Welsh School of Architecture Yearbook 2025 - (Un)Fold

Welsh School of Architecture

(un)fold develop reflect reveal

Copyright @ 2025 All rights reserved

The Welsh School of Architecture Cardiff University, UK

Designed and Edited by

Lead :

Co-Lead : Graphics :

Luisa McIntyre

Nadine Abou Fakhr

Randa Ibrahim

George Breckenridge

Sava Kochorapov

Sathvik Kandukuri

Veronica A. Carrillo

Editors : Printed By Spectrum Printing, Cardiff CF10 4SP

*No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copywright owner.

This bright and bold publication depicts the range of work included in the Welsh School of Architecture’s Summer Show 2025. The exhibition’s title ‘(un)fold has been chosen by the exhibition’s curators largely to refer to the research and design processes that lie at the heart of student work, processes through which ideas, strategies, understandings, creative approaches and reflections emerge, develop and unfold. Moving away from the tendency to use architectural degree shows to display the major ‘show pieces’ that mark the culmination of development, students have been invited to share work in progress – from site studies to early sketches and quick models, to developed pieces in a range of media.

They have also been invited to contribute work where relevant that relates to the idea and potential of folding/ unfolding in contemporary architecture - whether this is the literal folding of surfaces like origami to form geometric spaces between their creases, the folding and unfolding of temporary, ephemeral architecture, the enfolding together of multiple elements and even temporalities in complex environments or compositions, the unfolding of life and materiality within adaptable design, or by exploring the history of the fold in architectural discourse and theory.

The exhibition includes works by students from across the school – not just graduating students but also those beginning programmes of study, and not just design students, but also designers/researchers from across our postgraduate master’s courses and PhD programme. As you turn the pages in this book, you will unfold elements of the journeys our students have taken in the past year in learning about their sites, topics, projects, studios, craft, methods and field as well as about the emergence their ideas and values. As you turn the pages, I hope you enjoy delving into their work individually, but also seeing them in relation to one another, finding connections which fold them together and speak to the wider ethos and directions of the School’s communities and teaching today.

— Prof. Juliet Davis, Head of The Welsh School of Architecture

01. Place

02. Mirror

03. Repeat

04. Reflect

05. Develop

04. Reveal

Layer by layer, idea by idea, architecture unfolds, revealing a dynamic interplay between past and present, innovation and heritage, creative imagination and technical constraint. In this continuous, evolving process, some concepts rise to the surface while others are set aside. But without this cycle of exploration and refinement, how could architecture truly move forward?

Architects and designers stand at the heart of this unfolding. Interpreting, transforming, and layering new meaning onto the foundations of what came before. This act is more than a method, it is a metaphor for architectural evolution: peeling back layers of heritage, technology and thought, to reveal new possibilities, and folding them into new forms.

At the Welsh School of Architecture, this ethos of (un)folding lies at the core of the student journey. Year after year, project by project, WSA students dive into the complexities of architecture - challenging assumptions, reinterpreting precedents, and building new ideas through collaboration and iteration. It is a reciprocal environment, in which the students shape the school as much as it shapes them.

The concept of (un)fold emerged early in the preparation for this year’s show and has guided its development ever since. It draws attention not only to the final polished visuals, those carefully curated drawings and renders, but also to the rough sketches, spontaneous models, and unfinished thoughts that formed the backbone of each project.

These glimpses into the creative process are as vital as the outcomes themselves, offering insight into how ideas are explored, challenged, and shaped. In preparing the exhibition, we embraced this same spirit— treating the curation itself as a process of folding and unfolding: layering stories, uncovering themes, and allowing space for imperfection and discovery. Rather than presenting a single, fixed narrative, it invites the viewer to uncover connections, draw parallels, and read between the lines—to trace the evolution of ideas. This pathway consists of many steps and stages, during which students mirror, reflect, develop, and eventually reveal their thinking. It is not a linear process, but one that loops, pauses, and pivots—a structure that values both the moment of breakthrough and the moments of uncertainty that precede it.

Over the past year, these unfolding processes have shaped another generation of WSA students. The results of their exploration and dedication are captured in this publication, adding yet another layer to the ever-growing story of the Welsh School of Architecture.

BSc 1

Bachelor of Science Year One

DP 1 : Atmospheres

DP 2 : Time

DP 3&4 : The Social Production of Space

BSc 2

Bachelor of Science Year Two

Studio 1 : Castle Quarter

Studio 2 : Riverside

Studio 3 : Cathays

Studio 4 : Canton

Studio 5 : Roath

Studio 6 : Grangetown

Studio 7 : Bute Street

BSc 3

Bachelor of Science Year Three

Unit 1 : Spectrum

Unit 2 : Living Together

Unit 3 : Treherbert

Unit 4 : Childs Play

Unit 5 : Liveable Urbanism

Unit 6 : Re p a ration

Unit 7 : Afonydd Carterf

Unit 8 : Architecture of UrbanismLand as a Secret Weapon

Unit 9 : Palais du Peuple

Unit 10 : Housing Visions

Unit 11 : Palace of Justice / Tribunal

MArch I

Master of Architecture Year Four

MArch II

Masters of Architecture Year Five

Unit 1 : VALUE: Reflecting on Legacies

Unit 2 : Regenerative Vision

Unit 3 : DE/RE Programming the Corporate Workspace

Unit 4 : Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures

Unit 5 : Liveable Urbanism

Unit 6 : LE-DR - Lab IV: Re-visioning Universities

Unit 7 : Designing Histories

Unit 8 : Nomadic Studio

PGT

Post Graduate Taught

MA Architectural Design

MA Urban Design

Msc Environmental Design of Buildings

MSc Sustainable Building Conservation

MSc Sustainable Mega Buildings

MSc Computational Methods in Architecture

Bachelor of Science

The BSc, Part I, programme provides a progressive and engaged learning experience focused around 5 broad subject threads – design, history & theory, technology, design skills and practice & ethics. The three years are scaffolded to provide students opportunities for personal development through creativity, curiosity and criticality as they unfold the complex interconnections of simultaneously disparate and cognate disciplines. BSc 1 is focused on foundational and experiential learning within the diverse subject areas before applying and contextualising this knowledge and skills in BSc 2. The final year, BSc 3, provides opportunities for synthesis and integration between the subjects that underpins the school’s overarching goal to develop grounded designers equipped to address global challenges, who are: environmentally engaged; theoretically, culturally and politically aware; enterprising and highly valued by practice.

Being able to unfold the diversity of syllabus is a critical aspect of the student experience. Our students navigate and influence ongoing discussions and evolution in what architecture means, who it is for and how we produce it within the societal and ethical challenges of the professional world. The programme encourages the ability to propose ideas, strategies, solutions, and methods developed from context, theory, technical awareness and both personal and collective positions. Student-led learning is promoted via ways of knowing, acting and being where students unfold themselves through project-based learning, reflective action, revealing confidence and awareness of their actions within a studio-based community of practice. The unfolding and folding of overlaps between school areas of research and scholarship, between students and staff, reveals reinterpretations, collaborations and transformative learning that is evident in the BSc 3 design processes and outputs around personhood & place, environment, adaptation, making and urbanism.

As we prepare for a new cohort into a redesigned BSc 1 programme from next year, we thank all our staff and external tutors for their dedicated enthusiasm to support the student experience and we congratulate all our students for their passion and commitment, creativity, insightful conversations and valuable feedback that enables us to collaboratively continue to evolve as educational, individual, industry, global and societal developments unfold.

- Dr. Steve Coombs Director of Undergraduate Learning & Teaching

BSc

Year 01

BSc Year 1 serves as the gateway to Architecture studies. The central theme of this academic year, The Production of Space, sought to unfold the elements and interactions that shape the places we inhabit. Through three interconnected sub-themes - Atmospheres and Time (Semester 1), and The Social Space (Semester 2) - students examined the interplay of materiality and immateriality, sustainability, and human relationships across different scales.

Bute Park, Cardiff’s green spine, became their laboratory: a space for observation, experimentation, and the location of their design proposals. In parallel, the Design Studios provided a collaborative environment where students shared their progress in small tutorial groups. Meanwhile, the Design Skills Studios provided a setting for learning how to communicate ideas effectively and integrate interdisciplinary perspectives and knowledge.

In the first brief, Atmospheres, invited students to explore how space unfolds through sensory experience and material presence by creating 1:1 spatial intervention. The second brief, Time, encouraged them to investigate the temporal dimensions of space - its connection to memories, histories, and sustainable practices such as reuse and material life cycles. Through this process, students recognised that space is not static but evolves over time, challenging conventional notions of fixed environments. The final brief, The Social Space, evolved across two phases: The Think Tank and The Proposal Phase. Here, students examined how space is shaped by social relationships, focusing on food habits - a force that has influenced architecture and urban development throughout history.

Through a learning-by-doing approach and diverse teaching formatsincluding site visits, seminars, workshops, and individual explorations - students were introduced to a holistic understanding of the design process: one that integrates multiple disciplines and reveals its potential to unlock new ways of thinking, creating, and engaging with the world around them.

- Dr. Melina Guirnaldos Diaz, BSc 1 Chair, Architecture

Design Project 1 : Atmospheres

Zumthor defines architectural atmosphere as the emotional impact evoked by physical and sensory qualities - light, sound, temperature, materials, surrounding objects, spatial composition, tension between interior and exterior, levels of intimacy, movement, transition, scale, and the interplay between composure and seduction. Drawing on these 12 elements, students explored the concept of atmosphere and the dynamic nature of space through a 1:1 group intervention in Bute Park. They documented both its tangible and intangible qualities, then reinterpreted their findings in collective artifacts.

Design Project 2 : Time

Time and space are deeply interconnected - revealed through movement, shifting light, sound, and seasonal rhythms. Architecture embodies time not only in how it’s constructed or used, but in how it’s felt, remembered, and transformed. In DP2, students design a personal space - a creative retreat for a writer, musician, photographer, or astronomer - reflecting on how time shape different ways of dwelling, inspiration, rituals as well as material lifecycles including sustainable use of natural resources.

Design Project 3 & 4 : The Social Production of Space

To explore how space is shaped by environmental resources and social interaction, students engaged with a theme that unites these forces and has long shaped our cities, architecture, and planet: food habits. They were asked to design a social space at the edge of Bute Park—where the natural landscape meets the urban realm—focusing on the sustainable production and/ or consumption of food while generating new collective experiences. The project asked: What new ecological, compelling, and collective experiences around food can you envision for Cardiff? Students responded through two interconnected design projects: DP3 and DP4.

While the DP3_Food Space: The Think Tank Arm focused on the explorative and analytical phase of design, DP3 aims to foster a greater understanding of the relationship between research and design, equipping students with the tools to develop thoughtful, well-informed architectural solutions. DP4_Food Space: Design Development built on this foundation, allowing students to evolve their projects spatially and tectonically.

Pavel Belinskiy

Ryan Daniel Tumusiime

Hywell Scott

DP4

Syazwan Hafizhan Bin Zaimi

Alannah Edmead

Peter Munro

DP4

DP4

DP4

Tint Shune May

Darcy Dryden

DP4

Alek Palm-Leis

Alek Palm-Leis

DP4

DP4

Hywell Scott

Alannah Edmead

Ryan Daniel Tumusiime

Elevations | DP4

South, West | 1:200

Pavel Belinskiy

Syazwan Hafizhan Bin Zaimi

Raghad Alkhurayyif

Darcy Dryden

DP4

DP4

DP4

DP4

Year 02

In BSc Year 2, the opportunity to work creatively and contextually continues to unfold as the year progresses. The year of study is spent working carefully and sensitively in context through seven studios, each located in a different Cardiff neighbourhood. Each neighbourhood poses its own distinct challenges. All are historic communities with a defined centre, and all are in need of a stronger sense of place and improved identity.

The year began with contextual analysis – measuring, recording and understanding how each neighbourhood works. During semester 1, housing projects were developed to address specific housing needs, informed by the preceding analysis. The high quality of the proposals demonstrates the value of housing that is not simply mass produced, but responds to - and unfolds from - the context in which it is situated.

Between semester 1 and semester 2, students worked collaboratively on a live design project located in Pennard - a small community adjacent to Three Cliffs Bay, probably one of the most picturesque (and most dangerous) beaches in the UK. The community has a small pool to promote swimming and life safety, but it is currently under threat. In response, students developed a wide range of ideas for a live consultation event, which the community is now taking forward.

During semester 2, each studio selected a public or community project to engage with. Working collaboratively, the seven studios explored and refined their brief before translating them into a range of individually designed proposals that respond to the specifics of the site and context. A key aspiration was for proposals to explore and describe a transition from established modes of architectural practice towards a more sustainable, climate-conscious built environment. Proposals were required to demonstrate net positive impact - describing sites and wider neighbourhoods in transition - leaving them better places than we found them.

What unfolds from Year 2 is a cohort of students transitioning into sensitive designers and future practitioners, developing their own ways of working and personal agendas that will inform the practice they undertake in the future.

- Dr. Ed Green, Year Two chair and Design Lead

01 02 03 04 05 06 07

Castle Quarter

Tutors: Prof. Wayne Forster, Amanda Spence, Lianne Russ, Rhian Thomas

Castle Quarter, the city centre area closest to Cardiff Castle, includes a number of arcades, St Mary Street and Westgate Street. While much of the built environment is Victorian, the street patterns and key buildings are much older. Womanby Street, at the centre of Castle Quarter, was the medieval route from the castle to Cardiff’s quay before the Taff was rerouted. Dense, infill housing proposals have been located throughout this rich and complex area. The brief for Semester 2 was for a public baths to replace facilities Cardiff lost during the twentieth century.

Riverside Cathays

Tutors: Neil Farqhar, Gary Van Heerden

Riverside is a dense urban neighbourhood home to a diverse population, including people of Bangladeshi, Sikh, and Chinese heritage. The high street’s Chinese, Halal, and Indian shops offer an equally diverse range of foods. Its close to the Stadium and city centre, has made Riverside a focus for Cardiff's growing budget accommodation sector. In Semester 1, two sites were used to integrate new housing into the neighbourhood – one near the waterfront and the other within the Victorian streets by the train station. Semester 2 projects propose a new home for the Riverside Market to help transform the sterile embankment of River Taff.

Tutors: Dr. Ed Green, Rachel Witham, Kelwin Palmer

Cathays is a Victorian neighbourhood that grew rapidly alongside Cardiff between 1850 and 1900. Almost entirely residential with modest Victorian terraced houses, it lacks greenery except for Cathays Cemetery and is dominated by a student population. Semester 1 proposals weave different types of housing into the existing neighbourhood, to diversify the community. In Semester 2, nursery’ proposals were developed - combining spaces for children with places for growing.

Tutors: Aled Davies, Andrew Fifield

Canton, on the west side of the city, is home to arts-based organisations of all shapes and sizes scattered around Chapter Arts Centre. Except for Chapter itself, most operate in substandard facilities. The semester 2 brief required that a new National Photography Centre be designed for Canton, including both studio spaces and high-quality exhibition galleries to host a rolling programme of contemporary photography alongside collections owned by the National Museums Wales that are not currently publicly accessible.

Tutors: Hugo Keene, Reishin Watabe, Camilla Pezzica

The dense Victorian Roath area is a neighbourhood in transition. At one end, Wellfield Road is becoming gentrified (to the benefit of the occupants of Penylan). At the other, City Road is dominated by increasingly tall, characterless residential accommodation, while anything non-standard or distinctive is being erased. A key site on each road required that the studio grapple with both of these shifting contexts and scales. In Semester 2, the brief focused on designing a community arts centre, tapping into a diverse fine art scene that has shifted in recent years from the city centre to occupy the busy streets of Roath.

Tutors: Lizzie O’neil, Nichola Chan

Grangetown is one of Cardiff’s five “towns” and one of the city’s larger and more diverse neighbourhoods. While Grangetown has a thriving community, it is something of a monoculture, dominated by typical domestic and industrial Victorian architecture. The Semester 2 brief tasked students with designing a vocational training school focused on craft and materiality - combining educational spaces and facilities with flexible, hard-working spaces for fabrication and construction. A key focus of the studio was exploring how an appreciation of materials and making can inform and enrich architecture.

Bute Street

Tutors: Tim Burton, Nic Howett

Butetown was born amidst the Victorian heyday of industrialisation, when a great dockland was built south of the city to transport coal and steel worldwide. Tiger Bay, as it was known, became a cosmopolitan community with seafarers from all around the world making Cardiff their home. In the 1960s, the unique territory between city centre and docks was cleared and entire communities displaced to make way for a ‘cleaner’ city. Today, Bute Street is all that remains of old Butetown – separated from the city centre by a substandard neighbourhood besieged with problems and bereft of character. The Semester 2 brief proposed to rebuild the community of Bute Street, beginning with a new town hall.

Canton

Roath

Grangetown

Studio

Can Dogan

Nikoleta Moumoulidis

Studio 7

Studio 2

Studio 4

Studio 5

Scarlett Cowley

Mohammed Almashharawi

Ffayier Bennett

Annest Marian Davies

Delia Diaw

Amelie Drury

Studio 4 Studio

Oliver Coupe

Aidan Castro Hendrick

Studio 1

Studio 3

Alexandru Ioan

Studio 3

Zoe Fontana

Hanaadi Ghazzawi

Studio 4

Studio 1

Studio 2

Thomas Brownlie

Studio 4

Josephine Giles

Hannah Furnival

Sophie Ellison

Alzbeta Franekova

Studio 2

Studio 3

Studio 4

Studio 3

Studio 6

Studio

William Hall-Mutton

Siena Graham

Studio 5

Studio 3 Studio

Ilan Rhys Howel

Melissa Fricker

Lucy Hilton

Sathvik Kandukuri

Studio 2

Matej Luza

Studio

Aneirin Douglas Jenkins-Belohorska

Khaled Hanafy

Sam Haynes

Studio 6

Studio 7

Studio 2

Sofia Bürgisser

Studio 1

COMMUNITY

CAFE . GARDENS . EXHIBIT

The walled garden uses excavated earth from the build, reducing landfill; also provides a space for Parc group visits in a safe learning environment. The surrounding wildlife produces an esape from urban life, linked to the cafe that customers and public are welcome to use.

Studio 6

Studio

Jamie Lawrence Etherington

Toby Hope

Rosie Noel Studio 4

Sathvik Kandukuri Studio 2

Sophie Newport

Studio 3

Rong Jian Geng

Studio 1

Studio 3

Naomi De Silva

Olivia Liggins

Studio 7

Harvey Wright

Studio 5

Melody (Hui Xin) Tan

Studio 2

Phu Myat Zaw

Studio 2

Iyanu Mofolasayo

Studio 1

Aryan Varma

Aryan Varma Studio 6

Studio 6

Ayusha Thapa Magar

Studio 1

Ayusha Thapa Magar Studio 1

Sam Stevens

Studio 7

Laine Sweeney Bruce

Studio 6

Amy Wilson

Studio

Imogen Stokes Studio 2

Sam Stevens Studio 7

Thomas Mahoney Studio 7

Ornella Orfenov

Amos Shammai

Sanaa Saunders

Studio 5

Studio 6 Studio

Maisy Ellen Jane Record

Studio 2

Isaac Walker

Studio 1

Kunal Wadhwa

Lucy Whitehead

Studio 2

Studio 1

Beatrice Lockhart

Studio 3

Jaskaran Singh

Studio 4

Lucy Stringer

Studio 5

Leilou Walmsley

Studio 5

Kwame Ossei-Yeboah

Studio 2

Kyaw Khant Zaw

Studio 7

Swetha Prabakaran

Studio 6

Peter Smedley

Studio 7

Kyaw Khant Zaw

Studio 7

Studio 6

Swetha Prabakaran

Year 03

BSc Year 3 at the WSA is designed for students to take more ownership of their work, one of the key distinctions between Years 2 and 3.

Part of this transition involves giving students the choice of which design unit to follow. This year, we offered eleven design units, providing a wide variety of options. Students travelled across the UK, wider Europe, and Internationally with their chosen design units, responding to the needs of villages, towns, and cities through their design projects.

With each unit taking a different approach, underpinned by the ethos of the WSA, the work produced has been rich in diversity and imaginative in responding to the challenges faced.

The theme of the exhibition, Unfold, provides an excellent opportunity for the design units to explore process, reflect on and revisit the outputs of Year 3, and learn from the work collectively. The student work on display spans a range of scales, and is rich in models, both physical and digital, drawings, sketches and images.

In Year 3, students undertake modules in Architectural Technology, which integrates Design and Technology thinking, Issues in Contemporary Architecture, which develops and builds on History and Theory modules undertaken in previous years, and Practice Management and Economics, which lays the foundations for Year 4 in practice.

To support this transition, students take part in the RSAW Mentoring Scheme, where they are paired with architectural practices across Wales. Through this extensive network, they gain valuable experience and connections with professionals—essential for their future career.

Year 3 marks the end of the initial phase of architecture education and the beginning of a new journey towards practice and Master’s studies. It continues to provide a strong platform from which students’ architectural thinking and ambitions can further unfold—supporting their progression to the next stage of their journey.

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

Spectrum

Living Together

Treherbert

Childs Play

Liveable Urbanism

Re p a ration

Afonydd Cartref Architecture of UrbanismLand as Secret Weapon Palais du Peuple

Visions

of Justice/ Tribunal

- Michael

Corr,

Year Three Chair and Design Module

Jasmine Tjoonk

Naomi Olotu

Paige Goodall

Ceridwen Amison

Eloise Jenkinson

Yasmin Hammad-juarez

Unit 01 Spectrum

Swansea, Wales

A more holistic understanding of neurodivergence needs to not only recognise the challenges it presents, but also traits that make neurodivergent people unique and complex human beings—who, with the appropriate environment, can and deserve to thrive. It is also essential to recognise the lived experience of intersectionality between neurodivergence and other characteristics, such as gender, race, sexuality, learning disabilities, and mental health conditions.

In semester 1, Unit 1 students researched existing built environment guidance for neurodivergent people and developed design proposals for Llamau, a charity tackling youth homelessness in Wales. In semester 2, students developed propositions on the theme of Household to provide transitional accommodation and services in Swansea, South Wales, for neurodivergent people transitioning into adulthood.

Throughout the year, students engaged with and embraced Universal Design for Learning approaches, respecting different ways of learning, communicating and sharing ideas.

The Unfold theme of the exhibition reflects the innovative approach to dissecting these complex issues with generosity and care, which resulted in unexpected, unique and delightful projects.

Abbie Judge

PALIMPSEST

Abbie Lauren Judge | JudgeA3@cardiff.ac.uk

The incubator space will equip early-stage, young neurodivergent entrepreneurs with essential business logistics skills while also supporting more advanced ventures in scaling production. Entrepreneurs will be supported through workshops dedicated to product refinement and design, alongside access to expert mentorship and guidance. These experts will help build a professional network for the entrepreneurs, fostering a strong sense of community throughout the program.

The ultimate aim of the program is not for entrepreneurs to remain permanently on-site, but to provide them with the tools and support necessary to turn ideas into reality and grow their businesses. The space will be continually reused by new participants, each leaving their mark and contributing to its evolving, layered history.

Abbie Lauren Judge

Jasmine Tjoonk | TjoonkJ@cardiff.ac.uk

It is estimated that 1 in 5 people in the UK are neurodivergent, however, our current built environment does not reflect this, often being designed in a way that actively triggers sensory overload and anxiety. The relationship between anxiety and architecture has been explored through the reformation of the Job Centre Plus, a place symbiotic with stress. The project responds to the governments plans to merge the Job Centre Plus with the national careers service, questioning whether job centres need to be bureaucratic systems or can they become places of support and nurture? The project further explores how architecture can become a political voice for the people affected by systems like the job centre.

Jasmine Tjoonk

THE FOUND STAGE

Naomi Oluwatamilore Olotu | OlotuN@cardiff.ac.uk

Hidden behind an existing stone wall and revealed through a stepped amphitheatre entrance, Theatre Troi is a hub that supports neurodivergent young people in developing transitional life skills through theatrical practice. Located along the busy Swansea High Street yet partially concealed, the building invites curiosity while offering a soft threshold between community engagement and personal expression. Addressing the lack of creative spaces in Swansea’s socalled “Creative Quarter” and the social isolation often faced by neurodivergent youth the building is shaped by five pedagogical approaches rooted in theatre: social-emotional learning, strength-based development, experiential learning, physical movement, and collaborative creation. It’s Welsh name “Troi”, meaning “to turn” or “to transform”, reflects the project’s focus on growth through creative expression. The design merges sensory zoning with flexible environments, enabling a spectrum of interactions from quiet self-regulation to shared performance. The architecture breaks the fourth wall, staging learning as lived experience.

Naomi Oluwatamilore

Olotu

Paige Goodall | GoodallP@cardiff.ac.uk

This project directly confronts the stark lack of governmental support for neurodivergent individuals and their families, particularly during crucial transitions like leaving school. It’s a vital community space, fostering mutual aid and empowerment to equip households with essential tools to support themselves and either other.

The building’s bold form, a solid mass featuring a large cantilever and prominent murals, establishes a strong public presence, making a topical statement against existing neglect. Inside there is a thoughtful network of external and internal windows and atriums enhancing connection, underpinned by research into destimulating views. Lighter plywood structures define six key adaptable spaces like The Library and The Living Room, fostering education, advocacy, and respite. Between these are undefined open areas empowering users to tailor their environment, catering to diverse neurodivergent needs. This gradient of public to private, alongside an internal “street,” cultivates community and shared knowledge, reducing reliance on underfunded systems.

Paige Goodall

Ceridwen Amison | AmisonC@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores how responsive, inclusive design can support neurodivergent young people as they transition into adulthood. Developed through in-depth research into the neurodivergent experience, the proposal challenges the one-size-fits-all approach of existing supported housing. It introduces a flexible housing model providing a range of housing types, each offering different levels of support. Together, they form a kind of village in terms of a network of support for the young person. The design aims to create a safe, adaptable living environment where individuals can develop life skills and independence at their own pace, fostering a sense of community and support.

Ceridwen

Amison

FOR DIFFERENT WAYS OF BEING

Eloise Jenkinson | JenkinsonE@cardiff.ac.uk

By engaging with the stories of neurodivergent individuals, we gain a deeper understanding of the rich diversity within neurodivergence. These experiences can’t be standardised or reduced to a binary, and they highlight a spectrum of perspectives that challenge uniformity and inspire us to celebrate differences.

