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Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
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Interior Architecture Catalogue
Interior Architecture BA Hons
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
- Volume One -
Interior Architecture Catalogue
BA (hons) INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
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s
BA (hons) INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
Published and conceived at the University of Brighton, Interior Architecture and Urban Studies Programme. This catalogue is for educational purposes only and will not be sold.
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Art Direction Grant Shepherd / Gem Barton / Clare Shepherd Copy Editing Terry Meade / Grant Shepherd / Elisa Lega / Gem Barton Printer Gemini Printing Print Quantity 1000 Fonts Univers OCR ITC Caslon Publishing Date Summer 2015
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Staff Profiles
10
Design Studios
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Design Studio Y01 Transforming Young Creatives into Professional Designers
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Design Studio Y02 Experiment, Explore & Encounter
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Design Studio Y03 Spatial Agency
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History & Theory of Spatial Design Spatial Inhabitation
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Technologies The ‘As Found’
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Context Studios Conceptual Beginnings
32
Context Studios A Future of Resolution
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Interior Architecture Graduates
70
Field Trips
76
Showcase / Exhibitions
80
Belonging to the World
86
Further Studies
90
Acknowledgements
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6
- Contents -
Our Philosophy
Interior Architecture Catalogue
4
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Contents
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Our Philosophy
The primary focus of Interior Architecture is ‘inhabited space’. The experience of space at both personal and the collective levels is what distinguishes this from other art and design disciplines. Today, issues of inhabitation, enclosure and containment are of critical importance, and a wide understanding of the reciprocity between human bodies and the places and spaces that surround them is indispensable for any spatial practice. Situated within a College of Arts and Humanities, the Interior Architecture course benefits from close proximity to a variety of creative disciplines and techniques. This offers our students freedom to pursue design possibilities beyond the boundaries of professional categories. It also offers the possibility to learn from and incorporate a wide range of approaches to design methods and practices which may operate in different ways. Interior Architecture is a flexible discipline able to make and create new connections between other spatial design disciplines.
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We often share a common language centred on spatial experience and human habitation with the disciplines of architecture, interiors, theatre design and installation art; however, our speciality is the cultivation in each student, of his or her spatial intelligence. We believe this is something, that every person carries with them, uniquely produced from their history in space. Spatial intelligence encompasses site specificity, temporality, scale and detail and offers the possibility that an interior may be more than just the inside of a room but, may relate to a person’s inhabitation of that room. This raises the idea that some interiors are made by ephemeral events and simultaneously challenges and enhances the private, personal quality of the interior. Interior architecture may thus be described as a profession concerned with the ‘intimate’ and with the specifics of inhabitation and bodily presence.
-+Design Studio Y01
History & Theory
Technologies
Context Workshop
Seminars
Live Projects Field Trip
Field Trip Professional Practice Context Workshop
Field Trip Showcase Exhibitions
Live Projects History & Theory
Context Workshop
Professional Practice
Live Projects History & Theory
Design Studio Y02
Field Trip Technologies
Options Studies
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Design Studio Y03
Interior Architecture Philosophy
Technologies
- Course Diagram -
Professional Practice
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Seminars
STAFF PROFILES
Gemma Barton Senior Lecturer Design Studio Tutor Design Studio Year 2 Coordinator
An educator with 10 years experience Barton has taught architecture, interior design, interior architecture and design thinking at graduate and post graduate level. With professional experience as an author and design journalist she fosters a criticality of design communication in her students and brings research expertise in educational futures, architectural narrative and media.
Grant Shepherd Senior Lecturer Design Studio Tutor Design Studio Year 1 Coordinator
A designer, architect, educator and writer, with a focus on the everyday and socio-cultural alterations of our built environment. Shepherd has a background in theatre, architecture, landscape and urban design. With wide ranging experience of multidisciplinary design practices, Shepherd explores modes of cross-disciplinary teaching, and strives to disseminate diverse practices of learning.
Elisa Lega Senior Lecturer Design Studio Tutor Contextual Studios Coordinator
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As a spatial designer, researcher and educator Dr Lega believes in the importance of challenging and supporting her students with rigorous and topical discussion on both the content and the boundaries of the subject area. She believes spatial disciplines, Interior in particular, to have a key role in the interpretations and transformations of existing urban spatial conditions to provide better spaces to live in.
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STAFF PROFILES
Glenn Longden Thurgood Principal Lecturer Course Leader Design Studio Tutor Design Studio Year 3 Coordinator
Longden-Thurgood has experience in both architectural and multidisciplinary design practices. With a board range of skills and approaches into the design studio. LongdenThurgood is a founding member of Interior Educators, the leading UK organisation established by academics representing interior design / interior architecture courses from across the UK.
Chloe Van Der Kindere Lecturer Design Studio Tutor Professional Practice Coordinator
- Staff Profiles -
Chloe Van der Kindere is an Architect and Interior Designer running her own practice in London since 2007. The office specialises in private residential projects throughout London. They focus on developing a collaborative and inquisitive design process with each client. They believe that creating successful homes requires a deep curiosity and careful attention to family rituals and personal habits.
Terry Meade
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Meet our diverse staff
Meade has a background in architecture, fine art and engineering, all of which contribute to his research interests. These interests include aspects of spatial design particularly in relation to the generation of spatial ideas and the role of ‘play’. Current research encompasses two parallel threads. One thread concerns work recently carried out in Israel and Palestine, with an Israeli peace group, rebuilding Palestinian homes demolished by the army. The other thread is an investigation of ways of drawing and working with notions of demolition, occupation and associated events.
