptable, low-impact infrastructure. 12 Camilla Ludwig, Y4 ‘About Elephants and Frogs’. Situated on the contested ground of Lesnes Estate, the project deploys a biologically inspired strategy that reconfigures housing as a cellular system capable of adaptation, regeneration and resistance. 13–17 Richard Kirk, Y5 ‘The Scored Vessels’. Through a field-based methodology, wheel-thrown ceramics capture the imperfect qualities of the thinking hand, replicated in the production of queer space through a transgressive coupling of subject and object. 18 Zekun Tong, Y5 ‘Unpack Remade Matters’. This project unpacks a leftover structure, transforming it into a material recirculation hub and community library with a promenade of remade wonders. 19 Konrad Pawlaczyk, Y5 ‘Gaia Becomes Landlord’. This NHS staff facility and therapeutic garden supports both humans and wildlife. The building incorporates butterfly habitats and natural materials, creating a space shared equally between people and nature. 20 Alon Shahar, Y4 ‘Quiet Resolution’. Through play and brickwork, the project explores the tensions of family justice and proposes a gentle alternative to the adversarial model of the traditional court. 21 Lauris Svarups, Y4 ‘Walls that Talk’. Rising from salvaged brick and concrete rubble, this project reclaims overlooked materials, creating layered, inhabitable walls in a choreographed act of architectural archaeology. 22 Andia Chan, Y5 ‘A Storied Urban’. Automatic making is used to operate between the dominant building and insignificant body, drawing out new forms of cultural expression within an increasingly fixed urban architecture. 23 Supawut Teerawatanachai, Y4 ‘First in Time’. An alternative starting point for a 16-acre masterplan in Kentish Town. A garden wall becomes an architectural scaffold that conjures dialogue, invites friction and embraces incremental change. 24 Giacomo Vinti, Y5 ‘Therapy in Light’. Harnessing the power of light, a phototherapeutic atrium realigns disrupted circadian rhythms and insomnia by using natural light. 25 Adrian-Daniel Truta, Y5 ‘Solitude’. Running from the chaos of London’s streets, two brick volumes dance to the rhythm of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, carrying a quiet desire to belong. PG17

423

1 424

Architecture MArch

Money Urbana

PG18

Isaie Bloch, Ricardo de Ostos, Samuel Esses

At university, many profess a disdain for money, only to spend a significant portion of their later lives pursuing it. Words like capitalism, wealth and banking often carry a sense of unease or even a moral taint. Yet money, with all its contradictions, is woven into the fabric of the architectural profession. From ancient temples and churches funded by wealthy patrons to modern stadiums, city sponsorships and luxury residences bankrolled by foreign capital, the influence of money is inescapable. The paradoxes around money, its origins and power are everywhere in the individual, cultural and urban sphere. This year, PG18 examined how money and patronage forge complex relationships within architectural projects. The year began with the design of a vault, where students explored concepts of value, storage and display. Readings of Pascal Bruckner’s The Wisdom of Money (2017) provided a theoretical framework, helping students to consider tensions between global capital, local culture, ecological responsibility and immaterial value within their design strategies. Context is key to understanding how form and idea meet traditions of materiality, ritual and typology. The unit’s field trip to Marrakesh gave students the chance to observe how colonial legacies and contemporary commerce shape a city. The city palaces, gardens and marketplaces offered a distinct take on private ownership, as well as intangible heritage. Shadowing a colossal Moroccan energy project designed to supply solar power to the UK, Oliver Penny used speculative design to critique and describe how energy-driven greed shapes cities. Through infrastructure and urban provocation, his mega-monolithic towers – housing media and trading floors – interrogate the cost of going green. At a smaller scale, Ilinca Stanescu explored spolia in her project ‘Memories of Rubble’ to address memory and aid in earthquake scenarios. With exquisite drawings and models, the scheme shows a rich organisation of materials, histories and spaces of support. Meanwhile, Adnan Demachkieh’s project connected public space and symbolic ecology, proposing how tourist products might function as ecological accelerators. Bridging academic inquiry and practice, this year’s brief invited students to reflect on the economics of architecture through narrative and contextual provocations.

Year 4 Sophia Adderley, Nazar Bohoslovets, Scarlet Fernandes, Cristian Francioso, Ina Ioan, Mikaella Konia, Yutong (Sabrina) Li, Oliver Penny, Ilinca Stanescu, Nathan Verrier Year 5 Adnan Demachkieh, Erica Hawking, Ik Hui Lam, Omar Latif, Yi Heng (Zero) Lim, Ioana Petre, Jordan Stulich Technical tutors and consultants Robert Haworth, Nick Ling, Ioannis Rizos Thesis supervisors Peter Bishop, Camillo Boano, Paul Dobraszczyk, Stephen Gage, Stelios Giamarelos, Guang Yu Ren, Michael Stacey Critics Matthew Butcher, Peter Cook, Jonathan Dawes, Kostas Grigoriadis, Man Jia, Rik Kostar, C.J. Lim, Jack Moreton, Rory Noble-Turner, Elena Pascolo, Yael Reisner, Nathan Su, Pablo Wheldon, Nicholas Zembashi

425

4 426

Architecture MArch

6 PG18

427

9 428

Architecture MArch

11 PG18

429

13 430

Architecture MArch

16 PG18

431

19 432

Architecture MArch

21 PG18

433

22 434

Architecture MArch

1 Oliver Penny, Y4 ‘Moral Monoliths’. Towers form a new border around Marrakesh, powering the UK with renewable energy from Western Sahara and provoking reflection on the ethics of consumption. 2, 5 Ina Ioan, Y4 ‘Feline Fables and Stray Stories’. The project proposes a storytelling space where recycled market materials, roaming cats and shifting fabrics weave a living narrative between the real and the imagined. 3, 21 Ik Hui Lam, Y5 ‘Staging Authenticity’. Examining Marrakesh’s rapid urban development, the project proposes a hybrid cultural institution, reimagining the traditional riad as a space for learning, reflection and exploring heritage within a commodified urban landscape. 4 Mikaella Konia, Y4 ‘Reviving Morocco’s Metal Craftsmanship’. The project revitalises Moroccan metal craftsmanship with a workshop that unites artisans and marketgoers, creating a space for learning, making and sustaining tradition through community engagement. 6 Jordan Stulich, Y5 ‘Neo-Monuments’. Three monumental structures punctuate Marrakesh’s Medina, embodying Morocco’s monarchical power. Their imposing forms serve as provocations, extravagant symbols of autocracy set against the country’s stark sociopolitical realities. 7 Nathan Verrier, Y4 ‘(In)Tangible Stages’. This project creates a series of performance spaces – ritual, public, formal – connecting divergent cultural expressions and grounding them in the spatial heritage of Jemaa el-Fna. 8 Omar Latif, Y5 ‘Excavating Resonance’. An institute in Marrakesh exploring Amazigh identity through embedded materials, spatial storytelling and an architecture shaped by local landscapes and linguistic tradition. 9 Erica Hawking, Y5 ‘The Microcosm of Emancipation’. This project plays with the ideas of revealing and concealing to propose a district for women seeking emancipation which embraces traditional artisan crafts. 10–11 Adnan Demachkieh, Y5 ‘Rooted in Bitter Grounds’. The project reimagines the exploitative argan oil industry through a women-led museum in Marrakesh. 12, 14–15 Sabrina Li, Y4 ‘Reconciling Opposing Perspectives’. The project proposes a research and conference space where science and religion co-exist, exploring tensions through materiality, light, framed perspectives and in-between spaces. 13 Cristian Francioso, Y4 ‘A Poetic Narrative on Displacement’. Rooted in literary and ritual traditions, this project reimagines Marrakesh’s Lazama Synagogue as a living Geniza. 16 Nazar Bohoslovets, Y4 ‘Echoes of Jemaa el-Fnaa’. Located beneath Jemaa el-Fnaa’s vibrant chaos, the project excavates a sunken venue to revive Marrakesh’s oral traditions. 17 Ioana Petre, Y5 ‘Marrakesh Financial District’. A new financial hub offers consultation, education and funding. Its architecture draws from digital reinterpretations of Amazigh granaries, blending heritage with innovation. 18–19 Sophia Adderley, Y4 ‘Poly-Culture’. The project reintroduces agriculture into the Medina, preserving Morocco’s bio-cultural heritage through living rituals of cultivation, research and consumption. 20 Scarlet Fernandes, Y4 ‘The Orange Pitch’. An orangeinspired football facility blending Moroccan culture, scent and geometry celebrates hospitality and utilises temporary materials for the 2030 World Cup. 22 Yi Heng (Zero) Lim, Y5 ‘Zillīj wa H.ikāya: Tile and Tale’. A cultural development, comprising the Museum of Memento, the Halka Institution and the Souk of Storytelling, forms a closed-loop economic model that sustains and circulates cultural wealth. 23–24 Ilinca Stanescu, Y4 ‘Memories of the Rubble’. The project is a vessel for healing, where ruins are reassembled with care. Each stone carries memory, as the building safeguards lives, stories and histories. PG18

435

1 436

MArch Architecture

The City as a Jungle

PG20

Marjan Colletti, Tony Le, Javier Ruiz

PG20 is a forward-thinking unit that champions individual agency while upholding collective values. By redefining architecture through dynamic, time-based systems, we adopt design processes that anticipate ongoing transformations in forms, spaces and events. This innovative approach creates 4D scenarios using advanced computational tools and contemporary technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML). Favouring simulation over traditional methods, we explore architecture’s past, present and future in technological, biological and cultural contexts – making the programme accessible to everyone, regardless of prior expertise. Our unit reimagines urban life through a natural lens, envisioning vibrant and sustainable cities driven by resilient architecture that adapts, evolves and thrives under environmental, social or economic pressures – where urbanisation harmonises with the natural world. During the past academic year, PG20 launched the project ‘The City as a Jungle’, challenging students to explore intersections between urban and natural environments. This initiative sparked creative thinking, encouraging students to draw parallels between cityscapes and jungle ecosystems. Cities were reimagined as dynamic, living systems, fostering harmony between architecture, nature, and human and non-human activities. The project recognised cities as dense environments where every element plays a crucial role. Instead of strict regulations, students developed design strategies that allowed for organic growth and development, avoiding excessive control or chaos. Inspired by the organic flow of jungles, these innovative urban designs seamlessly blended regulation and natural growth. The resulting projects emphasise sustainable construction methods, incorporating timber with prefabrication and 3D printing. This hybrid approach recognised the potential of additive manufacturing and timber’s eco-friendliness to revolutionise urban design. Students explored the integration of natural forms and materials, the development of green infrastructure and the creation of interconnected spaces, prioritising energy efficiency and waste reduction. Emphasising community engagement, cultural diversity and equitable access to nature, a field trip to Madeira, Portugal, offered inspiration through the island’s sustainable practices and breathtaking beauty.