The project is based on the idea that architecture can enhance accessibility and expression. It offers an adaptable environment that responds to users’ evolving needs, featuring spaces for reflection, exploration, and connection, while being sensitive to diversity. Instead of a fixed program, the design allows users to shape the space, reflecting the belief that differences should be considered from the outset, not as an afterthought.

Eloise Jenkinson

A SPACE FOR GROWTH

Yasmin Hammad-Juarez Hammad-JuarezYN@cardiff.ac.uk

A Place for Growth is a project that explores the intersection between neurodivergence and ethnic diversity, aiming to respond to the complex and under-addressed needs of this group within the urban context of Swansea. The project offers an inclusive community space rooted in care, support, and cultural understanding.

Centred on personal, family, and community growth, it uses creative therapies, like horticulture and art, for selfexpression, wellbeing, and employability. It complements formal therapy by offering an informal, accessible alternative.

Through careful materiality, biophilic integration, and cultural sensitivity, the design reframes neurodivergence not as a deficit, but as a different way of experiencing the world, one that deserves to be celebrated, not just accommodated.

Yasmin Hammad-Juarez

Erin Beck

George Breckenridge

Marcelo Ortuno Floria

Callum Cowan

Unit 02

Living Together

Cardiff, Wales

As a species, humanity stands at a pivotal moment in its history. The scientific community has come together to heed a clear warning, to spur into action a radical global shift in behaviour across all aspects of life. The latest IPCC report states that human activity is “unequivocally” the cause of rapid changes to the climate, including sea level rises, melting polar ice and glaciers, heatwaves, floods, and droughts. Partnered with the climate emergency, is an equally urgent crisis: the desperate need for housing.

To meet the ever-increasing need for housing, current approaches rely on a developer-led model that lacks the incentive and imagination to look beyond the next 20/25 years. This, coupled with a process driven global construction industry is contributing to the creation of inflexible and unsustainable cities. Built fabric, containing thousands of expiring, concealed carbon-intensive building components are coupled with undesirable and antisocial floor plans.

We have a responsibility to ensure that our cities are safe, joyful and sustainable places to live together. This year, Unit 2 explored the relationship between building programme and building fabric. Students analysed tensions between the rigidity of built form and the contingencies and rhythms of life. Drawing on historical examples and contemporary research, they considered whether projects should be built to last or be built to be transient.

In this context, the exhibition theme Unfold captures the spirit of the work: an openness to process, to transformation, and to new architectural futures that embrace complexity, contingency, and care.

ROOTED FUTURES: DESIGNING FOR PEOPLE, NATURE AND COMMUNITY

Erin Beck | BeckE2@cardiff.ac.uk

Rooted Futures is a high-density timber housing project in Splott, Cardiff, that addresses the dual crises of biodiversity loss and urban housing shortage. Designed for young families, the scheme transforms a disused industrial site into a courtyard-centred community with integrated wildlife habitats and communal green spaces. Featuring CLT construction, dual-aspect homes with generous views of nature, and shared indoor-outdoor amenities like a café, day-care, and teaching room, it fosters social connection and ecological stewardship. Inspired by rewilding and resilient landscape design, the project offers a regenerative model for urban living - supporting families, restoring ecosystems, and reimagining city life.

Erin Beck

BUILD TOGETHER: AFFORDABLE, SELF-BUILD HOUSING

George Breckenridge | BreckenridgeG@cardiff.ac.uk

’Build Together’ offers a truly affordable response to the current UK housing crisis, and promotes a way of living inspired by Walter Segal’s community self-build schemes of the 1980s. The aim around ‘Build Together’ is to create a model of housing that rigorously simplifies construction methods to create an easy to build, and adaptable method that facilitates residents to build their own homes. An aesthetic throughout the proposal is derived from material and structural expression, with elements left exposed, empowering residents with the knowledge of its construction. The proposal includes a variety of shared community assets, designed to increase local engagement and facilitate subsequent self-build projects.

Marcelo Ortuño Floría | OrtunoFloriaM@cardiff.ac.uk

This project aims at providing a mid-rise residential scheme, which will densify the area of Splott and, through its master-planning, provide a safe and lively green corridor for the children of the upcoming willows secondary school.

Through its consideration of time and the evolution of its site and proposal, it explores themes of sustainability, and questions the ephemerality of building structures against the quick- changing nature of their environment.

Marcelo Ortuño Floría

WASTED

CITY

Cardiff’s industrial beating heart, has long faced the negative effects of de-industrialisation. Deserving of a positive future, the Wasted City aims to set wider precedent for low-carbon construction systems. Rooted in urban locality, housing and public spaces make up an exemplar city built from a palette of Cardiff’s waste and regenerative materials.

Callumn Cowan | CowanC1@cardiff.ac.uk

Callumn Cowan

LIVING GROUNDED

Brontë Manns | mannsb@cardiff.ac.uk

This project addresses the dual crises of environmental impact and housing shortages by using rammed earth and locally sourced natural materials—offering a low-carbon alternative to conventional building methods. At its core, it embraces co-living as a way to create affordable housing that not only reduces costs but also fosters connection, combats urban isolation, and supports well-being.

By combining sustainable design with human-centred thinking, the project presents a scalable, forward-looking model for housing—one that reduces environmental harm while enriching social value.

Brontë Manns

Finley Walsh | walshf@cardiff.ac.uk

To define the word ‘Individuality’, the Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary provides this example: “The houses had no character and no individuality”. This is clearly indicative of the current outlook and state of the UK housing stock and is a defining issue in the current housing crisis.

The proposal critiques how architects can reduce the current built environment’s inadaptability and facilitate the residents’ expression of ‘Individuality’.

The design produced champions ‘long life, loose fit’ and is prepared for the inevitable requirement for adaptability associated with an ageing population and intergenerational living. A sense of place will be created, visually recognisable for pedestrians, fostering a sense of ownership and community.

This sentiment echoes the work of Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, who stated: “We shall be more interested in what people make of their housing than in what the architects intended them to make of it”.

Finley

Soriah

Sebastian

Unit 03 Treherbert

Treherbert, Wales

This year, Unit 3 continues its work in Treherbert, South Wales, with the community partnership Welcome to Our Woods, Wood for Good, part of Down to Earth, and the Black Mountains College exploring regenerative adaptive reuse. Black Mountains College envisions Treherbert as “A college town campus that is inclusive and responsive to learners’ needs.” Learning and teaching currently take place in scattered sites across Treherbert and the former Youth Centre has been identified to host the Green Skills Hub, where the accredited courses will be delivered and facilities made accessible to the wider community.

Unit 3 students began by collaboratively exploring the unfolding of Treherbert through analysis and surveying, incorporating narrative mapping and urban and architecturalscale drawing. This initial work informed a collective vision and proposed spatial arrangements for the town campus. Building on these ideas, students individually designed urban artefacts to support the unfolding of the everyday for students and the community as a way of testing the proposed spatial arrangements.

In the second phase, students individually developed imaginative proposals to transform the former Youth Centre into a regenerative adaptive architecture that celebrates the building’s heritage. The proposed designs aim to create the Green Skills Hub and support the unfolding of an inclusive and responsive learning environment for students and the community. The projects reflect the views, wishes, and needs of partners, influencing their thinking and decisions.

Ultimately, the designs support the unfolding transformation of Treherbert as a vibrant community-driven town campus.

Joseph Gush

Joeseph Gush | Gushj@cardiff.ac.uk

The former Boys school has been a key part of life in Treherbert for over a century. Holding multiple uses over it’s lifetime it became a centre of education community and recreation. Taking inspiration from the historic civic centres and applying Prospect and refuge theory to curate a journey through Treherbert’s history and the building itself. Showcasing the historic fabric of the structure through juxtaposition and insertion of new elements. The building aims to create comfortable environments for the users whilst promoting interaction with the wider community and the abundant natural surroundings of the Valley.

Joeseph Gush

THRESHOLDS IN TREHERBERT

Soriah Orekan | OrekanS@cardiff.ac.uk

My project initially explores thresholds within rural and urban Treherbert, looking on a wider scale at journeys through the town, and identifying a place for a gateway between the two spaces. The theme then develops to examine how the various users can create thresholds within the building identified by the client for adaptive reuse. It investigates creating spaces in between, where users come together. This could be between old and new, outside and inside, or college and community. Inspired by the places of worship, that have porches as a threshold between the outside and within, I extended onto the facade of the school, drawing people towards the entrance.

Treherbert

Soriah Orekan

Sebastian Rutherford James RutherfordJamesS@cardiff.ac.uk

The Green Skills Hub aims to connect the activities provided by Black Mountains College with the nature of the valley, which has historically been neglected. Views to nature are concealed and revealed throughout the building, always providing a connection to nature through the addition and subtraction of the existing structure.

Sebastian Rutherford James

The Former Youth Centre is a Victorian school building of rich history and great importance to the community of Treherbert, proposed to be revitalise as a building for higher education courses and community facilities. The project investigated and explored the history and condition of the building. By adapting the existing building, a Courtyard is created.

Layers are created with material and spatial order, expressing the rich history and allowing inhabitation of different users. The Courtyard functions as circulation, introduces daylight, ventilation and extensive planting into the building. The Courtyard serves as the focal point of the building, an accessible common space connecting College, Community and natural elements around Treherbert.

Sophie Page

Isaac Byrne

Keegan Wasley

Kieran Mckenna

Lewis Dare

Max Crowfoot

Henry Wood

Amy Smith

Caty Mills

Daisy Norman

Devina Mistry

Seoyoung Lee

Fern Hennessy

Oliver Cook

Aoife Coyle

Tanya Watson

Unit 04 Childs Play

Merthyr Tydfill, Wales

Unit 4 focused on investigating ways to adaptively reuse the former Hoover Factory in Pentrebach, Merthyr Tydfil, north of Cardiff. The area has been a site of production since the 1760s, first as an ironworks fuelled by locally extracted coal and later, from 1948, as a vast steel-framed production facility for the American company Hoover, which at its peak was the largest employer in the borough. With the building’s demolition now imminent to make way for new development, our students investigated whether the site can be creatively adapted instead, utilising what already exists to imagine new forms of social infrastructure and place making.

In semester 1, students studied buildings that have been radically transformed, going beyond methods of conservation and repair, to those of adaptive reuse and strategic subtraction. Using the lens of play, they explored how spaces might enable new modes of interaction and how imagining spaces for young people can unlock broader possibilities for inclusion.

The resulting projects range from cross-generational social spaces to centres for agriculture and community growing, from craft workshops to regional institutes for biobased materials and degrowth. Ideas of childhood, play and alternative futures were use as a framework for design. Some projects repurpose the existing structure to host new forms, while others dismantle and reconfigure it to establish a new architectural language with ambiguous origins. What all projects have in common is an exploration of layering; of history and vision, of permanence and flexibility, and of the industrial and the regenerative. The works reflects the exhibition theme Unfold: a process of revealing, adapting, and reimagining, where architecture becomes a conversation between what is preserved and what is possible, based on what we choose to value in the built environment.

HERITAGE RUNNING WILD

Sophie Page | PageS9@cardiff.ac.uk

The transformation of the former Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil into a forest school marks a powerful shift from industry to ecology - a movement from brown to green. Once a symbol of manufacturing and mechanisation, the site now fosters imagination, exploration, and growth. As children learn and play where machines once stood, they not only reconnect with the natural world but also engage with a hopeful narrative of renewal. This pioneering reuse sets a precedent for re-imagining post-industrial landscapes as vibrant, life-affirming environments. For the children, it offers more than education - it offers a brighter, greener future where they are free to grow, discover, and run wild.

RECLAIMING THE COMMONS

Isaac Byrne | ByrneII@cardiff.ac.uk

Through the critical lens of degrowth theory, this project reimagines the future of the former Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil. How can disused industrial buildings in the South Wales valley’s be reclaimed as civic monuments, fit for a zero-carbon future.

Isaac Byrne

Keegan Wasley | WasleyK@cardiff.ac.uk

This project reimagines the disused Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil as a civic space centred on play, community, and adaptable living. At its core is The Growing Ground - a child-focused public landscape inserted within the industrial shell, combining play, learning, and creativity. Housing is relocated into the existing frame, inspired by the Naked House model, allowing residents to personalise low-cost, raw units. A large community garden reclaims the former factory floor, offering space for nature and collective care. Through layered interventions, this project explores how memory, reuse, and social infrastructure can transform forgotten industrial structures into inclusive, sustainable places for the future.

THE HOOVER SITE AS A FACTORY ONCE MORE

Kieran McKenna | McKennaK1@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores urban mining and site localised recycling processes as an approach to the reuse of the former Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil. This on site recycling will lead to a site specific ‘Architectural Language of Reuse’ that will define the new ‘Town Square’ for the surrounding residential expansion.

Kieran McKenna

This project re-imagines the iconic Hoover Factory of Merthyr Tydfil, a symbol of South Wales’ industrial heritage, through the lens of childhood memory and play. Rooted in adaptive re-use, the proposal seeks to transform the disused factory into a multi-functional spaces that fuses historic preservation and spatial reinterpretation. The design merges memory and imagination. Technically it works within the constraints of the existing structural grid to preserve and adapt the original framework, to celebrate the iconic industrial history of the town and building. Sustainability is addressed through a focus on re-use, retaining the buildings fabric to reduce embodied carbon, and working with the existing daylighting and ventilation to improve the comfort and experience of the project.

RE-FACTORY

Max Crowfoot | CrowfootM@cardiff.ac.uk

Re-Factory is a project grounded by ecological responsibility and material honesty. It emerges from a critical response to the environmental failings of contemporary construction, instead embracing strategies of re-use, cradle-to-cradle circularity and site specific material sourcing. Influenced by key readings and precedents, Re-Factory prioritises reuse over recycling, highlighting undervalued materials by revealing their architectural potential.

Each decision, from structural design to insulation strategy, is shaped by a commitment to reduce embodied carbon and extend material life cycles. Rammed earth, sheep’s wool and timber are chosen for their relevancy and sustainability but with their whole life cycle in mind as they can all be reintegrated back into the system from where they were sourced. This methodology reflects a stance against waste and in favour of regenerative, transparent architecture.

Crowfoot

HOOVER

Henry Wood | WoodH11@cardiff.ac.uk

My project challenges the council’s housing plan for the Hoover Factory site in Merthyr Tydfil, defending a historical site with significant social value from demolition. With the ageing population of the area, a co-living scheme works to free up existing housing bringing the elderly population, many of whom worked in the factory, back to the site.

The proposal places housing blocks within the factory floor, utilising and wrapping around the structural frame and saw tooth roof. Landscaped between the housing blocks are community sports facilities, with the centre of the community residing within the existing concrete domed loading bay, providing a local shop, café, community hall and hairdressers.

Amy Smith | SmithAL12@cardiff.ac.uk

Iron Roots reimagines Merthyr Tydfil’s historic Hoover Factory as a hub for tackling sustainable food security. This adaptive re-use project transforms the disused industrial site into a vibrant community asset, integrating vertical farming, rentable allotments, and educational spaces. Architectural sustainability is achieved through material restoration: reclaimed bricks, the original steel frame, and a rammed earth central hub built with locally sourced earth, grounding the scheme in the landscape. The Pentrebach train station has been relocated through the factory’s original distribution tunnel, enabling local food transport to schools and the commercial market. Iron Roots becomes a catalyst for regeneration, reviving both land and community in response to environmental and social challenges.

Caty Mills | MillsC11@cardiff.ac.uk

This proposal for a set of civic buildings brings light, spatial connections and openness into the existing Hoover factory to preserve memories of place and simultaneously create new ones. The quality of space is intended to unfold and rework itself, shaped by communal use over time. Much of Hoover’s steel structure is retained and celebrated, while other elements of the original building are dismantled and playfully reused throughout the scheme. At masterplan scale, the proposed buildings act as a passageway between housing sites, providing access to an extensive programme of community spaces. The detailed focus of this project is on one of the four buildings: Merthyr Town Hall and Library.

THE STEEL GARDEN AT PENTREBACH

Daisy Norman | NormanD6@cardiff.ac.uk

This adaptive reuse project is based in a rural industrial site in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. Influenced by the site’s impressive exposure to wider landscape and views, the unique positioning along the River Taff, and the routes of several ancient pilgrimages, the retreat centre aims to encourage users to slow down and embrace their existence within the hills of South Wales, exploring the ruins of a disused Hoover factory with a childlike approach to sensorial seeking, curiosity, and discovery of their own paths to explore within the expansive gardens now occupying the existing steel frame. Monastic architectural and programmatic precedent has been utilised when master planning this large site, encouraging simplistic living and devotion to rest, service to community, and personal commitment to one’s reflective practice.

Daisy Norman

Devina Mistry | MistryD3@cardiff.ac.uk

A swim in Merthyr is a retrofit of an existing steel structure building turned into a community focused wellness centre along the River Taff in Merthyr Tydfil. Designed as a space for connection, movement and restoration, the building brings together a swimming pool, spa, winter garden and sports facilities under one roof. It’s rooted in the local landscape and culture, where the architecture combines rammed earth and glulam timber creating a tactile, low carbon environment. The project promotes inclusive access to health and leisure, while fostering social engagement through shared spaces that celebrates water, nature and community in meaningful ways.

Seoyoung Lee | LeeS35@cardiff.ac.uk

The project is about building a new communal hub on a site, previously the Hoover factory located in Merthyr Tydfil. The proposed community site will have four uses: Children Library, Youth activity building for education, Student Workshop and Exhibition Hall, and Public Park with small Shelters. The core concept of the design is based on uniform and repetition. A simple rectangular structure in different size repeats and foam different space, storage and structure for the building. The existing steel structure from the Hoover factory stood with the trees of the park, which shows contrast and gives a new life to the abandon factory.

Seoyoung Lee

Fern Hennessy | HennessyFA@cardiff.ac.uk

A Cultural Landmark for the Valleys reimagines the Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil as a centre for creativity, learning, and community. The project explores the theme of transformation through reuse, using and celebrating the existing steel frame as a foundation for new architectural and social purpose. Rammed earth walls wrap around the original structure, embedding memory into the fabric of the building. The concept developed through a focus on thermal zoning, intergenerational access, and the creation of six landmark buildings connected by loggias. These elements unfold as a spatial narrative. Inviting tourists, children and residents to make, discover, and connect.

Oliver John Cook| CookO@cardiff.ac.uk

This project reimagines the Hoover Factory as a new hub for the arts that holds an array of functions relating to the arts. the main being a creative community hub, restoring its role at the heart of Merthyr Tydfil. Addressing high unemployment, supporting job creation and nurturing a new arts-focused industry. The design preserves the building’s history through adaptive reuse and human-scale interventions, while timber introduces warmth and marks the passage of time. More than a building, it is a renewal of identity and place - adaptable, connected to nature, and shaped by the community it serves.

Oliver

Aoife Coyle | CoyleAE@cardiff.ac.uk

This project reimagines the disused Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil as a vibrant, sustainable civic landscape. Beginning with the symbolic reconnection of two villages via a new pedestrian bridge and tower, the design unfolds into a parkland that nurtures ecology and community. The preserved factory becomes a multi-use centre, home to enterprise, collaboration, sports and play- designed with children’s creativity and collective wellbeing in mind. Reusing materials and restoring access to nature, the scheme offers a hopeful alternative to housing-led regeneration. It celebrates memory, empowers local identity, and dares to see land not as lost ground but as a foundation for shared futures.

Aoife Coyle

WITHIN INDUSTRIAL PAST

Developing the idea of regenerating the Hoover site and bringing in the surrounding landscape to benefit the surrounding urban community, the concept creates reclaimed zones that contrast with the space’s original use. Integrating different zones for nature as a metaphor for ecological restoration that opposes the man-made industry that once thrived, new structures will be created within from repurposed remnants of demolished areas.

Tanya Watson | WatsonT4@cardiff.ac.uk LIVING WALLS

Tanya Watson

Katy Lane

Reiya Lin

Kitty Lavelle-jones

Tanvi Khatri

Aaron Williams

Simon Garnett

Kushul Patel

Bronwyn Wydenbach

Farida Hamada

Jerono Turgo

Xin Yuan Wong

Unit 05 Liveable Urbanism

Thrissur, India

As the global population continues to urbanise, more than half now resides in cities. While cities occupy just 3% of the Earth’s landmass, they consume over 70% of global resources, contributing to pollution, economic inequalities, and environmental vulnerability.

The rapid urbanisation in the Global South, particularly in India, presents significant societal and environmental challenges. The country’s vast population and rapid urban growth have resulted in unsustainable and uninhabitable urban environments. These issues are further exacerbated by outdated planning and development practices that often focus on infrastructure and housing supply but overlook the complexity and liveability of cities.

The Liveable Urbanism Studio explores the complex relationships between urban form and quality of life, particularly in rapidly growing small and medium-sized cities. It examines the interdependencies of social, economic, ecological, and spatial subsystems, aiming to develop innovative and dynamic solutions for creating sustainable and liveable urban futures.

This year, Unit 5 vertical studio offered a unique opportunity for BSc 3 and Arch 2 students work collaboratively with local partners, stakeholder and policy makers. The studio focused on Thrissur, one of the fastest-growing cities in Southern India, with a population of half a million. Through extensive research, students developed a framework, methodologies, and tools which they applied during a three-week study trip to India. There, they explored and unfolded the complex relationship between Thrissur’s physical form and the quality of life of its citizens. This process served as the foundation for their urban strategies and catalyst design proposals that are showcased in this year’s show.

Katy Lane | LaneKE@cardiff.ac.uk

In response to poor waste management and increasing flood risk in Thrissur, India, this project proposes a hybrid material recovery facility and wetland park. Designed to filter pollutants and intercept waste at the source, the landscape becomes infrastructure—cleansing, productive, and public. Recovered materials fuel educational programmes, community workshops and artistic production, fostering a local circular economy. Classrooms, public spaces, and an artist retreat provide platforms for engaging in environmental awareness. The design reframes waste as a resource and repair as opportunity—where participation shapes a resilient urban commons rooted in regeneration and collective agency.

Katy Lane

PROTECTING KOLPADAMSURBAN SPONGE

Reiya Lin | LinR5@cardiff.ac.uk

With rising climate change, resilience against flooding is crucial for cities worldwide. Due to urban sprawl, Thrissur has expanded onto the Kole Wetlands, reducing the city’s ‘safe to fail’ space. To prevent future floods, it is essential these wetlands are protected and sponge city concepts are incorporated.

Located amongst coconut palms on the border of city and wetland, Paddyfield Park aims to reduce wetland loss by providing facilities to support local farming and agrarian societies, whilst engaging the public and improving agency over such environmental matters. Along with city-wide SuDs schemes and green biodiversity corridors, the park will act as an urban sponge, storing and draining clean water out of the city and into the wetlands.

SECOND NATURE

Kitty Lavelle Jones | Lavelle-JonesPK@cardiff.ac.uk

This project addresses the dual urban challenges of flooding and solid waste in Thrissur, Kerala, through a hybrid landscape that integrates a stormwater wetland park with a recycling and education hub. By aligning water management with circular economy practices, the design transforms ecological vulnerabilities into opportunities for regeneration, learning, and community engagement. The facility not only processes materials for reuse but also invites the public into the process through transparent workflows and creative engagement, such as upcycling and waste-to-art workshops, reframing infrastructure as civic space and empowering citizens to become active participants in environmental stewardship.

Kitty Lavelle Jones

BUILDING A SYNERGY FOR THE FUTURE

Tanvi Khatri | KhatriT@cardiff.ac.uk

‘Creating a Synergy for the Future’ addresses the growing issue of a lack of belonging within Thrissur: Kerala’s Vibrant, Cultural Capital. The driver of this process is out-migration amongst the younger population, due to limited local opportunities. The Synergy Centre, located in the ‘heart’ of the city, acts as a catalyst to overcome this challenge by blending opportunity, comfort, and connectivity, through informal and formal learning environments integrated with moments for social interaction. The building is organised into three distinct zones, unified by a staircase which wraps around the central atrium, promoting spontaneous encounters. Biophilia is embedded throughout the scheme creating the synergy between comfortable learning and socialisation.

Tanvi

NEXTDROP

Aaron Williams | WilliamsA165@cardiff.ac.uk

58% of the worlds population now live in cities, an ever expanding realm of human life. Yet we still overlook key issues in many cities that greatly affect it. Unit 5: Liveable Urbanism aims to reconnect the meaning of architecture to the urban whole to resolve these issues and make cities liveable again. Based in Thrissur, India, NextDrop recognises the major issues surrounding water quality and security. Responding to a competition brief set out by the charity AquaDesign: Thrissur, the project aims to exemplify the need for proper water systems within the city to the government through natural cleaning processes, in turn, providing a public space and tourist landmark that captures the beauty of the surrounding wetlands.

Aaron Williams

WALKING TOWARDS A MORE LIVEABLE CITY

Simon Garnett | GarnettS@cardiff.ac.uk

Thrissur is increasingly affected by car dependency, driven by rapid urban sprawl that continues to erode the city’s walkability. In response, a new cooperative organisation is spearheading the development of a modern, multimodal transport system designed to provide a seamless travel experience. By reducing car reliance, the initiative aims to guide Thrissur toward a more walkable and therefore more liveable future. Central to this vision is a new bus station typology that integrates sustainable, economic, and social values - establishing a strong civic presence and setting a precedent for future urban infrastructure across the region.

Simon Garnett

DRIVING AWAY FROM AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCY

Kushul Patel | PatelKJ1@cardiff.ac.uk

Thrissur is automobile dependent. To solve this, we must incentivize other means of transport like redefining the bus network and revitalising its streetscape to become more attractive. For an effective response to the transport crisis, Thrissur needs two vital components, an efficient government to decisively respond and money to fund this overhaul. However, due to Thrissur’s overcrowded city council and a mass exodus of skilled workers, the response won’t be sufficient. Therefore, the government must be given room to grow, and the economy must incentivise workers to stay – which will be solved in the catalyst, providing a new city council, inviting the population to be part of the decision-making process, all located in the epicentre of the city - Swaraj Round.

