MArch. CSA 2014

MArch.

2014

Friends, Collaborators, Contributors Will Alsop - All Design Dennis Austin - Rogers Stirk Harbour David Bickle - Hawkins\Brown Aran Chadwick - Atelier One Martin Cawson Uwe Derksen, Amie Rai & Clare Wunderly Phil Eyden - WHPS Akram Fahmi - Reardon Smith Architects Dave Francis - Eastleigh Borough Council Andrew Gancikov - Gancikov Architecture and Design Vincent Hangere & Estelle Timothy - Medway Council Matt Hayes - Lee Evans Partnership Gary Kellett - Reardon Smith Architects Donald Kwaku - Gancikov Architecture Pravin Muthiah - Coupe de Ville Marta Patlewics - Pop Up Shop Clare Smith & Joanna Jones - Dover Arts Development Adam Tarr - DisPlay Architecture Sponsor : Lee Evans Partnership

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Canterbury School of Architecture

in the Vitra Fire Station

CSA

MArch.

Allan Atlee Head of School

John Bell Course Leader MArch.

The School

The Canterbury School of Architecture (CSA) is situated within the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), a leading specialist university that offers courses from pre-degree Art Foundation to PhD research in its Art, Design & Media disciplines. Our founding colleges and campuses at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester have a history dating back to 1866. Our validated courses in Architecture are located at our campus in Canterbury city centre where students benefit from generous and dedicated purposebuilt studios and a range of specialist technical workshops, library collections and exhibition spaces.

Our School has developed a distinctive approach to architectural education and research that is informed by its rich Art School heritage. In particular we emphasise activist models of teaching, learning and research; cultures of thinking and making that synthesise traditional techniques with advanced digital media and workflows; and a pedagogic culture that situates imaginative futures in clearly articulated critical understandings of the present.

All of our activities consciously face outwards to the world and engage

diverse audiences through exhibitions, publications, collaborations and a strong public programme of lectures and events.

We see our School as a laboratory for architecture and spatial design. We’re committed to exploring the potentials of our discipline through our individual and collective actions and agency. This requires a commitment on the part of our students and staff to take a position in relation to the contemporary conditions of the city, to take responsibility for its transformation and ultimately to take action. This activist approach informs all of the design projects that we set for our students, demanding of them that they take responsibility for aspects of the projects objectives and aims, their development and trajectory, and ultimately their dissemination and use. We share this mind-set with the wider community of artists, designers and designer-makers at UCA where there is a strong tradition of valuing professional and creative practice and agency. This Art School tradition makes the Canterbury School of Architecture an ideal place for the exploration and production of ideas as things.

The Course

Across the course, projects are informed and supported by the practice and research activities of the staff teams, many of whom have developed their own profiles and practice through internally and externally funded research and enterprise projects. Our part-time sessional staff team has also developed positively over this period; many are involved in distinctive practice-based research and award winning professional practice. In the past 12 months our staff, students and alumni have been recognized with nominations and awards in a number of national and international competitions and prizes, including a nomination for alumnus Adam Hiles for Floating Cinema with Duggan Morris); 1st Prize in the Reardon Smith Sleep Award (James Young, MArch); and

Winner of the El Lizitsky Memorial Competition (Gabor Stark, Senior Lecturer).

Will Alsop was appointed as Professor of Architecture and has been working with the School to develop a number of projects that will provide opportunities for students in 2014/15 and beyond.

These include a summer school in Girona, a collaboration with the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith and Art School Kenya – an initiative to develop an innovative model of arts education. Our growing public programme of lectures and events, Multistory, has also developed a series of talks at Battersea, adjacent to Will’s studio, providing alumni and collaborators in London means to engage with the School in new ways.

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MArch. Studios

SYN City

AirScape

Studio Leader Subject Area Leader MA Urban Design

Studio Leader Course Leader MArch.

Gabor Stark

SYN City is a postgraduate research & design studio at UCA Canterbury School of Architecture. Each year the studio dedicates itself to one territory of investigation in order to explore the dialectical and contested nature of the contemporary city. By focusing on one exemplary context, specific and at the same time typical and paradigmatic conditions are addressed. The studio critically engages with the complex and often antithetical forces within the expanded field of urban transformation processes and synthesises them into programmatic and spatial design proposals.