Year 4 Hoi Yan (Evan) Cheng, Gabriela Esguevillas, Magdalena Herman, Evgeniya Kulakova, Reece Murray, Daniella Nicolaides, Zahra Parhizi Year 5 Chris Baker, Ben Carpenter, Tania Farcas, Edward Garton, Jina Gheini, Bodhi Horton, Yuto Ikeda, Rebecca Radu, Yue (Alexa) Wu, Antonio Chan Tou Yang Design realisation practice tutor David Edwards Technical tutors Tom Clewlow (Arup), Jeovana Naidoo (Atelier Ten), Michael Woodrow Thesis supervisors Hector AltamiranoMedina, Alessandro Ayuso, Oliver Domeisen, Christophe Gérard, Sean Hanna, Luke Lowings, Abel Maciel, Anna Mavrogianni, Rokia Raslan Critics Jade Bailey, Andy Bow, David Edwards, Oliver Thomas Hamedinger, Colin Herperger, Alexandra Lacatusu, Luke Marriot

437

3 438

MArch Architecture

PG20

439

5 440

MArch Architecture

8 PG20

441

12 442

MArch Architecture

14 PG20

443

16 444

MArch Architecture

PG20

445

17 446

MArch Architecture

1 Ben Carpenter, Y5 ‘Anthropogenic Islands’. A metabolic architecture for coastal repair in Manila Bay, Philippines. 2 Antonio Chan Tou Yang, Y5 ‘Hydro-Net’. Reimagining New York City with a decentralised urban infrastructure for a flooded future. 3 Edward Garton, Y5 ‘The Myco-Nexus’. A symbiotic city grown from fungal logic where urban infrastructure mimics mycorrhizal networks, transforming Singapore into a living, evolving jungle. 4 Zahra Parhizi, Y4 ‘Hydro Weave’. Weaving hydrological intelligence into the suburban fabric, this project fuses architecture and ecology to create a flood-resilient typology where water mediates the natural and built environment. 5 Yue (Alexa) Wu, Y5 ‘Algorhizome’. A stratified urban system in Shekou, where mineral accretion and algal infrastructures generate photosynthetic towers as a living, adaptive vertical ecology. 6 Magdalena Herman, Y4 ‘Ceramic Ecologies’. A project which fosters interwoven living, and layered, adaptive ecosystems, addressing complex issues of water scarcity in isolated communities in the cliffs of Madeira. 7 Daniella Nicolaides, Y4 ‘Host & Invader’. Invading the Leadenhall Tower, a parasitic infrastructure threads itself through the old frame, metabolising its mass into a responsive residential organism. 8 Rebecca Radu, Y5 ‘Layered Identities’. A reinterpretation of Romanian masks and masked traditions as adaptive architectural skins, challenging rigid socialist housing through material intelligence, cultural memory and communal spatial renewal. 9 Hoi Yan (Evan) Cheng, Y4 ‘Choreographic Seascape’. Envisioning a metabolised fish market at Barking Riverside, where food commerce, waste ecologies and urban life intertwine in cyclical flux. 10 Gabriela Esguevillas, Y4 ‘Tree Homes’. Regenerative rural homes for the elderly located in the hillside of Madeira. 11 Evgeniya Kulakova, Y4 ‘Flatline Colony’. A selfcontained spa absorbing luxury tourism through layered spaces and a metabolic purification system, using diffusion-based logic to manage privilege, resource flow and ecological stability. 12 Jina Gheini, Y5 ‘Thermopolis’. A network of terracotta pods deployed across Madrid, offering a thermal refuge in response to intensifying urban heat. 13 Reece Murray, Y4 ‘The Dissenters’ Necropolis’. A speculative proposal in Kensal Green for a regenerative cemetery, addressing the overpopulation of Greater London’s graveyards. 14 Yuto Ikeda, Y5 ‘To Forge a Mountain’. Biophilic megastructures redistribute Tokyo’s urban density into ecological heterogeneity, using ML to enable adaptive design for continuous urban regeneration. 15 Bodhi Horton, Y5 ‘Sequester City’. A speculative London transformed by pollution into an uninhabitable dystopia, restored by city-scale clay bioremediation towers retrofitted onto abandoned structures, improving air quality and fostering vertical jungles. 16 Tania Farcas, Y5 ‘A Metamorphosing Parliament’. A temporary parliament built on Royal Victoria Dock uses inflatable bacterial cellulose composites, serving as a manifesto for what governments should embody. 17 Chris Baker, Y5 ‘In Speculo Maris: In the Mirror of the Sea’. A speculative design process using animated capriccios and film-making, set within the fictional city of Atlantis as the narrative framework for a film within a film.

PG20

447

1 448

Architecture MArch

Multimodal

PG21

Abigail Ashton, Tom Holberton, Andrew Porter

Year 4 Rawan Alwahaibi, Yun (Ella) Hong, Jesse Parkinson, Simon Rosbach, Mateo Rossi Rolando, Luke Ryuichi Saito Koper, William Tindall Year 5 Ye Ha Kim, Harrison Maddox, Hau To (Charmaine) Tang, Xavier Thanki, Wei-Tse Wang Technical tutor and consultant Tom Holberton

3 450

Architecture MArch

5 PG21

451

7 452

Architecture MArch

PG21

453

9 454

Architecture MArch

13 PG21

455

15 456

Architecture MArch

17 PG21

457

19 458

Architecture MArch

1, 8, 17 Hau To (Charmaine) Tang, Y5 ‘Fluidscapes: Speculative Landscapes from Probabilistic Painting’. The project harnesses machine vision’s probabilistic interpretations of abstract paint strokes to generate speculative landscapes. 2–3, 15 Wei-Tse Wang, Y5 ‘The Dripworks’. Set in Yangmingshan’s volcanic terrain, this project blends geothermal energy and culture, using weather data and game engine simulations to shape a sustainable, site-specific design. 4 Mateo Rossi Rolando, Y4 ‘SchinkelSuperlativ’. A critical and creative response to the Berlin Bauakademie’s motto of ‘As much Schinkel as possible’. 5 Simon Rosbach, Y4 ‘Choreomata’. A speculative intervention where motion-tracked choreography informs architecture – blurring boundaries between artist, artwork and observer. 6, 16 William Tindall, Y4 ‘Exploring Analogue Resolution’. A new vision for Tempelhof Field is developed through speculative drawing as the site is pushed and pulled within a hybrid methodology. 7 Harrison Maddox, Y5 ‘Tacheles Pleasure Platz’. Exploring non-normative architecture through selfreferential machine learning (ML) and SOM-driven refusal. 9 Ye Ha Kim, Y5 ‘Bio/DATA Monolith’. The project transforms the World War II-era Humboldthain Flak Tower in Berlin into a visionary hybrid of digital infrastructure, ecological renewal and cultural memory. 10 Yun (Ella) Hong, Y4 ‘BLUR-GERBEGEHREN’. Exploring the concept of blur to design a civic landscape in Kreuzberg, Berlin, where political engagement is intersected by spatial ambiguity. 11 Luke Ryuichi Saito Koper, Y4 ‘Monomodal Assemblies’. A performative intervention of mobile fragments that ‘converge’ and ‘disperse’ within the invisible field of the former Berlin-Staaken airfield. 12–13 Jesse Parkinson, Y4 ‘Eavesdropper’. This project explores architecture derived through encrypting geometry, resulting in an archive of espionage and recovered memory. 14, 18–20 Xavier Thanki, Y5 ‘Text2Forest’. The project uses ML to translate text-based weather prompts into tree geometries to plant a forest. It embraces the indeterminacy of generated trees, redistributing creative agency across architect, environment and algorithm in a responsive forestry process.

PG21

459

1 460

Architecture MArch

Living Ceramics/ Living Cities

PG22

Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Daniel Ovalle Costal

Most of our cities have lost their connection with nature – in their soil, air and boundaries. Moreover, they have lost their compactness and now constitute complex archipelagos. In this context, reframing ceramics as containers for life, as well as the literal building blocks of our cities, can unlock a critical reimagining of the role of nature and biodiversity in urban environments. This brief aims to challenge some ideas of rewilding that present a futuristic pastoral in which low-density settlements sit like ‘raisins’ within the ‘cake’ of nature. Instead, PG22 has been thinking about how urban vibrancy, quality of life and high density can incorporate biodiversity corridors, abundant habitats for local fauna and flora, and nature-rich waterfronts. Nature and city can instead be conceptualised as tight networks that interface, overlap and often interweave to support and enrich both human and non-human life. Rewilding is widely understood as a process of restoring past ecosystemic balance, seeking to return land to a pre-human state, restoring natural processes and providing a habitat for a wide range of indigenous flora and fauna. As a result, rewilding is often defined as a backward-looking action. Rewilding our cities is essential for the well-being of their populations, but it should be framed as a forward-looking action that requires creative, collective and participatory work, following principles of environmental justice. This year, PG22 was invited to unlock a critical rethink of the role of nature and biodiversity in urban environments through a reconsideration of ceramics. Ceramics have accompanied humankind for millennia. Their base material, shaping and firing techniques give them a wide range of physical characteristics, creating objects as different as China tea sets and brick domes. Critically, they have historically been excellent containers for life, used to store food, flowers, plants and animals. PG22 travelled to Tangier and Tétouan, in Morocco, to explore the role of ceramics in their vernacular and historic architecture, and to examine what rewilding strategies within a close-knit urban grid could entail.

Year 4 Jessica Ho, Yuxin Hu, Mille Klovning, Angie Lee, Ling Shuen (Stefanie) Leung, Gabriel Machado, Julia Specht, Yifan Wang Year 5 Monica Burman, Bianca Croitoriu, Kate Hargreaves Davis, Serim Hur, Gulcicek Karaman, Catriona Ng, Sarina Patel, Vlad Pista, Dave Wong Technical tutors and consultants Han Hao, Roberto Marín Sampalo Thesis supervisors Edwina Attlee, Camillo Boano, Gillian Darley, Eric Guibert, Danielle Hewitt, Jan Kattein, Anna Mavrogianni, Filomena Russo Critics Thomas Aquilina, Fares Al Rajal, Jhono Bennett, Laurence Blackwell-Thale, Louise Cann, Haden Charbel, Emma Colthurst, Eric Guibert, Jan Kattein, Déborah López Lobato, Matthieu Mereau, Martin Ocampo, María Páez González, Maria-Chiara Piccinelli, Elly Selby, Reem Taha Hajj Ahmad

