Architecture: University of Greenwich School of Design, Show 2021

2021

University of Greenwich School of Design 11 Stockwell Street Greenwich London SE10 9BD Design_School@greenwich.ac.uk +44 (0)20 8331 9135 Copyright © University of Greenwich 2021 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

We endeavour to ensure that all information is accurate at the time of publication.

ISBN: 978-1-9996921-7-9 Design: Claire Mason + Mike Aling Production assistant: Henry O'Neill

Architecture

University of Greenwich

Introduction Professor Stephen Kennedy

School of Design

Head of School

Dear Graduating Students, I look with great admiration at the work produced this year. Fearless experimentation abounds and the energy that emanates from these collective works is palpable. Incredible challenges have been surmounted with a degree of wit, ingenuity and imagination that has become the hallmark of Greenwich graduates.

So, as you leave to take on new challenges, I want to thank you, not for your patience and fortitude, but for the joy and creativity that you have brought to the School and the University during your time with us.

In a year when it might seem like crisis management has become the new normal, there would appear to be little obvious to celebrate. In many respects this is true, but from a different perspective it could be said that this has always been the case: chaos and uncertainty form the natural terrain of the creative individual - the space of possibility to which we are drawn. That said, it must be acknowledged that there is much you have missed out on. The opportunity to inhabit this creative space has been massively impacted. But somehow you have inhabited it, and in a way that has seen your talent and potential emerge undaunted. It would seem then that there is in fact a great deal to celebrate!

Finally, I want to remind you that you are, and always will be, members of our community, and as such will always be able to draw on our support and comradeship. Whilst we wish you all the best for future endeavours, we also look forward to welcoming you back to share with us the exciting results of your success in having navigated these recent extraordinary circumstances.

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Introduction Simon Herron

Welcome to

Architecture

Academic Portfolio Lead — Head of Architecture

The challenges presented to humanity by the global climate emergency are unprecedented — considerable technical, social, political, moral, and ethical questions remain. We have an obligation to support and prepare the next generation of architects for these challenges. Architecture must reflect the needs of the time in which it is produced, balanced with a responsibility of care for its rich inheritance, whilst equally mindful of the legacies gifted to the future. This implicit responsibility must be shared by the institutions which educate, inform, and prepare these same young people for entry into a transforming professional landscape.

Considering the ongoing global Covid91 pandemic, the university adopted a holistic approach to blended learning across all programmes. Within the School of Design, Stockwell Street was carefully adapted to allow for continued socially distanced face-to-face teaching in small groups, whilst moving larger seminars and lecture-based activities online. Envisioning the ever-present potential need to again move completely online, we developed a parallel digital teaching environment to ensure any transition would be smooth and seamless.

This catalogues’ true function however remains unchanged. That is, to articulate and present a collective cross-sectional journey through our professionally accredited Architectural programmes within the School of Design at the University of Greenwich. Returning this year to its traditional role as a companion guide to the summer exhibition of student work, which on this occasion will be a combined digital online and onsite physical exhibition.

Following the established structure, the aim is to guide the reader vertically through our programmes, across the interconnected modules of Design, Technology, Histories and Theories. Our architecture programmes are presented as a unified whole, collectively seen through a single pedagogical lens from year one, through MArch, to post graduate diploma in architectural practice. Design practice is placed firmly at the centre of everything we do. Technology, Histories and Theories are parallel strands of creative design-based critical thinking. The subject of Architecture is in the first instance a discipline, that gathers together these complex trajectories of thought — which are then put into practice.

Programme structures should have inherent simplicity, they need to provide contingency and opportunity for invention and surprise. Curriculums themselves should be invisible at the point of delivery — imbedded seamlessly within an intuitive teaching interface. A supportive studio-based culture is at the centre of the School of Design, where students are taught within the unit-based design studio system. We ask our students to be speculative, we therefore have a parallel obligation to provide an environment that encourages, supports and enables this to take place and evolve. Within this constructed model, Architecture has the potential to develop powerful contingencies for addressing the unknown, unlocking new uses and new meanings, new possibilities for yet to be discovered futures.

This catalogue stands as a true substantive testament to the exceptional dedication and collective achievement of our students, their inspirational tutors, dedicated technical support team, and super supportive school administrators alike — together there is a palpable expression of optimism and humanity.

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

YEAR 1

SUSANNE ISA + JEN WAN

What a year it has been, what with the continuta ion of the pandemic — b ut there is hope with light ta the end of the tunnel. It has been tough but I have been impressed y b how al have ralied together to mae k things work. It has not been easy teaching face-to-face with new health and safety measures, or teaching through the ether. Staf f and students have adpted and we can al feel that we have had a par t in making it work — b ut I e g nuinely cannot wait for the dta e when we can al be physicaly with one another, to resume discourse in the presence of one another, and also be witness to serendipitous incidents.

I would lie k to shout a special thanks to the students in year BA 2, the Student Suport Group S[G] and other individuals who have realy stepped up to the mark and in y m opinion made a real impact to others showing a real sense of community. The students themselves developed a self-organised peer-to-peer initiative. The group of undergradute students invited guest speae k rs, organised discussions, and social digital meet-ups, including collaborations with similar groups in other universities. A special thanks o g es to guest speae k rs on rF idy a s that augmented y m lectures as they have provided real and current inspiration to al of us. My thanks o g es to CJ Lim, Nicholas Sc z e z paniack, rE ic o W ng, Mar tin Sagr, Steve McCloy and Jonathan Hao g s. Another hue g grta itude o g es to al the guest critics who have been superb in their e g nerosity. L ast but not least, I would also lie k to thank the staf f in teaching, administrative, suport and security.

— Ss u anne Isa

→ Ana Maria Ilie Project 1: Wearable Architecture

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Y1 UNIT 1: Commune/unity KAMAN LEUNG + NICK ELIAS

Students: a Fl h d A b a , u r M a r i m A h m e d , R u t h Akifne, Amina Amrane Hamid , Arg jent H a zi r , S a r J a k u , Q a s i m , M a l i k , a r Y aVnes a , Sievlstr Adao, Maish asnTim, M i h l e e k i Tl , I a s m i n o r n i T C a b r l , D e r k R h i s a a V l t o d e L i m a , a Fb i n o ea t W r s , H a m z h Zu b . e r With thanks to our critics: r aF n k y C h a n , S u s a n e I s a , S y o u n L i m a n d S e v t M . c yl o

‘COMMUNE’ 9 a group of familes or single peol w h o l i e v a n d w o r k o te g h r s h a r i n g p o s e i n a n d r e s p o n i b l t . t A t h e s t a r o f t h e s , T h e N ew C o m un e s a u t h o r R o n E . R o b e r t s c l a s i f e d c o m u n e s a s a s u b c l a o f a l a r e g c e t ao g r y o f U o t p i a s a n d li s e t d t h e ir t h r e m a in c h a r e t i s c ; t h a t h ey a r e e g a l i t r n , o f h u m a n s c a l e a n d a n t i - b ur e a c t i .

T h i s , ey a r Y u n i t x e p l o r d t h e i d e a o f c o m u n . i / t e y T h e i d e a o f c o m‘ u n i t y ’ f i r s t e m r g d i n t h e M e d i va l t i m e s a s a ‘ n u m b e r o f p e o l a s o c i e t d o te g h r y b t h e f a c t o f r e s i d n c in t h e s a m e l o c a , i t y ’ a s e n o f c o m n , p ub li c e g n r a l, s h a r e d y b a l o r . m a y n I n t h e s t c e n t u , r y w i t h t h e h e lp o f e t c h n o l g i a a d v n c e m t , t h e s e n o f c o m u n i t y m y a n o t o n l y b e b o u n d e yb a s h a r e d e g o r a p h i c l l o c ta i n . U n d e r t h i s t h e m , s t u d e n we r a e s k d o t r e - t h i n k , r e - i m a g n e a n d r e - d f i n e t h e i d e a o f c o m ‘ ,u n i t y ’ o t c r e t a a ‘ f e l i n g o f f e l wo s h i p w i t h o t h e r s , a s a r e s u l t o f s h a r i n g c o m n ta i u d e s , i n e t r s a n d o g a l ’ s t h r o u g t h e ev h i c l o f a r c h i e t u l i n e t r v o s .

Students were asked to consider what communities may be present in their site area and subsequently what architectural responses may be suitable. Students prepared maps and visual research documents to inform their design proposals. This project provided an opportunity for students to explore the importance of context, defining levels of enclosure, materiality and inherent spatial qualities. Starting with surveying techniques and tactics they investigated areas of specific interest, observations and underling concepts of commune, and community.

This project encouraged an experimental approach and helped the students understand what type of architect they want to be. It aimed to provide a vehicle for students to explore their own interests in designing a bespoke architecture unique to their observations.

‘UNITY’ - cretad when ther is a reltaionshp b e t w n di f e r n t e l m n t s .

A c o r d i n g o t A lx e W h ,i e t a u t h o r o f T h e l e E ments of Graphic Design , o t a c h i ev v i s u a l u n i t y i s t h e m a i n og a l o f g r a p h i c d e s i g n . W h e n a l e l m n t s a r e in a g r e m n t , a d e s i g n i s c o n s i d e r un i f e d . N o i n d v u a l p a r t i s v i ew d a s m o r e i m p o r t a n t h a n t h e w h o l e d e s i g n . A og d b a l n c e b e t w n un i t y a n d va r i e t y m u s t b e e s t a b l i h d o t o v i a d a c h a o t i o r li f e s d e s i g n . ‘ P r i n c p l e s o f D e s i ’g n d e s c r i b u n ‘ i t y ’ a s t h e y wa in w h i c t h e d i f e r n t e l m n t s o f a c o m p s i t n i ne t r a c w i t h o n e a n . o t h e r → Mina Amrane Hamidi The Wood Boat House

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1 Derek Valotto de Lima Clay Workshop 2 Fabiano Waters Communal Bakery 3 Tasnim Maisha Oriental Kitchen 4 Iasmin Troni Cabral STÒFFA 5 Sara Jaku The Assembly Gallery

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1

Y1 UNIT 2: The Slow City ERIC WONG + IRIS ARGYROPOULOU

S t u d e nts: Anton Abeysinghe, Victoria-Emanuela Gheorghe, Akhter Waziha Mahmuda Hoque, Ana Maria Illie, Alisa Krasniqi, Jasmine Legge, Endrit Maloku, Katarina Miljusevic, Leunora Muslika, Ioana Olariu, Michael Sahely, Ayesha Salam, Oliver Sawicki, Katherine Anne Clare Sopwith, Midhuna Venukumar.

TH I S Y E A R Unit looked at reconnecting with moments that may have been taken for granted in a fast-paced city. Each individual student developed critical thinking to address architectures of entitlement by reconnecting with a simple pleasure/ low-tech activity that they have developed an interest in during these extraordinary times.

Whether it is learning how to bake, discovering how to play the piano, binding books, mending broken bowls or tending to bees, the building proposal was re-imagined as a bakery, museum, craft-makers guild, honey-making factory, kite-fixing shop etc. Each individual speculated on aspects of work, live and play and addressed both public (openly expressed, front stage) and private (domestic, backstage) characteristics. The exploration of their interests formed the basis and springboard for the design of a multifunctional building with unique spatial requirements and opportunities.

→ Ana Maria Llie Mending Workshop

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1 Victoria-Emanuela Gheorghe Project Cobbler’s Running Track 2 Leunora Muslika Book-binding Playground 3 Jasmine Legge House of Thread 4 Alisa Krasniqi Burek Bakery

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5 Katherine Anne Clare Sopwith Cob Workshop 6 Michael Sahely Pottery House 7 Ioana Olariu Terrarium Garden 8 Katarina Miljusevic Kayak Rowing School 5

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1

Y1 UNIT 3: Voyager’s Machine to the Future KENZAF CHUNG + EVELINA VATZEVA

S t u d e nts: Ahash Ampikaibalan, Ceriann Else Bebb, Nazar Bohoslovets, Mateusz Kaminski, Mille Klovning, Wiktor Piotr Kulinski, Mihaela Alexandra Luriciuc, Emma Gwen McDonald, Malisa Mirdha, Elena Nikola, Joshua Peat, Melanie Thorpe, Nayana Wright.

W i th tha n k s to ou r critics: Clare Carter, Pravin Ghosh, Zuza Jakubiak, Karen Leung, Vahagn Mkrtchyan, Stephanie Reid.

TH E S APC E O F E N C O U NTE R by Daniel Libeskind demonstrated the possibility of architecture through a machine. It is a piece of metaphysical equipment and its respective architecture that seeks to release the meaning of the future through the past. Cutty Sark is an iconic example that acts as a voyager device through time and space. The ship serves its purpose in a different form and has become part of the architecture.

Voyager’s Machine to The Future was the topic this year. Students were asked to create and interpret architecture through ‘the machine’. The imaginary machine became a device of recollection and retrieval for the destiny of architecture. The creation of a machine generally comes with a purpose to assist us in completing complex tasks and to become more efficient. Students combined their idea with the machine to evolve a building programme for their architectural proposal.

→ Mille Klovning Escape in the Clouds

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1 Mateusz Kaminski Sound Delivery 2 Mille Klovning Escape in the Clouds 3 + 5 + 6 Nazar Bohoslovets Lens Science House 4 Emma Gwen McDonald Sustainable Planting

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1

Y1 UNIT 4: House. The New Metric.

MARTIN SAGAR + JEN WAN

Students: Ryan Brown, Sefora Cirdei, Luiz Fernando Fernandez Ortiz, Sophie Holt, Limor Joel, Todor Kosev, Mahmoud Maghraby, Abel Ndombasi, Marie Nilsen, Arlinda Prebiba, Gus Richards, Karolina Saulyte, Vietanh Trieu, Darcie Willis.