SYN City oscillates between the disciplines of architecture, urban design and landscape urbanism. It experiments with the hybridisation of complementary approaches within the context of urban development and regeneration, which are conventionally separated from each other. Embracing critical and activist, formal and informal design practices alike, the studio amalgamates diverse strategies, tactics and tools to support the catalysis of spatially and socially beneficial transformation processes.

SYN City is collaborative. The studio cooperates with external partners,

local authorities and other public and private institutions and actively involves and engages with urban communities. Within the context of an increasingly uneven and competitive development of the urban realm, the studio aims for the synergetic effects of cooperation and challenges segregation tendencies, whether they are social, functional or spatial.

SYN City focuses on the temporality of the urban environment. Ranging from small scale and ephemeral interventions, via provisional and temporary uses, to the formulation of long-term and incremental implementation scenarios, the time and timing of the contemporary city are at the core of its agenda.

Under the title IMPORT EXPORT – Architecture, Culture and Interurban Exchange this year’s studio agenda was embedded in UCA’s involvement in the European Interreg project ReCreate.

Embracing and augmenting the thematic framework of the EU funded programme, the studio looked into the role of architecture and urbanism for culture-led regeneration strategies and into the disciplines’ potential to catalyse contemporary and innovative forms of intercultural exchange.

John Bell

There has been much debate and research into the future of air travel in the Southeast. Much has centred on the relatively remote and rural Hoo Peninsula. Schemes from Foster Associates and Gensler both identify this area as suitable for what would, if built be the world’s largest hub airport.

As this behemoth may yet alter the fabric of East Kent – in the School of Architecture’s back yard, we felt we must investigate.

5th Year: Landscape Infrastructure We began with 5 themes and one direct action: to land the first Airbus A380 on the Isle of Grain, using light alone (well and some balloons)...

1. Maintenance Maintenance is a constant negotiation, a revealing and arresting of landscape process, and the creation of a mediated equilibrium on which we continually rely.

2. Commercialisation Today, it is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to dissociate an airport and a commercial mall.

3. Inequality Mobility infrastructure should be accessible to all, but of course it isn’t.

The more that our cities grow and the more we are globally connected, the more social inequality becomes visible.

4. Environment “How to create an infrastructure that leaves nature more or less untouched is a first step. But we are now entering another phase, which is even more interesting: how can we create an infrastructure that organises natural life...”

5. Displacement Is there any sense in discussing rural and urban populations as distinct entities in 21st century Britain?

Meanwhile, 4th year: Terminal Desires On visiting any airport we might reasonable identify two principal constituencies in the departure lounge: one valorising the necessity of unmediated contact, the other its exact opposite; both desiring increasingly frequent air travel. Despite the best efforts of the proponents of broadband communications, virtual presence and the multimedia teleconference, air travel remains an obstinate fact. Being there is perceived as a necessity for much commerce, with the immateriality of telepresence still a poor second.

The leisure traveller, however, is most strongly characterised by a desire to bear witness, to report - to be able to tweet authentic on­location selfies to perennially absent internet friends.

How, where, to what extent and at what cost should the desires of these constituencies be addressed?

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The Distributed Terminal Radu Gidei radugidei@gmail.com radugidei.com The modern airport is a shed. Everything one needs in order to fly is under one, big, and sometimes beautiful, roof.

What started out as a convenient way to fly is now a convoluted & slow process, akin to a maze.

What if the airport and its infrastructure were disassembled and then scattered along a robust transportation framework? Such an airport would refocus on minimising passenger travel time and maximising efficiency at every stage of the journey.

This paradigm shift makes it possible for the entire system to adopt a justin-time strategy, where passenger movements and operations are coordinated and choreographed.

The distributed terminal re-imagines the process of air travel, placing the passengers at the heart of it all.

Imagine dropping off your luggage at Waterloo, going through security whilst on the train and boarding the plane the minute you arrive at the gate : no waiting and no queues.

Dynamic Landscape Joe Best joe_best_88@live.co.uk joebestarchitecture.tumblr.com “Discard the notion of vertical enclosure, whose walls are made inaccessible by gravity, and to define habitable space by means of wholly accessible inclined planes, thereby increasing the usable surface areas.