Kushul Patel

INITIATING CONTACT

Bronwyn Wydenbach | WydenbachB@cardiff.ac.uk

The term ‘liveable’ remains ambiguous, defined simply as ‘suitable to live in’ (Collins 2025), and thus requires further delineation. This project aims to identify how liveability and social sustainability can be achieved in Thrissur, Kerala, India, through critical analysis of architectural design, spatial planning, and the built environment. It will propose a comprehensive urban strategy and targeted design interventions to combat social isolation and neighbourhood fragmentation. A primary catalyst project will explore the importance of initiating contact and fostering substantial relationships between residents, addressing both local and global needs to create diverse, inclusive, and socially cohesive communities key components of achieving urban liveability.

Bronwyn Wydenbach

IN TRANSIT(ION)

Farida Hamada | HamadaF@cardiff.ac.uk

This project reimagines Thrissur’s KSRTC station as a dynamic multimodal hub—where movement, commerce, and community converge. Linked to the railway station by a new pedestrian bridge, the design weaves together station dormitories, a vibrant bus terminal, and an energised market space. Prioritising seamless connectivity and sustainable transport, the hub invites people to move effortlessly through layered public spaces that celebrate everyday encounters. More than just a transit point, the station becomes a civic landmark—supporting local livelihoods, encouraging public transport, and shaping a more liveable, connected Thrissur.

Farida Hamada

Jerono Turgo | TurgoJ@cardiff.ac.uk

Thrissur, often revered as Kerala’s cultural capital, enjoys a profound sense of community pride anchored by its iconic festivals—most famously Thrissur Pooram. Yet this festival-driven vibrancy rarely extends into the city’s everyday rhythms. The absence of a mirrored identity outside festival season has adverse effects, representing a missed opportunity to sustain cultural energy yearround: commercial districts wind down early, public spaces lack basic amenities, and younger residents often look elsewhere for nightlife and cultural engagement. While the city’s heritage remains a powerful source of collective identity, a growing disconnect exists between the captivating energy of festival season and the subdued nature of daily urban life.

Jerono Turgo

Xin Yuan Wong | WongX3@cardiff.ac.uk

The catalyst concept is built on openness, allowing people to see how organic waste is produced and reused in agriculture. It promotes urban farming to increase local crop production and reduce reliance on imports. The project also raises awareness about waste, encouraging a more mindful relationship with the environment.

The site becomes a public gathering space, where the organic waste plant serves as a civic backdrop that produces biogas, energy and fertilizer to support local shops, restaurant and farming. The vertical farming towers invite the community to learn, grow and connect.

Xin Yuan Wong

Cadence Grace

Emma Casey De Lange

Randa Ibrahim

Amy Thouless

Matthew Meeson

Mikayla Almeida De Gouveia

Gemma Fabris

Shannon Leigh Edwards

Tobias Chan

Molly Einchcomb

Edesi Akhile

Khadijah Younis

Isabel Hallett

Alexander

Unit 06 Re p a ration

Bristol, England

Bristol’s Colston Parade stands as both a symbol of the city’s past wealth and a fault-line of its ongoing social and economic disparities. Reflecting Rossi, the terrace certainly ‘(...)persist[s] as a past we are still experiencing’, but perhaps only as an isolated and aberrant artefact’, its apparent permanence belying a foundation that, located on a hidden network of caves and tunnels, is almost as fragile as the lived experience of its contemporary neighbours.

Through an ethos of attentive observation and making, Unit 6 students examined the site’s permanences and impermanences, peeling back histories embedded in its fabric. Large-scale urban models have traced Redcliffe’s evolution, while tectonic studies have exposed hidden narratives. These investigations culminated in individual tell the tale detailsfragments that narrate personal interpretations of damage, decay, and the potential for repair.

Inspired by Berlin’s architectural reconciliations, students have explored interventions that weave together past injustices with contemporary needs. Their proposals unfold new relationships between memory, materiality, and place—questioning what should be retained, reimagined, or let go. In doing so, they navigate architecture’s dual role as both a preserver of history and a catalyst for change.

To make amends is to engage in an ongoing dialogue—one where past and present are interwoven, and where each intervention becomes a new layer in the evolving story of Redcliffe.

CHATTER - TONS

Cadence Grace | GraceC2@cardiff.ac.uk

My project is an adaptive reuse of the Georgian terraced houses on Colston Parade. CHATTERton’s is a Storytelling Centre, an inclusive, welcoming and accessible centre for storytelling and performance for all. By placing new architecture within and around the existing Georgian fabric, it celebrates both contrast and continuity. The building’s dynamic circulation, layered views, and varied performance spaces foster openness, creativity, and connection, ensuring that the story of every visitor, performer, and learner feels seen and heard. The building acts as a blank canvas for cultural exchange and an empty stage for the community to fill with expression and shared experience.

Emma Casey de Lange | DeLangeE@cardiff.ac.uk

Situated in Redcliffe, Bristol—a site rich in history but marked by a distinct sense of fragmentation—the Heritage Crafts School re-establishes the axis traversing North-South. Redcliffe’s urban grain was established during the medieval period and evolved into an urbanised hub through the accumulation of wealth from transatlantic slavery and the Industrial Revolution. The grain was broken during WWII and a 1970s masterplan, resulting in the distinct sense of fragmentation evident along Ship Lane, traversing from St Mary Redcliffe Church past Colston’s Parade towards the 70s housing block. The school aims to re-establish Ship Lane as a vital connector, reconnecting the community with

Emma Casey de Lange

KOLANA COLLECTIVE

Randa Ibrahim | IbrahimR4@cardiff.ac.uk

‘re p a rat ion’ is not just about bringing back to life, existing buildings, but about making amends to and repairing a damaged urban fabric.

‘Kolana’, meaning ‘together’ in Arabic is a critical response to the tolerated condition of Redcliffe today, a proposition to make amends through a community hub for asylum seekers and locals in Redcliffe, Specifically women and children. Combining short-term housing, childcare, and education with play-based urban design. The project repairs social fractures that connect past and present.

Children’s innocence becomes a tool for rewriting the site’s identity - using play as a universal language to foster belonging and reshape Redcliffe into a place that serves its present and future, not just its past.

To repair is not to erase, but to amplify the whispers of Redcliffe’s past—so they may sing in its future.

Randa Ibrahim

RECLAIMING REDCLIFFE

Amy Thouless | ThoulessA@cardiff.ac.uk

Redcliffe in the current day exists fractured, a product of its history. It is dominated by physical and psychological barriers, with Colston Parade sitting at the faultline between north and south . The surrounding community, particularly the refugees and asylum seekers housed adjacent to the site are affected by these. My project aims to act as a form of reconnection, breaking through the imposing grandeur of Colston Parade by restoring and reimagining the site’s medieval connection to water and landscape, to make amends, through rewilding and constructed wetlands. By breaking down existing structures to a ‘ruin’, a new community hub with integrated mental wellbeing support sits independently within, protected.

Amy Thouless

THE LANGUAGE OF PERFORMANCE

Matthew Meeson | MeesonMW@cardiff.ac.uk

The Language of Performance is an adaptive reuse scheme located along Colston’s Parade in Bristol, transforming part of the existing Georgian fabric into a vibrant community theatre. The scheme creates an inclusive space where local cultures can come together through performance and shared expression. In response to language barriers faced by BAME communities, asylum seekers, and low-income groups, the project integrates language teaching facilities alongside flexible performance spaces. By reimagining boundaries—both physical and symbolic—the design fosters connection between performers and the public, offering a cultural anchor point that supports belonging, dialogue, and community empowerment in Redcliffe.

Matthew Meeson

THE MAKERS HUB

Mikayla De Gouveia | DeGouveiaM@cardiff.ac.uk

My proposal fosters community engagement, skill-building through workshops, and entrepreneurship via markets where people can sell goods made in those workshops. It brings together asylum seekers living nearby and local residents, while acknowledging the site’s complex history. By referencing the legacy of Colston Parade and integrating it with care, the design respects the past while reimagining the area as more inclusive and welcoming. This is not just an architectural proposal, it’s about creating a space where displaced people feel seen, valued, and supported, and where existing residents are active participants in shaping a more connected, inclusive future for Redcliffe.

Mikayla De Gouveia

Gemma Fabris | FabrisG@cardiff.ac.uk

Redcliffe, shaped by a layered and divided history, presents an opportunity for social and spatial renewal. This project proposes an inclusive housing typology embedded within the Georgian terraces of Colston Parade, offering connected, resilient homes for asylum seekers and longterm residents.

By reconfiguring thresholds and integrating layered public, collective, and private spaces, the design fosters social cohesion and belonging. Drawing from Redcliffe’s medieval grain and Georgian character, the proposal reinterprets historical patterns into a contemporary, human-scaled architecture—one that supports interaction, ownership, and healing within a fractured cityscape.

Gemma Fabris

THE INFILL STITCH

Shannon Leigh Edwards | EdwardsSL11@cardiff.ac.uk

The Infill Stitch is a project of repair and reconnection, weaving together the fragmented edges of Colston Parade. It refines heritage by reinstating a lost connection to St Mary Redcliffe through a carefully layered landscape. Nestled between Georgian terraces, the design offers spaces for refugees to express themselves through movement and making, including a theatre and exhibition space. Reclaimed materials and soft thresholds blur public and private, past and future. Subtle but binding, the architecture pulls together diverse communities through shared experience. This is not just infill but a civic stitch, restoring trust, memory and belonging in the heart of the city.

Shannon Leigh Edwards

This adaptive reuse project in Redcliffe, Bristol, responds to social and climatic challenges through four key concepts: Breaking Barriers, Grounding Redcliffe, Juxtaposition, and Transparency. These emerged from site analysis, identifying deep-rooted social divisions, environmental potential, and historical permanence. The scheme removes the Frys House of Mercy to open the site and enhance passive ventilation. Locally sourced rammed earth anchors the intervention both thermally and culturally. New glulam structures juxtapose sensitively with the existing masonry to support spatial transformation. Transparency unites all, exposing structural interventions and celebrating historic fabric. Together, these concepts shape a sustainable, respectful architectural narrative grounded in climate, context, and community renewal.

Molly Einchcomb | EinchcombM@cardiff.ac.uk

My project is a response to the need for reparation in Redcliffe, Bristol. The palimpsest of the city’s history is its built environment — the affluence of Georgian terraces and the ascending spire of St Mary Redcliffe, the fragmented archipelago of post-war social housing and the ring road that severs it from the broader urban context.

Creating a building from the very fabric of this neighbourhood, a new architectural language emerges, one that reflects the richness and nuances of the existing residents. It acknowledges the past and present whilst offering a generosity of space for growth and transformation — to be shaped by the evolving needs and aspirations of the future community

Molly Einchcomb

REDCLIFFE REWOVEN

Edesi Akhile | AkhileEA@cardiff.ac.uk

Colston Parade, Bristol is a site of layered histories; wealth and exploitation, community and exclusion. Redcliffe’s architecture preserves both grandeur and injustice, revealing deep social fractures. This project reimagines the street as a culinary refuge, where food becomes a tool for connection and healing. Through shared cooking, recipe exchange, and communal meals, migrants and locals come together to celebrate heritage and foster mutual understanding. Adaptable kitchens, dining spaces, and food-growing initiatives create opportunities for co-creation and cultural dialogue. By embedding food and memory into architecture, Colston Parade becomes a living space of reconciliation, storytelling, and collective renewal.

Edesi Akhile

HEALING THROUGH HERITAGE

Khadijah Younis | YounisK@cardiff.ac.uk

Mending Place is a housing project for vulnerable women and children, situated within the historic context of Colston Parade in Redcliffe, Bristol. Informed by a personal lens shaped by childhood experiences, the design explores how architecture can foster spaces of safety, softness, and dignity. Through sensitive retrofitting and contextual engagement, the project works with the site’s layered heritage as both constraint and opportunity. Mending Place asks how architecture might contribute to healing - where the act of making place becomes an engaged response to trauma, reconnecting memory, care, and the continuity of lived experience.

Khadijah Younis

Isabel Hallett | HallettI1@cardiff.ac.uk

Rooted in Redcliffe is a community-led urban farm and long table initiative set within a reimagined Georgian terrace, Colston Parade, in South Redcliffe, Bristol. The project addresses food insecurity and social isolation by transforming a physically and socially divided site into a place of connection. A new glulam frame threads through retained structural walls to support hydroponic growing, communal kitchens, and a central long table where the community can gather as equals. Drawing from Redcliffe’s medieval agricultural past, the architecture reintroduces cultivation as civic infrastructure. Guided by generosity, adaptability, and sustainability, the scheme turns a onceisolating building into a productive, open framework, that places community at its heart and uses food as a tool for repair, resilience, and shared dignity.

Isabel Hallett

COLLECTIVE

Alexander Patel | PatelA54@cardiff.ac.uk

This proposal aims to inspire interaction among people through the use of vertical and horizontal circulatory spaces. Spanning over 6 floors, 5 Georgian houses, and 4 contemporary entrance pavilions, the Courtyard Collective provides access to educational workshops, resident hubs, and welcoming community spaces. The two questions this project endeavors to answer are, as follows: What is Interaction? How can interaction be curated?

Alexander Patel

William Langton

Kyle Bhabutta

Harry Durant

Natalie Brown

Ted Davis

Debopriya Chatterjee

Alice Hall

Muhammad Ammar Bin Nasreel Nurridhuwar

Oukang Pok

Amanda Platt

Hanyu Yang

Rowan Challenger-Williams

Pak Ho Wong

Sebastian Morley

Manahil Syed

Meiling Choi

Peter Manuilov

SeungHyeok Choi

Unit 07

Afonydd

Cartref

Cardiff, Wales

Mae Uned 7 yn arddangos ymchwiliad blwyddyn o hyd i wahanfa ddŵr Taf a Chored Radur. Y nod oedd datblygu’r haenau o hanes, ecoleg, a chymuned sy’n diffinio ‘afon gartref’ Caerdydd. Trwy ymchwil, dadansoddi a gwneud modelau, archwiliodd myfyrwyr y berthynas rhwng ffurf adeiledig a’r amgylchedd afonol. Roedd yr uned yn herio myfyrwyr i archwilio etifeddiaeth ddiwydiannol De Cymru, gan dynnu ysbrydoliaeth o rôl hanesyddol afon Taf a’i photensial cyfoes. Datgelodd ymchwiliadau i’r trothwy faterion ecolegol, cymdeithasol ac economaidd y mae’r ddyfrffordd hon yn eu hwynebu. Ymgysylltodd myfyrwyr â chymunedau a defnyddwyr, gan sicrhau bod eu dyluniadau’n adlewyrchu eu hanghenion a’u dyheadau. Mae’r prosiectau’n cynrychioli ystod o ymyriadau wedi’u hanelu at adfywio. Gan ganolbwyntio ar hamdden, iechyd afonol, cymuned ac addysg, mae’r cynigion hyn yn dangos dealltwriaeth o nodweddion unigryw’r safle a’r potensial ar gyfer dyfodol mwy bywiog a chynaliadwy. Mae’r gwaith yn adlewyrchu proses o ddarganfod, dadansoddi a datrys problemau, gan arwain at weledigaethau pensaernïol meddylgar ac effeithiol.

Unit 7 showcases a year-long investigation into the Taff watershed and Radyr Weir. The aim was to unfold the layers of history, ecology, and community that define Cardiff’s ‘home river’. Through research, analysis, and model-making, students explored the relationship between built form and the riverine environment. The unit challenged students to examine the industrial legacy of South Wales, drawing inspiration from the Taff’s historical role and its contemporary potential. Investigations into the watershed revealed ecological, social, and economic issues faced by this waterway. Students engaged with communities and users, ensuring their designs reflected their needs and aspirations. The projects represent a range of interventions aimed at revitalisation. Focused on recreation, riverine health, community and education, these proposals demonstrate an understanding of the site’s unique characteristics and the potential for a more vibrant and sustainable future. The work reflects a process of discovery, analysis, and problem-solving, resulting in thoughtful and impactful architectural visions.

- Hugo Keene, Aled Davies

William Langton | LangtonW@cardiff.ac.uk

Over the past 50 years, the River Taff has broke its banks with increasing frequency, largely due to the overurbanisation of historically rural areas.

The resulting rise in surface runoff has caused severe damage to properties along the river’s edge. Rather than fighting the river with rigidity, my proposal embraces its natural tendencies by incorporating overflow reservoirs that expand its capacity during heavy rainfall.

At the heart of this system is a kayak centre, situated on a floating pontoon within the reservoir, offering a light touch on the landscape. The man-made lake provides calm, flat water ideal for training beginner kayakers before they venture into the river’s flowing currents.

William Langton

Kyle Bhabutta | BhabuttaK@cardiff.ac.uk

Rivers bore the brunt of industrial pollution in South Wales historically, making them less desirable to swim in. Now, with them starting to recover, and a rising popularity in wild swimming once more, this facility would accommodate for individuals wishing to experience elements of a traditional thermal spa, with the unique experiential engagement with the River Taff. The project would be utilised by the community to reconnect with nature, and the project should give the opportunity for social activity, and also reflection through dramatic quality of space.

Kyle Bhabutta

Afonydd Cartref

Harry Durant | DurantH1@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores access to water as a form of spatial justice. The project reinstates the community’s connection to the river by restoring a forgotten canal system into an inclusive public swimming space. Through architectural intervention and political messaging with materials, this project reclaims swimming as a right, not a privilege. Addressing the challenges of river pollution, flooding, and cold temperatures, the design creates an open, free public space that allows safe swimming for all.

There are two pavilions. The first is a cafe, and the second houses private changing rooms and two saunas. A series of pools of varying depths creates an engaging environment for both swimmers and walkers.

Harry Durant

RIVERINE DISCOVERY CENTRE

Natalie Brown | BrownN13@cardiff.ac.uk

The focus for this project is to engage the entire community of Radyr with its local river, while creating a sustainable project, fit for a riverine landscape. This Riverine Discovery Centre is broken up into a kayaking centre, an educational facility for young children and a café with a walkway overlooking the river activities. There are three stages to educate the young population of Radyr, firstly through the installation of a wetlands then to the reinstated overflow channel, and finally onto the river itself where they can join in with the kayaking facilities. This centre ensures that all demographics can immerse themselves in the opportunities provided by the River Taff.

Natalie Brown

Afonydd Cartref

Ted Davis | DavisE12@cardiff.ac.uk

This project will bring back this connection between the River and its users, whilst building bridges between the Taff and its surrounding wildlife. Once a well used waterway running through the heart of South Wales, the River Taff and its users had a robust connection that helped the industry of the region to boom. In recent years however, this connection has dismantled with the fall of industry and the rise of population. Severe pollution caused through the industrial period calls for a regeneration in the ecological wellbeing of the riverine landscape, with the destruction of the environmental zones worsened by the introduction of the M4 motorway.

PADDLE SPORTS CENTRE: SHAPED BY RAIN

Debopriya Chatterjee | ChatterjeeD1@cardiff.ac.uk

Nestled beside Radyr Weir in Cardiff, the project explores rain not just as a weather, but as an experience. Inspired by childhood memories of monsoons in Mumbai, India, and shaped by the dynamics of the River Taff, the Paddle Sports Centre celebrates rain as a sensory experience, targeting 3 senses - visual, auditory and olfactory. The design unfolds around a central courtyard and two distinct building blocks/ zones: Water Sports and Leisure Zones. Roofs further guide and control the movement of rainwater into visible channels, while rain gardens and perforated brickwork enhance atmosphere & resilience. Blending personal narrative with environmental responsiveness, the scheme creates a community space deeply connected to nature and memory.

Debopriya Chatterjee

‘IN FLOOD’ - CANOLFAN CHWARAEON DŴR

Alice Hall | HallA14@cardiff.ac.uk

Located in the intensely riverine Welsh landscape, this project addresses the challenge of site flooding by allowing the ground floor to flood. Incorporating historical elements on the façade, the ‘heavy’ tectonic base reflects on the heavy industrial context which surrounds the site. The understanding of ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ spaces guided the layout of the building. Users transition from wet to dry as they access the river, progressing through transition spaces such as the changing rooms or reception. ‘Dry’ spaces, such as the café, are insulated and suspended above the heavy, flood resilient construction. This heavy tectonic is further juxtaposed by natural elements throughout and SuDS systems to support the scheme.

Alice Hall

KAYAK CENTRE

Muhammad Ammar Bin Nasreel Nurridhuwar BinNasreelNurridhuwarMA@cardiff.ac.ukac.uk

The home rivers of South Wales were vital to the success of Welsh industrialisation. From transporting produced goods to generating power and disposing of factory waste, these rivers were misused and have not quite recovered to their pre-industrialisation state. Currently, a lack of public knowledge is the biggest obstacle to their full recovery. That is why my project’s goal is to foster community and promote public re-engagement with the river. Through providing public leisure facilities within and near the river, more chances are created to spread awareness regarding the roles these rivers played in the past and what is required to maintain and improve them for future generations.

Muhammad Ammar Bin Nasreel Nurridhuwar

SPA-RRAZZO

Oukang Pok | PokO@cardiff.ac.uk

Taking advantage of the existing infrastructure, Spa-rrazzo is a spa sitting between a man-made and a natural island. A bridge that connect us closer to river. The building’s design is inspired by the remnants surrounding the site, becoming the architectural element that lights the building - Light wells. Ripple Effect: Relaxation spreads highlight the purpose of the building in both its building use and sustainability. Drawing clean energy from the hydroelectric scheme to cleanse the river water for its uses and then returned to purify the river through the facade and its green walls, creating a beneficial relationship with the site.

Oukang

RECONNECTING WITH THE RIVER

Amanda Platt | PlattA1@cardiff.ac.uk

The two buildings, although serving different functions, work together to create meaningful connections back to the water. They both have a unique response to flooding: The Visitor Centre is raised up, allowing the ground to flood beneath it. The Paddlesports Centre features floodable boat storage, where a memory is left on the cooper doors after a flood. Through their unified tectonic language, the buildings become physical and symbolic gateways into the riparian zone of Radyr Island. By using large overhanging roofs to frame views and close the tree lines, the two buildings create a sense of enclosure on the island itself, allowing users to fully experience their natural surroundings.

Amanda Platt

Hanyu Yang | YangH59@cardiff.ac.uk

Starting from the popular paddle boarding at Radyr Weir, this project creates a leisure space where people interact with the river and nature, using the site’s unique features and materials to shape a rough, grounded architecture that emerges from the landscape.

Hanyu Yang

YMGOLLI YN Y DŴR

Rowan Challenger-Williams Challenger-WilliamsR@cardiff.ac.uk

This scheme proposes to re-instate and preserve the canal remnants around the Taf, re-connecting people to the water both physically and spiritually. While respecting the environment, I aim to create a design solution that’s feels embed within the ground-scape itself, achieving sustainability through longevity. I refer to my design solution as a form or landscape, rather than a building. I have attempted to explore a more informal and sculptural architecture, allowing forms to be used by people in a many of different ways; while the form’s main function is to simply provide access into the water, no direct route is implied, and the sculptural characteristics of the design can be explored in a variety of ways.

Rowan

RECONNECTING

Pak Ho Wong | WongPH1@cardiff.ac.uk

A kayaking center that reimagines the river’s edge as a place of reconnection—between land and water, human and landscape. Sited beside a weir on an existing hydro scheme, the building responds to the disconnection introduced by the scheme, which disrupted access and concealed the river’s edge. Through carved circulation paths and an accessible green roof planted with native Welsh species, it offers new ways to experience the river across changing water levels. The structure becomes a threshold, allowing people to move above and below the weir and to engage directly with the river.

Sebastian Morley | MorleyS3@cardiff.ac.uk

This project restores and reimagines historic river infrastructure at Radyr Weir through a sustainable water management strategy that filters, recycles, and returns water to the River Taff. A sequence of pools and atmospheric bathing spaces forms a sensory journey, where each experience is shaped by nuanced materiality and sensitively articulated lighting design. The architecture is embedded within the riverine landscape, precisely positioned within the existing treescape. Addressing the challenges of managing dynamic riverine conditions through materiality, the scheme aims to enhance the site’s ecological and social value. Through a synthesis of water, light, and material tectonics, the spa fosters wellbeing and redefines Radyr Weir as a place of ritual, reflection, and reconnection.

Sebastian Morley

BRIDGING SPACES, PLAYING PLACES

Manahil Syed | SyedM7@cardiff.ac.uk

The project explores the theme of connection across generations, using the river as a symbol of continuity, memory, and movement. Rooted in the idea that water carries both stories and possibilities, the design invites a gentle interaction between people and place. It reflects on how play can become a language, bridging age, time, and experience. The narrative unfolds through a layered relationship with the landscape, where rhythms of the river echo the rhythms of life. The design embraces fluidity over formality, allowing nature, memory, and imagination to shape how the place is understood. It is less about control, and more about coexistence and flow.

Manahil

DWR O RADYR | WATER OF RADYR

Meiling Choi | ChoiM3@cardiff.ac.uk

Dwr O Radyr is an immersive educational park that guides you through the natural system of water filtration, responding to River Taff’s water quality issues through interaction around the site and engagement through hands-on activities. The scheme tells the life of River Taff. Using Radyr’s industrial past, the overfeeder canal is reinstated, repurposing what once delivered impurities to River Taff into a canal that purifies the water. The concept seeks to intrigue visitors about the history of Taff, leading them to discover the blight of Taff, the polluted nature of the water. The scheme then guides visitors to engage and interact with the present, understanding what is needed to improve Taff’s future.

EDGE OF PASSAGE

Peter Manuilov | ManuilovP1@cardiff.ac.uk

Sited above Radyr Weir, the Edge of Passage kayak club exemplifies resilient architecture and provides reliable water access. The core concept, “Beacon of River Condition,” is expressed through the kinetic staircase and resting platforms that extend in safe flow and retract during flood stage, signalling hazard and denying access. The concrete-timber-steel tectonic language responds to the Taff’s forces of flood and current, elevating structure above the waterline on concrete footings. The design preserves the existing tree canopy, minimises ecological impact, and references South Wales’s industrial heritage through charred timber cladding. Rapid off-site fabrication and modular assembly reduce site disturbance and embodied energy, ensuring adaptability to shifting environmental and programmatic demands.

REFLECTIONS

SeungHyeok Choi | ChoiS4@cardiff.ac.uk

Rivers have long been recognized as the starting point of civilization, culture, and countless aspects of human life. Through continuous interaction with people, they have become indispensable elements of our environment.