461

4 462

Architecture MArch

6 PG22

463

10 464

Architecture MArch

11 PG22

465

13 466

Architecture MArch

17 PG22

467

20 468

Architecture MArch

23 PG22

469

26 470

Architecture MArch

1–2 Ling Shuen (Stefanie) Leung, Y4 ‘Interwoven Territories’. Reimagining rural industrialisation in Northern China through architecture that fosters ecological renewal, cultural continuity and inclusive design. 3 Jessica Ho, Y4 ‘Growth/Decay’. Synthesising spatial, ecological and material interventions to reconfigure Hong Kong’s hyperdense decaying Tong Lau housing to foster belonging and wellbeing in the inner city. 4 Serim Hur, Y5 ‘Layers of the City’. A speculative rewilding of Seoul’s riverfront transforms the city’s infrastructure into a layered ecology where water, clay and architecture co-exist. 5–6 Catriona Ng, Y5 ‘Roots for Renewal’. Reimagining Ladywell Baths as a slow-living sanctuary, embracing slowness, nature and the passage of time through the celebration of ageing and decay. 7 Yuxin Hu, Y4 ‘Rewilding’. A layered façade retrofit provides habitats for non-human species while fostering informal, nature-connected community interactions, and acts as the seed for neighbourhood-wide rewilding. 8–9 Vlad Pista, Y5 ‘Architecture Beyond the Plan’. Located in northern Romania, the project rehabilitates outdoor spaces in socialist-era estates, introducing community gardens and reimagining obsolete garages as multifunctional third spaces that foster social interaction. 10 Angie Lee, Y4 ‘The Scavengers’ Palace for Puppetry’. This project subverts affluent Hampstead, defying profit-driven land use by transforming an abandoned mansion into a puppet theatre and workshop. 11 Kate Hargreaves Davis, Y5 ‘Beauty and the Feast’. Interventions in Marylebone’s healthcare district offer spaces for women to explore ideas surrounding beauty, aiming to redress the gendered divide in how beauty is practised, perceived and physically navigated. 12, 14 Dave Wong, Y5 ‘A Pulau Ubin Polytechnic’. The project draws on Singapore’s kampong spirit and gotong royong, using community craft, hands-on learning and ecological care to promote mutual aid, shared stewardship and environmental resilience. 13, 16 Monica Burman, Y5 ‘Should Beauty Be a Right?’. A ceramic exploration frames beauty as social infrastructure, embedding care, ritual and wellness into everyday life through an accessible housing scheme. 15, 17 Gabriel Machado, Y4 ‘Assemblies of Togetherness’. A community centre in Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro, designed to equip the community with tools to navigate fragmented urban systems in the favela. 18–19 Mille Klovning, Y4 ‘Where She Dwells’. Reclaiming a former golf course through rewilding and Scandinavian cabin culture, this project supports female athletes and active rest, transforming exclusionary grounds into inclusive biodiverse landscapes for communal living. 20 Yifan Wang, Y4 ‘Productive Futures at Greenwich Power Station’. An industrial site reimagined as a circular hub integrating urban farming, housing and ecological restoration along the River Thames. 21 Sarina Patel, Y5 ‘In/Formal Imaginaries’. Transforming Nairobi’s Dandora dump site through textile waste reuse and craftivism – engaging with the informal sector and empowering communities to build sustainable futures. 22–23 Gulcicek Karaman, Y5 ‘Micro Kingdoms’. In a city that breathes below ground, this project reimagines urban transport infrastructure as a regenerative ecosystem where earthen materials foster wellbeing. 24–25 Julia Specht, Y4 ‘A Queer Guide to Squatting’. A co-operative housing scheme and a drag theatre explore self-build construction and resident participation within the context of a queer rewilding of north London. 26–27 Bianca Croitoriu, Y5 ‘Built Like a Girl’. A feminist intervention reimagining Bucharest’s Strada Amzei through ceramics, DIY urbanism and hyperfeminine aesthetics, blurring the boundary between public and domestic. PG22

471

1 472

Architecture MArch

Continuous Assemblies

PG23

Maria Fulford, Farlie Reynolds, Ben Spong

PG23 takes a hands-on approach to design through making and direct experimentation, as we produce work that spans the gulf between the speculative and the tangible, the represented and the real, the poetic and the practical. We champion innovative architectural strategies that boldly address the environmental challenges of our time. This year, our ethos took us to challenge the linear nature of architectural production and the privileged status of the finished building. Inspired by the long-exposure photography of Michael Wesely, which captures the temporal interweaving of people, materials and environments, we explored architecture not as a fixed or autonomous entity, but as a continuous act of assembly – always in flux, always incomplete. This perspective dispelled the myth of the building as a static object, and instead invited a deeper inquiry into architecture’s capacity continuously to produce and occupy a multitude of worlds over time. We advocated the perpetually incomplete, positioning architecture within a continuum of interwoven states – conceptual, material and temporal. Through this lens, we travelled across northern Italy, from Verona into the Dolomites, onward to Milan and Como, and finally to Turin. Along the way, we engaged with sublime alpine landscapes, post-industrial contexts and experimental architectures – both iconic and obscure. These encounters grounded our research in real-world complexities while fuelling ambitious and imaginative responses. Our investigations raised critical and provocative questions of architectural identity, authenticity and legacy, as we developed new digital vernaculars for Longarone, explored the poetics of repair and reuse in Turin, and examined the role of projection and storytelling in prospecting alternative futures. We asked: How, where, when and with whom do we build? What ecologies do we participate in and assemble, and to what end? This recalibrated approach led to the emergence of new architectural knowledge – tacit, embodied and technical, accrued through hands-on engagement with materials, tools and processes. By collaborating with people, places and agencies beyond the studio, we reimagined the fundamentals of doing, building and being in architecture.

Year 4 Rory Cariss, Supakorn Chantakitwattana, Christian Coackley, George Cottrell, Hoi Chun Fan, Marten Hall, Cara Russell, Leyun Zhu Year 5 Grace Baker, David Byrne, Sum Yu (Victoria) Chan, Eleanor Crunden, Evelyn Jesuraj, Alina von Olnhausen, Chueh-Kai Wang, Yunzi Wang, Shuming Zhou Practice tutor Steve Johnson Structural engineer Brian Constant Environmental engineer Anthony Chilton Thesis supervisors Alessandro Ayuso, Paul Bavister, Daniel Dream, Polly Gould, Danielle Hewitt, Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton Thanks to Steve Johnson for his ever-generous and ongoing support of PG23, technical and otherwise. Maria Fulford for seamlessly stepping in as maternity cover in the final weeks of the year! Critics George Bolwell, Niamh Cahill, William Victor Camilleri, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Nat Chard, James Della Valle, David Di Duca, Maria Fulford, Kostas Grigoriadis, Penelope Haralambidou, Florence Hemmings, Joe Johnson, Kyriakos Katsaros, Marios Kordilas, Chee-Kit Lai, Yeoryia Manolopolou, Jörg Mayer, Greg Storrar, Sayan Skandarajah, Michael Tite 473

4 474

Architecture MArch

8 PG23

475

476

Architecture MArch

15 PG23

477

17 478

18 Architecture MArch

22 PG23

479

25 480

26 Architecture MArch

29 PG23

481

32 482

Architecture MArch

1, 27–29 Evelyn Jesuraj, Y5 ‘Headless Bodies’. This project acts as a liberating desiring-machine where headless bodies resist exploitative architecture, exploring alternative realities of self-determination, care and relationality. 2, 3, 5 Rory Cariss, Y4 ‘Reframing the Factory’. A proposal for a fabrication school in central Turin considers the relationship between the activities of inhabitation and production, viewing the workshop as a site of creativity, invention and education. 4, 7 Supakorn Chantakitwattana, Y4 ‘Longarone Craft College’. A low-impact building that accommodates change over time. Continuous construction by students generates new vernacular knowledge. Its transient nature, paradoxically, becomes its permanence. 6, 8 Leyun Zhu, Y4 ‘Moonlighting [Trans]figured Silhouettes’. An architecture of subtle shifts and transient forms. Situated in Milan’s Brera district, the building reveals layered traces of sex work and quiet agency, inviting deeper readings beyond surface appearances. 9–10 Alina von Olnhausen, Y5 ‘Tailored Encounters’. Stitched into Milan’s Navigli district, the Altered Atelier draws on body-scale gestures, translating material intimacy into a methodology of spatial tailoring. 11–12 Sum Yu (Victoria) Chan, Y5 ‘The Man and the Machine’. This automobile design school celebrates Italy’s car-making culture and industrial legacy. Drawing parallels between the ceramics and automotive industries, the proposal integrates traditional craft with digital fabrication. 13–15 David Byrne, Y5 ‘Prospecting New Horizons’. Along the river Ticino, a series of prospectors seek relationality, tracing reciprocal historic networks and embracing a murkier method of perception. 16–18 Eleanor Crunden, Y5 ‘Cities in Translation’. A fictional traveller’s artefacts trace Northern Italy, revealing how cultural identity is both constructed and upheld. These fragments shape a contemporary folklore for the city’s renewal. 19–21 Cara Russell, Y4 ‘Tuning the Fantastic’. Inspired by Italian folklore and musical heritage, the project pushes natural skins and membranes to their most ‘fantastical’, resonating in a continuous dialogue with the cyclical rhythms of sound, time and landscape. 22 Shuming Zhou, Y5 ‘Fry the Moon’. A contemporary fable tracing a girl’s search for her missing eye through surreal landscapes where architecture, animation and narrative intertwine to explore emotional memory and the meaning of home. 23 Marten Hall, Y4 ‘On Time’. Situated in the mountain town of Longarone, the project responds to the site’s tumultuous history through a long-form process of site-specific past narratives and future forecasting. 24–26 Chueh-Kai Wang, Y5 ‘Tracing the Split’. In a future of material scarcity, this project reimagines demolition as material recovery and architectural creation, using cutting as a spatial and economic strategy, informed by Turin’s low-carbon vernacular. 30 George Cottrell, Y4 ‘The Line Will Not Be There’. At the confluence of the Po and the Lombardy–Piedmont border, a restaurant negotiates shifting ground and land disputes. 31 Christian Coackley, Y4 ‘Teatro de Porta Nuova’. Teatro de Porta Nuova is woven into Torino’s central railway station, striving to create a renewed sense of arrival that fits the city’s ambitions for cultural transformation. 32 Hoi Chun Fan, Y4 ‘Tribute to Alpine Glaciers’. At the summit of Marmolada, the flora-growing complex anticipates a potential future cryosphere of dying glaciers and the emergence of new life. 33–34 Grace Baker, Y5 ‘(Not) In My Back Yard’. Home is a complex term in architecture – simultaneously grounding us and extending across time and memory. This project harnesses this paradox to face issues such as monotony, alienation and emotional disconnection. PG23

483

1 484

Architecture MArch

Super Common

PG24

Haden Charbel, Nasios Varnavas

The term ‘common’ encompasses a wide range of meanings. In politics, it refers to ideals of collective benefit (‘the common good’). In ecology, it speaks of shared natural resources (‘the commons’). In law, it opens up the right to reuse and adapt (‘Creative Commons’). It can mark class distinction and inequality (‘commoner’), or shape how we are expected to behave (‘common sense’). It also carries the legacy of empire, evoking collective prosperity while legitimising colonial extraction and control (‘the Commonwealth’). Although rooted in collectivity, to call something ‘common’ is also to dismiss it, to say that it doesn’t matter and that it lacks value. Today, amid ecological collapse, growing inequalities and social fissures, the question of what is ‘in common’, and how, is no longer academic. It influences architecture from policy to material. It exposes the limits of our discipline and calls for the new generation of architects to respond with pragmatism and optimism. As a unit, we studied definitions of ‘common’: standards, protocols, policies, common architectural elements and spatial norms, and how they affect the ways we inhabit everyday environments: from how we come together in our home and our city to our rights to heat and the street; how we engage in public, with play and events, to how we manage our shared natural resources. We questioned how common actions affect political decisions and vice versa; we examined preservation and its links to heritage or the museumification of cities, and explored the translations of global trends and capital into generic aesthetics, which may wash away, or hybridise and support, existing identities. Leaning against these stereotypes informed the reasoning for intervention, defined as a social contract. We aimed to rethink systems and embed designs in real scenarios, forming architectures that are strangely familiar, are both sharp and soft, learning from existing contexts, added upon and subtracted from. The work produced sits between opposing forces, frictions of common: design/non-design, public/private, global/local, generic/specific, regeneration/conservation. Super Common is both an architectural language and an attitude of relational practice, which engages with history, is of the now, and becomes propositional for the future.