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Principal Lecturer History & Theory Coordinator Design Tutor
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“There is a for everyone the variety feeds into t creative env making it a for students
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Marie Saunes
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Former Student
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place e and of minds the unique vironment great place s to study�
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Design Design Studios Studios
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The design studio is at the heart of all our activities. Students engage with a particular form of design where human activities, events and habitation are linked to specific places and spaces. The starting point for all studio design is an existing condition, whether this is a building, part of a building or a space around or between buildings. A combination of site-based theoretical design projects and occasional ‘live’ design events are intended to furnish students with a design process along with skills for professional practice.
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Studio work is supported by lectures, group workshops, seminars and individual tutorials. Students are encouraged to develop proficiency in setting goals, action planning, self-assessment and participation in public reviews. From the beginning, they are urged to explore their discipline with a critical mind; developing design ideas through discussion, testing and reviewing of assumptions and selecting ways and means most appropriate for design propositions. As students progress through the course, they use the skills and knowledge they accumulate, to develop proposals for increasingly more complex design projects.
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At Brighton, students participate in a vibrant studio culture, where they share ideas, creativity and techniques in order to prepare for practice and enterprise beyond graduation. The studio critically replicates the working environment of the professional design world, where it is common for groups of designers to work across disciplines and in collaboration with others in a very social community. The modules at all levels actively encourage exploration and experimentation whilst cultivating an awareness of the students’ place in the wider design community. In addition we encourage visits from external professionals in order that students will be exposed to the realities of life in practice. It is through such encounters that students learn to confidently negotiate the future demands of graduate employment and professional or academic practice.
Design Studios Y01 + Y02 + Y03
- Course Design Studios -
Discovery is central to learning in this discipline and our aim is to allow space and time for discovery through design. This requires a range of unique design skills including distinctive processes of drawing, collection and documentation as well as aspects of art practice such as installation and narrative. In the world of design, nothing remains constant or secure, so emphasis is placed on the development of individual awareness, intellectual understanding and a personal stance. This means that a student doesn’t only work on the end product of design, but also explores the means by which the work is produced.
Transforming Young Creatives into Professional Designers
Design Studio Y01 A vibrant studio culture is introduced to students right form the first day of their studies by engaging them through making design proposals at a various scales. This approach enables students to consolidate skills and build the complexity and detail required to gradually inform a complete design proposal. It is also an opportunity to learn how a small-scale design development may inform the transformation of a larger site.
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Every year we address different topical themes that are relevant to our local area of action in order to set interesting challenges.
Angel Madix
Lauren Scally Lauren Willis
Gabriella Eason - Transforming Young Creatives into Professional Designers -
Ben Merry
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Gabriella Eason
Design Studio Y01
Natalie Dawson
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Sotiroulla Mouis -+-
Experiment, Explore & Encounter
Design Studio Y02
The work of our graduates continues the levels of thought, skill and discovery that have become a hallmark of Interior Architecture at Brighton. Across all four studios the work addresses the speciality of Interior Architecture, which is the reciprocity between human bodies and the places and spaces of the surrounding environment. The studios each year have begun their investigations by addressing different but related themes: •
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•
Questioning the spatial experience of human bodies and whether this still matters in the current technological age; Revealing human relationships
Kate Vickery
•
•
and attachments to place through unfolding some of the narratives that exist in specific urban landscapes; Discovering the possibilities in the inhabitation of spaces elevated above a city skyline and the exuberance of making connections across multiple levels; Exploring vertical landscapes in cities and investigating links between the public face of buildings at street level with the comparative privacy of roofs and basements.
Lauren Scally Lauren Scally
Daniela Geraldes - Experiment, Explore & Encounter -
Katie Pengilly
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Lilly Wong
Design Studio Y02
Amy Bourne
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Amelia Lewis -+-
Spatial Agency
Design Studio Y03
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Here students work through a major design project, which acts as a vehicle to consolidate methodologies and skills relevant for future practice. Students are expected to enhance their previous experience and demonstrate their ability to identify, propose and communicate spatial transformations within an existing context. Working within a vertical studio arrangement, topics are explored through different approaches and provocations to provide very rich and concrete conditions in which to design. All studios have in common, the potential for spatial experience, discovery and reinterpretation. Interior Architecture is at heart a spatial discipline and each of the studios is concerned with the development of a complex understanding of inhabited space and of ways to negotiate through it. Notions of interior are fundamental to this understanding, offering tremendous opportunities for design. In such contexts, design entails investigations of temporality, materiality, site specificity, scale and detail and requires distinctive processes of drawing, collection and documentation. All this is evident in the freshness and energy of the work and is, as always, a testament to the talent and hard work of our students and the dedication and commitment of the teaching staff.
Jennifer McPherson
Amber Griffin
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Design Studio Y03
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Spatial Agency -
Charlie Barham
Iny Lao
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“It’s so r to visit a that puts and proces the core o teaching”
Darren Bray
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PAD Studio
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refreshing a school narrative ss at of its
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History & Theory of Spatial Design
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Spatial Inhabitation -
History History &Theory &Theory of Spatial Spatial of Design Design -+-
Spatial Inhabitation
History & Theory of Spatial Design History and Theory modules are integrated with all parts of the course. They introduce students to historical and cultural dimensions of Interior Architecture and the built environment. These modules encourage students to develop research, writing and analytical skills together with the ability to put forward coherent propositions. They enable the exploration of particular socioeconomic and cultural contexts for the design, construction, and use of buildings. A general survey of spatial history is described through course specific case study lectures, text-based seminars and exemplary case studies. This introduces students to major theoretical paradigms in the field and also helps with research preparation for the Year 3 dissertation. The course promotes a strong sense of quality in design knowledge, supported by a vibrant research culture. Research is essentially situated in the many aspects that fall under the umbrella of Interior Architecture and Spatial Design. It is centred on processes that facilitate explorations of ‘site’ at scales that range from room to territory. We are particularly interested in a critical analysis of the inhabitation and occupation of spaces and in ways we might enhance and transform our surroundings. We position ourselves as facing outwards from the interior and we actively seek connections across disciplines and boundaries.