Special thanks to our guest critics: Kenzaf Chung, Larissa Johnston and Eva Vatzeva.

SINCE THE early +ńth Century through to the present day the London Terraced house and subsequent modifications have served as a very flexible model, allowing these urban building blocks to adapt to rapidly changing demographic and social circumstances. London’s success has always been directly linked to its social success and its social success has always been linked to the ingenuity of the London Terraced house, be it a house or a complex collection of house, shop and small business.

London has survived more than one epidemic in its history. The significance of the one we are currently enduring is that it has had a profound effect on the otherwise pampered sociability of its communities. Social distancing is contrary to the very things which brought most of us to the Capital in the first instance.

The size of modern London houses are dictated by a complex set of documents that carefully describe the size of rooms and means of access for a wide range of house types, by which they mean the number of bedrooms. It appears at first sight that the flexibility of the London terrace to become or contain a shop, a pub, a restaurant etc has been diminished.

Given that our new metric is a scientifically presented separation distance of +.fi metres, allied to home working and schooling, how do we simultaneously accommodate these new worlds within a single house? How does this drive the design of a new model for the London house?

Instigated by the questions posed, the unit were given two site options along/off Greenwich High Street, to design a private house intersected with a public programme. → Gus Richards Exaudi. House for an Organist

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1 Karolina Saulyte Cheeselaza 2 Vietanh Thanh Trieu House of Gaia 3 Sophie Holt Greenwich Roof Top Pizzeria House 4 Sefora Cirdei Public Speaking House 5 Arlinda Prebiba Therapy House

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6 + 8 Limor Joel House of Sun and Her Daughter 7 Ryan Brown The House TV Built 9 Arlinda Prebiba Therapy House

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Y1 UNIT 5: Architecture as a Political Activist NAOMI GIBSON + BALVEER MANKIA

S t u d e nts: Mohammad Baig, Sarah Bennett, Anastasia Bucur, Anna Budjakova, Sintia Hossain, Ayman Kara-Bernou, Zeinab Lamah, Tarique Madigan, Beryl Needham, Izuchukwu (Izu) Odoemene, Paulina Palacios Zuniga, Shah (Sami) Rahman, Rattan Kaur Saggu, Hafsa Uddin, Livia Verejan, Syeda (Zaidi) Zahra.

W i th tha n k s to ou r g u e st critics: Susanne Isa, Sayan Skandarajah and Dan Slavinsky.

TH I S Y E A R Unit concerned itself with the human experience of space and the intertwining of architecture and politics.

Following work by students in the first term, we wanted to continue designing from the position and sensations of the body. This meant designing in a way that foregrounds the experiences of the users who move through and occupy buildings, creating moments that can be immersive, emotive, dramatic and poetic. Unit pursued the making of architecture that is full of feeling. We asked: what are the possibilities of tactile spaces, textures that you feel against your arms and under your fingers and feet? What about architecture that takes us over with its sounds and smells? That first makes us claustrophobic then throws us out into the world?

What, to use an idea explored by th Century Art Historian Heinrich Wölfflin, about the way we read and respond to architecture empathically?

Students designed buildings for political movements of their choosing, creating places that provide a home for the movement as well as spaces for educating and engaging with the public about the history, aims and activities of the movement.

The buildings themselves became activists, looking to reach out to and involve the public, to communicate in a multisensory way each movements’ reason for being. Students chose movements they found inspirational or have a personal connection to. Political movements included Black Lives Matter, the Suffragettes and feminist movements, the Malala Fund, Extinction

Rebellion, the Theosophical Society, Refugee rights, Disability rights and LGBTQ+ activism.

Projects drew upon existing building and spatial typologies such as youth clubs, community kitchens and gardens, markets, therapy rooms, meditation spaces, galleries, performance venues and nightclubs.

Our site this year was in Deptford, SE London, on a plot a few steps away from Deptford High Street.

As a result of the pandemic, students investigated the site remotely, delving into its rich social history and contemporary cultural profile, creating projects that responded to Deptford’s particular character and the communities that call it home.

→ Anastasia Bucur Journey Nexus Launch

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1 + 6 Anna Budjakova Rehabilitation Centre for Women 2 Anastasia Bucur Journey Nexus Launch 3 + 5 Livia Verejan Refugee Crisis Centre 4 Sarah Bennett LGBTQ+ Neurone Nightclub

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Y1 UNIT 6: Public House NICHOLAS WOOD + ANDREW FRIEND

S t u d e nts: Umar Ahmad, Wahida Akther, Mariyam Al-Sallah, Tasnuba Alam, Lola Arribas Rodriguez, Cagla (Ece) Bostan, Bilal Farooqui, Marwa Fouad, Elise Grigg, Rayan Khan, Zainab Mahmood, Martina Manoevska, John-Paul Matthews, Aksa Mudassir, Aisosa (Jess) Osazuwa, Yan Naung (Alex) Saw, Zuzanna Szczerbak, Melania Wilkin-Miralles.

W i th tha n k s to ou r critics: David Rieser and Joshua Scott.

PU B LIC HOU S E S are among the most conspicuous, well-loved and widespread buildings in England, with a history stretching back to the medieval period. For much of the twentieth century, the public house was seen as being — with the exception of the home and the workplace — the building in which most people spent the most time.

Their role as a social meeting place is perhaps best exemplified by their place in TV soap operas — most famously, the Rovers Return in Coronation Street, and the Queen Vic in Eastenders — where they form a stage to the theatre of community life. Since March access to these spaces has been severely restricted and for a large proportion of the time not possible at all. We want to use this opportunity to re-think and re-imagine the potential for this type of space. Who does the p ‘ ublic house’ serve? What kinds of communities can grow and thrive in these re-imagined spaces? How do ideas of the Public House vary between demographics, and indeed geographies - the Italian bar is very different to the Irish pub that is in turn distinct from the Japanese Izakaya. Outdoor public spaces are a strong focus of recent city planning, but how can these indoor public spaces contribute to community life post-covid?

→ Cagla Bostan Chibouk

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1 Umar Ahmad Sports Bar 2 Ryan Khan Nap Bar, Dhaka 3 Marwa Fouad Cultural Market, Deptford 4 Martina Manoevska Pelly Road Library 5 Aisosa Osazuwa Felmores Community Multicultural Archive

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6 Aksa Mudassir Game Spa 7 Zainab Mahmood Performance Space, Hackney 8 Zuzanna Szczerbak Skate House, Warsaw 9 Yan Naun Saw The Lantern 10 Melania Wilkin-Miralles Refraction

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 1: Translations: A Public Life BENNI ALLAN + KIERAN HAWKINS

e Y ar 3: Zeki Emin, Theodoor Groothuizen-Kirk, Finley Grover, Julie Hodgon, Gustav Lindgren Rygren, Leia Monger, Nikisha Patel. e Y ar 2: Nadia Alim, Ana-Maria Cirlan, Hanna Gharres, Ting Guo, Fahim Hossain, Shirin Naveed, Rebecca Proctor, Dorna Safari, Nashwa Stitou Zerouali Atbar.

T h a n k s to: Tim Norman-Prahm and David Warren.

C E NTR A L to our approach is a shared focus on the emotional potential of construction and materials, engagement with urban context and the creative interpretation of architectural precedent.

We are interested in buildings that provide strong frameworks for social community together with space for private refuge. Prioritising a search for mass, void, material character and proportion, we like to develop buildings that respond to their context and enclose engaging interiors with unique atmospheres. We enjoy understanding about how you make buildings while we design, exploring this through physical models and large-scale prototypes.

We learn by looking back at architectural history and precedent studies in order to imagine new futures. The inspiration from this research becomes a practical tool for our own design work. Students develop their own design languages through thoughtful drawings and models.

Constructing new architecture in the city can have both positive and negative impacts, and this can be amplified in today’s capitalist world where so much is privatised. The attitude that an architect brings to issues of public architecture in a privatised city extends to questions of access, diversity, ecology, environmentalism and now pandemics.

This year we focused on questions related to public buildings in the contemporary city. For centuries public buildings have served the populace as places for enlightenment and refuge. What will

public buildings look like in the future and how do they relate to the city? How can we find ways to encourage social-democratic ideals, while making buildings in a country politically dominated by neo-liberal individualism, where increasing segregation and inequality is shamelessly exploited? As we worked with these issues we learned particularly from the work of 20th Century Scandinavian masters such Aalto, Lewerentz, Asplund, Fehn and Celsing.

The first Task was to design a new addition to a terrace of London houses, to form a new Live-Work building. Working straight away with large scale models, we looked at the design of the interior and façade simultaneously. Students were given a pair of references. The tension between these provided material to learn from and gave impetus to students in finding architecture they enjoy and believe in.

The major design investigation was an ambitious new urban building. Students developed the ideas and methods explored in Task 1 to propose a final building with a public programme. We proposed ways that these programmes can be made vital, lively and relevant to current urban life in an individualistic culture where public buildings and mutuality are not held to be priorities.

As a unit we have a desire to make ambitious buildings that address environmental issues and work with ideas of memory, history and layering. We continued to approach sustainability from a critical viewpoint that is poetic, ethical and experiential.

→ Gustav Lindgren Rygren Hoxton Community Activity Center

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1 Finley Grover The Verdant Vaults 2 Theodoor Groothuizen-Kirk Hackney Green Space Centre 3 Zeki Emin Timber Restoration Workshop 4 Leia Monger Hoxton Market and Workshops

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1 Nikisha Patel Vincent Terrace Court 2 Hanna Gharres Materials Library 3 Ting Tony Guo House for a Tree Surgeon 4 Nashwa Stitou Zerouali Atbar Kayak Club

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5 Rebecca Proctor Collector’s Residence and Studio 6 Nadia Alim Sculptor’s Workshop 7 Fahim Hossain Model Maker’s House and Workshop 8 Shirin Naveed Canal Bike Workshop 5

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↑ Ana-Maria Cirlan Library for Archaeological Sculptures

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↑ Julie Anne Hogdon Oakley Crescent Memorial Archive

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 2: Global Localisation: The New World Dis-order LOUIS SULLIVAN + ANJA KEMPA + XUHONG ZHENG

Greenwich, we have developed masterplans and designs that explore which aspects to preserve or re-introduce, as well as what transformations can take place, to have an impact on the wider world beyond the physical boundaries of the borough.

e Y ar 3: Saif Abbas, Elias Baiioud, Gabriela Czaplinska, Nahim Islam, Deep Matharu, Thomas Parry, Dardan Zenuni. e Y ar 2: Helin Demirkol, Stephanie Durand, Benafsha Gafari, Hanna Kloss, Omer Sultan, Karolina Szymanik, Devis Tako.

W i th tha n k s to: Our guest critics over the last year.

T H E WO R L D is unrecognisable from its previous self — and out of that chaos, a new world will emerge. But what will it look like? There presents an opportunity for localisation to prosper, for the trend of de-centralisation to reach ever further into all facets of society, culture, industry and for a re-focus on acceptance, contextual awareness and regional specialisation. Can the roles of country and city be reversed? This year, we have modelled and moulded, scribbled and scrawled, investigated and interrogated, drew to implore, contorted to create, manipulated and manifested. Whatever it took to sow the seeds of our new world.

The current pandemic has flipped our notions and experiences of the built environment, allowing us all to re-evaluate our own locale. We are increasingly aware of ourselves as individuals; existing within a restricted physical footprint and social circle, but simultaneously more connected and affected by the world around us. Through projects located on sites in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, we have re-imagined the function of the city and how it operates. Can this focus on local spaces create a deeper sense of community and genuine collaboration? Does the work-from-home culture require reinventions of the role of the home and workplace? Can our renewed appreciation for the great outdoors have long-lasting effects on the ways streets and parks in the city are inhabited? By researching the local histories and stories of → Gabriela Czaplinska The Bee Highway

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1 Helin Demirkol Reforestation of Greenwich Park 2 Saif Abbas St Alfrege Church of the Future 3 Devis Tako Shielding from the Invisible 4 Deep Matharu World Under Waste 5 Stephanie Durand Pigeon Police Force 6 Benafsha Gafari Dunbar’s Society

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1 Nahim Islam Shooters Hill Coffee Club & Works 2 Thomas Parry City of Stars 3 Dardan Zenuni The Three Towns of Greenwich Festival

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1 Elias Baiioud A Martian Odyssey 2 Dardan Zenuni The Three Towns of Greenwich Festival → Thomas Parry City of Stars

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 3: The Geography of Thought GEORGE KING + ALEX BILTON

e Y ar 3: Miles Barton-Black, Jekabs Barzdins, Haaris Khan, Ridhwan Khan, Olesia Pkhakadze, Naomi Powell. e Y ar 2: Leila Berama, Mehmet Bingol, Halil Duzgun, Valeria Hapun, Hasnain Iftikhar, Mihai-Bogdan Ille, Miriam Nedelcu, Christina Pretorius, Pritam Sarker, Anosha Tarar Parveen.

W i th tha n k s to: Jonathan Holt, Jake Moulson, Bidisha Sinha and Yeena Yoon.

I N F E B R UA RY 2 0 Rem Koolhass’ Guggenheim exhibition C “ ountryside, The Future” marked a shift in focus away from the city and towards the vast nonurban areas of the earth which are experiencing urgent environmental, political and socioeconomic issues. Within less than a month of opening this prescient exhibition was shut down, along with most of New York City and many other cities throughout the world.

In the UK we too are experiencing a shift in our relationship with cities and how we live, work and interact within them. The coronavirus pandemic saw an estimated million people relocated to home offices. Many employers and employees see huge advantages in efficiency and lifestyle meaning this shift may not be a temporary one. However, most of the housing stock being built in this country is not designed for this purpose. If the shift is to be permanent a huge transition in the types of homes we build is required.