Year 4 Tara Abdol Hossein Zadeh, Hissah Almousa, Harvey Cantrell, Marie Faivre, Robert Gowing, Clement Lefebure, John Daniel Perski, Rafiq Sawyerr, Kaia Wells Year 5 Raphael Barber, Daniel Collier, Joel Gallery, Panagiota Grivea, Sarah Hassan M Alsomly, Sarah Kemali, Daniel Langstaff, Georgie Stephenson Technical tutors and consultants Jenna De Leon, Ioannis Rizos, Edoardo Tibuzzi Thesis supervisors Christophe Gerard, Stelios Giamarelos, Polly Gould, Jane Hall, Filomena Russo, Tania Sengupta, Fiona Zisch Critics Felicity Atekpe, Matthew Blunderfield, Oli Brenner, Barbara-Ann CampbellLange, Camille Dunlop, Bethany Edgoose, Penelope Haralambidou, Déborah López, William McLean, Luke Olsen, Lorenzo Perri, Tadeáš Říha, Era Savvides, Nathan Su, Sebastian Tiew, Ed Wall, Rebecca Watson, Stamatis Zografos Partners AKT II, Atelier Ten, atelier local, Manuel Bouzas, CHAP*, Cream Projects, depA Architects, fala atelier, Khadka + Eriksson Furunes, Kozo Kadowaki, pare.id, Kleanthis Roussos, Scaffold Podcast, Nathan Su, Urban Radicals

485

4 486

Architecture MArch

6 PG24

487

9 488

Architecture MArch

12 PG24

489

14 490

Architecture MArch

18 PG24

491

20 492

Architecture MArch

PG24

493

21 494

Architecture MArch

1 All Students ‘Learning from Common’. Photographic studies of the ‘common’. 2 Tara Abdol Hossein Zadeh, Y4 ‘Stones Against Diamonds’. Reimagining the remediation of the Fontainhas Escarpment. Granite is reclaimed through a process of embedding and bricolage towards an architecture of permanence. 3, 5 Harvey Cantrell, Y4 ‘Plotting Portugal’. A series of interventions at the abandoned Valongo Sanatorium to address the absurdities of Portuguese land registry and reinstate productive commons. 4 Robert Gowing, Y4 ‘Finfrastructure: Post-Global Fishing’. A marine infrastructure born from hardship imposed by the advances of globalisation. The architecture reflects procedural systems and the castaway urban fabric. 6 Joel Gallery, Y5 ‘GUIA: An Explorer’s Guide’. Uncovering architectural adventure through phygital game systems. 7, 10 Kaia Wells, Y4 ‘The Bare Minimum Institute’. Speculating how architecture can disrupt capitalist culture and colonial history in Porto through a soft typology of ‘rest as resistance’. 8 John Daniel Perski, Y4 ‘I Walk in Circles but the Path Forward Is Straight Ahead’. A narrative of deconstruction explores the transformation of a disused shopping mall reclaimed by musicians. 9 Marie Faivre, Y4 ‘Living with Water’. The project reunites a displaced community, stabilises a steep riverside escarpment and slows down the water cycle, retaining it for on-site use. 11 Hissah Almousa, Y4 ‘Freixo Community-Led Water Infrastructure’. The community-led water infrastructure questions how the common management of water can bring about societal, environmental and economic justice in Porto. 12 Panagiota Grivea, Y5 ‘The Book Will [Not] Kill the Edifice’. A storytelling approach to heritage in Porto’s historic centre, proposing a kindergarten and play-scape in the infamous Rua Escura. 13, 15 Georgie Stephenson, Y5 ‘Transitional Healing’. A reimagination of the hospital typology; redefining the relationship between urban boundaries and the hospital through transitional healing spaces that celebrate shared experiences. 14 Raphael Barber, Y5 ‘Commons of the Unconscious’. A posthuman design ecology that infers more-thanhuman agency through speculative GAN-based training, tidal scaffolds and barnacle habitats. 16 Clement Lefebure, Y4 ‘Alternative Assemblies for Porto.’ Located along the Douro River, the project proposes a civic structure shaped by reuse and assembly, offering Porto’s residents spaces to gather, speak and negotiate the terms of common ground. 17 Rafiq Sawyerr, Y4 ‘Disrupting the Script’. Transforming Porto’s old power station into an adaptive market hall, this project blends local craftsmanship with digital algorithms to address the impact of Airbnb. 18 Sarah Hassan M Alsomly, Y5 ‘Assets for Sale’. A speculative project subverting Western stereotypes of the Middle East through hybrid architecture, virtual cities and game assets to reclaim narrative and identity. 19 Danny Collier, Y5 ‘Ghost Commons’. Confronting Oxford’s fear of the outside by haunting its elite enclosures. A ghost college unsettles heritage, common space and institutional power. 20 Daniel Langstaff, Y5 ‘Petroleum Gothic’. Decommissioned oil infrastructure is consecrated as sacred ground for data reliquaries, soil purification and solemn ritual procession. 21 Sarah Kemali, Y5 ‘Right to Heat’. A retrofit of a Victorian terrace speculates on how we might live with heat and one another amid the fuel and housing crisis. PG24

495

Structural consultants Tom Clewlow (Arup), Brian Constant (Constant Structural Design), Brian Eckersley (Eckersley O’Callaghan), Stephen Foster (Foster Structures Limited), Florian Gauss (knippershelbig Stuttgart), Nick Ling (Mott MacDonald), Roberto Marin (TPF Getinsa Euroestudios), Sophia McCracken (Price & Myers), James Nevin (Blue Engineering), George Ramsay (GEARED Consulting Partnerships) Edoardo Tibuzzi (AKT II) Environmental consultants Anna Bardos (Max Fordham), Anthony Chilton (Max Fordham), Dean Irvine (Max Fordham), Jeovana Naidoo (Atelier Ten), Arturo Reyes (Buro Happold), Ioannis Rizos (Atelier Ten), Martha Voulakidou (Buro Happold), Nipun Wickramasundara (Atelier Ten) Fire & life safety consultants José Torero Cullen (UCL, CEGE), Kyriakos Katsaros (UCL, CEGE), Michael Woodrow (UCL, CEGE)

496

Design Realisation

Year 4

Module Coordinators: Pedro Gil, Chee-Kit Lai

The Design Realisation module offers all Year 4 Architecture MArch students the opportunity to critically engage with how buildings are designed, constructed and delivered within the broader physical and procedural context of the building lifecycle. Framed around themes of experimentation, ethics and environmental responsibility, the module encourages students to explore technical and professional practice through design. Projects are developed across a variety of scales and communicated through a rich array of representational media including drawings, diagrams, animations, physical models and 3D digital work. Students are supported in taking risks, testing strategies and refining ideas as they navigate the relationship between conceptual ambition and technical resolution. This module forms a vital bridge between academic study and architectural practice. Each design unit is supported by a dedicated team of consultants, including a practice-based architect, structural engineer, environmental engineer, and fire and life safety engineer, all of whom work closely with students throughout the year to develop their projects. The resulting work is diverse, innovative and deeply reflective of the challenges and opportunities facing contemporary architecture. This year’s projects encompass inventive structural systems, ambitious environmental strategies, community-focused design, proposals for complex or constrained sites, infrastructural interventions and entrepreneurial schemes. Collectively, they demonstrate the critical and creative potential of technical design thinking in architectural practice today. Thank you to all the structural and environmental design consultants who created an environment that encouraged and channelled the students’ curiosity, including Atelier Ten, Buro Happold and Max Fordham. Thank you to all design unit tutors for being a source of support and sage advice, and to Professor José Torero Cullen and Dr Michael Woodrow for the fire safe design support. We are very grateful to our group of design practice tutors for their enormous commitment, dedication and professionalism, and would like to thank Oliver Wilton, Director of Technology, for his continual support. Thank you to Architecture MArch programme directors Matthew Butcher and Kostas Grigoriadis for their contributions, allyship and support.

Lecturers Duncan Baker-Brown (University of Brighton), Katherine Chimenes (Price & Myers), Stephanie Edwards (Urban Symbiotics), Anthony Engi Meacock (Assemble), Vladimir Guculak (Studio GB), Minas Ioannou (Arup), Evan Levelle (VIA Inc), William Mann (Witherford Watson Mann Architects), John Mcloughlin (Foster + Partners), José Torero Cullen (UCL, CEGE), Tatiana von Preussen (vPPR Architects), Michael Woodrow (UCL, CEGE) Practice tutors PG11 Jennifer Dyne (David Kohn Architects), PG12 James Hampton (New Makers Bureau), PG14 Ludka Majerníková (Klaska Ltd), Jakub Klaska (The Bartlett, UCL), PG16 James Mak, Jongwon Na (Of Architecture), PG17 James Daykin (Daykin Marshall Studio), PG18 Robert Haworth (Lineworks Architects), PG20 David Edwards (The Bartlett, UCL), PG21 Tom Holberton (The Bartlett, UCL) , PG22 Han Hao (Studio Egret West), PG23 Steven Johnson (The Architecture Ensemble), PG24 Jenna de Leon (Cook Belacevic Haffner and Partners) PGTAs Omar Abolnaga Yichang Sun

Image: Charlotte Henrich, PG11, ‘A Marsh Clinic: Typha Tales of (Un)taming Swamps’. 497