This was in essence, the principle of HABITABLE CIRCULATION�

Paul Virillio, The Function of the Oblique.

Discarding the conventional airport construction principle of a large shed, an outer shell filled with a number of items and replacing it with that of habitable circulation creates a Dynamic Landscape. No longer is there a separation between the floor, walls and the roof, but a continuation and accessibility between them all.

With demographic and programmatic baselines allowing passengers to curate their experience of the airport across novel and diverse programmes.

Thesis Project

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Thesis Project

Air_Scape Ecologies Brian Owens-Murphy twitter.com/bowensmurphy brianowensmurphy.com By their nature, use, form and size, airports are often considered as spaces extraneous to the landscape and difficult to integrate into the their context. They have a strong impact on the local area, modifying not just its morphology, but also its social structure, economy and environmental qualities.

Air_Scape Ecologies speculates on how over the next 15-20 years the Thames Hub airport proposal, if adopted, could integrate with its context on the Isle of Grain.

This is achieved through the creation of a phased 9km2 deindustrialized landscape south of the proposed airport site for the realignment of wetlands, habitat creation and recreation use.

With adaptive re-use of the gas storage tanks into a cultural hub and the Grain Power Station chimney into an observation tower. Traces of the site’s industrial past remain as way finding points within the landscape.

Masques Anamaria Voda anamariavoda@gmail.com The airport embodies the ultimate nonplace of supermodernity; it is a place to be passed through, without having a real identity.

The Masques stand as a critique of the airport. They are a series of allegorical objects which identify and amplify the quintessential human moments in the amorphous space of the airport.

The 3 Masques dissect the following moments: goodbye, waiting and hello.

‘Goodbye’ is a gradual separation, thus developing this Masque into a journey navigated in an elevator which steers the users through the emotional journey of goodbye.

The ‘Waiting’ Masque confronts the actual activity of waiting and has been developed as trance-inducing chamber.

‘Hello’ is an anticipated encounter associated with delight and surprise, therefore the masque emphasises the banal by offering the passenger a flamboyant entrance through an unscripted labyrinth of organ pipes.

Goodbye

Waiting

Hello

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Sacred Place Matthew J. Reynolds MatthewReynolds1503@gmail.com As a vehicle for research, my thesis is an enquiry into community, place, unity, fortification, resistance, protest, religion, the metaphysical, diversity, festival, the ephemeral, history, the will o’ the wisp and the provocation of the Foster and Partner’s Thames Hub Airport tabula rasa. My project is an holistic response these many avenues of enquiry and which addresses the possibility of the manufacture of certainty in an area whose future is unknown.

Nine religious buildings form the backbone and the main architectural response. Created through series working, inspired by Peter Eisenman’s house series, and the Deleuzian notion of difference and repetition.

My project offers no absolute conclusion, no definite position, but a rigorous response to many seemingly incompatible factors, in a place whose future is uncertain.

Articulated Bio - Lands Aggelos Vachliotis aggelos_vachliotis@hotmail.com aggelosvachliotis.wix.com I have investigated connections between urbanism, structure, biology and technology, in order to create responsive systems that combine natural and artificial systems.

This design thesis explores the possibilities of the use of slime mould for the production of large-scale city systems, in order to connect London and the Isle of Grain. Following a series of investigations at this urban scale, the design production of the a new airport located on the Isle of Grain was proposed.

The main idea behind this airport is using analogous techniques at this smaller scale. This methodology created organisational diagrams from which architectural form developed.

Thesis Project

Thesis Project

MicroCity Gabriel Fayika gfayika@gmail.com issuu.com/gabrielfayika The thesis is about creating a ‘micro city’ within a building which anticipates and accommodates travellers and nontravellers. Programmes are dispersed across a series of ramped boulevards which are themselves wrapped by hotel and living accommodation.

Retail is de-emphasised in this proposal in comparison to a conventional airport terminal. A number of entertainment and cultural programmes are introduced in order to transform the experience of airport use.

The proposal is located to the West of the Foster Hub proposal on the Isle of Grain and will become a node in a growing Aerotropolis, which is anticipated to strech from the City of London to the Isle of Grain.