This year our unit investigated the impact that these seismic shifts will have on society and designed new ways of working, living, and interacting. Inspired by Rem Koolhass we designed a rural Machiya, a place to live, work and sell our wares, located in an abandoned country home in rural Gloucestershire. We focused on creating spaces for creative professions which most rely on human engagement and the exchange of ideas. We explored the issues and opportunities highlighted

by Rem Koolhaas and asked how creative professionals can remotely connect, exchange ideas and interact with the public whilst benefiting

from a closer connection with nature and a more sustainable environment.

The site for our unit this year was in Stroud, Gloucestershire, a rural town with an economy traditionally based around agriculture however increasingly it is becoming a hub to produce art and creative industries.

PROJECT 1: INSTALLATION Our first project was located within Woodchester Mansion which was abandoned by its builders in the middle of construction in the 1870s. Students started by exploring local craft and trade and researched the history and technology of the building to design an installation that reimagines one of the incomplete rooms within the mansion.

PROJECT 2: MACHIYA For their second project, set within the expansive grounds of Woodchester Mansion, each student continued their research by studying the Japanese vernacular architecture known as Machiya which functions as both a residence and a workspace.

Students investigated what the countryside looks like today, how it functions, how it is managed, and how we might reanimate it as our future living environment. We used the urgency created by the pandemic to accelerate our need to explore new realms of living and revolutionise the way that we work and communicate with one another.

→ Jekabs Barzdins Seed Archive for the Far Future

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1 Valeria Hapun Ash Dieback Research Centre 2 Mehmet Bingol The Metallurgy Gallery 3 Miriam Nedelcu Art Restoration Studio 4 Mihai-Bogdan Ille The Path of Water 5 Olesia Pkhakadze Beauty and the Environment

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6 Naomi Powell Antidote to Fast Fashion 7 + 9 Miles Barton-Black Shifting the Perception of Charcoal 8 Halil Duzgun The Future of Traditions

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↓ Haaris Khan The Sculptor and the Spy

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↓ Naomi Powell Antidote to Fast Fashion

1 + 2 + → Jekabs Barzdins Seed Archive for the far Future

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 4: Atlas

SUSANNE ISA + NICK ELIAS

e Y ar 3: Simone Bezzi, Luke Fiorini, Amendra Madipola, Thulasie Manoharen, Andreas Petras, Elise Serre Simpson. e Y ar 2: Juno Baumgarten, George Capstick, Silan Esen, Mimi Franklin, Jagraj Rai. W i th tha n k s to: Simon Herron, Tom Hillier, Anja Kempa, Soyun Lim and Steve Mccloy.

TH I S Y E A R Unit focused on ideas instead of form.

Our concerns are with the present, the past and the future, our fascination is with the ordinary(ness), finding delight in the everyday, investigating the tactility of experience, and using curiosity to seed the imagination.

The year was structured as a programme of research from which students were invited to establish individual positions. The students developed relationships and scenarios as structuring devices for programmes of the Archive and the Institution.

The unit hoped to invent fragments of a st Century where the knowing manipulation of direct physical phenomena hot/cold/light/dark, the movement of air and water, where taste, clean and dirty and the serendipity of uncertainty, error, vagueness and mistake are all parts of a possible future. As a catalyst and site for investigation the unit considered the A “ TLAS”. Atlas is the visual key for the collection of ideas.

Architecture has the ability to be transformative and therein lies its magic.

Each student was first asked to pick 4 drawings from Master Architects to study. These drawings were used to disrupt design prejudice, to restructure thinking, and to consider new avenues of thought through drawing, and drawing manipulation. Students were asked to use creative measures to challenge less familiar media in order to achieve unpredictable results: the drawings were to have an element of both the analogue and the digital, to be erased and rewritten, and to be combined and rediscovered.

From this explorative exercise each student grew their project from accidental positions of entry. The drawing studies allowed the students to become less reliant on their own preference of form, but instead reliant on understanding an ‘idea’. Their design enquiries lead them down various paths of discovery, where political positions were incepted, dismissed and held high as reason for architecture.

The resulting forms were specific, pertinent to their enquiries, and a measure of their progress throughout the year.

“Anthropologies of possible selves, we are technicians of realisable futures.” — Donna Haraway “To me a hot-dog is as important a twentieth-century development as [say] a rocket. Both reflect a stage reached, are products of our condition… I enjoy the way museums present people. Antique trivia on velvet backgrounds, broken fragments of pots displayed and guarded. Most important thing [the people] being missing. In time our records become us. The hot-dog was created incorporating that m ‘ useum’ vision.

Ephemeral.” — Colin Self

→ Amendra Madipola Barking's Steel Lung

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1 George Capstick Kaleidoscope 2 Mimi Franklin Birch Tree Winery 3 Silan Esen Theatre for Barking's Shadows 4 Thulasie Manoharan The Banquet of Barking 5 Andreas Petras Fairbourne's Climate Change Visitor Centre 6 Simone Bezzi Old Money Recycling Plant

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1 Juno Sophia Baumgarten The Nest of the Phoenix 2 Jagraj Rai Barking CAT-S 3 Elise Serre Simpson Matriarchitecture

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1 + 3 Luke Fiorini A Tale of Whale 2 Amendra Madipola Barking's Steel Lung

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 5: Domesti(city) CHRIS ROBERTS + MARK DAVIES

e Y ar 3: Joel Hilaquita Maquera, Irene Kumwimba Mukanjila Ilunga, Tida Jabi, Brighitte Katheryn Sanchez Gonzalez, Preslava Angelova Pachemanova, Panagiotis-Agis Valsamis. e Y ar 2: Bogna Bucko, Thomas Chi-Leong Cheng, Marius Dinu, Berfin Gul, Sunmo Kwon, Gabriel Victor Machado, Arin Mustafa, Zainab Jasmin Rahman, Joshua Samuel Stares, Chiara Danielle Zeta Macdonald.

W i th tha n k s to: Our technology tutor Conor Maguire, along with our critics Mark Hatter, Tom Hillier, Susanne Isa, Ned Scott, Louis Sullivan and Jonathan Walker.

opportunities to reconsider the way we live, work and play, taking the holistic view of human and environmental health. As architects we have a unique position and responsibility to help shape the response.

The City of London was our testing ground where we speculated and experimented with prototypes for the future of the built environment. The scale of our interventions ranged from the canyons and monumental edifices of our cities to the accretions of dust that are gathering in our homes. We have adopted the mantra, “When you can’t see further, look closer….”

20 has been an eventful year with a single virus, measuring no more than . microns in diameter, completely disrupting the way we live, work and play across the planet; a universal phenomenon but also a very personal one that needs to be understood from multiple perspectives. Spread efficiently due to globalisation, international travel and the densification of populations, it has left a shift towards mass disaggregation in its wake.

It is this tension between the fragmentation of people, businesses, families and friends into their component parts, and the human, political, economic, cultural and corporate desire to bring everything back together, that interests us.

Major historical events have always presented opportunities to reshape our relationship with the city. The Great Fire of London of brought about the re-building of St Paul’s Cathedral along with an overhaul of the spatial organisation of streets and building construction methods, providing an early precursor of building regulations, overseen by a team of commissioners including Sir Christopher Wren.

The Cholera epidemic of instigated the development of a new London sewerage system designed by Joseph Bazalgette which introduced the Victoria and Albert Embankments and transformed the public health of London.

The current pandemic has presented new → Gabriel Victor Machado The Labyrinth

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1 Marius Dinu Active Lifestyle Base Camp for The City of London 2 Joel Hilaquita Maquera District Cleaning Station 3 + 5 Preslava Angelova Pachemanova The Wings of Nobleness 4 Panagiotis-Agis Valsamis The Finsbury Circus 6 Irene Kumwimba Mukanjila Ilunga The Mourning Pavilion

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1 Sunmo Kwon Posh English Shopping Centre 2 + 4 Bogna Bucko The Monophobic Cinema 3 Chiara Danielle Zeta Macdonald The Mask Guild

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5 Arin Mustafa Moonlight Bathing Theatre 6 + 8 Berfin Gul Healing Centre 7 Gabriel Victor Machado The Labyrinth

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1 Thomas Chi-Leong Cheng The Food Bank of England 2 Gabriel Victor Machado The Labyrinth 3 Marius Dinu Active Lifestyle Base Camp for The City of London

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 7: Future-Proof YORGOS LOIZOS + NED SCOTT

Year 3: Victoria Collins, Austeja Grabauskaite, Pooja Hari, Isabella Hicks, Mariah Jover, Mindaugas Kairys, Eleanor Worthington.

Year 2: Mohamad Alhfar Alhbal, Bianca Bindileu, Emily Dowding, Lamar Hamilton, Kayhan Kaya, Antonina Kharitonova, Divora Mahari, Shivaree Sookhoo, Magda Szeparowicz.

Thanks to: Our technical tutor Conor Maguire, alongside our guests Benni Allan, Mark Davies, Nick Elias, George Entwistle, Mara Fetche, Mark Hatter, Kieran Hawkins, Simon Herron, Thomas Hillier, Anja Kempa, George King, Simona Moneva, Shaun Murray, Jen Wan, Alexander Wilford, Florence Wright and u X hong Zheng.

2020 has been a very strange and unpredictable year. A year full of extraordinary global events that have profoundly affected the ways in which we live and work around the world. Because of the relatively long time it takes to design and construct buildings and cities, our physical environment tends to be very slow at adapting to what’s required of it.

As a result of the time lag between a building as an idea and as a completed entity, architecture is typically a reactive industry which has an overwhelming tendency to play it safe.

The very act of designing a building entails making assumptions about the future; about who will use the building, about how much space they will need, about what the weather will be like. These assumptions will always be wrong to some degree and ensure that a building is immediately unfit for purpose upon completion.

If only architecture could be more proactive! If only buildings and cities could predict the future!

Sadly, radical architectural ideas can’t simply be rolled out as and when they occur. They must first be tested, consulted on, risk-assessed and costed before they are ready for production, by which time they’re often no longer radical or relevant. To counteract this conservative and reactive trend, this year unit + designed buildings which are transient, adaptable and future-proof. We began by

taking inspiration from the extraordinary depiction of fictional buildings and cities in graphic novels.

These references were used to inform new ways of thinking about architectural adaptability and transformation and eventually helped to inform a brief for new future-proof buildings which included a narrative to describe how they might adapt and transform over a given time period.

The students began the year by designing small and experimental prototypes that tested ways in which buildings and cities can adapt and transform over time. To inform these prototypes, each student chose a sequence from a graphic novel that described the dynamic relationship between a protagonist and one of the fictional spaces that they inhabit. Particular attention was paid to the movement of the protagonist and their interaction with the imaginary environment, as well as to the illustrative methods that have been employed by the graphic novelist. By the end of the first project, students had tested their ideas and established a set of design drivers and research methods that would inform their approach to the rest of the year.

The final project required students to design an ambitious ‘future-proof’ building in Deptford. To demonstrate its transient qualities, students were encouraged to invent a narrative and timeline for their buildings and to represent them by employing some of the graphic novel techniques they had analysed earlier in the year.

→ Mariah Jover The Ministry of Humour, Deptford

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1 Victoria Collins PlasticHaus: A Localised Kit of Parts 2 Austeja Grabauskaite The Deptford Cast Archive 3 Pooja Hari Mitsuha’s Tea House 4 Mariah Jover The Ministry of Humour

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5 Emily Dowding A House for Kamaji 6 Mindaugas Kairys Mudlarking Gallery and House 7 Eleanor Worthington The Creekside Reclamation Centre

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1 Magda Szeparowicz A House for a Graphic Novelist 2 Magda Szeparowicz Deptford Animation Studio 3 Shivaree Sookhoo The Willeford Appliance Store 4 Antonina Kharitonova A House and Studio for a Graphic Designer 5 Kayhan Kaya Demountable Future Proof House

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1 + 2 Isabella Hicks The Magic Hour Film Studio → Eleanor Worthington The Creekside Reclamation Centre

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE YEARS 2 + 3

UNIT 8: Recreation MARK HATTER + JEN WAN

Year 3: Christopher Canada, Namrata Harshad, Ismail Khalil, Akeem Murdock, Cansu Onal, Sandra Pielech, Samuel Wright.

Year 2: Victoria Cebulak de Matos, Angelo De Araujo Moreira, Claudia Gaspar, Alessandro Islam, Lucas Lai, Gargee Naik, Kacper Wojtania.

Thanks to: Jake Moulson.

THIS YEAR, Unit + chose to clock off and jump in at the deep end. We explored architectures of leisure and pleasure, of adrenaline highs, and tranquil reflection. The unit sought to indulge its whims and fancies and engage in trivial pursuits. We privileged ‘Live/Play’ over ‘Live/Work’, the Fun Run over the Rat Race. We did not seek to produce rational, functional spaces, but moments of experiential engagement and visceral pleasure. Recreation could be described as the enthusiastic pursuit of an ultimately pointless goal, simply for the joy of doing so. We suggest this is also valid approach to the practice of architecture.

Within this framework, the unit continued some of its conversations from previous years: methods of drawing, artistic process as a design strategy, the constructed view, the miniature, the presenting of fictions as fact, and the architecture of event.

We started the year with a series of intense, scripted weekly exercises to generate s‘ tuff’, and possibly nonsense. Year ń students worked towards a proposal for a ‘Parlour’ — a small building providing a specific leisure or recreational activity.

Year fi students explored notions of recreation, leisure, landscape and interior in a looser and more experimental manner, constructing their own narrative for deployment in the main proposal.

In the second part of the year, both years then designed an architectural proposal of a certain size and complexity that embodied and expanded upon the themes explored in the first term. We encouraged bold and fervent endeavour, and schemes that excite and delight.