Advanced Architectural Studies

Year 4

Module Coordinator: Adam Walls

The Advanced Architectural Studies module, in the first year of the two-year Architecture MArch programme, focuses on architectural histories and theories. It is a space where we reflect on architecture within a broader, critical, intellectual and contextual field – simultaneously producing and being produced by it. Here we try to locate architecture’s links to other disciplinary and knowledge fields – from the scientific and technological to the social sciences and the humanities. We straddle empirics and theory, design and history, the iconic and the everyday. The module seeks to engage students with architectural history and theory as a critical approach to augment design, as a parallel domain to test out approaches, or as a discrete or autonomous domain of architectural engagement. It focuses on three key aspects: firstly, a reflective, critical and analytical approach; secondly, research instinct and exploratory methods and research as a form of practice; and thirdly, skills of synthesis, writing and articulation. It also acts as foundational ground for the students’ final-year thesis. Our lecture series introduces students to the research of the module’s seminar tutors. This year, the research covered a variety of topics, such as educational infrastructure in colonial India; a feminist history of laundry; housing and the Russo-Ukrainian War; and architecture and film. These lectures were accompanied by the heart of the module, which is a set of themed seminars. The seminars straddle, geographically, the architectural histories and theories of multiple global contexts; thematically, they encompass buildings, urbanism, landscapes, design, art, film, ecology and climate crisis, politics, activism, technology, production, representation, spatial and material cultures, public participation and urban regeneration. At the end, drawing upon the seminars and lectures, the students formulate a critical enquiry around a topic of their choice and produce a 4,500word essay. 2024–25 seminars Architecture On & Off Screen, Christophe Gérard Flexible Bodies, Flexible Selves, Tijana Stevanović Conversations About Change, Daisy Froud Feminist Approaches, Edwina Attlee Architecture and/as Infrastructures of (In)Equity, Tania Sengupta Architecture, Commerce and the Global City, Nicholas Jewell Heritage Discourses and the City, Stamatis Zografos Socialism in Architecture. Architecture in Socialism, Jenia Gubkina Architectural Splendour, Oliver Domeisen Architecture and the Image of Decay, Paul Dobraszczyk

498

PGTA Patricia Rodrigues Ferreira da Silva

Physical Code: The Bodily Dimension of Digital Fabrication Rory Cariss Tutor: Tijana Stevanović Architecture’s ‘digital turn’ – a term used to describe the field’s widespread adoption of digital technologies over the past four decades – has seen dramatic changes in how buildings are conceived, designed and produced. Alongside the ubiquitous uptake of computational design tools that characterise this shift, digital fabrication technologies are becoming equally prevalent in architectural discourse and practice. While these technologies oﬀer a myriad of opportunities to designers within an increasingly favourable economic framework, their integration into the architectural discipline carries with it a series of fallacies and implications. In relaying my own understanding of digital fabrication as an architectural sub-discipline, and by

reflecting on my own experiences as a fabricator, this paper challenges some of these misconceptions, suggesting a greater consideration of what its practice entails for those engaged in (digital) production. In contrast to the sub-disciplines’ mechanistic obsessions with automation, eﬃciency and accuracy, I contend that its use in bespoke applications is still typically a physical endeavour. Focusing on its bodily implications, I argue that the act of digital machine operation is in fact a dexterous physical act, with a large amount of knowledge residing within the body. Beyond this the paper discusses the ‘invisible’ physical work surrounding digital production and how this, relates to broader perceptions of labour. This study comes at a critical moment in my own academic and professional development, as I reflect on several years working in the world of fabrication, considering the implications this may have on the future of the industry.

Image: Digital Fabrication’s ‘Secondary’ Acts. Clearing parts, hoovering the bed and loading a sheet onto a five-axis CNC router (Stills from Video). 499

Flowing Futures: A Posthuman Reimagining of Heritage Conservation in Rome and the River Tiber Ana-Maria Cazan Tutor: Stamatis Zografos The escalating climate crisis has brought unprecedented challenges to urban environments worldwide, with flash floods and rising sea levels emerging as some of the most pressing threats. The catastrophic floods in Valencia, Spain, in October 2024 exposed the vulnerabilities of cities, which are often designed with rigid infrastructure and anthropocentric ideals. These systems prioritise human needs and dominance, often disregarding nature’s dynamic and unpredictable behaviour. The flooding of rivers, once seen as a rare and manageable disruption, now occurs with alarming frequency, challenging the very foundation of heritage conservation, architecture and urbanism. This study focuses on the city of Rome, which has been shaped and sustained by the Tiber River for millennia, serving as a compelling case study of this growing tension between human-centred design and the forces of nature. The Tiber’s seasonal floods have long played a role in defining the city’s landscape, both as a threat and a source of

renewal. In the face of climate change, however, these floods demand a rethinking of the relationship between natural forces and urban heritage. Emerging posthuman theories challenge conventional hierarchies by positioning non-human entities as active agents within socio-cultural networks. Drawing on ActorNetwork Theory, post-anthropocentrism, psychoanalytic understandings of creation and destruction, and critical heritage discourse, a new model of conservation is proposed – one that embraces natural processes such as flooding as integral to urban resilience and cultural continuity. Rather than resisting decay or environmental change, heritage is reframed as a living system marked by interdependence, adaptation and transformation. Thus, the Tiber is reconceived not as a threat but as a collaborator in shaping Rome’s past, present and future. Through a temporal structure that moves from historical entanglements to speculative futures, this essay offers an alternative to static preservation models by advocating for conservation practices that recognise ecological agency and process over permanence. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on how cities might live with, rather than against, the natural forces that define them.

Image: The Tiber River in Rome confined within 19thcentury embankment walls, ‘tamed’ and disconnected from its urban fabric, 2024. Image by the author. 500

Spaces of (Un)Rest: An Autoethnographic Study of the Bed, the Floor and the Workplace Kaia Wells Tutor: Tania Sengupta Rest lies at an intersection of illness, pain, gender, disability and work. Commonly framed in service of and opposite to paid labour, rest takes on broader, nuanced and multi-modal meanings through feminist and disability theory. I explore spaces of (un)rest1 in relation to my own experiences: prolonged illnesses, monthly period pains and workrelated panic attacks within the built environment – a profession notorious for overwork. Drawing from personal diaries, sketches and photographs, three key spatial settings with different implications and associations of (un)rest are analysed – the bed, the floor and the workplace. During recovery from illness, pain and stress, the bed offers comfort – a spatial arrangement of convenience where multiple modes of rest co-exist (especially with access to books, housemates, Netflix). But it can also be a space of perceived incarceration due to bodily confinement. Meanwhile, working on

the floor (an unbounded space) in stretched positions enables creative autonomy, challenging the conflation of productivity and sitting upright at a desk. Lastly, the workplace blurs boundaries between work and rest, absorbing unpaid time and care responsibilities into work culture – especially when considering the wider network of commuting, preparing for work and events like office Christmas parties. The analysis reveals how architecture – both as profession and spatial practice – simultaneously facilitates and undermines rest. The dominant binaries between rest and work (including care work) weave into each other through the spaces they share simultaneously. Rest is often compromised by social expectations, spatial constraints and temporal demands, whereas meaningful rest demands agency over our time, bodies and activities. This essay advocates for rest as a right rather than a reward, calling for spatial practices that embrace vulnerability, honour diverse bodily needs (at the expense of loosening societal norms and formalities) and enable rest not in spite of perceived weakness, but in celebration of it.

1. The term (un)rest s inclusive to both rest and nonrest. It uses parenthesis around ‘un’ because the word could be read as either unrest or rest. It is used to address the complexities and contradictions of rest, allowing both to exist at the same time. Image: ‘The Bed Is My Kingdom’, drawn during prolonged period of illness, 2024. Scanned sketch by the author. 501

Thesis

Year 5

Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton

The thesis gives Year 5 Architecture MArch students agency to undertake architectural 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, computation, the visual arts, physical or social sciences, and urbanism. The year starts with a short research methods study. Students then develop individual research proposals which are reviewed and discussed with module coordinators and design tutors. Following the review, students proceed to undertake their research in depth, supported by specialist tutors who are individually allocated based on each student’s stated research question and proposed methodology. The result is a study of 9,000 words or equivalent, covering relevant research questions, contexts, activities and outcomes. The thesis is an inventive, critical and directed research activity that augments the work students undertake in design studio. The symbiotic relationship between thesis and design varies from one that is evident and explicit to one whereby the two activities are both situated in a broader sphere of interest. The thesis typically includes one or more propositional elements such as discursive 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. Past graduates have gone on to further pursue their thesis research interests via several pathways including developing papers for presentation at academic conferences and in academic journals, developing external practice-based 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.

502

Thesis tutors Hector Altamirano, Edwina Attlee, Alessandro Ayuso, Carolina Bartram, Paul Bavister, Peter Karl Becher, Peter Bishop, Camillo Boano, Paul Dobraszczyk, Oliver Domeisen, Daniel Dream, Fabio Freddi, Daisy Froud, Stephen Gage, Christophe Gerard, Stelios Giamarelos, Polly Gould, Eric Guilbert, Jane Hall, Sean Hanna, Danielle Hewitt, Jan Kattein, Constance Lau, Luke Lowings, Tim Lucas, Abel Maciel, Anna Mavrogianni, Claire McAndrew, Lakshmi Rajendran, Rokia Raslan, Guang Yu Ren, Vicky Richardson, Filomena Russo, Tania Sengupta, Michael Stacey, Tim Waterman, Robin Wilson, Oliver Wilton, Fiona Zisch. PGTA Ana Mayoral Moratilla

Remaking the Extractive Island: Landscape, Custom and Misrule in Shetland Finlay Aitken Thesis Tutor: Tim Waterman The Norse ting in Shetland was a customary legal gathering where land, law and resource were negotiated through collective participation. The ting was hosted on a microcosmic mound in a loch constructed from soil brought by each attendee. This constituted both a symbolic and literal practice of island-making – a spatial act of self-mapping which drew political and ecological boundaries from within. While this gathering may have ceased, its essence seems to remain. Therefore, this thesis asks: How have practices of island-making mutated amid a changing material and cultural context on Shetland, and how can such an understanding be activated to foster care and stewardship within the modern technopolitical fabric of extraction? Using archival research, spatial analysis and ethnographic theory, the thesis frames island-making as a political and symbolic process that emerges from negotiation between people and resource. Drawing on Kenneth Olwig’s distinction between landscape as polity and landscape as assemblage,1 the research traces the shift

from customary systems grounded in subsistence towards externally imposed regimes of measurement and profit. It argues that this shift constitutes a process of island un-making, where the spatial logic of the ting is displaced by feudal tenure and legal abstraction. Yet island-making persists. The thesis examines 19th-century misrule in Lerwick, the symbolic codification of this misrule in the Viking-themed festival of Up Helly Aa, and the micronation of Forvik as a contemporary performance of sovereignty. Each case demonstrates how tools of extraction – barrels, boats, legal documents – are reappropriated as instruments for asserting locality and autonomy. These practices reconfigure island-making as an ongoing negotiation within and against the frameworks of extraction. By positioning island-making as a situated, legal-spatial tool of self-determination, the thesis challenges design practitioners to engage directly with the material conditions of assimilation. Rather than retreating into heritage or opposition, it proposes a strategy of appropriation – where rituals, symbols and participatory acts activate new forms of agency within the infrastructures that shape Shetland today. 1. Kenneth Olwig, ‘The Law of Landscape and the Landscape of Law: The Things That Matter,’ in The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies (London: Routledge, 2013), 271–80. Image: Plan of the collectively constructed island at Tingwall, Shetland – the old site of the Norse Parliament. Image by the author. 503

