Season ’23

Gods and Goddesses, Democrats and Republicans (and Badly Stuffed Cats) 

Jonathan Bassindale 

Following text is an excerpt from the studio brief: 

“An old building is not an obstacle but rather a foundation for continued action.” (Bollack, 2013) 

There are fundamental arguments about the nature and extent of restoration of places such as the Acropolis in Athens, ranging from mimetic reconstruction (a practice which is banned in Spain) to whether these areas should be allowed to decay naturally. Another popular methodology is that of preventing further deterioration, in effect freezing the ruins in their current state; however, it should also be noted that evidence tells us these places have changed hugely through time and what we are looking at now is not necessarily a truthful interpretation that reflects their history. There are not necessarily right or wrong answers in this debate although clearly there are pros and cons to all approaches.  

The brief focuses on a number of tensions that exist in conservation, development, the effect that man has had on the environment and how this can become positive. It is important to make the first distinction between re-use and preservation or conservation. In their purest form, an adaptive re-use project takes an old building or site and re-uses it for new purposes, whereas a conservation project would typically sustain the existing form, integrity and materials of a historic property. The two are closely interlinked and the approaches may even overlap in some cases; however, the philosophies are distinctly different and may result in hugely different project outcomes. 

Urban Cuts Across Media – Interfaces Between Matter, Media and the City 

Dr Matthew Hynam, Dr Eleonora Nicoletti, Oliver Burton 

Following text is an excerpt from the studio brief: 

This offers the opportunity to examine and develop an architectural praxis that embraces a wider understanding of media not merely as simulative representational devices, but as means to glimpse and draw out a deeper understanding of the environments we interface with. The studio dwells on the notion of the cut as a device that spans across media including drawing, installation, collage and film as an operation of dissecting and drawing out new meaning. This understanding of the cut draws parallels to William Burroughs’ use of the term within the ‘cut-up’ technique for text-based media as a means to draw fourth new meaning within an existing landscape of text. Here, deployed across a plethora of media, the cut will enable a deeper reading of the Athenian landscape as a device for delving between the tectonic and ethereal layers of the metropolis including but not limited to its historic shaping, environmental shifts, political change and mythical encounters. 

The device that forms the starting point for this studio is the cut. The cut and its multiple articulations across different media and sites will allow developing approaches to individual investigations and further inform the proposal for the architectural intervention in the urban fabric. The process leading to the final proposal is framed by progression through stages in form of a Map, Installation, Storyboard, Film, Interface and final programme. 

The Inevitable Emergence of Design 

Anas Lila, Sigita Zigure, Eduardo Costa 

Following text is an excerpt from the studio brief: 

“The Oxford Dictionary defines architecture as being the “art and science of building. […] Both art and science aspire to similar objectives but employ different means. This suggests that architecture is the practice of the artful composition of design elements and scientifically responsible construction of buildings, and for green architecture, this means the inclusion of sustainable principles of design, introduction of renewable resource technologies and environmentally conscious use.” (Tabb, Deviren, 2017) 

While architecture, engineering and construction industry has a 40% of the global warming burden, the architecture design and practice is evolving towards reducing this burden and its impact on the environment. This has grown attention in the architectural practice towards learning about the impacts of different projects and ideas. 

The idea for this project is to critique a project that had or claims to have an impact on its context either financially, environmentally or socially. These projects will be the cornerstone of the design. There is no allocated site for this brief; however, the selected critique and site must meet following criteria: 

Look for architectural landmarks of any scale, it might be a project that impacted its city or a project that has global significance. 

The site will have some cultural heritage, or the country of choice might as well have a specific vernacular style of architecture that was shaped by its cultural traditions or responded to its climate. 

The site should be in the global South. 

RIBA
President’s Medal Nominations

Projects