The site was close to home — yet a million miles away. → Wiktoria Cebulak de Matos Back to the Sunset: Cinematic Adventure

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1 + 2 Gargee Naik Theatre & Dance Centre 3 Akeem Murdock Park Within a Park 4 Angelo De Araujo Moreira Smoke Sauna

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5 Kacper Wojtania Hair Salon & Bar 6 Lucas Lai Fortune Telling + Face Surgery Facility 7 + 8 Ismail Khalil Parkour + Hydrotherapy Centre

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1 Christopher Canada UFO Research Centre 2 Alessandro Islam Music Warehouse + Recital 3 Lucas Lai Fortune Telling + Face Surgery Facility 4 Akeem Murdock Park Within a Park

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5 Alessandro Islam Music Warehouse + Recital 6 Lucas Lai Fortune Telling + Face Surgery Facility 7 Sandra Pielech Royal Doulton Pottery Centre

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BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

TECHNOLOGY

KIERAN HAWKINS (Y3) + JONATHAN WALKER (Y2) + TONY CLELFORD (Y2) + SHAUN MURRAY (Y1) + RAHESH RAM (TECHNOLOGY LEAD)

Thanks to: Jonathan Allwood (Barr Gazetas), Mel Allwood (Arup), Adele Brooks (University of Greenwich), Alexandra Bullen (Metropolitan Workshop), Stefan Busher (Grid Architects), David Grandorge, Oliver Houchell, Andrew Ingham (Denizen Works), Larissa Johnston (Larissa Johnston Architects), Tom Jordan (Barr Gazetas), Jennifer Juritz (David Morley Architects), Murray Kerr (Denizen Works), Conor Maguire (Piercy and co.), Lucian Mocanu (Arch 4D), Jake Moulson (Jake Moulson Ltd), Tim Norman-Prahm (Norman-Prahm Architects), Luca Rendina (Hugh Broughton Architects), Hugh Strange (Hugh Strange Architects), Ley-mon Thuang, David Warren (INGealtoir Structural Engineers).

them the relevant methods and modes of how to implement technology into their designs and how best to communicate these ideas. Within the teaching of technology lies a profound learning tension between understanding and spectating.

In Year 1, students undertake an environmental audit of a selected building and critically analyse environmental and structural strategies. In term 2 students apply their understanding of structural and environmental research to their projects.

Year 2 students are taught about the architectural profession, the role of the design team and the legislation context in which architects work in term 1. In the 2nd term students IN BA 9HONS1 ARCHITECTURE we have a strong carry out a comprehensive technical study of a pedagogic ambition for the teaching of architectural design project fragment. technology. Behind the delivery of the modules Ahead of undertaking their Technical there is a clear strategy of how the students’ Dissertation, Year 3 students attend a series of knowledge of technology should evolve through technology lectures given by invited speakers their architectural education. We aim to install an acknowledged as experts in their field. The ambitious attitude to technology with an eye on Dissertation is tutored within the design units and innovation and invention, whilst providing a solid aims to equip students with the research skills, grounding for students in the principles of aptitude and critical ability to assess the key environmental, material and structural design. We technical aspects of their final design project. equip students with the relevant research methods Alongside Dissertation tutorials, the programme and a critical approach to the design and making of is taught through a series of seminars, cross-unit buildings within an ever-changing trajectory of reviews and workshops with external consultants. technologies. Underpinning all of the teaching of the This year we made more profound changes to the knowledge and principles of architectural modules to ensure we are on top of the sustainable technology within the programme is an ethos of agenda and post-Grenfell legislation. We rigour, experimentation and play. Architectural endeavour to keep our students up to date with design is a complex process and requires a wide current issues that will impact on their future range of knowledge, experience and collaboration architectural careers. in order to develop an initial idea or concept into a reality. By definition, architectural students at undergraduate level are just starting this process and they are encouraged to grapple with a myriad of concepts and ideas that are largely alien to their previous experience. In essence, this is a process of working in abstraction, which is a huge challenge, considering the r‘ eal’ world where architects typically cement their understanding of building technology in an office environment. A key aim is to make students aware of the complexities and ranges of technologies and building sciences required to produce good buildings, whilst teaching → Gustav Lindgren Rygren Unit 1, Year 3

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1 Zeinab Lamah Year 1 Unit 5 2 Cagla (Ece) Bostan Year 1 Unit 6 3 Anna Budjakova Year 1 Unit 5 4 Nazar Bohoslovets Year 1 Unit 3

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HISTORY + THEORY

CAROLINE RABOURDIN + ANNE HULTZSCH + EMMA COLTHURST + MARKO JOBST

Year 3 Dissertation Tutors: Andrew Higgott, Anne Hultzsch, Marko Jobst, Laura Mark, Caroline Rabourdin.

Thanks to: Bob Bagley and Simon Withers.

TEACHING IN history and theory of architecture is conceived as a complete journey over three years through the ideas, politics, art, buildings and landscapes of human civilisation. This journey brings students through a process of gaining skills and knowledge in research and writing, whilst building knowledge and context.

Cu l t u ra l Co n t ex t s o f Ar c h i t e c t u r e The first term of Year + introduces students to London, Greenwich and the broad range of research undertaken by Greenwich staff. Site visits and workshops balance the content between research, lectures and first-hand experiences of architecture and landscape. The module examines the cultural contexts of the built environment and investigates the relationships between design and society, introducing the premise that architectural ideas are culturally constructed, allied to prevailing ideologies and value systems. It provides a general background for current issues in the built environment, from housing and education to infrastructure and incarceration.

Hi s t o r y o f Ar c h i t e c t u r e a n d La n d s c a p e 1 + 2 A broader overview of architecture, landscape and art history follows in the second term of Year + and the first term of Year ń. Students develop their skills in writing and research, beginning to frame a set of interests that will inform their future studies. The modules address the history of architecture and landscape as the common human quest of designing and constructing a specific relation with nature. They offer a survey of major global architectural traditions and place special emphasis on those that contributed to the rise of modernity. We provide tools to analyse examples and recognise patterns in design solutions, stressing the social and technological contexts that define architectures and landscapes of the past, while highlighting their relevance today.

Contemporary Theories of Architecture In the second term of Year 2, students are introduced to a range of architectural theories that emerged in the 1960s and continue to form the basis of architectural discourse today. Bringing awareness to the relationship between architecture and other disciplines such as philosophy, art, sociology and anthropology, students are introduced to postmodernist theories, deconstructivism, metabolism, phenomenology and relational ecology. These theories enable students to critically engage with architectural design and articulate clear and informed positions as they reflect on their own design practice.

Undergraduate Dissertation In the Year 3 dissertation, each student develops research interests both as individuals and in small, themed and tightly guided groups with a dedicated supervisor whose interests and research are complementary to the theme. A high level of research quality and critical evaluation is expected, and the students are encouraged to pursue themes that they are passionate about and forge connections with their design work. Many students undertake daring studies that are arresting in terms of their written and visual quality, as well as the connections made between sites, projects, and the cutting edge of architectural theory. Abstracts from Year 3 dissertations can be found on the following pages.

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Austeja Grabauskaite Memories of Soviet Lithuania: Understanding the lifespan of Soviet housing blocks Tutor: Marko Jobst

Just before the end of the Second World War, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union and remained under the Soviet regime for nearly 50 years. In that period, the country underwent radical changes, from new industrial job opportunities in major cities to standardised housing schemes. The Soviets enforced a building typology that was heavily repetitive, marked by extensive use of concrete, and present in all the major cities through the Eastern Bloc. The significant housing drawbacks the country had faced were resolved, but the quality of the solution did not meet anticipated standards and success.

Soviet housing blocks have remained a significant part of Lithuania’s architectural identity, and we can investigate these housing projects from a contemporary perspective through the notions of their ‘birth’, initial lifespan, and even their presumed ‘death’. The dissertation pursues the life of these buildings and analyses the significance of the Soviet regime’s formula on those who dwelled in these spaces. It is partly based on interviews with people who grew up in such blocks, revealing everyday perceptions and the impact that they had on the inhabitants. Through oral histories of architecture, we can uncover user experiences, impressions and testimonies to the buildings’ successes and failures. These buildings have long outlived their twenty year-long lifespans, and yet, thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, their supposed death still awaits.

BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

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Miles Barton-Black Photography Transcending Form and Function: How Julius Shulman was able to create persuasion

Jekabs Barzdins An Effect from the Defect: A personal reflection and analysis of school architecture

The impact and importance of an architectural photographers’ work is frequently overlooked and underappreciated, due to the accessibility of the modern camera and ease with which any person can simply visit a piece of architecture and take a photograph. Yet architectural photography plays an essential role in the architectural process, as it transports pieces of architecture around the world through photographs in magazines, books and now the internet. However, with this great power comes a greater responsibility where potential issues can easily arise.

This dissertation explores on the work of Julius Shulman, one of the most successful architectural photographers of the 20th Century, known for his inclusion of human inhabitation to create and project lifestyles into the architecture that he photographed. A key focus is on Shulman’s work on The Case Study House Program by Arts & Architecture magazine, set up in 1945 with the intention of promoting an affordable modern architecture that was thriving across Europe to the American public. The need for promotion to sell the modernist movement required a developed style of visual documentation that would appeal to the American public, to which purpose Shulman developed his personal style. This dissertation analyses his working contemporaries, the styles that preceded him, and the components of his methodology that separated him from photographers both within the architectural world and outside of it. With a key point of focus being the balance Shulman struck between being both the photographer and the salesman for the modernist movement, and the impact that his work had in both a constructive and destructive manner.

Architectural Design has an incontestable effect on human development. Every designed environment that we are exposed to alters our perceptive capacities, essentially shaping the people we are. This dissertation focuses on educational environments and their influence on young minds, comparing contemporary school designs and their architectural strategies with historical examples. By critically addressing a variety of different learning environments, this study aims to challenge contemporary notions of ‘ideal’ architectures and advocates for parameters besides comfort and efficiency.

The architectural examples studied in this dissertation are complemented with personal memoirs of educational environments in order to support the argument and its conclusions. The conclusion does not suggest that any particular design approach is more successful than another.

By exploring different perspectives and relating them to theories of knowledge management within the context of architecture, the dissertation celebrates the idea of spatial ‘defects’ that provoke curiosity to solve problems, use imagination, leave one’s comfort zone and engage with our environments more critically — culminating in an exceptional educational effect.

Tutor: Andrew Higgott

Tutor: Marko Jobst

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Victoria Collins Manifest Scrutiny: The demonisation of trailer parks in America

Gabriela Czaplińska Decoding Photographs: Photography as a tool of adding narrative to architecture

The 19th century doctrine of Manifest Destiny is central to American values: the idea of ultimate freedom to land and opportunity across the North American landscape. Trailer living and life on the road became viable attempts at manifesting this freedom during economically trying times. But like many other forms of affordable housing within the footprint of American neoliberalism, mobile homes quickly became stigmatised as a form of living.

This dissertation investigates how history, culture, design, and land allocation all added to trailer park discrimination. By analysing specific viewpoints and ideologies throughout the history of trailer parks and their architectures, we can identify the roots of negative stereotypes and offer design opportunities and perceptions to help alleviate these attitudes. This study recognises that mobile homes and trailer parks are populated by lowincome families trying their hardest to achieve a reasonable lifestyle within the context of neoliberal capitalism: a place so beneficial for the rich that it leaves the poor perpetually neglected and misrepresented.

Architecture is reliant on photography. The camera possesses the ability to obscure the true nature of things. It might seem that architectural photography should contain itself to only presenting the reality of the buildings photographed. Supposing that architecture is a form of art itself, the photographer’s aim should be to capture its nature according to the intention of the architect. The role of the photographer is to suggest to viewers how to decode the photographed subject, and the success behind these photographs comes from the development of a dialogue with architects.

Through analysing the work of Julius Shulman and the photography of Le Corbusier’s projects, I aim to explore how a photograph can reflect the architect’s vision. Architectural photography can be considered as informative and artistic, however it can do more than reliably imitate reality and has its own practices and meaning. Architectural photographs can become pieces of art in their own right, and therefore can be interpreted the same way as any other visual art. They are as much curated, edited and infused with symbolism as the works of architecture they represent.

Tutor: Marko Jobst

BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

Tutor: Andrew Higgott

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Isabella Hicks The Perfect Family Home: Function-specific rooms and gendered space

Julie Hodgon The Impact of Gender Normativity through Space: Conforming to societal expectations

How are we expected to alter gender segregation attitudes when new-build homes continue to contribute to the problem? New-build housing estates are being constructed across the United Kingdom providing standardised housing units for thousands of families, but often result in designs that lack flexibility and individuality. This dissertation explores the link between housing and gender segregation, suggesting a correlation between function-specific rooms and the gendering of space.

Beginning with an analysis of a key case study of a new-build estate, the project refers to the RIBA paper ‘The Case for Space’ to provide confirmation of the issue. The evaluation of further sites, both historic and contemporary, recognises possible reasons behind the issue and how it can be managed. Through the assessment of these sites, this dissertation concludes that a decrease in the range and flexibility of room types and activities increases the segregation of family members, who remain dependent on their gendered and stereotypical domestic roles.

Gender normativity is embedded in society and impacts the way that we perceive and experience space. When I was in primary school, I found myself being a subject to it in a revealing way. Being the only girl on an all-boys football team, I went from enjoying the freedom of the game, to perceiving the football pitch as problematic. Football was not, and sometimes is still not, seen as a girl’s sport.

Subsequently, my perception of the pitch changed to it being understood as a clearly masculine space, intimidating to my young self. With society’s gaze upon me, the pressure to conform to societal expectations was heightened through its openness, and my enjoyment of the sport was diminished.

