A fundamental aspect of these future visions will entail exploring the material ecologies that emerge from harmonising natural and cultural environments, employing strategies that foster a sustainable dialogue between them. In transforming cities and territories, the design proposals must reinterpret old and new typologies, and emerging negotiations and synergies between architectural programmes and the natural landscape. These interventions will create architectures of mediation—dynamic material landscapes that reconcile conflicting elements and navigate thresholds and intersections between inert and living matter, bridging the divide between the artificial and the natural.
Atelier interests
- We explore emerging economic and social practices that will shape the future of how we live, focusing on issues that are impactful on both local and global scales.
- We are particularly interested in economic and social practices closely tied to distinctive landscapes and environments that demand specialised design approaches, such as strategic conservation, planning, or regeneration.
- We envision sustainable communities of the future, with our programmes dedicated to pioneering new ways of inhabiting while safeguarding and preserving unique landscapes.
The Atelier offers
- A student-driven programme. Enabling you to develop your own line of enquiry and shape your academic agendas.
- A space for critical thinking. Situating your design proposals within the context of current political, ethical, economic, cultural, social, theoretical and environmental debates.
- Technical thinking at the core of the design process. Your design propositions will be shaped by deep exploration of materiality, structural formation, tectonics and environmental design.
- A space for design-led research and experimental design methodologies. Engaging with diverse representational practices, your design arguments will be constructed through large-scale drawing, model-making, and prototyping, alongside transdisciplinary processes such as mapping, scoring systems, crafts, visual anthropology, intermedia installations, film, photography, VR, and natural simulations.
- A space for collaborative practice. You will engage with a network of internal and external stakeholders, including researchers, institutions, industry professionals, live projects, and international competitions, fostering a dynamic and interconnected learning experience.
Image: Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974