At Raydr Weir, I aimed to create a space that fosters this ongoing relationship with the river. Some visitors may interact by kayaking, others by observing the passage of time through light and movement, and still others by simply watching the flow of water. In all these ways, the design allows for diverse, personal, and evolving forms of interaction with the river, reinforcing its timeless role as both a natural force and a cultural anchor

SeungHyeok Choi

Evienne Peralta

Unit 08

Architecture of Urbanism - Land as a Secret Weapon

Bristol, England

Architecture of Urbanism: Land as Secret Weapon is about deeply understanding and creatively strategizing the underlying visible and invisible structure of the city, especially land. Beyond the location and topography of the site, land operates within a capitalist political-economic system of commodity and control. For example, as recent investigative research revealed, land ownership in England is astonishingly unequal with far less than 1% of its population owning half the land, thus heavily concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. Such an unequal and privileged system is destructive for the community and ecology of the city. Architects and urbanists can play an essential role in reforming this system, if they can truly grasp its fundamental dysfunctionality and have the courage to propose real change.

Working with hypothetical a partner, a community land trust, Unit 8 carried out in-depth investigations and creative speculations to design radical imaginaries that are public-facing, communitybenefitting, and based on fundamental shifts in patterns of land ownership and occupation in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol.

In semester 1, students worked on three primer projects: a walking tour that immersively documented the site; a collective analysis of the site and its larger urban context; and design thinking that emerged from site and context analysis, readings and discussions, field study trip and case study analyses, and ongoing research as integral to the design process. In semester 2, each student designed a complete project—i.e. a building, an associated collective space, and an urbanistic interface—building upon their work from semester 1, resulting in a significant contribution to the architecture of urbanism.

In this process of folding and unfolding, each student left this unit having developed two principal skills for becoming a compelling architect and urbanist today and in the future: critical thinking + creative strategising.

RE-JUSTICE

Evienne Peralta | PeraltaE@cardiff.ac.uk

This project sets out to challenge existing stigmas and address the hidden injustices experienced by vulnerable individuals. The proposed rehabilitation centre aims to subvert both the treatment methods and traditional architectural forms associated with UK prisons. While most prisons prioritise solitude and segregation, this design humanises the formerly incarcerated, offering a vision for a new reality. The approach to rehabilitation goes beyond charity or pity. It seeks to treat individuals fairly— without prejudice or resistance. Through a progressive exploration of the empowerment model, expressed in the architectural hierarchy of massing, the project gains a deeper understanding of reintegration and accountability. As a result, the design aspires to foster empowerment, commensality, and stability.

Evienne Peralta

REFRACTIONS OF CULTURE

Ria Sadiq | SadiqR@cardiff.ac.uk

Refractions of Culture explores themes of identity, migration, and community through the design of a cultural centre in Stokes Croft, Bristol. Designed to support marginalised groups, it offers temporary co-living, language classes, employability support, legal aid, and cultural events. The concept of a kaleidoscope - symbolising transformation, movement, and layered identity - drives the spatial and experiential design. A central atrium forms the heart of the building, wrapped by a spiraling ramp that guides visitors through spaces for learning, expression, and connection. The layout is flexible and adaptable, allowing the building to evolve with its users. Ultimately, the project offers a space where individuals can find belonging and shape a shared cultural future.

Thurston Gibbs | GibbsT@cardiff.ac.uk

I have designed a new Headquarters for the Green Party in Stoke’s Croft, Bristol along with accommodation for Green Party volunteers. The project focuses on building meaningful connections, facilitating activism, and mobilising the community towards real change. The driving concept of the building is a central atrium, which represents a tree, branching out and connecting the surrounding spaces. The idea was to create a productive space where ideas, knowledge and opinions are shared. The architecture is at the service of the activity that goes on inside, only existing to enable the people and politics. The project places a special focus on the idea of sustainability and regenerative building practises.

Thurston Gibbs

BEAUTY THROUGH REMAKING

A new public-facing recycling centre model for observing and documenting the waste in Stokes Croft as well as learning to repurpose that waste at an urban hyperlocal scale to be appropriately replicated across the world. Revealing the journey of waste materials to comprehend the scale of the operation and therefore develop a sense of responsibility through open, inviting facades in the processing blocks. Using the creativity of the people of Stokes Croft to tackle the waste problem in the locality by upcycling and crafting in the spacious and homely workshops, and providing a public space that allows for these schemes to develop through a flexible and accessible courtyard.

Angel Ortiz Casallas | OrtizCasallasAE@cardiff.ac.uk

Angel Ortiz Casallas

GUIDING REFUGE

Luisa McIntyre | McIntyreL1@cardiff.ac.uk

The proposal explores themes of threshold and boundary, guided by CPTED design principles and material sensitivity to create a place of refuge within the city. Its design supports the journey to recovery, balancing privacy and collectivity, reintegrating these women back into society. At an urban scale, the building serves as both a physical and symbolic landmark, promoting safety and social change for Stokes Croft - a neighbourhood marked by high crime. Internally, the Beacon offers insight into the 7 stage grief process, emulating the emotions of recovery through form, lighting and framed views. Owned by the Stokes Croft Community Land Trust, its public-facing, communitybenefitting design asserts collective ownership, fostering a sense of belonging.

Luisa McIntyre

James Pike

Joshua Collen

Felix Ledger

Keya Patel

Millie Brown

Raya Al Salloum

Otis Schorr-kon

Isabel Nyren

Unit 09 Palais du Peuple

Penzance, England

Cornwall has some of the highest levels of deprivation in the UK, with a low wage, seasonal economy. The region has been suffering from brain drain, with young people leaving to seek education and employment elsewhere. Measures to remedy deprivation are focussed on responding to its impact in the poorer in-land communities, where people can afford to live, rather than focusing on creating opportunities for a higherwage, sustainable economy. Meanwhile in St Ives, the Tate Gallery is expanding its cultural and visitor attractions with a new ‘community-shaped heritage site’ at Barbara Hepworth’s former studio, the Palais de Danse. But who is the community in St Ives this project aims to serve, and what does community mean in this context?

In Unit 9, students unfolded  the idea of real community and economy in places like Cornwall, where tourism dominates, forcing out the working people who give these places the heritage and identity that defines them.

As a counterpoint to the Palais de Danse in St. Ives, the Unit explored what built interventions in Penzance could serve as catalysts for sustainable economic growth in the region. The comprehensive projects developed comprise a large intervention intended to house a specified economic activity, as well as perform a community function. The economic activities proposed are unrelated to the cultural and tourist economy that Penwith currently relies on – rather, they aim to broaden the region’s economic resilience.

- Will Beeston, Barnaby Hughes & Hamish Warren

James Pike | PikeJ6@cardiff.ac.uk

My project takes a unique approach to the life cycle of materials, designing for construction and reconstruction, which festers in a unique tectonic character, while seeking to involve the wider community through making this a celebratory process.

James Pike

INVITATION AND INTRIGUE

Joshua Collen | CollenJ@cardiff.ac.uk

This project reimagines a disused area of Penzance by integrating a Maritime School with transformative public realm improvements. Responding to the town’s overreliance on tourism and the rise of second-home ownership, the scheme aims to boost local opportunity through accessible maritime education and enhanced urban connectivity. Drawing on studies of movement, local character, and urban design, the proposal creates inviting routes, intimate courtyards, and engaging waterfront interventions. By blending educational and communal spaces, the project seeks to foster economic resilience, celebrate maritime heritage, and create a welcoming environment for residents and visitors alike.

Joshua Collen

MOUNT’S CATCH

Felix Ledger | LedgerF@cardiff.ac.uk

This project proposes the design for a fish tinning factory in the heart of the historic fishing town of Penzance. The urban factory aims to contribute to the resurgence of local industry, providing a source of sustainable economic growth whilst assisting in the revival of the local fishing market. The current industry sees local fish exported to Spain and France to be tinned, the project provides an opportunity for these operations to be localised, simultaneously providing more employment opportunities in the Mount’s Bay area. Semi-public elements of the design such as the communal canteen help the project integrate itself into the community.

Felix Ledger

THEATRE OF PRODUCTION

Keya Patel | PatelK32@cardiff.ac.uk

“The Theatre of Production” reimagines two neglected sites in Penzance as community-led spaces where making becomes performance. Rooted in fishing heritage, the scheme uses historic revitalisation, reclaimed materials, and industrial forms to transform abandoned fishing nets into new products. Inspired by theatrical principles, the design reverses tradition: the ‘back of house’ (spaces of production) becomes the public’s first encounter, while ‘front of house’ retail and gathering spaces sit behind. Sliding doors act as stage curtains, revealing live production, while built-in window nooks invite pause and observation. Through framed views, visible processes, and transparent architecture, the project reconnects sea and town — reviving identity through shared experience and spatial storytelling.

Millie Brown | BrownM34@cardiff.ac.uk

This project remedies deprivation in Penzance by reducing reliance on seasonal tourism through a large-scale industrial development. It aims to support the local economy and foster long-term positive change within the community.

The proposal revives Cornwall’s mining heritage by extracting lithium from re-purposed China clay pits, giving new purpose to disused industrial sites. A domestic lithium supply reduces dependence on global chains and lowers the environmental impact of long-distance transport.

Lithium is essential to the green transition, powering electric vehicles, renewable energy storage and consumer electronics. By enabling clean energy technologies, this project supports the shift away from fossil fuels and contributes to tackling the global climate crisis.

Millie Brown

Raya Alsalloum | AlsalloumR@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the theme of “coordinated clutter”, drawn from the textured, layered character of Penzance’s urban and coastal landscape. The design expresses this through a composition of varied forms, materiality, and interwoven functions that reflect the town’s organic cohesion. Programmatically, the scheme comprises two buildings: a textile manufacturing facility repurposing reclaimed fishing nets, incorporating a publicly accessible café; and an educational and garment-making workspace that fosters local employment and skill development. Together, these buildings offer a community-anchored response to fast fashion, rooted in sustainability and craft. The architecture pays homage to Penzance’s heritage while enabling contemporary, socially driven modes of making and learning.

WOVEN PALACE: FINNISTERRE FACTORY FOR THE PEOPLE

Otis Schorr-Kon | Schorr-KonOR@cardiff.ac.uk

The unit brief was to create a place of work that brought a source of economic independence to Penzance. Responding to the brief, I designed a Cornish manufacturing headquarters for the outdoor brand Finisterre. This proposal aimed to connect the textile manufacturing and the landscape, utilising urban design strategies to re-wild the coast and connect the city centre to the coastal wildlife.

Otis Schorr-Kon

RUINS AND THE REIMAGINED

Isabel Nyren | NyrenI@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the revival of a historic working dock, both economically and culturally, through celebrating the existing buildings and combining them with the harbour’s future.

Du Peuple

Isabel Nyren

Emma Hutton

Katherine Lewis

Elena Regel

Wai Ho Man

Nicole Sutton

Lauren-Elise Kennedy

Narue-Dee Augsonsawang

Alina Kamal

Neve Brocklehurst

Lily-Isabella Vitolo

Kin Chu

Frankie Smith

Sarah Hammond

Nathan Barreto

Abigail Corr

Ruth Cullinane

Unit 10 Housing Visions

Dulwich, England

2024 heralded a new Labour Government who placed the delivery of housing at the centre of its agenda. This year, Unit 10 considered how their new vision for housing could relate to the rich but chequered history of mass housebuilding in the UK. To build houses at the scale the government is proposing (1.5 million over the next 4 years) means that this housing will be a significant and enduring inscription on the palimpsest of our built environment.

Architects should be involved in these conversations. Where should these homes be built? What cultural ideals will these places allow to foster? What setting could houses built at this scale provide to the everyday lives of people outside of the direct residents?

The leafy suburbs of the Dulwich Estate in South London were the Unit’s backdrop to reinterpret and transform. The estate is an example of how the seemingly competing forces of an urgent need for new homes in the post-war period, market dynamics, and the principles of Austen Vernon and Partners came together to create distinct and enjoyable places to live, deeply linked to their landscape and surrounding economy. What can we learn from Dulwich as this next chapter of housebuilding is about to unfold?

In Unit 10, students advocated for ways in which housing can offer productive and delightful ways to live, thinking carefully about how to integrate homes with other public uses to create successful pieces of city.

Siobhan O’keefe, Josh Wyles & Ryan Roberts

BUILDING DIVERSITY

Emma Hutton | HuttonE@cardiff.ac

Building Diversity aims to densify the Dulwich College Playing Fields within the leafy Dulwich Estate, in response to the 2024 Labour manifesto regarding the housing crisis. The current surroundings are 1960s Mid-Century Modern houses with a dispersed variety of typologies, in particular the distinct pyramid and ranch houses opposite the site. The project studies the potential to densify Dulwich on a site to include all the typologies for a variety of lifestyles in close proximity. This could be achieved by designing ‘Expanding’ homes for young families prioritising family space and back gardens; ’Collaborating’ blocks of flats for young professionals; ‘Downsizing’ townhouses for emptynest families and ‘Retiring’ bungalows for older couple

Katherine Lewis | LewisK40@cardiff.ac uk

My design responds to the current need for high density housing rejects high rise tower blocks and seeks to maintain continuity with surroundings, contributing to the public realm and the soft changing landscapes of gardens. Unlike the existing tower blocks on my site my scheme will be street faced with communal courtyards at the heart of each development, overlooked by terraced gardens of each dwelling. I have tried to maintain the network of greenspaces prevalent in many of Neave browns schemes that is often lost in the New London vernacular. I located my site on garages in existing communal gardens to embed my scheme into the landscape and surrounded by nature.

Katherine Lewis

Elena Regel | RegelE@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the theme of redefining domesticity within communal urban living. Through a low-rise, highdensity housing estate in Dulwich, it unfolds as a spatial narrative of interconnected routes and atmospheres that blur the boundaries between public and private realms. The concept extends the notion of “home” into shared spaces, crafting a seamless continuum of domesticity across the estate. Developed through careful placemaking and architectural sequencing, the design integrates community amenities and green spaces while offering intimate moments of retreat. The result is a socially responsive environment that serves the broader community and nurtures a strong sense of belonging for its residents.

THE LIVING SLOPE

Wai Ho Man | ManWH@cardiff.ac.uk

In response to the UK’s ongoing housing crisis, the Labour Party has introduced its “Reform” vision. In alignment with this initiative, my project explores the potential for densification in Dulwich, London. The proposal features a mid-rise housing scheme integrated with a Scout Centre, aiming to balance urban density with high-quality, community-focused living. Through modular construction, it incorporates three distinct housing typologies to accommodate diverse needs, promoting inclusivity, flexibility, and with a sense of ownership. Drawing inspiration from the undulating landscape of Dulwich, the design seeks to “complete the landscape” by reintroducing the “missing hill” and returning an equivalent amount of green space to the environment. The project aspires to create a harmonious relationship between architecture and nature, encouraging human interaction and a renewed appreciation for the natural surroundings.

Wai

ECHOES IN THE LANDSCAPE

Nicole Mae Sutton | SuttonNM@cardiff.ac.uk

In response to the current housing crisis and the void of togetherness in the Dulwich Estate, the proposal advocates for a communal way of living, proposing a high-density, low-rise co-housing village that challenges the rigid rules of the estate, while echoing its distinct Mid-Century Modern character. Eight dwellings are clustered around a central communal hall, with a variety of shared gardens offering places for families to engage with nature. Through the pooling of resources and facilities, the village encourages social cohesion and makes desirable land more accessible, allowing people to live in places already connected with their built and natural context.

Nicole Mae Sutton Unit

Lauren-Elise Kennedy | KennedyL6@cardiff.ac.uk

My project aims to advocate for a housing strategy that not only responds to the current UK housing crisis by densifying brown field sites in line with Labour’s 2024 manifesto, but by doing so in a way that is contextually sensitive and socially responsible. The Dulwich Estate is and should continue to be a key precedent having achieved this once already. Affordance theory was the strategic driver to achieve this by utilising qualities and characteristics to enable or ‘afford’ certain activities or behaviours. In the same way objects such as a chair have qualities that afford you to sit, the purposeful design of spatial qualities can afford privacy or publicity

Lauren-Elise Kennedy

Narue-dee (Kati) Augsonsawang AugsonsawangN@cardiff.ac.uk

This housing project responds to the disconnected essence of the Dulwich Estate, shaped by 19th-century planning that chose privacy and separation over integration and public life. What revealed potential for connection were the windows, frames that offer a glimpse into the people of Dulwich. The proposal introduced a façade facing the market, a threshold that invites interaction and acts as a gateway to the community. Beyond its commercial window, the project also explored how windows animate the public realm and express layers of social interaction. From the market space to the residential and between each housing, each threshold becomes a site of exchange and reanimating the new Dulwich life.

DENSIFYING DULWICH

This project is a courtyard housing scheme focusing on almshousing for elderly low income residents in Dulwich, whilst addressing the current housing crisis in London. By densifying Dulwich, the Almshousing scheme will aim to connect the surrounding area next to Dulwich College by creating new routes through the scheme to connect the surrounding public such as Ferrings Estate and Ducks Primary School. This will be done by creating public uses such as coffee shop, gardening area and community playground the children from the Ducks Primary school can use. This will help to combat social isolation that is

Alina Kamal

STOP MOTION

Neve Brockelhurst | BrockelhurstNB@cardiff.ac.uk

Stop Motion explores how Gordon Cullen’s theory of serial vision can guide inclusive housing design in South London’s Dulwich. The project responds to the Labour government’s urgent housing agenda, proposing key worker homes on a site owned by Dulwich College. Rooted in Cullen’s narrativedriven urbanism, the scheme integrates atmospheric sequences of views—courtyards, framed greenery, and crafted transitions—mirroring the suburb’s spatial rhythms. Inspired by Austin Vernon’s mid-century typologies, it respects heritage while introducing sustainable materials like pink concrete. Communal libraries, adaptable homes, and shared gardens encourage social cohesion. By turning housing into an emotional journey, the project reframes affordability not as compromise, but as a chance to deepen community and place.

Neve Brockelhurst

THREADS OF CONNECTION

| VitoloL1@cardiff.ac.uk

At the heart of Dulwich, a previously disconnected site is transformed by a concept of routes and connections. A network of pathways runs through a scout site, linking the area to other areas across Dulwich. These routes, designed to prioritize sustainability, are surrounded by a housing estate that follows their line, creating a harmonious blend of living spaces and movement. Along the route, a community centre anchors the design, bridging the road and fostering social interaction while offering views of the London skyline. This interconnection reimagines the site, creating a vibrant and integrated community hub.

Lily-Isabella Vitolo

STAGING DENSE LIVING

Kin Chu | ChuKW@cardiff.ac.uk

To alleviate the housing crisis, the new Labour government pledged to build 1.5 million homes at the end of this term. This project responds to this goal by learning from the precedent of housing development in suburban Dulwich. It proposes a dense, vibrant, mixed development, rooted in contextual and historical research of Dulwich and the mid-century modern movement. It also aims to present the act of living to the wider city while serving as a civic and cultural catalyst through the provision of a cultural hub inspired by the theatrical tradition of Dulwich.

Kin Chu

BORROWED LANDSCAPES

Frankie Smith | SmithF16@cardiff.ac.uk

My project was focused on creating dense housing for a site in Dulwich, South London, whilst tackling housing issues within the UK. Designing a high density scheme was crucial to the unit brief, so creating blocks of flats would be the best option, but I still wanted to immerse the dwellings in sustainable and natural resources. Therefore I have advocated for open living, bringing in as much natural daylight as possible whilst creating an important relationship to the outside world in every corner of the dwellings. It explores the theme of transportation through thresholds, borrowing landscaping from outside and drawing it into the dwellings, emerging residents in nature where they lack gardens.

Frankie Smith

CASCADING GARDENS

Sarah Hammond | HammondS4@cardiff.ac.uk

Cascading gardens is a response to the current housing crisis in the UK. Located in Dulwich, the scheme adds 116 homes to the estate, with a density of 64 homes per hectare. The scheme advocates for the delivery of housing on a site with a pre-existing community and connections, where the built form can enhance this. A key theme throughout the project was the relationship to the outdoors. Taking inspiration from Rock Hill, a precedent house I studied in semester 1, I wanted to create a series of cascading spaces that unfolded through the landscape, creating outdoor rooms and dismantling harsh private/public thresholds to encourage community.

Sarah Hammond Unit

BENEATH THE CANOPY

Nathan Barreto | BarretoNA@cardiff.ac.uk

Beneath the Canopy is a low-rise, high-density housing proposal within the Dulwich Wood Park Estate. The project responds to the unit brief, which reframes the legacy of 1970s post-war housing in light of the current government’s target to deliver 1.5 million homes. It redevelops the estate’s largest underused garage site into a vibrant, pedestrianled neighbourhood. Organised around a central mews street, the scheme delivers 29 homes across three typologies, alongside a community centre that fosters social interaction. Drawing on housing precedents from Dulwich and Camden, it uses SIP construction and brick slip façades.

Nathan Barreto

INTEGRATED LIVES

Abigail Corr | CorrA@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores a prototype co-housing model centred on community-led living and learning, where children are raised and educated within the same environment. Parents play an active role, fostering a holistic setting prioritising mental health, well-being, and personalised learning over traditional education. Designed as a replicable model, the scheme can adapt to locations where families share progressive educational values whilst addressing the current housing crisis in the UK. Dulwich, with its educational legacy through the Dulwich Estate, provides a fitting test bed. The project builds on this foundation and challenges conventional frameworks, proposing a more integrated, community-focused alternative.

Abigail Corr

Ruth Cullinane | CullinaneR@cardiff.ac.uk

Inspired by the medieval monastic garden and mid-century modern housing found in Dulwich, Grow–Share–Live reimagines communal landscapes as both productive and beautiful spaces for connection, cultivation, and natural play. Designed with young families in mind, the project seeks to strengthen bonds between residents, and between people and nature. Homes and nursery spaces open onto a sequence of private gardens, communal courtyards, and winter gardens, allowing the outdoors to become an extension of the home. These layered green spaces promote shared activity, sensory learning, and seasonal use.

Ruth Cullinane

Aadya Seksaria

Sara Allinson Agharokh

Benjamin Stucley

Lauren Tauwhare

Erin Mort

Imogen Seward

Ling Chow

Megan Petrie

Emi Takizawa

Daisy Baker

Amy Brooks

Madeline Vernon

Anton Bowden

Matthew Kam

Taeda Baird

Unit 11

Palace of Justice/Tribunal

Florence, Italy

Florence is a byword for humanism, creativity, and independence; conjuring a place which represents our best values and highest achievements. Though now experienced as a place at ease with itself, it once had a turbulent and violent history. Its transformation into a city-state and the subsequent rule of law was facilitated by the emergence of municipal building typologies: the Palazzo Communale and Palazzo del Popolo, together with their integral relationship to the campo and piazza.

Unit 11, Politics of the Piazza, is concerned with the restoration of trust in public institutions and the rule of law, in a world where justice appears once again in short supply. Our premise is that justice should be done—and be seen to be done—at a local level. Students have explored how architects might contribute to this through high-quality architecture and urbanism; how public buildings can be designed to re-establish trust. Unit 11’s research considered how community-scale architecture for local tribunals might provide programmed space and facilities for the law to be enacted and justice served locally, while also integrating related social support services.

Designing new buildings within an historic fabric is challenging—and often contested—but civic humanism, as demonstrated by participation in public affairs and the ongoing dialogue of how new architecture relates to the city and suburbs, is alive and well in Florence.

- Tim Burton, Charles Chambers, Pippa Smith

PALAZZO ARIADNE

Aadya Seksaria | SeksariaA1@cardiff.ac.uk

This project began as a critique of the justice system’s bureaucratic detachment and evolved into an architectural response rooted in empathy and human scale. Anchored to Florence’s historic city wall, the design process explored Renaissance ideals, the golden ratio, and Le Corbusier’s Modulor to reframe legal space as intuitive and inclusive. Through testing materials like rammed earth and refining massing in dialogue with the site’s history, the scheme became a civic intervention grounded in context. The final tribunal reflects a careful process of iteration—one that prioritised atmosphere, accessibility, and the belief that justice should feel visible, dignified, and human.

Aadya Seksaria

VIA DI MEZZO - “A MIDDLE GROUND”

Sara Allinson Agharokh | AllinsonAgharokhS@cardiff.ac.uk

Via di Mezzo, meaning “a middle ground”, is a multifaceted response to Italy’s migrant displacement crisis and the dishonest asylum process. Set beside Florence’s medieval walls in the Oltrarno district, the project creates a civic development through five interconnected buildings: migrant housing, a community restaurant and garden, a courthouse, a legislative office, and a public event space. Wooden screens and wind towers shape privacy and formality of each space creating, openness, and airflow, drawing on the existing site walls and sustainable design. The architecture mediates between public and private, fostering integration of communities. Via di Mezzo reclaims the boundary as a place of entry and integration.

Sara Allinson Agharokh

Benjamin Stucley | StucleyB@cardiff.ac.uk

This proposal for an Intellectual Property Courthouse on Piazza Cesare Beccaria reimagines the edge of Florence’s historic centre as a place of civic weight and public dignity. Inspired by the palazzo and semi-fortified typologies, the design uses thick red-brick walls, deep reveals, and controlled light to evoke permanence and institutional clarity. A new public realm engages with the geometry of the old city wall, softening the urban edge while reinstating Guiseppe Poggi’s original masterplan. The building’s massing and processional spatial sequence draw from figures like Kahn and Lewerentz, creating a solemn, contemporary architecture rooted in material memory and Florentine urban legacy.

Benjamin Stucley

CASA ARTEMISIA

Lauren Tauwhare | TauwhareLC@cardiff.ac.uk

Casa Artemisia reimagines a space for women in Florence, restoring visibility, agency and support through textile training, legal aid and wellbeing services. In a city where women’s voices have long been marginalised, the project becomes a palace of empowerment and renewal. Architectural elements like cloisters, loggias and colonnades are used to create a seamless flow between public and private space, fostering both community and refuge. Drawing on the symbolism of textiles, once seen as a device of beauty and objectification, the project reclaims the narrative: training silk artisans and expressing tactile textures in stone. Casa Artemisia is a place where women’s presence is carved into the city: immovable, enduring and empowered.