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Award Amber Griffin, The Heygate Estate June Crown Essay Award 2013-2014
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History & Theory of Spatial Design
03
02
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01
- Spatial Inhabitation -
01. Amber Griffin, The Heygate Estate 02. Felicity Reid, Passive to Interactive 03. Sun Tsz Wai, Atmosphere
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Technologies Technologies
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Technologies
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - The As Found -+-
The ‘As Found’
Technologies Technology modules seek to establish ‘the whole’ by stressing the relevance of both design and technology, to the development of a strategy. Design Technologies are explored in conjunction with design projects and students are exposed to a wide range of recognised technical systems, sustainable methods and techniques that are utilized in the design of interior spaces.
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Technology is integrated into the process of design through an analysis of environment, sustainability, construction and material technologies. We believe this is important not only in the sense of giving students a cohesive view of the subject and the way it relates to other disciplines, but also in assisting our communities to understand the issues revealed through the new and often brutal processes that are now loosely defined as globalisation. Students typically produce an illustrated Technology Report that brings together research, testing and experimentation, in project work, through a set of drawings.
Elly Deakin
Eren McEwen
Eren McEwen
Degree Show 2015
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- The As Found -
Jessica Oliveira
Technologies
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Elly Deakin -+-
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‘Contexts’ is the area where students develop awareness and capability in forms of practice that match creative abilities to a personal theoretical stance. These modules are intended to introduce skills, techniques and processes that will inform design practice and thinking. They consist of a series of staged events (workshops) aimed at providing students with the ability to explore design ideas through short and intense project activities. Students from across the course twice a year, participate in, ‘Context Weeks’, which are intensive workshops specifically planned to encourage experimentation and to unite the different areas of study. These events draw upon staff expertise from all levels of the programme.
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Context Workshops
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Between Concept & Resolution -
Context Contex Workshops Workshops -+-
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Martina Mina
Felicity Reid
Molly Kit Holman-Sheard
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Conceptual Beginnings
Context Workshops
- Conceptual Beginnings -
Context workshops are intensive studio based teaching weeks involving all students and staff. The first of these offers a variety of experimental processes through which students are able to explore their projects. Using a wide range of drawing techniques and creative media encourages experimentation, which is crucial for this discipline. These workshops recognise that drawing is the primary means that students will use to convey ideas to clients, colleagues and builders. Students use these workshops to develop conceptual ideas through drawing and employ research and precedent to expand initial thinking in design projects. The workshops are also aimed at developing skills in spatial awareness and for acquiring tools and techniques to investigate, test and communicate design ideas. It is through these workshops, shared across all levels, that skills and techniques are introduced into the design studios.
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Context Workshops
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Klementina Savickaite
Gabriella Eason
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Charlotte Cooper
Joyce Sun
Ben May
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A Future of Resolution
Context Workshops
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Context Workshops
Huewinn Chan
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
- CA Future of Resolution -
Contexts workshops augment the activities in the design studio through intensive periods of study at critical times during the year. The second workshop aims to strengthen and consolidate the skills and expertise acquired through project-based learning. It consists of a further week of experimental drawing to expand and develop design projects. In these later workshops, students are asked to use critical thinking and analysis to explore external factors and constraints. The Contexts modules are based on the premise that a broad understanding of the factors that influence spatial design will enrich the quality of studio based projects. These workshops enable students to demonstrate an increased sophistication in their drawing and thinking.
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Interior Architecture Graduates
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Interior Architecture Graduates
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‘The Brighton Agora’
Elly Deakin The literal meaning of the word Agora is “gathering place” or “assembly”. The Agora was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the city.
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‘The Brighton Agora’ project is an environmental based roof-top meeting house, situated in the centre of the bustling North Laine. The project is based around the concept of shared enlightenment, which it explores through the materiality of each meeting house ‘fragment’: an exhibition / seminar space, a community library and an information centre with a quiet reflection booth. Collectively, these spaces channel the intellectual curiosity that characterised the Age of Enlightenment. Encouraged to deepen their knowledge of issues they can relate to, users are offered a reflective yet collaborative ‘marketplace’ of ideas, stories and experiences.
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Elly Deakin
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Brighton Agora’ - Graduate 2015 -+-
‘The B.I.G. B.I.R.D. Project’
Thea Asplin Petersen
This is a proposal for an HQ for a Brighton Inventors Group – Brilliant Inventions Re-Designed. As cities expand and the density in population grows, we need to re-think how we develop our built environment. We need to be creative, re-invent and be innovative to cope with the changes in our societies. Could the solution be to build upwards and get off the ground? Could we find new exciting ways of using the existing built environment? Through explorations and a large dose of wacky imagination ‘The BIG BIRD project’ experiments with aviation and a life above our current roof-scape. It can be looked at as a stepping-stone to new ideas of creative thinking and developing a vertical built environment that engages and interacts with its inhabitants. Imagine if humans could fly and experience Brighton like the seagulls do every day; up close and personal with their environment. Flying machines have been on inventors’ drawing boards for centuries and it’s time to unleash our creativity and re-design these crazy inventions to imagine a life on the rooftops. ‘The BIG BIRD project’ explores the ideas of human aviation by creating an inventors hub that allows the public to engage with the creative process and experience the whimsicalness of an inventors mind. The site, The Dorset Pub, stands as the base of this project, clad with creativity and exciting features to allow the public to access this new perspective of a life above ground.