The Invisible Airport Sam Geoghegan sgeoghegan@hotmail.co.uk sgeoghegan.carbonmade.com/ This proposal is for an invisible airport.

A series of tactics render the airport invisible for those who are directly affected or in contact with it: the remaining residents, birds, wildlife and travellers.

There are intervention.

three

categories

of

1. DISGUISE the airport from view by altering the surrounding landscape, making the airport less obtrusive for the residents, creating new habitats.

2. DISPLACE and re-design the control tower, changing the familiar form into something novel.

3. DISTRACT the passengers, through the creation of new departure lounge programmes, creating the illusion of less time being spent in the airport.

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Cross-Cultural Exchange Amado Karlo Dantes akdantes@gmail.com twitter.com/akdantes Cross-Cultural Exchange explores strategies for towns and ports within the coastal region of the English Channel. How could these places be transformed into a co-operative network of trade and exchange through art and culture?

The objective is to integrate coastal towns, active and inactive port by connecting them through a proposed European Cultural Network based on existing and new festivals and events.

The Cultural Flotilla consists of five cargo vessels, which act as waterbound sites for a theatre, a concert hall, a museum, a festival and a fair.

All vessels accommodate specific programs, host events and disseminate cultural activities across the identified region, thus providing direct links and contacts between the international places.

Dreamland Juxtaposition Hoi Yin Yip petrelhoi@gmail.com petrelyip.tumblr.com Margate has been a thriving seaside resort for at least 250 years. In the past decades however, Margate has suffered from a long-term economy decline in its key industry of tourism.

The project aims to contribute to the urban regeneration of Margate by designing a wellness and entertainment complex for the vacant Dreamland site.

The design of the hybrid building merges the themes of health and wellness with those of amusement and entertainment. It provides a spatial sequence of thematic and formal oppositions and contrasts.

High culture versus mass culture; elitist escape versus cheap access; old roller coaster versus new golf course, healthy spa versus unhealthy fast food; slow massage versus quick gambling; luxury guest rooms versus cheap accommodation - the building amplifies and celebrates the existing juxtapositions of Margate and translates them into an architectural promenade.

Thesis Project

Thesis Project

Chatham Intra Nic Smith nicsmith1990@yahoo.co.uk twitter.com/nicsmith13 Since the closure of Chatham Dockyards, Medway witnessed an unwinding economy, which is no longer supported by the naval production industry. Medway has become a postindustrial city, with little hint at a new economic identity and future.

By using the programmes of smallscale manufacturing and the creative industries the project proposes urban and architectural strategies to rejuvenate the area linking Rochester and Chatham, known as Chatham Intra.

The proposed urban masterplan links the currently fragmented and isolated site back to the river and to its urban adjacencies including Chatham high street. The architectural interventions slot into the existing urban fabric, wrap around buildings and clearly define new exterior spaces, both pri­ vate and public. The grain of the proposed interventions allows for the implementation of the live-work scheme, incorporating residential and workspace/ studio spaces into an area, which is in need of regeneration.

Eastleigh Exchange Joseph Mann joemannarch@gmail.com josephmann.carbonmade.com The project works on both local and international scales. It uses existing railway infrastructure in order to import and export cultural aspects into and out of the town of Eastleigh and reconnects the latter with Winchester in the north, Southampton in the south and, via a ferry link, with Le Havre and the rest of France and mainland Europe.

The remaining railway line through Eastleigh is a legacy of its historic development as this was the primary reason for the town to grow and to become a leading locomotive manufacturer in the UK. The project aims to re-use the existing railway infrastructure and to create a new interchange between the existing town centre, the adjacent industrial area and the train station. Growth in Eastleigh would be promoted via improved transport links, new public spaces and the regeneration of currently under-used areas, creating a new communal and cultural hub from Eastleigh’s railway heritage.

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BtB : a return with honour Tereza Papadoudi tpapadoudi@hotmail.com coroflot.com/TerezaPapadoudi After centuries of debate, recent polls show the growing support to return the Greek Marbles.

The thesis proposes a mobile exhibition that collects the contested artefacts from the affected museums and institutions and brings them back to their origins.