Lauren Tauwhare

Erin Mort | MortE1@cardiff.ac.uk

Punto di Sosta is a family tribunal building centered around the idea of creating a welcoming and socially driven space. The aim of this design was to create a space which eliminates any stigma surrounding legal proceedings and reimagines the courthouse as a community-centered space where families can feel supported and not judged, transforming the judicial experience into one that is approachable and less intimidating. With a concept that the building was designed to provide a place of openness, reflection, and support—a civic space that integrates with the rhythms of the local community rather than disrupting them.

Imogen Seward | SewardI@cardiff.ac.uk

Tribunale Del Popolo, translating to ‘court for the people’, is a small business tribunal that seeks to reassert the city’s connection to entrepreneurship, skills and culture in a city of mass tourism. The neighbourhood of San Frediano, Florence, is well known for its artisans, small workshops and businesses. However, they are in crucial need of aid and attention to sustain the future and restore the lesserknown identity of Florence south of the river.

Florence is a city rich in history - of art, thought, finance, and politics. This is where the Renaissance began, famous for combining banking, the arts, and both political and religious power. A “Court for the People” in Florence must reflect this heritage, and look to the future to help restart growth in this currently somewhat neglected part of the city. The proposal uses the city’s river to generate power for both itself and the area.

THE ARCHIVE AS BODY

Ling Yee Chow | ChowLY2@cardiff.ac.uk

Who decides what is remembered? Florence is a city of history steeped in politics where being forgotten was seen as a fate worse than death. Through explorations of the physical almost biological relationship to the civic body, formed the Coroner’s Court of Florence and Public Archives; an adaptive reuse of the forgotten Sant’Orsola Complex that preserves the memory of those lost to history. Above ground is the coroner’s court, while the previous underground carpark is transformed into a public atrium with physical and digital archives. By viewing monuments as a symbol of collective memory, the new tower will allow Sant’Orsola to rejoin the skyline and thus history of Florence.

Ling Yee Chow

VILLA DELLA PACE

Megan Petrie | PetrieM@cardiff.ac.uk

A mental health tribunal and community centre, designed as a transitional space to support an individual’s reintegration into society following psychiatric care. Dignified, informal tribunal spaces immersed in gardens and natural materials reflect the sensitivity of proceedings. Both the location beyond the remains of Florence’s city walls and the reinterpretation of the villa typology defines the Villa della Pace as a place of peace, healing, and reconnection with nature. Collaborating with the adjacent medical centre, it addresses gaps in local services, aiding the community through various wellbeing programmes. Through engaging with civic buildings across Florence, it becomes a step towards reintegrating justice into the city at a human scale.

Megan Petrie

PALAZZO DELLA LUCE

Emi Takizawa | TakizawaE@cardiff.ac.uk

I transformed a “blackhole” former convent into an open, welcoming public courthouse, contrasting the oppressive legacy of many Fascist-era public buildings in Italy. My aim was to continue existing features, notably the vaulted ceiling. I deconstructed the traditional groin vault to create a contemporary structural form, placed in the cloister within a new timber structure that projects from but remains independent of the old building. The courtroom was designed to offer a calm, peaceful atmosphere, countering the often tense nature of legal settings. Curved walls and clerestory windows diffuse light softly, creating a serene, dignified environment for all users.

Emi Takizawa

PALAZZO DELLA MANO DIGITALE

Daisy Baker | BakerD14@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the evolving relationship between law, creativity, and technology in the age of AI. Responding to legal challenges raised by generative models and the urgent call for transparent interlectual property legislation, the proposal envisions a new interlectual property courthouse in Florence, Italy.

Rooted in the city’s history of craftsmenship and civic identity, the design integrates shared research and digital fabrication facilities in partnership with the neighbouring university. Through contemporary interpretations of craft, the courthouse and it’s piazza reflect Florence’s architectural heritage while addressing the need for future-proof legal and educational frameworks in an AI driven world.

Daisy Baker

IL TRIBUNALE APERTO DELLE VOCI FEMMINILI

Amy Rose Brooks | BrooksAR1@cardiff.ac.uk

‘’Il Tribunale Aperto delle Voci Femminili’ reimagines a former monastery as a vibrant civic hub, blending public service, culture, and justice. The design draws from the site’s historical roots and evolves into a new court that merges tradition with contemporary needs. Central to the design is a multifunctional women’s court, serving as both a charitable support center and a functioning tribunal, offering legal assistance. The project opens up the walls of the site creating a dynamic, open, civic space. The piazza, art gallery, and public areas create a place for gathering, linking with nearby buildings such as the market, establishing a new landmark for cultural and social exchange.

PALAZZO DELLA GIUSTIZIA MINORE

Vernon | VernonM1@cardiff.ac.uk

My project explores the intersection of justice, memory, and urban continuity through the design of a new courthouse in Florence. Situated on the site of the historic Aula Bunker, the proposal responds to the radial urban geometry and surrounding classical façades, reinterpreting their rhythm and scale in a contemporary civic architecture. The design unfolds around two central atriums, promoting openness, transparency, and spatial clarity. Material choices and tectonic expression reflect institutional solidity while engaging with Florence’s architectural heritage. This project seeks to balance civic monumentality with everyday accessibility, framing justice as both a public service and a spatial experience.

Madeline

Madeline Vernon

Anton Bowden | BowdenA7@cardiff.ac.uk

Located in Santa Croce, Florence, this project establishes a Centre of Excellence for Design and Craftsmanship. Creating a hub fostering collaboration between professional architects and local artisans, while housing a tribunal court for the resolution of professional disputes. Rooted in Florence’s origins and material traditions, the proposal hopes to both honours the city’s heritage and advances to a more sustainable, collaborative model of architecture for the future.

Matthew Kam | KamWF@cardiff.ac.uk

Corte di Luce is a civic-scale courthouse and legal aid hub designed for Florence’s San Frediano district. Rooted in transparency and accessibility, the project reimagines justice as a public, human-centered experience. Through soft natural light, warm materials, and open spatial relationships, the building invites the community into dialogue with the law. It houses minor courts, legal aid offices, and Bar Association spaces, offering both dignity and welcome. Situated beside the Arno, the design complements the historic fabric while signaling a new chapter for everyday justice—where architecture becomes a vessel for trust, openness, and civic presence.

Matthew Kam

Taeda Baird | BairdT1@cardiff.ac.uk

The brief called for creating a base for a United Nations base in Venice. I chose the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, also known as UN-Habitat, which focuses on creating sustainable cities as they grow. The Venetian context was explored in depth through its history and architectural styles, the project started to unfold to create a base that reflects and respects the context it’s in. Modelling and artistic mediums were used to experiment and explore aspects of this project, such as watercolour and casting.

Masters of Architecture

Our Masters in Architecture, Part II, programme encourages students to forge a personal stance to architectural issues, research and design through educational experiences that form the distinct settings of ‘the academy’ and ‘professional practice’. We continue to see students unfold critical professional and ethical skills while studying and working in practice, mindful of how diverse practice experiences inform parallel academic development. MArch students have continued to develop a collegiate approach to studio culture, forging direct interaction with real-world issues through Design-in-practice, Dissertation and a research-led, individual Design Thesis.

As this yearbook illustrates, architectural expression can be (un)folded and manifest itself within a diverse range of methods, briefs, positions, and representations. This is borne within these two critical years with the development of the self between practice and academia prompting reflections on professional and independent responsibilities and ethical decisions. The education-in-practice reveals notions of learning from-, by- and in- industry, with all MArch 1 modules requiring an intellectual and experienced reflection on professional practice while mindful of personal and ethical challenges. MArch 2 reveals opportunities to unfold diverse knowledge and experienced practice to fold and frame new research questions, methodologies and arguments that are explored without preconception of outcome. Over the 2-years, therefore, as the learning unfolds, ways of knowing, acting and being emerge through reflection, resilience, and confidence to respond and challenge the status quo, question current methods and practices and lead change for the Wellbeing of Future Generations.

As MArch 1 students begin to fold their practice experience back into the school environment and our MArch 2 graduates unfold their academic studies into the professional world, we congratulate everyone for your continued reflections, dedication and enthusiasm represented in this yearbook and know that you are well equipped to address the complex challenges ahead through creativity, criticality and curiosity.

- Dr. Steve Coombs Director of Undergraduate Learning & Teaching

MArch Programme Lead

MArch

Year 04

MArch1, also known as the ‘Year of Education in Practice’, is a unique work-based learning programme that aims to bridge the transition between architectural education and practice by promoting active learning in the practice setting. Students typically work in fulltime practice alongside their studies but return to Cardiff for three intensive short courses during the year. In work-based learning, student’s practical experience is enhanced by university coursework that promotes critical engagement with the workplace and profession, requires self-reflection, and offers space for exploration, testing and preparation ahead of the final year.

During MArch1, supported by a dedicated Research Preparation module, students self-select an area of interest to explore in their MArch dissertation research, transitioning into increasingly independent architectural thinkers, writers, and researchers. Meanwhile, the Reflective Practice module invites students to reflect academically on practice and bring their practice-based insights into their educational development, collectively supporting and probing the transition from student to professional.

Design in Practice links design as experienced during architectural education and design as conducted by the practices in which our students are working.  Students work on Live Project problems, framed around the RIBA Work Plan of Work 2020, enabling them to learn from and make connections with what they are doing in practice. Submissions mirror professional practice through pitching competitions, design charrettes, public consultation, and exhibitions, helping students develop a range of soft skills essential for success in the field. Students initially work in design teams to reflect the collaborative nature of the profession, engaging with clients and end-users at key stages to coproduce authentic and meaningful outputs; bridging the gap between university and the real world.

- Caroline Almond

Chair

Design in Practice Circus Eruption

Swansea, Wales

At WSA, MArch1 design briefs are developed and delivered with a Live Client, helping students engage with real-world considerations from multiple stakeholder perspectives, and ensuring that end users remain at the heart of the process.

This year, MArch1 have been working with Swansea-based inclusion charity Circus Eruption, who delivers circus workshops in a Grade II listed former Church to children of all abilities, some with barriers to joining-in. The client’s brief called for creative and sustainable strategies to improve accessibility and widen access to the local community, with the ambition of making the project an exemplar of sustainable adaptive reuse. Student work contributed to a live feasibility study for the adjoining Mission Hall through visioning, research and public/stakeholder engagement events.

During the initial teamwork phase, students inhabited roles of an interdisciplinary Design Team to develop and pitch a vision to the Clients for feedback. Working up strategies for development, supported by a costed Business Case, they considered the value and implications of design decisions for a range of stakeholders. This phase emphasised making informed recommendations for development; unfolding and justifying decision-making - often grappling with conflicting real-world requirements and constraints.

In the final phase, students had the choice to work individually or in teams, adopting elements of a ‘practice-based research’ approach. This involved reflective cycles of exploration, testing, and analysis to ultimately reveal a holistically designed detail study. Students were invited to articulate a question/problem/quality to investigate and identify a specific part of the project, captured in a single view, to interrogate at a detail level. By limiting the scope, they were able to take a deeper dive in developing their interpretation of architectural language, detail and technique, and explore atmospheric and performance potential. An accompanying reflective commentary unpacked their intentions, how their understanding and the design itself developed along the way, documenting a series of interrogations and investigations, or design inquiry.

-

Caroline Almond

MArch One Year Chair

Sophie Henderson

Ben Waldron, Max Keevil, India Hayes, Daniel Williams

The Cloister

The Platform

Suad Ismaeel, Eleni Polydorou

Katherine Thorogood, Eve Howe

Alexander Hussell St. Lukes Proposal

The Living Corridor

Rebecca Leeman

Karenza Bone

Thomas Goodwin

The Garden of Giving

Unifying Breath

Crafting Calm: The Art of Hempcrete

Benita Onuoha, Sanan Tahir

Huriyyah Nur Malek, Emily Beswick Courtyard, Colonnade, Cafe

The Common Ground

Kuan-Chieh Lan, Bethany Clarke, Peiyu Ou, Max Lane

Winter Garden

Dayvid Zafirov, Emmanouil Poluydakis

Joella Wilkins, Lauren Donohoe

Nicholas Wade

The Dancing Shadow Gallery

Reimagining the Space Between

The Sanctum

Hana Rejayee

Ben Waldron, Max Keevil, India Hayes, Daniel Williams

Kuan-Chieh Lan, Bethany Clarke, Peiyu Ou, Max Lane

Winter Garden

The Platform

Ben Waldron, Max Keevil, India Hayes, Daniel Williams

Èebha Strong-Wright

The Food Hub

Kimberly Yong, Teigan Busby

Spatial Erruption

The Platform

Shania Johnpulle

Catherine Towers

Mara Voicila

Hannah Rose, Eridona Kurtaj, Lucia Boschetti, Myles Harris

The Foyer

Shared Spaces, Shaped by Users

Trapeze Among Trees

Chromatic Sanctuary

Diego Medina Castrejon

Shania Johnpulle

Emilia Rapacioli

Nicholas Wade

Light as Legacy

Reimagining the Space Between

Trapeze Among Trees A Bold New Character

Spatial Eruption

Sustainable Flow

Threshold of Light

Framing Light, Shaping Memory

Kenneth Dhillon

Pietro De Gregorio

Kimberly Yong, Teigan Busby

Kohana Bardolivala

William Underwood, Alexander Mewis

Huriyyah Nur Malek, Emily Beswick Courtyard, Colonnade, Cafe

The Heart of the Building

Maisy Sykes

The Inclusive Staircase

Emilia Rapacioli

Annabelle Van Delft Balancing Act

Freya Kirby, Chloe Pitts The Courtyard Garden

Alys Gwyendd

Dayvid Zafirov, Emmanouil Poluydakis

Roan Kitto

The Sanctum

Sophie Hillyard, Rucy Staple, Borislava Mekushina

Thomas Humphreys

Freya Kirby, Chloe Pitts The Courtyard Garden Transition

A Community Under One Roof

Thomas Humphreys A Community Under One Roof

The ReCirque Garden

Joshua Kindlon

Ella Coomer

Martha Spencer Jones

Experience of the Corridor

William Hayward

Amber Kamugisha

Muhannad Darwish

The Pottery Workshop

Cascade

Louis Morris

Samuel Gittins

Year 05

MArch-2 marks a transformative stage in a student’s architectural journey—an opportunity to (Un)fold layers of accumulated and new knowledge, experiences, theories, and practices. It is a time to pause, reflect, and define one’s position before stepping into the dynamic, competitive, and ever-evolving world of architecture.

This year, MArch-2 offered eight diverse studio units, each serving as a launchpad for students to unfold and explore new possibilities for critical questions—whether cultural, political, tectonic, environmental, historical, philosophical, or otherwise, exploring independent stances across sites in Wales, Bristol, Berlin and Thrissur, India. This journey started with a ‘Primer’ project: an individual and collaborative design research exercise guided by the Unit’s approach. This process of exploration was followed by study trips to London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Berlin, and India, where the students examined relevant precedents, sites, and ideas to shape their individual design theses.

Through their design theses, MArch-2 students boldly articulated and defended their unique architectural positions, exploring a diverse spectrum of ideas. They redefined value through community engagement and civic action, envisioned regenerative futures rooted in progressive economic and environmental philosophies, and challenged dominating recipes of corporate workspace design through human-centred approaches. Some delved into question about low-carbon building conservation, while others examined the intricate relationship between urban transformation and liveability. The creation of thriving learning spaces, the fusion of architecture with history, mythology, and preservation, and the nomadic exploration of temporary, transitional, and permanent spaces further enriched this dynamic landscape of inquiry in MArch-2 design studios.

As this year’s journey concludes, MArch-2 students are now ready to embark on their next phase of unfolding—stepping forward as independent architectural professionals and researchers. Equipped with critical insights and a bold design ethos, they are prepared to challenge and reshape architectural practice amidst complex global environmental, economic, societal, and cross-cultural challenges.

VALUE: Reflecting on Legacies

Regenerative Vision

De/Re Programming the Corporate Workspace

Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures

Liveable Urbanism

LE-DR Lab IV: Re-visioning universities

Designing Histories

- Dr.

Yasser Megahed

MArch Two Chair and Design

Naina Manglik

Nube Abasolo Domingo

Muskan Kheria

Lucy Mcgregor

Shivani Nareshkumar Suthar

Elliot Follows

Edward Burton

Zaineb Al-Ani

Alessandro Meroni

Nojus Kalinauskas

Karama Duopama-Obomanu

Ekta Meshiya

Nelia Ng Hing Cheung

Anthony Troy Panganiban

Faiz Law

Unit 01

VALUE: Reflecting on Legacies

Cardiff, Wales

The Value Unit aligns to Adrienne Maree Brown’s ‘inch-wide, mile-deep’ Emergent Strategy, embedding into Community Gateway’s long-term partnerships between local communities and Cardiff University. We annually address community-raised challenges within local and national policy contexts, bridging ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ visions for Cardiff’s future.

Aligned with WSA’s Unfold exhibition theme of reciprocal relationships and collaboration, the Value Unit follows an asset-based, appreciative inquiry approach. Students begin each year with a ‘Love Grangetown’ planning and celebration day in Grange Pavilion with community partners, listening to build on existing strengths, to better understand what is already valued in local areas, and to explore how value can be variously measured. Students build on previous Units’ and each other’s work, adding new layers to a “growing catalogue of community knowledge” and seeking to connect individual theses at neighbourhood and city scales.

This years Value Unit focused on past and future legacies, collaborating with community organisations in Grangetown and Butetown, Splott, and Rumney and St Mellons. Archival research, field visits, asset mapping, participation in local activities, and a Barcelona study trip - visiting libraries and community co-operatives - informed proposals for housing, urban rooms, arts, archives, performance and festival spaces, urban farms and landscapes, mental and physical health centres, transport hubs, and spaces to play and to access nature across Cardiff. Each thesis imagined three partners – a community organisation, a government body, and a ‘wild card’ – exploring how the layering of multi-sector partnerships and their varied interests and activities might bring unexpected opportunities and new framings of value.

- Prof Mhairi McVicar, Dan Benham Unit Leads

IN URBAN HOUSING SCHEMES

Naina Manglik | naina.manglik02@gmail.com

This design thesis stems from a co-developed design brief created in collaboration with the nearby Shree Swaminarayan Temple, a spiritual and cultural anchor for many immigrant South-Asian families in Taffs Mead. It proposes a housing scheme that prioritises contextual and demographic responsiveness, aiming to reflect and support the lived realities of the area’s multicultural population. Central to the project is the idea that good housing should not only be functional, but also culturally rooted. Through principles of community orientation and a strong connection to nature, the scheme seeks to offer residents a deeper sense of belonging and connection with their home.

CONNECTING LAYERS OF THE PAST

Nube Abasolo Domingo | nubeabasolo5@gmail.com

In 1975, the The Coal Exchange (CE) was listed as ‘one of the most important commercial buildings in Wales, illustrating region’s immense commercial power in late C19 and early C20’. Nowadays, it is in near proximity to Cardiff Bay waterfront, a commercial area seen as an attractive area for tourism. The site can be accessed by foot and public transport, since it is constrained by tight roads it limits vehicle access and views to surroundings.

Currently undergoing structural and water repairs to rehabilitate the boutique hotel. CE is listed as an endangered listed building after several demolitions attempts, blocked by resident objections. The aim of this project is to reimagine the building as a public asset for the community.

Nube Abasolo Domingo

REWEAVING SPLOTT MARKET

Muskan Kheria | muskan2029@gmail.com

This thesis explores the paradox of space in post-industrial neighbourhoods, focusing on land injustice caused by the dominance of industry over community. Through the reimagining of Splott Market in Cardiff, the project proposes a new model that intertwines textile recycling, making, and second-hand trade. Inspired by Heatherwick’s idea of humanising architecture, the design humanises industry at the city, street, and door scale. The scheme revives the market as a cooperative hub for circular economy, local empowerment, and skill-sharing, thus restoring it as a vital, sustainable, and community-owned institution that supports both social cohesion and environmental responsibility.

Muskan Kheria

A STAGE FOR THE UNSEEN

Lucy McGregor | lucy.e.mcgregor@outlook.com

This project explores how the inclusive design principles of Part M and PAS 6463 can work together to shape an accessible, community-driven theatre. Envisioned as a civic asset, the space is adaptable to diverse needs and fosters a sense of belonging. Interventions at building, room, and component levels create a layered, welcoming experience. Beyond compliance, the design aims to deliver social value, support local employment and provide upskilling opportunities. The theatre reframes inclusive design as more than a legal standard, positioning it as a tool for empowerment, resilience, and deeper community and cultural engagement.

Lucy McGregor

THRESHOLDS OF COLLECTIVE STORYTELLING

Shivani Nareshkumar Suthar sutharshivani706@gmail.com

Thresholds of Collective Storytelling reimagines the abandoned Merthyr House in Butetown as a civic space confronting racial and climate injustices through architecture. Informed by community engagement and the Love Grangetown consultation, the project transforms a disused substation into an Urban Room, Community Archive, Debating Chamber, and Public Plaza - thresholds for memory, dialogue, and action. Inspired by Butetown Carnival, it uses storytelling, folklore, and ritual to resist gentrification and reclaim erased narratives. Incorporating recycled materials, sustainable drainage, and inclusive design, it addresses surface-water flooding while empowering marginalised communities, especially those impacted by the Windrush scandal and postcolonial displacement, to assert spatial agency and shape their futures.

Shivani Nareshkumar Suthar

THE STAR CENTRE: A PROTOTYPE DESIGN GUIDE FOR CO-LIVING IN WALES

Elliot Follows | elliot.follows.architecture@gmail.com

The Thesis, Co-Living at the STAR Centre, explores how architecture embeds social value by responding to Cardiff’s housing emergency with care, dignity, and participation. Located in Splott, the proposal reimagines the STAR Centre within the co-living housing mode, retaining spaces connected to its intangible heritage. Through embedded materiality, shared rituals, the project foregrounds participation, trust, and spatial justice. Developed with community partners, Splott Community Volunteers, the scheme presents value as a flagship project for Co-Living housing in Wales, where no built precedent yet exists; therefore, this Thesis performs as both prototype and process, offering a 99-year civic and social legacy rooted in participation and care.

Elliot Follows

ELEVATING SUBURBIA

Edward Burton | BurtonE5@cardiff.ac.uk

This thesis reimagines suburban housing development through the lens of Cardiff’s St Mellons. Grounded in research, community engagement, and policy analysis, it proposes a retrofit strategy to transform existing housing stock. Responding to local needs and national frameworks, the project challenges standardised, profit-driven models by advocating for value-led, context-specific design. Iterative master planning and typology studies explore how architecture can promote social connection, sustainability, and long-term well-being. The thesis culminates in a design intervention at Trowbridge Green, testing its ideas at multiple scales. The outcome offers a replicable model for meaningful, community-rooted suburban regeneration grounded in empathy, legacy, and long term value.

Edward Burton

HEALING THE HAMADRYAD

Zaineb Al-Ani | alani.zaineb@gmail.com

‘Healing the Hamadryad’ explores the topic of deinstitutionalising mental healthcare. The proposal is located on the site of the old Hamadryad Ship, in Butetown, Cardiff. The Ship was once a successful hospital for infectious diseases in the 19th to 20th century before being broken up at sea once it fell into disrepair. The legacy of the forgotten Ship as a place of healing is remembered through this project.

Deinstitutionalisation has been explored through biophilia, breaking down linear corridors, sensitive thresholds, nature views, integrative medicine, user autonomy and passive systems. An exploration into how a building can provide Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and improve social value has also been conducted.

Zaineb Al-Ani

MORE THAN A TRAM STOP: DECARBONISING NEWPORT ROAD

Alessandro Meroni | MeroniA@cardiff.ac.uk

This thesis responds to Cardiff’s Local Development Plan, which advocates ‘placemaking’ yet fails to apply this approach to transport infrastructure. It reimagines a tram line as civic catalyst rooted in community value and sustainability; each stop conceived as a unique community asset, tailored to specific social and environmental needs of its location. The proposal ‘Stop V’, addresses the absence of daily necessities within an isolated community by integrating a grocery store, community classrooms and agriculture within a civic square. Infrastructure is repositioned not as static utility, but as platform for kinship; offering a replicable model of transport-linked placemaking. Redefining the tram stop as both destination and origin of civic life.

Alessandro

ADAPTIVE COMMUNITIES

Nojus Kalinauskas | Nojus.kalinauskas@gmail.com

Adaptive Communities is a self-managed housing proposal of 210 houses prioritising long-term flexibility, affordability, and local identity in Grangetown, Cardiff. Designed around the principle “It’s a mistake, but that’s fine,” the project embraces change and imperfection as part of a living urban process. A core structural framework provides stability through permanent elements like staircases and internal grids, allowing residents to adapt, extend, and personalise their homes over time. The masterplan integrates shared amenities, green space access, and informal program layers that support community activity and expression. Rather than prescribing how people live, the design creates space for users to shape their environment on their termsgradually, collectively, and openly.

Nojus Kalinauskas

100 MILES OF PLAY

Karama Duopama-Obomanu karama.obomanu2@gmail.com

100 Miles of Play reframes the 2025 Cardiff LDP’s proposal for 500 homes at the Grangetown Gasworks into a radical, joy-driven housing vision. This thesis proposes a living, playful landscape where legacy, energy, and community intersect. Ten gasworks artefacts are reimagined as architectural typologies within a biodigester-powered masterplan shaped by desire lines and collective memory. CLT homes integrate playful spatial quirks—hammock walls, note-passing floors, rooftop retreats—supporting intergenerational co-living and lifetime adaptability. Inbetween spaces for play become vital terrains of interaction as the methodology for both masterplanning and housing. Grounded in policy critique, oral histories, and the politics of play, the project positions joy not as a by-product, but as a tool for ecological, social, and spatial transformation.

Ekta Meshiya | Ektapatel262000@gmail.com

Tesco Exchange: Restocking the Social Shelf reimagines the corporate supermarket as a civic, community-anchored food infrastructure. Set in Grangetown, Wales, the project transforms Tesco into a space that integrates growing, harvesting, distributing, and consuming under one roof— supporting food security, local resilience, and shared cultural value. Through architectural strategies rooted in systems thinking and social justice, the project challenges conventional retail models by proposing a 99-year legacy of nourishment and exchange.