ORANGE ROW
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GARDNER STREET
PERSPECTIVE SECTION LOOKING SOUTH 1:50
Plan second floor 1:500
Plan first floor 1:500
-+Bird wing, movement
Human arm vs bird For humans to attach wings to their bodies, we will need an extra shoulder piece.
Movement og the wings - back view
Movement of the wings - plan view /top view
- Project: ‘The B.I.G. B.I.R.D. Project’ - Graduate 2015 -
Exploring the geometry and the movement of humanoids
Pivot joint
Hinge joint
Ellipsoidal joint
Model explorations - roof structure vs. wings
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Thea Asplin Petersen
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Ball and socket joint
‘Next Press : A Live Record Archive’
Eren McEwen
‘Next press’ is a space in which memory is a predominant feature. The design draws the site and surrounding context back into interior spaces framed by both old and new structure, whilst still allowing the fabric of the building to tell its own story to the public. Initial research into the history and progressive changes that have taken place in and around the Marquis of Landsdowne, has allowed ‘Next Press’ to focus on memory. The building itself has undergone a series of changes in the physical fabric and in its use, eventually leading up to its current, almost derelict state. Within the structure there are hundreds of physical scars inviting a viewer to question how the space came to be as it is now. The programme enables the public to exchange unwanted records for new ones, building up a collection of second hand records as an archive of possible moments of remembrance.
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Through examining sight lines and memory triggers in the site, a design based around the permanent retention of the internal façade was developed. By removing the existing walls and floors and making use of the facade as a supporting structure, new elements enable the existing walls of the Marquis of Lansdowne to itself become a memory trigger. The walls maintain the scars of previously placed floor joists allowing the inhabitants to gain an insight into the past life of the building.
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Eren McEwen
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: Next Press : ‘A Live Record Archive’ - Graduate 2015 -+-
‘Three Piece Theatre’
Felicity Reid The theatre has been inspired by language created from analysing three pivotal scenes from The Third Man, a film produced by Carol Reed. The film was set in Vienna and captures the essence of a changed city and of patina left in ruins after the destruction of the war. The film focuses on three main characters and distinct meeting points. Similarly, the Marquis of lansdowne has weathered in the same way. The pub stands aged next to it’s surrounding buildings but still holds layers of history which tells us the story of it’s life. The weathering of the building inspires a performance, the windows frame views to the outside in spectacular ways and nature takes over the building keeping it alive. This inspired a performance space from an analysis of The Third Man, to use as a vehicle for the design of the building. Three important meeting points have been chosen and have been related to three important moments in theatre; the entrance to the ticket hall, the entrance to the theatre space and the interval period. The moments decipher the elements of design for specific areas in the building, which heightens the theatre experience for the audience.
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The theatre serves as a performance space. However, the traditional sense of the theatre is lost as the aspect of the ‘fourth wall’ has been removed. The moving theatre spaces frame the views for the audience and can be used to suit a variety of performances. The superstructure encases the building and allows the audience to explore the existing structure from inside and out. This enhances the experience, as the audience are manipulated by each of the spaces inspired by the language created from The Third Man.
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Felicity Reid
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘Three Piece Theatre’ - Graduate 2015 -+-
‘Between Two Worlds’
Amber Griffin ‘Between Two Worlds’ aims to create an impermanent exhibition for a collection of artefacts and curiosities relating to witchcraft intending to dispel prejudices against the Wiccan religion. The project was approached from the offset from the point of view of healing. Extensive research into historic folk and witchcraft healing in opposition to hateful spells and charms which are often linked with witchcraft, lead to the project being evoked from a place of good versus evil. It was the rituals that came with the remedies and cures, which inspired the majority of this project, concentrating on the idea of ritualisation of space.
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When performing a ritual in witchcraft one ‘casts a circle’ so as to create a sacred space for rituals to take place within. This space draws on the four cardinal points North, East, South and West and their elemental representation. This space is often referred to as being ‘Between two worlds’. By appropriating these ideas to the building of Thebes Annexe in Lewes the building is temporarily but drastically altered, to create an exhibition which lies in a separate s pace between the rationality and traditional nature of the ancient town and the mythical and hidden garden landscape that lies beyond. The building is able to be returned to its original state or ‘healed’ to honour the history of the building, whilst leaving a trace of the exhibition manifested as a hidden subterranean passage which will remain as a layer of history added to the site and to represent the underground disposition of the religion.
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Amber Griffin
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘Between Two Worlds’ - Graduate 2014 -+-
‘The Sussex Phoenix’ – Society HQ
Alexandra Carron-Brown
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This is an account of unrelated yet parallel inhabitation. Two sites have had unrelated existence’s, their proximity to one another is their most apparent link. Irrespective of their previous lives the separate sites have arrived at a moment of potential union and a proposed collaboration. This arrival comes from subtle parallels that can be explained through their past, present and future inhabitation. This arrival can be emotively understood through personification of the two sites. The most important understanding comes from the acceptance that there is no permanence in the inhabitation and occupation of Architecture, the role of a building can and will evolve beyond any architects initial intent.