The spatial setting for this journey consists of an architectural kit of parts, which can be easily assembled and de-assembled.

After collecting the Elgin Marbles and the Caryatid from the British Museum the nomadic collection moves to the Louvre in Paris, where it collects the Aphrodite of Milos and the Victory of Samothrace.

On the route to their final destination the items will be temporarily displayed in other French and Italian cities before they are restored to the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

Awakening Senses Savina Kourtidou savvina13@hotmail.com Our contemporary culture is dominated by ocularcentrism. Modern designs often focus exclusively on the visual perception of space, neglecting all the other senses and creating a gap between our body and our sensory experience.

Located in Margate, Kent the project proposes studios and workshops for sculpture, dancing, painting, music and theatre. Awakening Senses concentrates on visually impaired people who cannot use the sense of vision as much as sighted people do.

The aim of the project is to utilize all senses and to create an inclusive environment for people with varying visual impairments as well as the general public.

Based in research into the principals of sensorial design, the main goal of the project is to provide an inclusive environment, which helps people to navigate through and to experience the building through haptic, aural, and olfactory perception.

Thesis Project

Thesis Project

Occupy Christopher Beckett csbeckettis@gmail.com The thesis looks into the region on both sides of the English Channel, focusing on its shared history of conflicts. OCCUPY proposes a series of interventions in Sangatte, Calais and Western Heights, Dover, marking and transforming the otherwise forgotten structures of the contested legacies of war.

Western Heights is made up of a series of defences including the Drop Redoubt, a Napoleonic 19th century fortification, and the Grand Shaft, a helical staircase designed to allow fast soldier movement from the barracks to the town. Both structures are currently abandoned and difficult to access.

The proposed architectural interventions give these fortifications a new visible presence and establish old and new modes of access.

Reconnecting the fort with the town of Dover the proposed spaces reinstall previous programs and allow for new forms of inhabitation.

Kiribati.1 Michalis Charalambous ingjournal@gmail.com twitter.com/ingjournal The thesis project proposes a strategy for the gradual relocation of the people of Kiribati, an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean, which -as a result of climate change- is under serious threat by rising sea levels.

The project develops alternative urban arrangements, infrastructural systems and technological solutions for an archipelago of floating platforms on which new communities can be created.

Kiribati.1 refers to a district, an area afloat, where people can live, work and perform social and communal activities: an amphibian cluster of aquatic and terrestrial settlements, able to accommodate thousands of inhabitants and to establish new socioeconomic, cultural and sustainable ecologies.

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Dissertation

Essential to postgraduate study of architecture is an appreciation of the various theoretical discourses which have informed and been informed

by practice. Equally essential is the ability to apply the intellectual abilities that allow actively engagement with this material through analysis and

evaluation so as to articulate a position within frameworks of theoretical discourse. At CSA there are two possible approaches to this: a written

dissertation words or a research project, presented using alternate media and an exegesis.

Modern Romantics

She believes that he oversimplified his value judgments; he went against what he initially sought out to do. Rand believes that Le Corbusier enforced his values upon an audience through promoting them to follow.

But surely Rand is guiltier of this notion? She wrote these notes at the very start of her writing career but ended up ignorantly succumbing to this very vice. Where Le Corbusier developed his fundamental philosophy, the philosophy shared by Hugo and Rand, in the art of folk culture, Rand developed it through the writing of the esthetic Romanticists and Aristotle.

Where Le Corbusier developed his personal, refined philosophy based on the specific type of restraint-of-theindividual-genius of his time: ornament and neo-classicism, Rand developed her personal refined philosophy on the specific type of restraint-of-theindividual-genius that she saw of her time, the problems that were personal to her as an individual: the heavy socialism imposed by the Soviet Union in her motherland. She therefore develops this more personal philosophy based on a fondness of capitalism – for she sees it as the only system currently in existence that promotes the individual.

Of course nobody likes a capitalist; of course she is deemed immoral.