As explored throughout this dissertation, we can start to understand similar effects on both private and public spaces. From the experiences of Edith Farnsworth in her Mies van der Rohe-designed home, to female passengers on public transport, to those who are forced to conform to the masculine standards within the military, we see the same issue repeated in various guises. As Aaron Betsky puts it, the man-made world is made by men, and women have had to make a place within it (Betsky, 1995). The experiences analysed in these chapters confirm this, acknowledging the ways in which women, or anyone else not conforming to the standard positions and views of a heterosexual white male, have had to adapt to the standards set by society both in the public and private spheres.

Tutor: Anne Hultzsch

Tutor: Anne Hultzsch

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Irene Ilunga Right to Buy: A critical observation of The State Housing Act

Mariah Jover [Un]conventional Gender Identities: Intersections of gender and politics in the slums of the Philippines

In February 2017, then prime minister Theresa May wrote in the foreword to the housing white paper that the UK housing market is “broken”. This fact has been acknowledged for the past 40 years, in multiple reports and publications. The broken state of the market has been influenced by many different factors throughout the years, and has impacted the different housing sectors, private and public, differently, with the council housing sector most affected. The single most-noted cause of the housing crisis within the council housing sector has been the Right to Buy scheme of the 1980 Housing Act. This was the Thatcherite social housing act that enabled — and continues to enable — council house tenants to buy their houses at prices significantly lower than the market value.

This essay provides a brief history of council housing and outlines the socio-political factors that affected its growth, before discussing the introduction, growth, and evolution of the Right to Buy scheme. This critical reflection aims to understand how the scheme has impacted the housing crisis, before proposing two directions for change: steps towards reforming the scheme to better reflect the current state, and needs of the council housing sector. The findings of this dissertation can serve as a starting point for architects to understand the political background in the campaign for housing, in order to be able to exert the necessary design influence on government and other influential bodies.

Notions of gender equality have existed in the Philippines since before European colonisation. For generations of political governors and spiritual leaders, equality has been a proposed pride for the Filipino people. However, in the progression of new traditions and cultures implemented since the Colonial period, the Philippines has lived under the conventional constructs of gender stereotypes and patriarchal systems. In this context, and inspired by the lifestyle of my grandmother Consolación Prieto, I explore how slum homes have spatially and socially demonstrated responses that outweigh the conventions of patriarchy in Filipino society.

This dissertation investigates The Baseco Slum specifically, as a means to challenge and reconstruct traditional gender identities where women are recognised as the ilaw ng tahanan, light of the home, and men as the haligi ng tahanan, pillar of the home. Through the exploration of the ways in which slum dwellers live, work and spatially construct their homes, I evaluate how such lifestyles demonstrate a potential shift away from hierarchical gender systems within a domestic setting. In slums, space becomes an opportunity to do the unconventional, to venture beyond social expectations. Therefore, we begin to observe new and unconventional practices and perspectives.

Tutor: Laura Mark

BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

Tutor: Anne Hutzsch

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Cansu Onal Violent Effects of Neoliberalism: How political negligence and private acquisitiveness failed the Grenfell Tower victims Tutor: Laura Mark

The Grenfell tower catastrophe highlights the brutal effects of neoliberalism, disclosing the extent of inequality and fatal ramifications of years of political negligence and decisions that have undervalued and belittled the poor in a global city like London. Grenfell Tower revealed the vulnerability of working-class and immigrant lives and exposed ‘a social crisis, in which access to housing symbolises inequalities between poor and rich, young and old, black and white’ (De Noronha, 2017). Through evidence from public and government inquiries and victim accounts, this dissertation aims to reveal that the Grenfell Tower disaster was ‘neither an accident nor a coincidence’ (Hodkinson, 2019) but an action labelled by Friedrich Engels as ‘Social Murder’.

Tom Parry The Rhetoric of Architecture Tutor: Caroline Rabourdin

The presence of political figures in the daily lives of the general public has developed in tandem with innovations in film and digital media that put them there. Since the early 20th Century, the widespread distribution of photography and film has given a face to politicians, as their words are received by an ever-growing audience. But as time has passed and political addresses have become commonplace with the progress of video media, the stage design of political speeches has become more considered and consequential to how a speech is received: a simple office or podium background being replaced by a unique, relevant architecture for memorable effect. Through a series of case study investigations across the 20th and 21st Centuries — including Nixon and Khrushchev’s famous kitchen debate in 1959, US former presidents Roosevelt, Regan and Trumps’ televised addresses as well as the Queen’s recent royal addresses — this dissertation explores the role that architecture has played as a backdrop to political speeches. It examines how the impact of a staged background may even go so far as to overshadow the contents of the speech itself, whether this brings favourable consideration to the rhetoric of the speaker or not.

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Naomi Powell Visions of Utopia and Dystopia in architectural and cinematic Expressionism

Eleanor Worthington Curating: Architectural Practice.

The Architecture Exhibition

Whilst Expressionist architects of the early 20th Century were typically motivated by utopian ideals, Expressionist films of the era were frequently dystopian in outlook. This dissertation explores this particular artistic movement, arising from the same social conditions of the post-World War I era in northern Europe, and compares and contrasts its approach and outlook across the mediums of cinema and architecture.

A comparative study of key Expressionist cinematic and architectural case studies was undertaken, chosen for their cultural significance, including works by architects Bruno Taut, Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, Hans Poelzig and film directors Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang. In particular, the ideals and depictions of utopia and dystopia that underpin Taut’s Glass Pavilion, Jenson-Klint’s Grundtvik Church, Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Lang’s Metropolis were examined. As the arts inevitably overlap, how a reading of one affects the other is investigated, and the dissertation asks whether designers such as Poelzig, working across both disciplines for instance through his projects Grosse Schauspielhaus and The Golem (pictured above) may give insight.

The curation of an architectural exhibition proposes the usual question: how do you curate architecture? It challenges the plausibility of the exhibition, as architecture, in most cases, and is heavily defined by its scale, permanence and synthesis of atmosphere. So how do curators and architects — whose role becomes that of the curator — approach and execute the somewhat implausible exhibition that can very rarely, if not ever, exhibit architecture in its ultimate medium — the built form — and display something as elusive as the architectural experience?

This question invites us to examine the paradoxical process that architects and curators alike have engaged in through their respective disciplines, both independently and collaboratively.

This dissertation focuses on the different methodologies and mediums in which architecture is displayed and the approach and techniques that institutions, curators and architects utilise. It also explores the subsequent ramifications of a cross disciplinary praxis of architecture and curation, exploring how such cross-disciplinarity may affect architectural parameters, and the resulting role of the curator.

Tutor: Caroline Rabourdin

BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE

Tutor: Caroline Rabourdin

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UNIT 12: Conjurers of the Big Object and the (Impending) Triumph of Surrealism

RAHESH RAM + MARTIN ABERSON + HELENA RIVERA

Jean Baudrillard, Bruno Latour, Graham Harman, Michel Serres and many others have espoused the magical quality of objects. Objects enable us to e Y ar 2: live in different ways, they behave like Beatrice Cernea, Ellen Davis, Thuong intermediaries between us and the many ways in Duong, Elijah Etete, Mia Fewing, Niraj Shah, which the world works. Objects can also emit, Saskia Swan. transmit and communicate, and can enable us to think, and are equally fundamental to creating social e Y ar 1: situations as humans. It is ignorant to trivialise the Freddie Aleluya, Hanaa Bawamia, Joe importance of objects, they enable the way we live Brotherton, Zoe Kan, Francesca Kiprianidis, and much more.

Pragga Saha, Sophie Shields, Evie We are the conjurers of big objects: we must Summerhayes, Janki Vara. learn to use the esoteric secrets of objects to enable new relationships to be made, different T h a n k you to: 'languages' to be spoken and new stories to be told.

Our practice tutor Richard Hanley Timmins This year students were asked to conjure up a big (David Morley Architects), along with object and make it talk. Through the innate qualities Rayan Elnayal, Naomi Gibson, Phil Hudson, of the object and its masterful manipulation, the Robbie Munn, Michael O’Donnell, Parisa conjurers of the big object can not only enable the Shahnooshi, Samuel Sheard and our objects to talk but make it say whatever they want it thesis supervisors. to say. Through the understanding of visual semiotics, storytelling, narrative building, allegories, metaphors and fictioning, conjurers can use the power of the big object to emit or transmit messages, tell stories, sell ideologies and whisper WE AR E seemingly living in a surreal world; cars are sweet nothings, in a tone appropriate for the starting to drive themselves, computers talk back to message; rhetorically, romantically, poetically, us, the vacuum goes off to clean the house, and sensitively, sensually, or even angrily. What you there are hybrid humans walking through the streets see over the following pages are those of London. Modern technology seems to be blurring messages sent by the students through the the boundaries between humans, objects, animals, conduit of their architecture. and nature. We seem to be part of a spectacular worldwide surrealist game of the Exquisite Corpse.

The subconscious world that the surrealists were so interested in seems to have popped out into the conscious world and into reality, signalling the impending triumph for surrealism.

One major component in this triumph is the nature of objects and our relationship to them, as we seem to be treating objects more like sentient beings as they become more animate, become playful, talk to us, help us and are able to communicate with us much more. Philosophers have been debating the nature of objects and now the debate is intensifying with some even asking if objects have not always been alive and talking to us.

PT e Y ar 3: Asalsadat Motevallian.

→ Beatrice Cernea Donna J. Haraway’s Cthulucene. New Beginnings

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1 Evie Summerhayes The New Pastoral 2 + 4 Sophie Shields Dr. Greys Beauty Parlour 3 Thuong Duong T.S. Elliot’s Garden

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UNIT 13: A New World of Joy IFIGENEIA LIANGI + DANIEL WILKINSON

e Y ar 2: Nophill Damaniya, Jichen Fan, Sachini Jayasena, Kwan Lam Tan, Liam Wall, Ela Yeter.

PT e Y ar 1: Campbell Scott. e Y ar 1: Samia El-Betioui, Yasemin Evmez, Zuzanna Kaczmarczyk, Priyanka Sankaranarayanan, Beatrice Scorta, Anouschka Tang, Nicholas Topping.

addressed issues of the feminine, the sensual, the polychromatic and the excluded, according to the personal interests that our students have brought to the (online) table. This has resulted in political issues being addressed in a way that is both magical and critical.

W i th tha n k s to: Naomi Gibson, Sayan Skandarajah and our practice tutor Graham Burn (Studio MUTT).

‘ C H R O M P H O B I ’ A: The fear of corruption or contamination through colour.

Unit operates with a foot in the magical and a hand in the practical. Through addressing the prejudices of modernism, this year we explored colour as a political issue for architecture.

Throughout western history colour has been marginalised as superficial and cosmetic, including by the founders of modernism, who considered it to be deceptive, primitive and feminine. Proclaimed by white blokes who were being, well, white and blokey, the modernist giddiness towards white walls often included statements dismissing the use of colour in relation to issues of race and gender. As a unit, we have exchanged chromatic ideas by celebrating the cosmetic, the wily and the artificial as an act of defiance towards these early opinions.

Seeing as we couldn’t go anywhere, we began the year somewhere we could never — go the Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. This city-wide world’s fair was a pivotal moment for modernism, with Le Corbusier presenting his L’ Esprit Nouveau pavilion. While waffling on about his use of white for the project, he used the fair to criticise the Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Persian participants as being culturally inferior to the west. By researching the technologies and ideologies present at the exhibition we designed architectural prototypes, the promises of which were then reworked for the st century at various international locations. These projects

→ Fan Jichen Yumiko’s Kawaii Land: An Exploration of Kawaii Character Space

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1 + 2 Liam Wall The Characters and Devices of Brimham Rocks 3 Zuzanna Kaczmarczyk Women’s Wonderland: Fiction as a Tool for Social Change 4 Yasemin Evmez An Ikebana Fantasy 5 Kwan Lam Tan The Hong Kong Acropolis 6 Anouschka Tang Watermelon Sanctuary

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UNIT 14: Bedroom Worldbuilding MIKE ALING + IRENE ASTRAIN

PT Year 3: Burcak Ates, Jeff Bray.

Year 2: Gyuwan Choi, Hannah Gardner, Anna Goldrin, Gerannaz Gorjisefat, Charlotte Harris, Lauren Martin, James Richardson.

PT Year 2: Alex Clough.

Year 1: John Berry, Will Bingley, Pedro Herrera Gomez, Henry O’Neill, Jack Smith, Peter Reed.

PT Year 1: Holly Freeman.

With thanks to: To our practice tutor Melissa Clinch (Wilkinson Eyre), and our critics David Hemingway, Conor Maguire, Jake Moulson, Tim Norman-Prahm, Lucy Pengilley Gibb, Eva Sommeregger, Ben Sweeting and Matthew Wilkinson, along with our thesis supervisors Nicholas Boyarsky, Naomi Gibson, Simon Herron, Caroline Rabourdin, Simon Withers and Fiona iZ sch.

OVER THE past year we have all become acutely familiar with our immediate domestic environments. Fiction writers have long constructed entire imagined worlds from their home offices, kitchens, studies, toilets, garages and bedrooms. Famously Mark Twain used a billiard’s table as his desk. During lockdown, and perhaps well into the future, architects and designers now find themselves in a similar position.

Whereas previously the architect was more likely to practice in an office or studio discrete from homelife, we are now wedded to our dwellings. This year unit 13 explored how aspects of our most immediate, and intimate, domestic environments impacted on our most speculative architectural

design ideas. We engaged with the practice of worldbuilding: the construction of imaginary worlds — in our bedrooms. We investigated how the simple quotidian processes and minutiae of our domestic confines could be extrapolated up into proposals for new and alternative architectural worldspaces.