‘The Sussex Phoenix’ is a scheme that proposes to re-appropriate fifteen creative community groups that are under threat of eviction from the old Phoenix Iron works, Lewes. In the last twelve years a collective of community driven projects have had vision of the potential for the dilapidated factory buildings and have built what is now a thriving creative community. In order to preserve this community and maintain their connection with Lewes this is a proposal for a Phoenix Head Quarters in Sussex House, an Edwardian terrace house in the heart of the town. This building facilitates the variety of activities and aims to creative a platform for the future of these groups in the heart of Lewes.
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Alexandra Carron Brown
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Sussex Phoenix – Society HQ’ - Graduate 2014 -+-
‘The Story Hunter’
Amy Bourne ‘The Story Hunter’ is a project located in Lewes, West Sussex. Its aim is to engage and bring together the local community through telling stories. It allows people who might not meet or engage normally, to interact in a new way. Previously writers such as Virginia Woolf have used the town as a retreat, which is the premise for Thebes Annexe becoming a writers residence and story gallery.
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‘The Story Hunter’ is for the writers visiting Lewes to gain inspiration for their own work. The writer is to maintain ‘The Story Factory’ [Thebes Annexe] in return for accommodation and studio space. The writer is to collect Lewesian stories from the town in a device [Tell a Tale] that is to be bought back to Thebes Annexe. The stories are sorted into categories relating to their story type be it Tragedy, Comedy, Rags to Riches etc. The stories are then told within seven story listening spaces in a main courtyard by audio and written forms for the visitors to engage with.
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Amy Bourne
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Story Hunter’ - Graduate 2014 -+-
‘Sacred Tumulus of Thebes’
Emilia Riach
This mystical project delves into the realm of English Magic, where the sacred history of Lewes’ tumuli is uncovered. The present, past and magic connect in order to evoke tectonic propositions for the new “Lewes Folklore, Magic and Curiosities Museum”.
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The roots of magic and folklore are investigated and all the research evokes a fourfold ritualistic design concept, where a sacred place – a contemporary tumulus is created to explore the element of time and the numinous experience in a spatial form. Tumuli are special sacred places, which contain the element of time.
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Emilia Riach
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
- Project: ‘Sacred Tumulus of Thebes’ - Graduate 2014 -
Place and transcendental magic creates a ceremonial atmosphere. The modern tumulus becomes a structure within a structure, inviting people to encounter the world of numinosity and discover the rich folkloric heritage. The numinous experience has in addition to the ‘tremendum’, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling, a quality of ‘fascinans’, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. Such encounters can lead, in some cases to belief in the supernatural, the sacred, and/or the transcendental. Stereotypes are questioned and perceptions of the mysterious world views change as the passage of time leads people into a new understanding of English Magic.
‘Undistorted Histories’
Martina Mina
Thebes Annex provides an exhibition space to outline the story of Witchcraft told through dance and poetry. In an interactive promenade performance viewers are informed about the history of Witchcraft and Paganism, whilst also confronting their own distorted preconceptions of the Wiccan religion. Mirroring this Thebes Annex itself will be distorted and undistorted by moving sections of the building over the duration of the exhibition following the suns position on the different Solar Sabbats. This leaves the dance space open to the elements in the summer and closed during winter. Referencing the end of Wiccan initiation ceremonies the performance climaxes with a shared meal grown on site in connected allotments. The private side of the site contains changing facilities, allotments, a kitchen, research centre and conservation spaces.
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At the end of the exhibitions running time, as the understanding of Wicca in those who have attended has been undistorted, the Annex will be undistorted to it’s initial position; but left as two separate buildings, signalling a return to an earlier stage in its history and re-introducing an understanding of it’s origins.
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Martina Mina
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘Undistorted Histories’ - Graduate 2014 -+-
‘Penetrating Knowledge’
Klementina Savickaite The design proposal is intended to articulate the depths of knowledge of Witchcraft through a sequence of rich multisensorial experiences. Gradually penetrating through layers of information and atmospheres will generate an array of emotions associated with a certain aspect of religion at present and in history.
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The programme derived from the theory by Anthropologists F. Trompenaars and C. H. Turner, that explores the ways in which humans tend to get acquainted with broad concepts such as culture or religion. Following this theory, three levels of knowledge in Witchcraft are explored and presented starting from the ‘outlines’ level leading to ‘mentality’ and culminating at the ‘core’. Accordingly, the three exhibition zones feature diverse display mechanisms and strong individual yet interrelated themes, which are enhanced by interactions of varying intensities of light, levels of enclosure and respective materials. Thus, they act as a catalyst for delivering complex information, as well as generate a matrix of changing relationships and an immersive experience throughout the space.
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Klementina Savickaite
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘Penetrating Knowledge’ - Graduate 2014 -+-
‘The Parametric New England House’
Nastasha O’Byrne As it stands, New England House is an ‘in between’ space - a temporary space for start up companies to develop and grow. The overall scheme aims to enhance this temporality and draw attention to the individuality of each occupant.
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The concept behind this has developed through exploring the processes of ‘erasure’ and ‘exposure’. The proposed scheme aims to physically and metaphorically reveal the palimpsest of New England House and expose the personality of each company beneath. The proposal will be carried out by schematically removing the non-load bearing curtain wall and allowing occupants to modify their own facade, thus creating a new physical identity for each company and therefore the building as a whole.
