BA/MA (Hons) Architecture Catalogue 2022/23

Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture

ESALA Graduate Show 2023

Lauriston Campus, Edinburgh College of Art

Photograph: Calum Rennie

Lara Acikgoz • Tom Ai • Karen Akiki

Danah Aljamid • Ksenia Arkhipov

Cleo Averof • Matthew Baker • Daisy Bond

Molly Bonner • Ciara Briody • Ross Brown

Rhona Brown • Veronica Bucad

Rime Byfanzi • Eve Cameron

Caroline Chan • Wenzheng Chen

Eric Chen • Adam Chen • Candice Chen

Yihui Chen • Kathy Choi • Bruce Chu

Beth Clothier • Ella Dai • Guy Di Rollo

Sharon Ding • Zsofia Droppa • Deniz Oroglu

Joyce Fan • Emily Fang • Haoning Feng

Alice Feng • Laiba Feroz • Tom Ferris

Lauren Fraser • Xander Froggatt

Maddy Gale • Ruohan Geng

Anna Gillibrand • Alister Glen • Pippa Glynn

Kirsty Green • Ellie Greenwood

Millie Hambleton-White • Willa Hodson

Ellie Hong • Anita Huang • Whitney Huang

Eleanor Hung • Sasha Larmak

Seonaid Jervis • Beini Jiang • Megan Jones

Lauren Jordaan • Eugene Kam

Anfisa Karneeva • Brian Kim

Andrew Kowalski • Isabella Laird

Rosa Launder • Zhiyu Li • Rachel Li

Zifei Li • Moby Lo • Chang Lou

Cecily Lu • Sumaita Mahnur • Oliwia Mames

Kathleen Mcbride • Mira Mekki

Chiara Mesquita • Dylan Milne • Sofia Moggi

Soraya Mohammad Asri • Alicja Mrowicka

Hazel Neill • Kinza Nithianandan

Maja Nowaczyk • Rianna Onzivu

Elliot Osmond • Cameron Paul

Karolina Pavlikova • Drew Pimm

Joshua Powell • Emanuel Pruteanu

Jack Purves • Charlotte Rathbone

Estée Raus • Kevin Ren • Robert Robertson

Luna Rojas • Alicja Sadowska

Roshni Shah • Ananya Sharma • Amy Song

Airam Soriano • Milenka Soskin

Holly Spragg • Harris Stewart

Charlene Sun • Issa Tambourgi

Nathan Tollan • Elli Trimlett

Aysel Naz Tunay • Lola Turner

Marika Urbanska • Arian Vakili

Allen Walker • Safiyah-Vega Wilson

Felix Wong • Millie Wood • Ella Woods

Sasha Worth • Ji Wu • Yuhang Xue

Ella Aisher • Abdulrahman AlSuraya

Serena Arya • Harry Baldwin • Evie Barter

Hannah Bendon • Rona Bisset

Finn Brown • Alex Calder • Gordon Chen

Qiuyi Chen • Malanie Chen • Adela Chen

Una Chen • Ydian Chen • Eva Cheng

Gary Chen • Aspen Cheung • Paco Chow

Louis Clarkson • Andreea Colbeanu

Saoirse Cotter • Zara Coulter

Douglas Crammond • Tom Crenian

Alice Cross • Hannah Dlagleish

Chris Davies • Sally Dawson • Ziheng Ding

Max Edwards • Heba Elayouty

Shah Jehan Faheem • Bella Fane

Anna Floto • Ena Gavranovic • Emily Geens

Luca Gjessing • Marcus Hall • Harith Hashim

Belinda Haynes • Chentowe He • Jing Hei

Itske Hooftman • Bronwen Horler • Una Hu

Wenjing Huang • Megan Hunter

Montaha Idris • Lewis Jefferson

Yiyuan Jiao • Callum Johnson • Anna Kerr

Thames Klinchan • Shu Kok

Wiktor Krzystolik • Justin Lai

James Langham • Arya Li • Rose Li

Ritvik Loganathan • Yuanxin Lu • Serene Lu

Shuduo Lu • Lucy Lucas • Emma MacDonald

Hannah Maes • Rae Marino

Alissa Martnelli • Sam McKeown

Shay Miller • Danish Mohammad Razwi

Isla Murphy • Phoebe Murray

Campbell Murray • Simon Mydliar

Jeevan Nair • Natalie Ng • Harriet Nixon

Oscar Nolan • Quinthia Nsema Bayekelua

Peculiar Ogunbayo • Oreofe Ogunkoya

Louise Paterson • Luke Pearce

Jenna Penman • Anastasia Redmond

Freddie Reid • Xiaoye Ren • Lucia Riege

Diana Saab • Farah Saiful Bahrin

Joanna Saldonido • Rosie Shackell

Lara Sturgeon • Xindi Su • Kunyi Sun

Charlene Sun • Mengyang Tang • Holly Taylor

Joshua Teh • Julia Twardzisz • Fergus Tyler

Ed Varlow • Phoebe Vendil • Yuxuan Wang

Junyi Wang • Yusen Wang • Leia Wilson

Joohee Won • Lucy Wright • Fanxuan Wu

Alice Xia • Yuxiao Xue • Tianming Yin

Yoyo Yu • Jessica Zhan • Nandy Zhang

Xu Zhang • Tom Zheng

Zimo Yang • Elaine Yang • Shiying Ye

Aarusha Zahia • Amber Zhang

Cindy Zhang • Yile Zhang

Sophie Zhang • Qingyang Zhou

Mingyu Zhou • Yunlong Zhu year 1 year 2

Khaira Abimbola • Delan Aribigbola

James Armstrong • Emma Astely Birtwistle

Ksenia Bobyleva • Abigail Bowens

Stephen Brown • Vivian Chen

Kaiwen Chen • Charlotte Cole

Simona D'Sa • Laura Dew

Oghenetega Ejovwo-Digba

Thomas everett • Sabrina Findlay

Carl Flohr • Connor Fyffe

Alicia Gerhardstein • Amy Graham

Antonia Graham • Emily Grills

Morgan Hadeed • Jingzhi He

Beatriz Herrera • Isla Hibberd

Jessica Hindle • Lucy Hobman

Heorgina Inchbald • Harvey James-Bull

Allegra Keys • Alexandre Langlois

Tanya Lee • Siying Li • Vasilisa Litvinenko

Christian Liu Chang • Jiayu Lu

Sofie McClure • Ronana McCormick

Rajni Nessa • Ellie Nicholls • Tom Peng

Karina Rac • Isabella Rice

Natalia Rutkowska

Camila Sanchez Rodriguez • Ellis Shiels

Audrey So • Amily Sprackling

Devon Tabata • Ruoxin tan • Kelly tanim

Grace Thornham • Bartu Tort • Reece Tsa

Tessa Tsui • Xiaojun Wang • Xiaowen Wang

Charlotte Wayment • Cameron Whitelaw

Robert Witchell • Harry Wood

Amber Woodward • Jade Wu • Yichen Xia

Elizabeth Xu • Daniel Yanez-Cunningham

Cassandra Yang • Jasmine Yang

Yulin Yang • Shuyan Zhang

Jiahui Zhao • Songzhi Zou •

BA Final Year

Hagar Badawy • Kevin Chen • Eurus Feng

Max Fu • Jonathon Green • Jena Hwang

Mingrui Jian • Michael Kan • Ece Kantemir

Jiayi Liu • Meihan Liu • Esther Park

Daniel Pratt • Alon Shahar

Eloise Zha • Kaiyin Zhao

Folahan Adelakun • Aditya Aggarwal

Aisha Akinola • Caitlin Allison

Tallulah Bannerman • Michael Becker

Orla Bell • Lucy Boyd • Charlotte Brooks

Yuchen Cai • Gianluca Cau Tait

Freya Charlton • Arada Chitmeeslip

Leo Chiu • Sara Cinca • Alexander Dalton

Molly Deazley • Mhaira Dickie • Eilidh Duffy

Vicki Dunnet • Samantha Elliot

Coraline Fang • Olivia Fauel • Terry Feng

Yeldar Gul • Melisa Hamzaoglu

Jemima Harrison • James Haynes