Worldbuilding has long been associated with fantasy epics and literature more widely, however it is increasing discussed in fields such as games design, film making, urbanism and architecture.

Otherwise known as subcreation or conworlding, the success of these fabrications relies on their consistent upholding of self-instigated internal rules and logic systems. Architecture has a complex relationship with worldbuilding: architects often imagine a slightly newer version of our current world, whilst being intrinsically tied to its realities.

It is no understatement to say that today we are living through one of a small number of moments in human history where the world yet to come, just in front of us, will radically alter from our present version. For unit 14, this is an exciting precipice to look down from: a point in time where the architectural imagination will be vital in conceiving our new post-covid worldspaces.

Unit 14’s representational vehicle of choice for worldbuilding is the architectural model: the processes of modelling and the outputting of models. Or to be more specific, the practice of worldmodelling, architectural projects as thought experiments of vast scales and complexities. As increasingly advanced BIM software becomes ever more prevalent in the profession (considered to be going 10-dimensional!), we seek to explore the potentiality of the architectural model in its manifold forms. We are interested in the architectural opportunities that emerging modelling processes and technologies afford, and we aim towards proposing new model languages and methods (physical, immaterial, co-existing and otherwise). Our models aim to be long projects: additive investments over the entire academic year.

And given the current ever-shifting situation, we must be prepared to live alongside our models. → Jeff Bray A.I. Cuccagna Festival (Field of Plenty)

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1 Peter Reed Millenium Mealworms 2 John Berry Docklands Surf Ranch 3 Holly Freeman Nutri-Exchange 4 Hannah Gardner Swanscombe Wedding City

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1 Alex Clough Canterbury Miniature Landscape School 2 Gerannaz Gorjisefat Tik Tok Town 3 Lauren Martin Sensorial Machines and the Unreal 4 Anna Goldrin Landfill Mining for the 22nd Century

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UNIT 16: F.E.N.S.

SIMON HERRON + JONATHAN WALKER + ANDREW LAVELLE

PT Year 3: Robert Coakley, Negar Khoshooee Year 2: Michelle Sze Yee Leong, Eleanor Loasby, Hannah Middleton, John Pena, Will Stephens.

PT Year 2: Sean Flavin.

Year 1: Jordan Burton, Robyn Harrison-Church, Kwok Hei Gloria Ip, Paul Tatsumi Walker, Alexander Wilford.

PT Year 1: Issuru Uswatta Liyanage.

Thanks to our critics and friends: Katie Parsons [B PTW] in particular for her practice and technical support, as well as Mike Aling, John Bell, Nicholas Boyarsky, Pascal Bronner, Naomi Gibson, Thomas Hillier, Caroline Rabourdin and Simon Withers.

distant perspective of the Fens from their desktops; to capture its corporeal presence, the layers of its history, and its future possibilities. An experiment in looking at a landscape and a demonstration of what can occur when you dig deep into a place without a preconceived schema.

Distant perspectives were composed of the real and imagined; from geological reports and associated extinctions to folklore and indigenous futures. It was a confrontation of real conditions versus mythical interpretations. Research evolved into architectural ideas, into the making of a building as a contraption, which confronted and responded to the strength and delicacy of landscape, finally becoming a fenland mode of architecture.

"The roads, water channels and railway tracks run in straight lines and gentle curves past fields and plantations, basins and reservoirs. Like beads on an abacus designed to calculate infinity, cars glided along the lanes of the motorways, while ships moving up and down river appeared as if they had been halted forever." — W. G. Sebald UNIT SIXTEEN returned again to the infinite space of the Fens; a place that is part agricultural factory, part area of environmental importance, and part disappearing territory. An unstable place where climate change and coastal erosion is leading to the imposition of a managed retreat and community decommissioning. Its fertile soil provides Britain’s richest farmland and most effective carbon sink per unit area. For centuries its singular geography and sky-filled waters have been a place of political and spiritual retreat. Today it remains a mercurial landscape of bucolic atmosphere, emphasised horizons, drowned lands, and lone figures.

Students were asked to establish their own → Paul Tatsumi Walker F.E.N.S. Island Trading Posts

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UNIT 18: A New Brave World PASCAL BRONNER + THOMAS HILLIER

e Y ar 2: Ana-Maria Catalina, Carina Cazacu, Andrea Gomes, Ayumi Konishi, Anastasiya Luban, Jasmine McKenzie, Syed Shadman Salim.

PT e Y ar 2: Erti Velaj. e Y ar 1: Giorgio Amirante, Sundeep Bagoan, Soz Dizaey, Parinaz Kadkhodayi-Kholghi, Enise Parlak, Stephanie Steele-Boyce.

Unit 1 8 wou l d l i ke to tha n k : Martin Reynolds for his practice support (Martin Reynolds Architecture), Mike Aling, Nicholas Boyarsky, Nerma Cridge, Simon Herron, Caroline Rabourdin and Dan Wilkinson for thesis support, along with all our guest critics who so generously gave up their time, knowledge and expertise across the year.

T“he end of the world has already occurred. e W can be uncannily precise about the dta e on which the world ended. Convenience is not readily associated with historiography, nor indeed with geological time.

But in this case, it is uncannily clear. It was April 201→, when James taW t pta ented the steam engine, an act that commenced the depositing of carbon in aEr th’s crust – namely, the inception of humanity as a geophysical force on a planetar y scale” .

— Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World AS WE technologically advance at a blistering pace, we leave in our wake a devastating and ever-growing trail of destruction that scars our landscapes and destroys our fragile ecologies. From enormous trash gyres in the Atlantic Ocean to mountains of radioactive mining waste in Florida, to Amazon’s imposing fulfilment centres, nowhere is left untouched by our impact. Philosopher Timothy Morton describes these vast, temporal and spatial entities as Hyperobjects that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing is in the first place, questioning if the world as we know it is has already come to some form of end.

Whilst achieving this wonderful life of comfort and luxury, at least for the privileged few, our ability to create such monstrous objects is only outdone by our skill in covering up these collective sins. We sweep them under earths carpet, leaving large parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable. But what if there is a second life for these scars, what if they can be reconfigured for a new world?

Where we are should come as no surprise to any of us, for decades, even centuries, writers have been predicting this future. In 1952, inspired by Huxley’s Brave New World, ‘Player Piano’ by Kurt Vonnegut showed, like so many writers of this genre, how mankind’s blind faith in technological advancement has disastrous effects on society.

Unit 18 took inspiration from writers like these alongside those who envision a different world such as Aaron Bastani and his manifesto on Fully Automated Luxury Communism.

In our technologically advanced society, altogether serviced by Netflix, Deliveroo and Amazon Prime, could we once again indulge in the slower things in life? Bastani’s manifesto questions if new technologies can liberate us from work, where automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty? Could we once again spend our days delighting in elaborate feasts, endless gardening, playing or even lying in a perpetual slumber?

Now is now a better time than ever to reinvent the realm around us to create a new brave world…

Unit 18 attempted to find out!

→ Ayumi Konishi Tower of Memento Mori

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↑ Parinaz Kadkhodayi-Kholghi Unveiling the Sky

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↓ Ana-Maria Catalina A Novel Species Meadow

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UNIT 19: The Advantages of Evisceration: NonSpecific Urbanism 03 JOHN BELL + SIMON MILLER

this becomes very clear when seen outside of the rhetoric of the developer’s insistence on everincreasing land values requiring ever-increasing densities of accommodation. The reality today is that construction is and will, if unchecked, continue to be based on a wasteful economic model propped PT Year 2: up by an inequitable taxation regime, which Kieran Harrison, Nicholas Mierzejewski, routinely involves tearing down existing structures, Parthiv Parikh, Ceren Sezgin. disposing of the resulting material and rebuilding from scratch. In the UK, more than 50,000 buildings Year 1: are demolished every year. Of the 200 million Kieran Harrison, Nicholas Mierzejewski, tonnes of waste generated in Britain annually, 63 Parthiv Parikh, Ceren Sezgin. per cent is construction debris. The UK building industry produces around 40 percent of the With Thanks To: country’s total emissions. Worldwide construction Andy Puncher our éminence grise and consumes 26 per cent of aluminium output, 50 per redoubtable practice tutor (founding cent of steel production and 25 per cent of all director, PH+ Architects), along with our plastics and unsurprisingly, almost all of the guests Alison O’Reilly (Head of planet’s cement. In the face of increasing resource Sustainability, Sheppard Robson) and scarcity and a climate emergency, it is imperative to Rahesh Ram (of this parish). present new approaches for the architecture of the near-future city. In so doing, the unit does not promote a particular formal approach. We do however encourage and facilitate the use of contemporary computational design techniques for IT IS 2049 . These days, suburbia thrives, while the analysis, development and the optimisation of inner city is shunned by those who once flowed in sustainable material systems. and out on the tides of global commerce. Density So after too much time alone looking through gradients have changed: the countryside is now of glowing rectangles, at the conclusion of the higher perceived value than the centre - the poles of weirdest academic year we can recall, we would the magnet have been reversed and the tractor-city like to thank everyone involved for their no longer exerts its pull. With the flight of its commitment, good humour and tenacity. workers, city rents have collapsed, land values have plummeted and large-scale investment has shifted to the periphery. This has been seen before in post-war Europe, +ńfi ’s New York, +ń ’ s Berlin, early +st Century Detroit, and now it has happened again in London.

This year the unit researched the potentials for a radical reprogramming of the heart of the nearfuture city, focussing on the adaptive reuse and augmentation of its extraordinarily rich and diverse building stock, predominantly, but not exclusively, in London. The theoretical axis of the unit was coupled to a rethinking of the pragmatics of future development. The current model is unsustainable: Year 2: Mahlon Asante-Yeboah, Anna Bira, Edgar Brito, Baizhou Cai, James Ip, Katherine Lunani, Ildi Mali, Federico Minieri, Wing Luk Wong.

→ Ildi Mali Baikonur Cosmodrome 2050

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UNIT 20: REFUSE

JAKE MOULSON + DAVID HEMINGWAY

PT Year 3: Alexandra Ciobanu, Myrsini Kocheila.

Year 2: Saphia Al-Haboubi, Lima Babul, Dahlia Irene Binti Jim Ilham, Azime Nazlivatan, Ana Popescu, Alana Tidd.

Year 1: Adeena Arif, Leyana Clarke, Abby Halfacre, Pui Yan Ng, Yan Tung Yen Poon, Alexander Robertson, Shakera Sultana, Berna Tanis.

With thanks to: Our practice tutor Peter Barry (Studio-P Architects), along with our guest critics Martin Aberson, Will Bryan, Stephanie Gallia, Sanjay Ghodke, Alex Jackson, Gosia Malus, Nur Nadhrah, Caireen O’Hagan, Shamin Sharum and Sarah Smith, and our thesis supervisors Mike Aling, John Bell, Nich-olas Boyarsky, Nerma Cridge and Dan Wilkinson.

“The fox is an ambivalent animal and a potential model for our primitive selves, thriving on waste and instigating a cycle from which accumulation and excess become productive again.”

— From exhibition text ‘The Pale fox, Camille Henrot’, Chisenhale Gallery, London THE FUTURE junk of now will define us. We have been through a lot. And a lot has been gone through.

We are going through resources at in increasing rate — discarding, exploiting and piling up. From office spaces sitting empty to unread emails, disposable facemasks, disposable coffee cups, rooms kept at a constant temperature, continually updated technologies, shrinkwrapped deliveries, insta-posts without followers and twitter accounts with little to say, we are perpetually leaking and discarding.

"To think about design demands an archaeological approach. You have to dig. Digging, documenting, dissecting, discussing - digging, that is, into ourselves."

— Are we Human?, Colomina and Wigley

Rubbish dumps are an essential part of archeology’s attempts to reveal how a civilization has lived.

Geological epochs are defined by what is added to the earth’s crust, with genetically modified chicken bones being the current marker of the Anthropocene, and new and as yet unknown techno fossils marking the so-called impending Novacene.

Alongside physical waste, we are rejecting past histories, erasing marginalised voices, finding lost voices, and adapting narratives, drowning statues in rivers and seeking new structures: an everincreasing surplus of information and data while our personal knowledge is in reverse, disconnecting as much as connecting. Facts drown in rhetorical effluent, confusing objective trajectories, becoming justification for dubious fortifications and obscuring the horizons of critical thinking. Perhaps in waste, in the discarded and ignored – liberated from spectacle, cycles of consumption, algorithmic determination, and maybe even temporal and geographical context — other potentials can be deciphered or imagined.

“But from where does the accumulation of matter, energy, and information inherent to the architectural object come? And is it really an object, or merely the hardened edge of larger, planetary relations?”

— Metabolic Rift, Gift, and Shift, Kiel Moe It is in this context that we position Unit 20. Sifting through objects and artefacts, alternative possible histories and futures, and on the look-out for lost or new meanings and intelligences.

“One species’ inefficient waste is another species’ Metabolic Rift, Gift, and Shift, Kiel Moe intake.” — On the Thames Estuary, where the ever-changing edges of London meet the fields and shores of Essex, we site our found knowledge to form new typologies and prototypes of architecture for the near future.

→ Saphia Al-Haboubi Gilgamesh's Maze: The Post Traumatic Theme Park for the Lost Generation

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5 Shakera Sultana Rainham Visitor Centre for Wellbeing 6 Berna Tanis Offshore Renewable Hotel 7 Yen Yan Tung Poon Memorial of Protests, Convoys Wharf 8 Alex Robertson Plastic Fantastic Land 5

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UNIT 21: Dialogues: From A to B and Back Again SHAUN MURRAY + SIMON WITHERS

e Y ar 2: Belen Abebe, Lauren Bryce, Vince Choi, James Fincher, Lucas Johnson, Kavi Michaili, Deanna Seymour, Adam Stacey. e Y ar 1: Amanda Annan, Arwa Gaddur, Joshua Kirkwood, William Munroe, Matthew Parish, Zoe Power.