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Nastasha O’Byrne
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Parametric New England House’ - Graduate 2013 -+-
‘The Chamber of Knowledge’
Emily Borrett Exploring the concept of the ‘Third Space’ the project begins with a site investigation using network signals to collect population data that shows an invisible layering of information. From both collaborative group work and individual observation, the concept of an existing hidden community has greatly informed this project. In turn, the idea of reconnecting the existing community within New England House creates a number of explorations that allows for different ways of testing how to connect people. Closer site investigation and research bought about a series of observations that discuss how in public and private situations, interaction between one another becomes contrasting and varied. Their variations are manifested as moments; of stillness and contemplation, openness and communal, closure and observation.
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The proposal creates moments for interaction within a series of ‘chambers’, rooms of assembly. Each chamber consists of an exchange of knowledge through social activities, the design looks to open new modes of communication through a mix of hybrid programmes, creating flexible spaces, views and glimpses of other processes and styles of learning.
Chamber of Knowledge:
The Third Space Proposal: Sections
Section AA illustrates the activity within the new proposal against the existing places of work. The proposal creates spaces of flexibility and considers view direction and the density of light. In turn creating spaces that appear and feel separate from the existing spaces within New England House, yet at the same time creates subtle connections between the old and new.
Section A-A 1:200
the
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the main stage, whilst creating an acoustic baffle. The space is also used as a cafe which when the lecture theatre is not in use opens up to create a large social space. A detail is then also shown to create a greater understanding of how the acoustic baffle design is Place constructed, as well aElder experiential drawing to show the atmospheric qualities of the space.
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2
3
4
5 6
1
A 1:200
- Project: ‘The Chamber of Knowledge’ - Graduate 2013 -
New England Street
Key
Level 5 Plan 1:200
new with within which exible ute to ces.
1 - Lecture Theatre with Cafe [seats 40] - Authority Teaching 2 - Sound and Music Workshop - Delegating Teaching 3 - Circulation Path and Route 4 - Light and Photography Workshop - Demonstrative Teaching 5 - Dark Room - Demonstrative Teaching 6 - External Exhibition Hall 7 - View Point [towards Viaducts]
Lecture Theatre with Cafe
Ceiling
Metal Static Cable
Metal Pivot Brackets Adjustable Hinge Bracket Acoustic Insulation Foam Cast Timber (Oak) Single Piece Outer Skin
Centre Steel Metal Structural Support Steel Metal Structural Support
Sound and Music Workshop: View from Exterior Bridge (2)
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ulation
Emily Borrett
Acoustic Baffles Detail 1:10
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
1:20
‘The Infestation’
Charlie Barham New England House has adapted into a 24-hour space. The daytime design is influenced by cellular architecture and encloses two main spaces: the critique space and the survey room. The critique space can be used for exhibiting work by creative companies located in the building. The companies can all get feedback on their exhibited work, this takes place in the survey room. This process aims at improving and adapting their work by re-evaluation of public opinions from the exhibition. The design also encloses beanstalk-height moving pods, which are illuminated against the black of the night to mimic sky like qualities. These pods are used as one-to-one or group meeting rooms and to connect the two blocks. The atmosphere created in the pods is very different from the office activity, it is more relaxed. The pods overlook the critique space, which allows company members to observe initial reactions of the public to the work in the exhibition.
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The idea of infestation derives from a ‘colony’ of people that use the building. They act as antibodies on a cell and their aim is to improve the performance of the
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Charlie Barham
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Infestation’ - Graduate 2013 -+-
‘LinĂŠaire: Anatomising New England House’
Frederick Vinall
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We live amongst constellations of linearity in our built environment. We are also made up of these constellations - from the repetition found amongst the follicles of our hair, to the ridges in our fingerprints and the bones in our body. It is built into our genetic and physical make-up - to align, to cross over.
Our bodies are a form of evolutionary genetic networking. Our lives should align and adjacently reflect this. It is for this reason, amongst others, that it was felt there was an undeniable need for an insertion that will trigger this natural interaction - a space to promote community and collaboration between neighbouring professionals.
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Frederick Vinall
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘Linéaire: Anatomising New England House’ - Graduate 2013 -+-
‘The Trajectory’
Marie Saunes When designing, the importance is to explore and understand the space to work with. Feeding back in to the design, creating spaces that encourage interaction with the users and the building. People today are often very disconnected from their surroundings. By designing one can make people conscious of the ambience in a building.
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By planning out details, materials or actions one can re-establish the significant of that particular space. The Trajectory is a space to study movement in space.
It creates a coexistence with the current inhabitants of New England house with a rehabilitation centre for active people with prosthetics as well as encouraging and developing Parkour activity throughout the building. The juxtaposition allows for a vast variety of movement and development within the site that feed of each other, with a focus on the detail and materials within New England House as well as a detailed observation of movement.
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Marie Saunes
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Trajectory’ - Graduate 2013 -+-
‘The Ambiguity of Shifting Territories’
Jennifer Tolulope Otitoloju Space is intimately woven into our daily life, social activities and personal rituals. People make decisions on their social existence through enabling self production and determination of space, as described by the “producer of spaces”. The design focused intentionally on the unconscious and conscious experience of space. Space is (re) production, whereby each mode of production is based on its own understanding of space and creative experience accordingly.
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We continually perceive space through time, object, self and the power relations. Working on our site, New England House, a diagnosis was made of the space which confronts the notion of people giving a new meaning to their existing environment.