Sophie Ho • Vivi Hsia • Niall Jacob

Tahlor Jarrett • Matthew Johnson

Jaaziel Kajoba • Riad Khawam

Geon Yeong Kim • Athina Kotrozuo

Hoi Ching Lee • Bingzhi Li • Lina Li

Shan Liang • Ching-En Lin • Chengke Liu

Ruoming Liu • Runqian Lu • Fly Luo

Hannah MacAulay • Yasmine MacCallum

Sebastian MacChio • Antonios Mavrotas

Astrid Jade McIntyre • Yufei Min

Regina Minnakhmetova • Hoi Yan Ng

Caoilin O'Meara • Hannah Ord

Mina Pabuccuoglu • Shuyue Pan

Xinyi Peng • Eve Pennington • Ionna Peponi

Mikele Perez-Jamieson • Christopher Pirrie

Peter Richardson • Sa-Ang-Ong Rodloytuk

Louis Ross • Divya Shah • Bruce Shen

Tanya Snell • Mei Hang Sou

Tereza Staskova • Samuel Symes

Adrian Tai • Eleanor Trew

Chloe Wendy Tunnell

Thomas Van Der Wielen • Valerie Wan

Yidi Wang • Yunan Wang • Zhe Wang

Lewis Watson • Zhenyu Wei • Mhairi Welsh

Cosmo Wezenbeek • Eleanor Alice Wilkes

Fraser Duncan Winfield • Ivy Yan

Tubohao Yang • Hechen Yuan

year 3 year 4

Editor

Laura Harty

Catalogue Design

Calum Rennie

June 2023

ISBN 978-1-912669-53-0

RIBA Accreditation Exhibition 2022

Matthew Gallery, Minto House ESALA

Edinburgh College of Art

Photograph: Rachael Hallett-Scott

Programme Director

Laura Harty

Welcome to the fourth edition of our annual BA | MA (Hons) Architecture catalogue. This publication collates and curates the wide range of courses which comprise our programme delivery across 2022 - 2023. You may notice that the design of this year’s edition marks a definitive shift from the initial three volumes. We have taken this active decision to register and consolidate significant curricula developments across carbon, resources and society, which have reverberated through the programme in the last academic year, and to commit to these changes through two further issues of this catalogue. A refreshed attention to the tangible, the collective and the shared experience of school life animates these pages. We have favoured images which showcase the potential and possibility of studying together, celebrating the collegiate and the participatory within our programme. This work illustrates agile, adept and collaborative architectural contributions across a range of scales, media and formats. These efforts have been recognised by RIBA, which this year awarded the BA| MA (Hons) a third successive Sustainability Award and by its visiting board, who commended our culture of making, our community engagement and the ‘clear researchled architectural agenda which engages with contemporary critical dialogues’. In taking stock to record and disseminate this work, we also recognise the associated spaces of thought provided by the libraries, galleries, parks, palaces and people of this rich and varied city. You may applaud the energy, commitment and drive of the our graduating cohort 22/23, and we certainly will, returning to these pages often to celebrate their magnificent efforts and a year well spent. Congratulations to all!

Editor Laura Harty

Catalogue

Design

Calum Rennie

June 2023

ISBN 978-1-912669-53-0

architectural design elements

environmental practices

architectural history intro. to world arch.

architectural design assembly technology & environment principles

architectural history revivalism to modernism

architectural design in place

technology & environment building environment

architectural history urbanism & the city

architectural design any place

technology & environment building fabric

design thinking & digital crafting year 2 electives

1*1 1*2 1*3 1*4 1*5

architectural design elements

1*6

environmental practices

architectural history intro. to world arch.

architectural design assembly technology & environment principles

architectural history revivalism to modernism

Architectural Design: Assembly

Final Reviews, Matthew Gallery

Photograph: Michael Lewis

architectural design elements

Group 3 (class)Room

Figure ground studies

Course Organiser

Susana do Pombal Ferreira

In Architectural Design: Elements students are introduced to the foundational knowledge and skills appropriate to the practice of architectural design. Students are encouraged to actively engage with hand-drawing and physical model-making, while learning a few basic digital methods and technologies for the manipulation, articulation, and dissemination of the work. Throughout the course, students work on various design projects, supported by weekly tutorials, and supplemented by lectures, city walks and workshops. The course emphasises the notion of practice, with tutorial days turned into true laboratories for exploration where students from BA/MA Architecture programme as well as from the BEng/Meng Structural Engineering with Architecture programme work, learn and make together. During the first few weeks of the course, students embark on a series of short exploratory tasks to learn about scale, the basic architectural elements, and the making of space. The course starts with playful mapping activities where students start learning about the relative size of things, using their bodies as reference. The next project invites students to study space through successive investigations of four basic architectural elements: Ground , Wall , Opening and Roof . The final project of the course builds upon the previous projects to challenge students to develop an architectural programme conceptualised for a location in Edinburgh’s Old Town. In particular, students are invited to draw from their own experience of the pandemic to design a (class) Room based on the principles of the open-air schools movement from the last century.