W i th tha n k s to: Our practice tutor Harry Bucknall (Piercy&Company), along with our critics.

“Dialogue comes from the Greek word dialogos. o L gos means 'the word' or in our case we would think of the m'eaning of the word'. And dia means 'through' – rather than two. A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. v E en one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation sugests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will mae k possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding. It's something new, which y ma not have been in the star ting point ta al. It's something creative. And this shared meaning is the 'glue' or c ' ement' that holds people and societies together..!"

— Dv a id Bohm, On Dialogue

outside, light and shadow? Between different scales, the familiar and the model? Between the pencil and the pixel? We used dialogue as a tool to explore meaning and ideas.

DIALOGIC SCALE 2 If we think of a dialogue as a hinge, a dynamic architectural element, one having the capacity to throw seemingly static components (the door) across space, we might look to Cardea, the Goddess of thresholds, door handles and hinges, beloved by Janus of whom Ovid said 'Her power is to open what is shut; to shut what is open'. If we further consider the meaning of a dialogue as a hinge we may begin to think of it as 'making (something) dependent on something else’: a perpetually reciprocal dialogue. Now if we carefully analyse this element, this hinge, this dialogue — what are the spatial implications? The material potentiality? Students used this element, one of many iterations, to develop and test via dialogues, to cultivate the fundamental constituents of a composite, an architecture. Unit 21 is little interested in form, but instead profoundly interested in spatial relationships, or, in other words, composition. If to cultivate is 'to acquire, develop or refine, to encourage, to make friends with', how might cultivation play out in architectural composites? This year unit 21 asked: how do you cultivate spatial relationships?

DIALOGIC SCALE 1 Janus, the Roman God of transitions and time, of doorways, passages and dualities, of the material and the abstract, of all beginnings and endings, of the risings and settings of the sun, is shown with two faces, one looking to the past and one to the future. These alternating fluxions are in perpetual dialogue with each other. It is reciprocating dialogues such as between the future and the past that Unit is curious to examine in depth. What are the dynamics of this dialogue right now? Right here.

What might other spatial dialogues be? Say between unusual environmental phenomena and contextual strangeness? Between ecological strategies then and now? Between inside and → Adam Stacey Manifestations of a Dynamic Event

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1 Deanna Seymour Greenwich Covid Centre 2 Josh Kirkwood A New State of Play: The Archaeology of Tennis 3 Lauren Bryce Circumnavigating the Greenwich Park Wall 4 + 5 Lucas Johnson The Half Moon Theatre: A Place of Illusion

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6 Zoe Power Projections 7 James Fincher A Scenographic Scheme for Greenwich Park 8 Lauren Bryce Circumnavigating the Greenwich Park Wall 9 Kavi Michaili Cavern in the Back Garden

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1 + 2 William Munroe 0° 00' 05.3101" W: Meridian Studios 3 Joshua Kirkwood A New State of Play: The Archaeology of Tennis 4 Vince Choi Kian Lek Space, the Body Activist

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MArch ARCHITECTURE YEAR 1

DESIGN REALISATION RAHESH RAM

We would like to thank the following architects, practices and consultants that provided their expertise and hard work with enthusiasm: Practice Tutors: Adam Bel (Fos+etP r artne),s Har y Peetr Bar y (Studio - P Archiet),s Har y Bucknal (Piecyr & Co),. Grah m Burn (Studio MUTT), Melis a Clinch (Wilk nso Ey),er Katie Parson (B PTW), Andy Puncher (PH Plus Archiet),s Martin Reynolds (Martin Reynolds Archietu),r Richadr Hanyle Tim ins (David Moryle Archiet).s Consultants: Jonath Alowl d (B ar Gaetzas Archiet),s Frances o Banchi (Aru),p Katherin Chimen s (Aru),p Tara Cliont (Aru),p Macr Easotn (Aru),p Dunca Hough (Aru),p Laris a Johnsot (Laris a Johnsot Archiet),s Tom Jodran (B ar Gatezas Archiet),s Vasil Maorulas (Aru),p Hugh Pid uck (Aru),p Sophia Rawlins (Aru),p Toyn Ric heti (Aru),p Mirand Singolet (Aru),p Michael Stankiwezc (Aru),p Angus Tidye (Aru).p Lectures: Yolande Alevs de Souza (Aru),p Ivan Clark, Toyn Clefoldr, Macr Easotn (Aru),p Vasil Maorulas (Aru),p Hugh Pid uck (Aru),p Sophia Rawlins (Aru).p

AS THE DISCUSSIONS on the relationship between the architectural profession and architectural education heighten, schools that have promoted the idea of experimental and speculative design have on occasions been accused of ignoring the r‘ eal’ world in favour of the abstract. Design Realisation (DR) at Masters level is a space between these two worlds. As a school, we encourage and enjoy the speculative and the experimental, but we use the DR course to juxtapose these ideas up against the r‘ eal’ world constraints and opportunities. The result of which is the surfacing and resurfacing of tensions, which in turn has the ability to ask questions of the status quo and provide a conduit for learning.

It could be said that architectural technological education begins when the ‘real’ world experience and the speculative world of architectural education collide. The friction between the two is where the excitement is. At worst the DR can be a tick box exercise, and best it can be a provocation. With this in mind, the school engages with the profession in earnest and employs architects from established practices to support the teaching. This year they brought a wealth of experience and provided workshops and one-to-one tutorials on every aspect of the delivery of an architectural project.

As a pedagogic strategy, the module mimics ‘real’ world experience. Students were given the opportunity to consult with structural engineers and M&E consultants about their projects. Arup provided this support with workshops, one-to-one tutorials and lectures. Students undertaking the module are expected to bring the practical experience they gained from their architectural practices and apply it at masters level. We are aware that one year in an office is not sufficient to gain the knowledge that is required to be experimental and to be speculative, so we reinforce, in depth, students’ knowledge of architectural technology and the profession before we encourage them to think outside of the box.

The Design Realisation module is seen as a way to move the design process forward, but with consideration of site, planning and other legislative constraints and professional requirements, how the scheme can be constructed and how it should perform. This year we introduced the London Energy Transformation Initiative and post-Grenfell requirements into the module. We endeavour to keep our students up to date with current issues.

We hope that we have provided firm ground for our students to start a learning trajectory that will continue well beyond their university lives.

→ Paul Tatsumi Walker Unit 16

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THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE + ARCHITECTURAL THESIS CAROLINE RABOURDIN + MIKE ALING

Thesis Supervisors: Mike Aling, John Bell, Nicholas Boyarsky, Nerma Cridge, Naomi Gibson, Simon Herron, Caroline Rabourdin, Rahesh Ram, Dan Wilkinson, Simon Withers, Fiona Zisch.

With thanks to: Our guest speakers Kate Briggs, Kate Davies (Unknown Fields), Jim Hobbs, Aoi Phillips Yamashita and Shukri Sultan (Afterparti), for their stimulating contributions, and to our thesis critics Stephen Kennedy and Maria Korolkova.

THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE The Theories of Architectural Design module offers Year + students the opportunity to independently define and critically appraise ideas in relation to their own design projects. The module focuses on topical and pressing architectural issues, inviting the students to engage with most recent environmental theories, as well as issues of diversity and representation in architecture.

Organised around an intensive series of lectures from guest practitioners and thinkers, the module is supplemented by key theoretical texts that serve as the basis for group discussions during seminars and writing workshops. Throughout the term, students enhance their skills in research and writing, whilst further refining their critical awareness of the role of architectural theory in their design projects.

Ultimately, the module encourages students to make critical reflections on their own practice in relation to the wider context of contemporary architectural design, theory, the arts, technology, social sciences and cultural studies.

can take many forms, be it an individually written historical, theoretical, technological or futurological essay, evidence based experimental and/or empirical technical research, work developed through specialist programming and scripting, experimental writing practices, interactive media, full size installations and constructions, and performance-based research, amongst other forms of research practice relevant to the particular interests of the individual student.

Each student works with an individual Thesis supervisor to develop the exact content and structure of the final output.

Concurrent to the Thesis, students also develop a Research Methods Statement (RMS), a 1000-word submission that demonstrates a systematic understanding of different relevant research methods and knowledge of the implementation of different research methodologies in the production of the Thesis. The RMS is initiated through an intensive series of lectures that run at the start of the academic year.

Students identify, investigate and communicate in detail a specific topic of architectural research, demonstrating skills in evidence-based research and writing. The Thesis offers students the opportunity to develop a rigorous intellectual position that informs, and symbiotically synthesizes with their Design Project undertaken in the studio. The Thesis supports design practice with a highly informed knowledge base and critical engagement with the relevant technical, historical and/or theoretical issues at the forefront of the architectural discipline. The Thesis encourages highly creative, critical, inventive and innovative forms of research.

Abstracts from a range of our highest achieving theses in 2020-21 can be found on the following pages.

ARCHITECTURAL THESIS The Architectural Thesis module allows every Year ń full-time, and Year fi part-time, student in MArch Architecture to develop a highly tailored piece of research to support the intellectual and/or technical ambitions of their final design project. The thesis

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Jeff Bray The Infinite Architecture Project Supervisor: Fiona Zisch

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in the architectural industry, leaving many architects wondering what the future of the profession looks like. Although we are perhaps already posthuman, a change in ethics is required in the new materialist movement to improve our relationship with our environment.

With a focus on architectural aesthetics, this thesis introduces the fundamentals of AI for the posthuman student architect. Detailing, through working examples, how algorithms and networks can generate novel concepts developed synergistically with human creativity in a new materialist framework. This framework places humans and machines together in the ecology of design and encourages the architect to think of their own relationship with AI as one with a non-conscious cognitive collaborator or colleague.

In doing so we may be able to foster a planetary architecture that promotes the inclusion of all participants of our ecosystem; cognitive and non-cognitive alike. In this way, we can create wholesome, engaging and inclusive environments to live in harmony with our environments, technology, flora and fauna.

Thuong Duong On Poetic Architecture: Experiencing Spatial Poetics through Architectural Photography Supervisor: Naomi Gibson

This thesis is about spatial poetics in architecture, as experienced through architectural photography.

It aims to search for a better understanding of the term poetic, and subsequently how to define the notion of spatial poetics in architecture, whether it is more of a question of perception. Can anything be poetic if regarded in a particular way? The thesis intends to shed light on how architectural representation can mediate the human experience of space and spatial poetics; can one experience spatial poetics through writings and photographs of a completed building? The thesis juxtaposes recorded impressions of a building with the design intentions of the architect, to discover which of the poetic qualities were planned and those created during usage. It addresses a necessity to further understand and define the term poetic, which has been circulating within architectural writings since Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, and by extension poetic architecture. The case studies chosen were said to possess poetic qualities either by the architect or others, have atmospheric qualities that can trigger emotional responses and have been photographed in a composed, evocative manner by Hélène Binet; Therme Vals (1996) by Peter Zumthor, the Jewish Museum (1999) by Daniel Libeskind and Walmer Yard (2016) by Peter Salter.

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Saphia Al-Haboubi The Digital Authentic? In the context of mass reproduction of art in modern day society, how does social media and the digital affect our perception of aura?

Supervisor: John Bell

This thesis aims to address the question of whether aura still exists in modern society. It draws on Walter Benjamin’s pivotal work ‘The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproduction’ (1935) and his definition of ‘Aura’ as an ineffable quality that exists only in a particular time and space. Aura, as a term, suggests the value of the object is within its authenticity and genuineness. This research will seek to follow the changing condition of aura and the evolving value of the art object, and will argue that Aura, as Benjamin describes it, had already started to evolve within his writings. The thesis examines key theorists and traces the movement of value away from the physical object, ending with arguments around current ideas on art value and the effect of the blockchain and Instagram within the art world. Alongside this investigation, an empirical study was conducted with the aim to manufacture authenticity within the Instagram app.

Robert Coakley How do we Interface with Water? A Spatio-Temporal Study of the Material, Ritual and Cultural Interfaces of the Bathroom Supervisor: Nicholas Boyarsky

The bathroom is our most private interface with water. It is the threshold between public and private health, where utility meets community. This thesis explores the bathroom as a hard-furnished environment dedicated to the use of running water to understand the tensions of humankind’s relationship with water and its duality of purity and waste. As Robin Evans states in Figures, Doors, Passages, “Ordinary things contain the deepest mysteries” (Evans, 1978, p.56). Water is considered a crystalline cleansing substance, however, in the context of domesticity, it is also a vehicle for the expungement of dirt from the home and body. This thesis undertakes comparative analyses of the progressive history of the bathroom, from scales of the domestic to urban and infrastructural. Through a series of international case studies, the thesis explores how perceptions of public health and hygiene have impacted the material, design and technology of water and sewage systems. Comparisons among contemporary systems allow for a separation of the visual, cultural and practical paradigms of the bathroom. Cultural studies of our bio-political water and hygiene acumen provide a springboard for speculation on current issues surrounding our relationship with water as an increasingly valuable resource, during the urgent climate crisis and global warming. This research includes studies of relevant legislative functionalism to establish attitudes towards water scarcity, privacy and value.

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Hannah Middleton The Fens: How Can We Use Folktales to Understand, Analyse and Propose?