Designing Degradation: Programmable, Degradable Morphologies of Bacterial Cellulose Composites Tania Farcas Thesis Tutor: Hector Altamirano This thesis proposes an alternative material logic for architecture, one that embraces rather than resists the inevitable process of decay. It challenges the dominant pursuit of permanence by rethinking material use and sustainability through the lens of programmed material degradation. The research is thus framed around a central question: How can material composition be tuned to control the perceivable aesthetic degradation of bacterial cellulose (BC) composites for architectural applications? The research explores how microbially grown BC composites, when combined with natural additives, can be engineered to degrade in controlled, noticeable ways in response to specific environmental conditions. The purpose is to address how such materials can help architectural design align with natural life cycles. The investigation follows an experimental methodology involving fermentation-based material fabrication, ex situ composite synthesis and environmental exposure testing. It examines how 14 additive blends, in three mix ratios of 30:70, 50:50 and 70:30 (making 42 different material types), degrade under dry, mild and humid

conditions. Environmental exposure testing was carried out in parallel chambers over a 14-day period, revealing how environmental catalysts like humidity and temperature influence degradation rate and material transformation. The outcome comprises a catalogue of 126 environmentally exposed BC composite samples, showing that lifespan, visual evolution and mechanical response can be intentionally designed. This material library offers architects a framework for selecting and fine-tuning composites based on aesthetic transformation, dissociation rate and site-specific responsiveness. The thesis positions biomaterials, and specifically BC composites, not just as biodegradable, but as programmable tools for transforming the relationship between architecture, time and the environment. It exemplifies how bio-assembled materials can enable the introduction of a new layer of thinking into design, shifting focus from static preservation to a more dynamic, life-aware temporality: birth, ageing, decay, birth. The thesis challenges conventional architectural thinking and practices by proposing that decay should not be seen as failure but as an integral, expressive phase in a building’s life cycle. It adopts a conscious shift that acknowledges and celebrates transformation, dissociation and ecological reintegration.

Image: Microbially grown bacterial cellulose composite samples. Day 0 versus day 14. Image by the author. 504

Text2Forest: Thinking with Trees in the Age of Machine Learning Xavier Thanki Thesis Tutor: Oliver Wilton Forests have long been shaped by human intervention, from traditional shipbuilding, where natural tree geometries were selectively harnessed, to contemporary industrial forestry, which privileges uniformity and efficiency over material intelligence. Although digital fabrication reintroduced geometric complexity into timber construction, it remains disconnected from the biological processes governing tree growth. This research challenges conventional timber practices by proposing an ecologically embedded approach that positions trees not as passive materials, but as dynamic, generative agents. At the core of this study lies ‘Text2Forest’, a computational framework merging L-systems (procedural growth algorithms) with machine learning and Large Language Model prompting to probabilistically model and predict tree morphologies. Fine-tuned using extensive datasets linking meteorological and sitespecific variables to tree growth, the model embeds ecological intelligence directly into the generative process. Botanical growth rules are encoded linguistically via a custom word-replacement strategy, translating L-system syntax into structured textual narratives. When designers input weather conditions as simple textual prompts, the

model synthesises branching structures and canopy forms reflective of real-world ecological dynamics. Thus, Text2Forest enables the generation of thousands of unique trees – effectively planting entire forests through language alone – and fundamentally redefines forestry as a generative, responsive practice. Integrating Text2Forest into architectural design practice prompts a critical exploration of agency and authorship. By embedding ecological intelligence and probabilistic modelling into the design process, strict formal control is relinquished in favour of structured negotiation among computational processes, ecological logics and architectural intent. Here, the forest ceases to be a passive backdrop and becomes an active participant, shaping architectural expression alongside algorithms and environmental forces. Agency is therefore distributed – shared between computational tools, ecological dynamics and the designer’s constraints – allowing architecture to respond to resource availability rather than conform to predetermined forms. Ultimately, this synthesis radically reconfigures forestry and timber architecture, cultivating trees as site-responsive architectural components rather than standardised commodities. By embedding tree growth within an iterative feedback system, this research envisions a future where forests and buildings co-evolve as interwoven ecological and architectural narratives. Image: Selected computer-generated trees, subjected to a range of environmental conditions. Image by the author. 505

Ground-Up Heritage in Deptford: Contesting Heritage Narratives Amid Urban Change Ying Tung Ng Thesis Tutor: Paul Dobraszczyk This thesis examines the complexities of heritage preservation and urban change in Deptford, London. It focuses on how three distinct typologies in urban historical landscapes – an archaeological site (Convoys Wharf), a historic public garden (Sayes Court Park) and a fragmentary naval-industrial building (Paynes Wharf) – are navigated under redevelopment pressures. The concept of heritage and its relevance to contemporary realities, particularly within a rapidly changing urban context, necessitates ongoing and critical examination. Without a sustained discourse that interrogates what heritage is or what it can become, there is a risk of underutilising its potential to challenge and redefine cultural and social meanings in the present. Drawing on critical heritage discourse, particularly Laurajane Smith’s concept of Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) and Rodney Harrison’s Critical Approaches to heritage, the paper situates both traditional

and emergent ground-up narratives in heritage preservation, opening a discussion on how historical urban landscape manifests a ground for active negotiation, contestation and redefinition in the face of urban development. Through case studies of the three sites, the paper dissects the tensions between conventional top-down preservation models and community-led heritage initiatives. It reveals how different stakeholders value heritage in distinct ways, demonstrating how power asymmetries shape preservation efforts and urban transformation. The findings highlight both the opportunities and limitations of grassroots heritage activism, questioning whether a simple top-down versus bottom-up dichotomy is adequate for addressing the complexities of contemporary urban redevelopment. Ultimately, the study contributes to broader discussions on the intersection of heritage and urban change by calling for a more inclusive and synergised approach to heritage preservation, one that recognises the interplay between official heritage management and local community agency in shaping sustainable urban futures.

Images: (Left) The original Deptford Anchor was returned to Deptford High Street in 2018, following a series of performative protests by grassroots heritage groups that began in 2013. (Right) The Deptford Anchor used as signage for a music café and pub on Deptford High Street. Images by the author. 506

Pop Architectures: The Art of Mythos and Brand Daniel Langstaff Thesis Tutor: Fiona Zisch This thesis document, presented as a fictional reconstruction of a restricted composite archive, simultaneously interrogates three recent examples of successful architectural ‘assemblages’ within the pop culture space, while perpetuating the very nature of celebrity and ‘brand’ that enables these projects. By framing the analysis as a series of leaks, the document becomes part of the assemblage itself – blurring the lines between academic analysis and the precisely curated, and often mysterious, narrative that these artists project. These examples represent a cross-section of the interaction between entertainment architecture and ‘brand’, spanning from a highly physicalised, immersive architectural construct that dictates the audience’s engagement and experience, to a more fluid, decentralised brand identity where the architectural ‘show product’ serves as a singular facet of a broader, participatory cultural expression.

As the condition of pop spectacle evolves, there is an increasing tension between simulation and sincerity, between brand control and audience agency. The manner of response to this tension is essential in negotiating the modern pop landscape and producing architectural outcomes that materialise shifting systems of cultural authorship, technological mediation and audience participation. Three case studies engage with this in a distinct and unreserved manner, each with their own unique, spatial response: ABBA through the embrace of simulation in the ABBA Voyage venue and show; Beyoncé through the auteur’s assertion of control in the Renaissance World Tour; and Charli XCX through a radical decentralisation of authorship in her ‘BRAT’ era. By analysing the multifaceted nature of one of the most ephemeral, consistent and tightly managed factors within this assemblage – the artists’ ‘brand’ – and situating this within the architectural manifestation of a show, we can begin to understand how the artist’s identity, aesthetics and cultural influence become inextricable from the physical and social architecture of performance.

Image: Charli XCX, BP Pulse Live, Birmingham. Photo by: Raph_PH flickr.com/photos/raph_ph CC BY 2.0. 507

Norton Folgate Photograph by Timothy Soar

Berkeley Street Photograph by Timothy Soar

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris is a proud supporter of the students’ Summer Show

Naturally Inspiring Spaces

514 Our Programmes 515 Short Courses 516 Public Lectures 518 Exhibitions & Events 519 Bartlett Shows Website 520 Alumni 521 The Bartlett Promise 522 Staff, Visitors & Consultants

513

Our Programmes The Bartlett School of Architecture currently teaches undergraduate and graduate students across 25 programmes of study and one professional course. You will find below a list of our current programmes, their duration when taken full time and the directors. More information, including details on open days, is available on our website. Undergraduate Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Three-year programme, directed by Farlie Reynolds, Chee-Kit Lai (acting) and Hannah Corlett (acting) Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 & 2) Five-year programme with a year placement in practice, directed by Alicia González-Lafita Perez and Sara Martinez Zamora Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Three or four-year programme, directed by Dr Sophie Read Engineering & Architectural Design MEng (ARB/RIBA Part 1, CIBSE, JBM) Four-year programme, directed by Luke Olsen Postgraduate Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Two-year programme, directed by Dr Kostas Grigoriadis and Matthew Butcher Architectural Computation MSc/MRes 12-month programmes, directed by Philippe Morel Architectural Design MArch 12-month programme, directed by Tyson Hosmer Architectural History MA One-year programme, directed by Prof Barbara Penner and Dr Robin Wilson Architecture & Historic Urban Environments MA One-year programme, directed by Prof Edward Denison and Jane Wong (acting) Bio-Integrated Design MSc/MArch Two-year programmes, directed by Prof Marcos Cruz and Dr Brenda Parker

514

Cinematic & Videogame Architecture MArch 12-month programme directed by Prof Penelope Haralambidou and Dr Luke Pearson Design for Manufacture MArch 15-month programme, directed by Prof Peter Scully Design for Performance & Interaction MArch 15-month programme, directed by Dr Fiona Zisch Landscape Architecture MA/MLA One-year (MA) and two-year (MLA) programmes, directed by Prof Laura Allen and Prof Mark Smout Situated Practice MA 15-month programme, directed by Prof Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno Space Syntax: Architecture & Cities MSc/MRes One-year programmes, directed by Prof Kayvan Karimi Urban Design MArch 12-month programme, directed by Roberto Bottazzi Architectural Design MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year programme, directed by Dr Nina Vollenbröker Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year programme, directed by Prof Sophia Psarra Architectural Space & Computation MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year programme, directed by Prof Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Architecture & Digital Theory MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year programme, directed by Prof Mario Carpo Architectural Practice MPhil/PhD Three- to four-year programme, directed by Prof Murray Fraser Professional Studies Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 3) 10- to 23-month programme, directed by María Páez González

Short Courses The Bartlett continues to expand its short course offering with a range of formats that stimulate diverse architectural approaches. For those considering a career in architecture, further study or adding a professional skill set, our courses cater to individuals from different backgrounds and ages seeking to learn more about the research, design and practice of architecture in flexible, creative ways. Our courses utilise UCL’s state-of-the-art facilities and are led by international experts and members of The Bartlett who are leaders in their fields. The Bartlett Summer School Our on-campus Summer School offers 14–16 and 16–18-year-olds an immersive hands-on experience of architecture at The Bartlett, using tailored formats that introduce students to the subject within a world-leading institution. In collaboration with the Bartlett Outreach Team and Access and Widening Participation Team at UCL, we also offer a course within the Sutton Trust Summer School, supporting young people from less advantaged backgrounds.