Studio Tutors

Clive Albert

Graham Currie

Michael Davidson

Naomi De Bar

Jack Green

Cath Keay

Shoko Kijima

Joanne McClelland

Derek McDonald

Darren Park

Irem Serefoglu

Julie Wilson

Teaching Contributors

Hazel Mei

Melisa Miranda Correa

Pilar Perez Del Real

Charlott Rodgers

Theodore Shack

Norman Villeroux

Review Critics

Gary Cunningham

Chris Dobson

Calum Duncan

Akiko Kobayashi

Michael Lewis

Fiona McLachlan

Charlott Rodgers

Tolulope Onabolu

Guest Lecturers

Clive Albert

Naomi De Bar

Calum Duncan

Laura Harty

Ivan J. Marquez Munoz

Joanne McClelland

Derek McDonald

Grounding: body scale & body in space studies

Elements:

2

3

Elements: plan & section

Chiara Mesquita

Amber Zhang

model

Adam Cheng

Caroline Chan Elements: light study 5

Ciara Briody (class)Room: conglomerate drawing

6 Brian Kim (class)Room: sketch model

7 Milenka Soskin (class)Room: inhabiting spaces perspective studies

8

Ksenia Arkhipov, Wenzheng Chen, Laura Dahlen, Fiona Eades (class)Room: group conglomerate drawings

9 Karen Akiki (class)Room: sectional perspectives

environmental practices

Lisa Mackenzie, Hector Thompson Environmental Practices themes

Course Organiser

Lisa Mackenzie

Environmental Practices takes first year students of architecture and landscape architecture on an open learning journey to better understand how to initiate design thinking through critical site related investigations. The course structure, teaching material and themes have been brought into alignment to support students as they develop an awareness of their own creative agency in the context of the climate and biodiversity crisis. During the semester students respond to weekly themes of rock, water, sunlight and shadow, field-soil-site, vibrant matter and atmosphere and time to contemplate the natural world as a living entity that exchanges with the world around it (and with the students themselves) in infinite and often apparently undetectable ways. Environmental practices introduces a range of theories and exercises concerned with interpreting the environment as a dynamic context where material and sensory knowledge are valued, discussed and brought into making practices. The staff team bring a range of disciplinary knowledge to support students as they develop a unique and personal ecological sensibility in their own design practice. It is our collective hope that we foster a culture of understanding architecture as a discipline of the socio-environmental world with the capacity to imagine future scenarios that are attentive, supportive and responsive to our shared planetary resources. The course culminates in the curation of a portfolio of work where we ask students to contemplate and document their approaches and reflect on the kind of designers that they would like to be in their own design futures. During the course we ask the students to take their time and think carefully about the thematic topics we have introduced to them appreciating that their work may not always reach conclusions but somehow prize open essential questions about their own agencies in addressing the environmental crisis that we face together.

Studio Tutors

Susie Wilson

Book Artist, Printmaker

Neil Bancroft

Landscape Architect

Theo Shack Architect

Mike O’Dell Architect

Emma Henderson Architect

Yulia Kovonova

Visual Artist

Michael Davidson

Architect, Designer

Joanna Doherty Architect

David Lemm Designer

Cath Keay Artist

Rebecca Wober Architect

Miriam Hancill Artist Contributors

Charlott Rodgers

Camassia Bruce

Landscape Architect

Felicity Barlow Artist

4

1

Anna Gillibrand

Sun and shadow

2

Ellie Trimlett Water

3

Adam Chen Vibrant Matter

4

Anita Huang

Vibrant Matter

Students running water experiments with artist Felicity Bristow

6 Joyce Fan Field-soil-site

7 Zifei Li Water

8 Karen Akiki Sunlight and shadow

architectural history introduction to world architecture

Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire

Photograph: Alistair Fair

Course Organiser

Peter Clericuzio

Architectural History 1A introduces students to the study of the history of the built environment in a range of global contexts from ancient Mesopotamia to Europe in the 1750s. The course is deliberately broad in its chronological and geographical focus, and the range of building types considered. It aims to foster not only a core knowledge of, for example, ancient classicism, medieval Gothic, and the Renaissance, but also to introduce key themes in architectural history, such as the roles of designer and patron, questions of gender and colonialism, and the role of energy in shaping the built environment. The coursework and assessment introduce skills necessary for success at university level, encouraging an independent, reflective and analytical approach. The course is followed by Architectural History 1B: Revivalism to Modernism.

1 * 3

Lecturers

Alex Bremner

Kirsten Carter McKee

John Lowrey

Margaret Stewart

Senior Tutor

Anne Galastro

Tutors

Alastair Disley

Rory Lamb

Mohona Reza

Natcha Ruamsanitwong

Mahnaz Shah

Dimitrij Zadorin

architectural design assembly

Assembly Studio reviews

Course Organiser

Michael

Lewis

At a fundamental level, architecture is an assemblage – as a construction sequence of various complementary materials, as a negotiation of new and old, as a cultural product enmeshed with all the myriad dynamics of politics, gender, race, economics, and ecology, as a representational language that incorporates all forms of visual media, and as a pluralistic methodology that has continued to morph over centuries of practice. In Assembly, we have begun to unpack these questions through close observation, mapping, drawing, physical modelling and the development of deliberate architectural interventions. The course begins with an understanding that the world is a dynamic system whose health is dependent on reciprocity and sensitive calibration. This reality is echoed in how we thus think about architectural assemblage - that as critical designers, it is incumbent upon us to assemble strategies that respond with care to their social and political context, as well as the considered use of materials to create spaces that situate in their built and environmental context with intent and responsibility. In order to develop meaningful architecture, we must first understand the context it situates within, the criteria against which it will be judged, and calibrate the negotiation of intervention to existing condition. We have approached architectural assembly through an ecological lens in which students have been mapping and exploring ESALA’s campus on Chambers Street to understand how our existing buildings operate as a network of interconnected material components and symbiotic programmes. We have used this understanding to develop material and programmatic responses that enmesh themselves with the community and city that surround them, focusing on questions of adaptive reuse and the future of architectural education.

