MAKING employs making as its primary mode of design and research enquiry within architectural design and this connects all projects in the atelier. We interrogate the role of making in all its forms and applications in contemporary architecture, blurring the distinction between analogue and digital, leveraging the opportunities offered by hybrid, blended and augmented modes of designing, building, modelling and constructing. Experimentation is paramount, through observing, thinking, dreaming, drawing, sketching and crafting, in virtual and ‘real’ space.

All projects creatively explore novel processes through which ideas and concepts are developed, distilled and translated into architectural design propositions, negotiating the intersections of aesthetics, purpose and performance to create spatial and environmental qualities and experiences. Within this, all modes of making are seen as an ongoing and continual process integral to design development and exploration, not solely for communication or representation.

Individually, projects incorporate analogue, digital and hybrid methods of modelling, model-making, constructing, prototyping and iterative testing to suit the individual research interests, expertise and curiosities of atelier tutors and students. Open-ended exploration and creative experimentation are central to a creative approach in uncovering possibilities and design opportunities in sites and briefs. All projects make spatial/ architectural propositions that are the focus of experimentation and testing.

Year 6

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Professional Studies

Professional Studies 1

The overarching brief for our PS projects is ‘Making to rethink the repair of existing building and brownfield sites.’

The PS1 project’s focus is on making a series of models to explore architectural repair of an existing barn structure. Employing digital and physical tools inspired by archaeological reconstruction techniques, the projects centres on 1:1 experimental models and large-scale architectural prototypes.

We approach making as a mode of enquiry to register the barn’s current state and content. The sustainable agenda for the project embraces the barn’s structure and contents as the materials for adaptive reuse. The atelier takes repair seriously, it is a part of rethinking the brownfield site, where environmental issues are often created by treating materials and dilapidated buildings as waste to be disposed and cleared to landfill. The proposed programme for the old barn was to be a repair and restoration summer school. The summer school would involve a series of annual build activities carried out by successive architecture summer school groups. In addition to the repair programme, we have considered basic amenities needed for the Summer School participants and their provision communicated through a 1:200 site model.

Professional Studies 2

‘Making to rethink the repair of a brownfield site.’ Toddbrook reservoir is an unconventional brown field site, it is inextricably linked to a hydrological system and the challenges of water management. The recent, partial failure of the dam has provided a heightened awareness of the dynamics of water and its impact on sites and conurbations downstream. The uncertain future of the reservoir (currently drained to prevent flooding) has revealed a once submerged valley. In a temporary state of disuse, the valley slopes offer an opportunity to sustainably reimagine an architectural prototype for brownfield sites located by rivers.

The project begins through making a series of models to explore a return to site. Experimental 1:1 sectional models explored the physical properties of site including the ground strata to better understand for instance, porosity, vegetation growth and the impacts of water level change and flood risk. The programme for the project engages with the current housing crisis in the UK through designing a multi-generational house employing passive design principles and a fabric first approach, and a tradition of experimental self-build projects.

Students

Year 5

Ahmed Ali, Connor Meighan, James Jones, Hiu Tik Li, Cheuk Yu Lauren Fung, Chung Yan Hannah Lam, Liangru Chen, Ricky Wong, Elicia Kelly, Rebecca Howe, Xiongzhe Shi, Zhiwei Zhu, Abbigayle York, Joanna Marie Bulaong, Rebecca Skelton, Adarsh Binesh, Hsu hui-Ting, Rasaq Yishawu, Samyak Jain, Yue Yang, Andrew Finn, Emily Walsh, Osragli Elezi, Tobia Morselli

Year 6

Taha Aldibani, James Chant, Daniel Collinson, George Cosbuc, Aleksandra Drinkwater, Jian Gao, Tong Gao, Lukas Gedeikis, Yasha Javan, Rongcheng Li, Jeffrey Lim, Iulia-Georgiana Nastasache, Tejin Palan, Noss (Noson) Pearl, Thomas Roylance, Philippa Smith, Dominic Street, Zhuoping Sun, Jake Tamminen, Adriana-Stefania Tomeci, Darshan Varsani, Boon Wong, Wenze Xie, Yuxi Yang, Nadezhda Yordanova, Ismael Zaman, Yilin Zeng