Tutor: Naomi Gibson

Contemporary society largely sees folktales as simple narratives, that narrate a false history and are an unreliable source. With the Fens being used as a case study, this thesis aims to question that perspective through the analysis of existing folktales and the creation of five new tales written by the author, that relate to their final year design project. The unique landscape, drastic land use changes and juxtaposition to the English pastoral, are all aspects of Fen life that have fed into the folktales of the region. This collation of research and creative writing contends that stories for a specific purpose within a set location can add another layer of atmosphere, thought and awareness to a site. This thesis argues that folktales can be a variation of site analysis, that the medium and way of preserving history can in the future be a method of gaining insight into a specific area, and provide architects with a viewpoint of local knowledge rather than looking into an area from a predominately outsider perspective. By also using folktale narratives as a medium for designing, architects have the capability to reach an audience that do not know how to read certain architectural drawings, providing an alternative strategy for communicating complex concepts and an outlet where communities can learn, express, and transmit information on the project. It is a method whereby architects collect stories from people and make stories for people, with the potential to bridge the typical gap between architect and community via a narrative that deals with the emotional, social, and historical.

Alana Tidd Is Superadequacy always Unsustainable?

Investigating Superadequacy as a Transitional Adaptation of Morphological Evolution from Excess to Sustainability Supervisor: Nerma Cridge

Superadequacy is scorned as at best being ill-considered, or at worst being a form of Architectural ‘Show-Boating’ – wasteful of planetary resources and indifferent to the real-world outcomes of inequality. Alternative to this paradigm are visions of the future held by philosophers, progressive artists, technical pioneers, political scientists and space explorers, to name a few, who believe that inevitable growth will make yesterday’s ‘superadequate’ today’s ‘adequate’ and tomorrow’s ‘inadequate’.

This thesis explores the role of Superadequacy as a transitional adaptation of morphological evolution in Architecture and the importance of remaining conscious of its positive role in the adaptational transition to new paradigms.

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Ayumi Konishi Curious Hybrids: Hybridity in the Post-Mining Minerals of Bisbee Mine Supervisor: Caroline Rabourdin

In the age of the Anthropocene, there have been births of strange and curious objects in which a clear boundary between nature, technology and humans seems to dissolve. In this thesis, objects with such dissolution are explored as hybrids, particularly the post-mining minerals found in Bisbee mine, Arizona. They illustrate that hybrid objects provide vivid aesthetic experiences by evoking a sense of unfamiliarity and estrangement.

Such sensual effects are analysed through the concept of the sublime. To further understand the nature of hybridity, three case studies are investigated, all of which incorporate nature controlled by humans and technology. The first case study is the Ideal Palace in France, built by Fernand Cheval using rocks. This is followed by Ice Castle in Utah, a tourist attraction built using ice.

Finally, Seizure by Roger Hiorns, with crystals grown in a disused flat in London, is examined.

These case studies are explored through the concept of designed loss of control. The thesis concludes that the power of the hybrid lies in the decentralising of humans in both production and inhabitation, which in turn provides a strong sensual experience. Exploring the humandecentralised aesthetics of hybrids points the research towards an architectural design approach with less control and intention. By learning from hybrids, this research hopes to contribute to discourse on architectural aesthetics with regards to sensual qualities, and reflects on the interwoven nature of today’s world and possibly beyond.

Michael O'Donnell What can Digital Poetics provide Romanticism?

Tutor: Rahesh Ram

This thesis explores the relationship between the digital and Romanticism. The exploration is articulated around the analysis of three selected mediums: the Textual, the Pictorial and the Digital, to establish how each representation can contribute to Romantic notions and concepts.

The evaluation of the three media developed a criteria for the critique of digital experimentation.

The thesis investigated the qualities of what Marjan Colletti refers to as ‘Digital Poetics’, with the aim to understand the possibilities and limitations of digital technology, that in Colletti’s view can only be realised through the act of physical creation. In order to test Colletti’s hypothesis, a digital ‘landscape poem’ was produced through animations, located in the university’s utilitarian concrete stairwell, using Wordsworth’s Romantic Manifesto in his preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798).

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Will Stephens A Speculative Railway Handbook for Time Travel in the Fenlands Supervisor: Nicholas Boyarsky

This thesis is a non-linear guidebook to a series of walks made by the author along disused railway lines in the Cambridgeshire and Norfolk Fenlands.

Through a series of branching temporal journeys that explore the past, present and future of the site, it paints a picture of the complex cultural and political landscape of the Fenlands and offers critical conclusions based around the changing infrastructure and transport in the region. It shows the rise and fall of different eras of infrastructure and how these have affected the economic and social conditions in the Fenlands. The reader can pick their way through entries in different orders, tracing threads through geography and history. It sits alongside a wider speculative design project for ‘The Fenland Landscape railway’ that inspired the ‘speculative temporal branches’ within the guide and provides an experimental and exaggerated design solution to some of the issues presented, by proposing shared infrastructure and a radical restructure of transport in the region.

Eleanor Loasby What are the Time Limits of a Photograph?

An Exploration into Perception and Intelligibility Supervisor: John Bell

Time, in relation to a photograph, can be broken down into elements of varying scales or tangible durations, from its physical processing to the subjects perceived through the duality of the photograph. This thesis identifies the elements of time that comprise a photograph to define the image’s time via non-lens-based analogue methods.

Using a pin hole camera, an experimental set of images are produced and analysed against defined elements of time, exploring ways to stretch or compress time. Current assumptions of time in a photograph are generally through its exposure, although theorists such as Roland Barthes and John Berger started to identify more time-based elements such as duality in the photograph allowing the viewer to see through the image, into the past.

The ‘New’ theory of photography recognises the importance and complexity of the photographic process in the life of the photograph. The time of a photograph is not defined as a linear path or single exposure time. All elements of the photograph’s existence as an object and event allow the photograph to occupy multiple times and spaces and to form a continual and expanding chronology.

This thesis explores the hypothesis that if the photograph is made up of multiple time-based elements, then the time of the photograph is larger than we think, due to the elements expanding further forwards and backwards in time than the opening and closing of the shutter.

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Lucas Johnson Does the Anticipation of the Illusion Change by Discovering the Mechanism behind the Final Outcome?

Supervisor: John Bell

This thesis examines theatre as a visual “branch of literature,”(Artaud, 2001) with a focus on the importance of visual representation. This includes references on Lighting for Cinematography, David Landau and Film Directing Shot by Shot, Steven d.

Katz. These authors centered their work on the art of lighting for the moving image and the exploration of spatiality through observations of visualizing from a concept to screen within a timeframe of events. To ensure a clear and comprehensive investigation through the spatiality of these performative studies, the thesis refers to authors and/or scholars of the phenomenology of light and the notion of the “complex mechanism” (Fusco, 2005) of perception. These include Gernot Böhme, Ross McLeod and Steven Holl. By referencing these agents of philosophy, we can then break down the meaning of phenomenology of light in brief within the means of the architectural and/or performance space in question to then gain a “phenomenological account” (Böhme, 2014) of the key event in time.

The thesis explores the physical essence of illusion, and the production of a diagram incorporating the three key subjects of lighting: reflection, refraction and projection. In doing so, it conceptualises an interactive instrument to embody the individual into an experience of an observational phenomenon: an illusion of reality can be achieved.

Jasmine Mckenzie Owens Lake Time Capsule — Past warnings of Future Ecologies Supervisor: Mike Aling

This thesis, in the form of a time capsule, unveils the events that contributed to the desiccation of Owen’s lake in California, constituted of a collection of archives and materials from the last century. For the last 100 years, Owens Lake has existed damaged and predominantly desolate, changed by the actions for Los Angeles's own self-rewarding benefits, in terms of redirecting water to the city. The thesis dissects the complex consequences of land and natural resource depletion as well as the timeline of the Californian lake as a sentinel from the past, exploring the history of the site, addressing political and economic issues, its damaged ecology and a mismanaged community. Owen’s Lake warns us of how future landscapes may transform across the planet, due to the increase of arid conditions due to the progression of global temperatures. With Owen’s Lake as a catalyst, the thesis posits a series of solutions to living on this damaged planet for future generations.

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Anna Bira Welcome to the Real Bata

Supervisor: Simon Withers

This thesis examines the now obsolete British factory town of East Tilbury's 'Bata-ville' within a historic discourse on the nature of ideal space.

Following utopian garden city model principles, pioneering ‘Bata-ville’s’ were built as visions of quintessential industrial towns, as Thomas Bata built his shoe empire the Bata Shoe Co. During its extraordinary growth, Bata’s transitioned its workforce into workers’ towns that were highly rationalized operating systems with strict rules for inclusion and exclusion. Through first-hand interviews, this thesis investigates the lives of the occupants of East Tilbury during the pioneering years of Bata, exposing the complexities of the residents’ conflicts and agreements in this bold and ideological town. Bata-ism grew into a global project to design, build, and control its workers lives based on systematic assumptions. The thesis aims to peel away the façade of utopian living in order to locate, in the words of historian Richard Stites: “oceans of misery, disorder, chaos, corruption and whimsicality” (Stites, 1991).

James Richardson Quarantine Dreams: A study of dream incubation and their creative potential for alternative design practice in relation to spaces, objects and perspectives Supervisor: Fiona Zisch

This thesis studies the creative potential of interfacing with the dreaming mind and body as a design practice. The empirical element, with the author as the researcher and the site of experiment, explores and evaluates dream content, recorded in the form of a dream diary. Drawing on work in the fields of science and philosophy, this thesis seeks to gain insights into the dreaming mind’s potential to creatively solve problems, and to provide alternative mental associations and new avenues for design. It seeks to utilise reports of dream content and hypnagogic imagery where the brain appears to connect abstract and distant pieces of information together, such as long-ago recollections, combining them with newly formed memories. A review of the literature establishes and sets the ground for the development of a repeatable dream incubation protocol. Various methods of incubation are investigated through trial-and-error with a view to exploring the ability to influence dream content using various methods of incubation. The relationship between Virtual Reality (VR) and dreaming is considered in respect to their similarities and their potential for dream incubation. Given the design focus of this thesis, the results are analysed through the lens of an architect concerned with the intriguing and often surreal objects and spaces that occur in dreams, as well as the manner in which they are viewed.

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School of Design Dr Benz Kotzen

Research + Enterprise

Research and Enterprise Lead

The Research Excellence Framework submission (REF 2021) was the major research event over the past year. Whilst the submission required signi9cant efforts from individuals within the School to meet the March 2021 deadline, it has enabled the School to better calibrate and celebrate the range and quality of research being undertaken. This exercise has shown that the increase in research and allied enterprise activities across the various disciplines is remarkable and stands as testament to an environment which encourages and lauds research and enterprise. The number of staff submitting to the REF doubled over 6 years, enabling us to submit over 70 journal articles, books, book chapters, edited books and Multi Component Outputs (MCOs). The MCOs were a special feature of the submission, allowing practice based research to be highlighted and disseminated in the best possible way. Growth in research is evident in the numbers with 109 journal articles, 11 monographs, 15 edited books, 38 book chapters, 40 conference papers and proceedings and 40+ shows/ exhibitions. This increase is partly the result of a staff recruitment strategy to employ internationally excellent research active staff who have PhDs and, where they do not have PhDs, to encourage them to undertake PhD studies. There are currently 27 staff who have PhDs in the School with 7 working towards a PhD. The School was also awarded 10 Vice Chancellor Scholarships, with 16 PhD completions during this period.

Over the past year, the School has increased the number and diversity of Research Groups, at present these include: — Advanced Urban Research Group provides a focus for interdisciplinary urban research that intersects, new materiality, media and space.

— CAPTIVATE Spatial Modelling Research Group uses remote sensing technologies to build high 9delity digital models of cultural heritage for conservation, museological and pedagogical purposes.

— DARE (Digital Arts Research and Enterprise Research Group) which brings together theorists and practitioners to conduct research that re-thinks the possibilities for creative practice in the digital age.

— INTENT (Integrated Nature and Technology Research Group) brings together the work, experience, knowledge and interests of the landscape and built environment groups around the theme of combining naturebased solutions with existing and new technologies in order to provide practical solutions to socio-environmental problems within the greater framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

— Sound/Image Research Group uses practice as a tool of critical enquiry to investigate the possibilities available to create new aesthetic experiences through a range of audio-visual media technologies, exploring both the relationships between sound and the moving image, and the images which sound construct on their own.

New Research Groups that are emerging are the Diversity and Inclusivity by Design RG and the Critical Theory RG. REF2021 obliged us to have an in depth look at ourselves and our environment from a research and enterprise perspective, enabling us to celebrate our research and researchers and motivate us to ensure that we undertake research that is meaningful and has greater impact beyond academia.

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Lectures 2020-2021 BA Year one lecture series: Jonathan Hagos, CJ Lim, Steve McCloy, Martin Sagar, Nicholas Szczepaniack, Eric Wong.

BA Year 2 and 3 technology lecture series: Mel Allwood (Arup), Adele Brooks (University of

Greenwich), Stefan Busher (Grid Architects), David Grandorge, Andrew Ingham (Denizen Works), Jennifer Juritz (David Morley Architects), Murray Kerr (Denizen Works), Luca Rendina (Hugh Broughton Architects), Hugh Strange (Hugh Strange Architects), David Warren (INGealtoir Structural Engineers).

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"My tutors helped me to develop my work through rigorous research and experimentation, allowing me a better understanding of architecture — my overall experience was both challenging and enjoyable. " 9 SAMAN SABZABADIAN, BA 1HONS4 ARCHITECTURE 2020

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"My tutors provided me with the skills and enthusiasm needed to continue my interest in infrastructure projects following my graduation, allowing me to discover a sector that I am particularly interested in."

9 BETHANY HIRD, MA rch ARCHITECTURE 2020

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"I am grateful to have studied at Greenwich as it enabled me to explore my interests in both fashion and architecture. Exploring new technological breakthroughs throughout my design process was crucial. " 9 YASEEN PATEL, MA rch ARCHITECTURE 2020

GRADUATES IN PRACTICE

↑ Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Kings Cross S3

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