* 4

Studio Tutors

Clive Albert

Graham Currie

Michael Davidson

Naomi De Barr

Joanna Doherty

Angus Henderson

Emma Henderson

Shoko Kijima

David Lemm

Joanne McClelland

Derek McDonald

Darren Park

Julie Wilson

Review Critics

Jeanita Gambier

Tahlor Jarrett

Akiko Kobayashi

Estefanía Macchi

Kanto Maeda

Katie May Munro

Aythan Lewes

Caryl Steven

Felix Wilson

Sigi Wittle

Andrew Wyness

Guest Lecturers

Chalk Plaster

O’Donnell Brown

Archetype Method

GRAS

Kanto Maeda

technology & environment principles

Structures Workshop

Course Organiser

Pilar Perez Del Real

This course introduces students to critical structural, technological and environmental principles than underpin architectural design. It seeks to shape an understanding of how buildings need to work functionally to keep their occupants safe, sheltered and comfortable and how such considerations can produce deeper, more meaningful architecture. The course is constructed around three themes: Structures, Materials and Environment. The principles of sustainability is a key topic that runs through all three subjects areas. Participants learn how buildings can be interacting systems and that structural, material and environmental strategies are interlinked. The Structures theme explores how architectural structure not only provides stable and safe enclosures for us, but also how an understanding of structure is vital in the generation of architectural form. Students explore how architectural shape and form are achievable with different materials. They are then able to understand and predict the behaviours of key structural configurations. The Materials theme examines the materials used in architecture. Starting from what we can mine and harvest. Then the creation of buildings components is explored and how these can be assembled to make parts of buildings. The key principles and techniques in connecting and ordering parts of a building to make good architecture are considered in detail, with hands on tutorials involving real construction material samples. The Environment theme investigates the fundamentals of sustainable development and its relationship to architecture. It examines how, at a strategic level, architecture can respond proactively to sustainable agendas. Students learn about the principles of passive solar designs and applying a fabric first approach in order to make buildings comfortable whilst working with the external environment. The topic engages with energy conservation issues and carbon reduction strategies.

Tutors

Georgina Allison

Derek McDonald

Elaine Pieczonka

Jane Robertson

David Seel

Rebecca Wober

Sasha Worth Building envelope study

2 Anna Gillibrand, Sasha Worth Precedent structural analysis: Quartermile, Edinburgh

3 Adam Chen Live/Work Studio design

architectural history revivalism to modernism

Mortonhall Crematorium, Edinburgh Spence Glover Ferguson, 1967

Photograph: Alistair Fair

Course Organiser

Alistair Fair

This course is a compulsory part of the MA (Hons) Architecture programme, but also serves other degrees, including the MA (Hons) Architectural History and Heritage. In addition, it is a popular elective course taken by students from across ECA and the wider University.

Architectural History 1B explores how designers and patrons responded to the idea of modernity in a series of global contexts between c. 1750 and 2000. It begins with the stylistic revivals of the nineteenth century before turning to the advent of new materials and structural techniques. As the course moves into the twentieth century, the development of new architectural forms and approaches to space are discussed. The course includes focused discussion of the work of key designers such as Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto but also stresses the contribution of others to the built environment – from the first qualified women architects of the early twentieth century to the commercial house-builders who constructed suburbia. The course concludes with an investigation of the globalisation of modernist practice, and the reactions against Modernism of the late twentieth century. The coursework engages with the city of Edinburgh, which provides a rich series of examples for study.

As with Architectural History

1A, the course aims not only to provide a foundational knowledge of recent architectural history but also to encourage an independent, reflective approach which sets architecture in wider contexts. The course is followed in second year by Urbanism and the City: Past to Present.

Lecturers

Richard Anderson

Alex Bremner

Kirsten Carter McKee

Peter Clericuzio

Alistair Fair

John Lowrey

Angus Macdonald

Senior Tutor

Anne Galastro

Tutors

Alastair Disley

Rory Lamb

Scarlett Lee

Mohona Reza

Natcha Ruamsanitwong

Mahnaz Shah

Dimitrij Zadorin

2*1 2*2 2*3 2*4 2*5

architectural design in place technology & environment building environment

2*6

architectural history urbanism & the city

2*7

architectural design any place technology & environment building fabric design thinking & digital crafting year 2 electives

Architectural Design: Any Place

Open Studios, Minto House

Photograph: Calum Rennie

architectural design in place

Ed Varlow Studio work desk

Course Organiser

Rachael Hallett Scott

Architectural Design: In Place takes the concepts of site and situation as its focus. These core themes are supplemented by those of, public and private, place and identity. Woven through the semester there is also a keen interest in how we build in this time of Climate Emergency. The course aims to explore the interconnection of social, sustainable and spatial principles that underpin and inform the design of inclusive buildings and places. Collectively these threads of investigation inform a set of design exercises that expand on critical and self-reflexive dimensions of architectural design that were introduced in Architectural Design: Elements and Assembly. The course begins with research and analysis of precedent buildings at city, building and human scales. This is followed by a close examination of 3 local sites and their physical, social and environmental contexts. The findings from these pair and group exercises inform student’s individual designs for a hybrid work and community building. Each site includes elements of existing buildings and students are encouraged to critically reflect on how they work with this fabric and their choices of materials in light of the Climate Emergency. Each week learning is supported through a series of thematic lectures, briefings and studio teaching. In Place also addresses the use of digital media through ‘Recipes for Representation’ a series of lectures and workshops that investigate the use of digital drawing tools, alongside analogue skills, to explore the representation of architecture.

Studio Tutors

Georgina Allison

Mark Bingham

David Byrne

Mark Cousins

Paul East

Kieran Hawkins

Jamie Henry

Nikolia Kartalou

Fiona Lumsden

Andy Summers

Nicky Thomson

Rebecca Wober

Recipes for Representation Tutors

Angus Henderson

Theo Shack

Review Critics

Adam Burgess

Gary Cunningham

Laura Harty

Shirley Hottier

Akiko Kobayashi

Robin Livingstone

Kanto Maeda

Ana Miret Garcia

Fiona McLachlan

David Seel

Guest Lecturers

Thomas Bryans

Gunnar Groves Raines

Jamie Henry

Kanto Maeda

Sayan Skandarajah

Felix Wilson

Lucas Gjessing Site investigation 2 Student visit to Talbot Rice Gallery & In Place studio review 3 Harriet Nixon Site analysis 4 Joanna Saldonido Site analysis

5 Joohee Won, Bella Haynes Site model

+ Community Building:

Ng

+ Community Building:

Wenjing Huang, Jessica Zhan

+ Community Building:

technology & environment building environment

Merl Sun, Jessica Zhan

Säynätsalo Town Hall

Alvar Aalto, Finland

Passive heat gain designs in the Town Hall

Course Organiser

W. Victoria Lee

Building on first year courses Technology and Environment: Principles and Architectural Design: Assembly , TE2A: Building Environment further develops students’ understanding, analysis, and integration of environmental design in architecture. The course examines the roles of energy, light, heat, ventilation, and sound in building design. The course also introduces sustainable technologies, buildings performance assessments, building services and their implications for design. This course focuses on passive design strategies, but introduces mechanical (active) systems as a supplement. An emphasis is placed on the bioclimatic approach to architectural design, which advocates for designs that cater to the biology and psychology of humans whilst being responsive to the natural environment; with appropriate and thoughtful use of technology. The course covers a wide range of environmental design topics, including the following:

◊ Macro- and micro-climates

◊ Solar geometry, daylighting, and artificial lighting

◊ Passive heating and cooling strategies

◊ Wellbeing, comfort, and other occupant needs

◊ Building heat and energy balances

◊ Natural and mechanical ventilation systems

◊ Building services and water conservation

◊ Acoustic fundamentals

Victor Olgay

The four interlocking and interacting components of bioclimatic design from Design with Climate: bioclimatic approach to architectural regionalism

Tutors

Pilar Perez del Real

Elaine Pieczonka

David Seel

Environmental analysis and climate change adaptations of a design precedent

Säynätsalo Town Hall, Finland

Alvar Aalto

1

Merl Sun, Jessica Zhan

Passive heat gain designs in the Town Hall: thermal zoing in plan and section

2

Solar analysis of the Town Hall

comfort

Solar Analysis (cont.)

f.g.31 Library's orientation to the sunpath

f.g.32 Shadow mask of shading from pine

There is no available drawings for the wall and roof assembly of materials. For the walls, the library clearly uses a brick cladding, a secondary the interior. The bricks are recycled old bricks that Aalto repurposed. creates a special, rippling effect as light shines on the walls, and matches a big part of the town's identity. The timbers used in Aalto's design comes the carbon footprint of transporting materials to site and further emphasises Aalto uses a metal exterior cladding with timber structure and plaster roof design.

Left - f.g.37: Sun puddles in section from the southeast September 19th

21st

To fill in the gap for wall and roof makeup, two modern buildings referenced to find the most likely assembly. Gallery Building in London comparable assembly for the walls,18 and Community Centre in Reinossa Inferences are also made based on our existing knowledge about material roof based on drawings.

f.g.31 Library's orientation to the sunpath f.g.32 Shadow mask

- f.g.37: Sun puddles in section from the southeast facade on July 21st and March/

f.g.33 Section view of pine trees' relationship to the library and shadow obstruction

shadow mask overlay of f.g.40: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of underheated period

diagrams are made for each window on July 21st and March/September 19th (f.g.37 & 38). Based on average is the only month with potential overheating problems, but luckily the sun puddle on the 21st is only from the northeast, and is small around solar noon from the southeast. Aalto's elevated windowsill direct gain into the room. The rest of the year suffer from potential underheating, but from September to negative on top of the cold temperature (will be elaborated in Heat Balance). The sun-puddle on March/ solar noon is much larger compared to July, almost reaching the back of the room, but there will be no the northeast because solar azimuth decreases rapidly between summer and winter solstice. Figures 39, complete shadow mask overlayed with overheated and underheated periods of the library. Looking at there is only a shading from 5-7am and 2:30-4pm from the vertical frames for the overheated month shading from the pine forest at all. However, there is a lot of shading in the underheated periods, specifically

outdoor

Left September Top September

f.g.43 Wall assembly

f.g.39: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of overheated period f.g.40: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of underheated period f.g.41: underheated

f.g.32 Shadow mask of shading from pine tree

f.g.39: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of overheated period f.g.40: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of underheated period

f.g.33 Section view of pine trees' relationship to the library and shadow obstruction

f.g.39: SE glazing shadow mask overlay of overheated period

in the coldest months of October to February from the pine forest. This means that the current shadings (though the forest isn't intentionally designed) does the opposite of what is good for passive solar gain - little shading in overheated periods and much shading in underheated periods. It can be expected that mechanical heating and cooling load will be huge for the library.

Sun puddle diagrams are made for each window on July 21st and March/September daily temperature, July is the only month with potential overheating problems, but luckily large in the morning from the northeast, and is small around solar noon from the southeast. controls much of the direct gain into the room. The rest of the year suffer from potential March is when ∆S is negative on top of the cold temperature (will be elaborated in Heat September 19th at solar noon is much larger compared to July, almost reaching the back direct sunlight from the northeast because solar azimuth decreases rapidly between summer 40, and 41 shows the complete shadow mask overlayed with overheated and underheated the southeast glazing, there is only a shading from 5-7am and 2:30-4pm from the vertical of July, with no shading from the pine forest at all. However, there is a lot of shading in

18. Caruso St John Architects. (2017). Gallery Building in London. Detail, 2017(1/2), 19. RAW. (2018). Community Centre in Reinosa. Detail, 2018(7/8), 66-71.

f.g.33 Section view of pine trees' relationship to the library and shadow obstruction

f.g.33 Section view of pine trees' relationship to the library and shadow obstruction

Even though brick is used to clad the entire building, its does not in fact act as a thermal mass for the library. As shown in Figure 42, the floor is lined with wooden panels, and the wall and ceiling are lined with plaster. Bricks are outside the thermal envelope of the building, thus does not help store heat for the room. There are no other thermal masses in the library.

Even though brick is used to clad the entire building, its does not in fact act as a thermal mass for the library. As shown in Figure 42, the floor is lined with wooden panels, and the wall and ceiling are lined with plaster. Bricks are outside the thermal envelope of the building, thus does not help

of vertical

forest 21st Left

f.g.42 Interior of the library (img.com)

Part A: Environmental Analysis in Current Climate - Room Analysis

Top - f.g.38: Sun puddles in section from the northeast facade on July 21st and March/ September 19th

Sun puddle diagrams are made for each window on July 21st and March/September 19th (f.g.37 & 38). Based on average daily temperature, July is the only month with potential overheating problems, but luckily the sun puddle on the 21st is only large in the morning from the northeast, and is small around solar noon from the southeast. Aalto's elevated windowsill controls much of the direct gain into the room. The rest of the year suffer from potential underheating, but from September to March is when ∆S is negative on top of the cold temperature (will be elaborated in Heat Balance). The sun-puddle on March/ September 19th at solar noon is much larger compared to July, almost reaching the back of the room, but there will be no direct sunlight from the northeast because solar azimuth decreases rapidly between summer and winter solstice. Figures 39, 40, and 41 shows the complete shadow mask overlayed with overheated and underheated periods of the library. Looking at the southeast glazing, there is only a shading from 5-7am and 2:30-4pm from the vertical frames for the overheated month of July, with no shading from the pine forest at all. However, there is a lot of shading in the underheated periods, specifically

f.g.41: NE glazing shadow mask overlay underheated period

Thermal Mass

21st Part A: Environmental

Top - f.g.38: Sun puddles in section from the northeast facade on July 21st and March/ September 19th

(cont.)