In the field of her own art, literature, the characters have defining traits that are concrete, they are reduced to their fundamentals to achieve a wide understanding of these traits and to in turn aid in achieving an understanding of the author’s values. This is a notion Rand has adopted from Hugo who writes ‘each figure must be held down to its most prominent, most individual, most precisely defined characteristic.’2 She truly does this notion justice in The Fountainhead.

psychologically; but that is not to say that he should not associate himself with other men entirely as Roark does in The Fountainhead. Rand began by disassociating Roark with other men as part of the concretisation of an idea but ended up believing that the public was an enemy towards his great mind, that they were not worthy of him.

Rand begins to believe this cheapened philosophy. It is Rand herself who says that art is of a very personal concern to man, yet she has not allowed man to think for himself.

Allowing these individuals to achieve distinction and reverence through this promotion of a named figurehead acts in heightening media awareness and in turn, the need for the careful management of a cohesive brand and media image. This phenomenon does not necessarily reflect exceptional building design, but projects an image of confidence implicit with the named figurehead. As this foreshadows the notion of architectural authorship and fame is highly questionable and invites close discussion. This essay will focus on the concept of the architect as an author and the implied ideals, as these notions vary greatly over time and with context, 2 questioning whether the implied tropes of authorship are referential the demise of the architect.

autonomous creator. Appreciation and criticism is distributed with greater ease when an individual is identified, having a face connected to architecture brings it a human touch. The origins of this common perception become interesting, and relevant in viewing those who sought to challenge this authorship within architecture. The collaborative nature of architecture in which practice takes place also becomes of interest, as this is the model of which the majority of contemporary practices operated on, but is eschewed within the public perception for the more historically favorable idea of the single creator.

Dissertation extract Catherine Segâh Griffiths A dialogue between Victor Hugo, Ayn Rand and Charles-Édouard Jeanneret [...]

As we know, Le Corbusier’s intention was not for his architecture to be copied, but to be used. The house as a machine! Perhaps the public embraced the novelty of this new type of Architecture and promoted Modernism to be taken up as a movement, as a new craze to be fetishised.

But then again, according to Rand’s view, perhaps the fault does not lie in public intellect, for after all, in the twentieth century man has come to be known as an ‘animal worthy of respect’.

The fault she believes lies in Le Corbusier’s method of simplification.

Maybe Le Corbusier did go too far...

Art is a concretisation of a man’s metaphysical value judgments but perhaps Le Corbusier oversimplified.

Yes that was part of his original objective, but this, as he himself has established, went past engineering and became art. It was still art. Its objective was to still project his value system.

The Death of the Architect Dissertation extract James Young About the authorship

notion

of

architectural

[...] Very few architects are propelled into the realms of public perception as often as other patrons of the creative community. The architects, who achieve this propulsion are typically those who realize large scale and culturally significant building projects, achieving a presence in a nonspecialist press and a place within the culture of celebrity. This status is often accredited to the singular named figurehead, in the case of Foster and Partners, this figurehead being Norman Foster. In the sense of architectural fame, the principle of ‘honour to whom honour is due’ is non-existent, but an individual is revered for the efforts of many others. Additionally, “fame cuts across the categories of architectural quality”1 and can depend on a number of separate significances within the profession, regardless of the critical realized successes of a building.

The concept of the architect as author is one of fundamental simplicity, when a building of interest peaks our attention we ask, “who is the architect?” implying the single creator from the offset. We are prompted by a widespread habit of referring to buildings in the possessive.3 This habit implies our attempt to assign the efforts of a built project to an individual, often the figurehead or namesake.

This shows a similitude to authorship in art and the concept of a single

However overall, it is she who oversimplifies her moral, fundamental philosophy to simple terms that cheapen her highly complex thoughts in an attempt to portray her views to a wide audience, without it having to read her lengthy novels followed by theoretical writing that further explains them. She deems her individual as ‘selfish’ for wanting to achieve his goals for his own harmony and for not living through the eyes of other people.

This is a highly moral notion but by referring to it through this negative term it can easily be misunderstood.

She oversimplifies her Romantic Individual by not associating him with any other men, she goes too far. Yes man is enough for himself; he does not need another man’s ideas to survive

This leads to questions on what an architect actually authors, is it easier to view these ‘starchitects’ as more akin to art directors, with a connect at the point of origin, or the underlying conceptual themes of a project but disconnected at translation of initial concept into completed building.