STITCHING SPLOTT, ONE OBJECT AT A TIME

Nelia Ng Hing Cheung | NgHingCheungNA@cardiff.ac.uk

This project investigates adaptive reuse as a strategy for transforming existing buildings to accommodate new functions. Rather than offering a definitive design solution, it serves as a methodological inquiry into how adaptive reuse can be approached through a layered and interpretive framework. Centered on the site of Splott in Cardiff, the thesis advocates for the preservation of buildings that hold social value within their communities. It proposes transforming the site into a visual arts centre through a process that could be applied in other contexts. Using the scales of landscape, still life, and portrait, it uncovers, frames, layers, and deconstructs the existing.

Nelia Ng Hing

TESCO ENSEMBLE: THE TESCO THAT IS DESIGNED FOR EVERYONE

Anthony Troy Panganiban | PanganibanAT@cardiff.ac.uk

“Tesco Ensemble” explores how standardisation can enhance individualism through food and music festival infrastructure. Focusing on St Mellons, it examines how daily celebrations can foster thriving communities. Inspired by Karsten Harries’ “Representation of Life,” it questions whether corporate support, like Tesco’s “Every Little Helps,” is truly wanted. The thesis analyzes St Mellons Civic Centre’s temporary nature, highlighting its past promises and future potential. By retrofitting spaces— from the car park to Tesco—the project aims to redefine local value. Collaborating with communities and charities, Tesco Ensemble seeks to create lasting social benefits and meaningful connections in St Mellons.

Anthony Troy Panganiban

Faiz Law | fz.law99@gmail.com

This thesis explores the concept of familiarity by drawing on a once-familiar past in which neighborhoods featured communal spaces for social interaction. The design explores familiarity through material-scale, vernacular forms and a 1:1 model study of the telegraph pole, identifying how it has adapted over the years.

Faiz

Denzil Lai He Jie

Benedict Shin

Thomas Madgwick

Jack Greening

Eleanor Collin

Mimi Tam

Nadine Abou Fakhr

Petra Tina Vasilache

Unit 02 Regenerative Vision

Bristol, England

What if climate destruction has meant that humanity is at the end of the road and, as of tomorrow, we need to take radical steps to change the way we live? How will the circumstances of our time on the planet unfold?

This year, the Regenerative Vision Unit began with time spent in Bristol doing a Deep Time Walk from before the existence of planet Earth to where humanity resides to date.  Working at policy level, the Unit explored what might unfold with progressive economic and environmental philosophies and their potential influence upon our urban environment. The aim was to wave these ideas into themes of regenerative design, urbanism, place-making, ecology, economics, politics, and connectivity within the urgent context of the climate emergency.

The relentless pursuit of economic growth has delivered ecological destruction, financial fragility, and social instability. Through using Doughnut Economics at city scale to Circular Economy principles at building scale, the Unit 02 students developed imaginative and creative responses to regenerate our urban environment.We need to act now with a transformational approach to our way of living and consider our future through the lens of positive imagination, based on a complete economic and societal shift.

‘There are no non-radical options left before us. I believe imagination is the only thing we have that is, or could be radical enough to get us through, provided it is accompanied, of course, by bravery, and by action.’ Naomi Klein

- Shankari Raj (Shanks), Lawrence Duck Unit Leads

Denzil He Jie Lai | denzilhjlai@hotmail.com

Library of Everything: Giving Back Through Sharing: Civic Space for Stewardship, The Library of Everything reimagines the public library as a resilient, multifunctional civic space that addresses the ecological, social, and economic challenges of the 21st century. The building’s aim is to integrate community development with economic growth in the form of sharing economy within the framework of libraries. It is designed to be elevated up to 25 metres to withstand the rising flood levels in St. Philips Marsh. The building is surrounded by several Crop Towers where the community can plant the seeds they borrow from the Seed Library and harvest the crops to return the seeds.

Denzil

He

Jie Lai

A

LEGACY OF CARE: REIMAGINING COMMUNITIES THROUGH THE

Benedict Shin | kenmenshin97@gmail.com

This thesis explores the “intergenerational contract” as a means to address climate and social challenges through shared responsibility across age groups. It proposes a resilient, sustainable community shaped by mutual support, environmental stewardship, and generational equity. By promoting collaboration, shared spaces, and efficient systems, it fosters a culture of learning, continuity, and care. In response to the climate crisis, the contract calls for urgent, collective action that avoids placing the burden on future generations. Recognising the value of past, present, and future contributions, this approach offers a balanced model for community-building, one that prioritises cohesion, long-term wellbeing, and a legacy of shared accountability.

Benedict Shin

THE AMPHIBIOUS MARSH

Thomas Madgwick | Tommadgwick@gmail.com

The Amphibious Marsh, The Amphibious Marsh reimagines Bristol’s St Philip’s Marsh as a regenerative wetland and a blueprint for flood-resilient, ecological urbanism. Rooted in hydrophilic design, the project integrates amphibious housing, nature-based water remediation, and sustainable manufacturing to restore a polluted post-industrial landscape. Using phytoremediation, SuDS, and adaptive amphibious typologies, the proposal transforms the marsh into a living sponge, cleansing water, restoring biodiversity, and creating a new relationship between community and ecology. At its heart, the amphibious boatyard develops the new flood adaptive housing for repopulating the new wetlands of St Philip’s Marsh. This is a vision for an urban future where water is not resisted, but embraced as lifeblood.

Thomas Madgwick

THE CENTRE FOR THATCHING AND CRAFT: WILDING THE MARSH

Jack Greening | jackwillgreening@gmail.com

The Centre for Thatching and Craft: Wilding the Marsh, This project addresses biodiversity loss and increased flood risk in Bristol by proposing the controlled return of wetland conditions along the River Avon. The design centres around a thatching education building, where natural materials like water reed, which is grown on site, are processed, taught, and celebrated. The building includes workshops, material storage, public exhibition spaces, and is closely integrated with the wilded landscape. A timber frame and thatched roof demonstrate low impact construction and create a direct connection between craft and environment. The project highlights how architecture can respond to ecological challenges not only through sustainable design but by supporting traditional knowledge and regenerative land use.

THE REMEDIATIVE HEALTH DATA CENTRE

Eleanor Collin | ercollin.gen@gmail.com

The Remediative Health Data Centre: Delivering accessible healthcare and restoring the wetland landscape in St. Philip’s Marsh, Bristol, The project explores how flood resilience, shifting population needs, and access to healthcare can be addressed in St. Philip’s Marsh, Bristol. Developed using a hybrid framework of digital care and nature-based wellness, the design centres on a data centre, enabling tele-health and accessible personal health data. Surrounding this, a remediative wetland offers flood protection and ecological regeneration, with landscape pavilions encouraging connection to nature, supporting mental wellbeing. Remediated water cools the data centre, forming a circular services strategy which reduces operational carbon and contributes to the circular economy. Raised dykes provide level access during flood events, uniting environmental adaptation with equitable healthcare by integrating the architectural, landscape, and technological strategies.

Eleanor Collin

THE CENTRE FOR BIOPHILIC WELLNESS

Mimi Tam | mimi.k.tam@bath.edu

The Centre for Biophilic Wellness, Due to urban densification, urban dwellers have adopted a lifestyle alienated from nature. Rapid development has resulted in ecological degradation, and these damages to nature’s health are threatening human health. This thesis proposes that urban dwellers can improve health and wellbeing by honouring biophilia, humans’ affinity to nature. To restore the synergy between humans and nature, we need to repair nature’s ecosystems and use nature to improve our wellbeing.

The Centre for Biophilic Wellness provides a space for urban dwellers to reconnect with nature. The project hopes to demonstrate how architecture and urban regeneration can honour biophilia and enable urban dwellers to lead a healthy lifestyle in harmony with nature.

MICROCOSM OF INDUSTRY 5.0: HUMANISING FUTURE INDUSTRIAL CHANGE

Nadine Abou Fakhr | nadineaboufakhr@hotmail.com

Industrial revolutions are rapidly accelerating. Centrally located industry is becoming crucial. Yet, industrial land remains harmful through its haphazard growth. Industry 5.0 is the pivotal point. This project explores the potential of Industry 5.0 to regenerate St. Philips Marsh through creating a centralised civic infrastructure for future change. It embeds human connection through collaborative and debate spaces, integrates ecological systems through multi-layered habitats, and incorporates regenerative strategies including water collection, energy harvesting, and carbon capture. This creates a permanent structure above the historic railway line, establishing a creative and connected industrial terrain for the island, designed to accommodate future automation, AI integration, and resilient adaptation, while valuing humans.

Nadine Abou Fakhr

Petra Tina Vasilache | petratinav@yahoo.com

Rooted in the industrial lands of St. Philips Marsh, this project responds to the site’s urban mining potential, where layers of construction and demolition waste offer a hidden resource. Brick and ceramic fragments, once discarded, are recovered and reworked into a place for making, learning, and reflection. Stacked within a kiln-like structure, the spaces follow an upward rhythm, echoing the site’s industrial memory of a skyline once shaped by kilns. Brick, traditionally solid and weighty, is moulded into unexpected forms and perforated to cast shifting patterns of light, challenging familiar readings of the material. Raised above the floodline and bordered by a sponge garden, the building quietly repairs and redefines what waste can be.

Petra Tina Vasilache

Sangay Dorji Wangchuk

Filip Dabrowski

Trystan Jones

Anna Asenova

Yiren Wang

Jordan Starr

Erin Broadbent

Ivan Biriukov

Dylan Taank

Snigdha Khurana

Tara Maria Nayfe

Xueyu Xuan

Unit 03

DE/RE Programming the Corporate Workspace

Cardiff, Wales

In the multinational city, the corporate office building is not a type; it represents the constant flux of high finance, branding, and the powers driving the global economic progress in the shape of a building. From the early industrialists to multinational banks and insurance companies, up to our current moment—where giant IT, media and online shopping conglomerates are leading the global economy—the transformation of the corporate office space demonstrates the parallel transitions between the dominating economic actors, the values that they represent, the working cultures associated with them, and the architecture that envelops them.

Unit 03, De/Reprogramming the Corporate Workspace, unfolds this complex equation from an active critical position that prioritises the creation of a built environment that enhances people’s lives and contributes to the wellbeing of future generations. Such engagement, however, does not hide away from the realistic imperatives of the values of the neoliberal economy or the dominance of certain attitudes to practicing architecture that echoes those values. Instead, it is committed to challenging the common formula of major regeneration projects that often adhere to generic architectural visions, lack a clear social purpose, and appear to primarily benefit private investors and prominent business figures.

- Dr. Yasser Megahed, Mark Hillier Unit Leads

Sangay Dorji Wangchuk | Sangayarchuk@gmail.com

The project examines the crisis of global information networks, exposing algorithmic imperatives and data colonialism as threats to sovereignty, economic stability, and autonomy. It proposes algorithmic sovereignty, ensuring that communities and nations govern their data destinies. Nexus, a prototype corporate model, reprograms governance around worker participation, cultural accountability, and ethical profit allocation. Architecturally, it embeds infrastructures that resist manipulation and censorship. Located on Cardiff’s Prairie site, a coastal precinct, the design responds to Severn estuary environment and regulatory frameworks, transforming challenges into opportunities for mixed-use development and civic engagement. As an urban living laboratory, it prototypes resilient, sustainable data infrastructures, balancing technological innovation with ethical stewardship and community well-being.

Sangay Dorji Wangchuk

Filip Dabrowski | dabrowskifilip99@gmail.com

The way we work and the spaces we inhabit are constantly evolving in response to societal shifts, technological advances, and environmental or political change. This dynamic landscape is shaped significantly by technology, which has transformed how we work, communicate, and grow businesses. Industry 4.0 marked a leap toward automation, efficiency, and minimizing human error. However, this shift raised a key concern: are we phasing out the human element entirely? In response, Industry 5.0 repositions the human at the center, aiming for a balanced coexistence where technology enhances human capabilities and serves societal needs, rather than replacing them.

Filip Dabrowski

THE WRU OFFICE VESSEL

Trystan Jones | JonesT42@cardiff.ac.uk

The WRU Office Vessel reimagines the headquarters of the Welsh Rugby Union as a modular, landscape-integrated workplace rooted in structuralist principles. Located on Cardiff’s embankment, the project blends sporting, community, and office functions within a flexible grid system beneath an elevated pitch and landscaped stadium. Guided by the core values of wellbeing, teamwork, and community, it challenges traditional corporate typologies and promotes transparency, inclusivity, and public engagement. Drawing from precedents like Centraal Beheer and Bürolandschaft, the design uses green infrastructure, passive systems, and reclaimed materials to create a civic landmark that supports both elite sport and grassroots regeneration.

Trystan Jones

WORK MEETS LIFE: DESIGNING FOR WELL-BEING IN HIGH-STRESS WORKSPACES

Anna Asenova | asenova.anna09@gmail.com

The financial sector’s obsession with productivity has fostered a toxic culture of burnout and poor work-life balance. This thesis challenges that norm by reimagining the office not as a machine for work, but as a catalyst for wellbeing. Set in Cardiff Bay, the project proposes a speculative Goldman Sachs office that radically integrates hobby spaces - dedicated to creativity, physical activity, social connection, and reflection—into the core of its architecture. More than just amenities, these spaces redefine how work and life coexist, promoting a healthier, more engaged work culture and offering a bold architectural alternative to the high-pressure status quo.

Anna Asenova

VERTICAL NOMADISM

Yiren Wang | WangY412@cardiff.ac.uk

This mixed-use high-rise project is situated in the heart of the city, designed in response to the paradigm shift in living and working patterns in the post-pandemic era. Through modular units, the building allows flexible transitions between office and residential uses, targeting the growing demographic of digital nomads and short-term urban professionals.

Constructed with a hybrid of steel frame and waffle slab concrete floors, the structure delivers spatial openness and adaptability while maintaining structural performance. The design embeds community-responsive spaces, reflecting on the demolished music club that once stood on site, which held significant social value for local residents. Public floors at the base and top accommodate communal spaces integrating music, dining, and informal gatherings, fostering new urban social links.

Yiren Wang

ATRIUMS OF JOY

Jordan Starr | jordstarr10@gmail.com

Atriums of Joy confronts a century of soulless office design by replacing its joyless patterns with a focus on well-being and emotional connection between workers and their environment. Set at Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay, the project proposes a new Disney animation studio that rethinks how we work, create, and connect. Three distinct atriums, each with their own spatial character, support different working styles and encourage moments of joy throughout the day. The design blurs the boundary between public and private, allowing visitors to engage with both the workplace and the animation process. This thesis proposes a new office typology - one where narrative, community, and joy shape an inclusive civic workplace for all.

Jordan Starr

NORMALISING NEURODIVERSITY

“Normalising Neurodiversity” explores how inclusive office design can support a wide range of sensory needs while fostering connection rather than isolation. Wellbeing is prioritised throughout to enhance productivity and create a human-centred workplace. The concept uses sensory zoning - ranging from high-stimulation zones for hyposensitive individuals, to neutral areas for neurotypical users, and low-stimulation zones for those who are hypersensitive. This approach is integrated with strong connections to nature through courtyards, roof gardens, and natural timber materials, promoting calm and focus. The result is a new office typology that embraces neurodiversity and benefits all occupants through thoughtful, inclusive design.

Ivan Biriukov | ivanbusiness@outlook.com

The Crystal Agora is a civic-corporate innovation campus designed for Shell, addressing the symbolic and spatial opacity of the energy industry. Located in Cardiff, the proposal reimagines the traditional corporate headquarters as a transparent, participatory system embedded within the public realm. Using crystalline morphology, the architecture fractures and sinks into the landscape, negotiating visibility, access, and control. Laboratories, exhibition spaces, offices, and civic nodes interweave through a gradient of public and private zones. The project challenges architectural norms of enclosure and presents a new typology where environmental knowledge, trust, and innovation are shared across institutional and civic boundaries.

Ivan Biriukov

Dylan Taank | Dylan.Taank11@hotmail.com

‘Society is driven to consume the product, not the method.’ The purpose of this project focuses on the infrastructure of music production that is exposed rather than concealed. Instead of a closed corporate tower, the new UMG office becomes an open, evolving space where artists, producers, and audiences intersect. Public and private domains blur, with transparent studios, adaptive performance spaces, and digital interfaces allowing visitors to witness the transformation of raw audio into finished music.

Dylan Taank

CHILD-LIKE WONDER IN THE OFFICE

Snigdha Khurana | Snigdhakpsn@gmail.com

Inspired by Steiner school ideologies, which integrate nature to support child development, this project explores how similar principles can benefit adults in office spaces. Using the 14 patterns of biophilia, particularly refuge, mystery, and prospect, it seeks to nurture curiosity and evoke childlike wonder. Caves serve as a key reference, encouraging exploration. The design incorporates natural materials like timber and clay tiles, enhancing sensory connection to nature. A funicular roof system expresses organic form while efficiently distributing structural loads, allowing it to flow seamlessly into the landscape. This biophilic, grounded approach supports the well-being of animators by reducing stress and cultivating an imaginative environment where they can find refuge.

Snigdha Khurana

SYNC: BALANCING THE PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL

Tara Maria Nayfe | Tara.nayfe01@gmail.com

Sync explores how architecture can rebalance the relationship between digital immersion and physical presence in the workplace. The name stands for synchronisation: between digital and physical, between work and well-being, and between the demands of technology and the needs of the people who use it. Set within the gaming industry, the project responds to burnout, isolation, and sensory fatigue. It combines nature, sensory thresholds, and modular rhythm to support focus and well-being. Inspired by the pixel, the virtual building block, the structure uses a modular grid disrupted by an off-grid atrium. This break symbolises reconnection with the real which captures the project’s aim to balance digital and physical.

Tara Maria Nayfe

CONNECTING WORKSPACE

Xueyu Xuan | XuanX2@cardiff.ac.uk

The building is designed to create a comfortable and inviting environment that encourages people to come together and collaborate. It offers a range of flexible workspace options, allowing occupants to choose settings that best suit their individual needs and work styles, fostering both productivity and social interaction.

Xueyu Xuan

RHYMNEY VALLEY

Ryan Birch

Toby Cassy

Bethan Davies

Emelia Jessop

Wee Guang Rui

Max Worrall

Eloise Sparkes

Law King

Emily Tyres

Sophie Forrester

Julia Radzisz

Sian Powell

Harry Grove

Unit 04

Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures

Penallta Colliery, Rhymney Valley, Wales

Faced by the climate emergency it is essential that we transition to a low carbon society. To achieve this, we must prioritise building reuse and reduce our operational carbon. For the past three years, this unit has unfolded the post-industrial heritage of the South Wales Coalfield, making it central to the region’s sustainable future. This year, the Carbon Pats, Low Carbon Futures Unit returns to a site of carbon extraction, to focus on the Grade II listed Penallta Colliery.

Sunk in 1906 and designed as a show pit for the hugely successful Powell Dyffryn Steam Coal Company, the colliery achieved the highest weekly coal production in Europe in 1939, and was the last operational deep mine in the Rhymney Valley, closing in 1991. Today, part of the site has already been redeveloped for residential purposes, a Welsh speaking primary school, and a country park. However, the vast 1906 Engine Hall and 1938 Bath house remain derelict and have just been added to SAVE Britain’s Heritage’s Building at Risk Register.

The students have been challenged to fold into this historic site new infrastructure to support a low carbon society. Issues explored include exploiting the potential for mine water heat recovery, promoting a circular economy, facilitating intergenerational living, the importance of storytelling, green infrastructure, incremental changes, community governance and collective action.

The Unit thanks the owners, residents and members of Caerphilly County Borough Council for their collaboration and support.

- Dr. Chris Whitman, Emma Halford Unit Leads

PENALLTA ENERGY COMMUNITY

Ryan Birch | ryanbirch44@gmail.com

Penallta Colliery is a Stranded Asset. The transition from coal to oil and gas triggered Cognitive Lock-in, leaving it with little future. Research suggested that a localised low carbon transition approach, prioritising energy demand reduction and renewable generation, could unlock the site by creating an ‘Energy Community’.

Penallta therefore becomes the hub for a new South Wales Energy Community, wrapped within a public park masterplan. The thesis’s architectural proposal converts the Engine Hall into an innovation centre, to support Regenerative Materials First, an initiative to facilitate demand reduction by developing bio-based construction materials and techniques. The technical strategy showcases what is possible using such materials, to drive their development locally.

Ryan

THE SAFE GROWTH ZONE

Toby Cassy | toby.cassy@btinternet.com

The safe growth zone: Doughnut Economics is a principle of sustainable growth that addresses flaws in current economic models focused on wealth and status. Instead, it emphasizes well-being and ecological balance, both often disrupted by unjust systems. This model promotes regenerative and distributive growth within a ‘safe zone’— bounded by a social foundation and ecological ceiling— to ensure constant, sustainable development. Applying this to Penallta, a post-industrial community historically disconnected from its environment, can help build a sustainable future. Doughnut Economics can reintegrate the former colliery with the surrounding landscape and the community shaped by it over the past century, offering a renewed vision for both the local and wider area.

Toby Cassy

Bethan Davies | bethandavies94@yahoo.co.uk

Once the heart of a coal mining community, Penallta Colliery is reimagined as a new local centre within Caerphilly County Borough. The proposal responds to a landscape shaped by loss, memory, and social need, with placemaking at its core. A bold adaptive reuse strategy transforms the Engine Hall into a Social and Lifestyle Centre. Treated as a shadow box, the hall becomes a vessel for layered memory and future use. A contemporary insertion bridges past and present, revealing rather than replacing, and repositions the site as a sustainable setting for everyday community life.

Bethan Davies

Emelia Jessop | emmi@emmijessop.com

This project proposes the adaptive reuse of the Grade II* Listed Engine Hall, Winding Gear, and Bath House at Penallta Colliery in the Welsh Valleys. The decay of the Engine Hall inspires an approach of layering intergenerational memory and collective storytelling, connecting past and present to shape a low-carbon future. Rooted in the community’s historic pursuit of betterment and desire to share, the proposal encourages storytelling to inspire action on the climate crisis. Two key architectural features support this: the Engine Hall winter garden as a central community hub, and a red narrative thread linking the fragmented site, celebrating its layered history and shaping a shared environmental future.

Emelia Jessop

BREATHING LIFE IN HERITAGE: THRIVATION FOR

NATURE AND HUMAN COMMUNITY

Wee Guang Rui | weeguangrui@gmail.com

The project explores the theme of biophilic heritage renewal, reconnecting people, nature, and industrial history through adaptive reuse. Centered on Penallta Engine Hall, the design integrates biophilic principles— light, vegetation, water, and natural materials—within a conservation framework that balances restoration and sensitive alteration. The concept unfolds through a layered spatial strategy: restoring the building’s fabric, introducing green infrastructure, and creating public programmes that invite community stewardship. The design repositions the hall as a gateway between town and nature, transforming it into a living system that celebrates both ecological and cultural regeneration.

THE REPAIR SOCIETY

Max Worrall | WorrallM2@cardiff.ac.uk

The project explores a shift towards a ‘repair society’ - one focused on repair, reuse, and maintenance as a response to consumerism, climate change, and resource scarcity. It challenges traditional architectural values by advocating for the creative reuse of existing materials and structures, suggesting that repair can enhance value, design appeal, and sustainability. Using the site of Penallta Colliery, it explores how repair can extend beyond physical acts to communities embodying a broader mindset - seeing scarcity as opportunity. The thesis promotes slow, adaptive change over radical reinvention and emphasises the importance of temporary structures. Ultimately, it envisions an architecture rooted in ongoing adaptation, collective responsibility, and transformative repair.

Max Worrall

PENALLTA AS A PIONEER FOR FUTURE WALES

Eloise Sparkes | crocssparkly@gmail.com

This thesis positions Penallta as a pioneering model for Future Wales by applying circular economy principles locally to promote sustainable, low-carbon development. Situated inside the existing Engine House, the project envisions an integrated facility dedicated to algae cultivation and research. Algae is a high-yield regenerative biomass, and its production signifies a shift towards a low carbon future. The introduction of a low carbon industry in Penallta provides a symbolic continuity with Wales’s industrial heritage, transforming a past extraction site into a regenerative industry. The project aims to showcase algae production processes and promote active engagement with the future of sustainable production.

Eloise Sparkes

PENALTA COLLIERY - ACTIVE BIODIVERSITY HUB

Law King Tin Karl | karlkarllawlaw@gmail.com

This project focuses on connecting people to heritage through green spaces, which can serve as both barriers and connectors. By utilizing the historical site to link existing green areas, the design enhances health and wellbeing while promoting biodiversity and active recreation. At a sub-regional scale, the site will connect with nearby collieries that have transformed into woodlands, creating a cohesive network. This integration positions the site as the heart of a larger historical landscape park, emphasizing themes of active travel, green connections, and heritage. The skatepark will serve as a focal point, enriching the community’s experience within its historical context.

Situated in the Grade II* listed Engine Hall at Penallta Colliery, this proposal establishes a centre for productive Welsh forestry, narrating a transformation from neglect and uncertainty, to purpose, value, and identity. Inspired by the work of WoodKnowledge Wales, it challenges the ‘museum-like’ attitude towards woodlands, instead promoting the holistic value of productivity and it’s potential to revive the valley communities through the harmony between productivity, nature and people. A forest-inspired glulam structure produced on site supports the existing trusses through adaptable steel connectors. Energy efficient treehouse-like spaces and the opening of the basement allow the preservation of the building’s fabric, finally making local heritage accessible and inclusive.

PENALLTA COLLIERY

Sophie Forrester | ForresterSE@cardiff.ac.uk

This project harnesses the power of water through heritage. Using the flooded mine water of Penallta Colliery as a heat and energy source the site is transformed into a living landscape celebrating heritage, nature and community. At a site scale the mine water is passively treated through a series of treatment pools flowing down Parc Penallta and culminating as an outdoor lido for all to Enjoy. The interior of the Engine Hall has been transformed into a spa pool and sauna journey allowing visitors to experience the space in a new way while enjoying the heritage of a collective bathing culture.

Sophie Forrester

Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures

A NEW CENTRE FOR COLLECTIVE EXPRESSION IN THE HEART OF PENALLTA COLLIERY

Julia Radzisz | juliaradzisz@outlook.com

This project aims to establish a new inter-generational ‘centre of expression’ on the existing site of Penallta Colliery. Since Penallta’s closure in the 1990s, the site has stood barren and lifeless. It is important to re-establish a new sense of community through a new use which helps the local residents to reconnect while bringing new visitors to the site. The combination of ‘performance, education and debate’ will be used to enhance local expression that will reflect the importance that community expression has had during the miner’s strikes in 1984/85 which had seen the demise of the coal mining industry across the UK.