In In Out Out

is used to clad the entire building, its does not in fact for the library. As shown in Figure 42, the floor is panels, and the wall and ceiling are lined with plaster. thermal envelope of the building, thus does not help room. There are no other thermal masses in the library. f.g.42 Interior of the library (img.com)

Wall

Roof

f.g.45 (Right) Dimensions for estimating percwntage of wooden frame in glazing

21st

Top - f.g.38: Sun puddles in section from the northeast September 19th

Thermal Mass

architectural history urbanism & the city

A Master Plan for London

Arthur Korn and Felix Samuely in The Architectural Review 91, 1942

Discussed by Christabel Walker

Course Organiser

John Lowrey

This undergraduate course investigates the global history of city design and urbanism from ancient times to the contemporary period. Through an interdisciplinary course bibliography and readings in key historical texts on urbanism, students will grasp the major historical trends and philosophies of urban emergence and development. Tutorials centred on Edinburgh site visits and training in research and writing will prepare students to perform first-hand research and compose original scholarship on the built environment.

The goal of this course is to give students a critical acumen for evaluating the architectural transformation of the urban realm across disparate cultures and far-flung geographies over time, from Antiquity to the present day.

Tutors

Nikolia Kartalou

George Jepson

Robbie MacFarlane

Mahnaz Shah

architectural design any place

Course Organiser

Ana Miret García

Any Place is thematically focused on circumstances and conditions beyond the local. It moves away from preconceived local knowledge to consider issues of unfamiliarity within a foreign context. This thematic focus is supplemented by a broader interest in the city as a condition for architecture. Students investigate a range of everyday practices that constitute the experience of the contemporary city. This year Any Place deals with the topic of dwelling in the context of the city of Paris, France. Working through five studio exercises and complemented with weekly seminars and representation workshops, students explore programmatic, spatial and tectonic aspects of architecture, including their integration within broader socio-cultural contexts and environmental dynamics. During the first part of the semester, students explore -through film- specific ways of living in the city of Paris. Then, they develop a structured analysis of selected precedents of residential buildings. The combination of the previous material provides the basis for initial spatial strategies around the design of an apartment for a specific lifestyle.

After a site visit to Paris, the process converged in the design of a residential building for multiple occupants located on a selected site in the areas of Belleville and La Chapelle. The process is informed by a critical design methodology based on iteration, aimed to both identify and implement architectural strategies by working through a wide range of media including physical and digital architectural drawings, models and video making.

Studio Tutors

Georgina Allison

Mark Bingham

David Byrne

Mark Cousins

Nikolia Kartalou

Michael Lewis

Fiona Lumsden

Andy Summers

Rebecca Wober

Thomas Woodcock

Support Tutor

Jack Green

Sustainability Tutor

David Seel

Representation Tutors

Rosie Black

Angus Henderson

Theo Shack

Review Critics

Sam Boyle

Shirley Hottier

Alex Liddell

Thomas Longley

Charlie Porter

Nicky Thomson

Student Critics

James Armstrong

Kaiwen Chen

Alicia Gerhardstein

Ralf Merten

Camila Sanchez R.

Alon Shahar

Guest Lecturers

Peter Clericuzio

John Lowrey

Shirley Hottier

Harriet Nixon

Weissenhof Building, Mies Van Der Rohe: precedent study diagrams

2

James Langham

Collage plan of Paris

3

Joanna Saldonido

Amelie’s family home: floor plan

4

Natalie Ng

Nexus World Housing, OMA: precedent study axonometric

5

Lucas Gjessing

Small apartment inhabitation: 1:2 model

Natalie Ng Customised Housing in Belleville, Paris: axonometric

7 Oscar Nolan The Playground Apartments: axonometric

8 Harriet Nixon Room Categories: 1:200 model Artists Workshops & Housing in Belleville, Paris: detailed section

Ed Varlow Residential Building in Belleville, Paris: section 10

Rona Bisset Collective 24 Ateliers d’Artistes de Belleville, Paris: section 11, 12

Douglas Crammond Unité housing in Belleville, Paris: 1:200 & 1:50 models

field trip paris

17–19.02.2023

During the trip to Paris, we visited the three sites preselected for residential design in the areas of Belleville and La Chapelle, guided by Luis Burriel Bielza, associate professor at ENSA Paris- Belleville. Each student chose their preferred site and, in groups, produced a complete site survey. Students also visited some of the most relevant Le Corbusier buildings of Maison La Roche, Studio Molitor, Suisse Pavillon, and Maison du Bresil. The visits to Pavillon de l’Arsenal and the Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine provided a general overview of the context of housing in Paris.

“Wandering through the streets of Paris a beige landscape with pops of colourful doors, bins, graffiti and people appear. The streetscape is rather chaotic, no one style carried on from one building to its neighbour, but every building appears to be carefully created and true to itself.”

“This is my first time visiting Paris and my first time studying facade design. The richness of materials and geometric beauty is completely different from Edinburgh, and it is something I have never experienced before in China.”

“During the site visit, particular focus was given to the surrounding urban grain in an attempt to better understand the materiality and characteristics of the local area. Predominantly, buildings were coated in smooth white plaster, though older examples additionally expressed the natural finish of stone. More modern examples began to use timber cladding and window frames, introducing a new, more contemporary materiality. Whilst the majority of new constructions used flat or walkable roofs, the angled attic storeys used a combination of zinc cladding and slate tiles, though both express a similar colour.”

“We flew out to Paris for the weekend and visited multiple museums and key architectural buildings. This trip was really valuable for my learning and widened my knowledge of architecture.”

Wenjing Huang

Rona Bisset

Lucas Gjessing

Douglas Crammond

technology & environment building fabric

Site visit to the Potterrow Project March 2023

Photograph: Dimitris Theodossopoulos

2 * 5

Course Organiser

Dimitris Theodossopoulos

The course explores how building structures (timber, steel, concrete, masonry) are shaped around their response to loads and the need for environmental comfort and protection. The learning experience is formed by observation of good practice and assessment of performance through numerical study of a small structure, and the design of a building envelope and roof informed by their assembly strategy and tectonic expression. The course constantly aims to empower student participation and inverting the classroom - pre-recorded lectures inform the work of the class into smaller discussion groups. This learning environment moves around key concepts, good practice or case studies, allowing the students to explore aspects like structural loads; manufacturing and properties of materials; shaping frames around load-paths, bending moments and stiffness; assembly and performance of building envelopes etc. The students respond regularly to the taught material through illustrated essays that nourished observation and reflection skills, empowered by site visits (Potterrow, the Mont at the old Sick Children Hospital, Norton Living) or records from earlier ones (Haymarket, St James, CALA homes).