Space is re appropriated where the interchange between form and function becomes evident. The design is a public square/plaza which connects from the outside to the inside (using the corridors, used and unused spaces) whilst blurring the line of boundaries. This concept interweaves landscape and architecture. The phenomenon of inhabitation is not limited to the human suggestion but the space can be re appropriated, to explore intrinsically dynamic spaces.
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Jennifer Tolulope Otitoloju
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Project: ‘The Ambiguity of Shifting Territories’ - Graduate 2013 -+-
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Field Field Trips Trips
-+- Expanding Spatial Knowledge p. 69
Field Trips
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Every year students are invited to participate in field trips in Europe (and sometimes beyond), to gather first-hand experience of exemplary design projects in often-unfamiliar cities and cultures. This has proven to be an excellent vehicle for student bonding as well as for expanding each students architectural and spatial knowledge base.
Liverpool
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Rome
Milano
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Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
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Venice
Vienna
Camber Sands
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“We learnt make opport I now reali transferrab vital every learnt here to any indu
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Amelia Lewis p. 73
Former Student
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
how to tunities. ise how ble and ything we e truly is ustry�
SHOWCASE
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The Open Market, Brighton
Image: Jim Stephenson / Click Click Jim 足
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Showcase
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
At the end of the academic year, second and third year students are involved in the design and build of a pavilion for their final degree show. This creates a unique opportunity for hands-on building experience coupled with a creative exploration of construction materials and technology.
Image: Jim Stephenson / Click Click Jim 足
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The Open Market, Brighton
The Quad - Grand Parade
Image: Jim Stephenson / Click Click Jim 足
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SHOWCASE Degree Shows
The Quad - Grand Parade
Image Lauren McKirdy
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The Open Market, Brighton
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Image: Thomas Butler
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Belonging Belonging to to the the world world
-+- Working amidst a creative industry -
Each year we put in place a variety of activities that provide students with an opportunity to get involved in a wide range of design related disciplines. These include working on set designs, building installations for exhibitions, practice-based work experience and competitions. In addition we support year three students in the management of the Brighton Architecture and Interiors Student society (BIAAS) who organise an extremely successful open lecture series, social and fund-raising events, and for the first time this year, ‘BIAAS Presents’, an exhibition of architecture related work from Brighton to coincide with Architecture Week.
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Belonging to the world
After graduation students will have a range of design careers open to them. Most will work specifically in the fields of Interior Architecture and Spatial Design, employed as designers or architectural assistants. Our graduates have also practiced in a variety of other professional fields including in the world of theatre as set designers, as model-makers, retail designers, exhibition designers, installation artists as well as interior designers.
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
We have a Career Planning Agreement with the wider university, which advises and assists students with employment opportunities during their time at university and for a period after graduation. Staff from the careers service each year provide the latest career information and directions about how to write a ‘Curriculum Vitae’, and how to prepare a portfolio for employment. We also set particular projects, which will aid an understanding of the design industry, through the ‘Contexts’ modules at each level.
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Community engagement projects include working with a very successful theatre company ‘Dreamthinkspeak’. Several students worked on their 2012 Brighton festival show (reviewed in the national press) and will be participating in a new narrative event planned in in 2014. The course leader for Interior Architecture acts as a creative adviser for this Brighton based National Theatre group.
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Dream Think Speak ‘Before I Sleep’ In 2010 Interior Architecture students worked on an award winning production ‘Before I sleep’ and ‘The Rest is Silence’ with the Dreamthinkspeak Theatre Company as part of the annual Brighton Festival. Students and staff were extensively involved in building sets and props for this production, which was widely reviewed in the national press and broadcast media. The following is a selection from the reviews of the event published in the national press:
“As one wanders through the Co-op’s several floors, one is pursued by repetitive music- elegiac strings insisting on likelihood of a mournful outcome. Sometimes one is alone in the half-dark. At other times, one is dazzled by a field of snow or stopped in ones tracks by the sound of a tempest or by birdsong. Images of desertion dominate – and of finality: the end of an orchard, an era, a life in service. A table is thickly covered in half-melted candles. A cherry tree, like a final icon, waits on the top floor, in unearthly light, growing out of shining grass. The experience is unnerving and powerful – one feels somnambulant and lost.” Kate Kellaway Observer 9th May 2010
Image: Dream Think Speak
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
“I loved the adventure of the piece, the not knowing what would come next; the bold juxtaposition of stages in the cycle of novelty and decay; the plea for ecological care.” Brian Logan Guardian 8th May 2010
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“Walk down the London Road in Brighton tonight and you might spot a befuddled-looking chap in a tailcoat sitting in a shop window. This merely hints at the strangeness to follow if you go into the shop – an abandoned Coop – and experience Dreamthinkspeak’s marvellously unsettling new promenade show. Before I sleep is a mood piece inspired by The Cherry Orchard. The installation evokes a sense of burning melancholy.” Sunday Times 9th May 2010
Working With?
- Dream Think Speak ‘Before I Sleep’ -
“Before I sleep is the most mesmerising, atmospheric, visually exquisite piece you are likely to see at this (Brighton) festival, or indeed anywhere. Dreamthinkspeak have been quietly reinventing site-specific theatre for some years now, creating walk through shows over the world…” Fiona Sturges Independent 6th May 2010
Waste House
The Brighton Waste House is a ‘live’ research project and permanent new design workshop focused on sustainable development. It is situated on campus at The University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts at Grand Parade. Designed by BBM Director Duncan BakerBrown (Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton) together with undergraduate students, this project was built by apprentices from The Mears Group, students from City College Brighton & Hove and The Faculty of Arts at the University of Brighton. This was Europe’s first prefabricated house made almost entirely of organic replenishable material as well as being the UK’s first A+ rated house.