Norman Foster, as one of the most celebrated and prolific contemporary architects brings the question of architectural authorship to the forefront of the vast realms of work produced by his practice, Foster + Partners. Foster becomes particularly

Projecting a value system through the art of literature can easily result in imposition. However this does not explain why great controversy surrounds Rand’s work and Hugo is considered a genius. Both were writers but Rand came to be known as a philosopher while Hugo is still known for his art. Hugo was reluctant to write a manifesto and hid it in a preface as we have seen, but only due to his scarce faith that his values would be understood due to his impression of man. But of course they were understood by enough people for culture to emerge.

This is why Le Corbusier chose architecture; it is an art form that does not allow imposition. [...]

interesting as his first experience of architectural practice was in the 1960’s at a time of radical rethinking on collaboration and namelessness, particularly in architecture. It was from this radicalization from which studios such as Archigram originated. From this relative namelessness, Foster and his studio partner Richard Rogers, respectively went on to become two of the largest architecture practices world over, both becoming the name figurehead. With a staff of over one thousand and offices all over the world it is impossible for Foster to have a hand in all projects undertaken

by Foster + Partners, yet completed buildings are always referred to in the possessive. This increased globalism also affects the product. Foster is often portrayed in the architectural media as well as the non-specialist press, the careful management and presentation of Foster marks parallels between his architecture to a brand, with him becoming the brand spokesperson.

Holding such a prominence in popular culture as well as the realms of architecture, the question is asked if Foster + Partners will cease to exist once its spokesperson or brand leader stands down and the themes of authorship reflecting the death of the architect are evaluated. [...]

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Future Practice In this unit, students explore the application of practice, with the evaluation of alternative and varied strategies and tactics. Students create their own model of practice

and instigate a conversation within the wider public sphere, opening debates about the role architecture can play in its social context. This has taken the form of live projects, publications,

public exhibitions, facilitated public workshops, actions and installations.

Seen as a springboard towards future practice, it provides an opportunity to take the issues encountered and

Grain’s Future Anamaria Voda, Joe Best Brian Owens-Murphy, Radu Gidei The newspaper is a familiar form, which allowed us to : 1. Present and further the academic research undertaken by four MArch students on the subjects of airports and the Isle of Grain over the past few months.

2. Add to the existing wider context of discussions regarding the airport proposals for London.

3. Gain an informed impression the Isle of Grain’s current state.

4. Increase people’s understanding of the current airport proposals for the Thames Estuary, by adopting a non-biased position.

5. Highlight the uniqueness of the Isle of Grain and the qualities, which make it, a special place.

6. Interact with both members of the public, professionals and organisations alike with hope to encourage further dialogue between the parties.

X-Change Amado Karlo Dantes We constructed a travelling pop-up exhibition which visited two ReCreate towns, Chatham and Eastleigh. We presented our thesis projects, which are part of a larger design agenda embedded in UCA’s involvement in the European Interreg project ReCreate.

ReCreate is set to transform vacant commercial and cultural spaces in order to create opportunities for a new generation of creative enterprises.

The project is part of the ongoing Interreg IVA (Channel) France-England programme and has established various cross-border partnerships of cities and urban areas from northern France and the south and east coast of England.

At the heart of ReCreate is the aim to bring vacant urban spaces back to life by transforming them into business clusters for creative enterprises, artists and start up companies.

Embracing and augmenting this thematic frame-work, our projects look into the role of architecture and urbanism for culture-led regeneration strategies and explore the discipline’s potential to catalyse contemporary and innovative forms of intercultural exchange.

Exhibition Layout(s)

X4

Max. Table Lined up

X2

Min. Table Lined up

Axonometric Diagram 05

developed in an academic context into a wider social context of practice.

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Techonology Dissertation

In the Technology Dissertation, students are required to apply their understanding of technical knowledge to the resolution of building design problems or to the development of novel approaches to design issues

through rigorous, well–documented experimentation. Novel and emergent technologies and systems will form the basis of the dissertation. It is the ambition of the unit to encourage speculation in respect of technologies

that are presently, or have the potential to be developed and deployed in the construction industry. Collaborative research and work aligned with staff interests is encouraged, there is a general aspiration to locate the outputs

of the unit within broader academic and commercial frameworks, in line with the outward- looking nature of the course.