Tutors

Jane Robertson

Georgina Allison

Glo Lo

Guest Lecturers

Allan Haines

EDICCT

Ana Bonet-Miro ESALA

Joanna Saldonido, Douglas Crammond, Ed Varlow, Harriet Nixon

Project 1: Design around Structural Perfromance

Precise sizing and detailing of light timber shelters in St Marks Park, Edinburgh to protect users from weather but also enhance their appreciation of the park by giving a structure and framing routes and visuals. A lean, closely spaced frame was for example a design that enabled a flexible, multipurpose structure that was easy to reconfigure by the users by sliding standardised light timber panels. The solution was developed by analysing and assimilating similar pavilions of varying transparency and prominence of timber as structure. The resulting flexible structure was then detailed with robust and durable connections. Together with extensive calculations for the sizing of the timber beams and columns, the Embodied Carbon Content was evaluated alongside a steel frame alternative, making us realise the professional targets and the surprising incidence of steel connections.

Project 2: Design around Building Envelope

Explorartion of a building’s envelope as a means to support the choice of material systems required in design projects, by structuring the way precedents are studied and developing strategies around a specific aspect of performance or communication. This happened by exploring a detailed strategy of a material system to inform the design resolution and materiality in the Design: Any Place project, using any of their 3 sites in urban Paris. A 1/100 scale was recommended for a design inquiry that can be effectively informed by technical resolution. Tectonic and communication themes explored were solid/ light; permanent/ temporary; sustainability; process and hierarchy; permeability of the natural environment, global vs local. Often this distilled to particular material systems like CLT or the grading of concrete’s durability using GFRC (glass-fibre RC).

James Langham, Sam Mckeown, Jenna Penman, Isla Murphy

design thinking & digital crafting

Whole Student Group

Protostructure Installation

Minto House

Course Organiser

Yorgos Berdos

This course represents an introduction to computational design, with a focus on generative design tools and digital fabrication across scales. The students explore how these fields interact and complement each other. The technological possibilities to transform the digital into the physical by a variety of means is also explored. The focus is set on parametric and algorithmic design approaches and the related digital crafting techniques. The participants get introduced to the digital work flow, managing data sets related to design and fabrication. The course engages with digital computation and digital fabrication techniques and strategies on two levels of discourse: a theoretical and an applied one. The methodology of the digital work flow is introduced. Furthermore, the participants are educated in developing a critical and analytical approach to computational design and digital fabrication by getting introduced to basic strategies in terms of digital computation and fabrication and offering an insight to the current theoretical debate regarding the ‘Digital Turn’ in architecture. The first four weeks comprise an introduction to the theoretical approaches behind the Digital Turn. The participants complete individual analysis of a given case studies, critically reflecting on particular design and compositional aspects and present the reached conclusions. In parallel to this stage the students are offered a set of tutorial hours for the dedicated software packages, and an introduction to a diverse range of digital fabrication techniques. The participants are required to apply the newly gained knowledge in terms of form generation and to make extensive use of the designated online and offline learning recourses throughout the semester. They are also expected to read key literature and to maintain their reading throughout the study period.

During the final weeks of the semester, the students work collaboratively to conceptualise, design, produce detailed drawings, fabricate, and install a protostructure within a given budget, real life constraints and minimizing its material footprint. The protostructure is then installed prominently within the school of architecture, celebrating all the learning and exploration achieved during the semester.

Teaching Assistants

Yeldar Gül

Athina Kotrozou

Antonis Mavrotas

Contributors

Cesar Cheng

Digital Bluefoam

Giovanni Panico

Ice Chitmeesilp

ESALA Y4 student

Fab Pub, Mamou Mani

James Langham Exquisite Tower: concept sketches

2 Hannah Bendon, Shu Kok, Diana Saab, Joshua Teh Abstracting the patterns

3

Adela Chen, Quiyi Chen, Tom Zheng, Mingyu Zhou Abstracting the patterns

4 Lucas Gjessing Abstracting the patterns

Whole Student Group

Protostructure: fabrication & installation

6 Adela Chen, Quiyi Chen, Tom Zheng, Mingyu Zhou

Exquisite Tower: digital renderings

7

Whole Student Group

Exquisite Tower

year 2 electives

Jane Hyslop Selected Works, 2014

Sample images from across elective courses

Spanning sites across the city, and populating some of the best loved quarters and buildings of the capital, the University of Edinburgh hosts a wide range of departments, specialisms and specialists. Within the BA | MA Architecture Programme, we invite students to explore the possibilities hidden behind the doors and minds of this rich learning environment, exploring beyond the discipline into diverse fields of enquiry. All students progressing to Year 2 require to take an elective course in Semester 2. This can be any level 8 elective from any Course or College across the university which is open to incoming students. The breath and scope of this selection may seem overwhelming, and as such we provide a useful handout well in advance of the selection period to assist with narrowing the extent of the search. We ask that students take seriously this moment to expand and tune their learning experience, reflecting on evidence from previous academic cycles to consider how and why they have chosen this degree pathway, and what, where and how they may wish to deploy these skills in future. A careful choice of elective might steer, supplement or challenge existing learning, so thinking carefully about how such a choice might consolidate foundations for future learning is vital, considering what it mean and how one might use it in the future.

www.drps.ed.ac.uk/23-24/dpt/drpsindex.htm

Sample Electives

Africa in the Contemporary World Architectural Acoustics

& Spatial Sound

Architectural History

& Heritage in Practice

Body As Artistic Material

Calculus and its Applications

Composing for Voices & Instruments

Contemporary Cinema

Creative Musicianship

Creative Social Work & the Arts

Design and Society

Engineering Design

Fashion Design

Introduction to Queer Studies

Jewellery and Silversmithing

Landscape Architecture Theory

French, German, Italian, Spanish Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Gaelic Medical Biology 1