Creative Terrain Our Landscape Architecture Short Course, Creative Terrain, introduces the practice of landscape architecture and our commitment to climate-focused design. The course acts as a gateway to our Landscape Architecture MLA/MA, and is led by the programme’s design tutors. This five-day course is taught at an intermediate level, open to participants over 18. Future Architecture Future Architecture is a brand new 3-week, in-person course providing participants with a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to architectural design at The Bartlett. Participants explore how architecture intersects with their expertise and how they can bring fresh perspectives to the discipline. The course focuses on creative methodologies that engage with racial, spatial and climate justice, highlighting their role in architectural education and a more equitable, sustainable built environment. Taught at an intermediate level, it is open to participants over 18. Visit our website to find out more. Contact bartlett.shortcourses@ucl.ac.uk

Large-scale collaborative physical model-making on the Creative Terrain Short Course 515

Public Lectures The Bartlett Public Event Series: CRUNCH The Bartlett School of Architecture’s flagship seminar series is curated by the Directors of Public Programme, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar and Déborah López Lobato. This year’s theme of ‘Dating’ saw speakers explore the past, present and future of connections, societal structures and the spaces we create and inhibit. All events in this series are open to the public and free to attend. Seminars this year featured: — Data Mourning Marina Otero Verzier (Columbia University, GSAPP), chaired by Prof Peg Rawes (The Bartlett) — Making Sense: Non-Human Centred Design Boonserm Premthada (Bangkok Project Studio), Prof Nayanika Mathur (Oxford University), chaired by Dr Kostas Grigoriadis (The Bartlett) — Intoxicated: Race, Disability, and Chemical Intimacy across Empire Mel Y. Chen (UC Berkeley), Nerea Calvillo (University of Warwick), chaired by Prof Tim Waterman (The Bartlett) — Platformers 2: Architecture through the Fields Fernando Portal (Núcleo de Lenguaje y Creación, UDLA) Shumi Bose (Central Saint Martins), chaired by Thomas Aquilina (The Bartlett) — The Nature of Media: Between Media Archaeologies and Ecomedia Prof Jussi Parikka (Aarhus), Prof Antonio López (Author), chaired by Jessica In and Dr Fiona Zisch (The Bartlett) — Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment Rania Ghosn (MIT), chaired by Prof Amy Kulper (The Bartlett) — Just Models – Playing Nature Alenda Y. Chang (UC Santa Barbara), Lucia Pietroiusti (Serpentine Galleries), chaired by Déborah López Lobato (The Bartlett) — Works from Bahrain Noura Al Sayeh (Bahrain Authority of Culture for Antiquities), Anne Holtrop (Studio Anne Holtrop), chaired by Prof Murray Fraser (The Bartlett) — Odd Couple: ‘Post’ Industrial Architecture and ‘Post’ Human Futures Claire Zimmerman (University of Toronto), 516

Rían Kearney, Merve Okkali Alsavada, Daniel Ovalle Costal and Elly Selby (The Bartlett), chaired by Stylianos Giamarelos (The Bartlett) — Documenting Colonial Toxicity Samia Henni (McGill University), Jananne Ali-Ani (London College of Communication, UAL), chaired by Prof Edward Denison (The Bartlett) — Research Through Architectural Practice Anna Heriner (Studio Anna Heringer), Tracy Meller (Rogers Stirk + Harbour), David Storring (Morris+Company), chaired by Yeoryia Manolopoulou (The Bartlett) Inaugural Lectures Professor Tim Waterman, 10 March 2025 In his inaugural professorial lecture, Prof Tim Waterman explored landscape representation, colonialism, utopianism and resistance to show how crucial it is to understand and remake ways in which worlds are made in the architectures. Hosted by Prof Jacqui Glass, Dean of The Bartlett. Professor Eva Branscome, 24 March 2025 In her inaugural professorial lecture, Prof Eva Branscome discussed the growing importance of acknowledging the realities and multiplicities of heritage. Hosted by Prof Jacqui Glass, Dean of The Bartlett. Landscapes in Dialogue Landscapes in Dialogue is a public lecture series from the Landscape Architecture programmes. The series comprised curated but informal talks from practitioners and academics. Speakers from a range of disciplines were invited to reflect on their work in progress, working methods and the process of working with landscape. Speakers included: — Juliana Martins (The Bartlett School of Planning) and Pei-Chin Lin (designer) — Ken Smith (Ken Smith Workshop) — Mitesh Dixit (COMAIN Office) — Hugh Conway Morris (Manifest) — Aviva Chomsky (Salem State University)

Situating Architecture Situating Architecture is an architectural history lecture series affiliated with The Bartlett’s renowned Architectural History MA. It is open to both current students and members of the public alike showcasing 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: — Prof Mario Carpo (The Bartlett) — Ievgeniia Gubkina (The Bartlett) — Danielle Hewitt (The Bartlett & London Metropolitan University) — Holly Smith (University of Cambridge) — Robin Wilson (The Bartlett) — Christophe Van Gerrewey (author and critic) — Stuart King (University of Melbourne) and Tania Sengupta (The Bartlett) — Jennifer Gabrys (University of Cambridge) — Dr Sam Grinsell (The Bartlett) Bartlett Research Conversations The Bartlett Research Conversations series featured research presentations from students undertaking the Architectural Design or Architectural and Urban History and Theory MPhil/PhD programmes. Students were joined by senior academics from across the school, including PhD programme directors and supervisors, alongside members of the wider Bartlett and UCL community. This year research was presented by: — Sarah Akigbogun — Fawzeyah Alsabah — Selda Banci — James Dunbar — Beatriz Gomes-Martin — Tanjina Khan — Adarsh Lanka — Zijiao Li — Thomas Parker — Divya Shah — Ben Spong — Hangchuan Wei — Fathima Zehba Maanjari Puthusery

Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminars This academic seminar series featured researchers sharing their findings, discussing their ideas and showing work in progress from The Bartlett’s Space Syntax Laboratory. Guests to the series included: — Mariana Diniz (CITTA) — Dr Onur Tümtürk (Bilkent University) — Dr Sam Griffiths (The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) — Dr Ana Cocho-Bermejo (architect) — Linh Phamvu ((The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) — Dr Oskar Kindvall (Chalmers University of Technology) — Dr Francesca Froy (University of Oxford) — Anita Ullrich (Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre) & Dr Ionna Stavroulaki (Chalmers University of Technology) — Dr Po Nien Chen (Space Syntax Limited) — Dr Tamara Zaninović (University of Zagreb) & Dr Mirela Sertić Perić (University of Zagreb) — Dr Waishan Qiu (University of Hong Kong) — Dr Federico Mara (University of Pisa) — Dr Sanjay Somanath (Chalmers University of Technology) 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: — Philip Beesley (PBS) — James Timberlake (KieranTimberlake) — Andrew Sedgwick (Arup) — José L. Torero (CEGE, UCL) — Klaas De Ryke (The Bartlett) — Martin Knight (Knight Architects) — Jamie Fobert (Jamie Fobert Architects)

517

Exhibitions & Events The Bartlett hosts a variety of events both online and in-person, ranging from conferences and book launches to workshops and international symposia. A vibrant programme of exhibitions also runs throughout the year.

B-made staff, including: — Laminated Timber Vessels – Joe Johnson — Pillow: Botanising on the Asphalt – Alice Foxen — Matter and Sound – Robin Mather — Sound of Space – Emma-Kate Matthews

The Architectural History MA student-led symposium, Refracted Geographies, 9 November 2024, highlighted the cohort’s diverse global research that challenges established architectural canons and histories.

Book Launches A Practical Guide to Architectural Drawing, 14 November 2024 Published by RIBA, the launch featured presentations from authors Guang Yu Ren and Prof Edward Denison with responses from Fiona Orsini and Neal Shasore. The book encourages students to engage with the RIBA Drawings Collection physically, intellectually and critically.

A series of in-person events took place around this year’s Fifteen show split between our Bloomsbury and Here East campuses. Situated Practice in Focus, 6 December 2024 saw students host an evening of talks, activations, interventions, performances and screenings. The Design for Performance and Interaction Project Fair, 6 December 2024 showcased groundbreaking design and research work from the graduating cohort. The Design for Manufacture Conference, 9 December 2024 saw students present the outcome of their research projects through a series of panel discussions. The 19th annual PhD Research Projects Exhibition, 25 February – 11 March 2025 showcased the work and research in developing or concluding phases from across all five doctoral streams for the first time. The accompanying conference featured presentations by doctoral students. Fame Collective hosted Practicing Care Through Architecture, 28 April – 18 May 2025 a public exhibition with accompanying events exploring architecture as a tool for care, justice and equity. Supported by funding from the RIBA Research Fund 2020 and the Bartlett’s Just Environments Incubator Fund 2025. The Bartlett Kiosk is a micro-exhibition space at the front window of the school, displaying projects at street level. This year, Kiosk highlighted the innovative work of our 518

Beyond Digital, 23 January 2025 Prof Mario Carpo presented his findings from Beyond Digital (MIT Press) offering a new modern agenda for our post-industrial future. Followed by a response from Daniel Cardoso Llach, chaired by Megha Chand Inglis. The Routledge Companion to the Sound of Space, 28 January 2025 Editors Emma-Kate Matthews, Director of Fabrication & Design Collaboration, Prof Jane Burry and Prof Mark Burry celebrated the complex interplay of sound and space with workshops and performances from Nina Garthwaite, Eleni-Ira Panourgia, Gascia Ouzounian, Gerard Gormley, Dr Gerret K. Sharma and Dr Angela McArthur. Space Syntax: Selected Papers by Bill Hillier, 07 May 2025 Published by UCL Press, editors Prof Laura Vaughan, Prof John Peponis and Prof Ruth Conroy Dalton reflected on the enduring impact of Prof Bill Hillier’s work followed by a panel discussion moderated by Dr Kimon Krenz.

Bartlett Shows Website In September 2020, the school launched its bespoke digital exhibition environment, presenting The Summer Show 2020. Since then, 23 further student shows have been shared digitally, including The Summer Show 2025. Each digital exhibition has attracted thousands of online visitors from across the globe, with the Summer Show 2024 content viewed over 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 being refined to improve the visitor

experience and to 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 at 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. www.bartlettarchucl.com

519

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. In April 2025, Bartlett alumni came together for the Friends of The Bartlett School of Architecture drinks reception, held at the beautifully restored Grade II-listed Walworth Town Hall. Chaired by alumnus Paul Monaghan (Bartlett 1986), the event featured a guided tour by fellow alumnus Tarek Merlin (Bartlett 2000), showcasing Feix&Merlin’s award-winning work on the building. Guests enjoyed a vibrant evening of drinks, conversation and networking. With thanks to the Walworth Town Hall team, General People and General Projects. Aumni are also invited to join us at The Bartlett Summer Show for an exclusive late opening of the exhibition. The Alumni Late drinks reception gives former students the opportunity to network with friends and colleagues, as well as meet prize winners from this year’s cohort.