Image: University of Brighton
Threshold Love Architecture
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Threshold is an architecture, urban design and arts collective who, through an arts-based programme of events, installations, interventions and collaborative placemaking activity, explores the condition of urban and sub-urban living. The core aim is to encourage local communities and stakeholders to participate in and debate on the design of the built environment, and using this information to inform urban design. We achieve this through built environment education,
Image: Threshold Brighton
A team of students from Brighton Interior Architecture and Architecture Society (BIAAS), got the opportunity to design and construct the stage for TEDx Brighton’s one day conference at the Brighton Dome. The students were able to take part in everything from branding and logo design to set design and construction. This was an opportunity for the work of students to be seen by professionals and to be part of representing a multi-national company.
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TEDx Brighton
Image: TEDx Brighton
Quote from Emma Friedlander, Public Realm Officer at Brighton Council
Image: Gemma Barton
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As part of a council initiative to open up the Valley Gardens area of Brighton, the University was commissioned to design and build some benches to accompany a borrowed garden. There is a long term plan for this area of town, and this first event in this location is part of the public consultation to see how the local community respond. An intense period was spent designing, prototyping, felling timber, assembling and installing.
“Working with the University has been brilliant; they have provided us with creative, beautiful solutions to a very specific brief, at incredibly short notice. Visiting the area almost every day for the last couple of weeks it’s fantastic to see how the benches have not only altered the space, but are being used in a way that is directly informed by their design.”
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
Borrowed Gardens
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A number of students have pursued Post-Graduate research in specialist areas, including Architecture, the Health Professions, Education, and Fine Arts. We have a strong Masters programme at Brighton for our graduating students with the possibility to specialise to PhD level in a variety of related fields. Several former students have, in recent years, set up their own design businesses. What these many career paths have in common is a conception of ‘interior’ in their creation of spatial settings. This points to the richness and diversity of the subject and to the wealth of opportunities available. The course at Brighton aims to develop complex abilities and skills that will enable students to negotiate these different pathways. Rather than specialised training being the only educational route, different sorts of controlled and managed learning strategies are given a legitimate place through the curriculum. The fact that Interior Architecture is so wonderfully fluid and mobile may be one of its great advantages and a fitting reward for those who fully engage with it.
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Further Studies at University of Brighton
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence - Specialist Areas of Study -
Further Further Studies Studies at at University University of of Brighton Brighton -+-
Creative Collaborations
MA Interior Design
Course Leader: Frank O’Sullivan
- Creative Collaborations -
The MA Interior Design programme is designed to promote interdisciplinary research and practice: the course sets out to develop creative collaborations between artists, designers, architects and thinkers. The starting point for all of our projects begins with an acknowledgement of the complexities and paradoxes inherent in orthodox architectural documentation. We do this in order to unearth the dubious simplifications and missed opportunities that result from the tendency to privilege the visual at the expense of our other senses. When considering issues of technology, our students are concerned as much with intuition, desire and chance as with precedent, economy and established practice. Structure The MA Interior Design course is a three-semester full-time programme. The first two semesters are focused on studio practice, whereas the whole of semester three is taken up by a self-directed research project, the Masterwork.
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The Masterwork is the culmination of the course and may be undertaken through creative design practice supported by critical text or as a text-based thesis.
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Urban Environments of the Future
MA Architectural and Urban Design
Course Leader: Susan Robertson
- Urban Environments of the Future -
Working across the disciplines of architecture, art and cultural geography, our Architectural and Urban Design MA combines critical debate and creative practice to help you develop as a designer who will plan the urban environments of the future. You will benefit from a supportive studio environment, two field trips and a variety of workshops and seminars, taught by active practitioners in architecture and urban design. You will engage with research on the analysis of cities and lead your own projects, speculating as to how cities will evolve and be used in the future.
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Further Studies at University of Brighton
Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
The course is highly experimental and aims to stretch your imagination and critical ability. You will produce innovative portfolios and learn about the issues of global urban environments, expanding your knowledge beyond the usual subject boundaries.
Acknowledgements Guests
Teaching Staff
Duncan Baker-Brown / BBM Eddie Blake / Sam Jacob Studio Simon Bliss / University of Brighton Darren Bray / PAD Studio Nat Chard - Bartlett UCL Tom Coward / The OAC Adam Furman Ephraim Joris / Architecture Project Diana McKnight / KLC London Stephen Mugford Jonny Muirhead / Muirhead & Co Paul Nicholson / Chalk Architecture Kevin Haley / Aberrant Architecture James O’Leary / Kreider O’Leary Fred Scott Tristan Sharps / Dream Think Speak Jim Stephenson / Click Click Jim Marc Thomas / Millimetre Elly Ward / Ordinary Architecture John Watts / Fischer-z Dominic Weil Matt Weston / Space Makers
John Andrews Gemma Barton Caine Crawford Jonny Fisher Daisy Froud Elisa Lega Glenn Longdean Thurgood Terry Meade Susan Robertson Grant Shepherd Sophie Ungerer Chloe Van Der Kindere
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A very special thanks to all the guest lectures and review panels members for giving their time, creativity and experiences.
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s
BA (hons) INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
Interior Architecture School of Art, Design and Media University of Brighton Mithras House Lewes Road Brighton BN2 4AT 01273642310
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Cultivating Spatial Intelligence
BA (hons) INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
www.brighton.ac.uk/courses/study/interior-architecture-ba-hons
Interior Architecture BA Hons