Julia Radzisz

A LANGUAGE OF CARE

This scheme utilises all scales of care to create a community hub that caters to the needs of the people of Penallta. Sensitively inserting a flexible structure alongside the existing tangible details of the Engine Hall will allow it to act as a high street within Penallta, providing the community with much-needed facilities. Bringing the building back into everyday appreciation reconnects the community with its’ rich heritage.

Branching off from this, an almshouse caters to an aging yet active population. This is designed to support independence and dignity through aging in place, exceeding guidance to improve tangible quality of care. The development of Penallta Colliery will care for the community.

Sian Powell

ARCHITECTURAL AFTERLIVES

Harry Grove | GroveHM@cardiff.ac.uk

Penallta colliery was once a hub for industry. The site was one largest and most productive coal mines in South Wales, with it acting a show pit for the Powell Duffryn company. When the British coal industry began to move on, the buildings at Penallta were left abandoned. This type of abandonment is typical of the current state of capitalism. Consumerist culture is a culture of waste, and one that needs to be reimagined. Sites such as Penallta provide ample opportunity for continual redevelopment. The buildings on the site provide strong opportunities for sensitive redevelopment focused on similar uses to those of they were built for.

Harry Grove

Daniel Holman

Isla Behrens

Megan McCormick

Harrison Adams

Tess

Unit 05 Liveable Urbanism

Thrissur, India

As the global population continues to urbanise, more than half now resides in cities. While cities occupy just 3% of the Earth’s landmass, they consume over 70% of global resources, contributing to pollution, economic inequalities, and environmental vulnerability.

The rapid urbanisation in the Global South, particularly in India, presents significant societal and environmental challenges. The country’s vast population and rapid urban growth have resulted in unsustainable and uninhabitable urban environments. These issues are further exacerbated by outdated planning and development practices often focus on infrastructure and housing supply but overlook the complexity and liveability of cities by.

The Liveable Urbanism Studio explores the complex relationships between urban form and quality of life, particularly in rapidly growing small and medium-sized cities. It examines the interdependencies of social, economic, ecological, and spatial subsystems, aiming to develop innovative and dynamic solutions for creating sustainable and liveable urban futures.

The Liveable Urbanism vertical studio at WSA offered a unique opportunity for BSc 3 and MArch 2 students work collaboratively with local partners, stakeholder and policy makers. In 2024-25, the studio focused on Thrissur, one of the fastest-growing cities in Southern India, with a population of half a million. Through extensive research, students developed a framework, methodologies, and tools that they applied during a three-week study trip to India, to explore and unfold the complex relationship between Thrissur’s physical form and the quality of life of its citizens, which served as the foundation for their urban strategies and catalyst design proposals.

- Dr. Shibu Raman, Arunava Dasgupta Unit Leads

THRISSUR COMMONS

Daniel Holman | daniel.holman99@gmail.com

Thrissur Commons reactivates Thrissur’s historic market core, seeking to stabilise and diversify Thrissur’s economy. This project exists against a backdrop of exodus in Kerala— skill leaving the city in search of opportunity elsewhere. In Thrissur, this has led to a decline in higher opportunity - resulting in a stagnant economy. And stagnation breeds instability. Guided by Boyd’s “People-Ideas-Machines” framework, this project seeks to understand economic transformation through these three steps. Ideas leap from person to person, and their vector of transmission is interaction. This project probes the urban form in creating an environment ripe for this.

Thrissur Commons is the first brick in the wall of a resilient economic ecosystem. It reactivates and rejuvenates the historic market core of Thrissur, bringing skill and employment back to the centre. Thrissur Commons proves that opportunity and pride can flourish in Thrissur, not just abroad.

Daniel Holman

CREATING SPACE FOR WOMEN

Isla Behrens | BehrensI@cardiff.ac.uk

A livable city must empower women by upholding their right to the city: ensuring safe, inclusive spaces where they can move freely, participate fully and thrive without fear. Despite making up 50% of the population, women are often neglected by urban design and planning that ignores their needs. This marginalization starts at home and extends to public spaces, infrastructure, and policy, where safety, mobility and inclusion are overlooked.

While gender equity is widely discussed, the role of design remains under-addressed. How can a city be truly livable if it excludes half its people?

This project catalyzes change by improving care infrastructure, employment and protection for women, with a continuous wall symbolizing safety and inclusion.

SECOND NATURE

Megan McCormick | 20megancmccormick@gmail.com

Improving Thrissur’s liveability demands a synergy between the city and the environment. This proposal focuses on cleaning the city and reconnecting people with nature. Expanding green spaces through green-wedge urbanism will enhance air quality, reduce urban heat, support health, promote social interaction, boost biodiversity and increase climate resilience. Improving the cities waste system will boost the economy by creating value from waste and promoting tourism, reduce waste related health issues and flood risk, improve walkability and increase safety. Reimagining the relationship between the city, its waste and nature itself, requires a culture rooted in connection which prevents the habits of successful residents impacting those most vulnerable. By preventing extreme waste production, encouraging repair and reuse by uplifting artisans and craftspeople and empowering the workers and residents who lead the shift away from single-use and wasteful habits.

Megan McCormick

RECLAIMING ROADS

Harrison Adams | AdamsHA1@cardiff.ac.uk

A liveable city is one where people thrive, where the built environment nurtures health, fosters connection, and promotes freedom of movement. This is all-encompassed by walkability. A walkable city is a liveable city, one that values its citizens’ well-being, prioritises accessibility and creates a foundation for sustainable urban development. Walking is more than just a mode of transportation: it connects people to places, fosters social interactions, and offers opportunities for physical activity. Urban environments profoundly shape physical and mental well-being. Walkable cities combat the global physical inactivity epidemic, reducing the risk of chronic illnesses and saving lives. In Indian cities, where pedestrian fatalities are disproportionately high, walkable infrastructure is a necessity, not a luxury. Safe, accessible, and inviting pedestrian spaces ensure that walking becomes a natural daily activity, contributing to better health outcomes and a higher quality of life.

Harrison Adams

FROM FRAGMENTATION TO BELONGING

Tess Harland | HarlandFT@cardiff.ac.uk

A liveable city manages social divisions so they become sources of mutual enhancement rather than conflict. Urban areas often face inequalities rooted in class, caste, religion, and community, leading to segregation and exclusion. These disparities can be addressed through inclusive urban design that fosters equity and social cohesion—defined as interdependence, shared loyalties, and solidarity. In Thrissur, the proposed Master Plan risks displacing vibrant city life. Instead, mixed-use buildings should be introduced, integrating internal and vertical gardens and courtyards to connect people with nature. These spaces can serve as informal gathering points and “third places,” encouraging everyday social interaction, integration, and a sense of belonging—key to building cohesive, liveable urban environments.

SIM-BIOTIC-CITY

Mohammed Awadalla | AwadallaM@cardiff.ac.uk

A City is comprised of a series of systems as parts that work in symbiosis with nature and the built environment. This Thesis focuses on creating an environment that encourages healthy living with a key focus on natural phenomenon as the core design driver.

Mohammed Awadalla

George Harris

YAU, Hang Hei Napoleon

Yan Yan Carol Chang

Unit 06

LE-DR - Lab IV: Re-visioning Universities

Cardiff, Wales

Universities are ancient institutions. Over centuries, they have continuously evolved in response to societal needs and technological developments. Universities are built on three pillars: education, research, and civic mission. In today’s context, major trends shaping the future of universities include the diffusion of artificial intelligence, demographics (rapidly declining birth rate and people living much longer), the growing argument for flexible and modularised degree programmes, the need for continuous upskilling through lifelong learning, the financial pressures facing students and institutions, stronger research collaborations with businesses and policymakers, creating value for communities local and global, and the urgent action for transitioning to low-carbon campuses. Within this context, university buildings must adapt to enable students to learn effectively, facilitate staff in delivering educational and research goals, and encourage collaboration between universities, government, businesses, and communities.

Now in its fourth year, this Unit is part of the Learning Environments Design Research Laboratory (LE-DR Lab), with Cardiff University’s Cathays Campus as the site for investigation, experimentation, and imagination. Locating the personal experiences of students—as learners, inhabitants, and designers—within the broader context was the key premise for developing project briefs. The Unit aimed to challenge the paradox of universities as ancient institutions in a fastevolving world, particularly by interrogating how the use of existing university buildings for the future university might unfold. Students developed propositions for innovative approaches for education, research, and civic missions, enabled through university estates/buildings. The proposals facilitate partnerships with a range of non-academic organisations to create value for regional communities.

- Dr. Hiral Patel

Roma Richardson

REBUILDING THE UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE : DENSIFY, ADAPT, CONNECT

Roma Richardson | RichardsonRM@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores how Cardiff University can better use its existing estate through smart, adaptable reuse, not just in one location but across campus. CUBRIC is used here as a case study to test this broader strategy.

The proposal is built around a three-tier system: Shop & Engage reclaims ground-floor space for studentrun retail, social, and wellness facilities.

Learn & Create transforms outdated interiors into vibrant, flexible learning hubs.

Live & Connect adds rooftop short-stay accommodation for professionals and short-course learners.

Together, these tiers outline a financially resilient model to transform underutilised buildings into a more connected, vibrant, and future-focused university that supports a new wave of education.

AN OPEN FRONT DOOR

George Harris | georgeharrisarch@gmail.com

Using Cardiff University’s Arts and Social Studies Library (ASSL) as a case study, this project explores the evolving role of the university library. As learning methods continue to change, the thesis examines how the ASSL can be expanded and reimagined as a more engaging, inclusive destination for both students and the wider community. In parallel, it investigates how post-war Brutalist university architecture can be sustainably retrofitted to serve as academic environments fit for the future.

George Harris

HIPPOCAMPUS

YAU, Hang Hei Napoleon | YauHH@cardiff.ac.uk

What began as a quiet curiosity, a question whispered along the city campus to Alexandra Garden, soon grew into a journey of dialogue and transformation. From solitary sketches to shared visions, the project blossomed into a collaborative reweaving of city and soil. By softening thresholds between institutions and nature, inviting schools and communities into the fold, and breathing life into forgotten routes, the garden was no longer just a place, but a passage. At its heart stands The Confluence, a circular sanctuary where paths, people, and knowledge meet. Here, curiosity becomes conversation, and architecture becomes not only shelter, but story. A garden, remade to listen, speak, and grow.

YAU, Hang Hei Napoleon

GROW. CONNECT. LIVE: A NEW CHAPTER FOR CARDIFF UNIVERSITY

Yan Yan Carol Chang | ChangYY@cardiff.ac.uk

To address urgent challenges such as rising living costs, food insecurity, and social isolation, the concept of a compact, connected campus community is developed. Located next to Cardiff Business School, it introduces high-quality university-owned student accommodation, an international food hall, vertical farming facilities, and vibrant social spaces. The project explores the theme of student well-being through sustainable urban design. Vertical farming introduces a farm-to-table approach, reducing environmental impact and food costs. The food hall celebrates cultural diversity while ensuring access to affordable nutritious meals. By integrating sustainability, affordability, and inclusivity, the project offers a future-proof vision of university life—creating a campus where students and staff can live, learn, and thrive together.

Yan Yan Carol Chang

Agata Aleksandra Kurzynska

Heather Knights

Piotr Artur Hejdysz

Hamraj Singh

Ruko Okuda

Hazel Whittaker

Sava Kochorapov

Louis Bowman

Unit 07 Designing Histories

Berlin, Germany

This year, Unit 7 looks at the unfurling of Berlin’s pathological post-war architecture into propelling monuments, through the combined expression of architectural additions that weave historical and living memories, stimulating debate about the philosophical and theoretical dimensions of architectural conservation.

We believe the best architects will realise their most thoughtful designs when faced with the challenge of working with existing buildings and contexts, not only to restore and conserve architectural heritage, but to transform it and create new meanings as the history of the city evolves and unfolds over time.

Tracing architecture’s genealogical lines and pleats, we immersed ourselves in Berlin’s cultural and memorial landscapes. Understanding the city as a corpus of inherited knowledge and dialogues that migrate across time and place, we exchanged ideas and memories with architects past and present.

An intensive primer research period, examining the Unit’s themes of history, mythology and monumentality generated individual lines of enquiry—using experimental film, collage, drawings, and text-work to develop intuitive architectural attitudes and design methodologies.

Critical readings expanded our definition of monumentality and stimulated innovative attitudes towards preservation, informing provocative and creative modalities of design that challenge conventional dichotomies that pervade the discourse on architectural heritage and conservation.

In a dialectical unfolding of memory to invention, and through processes of architectural addition, subtraction, and intervention, the Designing Histories Unit’s projects aim to dignify civic life and celebrate the layered identity of Berlin. Using words and design to tell the story of a city in a complex concertina between the past, present, and the future we asked: Can buildings stand as analogues of human memory? What should we remember, and what should we forget? What, and how, should we monumentalise today?

-

MIRROR, MYTH AND THE MUSEUM OF MUSEUMS

Agata Aleksandra Kurzynska agatakurzynska2000@gmail.com

This thesis critically re-examines monumentality through Lacan’s Mirror Stage, proposing the adaptive-reuse of a 2000s shopping centre at Berlin’s Leipziger-Platz into a “Museum of Museums”. It interrogates the erasure of cultural memory, focusing on lost monuments and the role of critical reconstruction in their symbolic effacement. Juxtaposing the consumerist typology of the mall with the site’s historic civic identity, the proposal establishes a cultural and political hub for the Berlin’s Museum Association. At its heart a Chamber of Museums—a space for curatorial collaboration that actively engages the public— with a public living room. Staging an encounter, where the everyday shopping experience can become an confrontation with Berlin’s fractured history.

Heather Knights | KnightsHC@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores how memory and forgetting can be used as transformative architectural tools. Set within the Tränenpalast—a former GDR border crossing—the building is reimagined as a public bathhouse, shifting its identity from one of division to collective healing. Inspired by Dante’s cleansing in the river Lethe, the project explores how forgetting can release architecture from fixed historical trauma offering an alternative for this pathological monument. Just as Dante must also enter the river Eunoe, memory is used to deepen our understanding of the past and create a new combined identity for the city, transforming the building into a propelling monument that can live and grows with the city.

Heather Knights

Piotr Artur Hejdysz | Hejdysz.piotr@gmail.com

The Ministry of (De)Construction reimagines the partially demolished former GDR Ministry of Construction as a monument of continuity rather than erasure. Located on Berlin’s Museum Island, the project critiques the postreunification demolitions driven by Critical Reconstruction. Instead of replacing the past, it embraces deconstruction as a method of transformation—reusing salvaged structural elements and rebuilding from reclaimed components. At its heart is a civic atrium: a vertical void connecting past and future, fostering reflection, assembly, and change. Employing reversible construction and circular design principles, the building grows from its own ruins. It becomes a living archive of material memory, offering vision for regenerative, layered architecture in Berlin.

Piotr Artur Hejdysz

“DAS EPOS VON BERLIN”

Hamraj Singh | PotiwalHS@cardiff.ac.uk

This thesis investigates rituals as a form of monumentality within Berlin’s complex historical landscape. Focusing on the Humboldt Forum, it explores how rituals can help Berliners reclaim and activate the reconstructed palace, fostering collective engagement and effervescence. Within the context of critical reconstruction, the Humboldt Forum’s controversy becomes a lens to question permanence and authenticity. A framework emerges: Is the building a replica posing as authentic, “dishonestly honest”? Does it admit its inauthenticity, “honestly dishonest”? Or does it offer something entirely new, “honestly honest”? These categories guide the evaluation of reconstruction, suggesting that ritual, rather than form alone, may be key in shaping meaningful, monumental architecture in a city layered with memory.

Hamraj Singh

CONSTRUCTIVE DECONSTRUCTION

Okuda | okudaruko@gmail.com

Physical demolition of architecture does not disappear in memory- they live in our minds to influence the identity of later constructions. While new buildings are inseparable from the previously destroyed, ethically controversial memories are often suppressed through unsuccessful counter-iconoclasm, causing a disintegration between the selective memories that they express and the ones that still persist on their sites.

Based in Quartier Schützenstraße in Critically Reconstructed central Berlin, this intervention project takes a new approach to the city’s memories of ideological and physical destructions, suggesting an uncovering of these memories to, in turn, strengthen their fragmented modern identities.

Ruko

Okuda

Ruko

FRAGMENT FORUM REFORMED: MATERIALISING MEMORY IN THE KULTURFORUM

Hazel Whittaker | hazelwhittaker@hotmail.co.uk

Informed by the ship of Theseus paradox, a thought experiment that highlights the cultural value of historic material, the project explores the sensitive adaption of the Wissenshaftzentrum: a post-modern monument designed by Stirling and Wilford to “underline the fragmented city”. The proposal re-purposes offices to create a community focused combined work – fragment forum - providing artist studios and workshops, a basilica, and enhancement of the courtyard. The incorporation of physical and remembered fragments from Berlin buildings creates a memory palace. The adapted building connects to the monumental buildings nearby, tempering their attention seeking personalities with a human scale approach that celebrates artistic expression and broadens access to the arts.

Hazel Whittaker

Sava Kochorapov | sava.kochorapov@yahoo.com

This project reimagines the former GDR Remand Prison site, a symbol of oppression, as a dynamic memorial that acts as a propelling monument rather than a pathological one. The goal is to transform the site into a cultural and urban catalyst, using its history to inspire the regeneration of the surrounding area. The memorial will facilitate stages of Remembering and Forgetting, with Berlin itself as the central stage, encouraging dialogue about memory and history. Drawing from Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History, the project personifies this figure as the Angel of Memory, using theatrical elements to provoke reflection and engage the public in the city’s traumatic past. ANGEL

TECTONICS OF MEMORY

Louis Bowman | bowmanlouis8@gmail.com

This thesis explores how architecture can critically define its role by mediating between modern social awareness and idealised historical narratives. Through a proposed archaeological museum in Berlin’s Nikolaiviertel, the project reinterprets lost monuments through tectonic expression, drawing on Gottfried Semper and August Bötticher’s theories. Rather than replicating the past, the museum reassembles architectural fragments into new, meaningful forms. It becomes a propelling monument, engaging with memory dynamically - preserving, transforming, and reactivating it in response to contemporary cultural needs. Through tectonics and purposeful design, the museum challenges static notions of monumentality, offering a living architectural language that embodies continuity, reinterpretation, and evolving identity within Berlin’s urban palimpsest.

Louis Bowman

Martina Marengo

Oluwatobi Ladipo

Valerie Sokolovsky

Jenna Bailey

Nia Ferris

Ffion Hopkins

Noor Alshukri

Unit 08 Nomadic Studio

Cardiff,

A nomadic lifestyle and worldview are reemerging, driven by factors such as digital connectivity, climate change, accessible transportation, and increasingly dynamic lifestyles. Consequently, our relationships with people and places are evolving.

The Nomadic Studio explores how architectural designers employ contextual analysis and strategic thinking to deeply understand local culture, history, ecology, landscapes, and psychogeography. These tools are essential in crafting longterm, complex proposals. Each thesis began with a detailed survey investigation, collaborative atlas, and authoritative research tools, paving the way for interventions that inspire cultural change and broader ambitions. Through iterative processes—unfolding, layering, and refining lines of inquiry—a cohesive design narrative emerged, providing the foundation for a robust argument, provocation, and personal response. Investigations were structured around three core pillars: people, perception, and place.

Reflection was central to this process, dissecting the intricate energies and influences that define a place’s character. By walking, drifting, and recording, the Nomadic Studio students identified opportunities for creative intervention, focusing deeply on specific routes, arteries, or pathways within the landscape. Initial efforts explored temporary or interim solutions to test these on a shorter timescale. This groundwork informed the development of permanent, community-oriented design proposals that address the specific challenges of nomadic tendencies with depth and purpose.

EMBER + ECHO

Martina Marengo | martina.marengo02@gmail.com

Cardiff’s built environment often prioritises permanence over presence, offering little to those who move through it without roots. Ember + Echo proposes an alternative: a civic space defined by openness, exchange, and shared experience. Centred around an open theatre and kitchen, it uses food and performance as vessels for storytellingblurring the line between audience and performer, host and guest. Rather than imposing itself on the city, the project embraces movement, adaptability, and porosity. In contrast to the rigid authority of City Hall, Ember + Echo becomes a living threshold - an open invitation for locals, travellers, and nomads to gather, share, and belong.

Martina

PERPETUATING THE TEMPORARY

Oluwatobi Ladipo | LadipoO@cardiff.ac.uk

This thesis begins with a confrontation: architecture, as we’ve long understood it, is rooted in permanence. But the city, Cardiff in particular, pulses with a second life. A life of pop-up stalls and temporary community, of vans parked briefly and gone by sundown. A life of temporary commerce, no less significant, no less spatial, just more fleeting in its manifestation.

As such, my thesis argues that the nomadic qualities of modern-day pop-up commerce can be preserved, celebrated, and reaffirmed through architectural intervention. The aim is not to “fix” transience into permanence, but to develop an architectural language that holds space for the ephemeral. One that honours movement, repetition, and memory, while offering tools to sustain these fleeting practices.

Oluwatobi Lapido

AN URBAN CARAVANSERAI

Valerie Sokolovsky | valsokol3005@yahoo.com

The Urban Caravanserai acts as a sanctuary, situated on City Road, Cardiff. Built from stone, inspired by historic caravanserais and the solidity of Welsh cottages and castles. It offers essential spaces: a library, communal kitchen, café, dining hall, repair workshop, and courtyard, for both nomads passing through the city and the local community. Designed as a place of rest, exchange, and shared experience, it encourages interactions between transient and stable populations. The project promotes cultural dialogue, reimagining ancient hospitality for the modern urban context.

Valerie Sokolovsky

MAKING STREETS

Jenna Bailey | jenna.h.bailey@gmail.com

Plasnewydd Commons and the Making Space is a placemaking project based in Plasnewydd, Cardiff, an area marked by high tenant turnover and weak social integration. The proposal responds to this with a co-design and build hub that invites both new and long-term residents to collaborate in designing, making, and assembling street furniture. Through this shared process, the project fosters social exchange, knowledge sharing, and a sense of ownership over their street space. Anchored by three core spaces—a design hub, machine room, and community hall, the building acts as a catalyst for community development, transforming a disconnected street into a venue connecting nomadic and permanent residents through acts of collective making.

Jenna Bailey

Nia Ferris | FerrisNM@cardiff.ac.uk

Threads of connection, ‘Llinynnau o Gysylltiadau’ explores how architecture can create safe, non-hierarchical environments for women, reclaiming historically maledominated sites of dialogue. Responding to themes of trauma, displacement, and empowerment, the design draws from trauma-informed principles and Maslow’s 3 C’s, connection, control, and comfort to support healing and community. Inspired by the quilt as both object and metaphor, the project weaves a patchwork of supportive, layered spaces that reflect the fragmented yet collective experiences of women within the community. Like a nomadic fabric of memory and resilience, it offers a spatial narrative of support, dialogue, and belonging.

Nia Ferris

Ffion Hopkins | ffionhopkins1@hotmail.com

The Cwtch & Cook explores growth, learning, and recovery through skills exchange as a pathway to long-term stability for those experiencing homelessness in Cardiff. Set within the retrofitted Roath Church House, the design brings together communal eating, gardening, and hands-on learning to rebuild confidence, establish routine, and foster belonging. Rooted in a “more than food” approach, the kitchen, garden, and teaching spaces enable participants and volunteers to exchange knowledge, restore dignity through contribution, and nurture meaningful community connections.

Ffion

Noor Alshukri | Nalshukry1@gmail.com

The Borrowed City: An Architectural Exposition for Cosmic Reconnection reimagines the ancient nomadic bond between civilization and the cosmos. Drawing on celestial alignments in historical architecture and Merleau-Ponty’s embodied perception, it critiques modern urban disconnection caused by digital navigation and infrastructure. This project borrows cosmic forces, navigation, elevation, expansion, as spatial phenomena, designing event-driven architecture where movement, rupture, and ambiguity activate space. Influenced by Tschumi’s Architecture and Disjunction, it embraces order and disorder as collaborators, fostering wonder and orientation. Through a series of events, The Borrowed City reconnects inhabitants to the cosmic order, transforming perception and returning borrowed celestial experiences as lived architectural encounters.

Chenmiao Song

Simone Dickson

Xue Yunlong

Gabriel Schinnerl

Sahiti Bhalla

Gabriel Schinnerl

Victoria Cornock

Sian Mari McGuirk

Farhan Ishrak

Deepali, Faiza Hosneara, Gautam

Adhikary

Ahmad Khan, Linda Muriuki, Saed

Mahajna

Deepali

Mingyu Chang, Maner Alsaidi

Gautam Adhikary

Gautam Adhikary

Postgraduate Taught

A warm welcome to the exhibition of work from our postgraduate taught students. Our postgraduate taught portfolio consists of masters programmes that stretch architectural thinking and innovation into areas that are critical for the future of built environment, both locally and globally. The students’ work displays the various ways they have engaged with specialist knowledge to develop unique skills that can drive Architecture and the shaping of the built environment forward. Each piece of work demonstrates a dimension of inspiring problem solving, often emerging from iterative processes of testing and failing and from a commitment to proposing new design solutions that are reasoned and evidence-based. The exhibition unfolds the unique ways these newly acquired specialist skills gradually transform our students’ abilities and mindsets, and as visitors we are witnessing the evolution of design theory and practice, in the hands of those equipped to recognise, respect and deliver for present priorities and those that are about to unfold.

- Dr. Eleni Ampatzi Director

PGT

MA AD Master of Arts in Architectural Design

The one-year, full-time MA in Architectural Design is an advanced, experimental, and innovative design research course focusing on the multiple connections between design and research within complex multidimensional environments, aiming to address current global challenges from innovative perspectives.

Design-led research tools, techniques, and methods inform the student’s iterative design research explorations, informed by relevant theories and responding to the demands of sites, contexts, and people. In this process, the student’s architectural design research projects were conceived as open-ended test beds of ideas, spaces, materials, and languages, articulated through a dialogue at multiple scales with contexts, locals, and relevant stakeholders. Throughout the year, students developed their own independent position in architectural design thinking within a multidisciplinary educational environment, in synergy with other PGT courses such as SBC, CMA or EDB.