520

Alumni interested in running events should email architecture.comms@ucl.ac.uk to discuss how we can help support you. All Bartlett School of Architecture alumni are invited to join UCL Alumni, a global community of more than 465,000 former students, to keep in touch with the school and receive 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 old and new friends in the worldwide alumni community — Free mentoring and the opportunity to become a mentor yourself — Jobs board for the exclusive alumni community — Lifelong learning options including professional development opportunities aoc.ucl.ac.uk/alumni

The Bartlett Promise Across higher education and in industry, the built environment sector is not diverse enough. Here at The Bartlett, we promise to do better. 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 scholarships, and in 2021, internationally, to Sub-Saharan Africa master’s students. 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 will 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 the 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

Students at 22 Gordon Street, The Bartlett’s Bloomsbury home 521

Staff, Visitors & Consultants A Ana Abram Vasilija Abramovic Georgios Adamopoulos Maciej Adaszewski Panagiota Adilenidou Farbod Afshar Bakeshloo Ava Aghakouchak Roslyn Aish Alejandra Albuerne Rodriguez Wardah Ali Laura Allen Nuria Alvarez Lombardero Simone Antoniazzi Thomas Aquilina Dimitris Argyros Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani Abigail Ashton Felicity Atekpe Edwina Attlee Annecy 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 Jhono Bennett Julian Besems Cephas Bhaskar Vishu Bhooshan Peter Bishop Laurence Blackwell-Thale Isaie Bloch George Bolwell Iain Borden Federico Borello Roberto Bottazzi Andy Bow Matthew Bowles Eva Branscome Albert Brenchat Aguilar Gabriel Brown Alastair Browning Tom Budd Christopher Burman Mark Burrows Matthew Butcher C Paola Camasso Blanche Cameron William Victor Camilleri Alberto Campagnoli 522

Barbara-Ann CampbellLange Ben Campkin Brendon Nikolas Carlin Brent Carnell Mario Carpo Martyn Carter Dan Carter Luciano Caruggi de Faria Ricardo Carvalho De Ostos Tommaso Casucci Ivan Chan Megha Chand Inglis Haden Charbel Nat Chard Finbar Charleson Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno Tung Ying Chow Krina Christopoulou James Kwang-Ho Chung Sandra Ciampone Dovile Ciapaite Mollie Claypool Freya Cobbin Marjan Colletti Michael Collins Emma Colthurst Peter Cook Hannah Corlett Sam Coulton John Cruwys Marcos Cruz Ruth Cuenca Candel Nichola Czyz D Christina Dahdaleh Amica Dall Van Anh Dang Satyajit Das Daniel Da Silva Peter Davies Tom Davies Adam Davis Jamie Day Klaas De Rycke Helbert De Sousa Costa James Delaney Denis Delaney Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio Edward Denison Pradeep Devadass Max Dewdney Ashley Dhanani Ilaria Di Carlo David Di Duca Katerina Dionysopoulou Paul Dobraszczyk Patch Dobson-Perez Oliver Domeisen Elizabeth Dow Sarah Dowding Daniel Dream

Camille Dunlop Shyamala Duraisingam Kirti Durelle Claudia Dutson Tom Dyckhoff E Dave Edwards Sherif Eltarabishy Samuel Esses Lisa Etamoje Michael Evans F Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Donat Fatet Laura Fawcett-Gaskell Alberto Fernandez Gonzalez Cyril Ferrando Tim Fielder Christopher Fischlein Zachary Fluker John Forty Alice Foxen Cesar Fragachan Pinzani Janine Francois Kenneth Fraser Murray Fraser Synnøve Fredericks Daisy Froud Francesca Froy Maria Fulford G Suzanne Gaballa Stephen Gage Gunther Galligioni Mark Garcia Lidia Gasperoni Michal Gath Morad Christophe Gerard Egmontas Geras Christina Geros Octavian Gheorghiu Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos Pedro Gil Agnieszka Glowacka Ruairi Glynn John Gold Alicia González-Lafita Perez Polly Gould Kevin Gray Isaac Greaves Kevin Green James Green Sienna Griffin-Shaw Sam Griffiths Kostas Grigoriadis Samuel Grinsell Jenia Gubkina Eric Guibert Peter Guillery

Srijana Gurung Seth Guy H Mohamad Hafeda Tamsin Hanke Sean Hanna Penelope Haralambidou Alice Hardy Jack Hardy Thea Heintz Florence Hemmings Lucy Hetherington Danielle Hewitt Parker Heyl Ashley Hinchcliffe William Hodgson Aileen Hoenerloh Tom Holberton Seyedeh Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami Tyson Hosmer Del Hossain Oliver Houchell Sheng-Yang Huang Johan Hybschmann I Jessica In Anderson Inge Desart Ismaili Cannon Ivers J Reuben Jacob Nikki Jamalinik Clara Jaschke Will Jennings Nicholas Jewell Steve Johnson Joe Johnson Helen Jones K Melih Kamaoglu Nikoletta Karastathi Kayvan Karimi Jan Kattein Thomas Keeley Thomas Kendall Jonathan Kendall Wilton Keymist Yana Kitova Jakub Klaska Fergus Knox Andreas Korner Marcin Kosicki Margit Kraft Kimon Krenz Dirk Krolikowski Dragana Krsic Amy Kulper Wai Kwok Max Kynman

L Alexandra Lacatusu Hina Lad Chee-Kit Lai Mani Lall Katya Larina Zoe Lau Tony Le Guan Lee Stefan Lengen Christopher Leung Xiuzheng Li Tairan Li Ifigeneia Liangi Chwen Lim Enriqueta Llabres-Valls Alvaro Lopez Deborah Lopez Lobato Luke Lowings Tim Lucas Matthew Lucraft Abi Luter M David Maciver Hannah Maguire Joerg Majer Alexandru Malaescu Shneel Malik Emily Mann Nina Manojlovic Yeoryia Manolopoulou 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 Niall McLaughlin Loukis Menelaou Yaoyao Meng Adam Meyrick Josep Miàs Gifre Luke Michael Frederic Migayrou Douglas Miller Shahram Minooee Sabery Dawn Mitchell Matei Mitrache Tom Mole Cristina Morbi Philippe Morel Maurizio Mucciola Bongani Muchemwa Hamish Muir Shaun Murray Maxwell Mutanda

N Tetsuro Nagata Giles Nartey Filippo Nassetti Olivia Neves Marra Provides Ng Vincent Nowak

David Roberts Felix Roberts Gavin Robotham Daniel Rodriguez Garcia Vita Rossi Merijn Royaards Javier Ruiz Rodriguez

O Aisling O’Carroll Toby O’Connor James O’Leary Yossie Olaleye Luke Olsen Don Onyido Femi Oresanya Adriana Ortegon Sanchez Daniel Ovalle Costal

S Kerstin Sailer Hadrien Salat Diana Salazar Morales Joel Saldeck Anete Krista Salmane Mbango Mispa Same Essaka Ellie Sampson Edward Tristram Scott Lara Schrijver Peter Scully Kay Sedki Elly Selby Arinjoy Sen Tania Sengupta Neba Sere Sara Shafiei David Shanks Bob Sheil Rory Sherlock Naz Siddique Philipp Siedler Gareth Simons Isaac Simpson Yip Siu Colin Smith Helen Smith Paul Smoothy Mark Smout Valentina Soana Joana Carla Soares Goncalves Jasminder Sohi Amy Spencer Ben Spong Matthew Springett Michael Stacey Tijana Stevanovic Rachel Stevenson David Storring Ignacy Styszko Michiko Sumi Harry Sumner Sunny Sunny

P Fernene Pacquette Maria Paez James Palmer Igor Pantic Vasileios Papalexopoulos Annarita Papeschi Thomas Parker Claudia Pasquero Jane Paterson Luke Pearson 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 Maj Plemenitas Lyn Poon Andrew Porter Rebecca Preston Emily Priest Lakshmi Priya Rajendran Sophia Psarra Stamatios Psarras Danielle Purkiss R Caroline Rabourdin Sascha Rashof Peg Rawes Sophie Read Aileen Reid Guang Yu Ren Jane Rendell Gilles Retsin Charlotte Reynolds Daria Ricchi Harriet Richardson Julie Richardson

T Philip Temple Emmy Thittanond Colin Thom Elinor Thomas Kathryn Timmins Michael Tite Claudia Toma Victor Torrance Alessandro Toti Martin Traunmueller

Martha Tsigkari Marios Tsiliakos Freddy Tuppen Samuel Turner-Baldwin Jonathan Tyrrell V Sumayya Vally Melis Van Den Berg Kelly Van Hecke Kim Van Poeteren Athanasios Varnavas Tasos Varoudis Laura Vaughan Hamish Veitch Alejandro Veliz Reyes Maria Venegas Raba Viktoria Viktorija Amelia Vilaplana De Miguel Jordi Vivaldi Piera Nina Vollenbroker Doron Von Beider W Andrew Walker Adam Walls Chenxi Wang Susan Ware Gabriel Warshafsky Tim Waterman James Watkins Patrick Weber Paul Weston Alice Whewell Saralyn White Christopher Whiteside Andrew Whiting Alexander Whitley Daniel Widrig Izabela Wieczorek James Wilkie Henrietta Williams Gen Williams Graeme Williamson James Williamson Robin Wilson Sal Wilson Oliver Wilton Cheuk Wong XYZ Zoe Xing Xiaoming Xu Yeena Yoon Sandra Youkhana Aikaterini Zacharopoulou Barbara Zandavali Emmanouil Zaroukas Sepehr Zhand Fiona Zisch Dominik Zisch Stamatis Zografos

523

ucl.ac.uk/architecture bartlettarchucl.com Find us on Publisher The Bartlett School of Architecture Editors Srijana Gurung, Alicia González-Lafita Perez, Mark Cortes Favis Proofreaders Simon Coppock, Karen Francis, Sarah Hall Graphic Design Patrick Morrissey, Unlimited weareunlimited.co.uk Executive Editor Amy Kulper Bartlett life photography taken by Richard Stonehouse unless otherwise indicated

Summer Show Main Titleincluded Supporter 2025 Bartlett life photography taken

© 2025 The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. We endeavour to ensure all information contained in this publication is accurate at the time of printing. The views, information or 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 978-1-7392670-8-7 The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 22 Gordon Street London WC1H 0QB +44 (0)20 3108 9646 architecture@ucl.ac.uk

Summer Show Sponsors

Scholarships Aziz Foundation Norman Foster Foundation Bursaries Kohn Pedersen Fox Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners

ucl.ac.uk/architecture bartlettarchucl.com

The Bartlett Summer Show Book 2025