Invisible Infrastructure Amado Karlo Dantes

The purpose of the experiment was to find out about the RF levels and nature of the microwave signals in Canterbury; to pinpoint their lowest and highest levels, concentration and hotspots.

The field research was conducted using an Acoustimeter, an instrument that detects electromagnetic fields in the environment. The experiment focused on the Radio frequency spectrum from

GSM Base Stations, DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications), TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio), 3G, 4G and WiFi. The radio frequency spectrum is at the heart of telecommunications infrastructure, used by everyone from emergency services, public safety, transport services and the military. Telecommunication technology and other digital wireless systems are seen as an essential

Map Key; 50 sqm Indoor wifi range

resource by some and as a health hazard by others as the technology uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range. The research also proposes possible actions in informing the public about the effects of EMF radiation in the Environment.

A series of Shelters or Faraday cages, were designed that block mobile reception and Wi-Fi signals, creating

a space where people can disconnect and find out more about EMF in the built Environment.

The proposed installation is accompanied by a Map, Collages and a Video animation showing accurate visual representation of the Invisible nature of the Digital Infrastructure.

Scale 1: 2500 Predominantly Schools Institutions

Small Business and Shops with indoor wifi connectivity

Most ES individuals don’t experience significant adverse health effects below this level

Typical max in public areas near base station masts (can be higher)

EMF Readings_in Canterbury

Technology Dissertation

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Optic Tendril Research collaboration with John Bell

Anamaria Voda, Joe Best, Brian Owens-Murphy, Radu Gidei The intention is to take a material system – the key material in this case PMMA optical fibre and to investigate its performance and possible morphologies, developed through sets of artefacts. By first assessing the performance spectrum of the material calibrated against diverse criteria, sub-system designs were developed, in this case for interfacing the nascent proposal with light sources, emitters, actuators, sensors and structural support. Subsequently digital and scaled physical models were constructed and tested. From this data a series of prototypes are

developed, each iteration supplying incremental design and performance data for the next.The proposal sits in-between several discourses: attempting to avoiding some of the discussions on correlated systems and part-to-whole relations, which have become a new architectural dogma (most prosaically emerging as BIM systems). Tendril is conceived as a material system: depending from a Deleuzian framework, in that it is ostensibly addressing intensive forces and relations – in this case announced as networks of aesthetics, materialities and technologies. The pragmatic carrier

for this hybrid is the utilitarian, however, as an architectural design research exercise, it is hoped and expected that its presence will provoke a more extensive response. It is of course and of necessity a parametric exercise, however I should state explicitly that the proposal is not aligned with that narrow band of quasi-systemstheory which has animated many in architecture over the last few years. It is, I believe, now more compelling to focus on morphologies which exceed the limitations of the parametric gradient and tend more towards the towards the transformative and the

a-rational: the messy and difficult - recognising that the theories and techniques of surface discretisation and parametric variation, most often related solely to material limits and to typological analysis which are then unified through algorithmic production are, at least within our particular milieu expedient but ultimately passĂŠ.

This approach then allows for formal articulations, which are traditionally dealt with downstream from outline design, to be attain some degree of autonomy.

4th year AirScape Consider, for example the present conditions and possible future design of the airport as a leisure facility, with the possibilities for life there played out in terms of dwell time, activity and experience.

In the ever-fragmenting machine of globalisation, man and his identity have

been characterised by flows and flow analysis. Social networks exemplify this trend: there is virtually no ‘alone time’ left; every single moment becomes an opportunity to make another connection. We live in a world in which getting and holding one another’s attention becomes paramount, and

relationships of all kinds becomes central to our existence. Descartes’ dictum, “I think therefore I am” has been replaced by “I am connected therefore I exist.”

The anxiety of the security check and the status of the x-ray machine, the

body scanner: devices to make people and things transparent...

What is the nature of our chosen site as a particular and identifiable place and what might be its status with respect to local and global time: precisely: where is AirScape and when exactly is it?

James Young

James Young

Catherine Griffiths

Catherine Griffiths

Bruce Buckland

Bruce Buckland

Angelos Andronikou

Celina Silva

Emilio Koutsoftides

Aaron Bright