The Design Research Unit Contemporary Architecture and Heritage for Socio-Economic Development (H>D WSA Lahore 2025), led by Dr Federico Wulff Barreiro and Chris Brimble, invited students to Re-imagine the History and the Future of the Historic Walled City of Lahore. Historically, this area’s urban and architectural development has been fragmented and unstructured, devoid of comprehensive planning or multi-scalar design strategies. For decades, it has undergone profound degradation processes, including issues of abandonment, criminality, and deprivation.

Students focused on understanding the importance of the Walled City’s historical, social, and heritage values from a contemporary architectural standpoint. They aimed to reimagine architectural and urban design interventions that would re-establish a sensitive dialogue with its heritage values, reactivate programmes of permanent uses and temporary activities, and enhance local citizenship’s awareness of the importance of its heritage values for supporting the community’s socio-economic development.

This joint H>D WSA Lahore 2025 Design Research Unit has been developed in collaboration with Dr Mamuna Iqbal, MArch Unit Leader at University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, and institutional partners Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) and the Aga Khan Cultural Services-Pakistan (AKSC-P).

- Angela Ruiz Del Portal Course lead

IAAL HAVELI-WASTE REUSE CULTURAL CENTER

Chenmiao Song | SongC10@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the adaptive reuse of Laal Haveli in Lahore’s Walled City as a Waste Reuse Cultural Center. It integrates climate resilience, community engagement, and circular waste strategies by transforming heritage architecture into a multifunctional hub for education, craft production, and sustainable tourism. By connecting informal recyclers, artisans, and institutions, the design creates a cooperative system that reuses plastic, straw, and textiles as building materials. The project not only protects cultural identity, but also addresses environmental pressure and promotes social equity through inclusive public programs.

Chenmiao Song

THREADS OF EMPOWERMENT

Simone Dickson | DicksonS3@cardiff.ac.uk

This architectural design project explores the impacts of commercialisation within the Walled City of Lahore in Pakistan, with specific focus on the Taxali Gate area. Interpretation and diagnosis through design research reveals that economic shifts have contributed to the social displacement of the community, reinforcing a male-dominated trading environment while marginalising women’s economic participation. In response, the proposal envisions a women’s Dressmaking Centre designed to rediscover and support women’s traditional handicraft skills. The centre functions as a socio-economic catalyst through the empowerment of marginalised women, aiming to integrate women’s participation into the local economy and strengthen community resilience.

Simone Dickson

FRAGMENTS RECLAIMED

Xue Yunlong | XueY26@cardiff.ac.uk

The Walled City of Lahore, rich in Sikh, Islamic, Hindu, and Christian heritage, has witnessed waves of migration due to regional conflict and independence. Despite its many historical buildings, public awareness and appreciation remain low. In a multicultural and often tense environment, a key challenge is fostering understanding between different groups and reconnecting people with their shared history. Creating inclusive spaces for cultural engagement and architectural reflection is essential to bridging divides and revitalizing this neglected yet historically vibrant area.

Xue Yunlong

MA UD Master of Arts in Urban Design

As cities continuously evolve and adapt in response to changing forms, forces, functions, and desires, Transit Urban Design has emerged as a crucial focus. This year, the MA Urban Design (MAUD) programme delved into this transformative phenomenon, where urban design theories and informed socio-spatial analysis have enabled ideas to unfold in innovative ways.

MAUD students engaged with addressing the challenge of transforming car-dependent urban environments by promoting sustainable mobilities with a particular focus on shaping places surrounding transit nodes and corridors. Centred around one of Cardiff’s key strategic sites, students adopted a multiscale approach, analysing the complex relationships between various urban design aspects and their broader context.

Throughout this journey, students worked towards developing structured urban design portfolios that effectively communicate their analytical processes and spatially grounded, contextually responsive interventions. Through diverse visual presentations, these projects not only address realworld urban challenges but also present forward-thinking solutions that advocate for more resilient and people-centred futures—prioritising active travel, accessibility, and vibrant public spaces. The work of our students reflects their commitment to shaping cities that are more adaptable, connected, and inclusive for future generations.

We invite you to join us in celebrating the innovative work of our talented students at this exhibition. Discover how Transit Urban Design can transform cities, offering more sustainable and evidence-based alternatives that enhance urban mobility, create vibrant public spaces, and improve overall quality of place. This exhibition is a testament to the creativity and critical thinking of our students, who are shaping the future of urban spaces through thoughtful, creative, research-informed, and forward-looking design.

- Dr. Nastaran Peimani Course lead

PLACE FOR A CREATIVE COMMUNITY: BECOMING SOMEWHERE

Estelle Doughty Henry | DoughtyHenryE@cardiff.ac.uk

From saltmarsh and then industrial landscape to terrain vague - with marginal creative industries. The proposition engages and articulates this history, intensifying the creative cluster and placing the site in the larger context of Cardiff. The proposal explores the idea of a collective community (CLT) reinhabiting the site for live- work and recreation with the purpose of developing the existing Creative Cluster.

Place, character and heritage become the warp of the proposal and the weft takes form from the site’s contextual strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The “possibilities and promise” of the existing terrain vague remains potent in the proposal carried in the mosaic identity and bricolage materiality.

Estelle Doughty Henry

Sahiti Bhalla | BhallaS1@cardiff.ac.uk

The project aims to enhance the Place character and heritage of the public spaces in Cardiff primarily focusing on the living heritage. There are temporary interventions which are developed such as night street market according to the demographic and different cultural activities taking place.

Sahiti

Bhalla

MSc EDB

Master

of Science

in Environmental Design of Buildings

Welcome to the MSc Environmental Design of Buildings Contribution to the (Un)fold Exhibition—a celebration of creativity, innovation, and sustainability that explores the many layers and dimensions of environmental design.

The concept of (Un)fold captures the essence of revealing the hidden potential within our built environment.  It reflects the process of unfolding complex design challenges and solutions, and embodies the idea of transforming spaces through thoughtful and sustainable practices.  In this exhibition, we showcase the work of our talented students, who are pushing the boundaries of architectural and environmental design.  (Un) fold also reflects the dynamic nature of our course which continually evolves to integrate cutting-edge sustainable practices and technologies.

The course prepares students to think critically and creatively about the long-term impacts of architecture, ensuring they can adapt to and influence changing environmental and societal needs. It equips them with comprehensive expertise in crafting comfortable, healthy built environments that seamlessly integrate with nature, leveraging modern scientific approaches.

Our focus is on educating built environment professionals who are ready to address today’s challenges with solutions that are not only viable but visionary.  The program promotes a deep understanding of how buildings can affect both people and the planet.  It encourages students to explore sustainable design in ways that are practical, innovative, and bold.

The ethos of (un)fold is reflected in the development of our students, who embark on a transformative educational journey—developing a robust set of skills that empowers them to make meaningful, positive contributions to the built environment, and cultivating built environment professionals adept at creating climate conscious designs. Every aspect of our teaching inspires students to embrace change and to see it as an opportunity for innovation and improvement.

- Dr. Vicki Stevenson and Dr. Sarah O’Dwyer Course lead

of

MSc SBC

Master of Science in Sustainable Building Conservation

“(...) the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.”

( Ruskin, J.1849)

In considering the broader responsibility of safeguarding both tangible and intangible heritage today, it is essential to adopt, develop, and defend a critical stance on preserving layered and co-existing heritage—along with the complex challenges this entails.

UNESCO first established a Global strategy to achieve a “Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List” in 1994—it remains critical to consider how evidence of the “passing waves of humanity”, in Ruskin’s words are valued or decried in differing contexts.

Despite Egypt’s status as the world’s first major civilization, it has only seven UNESCO World Heritage sites, one of which is currently at risk. In contrast, the United Kingdom has 35 inscribed sites and just five on UNESCO’s tentative list, while Egypt has 34 sites, including Alexandria, still awaiting approval (UNESCO, 2024).

This year, as part of the MSc in Sustainable Building Conservation, we used visits to the pilgrimage site of St David’s Cathedral in West Wales and the ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Turkish, and modern cosmopolitan city of Alexandria for students to deepen critical understandings of the long-term philosophical and pragmatic dimensions of repair and reconstruction.

Our goal was to examine how these issues unfold conventional notions of authenticity and influence resilience, either reinforcing or undermining it through conservation management and valorisation strategies. Following a joint effort to define the challenges and comprehend the emerging questions framing World Heritage at a global scale, students developed an individual position and applied it to a case study of their choice. v

- Prof. Oriel Prizeman Course lead

HILLFORTS: CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Gabriel Schinnerl | SchinnerlG@cardiff.ac.uk

Background:

Enduring significance of unrecognised archaeological potential.

Aim:

Future use honouring archaeology and responding contemporary pressures of access, inclusivity and environmental stewardship.

Catalyst for sustainable heritage conservation through introducing visitor facilities, event space, improving traffic and site management.

Gabriel Schinnerl

EXPLORING

SHAMBLES

Victoria Cornock | CornockVE@cardiff.ac.uk

The Shambles are a series of arched slaughterhouses located in Monmouth, Wales, designed by G.V. Maddox as part of a wider redevelopment of Monmouth in 19th century. The structure provides a location for the processing of meat and forms the support for Priory Street above (Cadw, 2005). This project aimed to investigate the history and significance of The Shambles, before exploring the risks and opportunities associated with the introduction of a new use. The project concluded by proposing redevelopment by incorporating a wine bar.

Master of Science in

Victoria Cornock

Sian Mari McGuirk | McGuirkSM@cardiff.ac.uk

Supported by scaffolding for over 45 years, this Grade II listed 1855 Victorian Cornmarket is sited within the core of Bath a UNESCO World Heritage City.

Research concluded the building was of high significance, forming Bath’s last remaining tangible heritage of market trading. Proposed to be repaired and reused as “The Cornmarket Community Arts Centre”, the scheme would be self-supported using alternative investment models, a partial rebuild reducing project risk and pop-up pods increasing flexibility. The creation of a ‘buffer zone’ against new development would seek to provide an external performance space, whilst protecting Bath’s OUV’s, of townscape views and picturesque landscape vistas.

Sian Mari McGuirk

MSc SMB

Master of Science in Sustainable Mega Buildings

The Sustainable Mega Buildings programme equips students with a comprehensive understanding of sustainable planning, environmental design, and performance evaluation for large-scale and high-rise buildings. The course responds to the urgent challenges posed by urbanisation and climate change, particularly in the context of dense metropolitan environments where high-rise construction is both a necessity and a responsibility. Often criticised for their intensive energy use and environmental impact, mega buildings demand innovative thinking—both in design and in performance. By integrating principles of sustainable design, students are prepared to create future-ready solutions that contribute to the development of environmentally friendly, low-carbon, and energy-efficient skyscrapers.

This year’s exhibition theme, (un)fold, offers a powerful conceptual lens through which to view the ambitions of the programme. Architecture at the scale of the mega building unfolds gradually, through a process of discovery, reflection, and layering. Students are invited to explore this complexity, peeling back the assumptions that surround high-rise typologies and uncovering new ways to integrate sustainability, comfort, and cultural meaning within tall buildings.

The process of design within the programme mirrors this act of unfolding. From initial site analysis and environmental simulation to the articulation of form, façade systems, and structural integration, students layer knowledge and intention into their work. At each stage, they are encouraged to fold narratives—of climate, context, materiality, and user experience—into their proposals, while remaining open to reinterpretation and refinement. As students engage with advanced modelling tools, performance criteria, and global precedents, they begin to develop their own voice—shaping design outcomes that are both ambitious in vision and rigorous in technical performance.

Ultimately, the Sustainable Mega Buildings programme challenges students to imagine the skyscraper not as a static icon, but as a responsive, evolving system—deeply embedded in the environmental, social, and cultural layers of the city. In doing so, they unfold new possibilities for how vertical architecture can contribute to a more sustainable and equitable built environment.

- Dr. Tania Sharmin Course lead

SUSTAINABLE MEGA BUILDINGS DESIGN

Farhan Ishrak | IshrakF@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores the role of service systems in highperformance architecture, using The Edge in Amsterdam as a case study. The design investigates thermal zoning, renewable systems, and passive energy strategies to enhance energy efficiency and occupant comfort. Through iterative simulations and system optimizations—spanning PV optimization, HVAC optimization and passive system iterations—the project develops a sustainable service model. The concept unfolds by aligning architectural design with environmental responsiveness, ultimately showcasing how intelligent systems and passive decisions can drive building performance. This research-driven approach not only reduces site energy four fold but also sets a precedent for future-ready, environmentally adaptive commercial buildings.

Farhan Ishrak

MSc CMA

Master of Science in Computational Methods in

Architecture

The Computational Methods in Architecture programme addresses the industry’s need for creative professionals equipped with computational design and digital fabrication skills, along with the ability to design custom software to generate, analyse, and solve unique design problems. Its multidisciplinary approach provides students with the knowledge and skills to discover innovative computational methods for use in the creative and design industries. The ethos of the programme is based on the concept of rigorous creativity, where algorithmic thinking, systematic parametric design, analytic methods, creative intuition, and tectonic sensibilities are integrated into a more innovative design outcome than traditional methods currently allow.

More recently, artificial intelligence has challenged the traditional notion of creativity as solely human, blurring the distinction between human- and machine-generated solutions. The Computational Methods in Architecture programme has embraced AI technology and is thus a clear example of the In Transition concept. The methods taught in this programme have abandoned the clear distinction between digital and analogue methods in favour of hybrid approaches, where traditional notions of agency and authorship are renegotiated. This shift reflects an unfolding of new design paradigms—where human and AI-driven processes are interwoven in ways that continuously redefine the boundaries of creativity and innovation.

-Dr. Simon Lannon Course lead

FRED X GINGER: RIGIDITY MEETS RHYTHM

This project reimagines the synergy of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as two architectural systems—Fred as rigid structure and Ginger as dynamic fabric. Using motion analysis, the duo’s choreographic interplay was abstracted into contrasting yet complementary forms. Fred’s form was 3D-printed with structural precision, while Ginger’s flexible bloom evolved through fabric simulations and tension mapping. Digital tools like Kangaroo and physical modeling with nylon fabrics allowed a back-and-forth workflow between simulation and assembly. The final output captures the essence of movement—rigid and free, anchored and expressive—celebrating balance, duality, and elegance through computational fabrication and material experimentation.

Deepali, Faiza Hosneara, Gautam Adhikary

Ahmad Khan, Linda Muriuki and Saed Mahajna

Dance is movement, music is rhythm, and together, they create something magical. Inspired by a classic Fred & Ginger performance, this project reimagines dance as a living, breathing architectural form. By translating sound frequencies into a 3D cymatic landscape, we’ve shaped a fabric-based structure that moves like a dancer fluid with music, striking in silence. Fred is the red thread, weaving continuity and grace, while Ginger, represented by 3D-printed components, punctuates the choreography with precision. Through over 30 iterations using Grasshopper, Firefly, and Kangaroo, this work explores how sonic environments can shape spatial and material responses, capturing the poetic connection between rhythm, movement, and design.

SPIRAL PAVILION

DEEPALI | -D3@cardiff.ac.uk

This Spiral Pavilion (with abstract render) is a parametric wooden-glass structure designed as a versatile space for exhibitions, social gatherings, or landmark installations. Utilizing Grasshopper’s Lunchbox plugin, the pavilion employs diamond-cell components morphed onto an organic base surface of interconnecting arcs. Computational techniques enable dynamic geometry manipulation, balancing aesthetics and functionality. Key steps include generating arcs, perpendicular frames, and offset surfaces, followed by applying diamond-cell panels and wireframe geometries. The design integrates adaptive parametric strategies, such as remapping numbers and scaling, to achieve fluid, responsive forms. Finalized with mesh thickness via Weaverbird, the pavilion merges innovative digital workflows with material expression, creating a scalable, modular system suited for diverse environments.

DEEPALI

The Silken Helix pavilion is a sculptural fusion of organic and synthetic inspirations, derived from the morphology of DNA strands, silkworm thread dynamics, and the expressive contrast between two dance personas—Genger and Fred. The design integrates fluid, tree-like 3D printed legs symbolizing Genger’s organic motion with precisely laser-cut acrylic layers representing Fred’s structured and composed movements. The model showcases the convergence of computational design and physical fabrication through layered assembly and multi-material articulation, reflecting a dialogue between chaos and order, motion and stillness.

Mingyu Chang, Amer Alsaidi

THE SILKEN HELIX

GENERATIVE URBAN PATTERN

Gautam Adhikary | AdhikaryG@cardiff.ac.uk

This project explores rule-based generative urban growth inspired by Brazilian favelas’ spatial logic and morphological patterns. Using the Wasp plugin in Grasshopper, seven distinct building typologies were defined with specific adjacency rules to simulate organic yet structured aggregation. The system models how an urban area with 700 buildings could scale up to 3000, incorporating parameters like building proximity, orientation, and clustering. It captures the density and emergent form typical of informal settlements while responding to terrain. Key learnings included mastering component-based aggregation, developing adjacency logic, and using parametric tools to simulate urban scenarios—providing a predictive framework for analysing and visualizing future urban growth.

Gautam Adhikary

AGGREGATED MODULARITY

Gautam Adhikary | AdhikaryG@cardiff.ac.uk

This project provided insights into modular logic, computational aggregation, and parametric adaptability. It also allowed for the exploration of how small, repeatable components can translate into large-scale, structurally and visually cohesive forms. By utilizing Fox for aggregation and Grasshopper for parametric control, I was able to integrate iterative design processes into the exploration of emergent geometries.

Gautam Adhikary

Xinyao Chu

Heba Alshahrani

Jack Morewood

Yifan Cao

Yongdong (Matt) Ma

Ziqi Lian

Juan Usubillaga Narvaez

Aysenur Kilic

Kamal

Postgraduate Research

Welcome to the Postgraduate Research Contribution to the (Un)fold Exhibition, where we celebrate cutting-edge research, innovative thinking, and transformative design in the field of architecture.

(Un)fold encapsulates the process of unveiling hidden layers of knowledge, revealing new perspectives, and unfolding the potential of architectural design.  It signifies the dynamic interplay between theory and practice, and the continuous evolution of architectural thought.  In this exhibition, we present the groundbreaking research contributions of our Post Graduate Researchers, who are pushing the boundaries of architectural knowledge.

The exhibition showcases how architectural research can contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.  Our Postgraduate Researchers have reimagined traditional design paradigms, unfolding new possibilities for the built environment through their pioneering research.

Our Postgraduate Researchers have demonstrated a commitment to advancing architectural knowledge and practice.  They have explored the intricate relationship between the built environment and societal needs, seeking to create spaces that are not only functional and aesthetically pleasing but also environmentally and socially responsible.

Our diverse range of projects is illustrated by posters which relate architecture to a range of topics including alternative materials, biodiversity, energy efficiency, environmental injustice, heritage, human health, national identity, political activism, spatial analysis, and whole life carbon.  These projects underscore our commitment to navigating the evolving landscape of architectural discourse.  Engage with us and delve into the intricacies of our research, as we illuminate a path towards a more sustainable and equitable built environment.

- Dr. Vicki Stevenson Director of Postgraduate Research

PGR

PGR Wall of Fame

2023-2024

Congratulations on the successful completion of PGR studies

Amalia Banteli

Thesis Title: An analysis of embodied carbon considerations in a Building Information Modelling (BIM)-enabled building design process through structuration theory.

Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University

Chinedu Onyekwere

Thesis Title: Perception of key actors on the drivers and barriers to construction and demolition waste (CDW) management in Nigeria: A roadmap for the recognition of the informal sector.

Lecturer, School of engineering and environmental Technology, Abia State Polytechnic, Nigeria.

Mohammed Alghafis

Thesis Title: Investigating Thermal Comfort in Vernacular and Contemporary Houses in Al-Qassim’s hot-arid climate: Technical, Cultural and Behavioural Factors.

Assistant professor in Architecture Department at Qassim University, College of Architecture and Planning, where he also serves as the Head of the Quality Unit.

Bayan El

Faouri

Thesis Title: Pursuing World Heritage status for cities in the MENA region: Local implications for urban regeneration and contemporary architecture, the case study of As-Salt in Jordan.

Assistant Professor of Architecture at Hashemite University in Jordan

Melina Guirnaldos Diaz

Thesis Title: The value of Post-Industrial heritage: Exploring alternative preservation strategies in Poblenou.

Lecturer in Architecture Design and BSc 1 Chair at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University.

Yağmur Burcu Güneş

Thesis Title: Living with nature: Learning from the production of space and everyday life practices in the settlements on naturally and organically formed land.

Faisal Farooq

Thesis Title: MVHR system evaluation based on ventilation effectiveness and human comfort in bedrooms of low-carbon UK dwellings.

Assistant Professor at COMSATS University in Lahore, Pakistan

Irini Barbero

Thesis Title: Intersections of architecture, poetry and wellbeing, at the Brion Cemetery: catharsis, self-awareness, and reframing.

Associate Tutor at Cardiff School of Art & Design (CSAD)

Ahmed Abdullatif Alyahya

Thesis Title: Computational design optimisation of the thermal performance of an opaque ventilated facade in hot desert climate based on biomimetric inspiration.

Assistant professor at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University

Luz Navarro Eslava

Thesis Title: The transformative potential of dissensus. Contesting hegemonic agendas of urban regeneration in El Cabanyal, Valencia.

Lecturer in Urban Planning and Architecture at the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster

Warangkana Juangjandee

Thesis Title: Exploration of passive cooling potential to improve indoor environment quality (thermal comfort, relative humidity and air movement) in thermally freerunning multi-residential dwellings in Thailand urban areas.

Lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University, Thailand

Luma Daradkeh

Thesis Title: Refugee camp streets: Unravelling lived space and community empowerment - a comparative case study analysis.

Xinyao Chu

2nd year prize winnerJack

Morewood

Poster by Kamal Haddad to represent his presentation prize

SPONSORS

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the sponsors of WSA Show 2025 for their generous support and commitment to architectural education. This year’s exhibition would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions from Foster + Partners, Hopkins Architects, Formation Architects, IDS, Tor & co, Gaunt Francis, SNHA, and Hyde + Hyde. Their support has played a vital role in bringing the show to life and enabling us to celebrate and share the creativity, dedication, and hard work of our students with a wider audience. We are truly grateful for their investment in the future of architecture and for helping us bridge the gap between academia and professional practice.

Hyde & Hyde Architects

Naturally Inspiring Spaces

This year’s theme, (un)fold, led us through a series of creative investigations. Inspired by the act of folding and unfolding, we explored how layered ideas in architecture can be expressed through visual language.

Folding became our method, a tool for structuring, concealing, and revealing. while unfolding became the metaphor for interpretation and transformation.

This physical process informed the identity of the digital exhibition. Through layering, cutting, and bending, we translated architectural thinking into form, communicating the multidimensional nature of design.

- Graphics Team

The Pavilion:

A Structure for (Un)Folding

Top View - Interactions through the Pavilion

How the pavilion sits against Bute Building

Piotr Artur Hejdysz Exhibition Chair

Kimberly Yong Exhibition Chair Shadow

Sava Kochorapov Digital Exhibition Lead

Sathvik Kandukuri Digital Exhibition Shadow

Snigdha Khurana Physical Exhibition Lead

Anton Bowden Physical Exhibition Shadow

Luisa McIntyre

Nadine Abou Fakhr

Ria Sadiq

Hui Tan

Muskan Kheria

Bronte Manns

Emma De Lange

Trystan Jones

Cadence Grace D’arcy

Noor Alshukri

Ban Doghramachi

Iyanuoluwa Mofolasayo

Naomi Olotu

Trystan Jones

Dylan Taank

Randa Ibrahim

George Breckenridge

Otis Schorr-Kon

Marcelo Ortuno Floria

Phu Myat Zaw

Ling Chow

Angel Ortiz Casallas

Benita Onuoha

Yearbook Co - Lead

Yearbook Co - Lead

Social Media Lead

Azal Kassim

Matej Luza

Alzbeta Franekova

Curation Team Lead

Adian Castro Hendrick

Emma Hutton

Jasmine Tjoonk

Leilou Walmsley

Mohammed Almashharawi

Molly Einchcomb

Nikoleta Moumoulidis

Sofia Bürgisse

Sophie Newport

Swetha Prabakaran

Tara Nayfe

Graphic Design Lead

Sze Ching Lau

Bernard Lo

Neha Syed

Hannah Furnival

Finance and Sponsorship Lead

Events Team Lead

Debopriya Chatterjee

Paige Goodall

STUDENT TEAM

Joshua Collen

Callum Cowan

Daisy Baker

Edesi Akhile

Elliot Follows

Gautam Adhikary

James Pike

Khaled Hanafy

Louis Martinez

Awards and Pavilion Lead

Nora Chavez Padilla

Sukanya Roychoudhury

Timothy Kuruvilla

William Langton

Faiz Law

Max Crowfoot

Nojus Kalinauskas

Amos Shammai Exhibition Design Lead

Eloise Jenkinson

Hanaadi Ghazzawi

Harvey Wright

Lucy Stringer

Lucy Whitehead

Muhammad Bin Nasreel Nurridhuwar

Samuel Haynes

Emma Hutton

Paige Goodall

Daniel Holman

Digital Scan Lead

Aneirin Jenkins-Belohorska

Khaled Hanafy

Kimberly Yong Timothy Kuruvilla

Alessandro Meroni

Kitty Lavelle-Jones

Ryan Tumusiime

Soriah Orekan

Troy Panganiban

Yuchen Li

Band Manager

Band Assistant Manager

The WSA Exhibition 2025 Yearbook is the result of a collaborative effort between the WSA Exhibition Team and Spectrum Printing, aimed at creating a product that truly represents the WSA’s emphasis on sustainability. Spectrum Printing, a local business, was selected due to their enthusiasm for working with us and their commitment to delivering high-quality outcomes. Thanks to this partnership, we gained valuable insight into the complex process of yearbook production.

It is designed to express this year’s exhibition theme, “Unfold.” The cover physically wraps around the book, inviting readers to engage in the act of folding and unfolding—revealing layers of work completed by amazing WSA students throughout the past year.

— The Yearbook Team