Modernism and After

Oceanography

Physical Geography

Planning for a start-up

Psychology of Music

Science, Nature & Environment

Scottish Studies: Creating Scotland

Sound Recording

South Asia in the World Sustainability, Society & Environment

The Business of Edinburgh

Visual Narratives in Design & Screen Cultures

3*1 3*2

architectural design explorations

3*3 3*4 3*5

architectural theory

3*6

architectural practice working learning

architectural practice reflection

practice experience

professional studies

Architectural Design: Explorations

The Empty Space

Exhibition for Hidden Door 2023

Photograph: Iain Robinson

architectural design explorations

Audrey So, Shuyan Zhang, Xiaowen Wang Folded Tectonics

Course Organiser

Simone Ferracina

Explorations extends Stage 2 level architectural design and communication skills by foregrounding experimentation. The course focuses on developing familiarity with a range of approaches to architectural design research, and with the relevant protocols and techniques. Students are asked to undertake a rigorous and creative exploration that investigates specific design themes based on the identification of key problems, opportunities, sources, methodologies and strategies. Seeking a more nuanced understanding of the design process, the course turns the studio into a laboratory for creative exploration, and a site for experimentation and discovery—not only for finding answers and solutions, but for designing and pursuing questions. The course is offered in a number of parallel design studios that sustain the overarching pedagogical aims while investigating a broad spectrum of distinctive subthemes, preoccupations and methods. During the 2022-2023 academic year, units explored a range of different topics: Unit 1 investigated emptiness and sound in relation to the vacant Scottish Widows HQ building in Edinburgh; Unit 2 interrogated the reactivation and reuse of discarded and de-valued objects, prototyping new materials and assemblies and developing 1:1 interventions for social enterprises in Granton; Unit 3 developed competition proposals as a way to reclaim architectural practice as a fundamental mode of operation for architects; Unit 4 explored the notion of trust in the context of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies; Unit 5 considered existing buildings and how to retrofit them to increase their performance today and in the future; Unit 6 investigated the hedgerow as a lens through which to develop architectural projects that are sensitive to questions about climate change and the loss of biodiversity.

unit 1 the empty space

1 Emily Grills, Isla Hibberd, Alon Shahar A Theatre of Human Movement

2 Charlotte Cole, Georgie Inchbald, Devon Tabata An Exercise in Gloam: new rhythms of refuge

Studio Leaders

Suzanne Ewing, Andrew Brooks

When confronted with an empty building, architects are often tasked with filling it, usually driven by a programme for designated use. The unit asked: what if we explored emptiness, unused or neglected parts of the city’s built fabric, as bare stages, already latent with crossings of light, sound, particulate matter, temperature, ecologies, traces of past events and occupation, clues as to forms or manners of how life is lived? This unit’s focus was on site-specific techniques and time-based media that, through attentive collection, re-siting and translation, bore witness to rhythms, conditions or events that became the composite armature for further design direction.

Concerned with architecture and experience, temporal aspects of architectural design, sound and space, and architectural field/work techniques, the unit is particularly interested in exploring sound and the sonic imagination in relation to architecture. We draw from sound artists who explore the inherent spatiality of sound, which emphasises a bearing witness within an event rather than reading from a distance visually.

A further iteration of work from the unit is installed in the Scottish Widows building in June 2023 as part of the 2023 Hidden Door Festival.

hiddendoorarts.org/event/ the-empty-space-esala-exhibition

3

Georgie Thornham, Amber Woodward Is a Space defined by a line?

Contributors

William Mann

Witherford Watson Mann

Kanto Maeda

Guy Morgan

Review Critics

Nikolia Kartalou

Eirini Makarouni

Maria Mitsoula

unit 2 radical harvest

1 Laura Dew, Thomas Everett, Issy Rice

Stereotomic: Constructing with History

2

Tega Digba, Rajni Nessa, Tessa Tsui Reclaimed Tyre-Forms

3

Audrey So, Shuyan Zhang, Xiaowen Wang

Folded Tectonics

4 Abi Bowens, Stephen Brown, Songzhi Zou

Urban Playscape

Studio Leaders

Simone Ferracina, Asad Khan

Unit 2 proposed a model of architectural education that both foregrounded the climate emergency—and the urgent need to develop low-carbon protocols for design—and actively engaged with local communities and stakeholders, understanding the two—carbon and society—as facets of the same problem.

On one side, students harvested and diverted low-value, discarded, second-hand, or deconstructed materials and building components, prototyping workflows and tectonic assemblies for reusing and repurposing them, and returning them to ecologies of use and value. On the other, they worked with stakeholders and social enterprises in Granton (Edinburgh Palette, Plan A, JK Consulting, the Granton Garden Bakery, Soul Water Sauna) to deliver live-build projects that are thoughtful, collaborative, and guided by the community’s needs and aspirations.

The focus of the unit was therefore not on the conception of a project alone, but on the different phases of its construction: from the harvesting of materials to the invention of building recipes; from site preparation, and the coordination with local enterprises, to its actual construction along the Granton waterfront.

5

Emma Astley-Birtwistle, Emily Sprackling, Simona D’Sa Tectonic Recombinations

Contributors

Minto House Workshop

Akiko Kobayashi

Marcelo Dias

EALA Impacts

Edinburgh Palette

JK Consulting

Granton Community Gardeners

Soul Water Sauna

Move On Wood

Granton Castle Walled Garden

Edinburgh Science

Andrew Cardwell

Review Critics

Moa Carlsson

Akiko Kobayashi

Sonakshi Pandit

unit 3 the competition studio

Nominations & Awards

Gaudi La Coma Artists’ Residences Competition

Kevin Chen, Michael Kan, Kelly Tanim Buildner Sustainability Award

Leon Ding, Jiayu Lu, Cassandra Yang Shortlisted Project

Delan Aribigbola, Sabrina Findlay, Cristian Liu Chang Shortlisted Project

Allegra Keys, Ellis Shiels, Bartu Tort Shortlisted Project

Studio Leaders

Ana Miret Garcia, Jack Green

Within this unit, students take part in two International Architectural Ideas Competitions. This offers students a platform to immerse in pressing international debates beyond academia. We aim at developing shared strategies across two distinct foreign contexts. The first competition seeks to identify methods to redefine and environmentally protect the urbanrural diffuse border of the Eastern Mountains of Bogotá, Colombia, in a context of overpopulation and intense human activity. The second competition seeks to tackle the phenomenon of rural depopulation by developing a sustainable artists’ residence and educational complex that celebrates Gaudi’s intellectual heritage in a small village of Huesca, Spain. The ethos of the unit, ‘learning from the Global South’, demonstrates that the methods developed for the first competition in Colombia can be successfully redeployed to inform the second competition in Spain, ultimately giving rise to a “body of work” that integrates multiple design arguments and formats into an intellectually consistent whole.

Conversation across two projects

1

Leon Ding, Jiayu Lu, Cassandra Yang

Allegra Keys, Ellis Shiels, Bartu Tort

Public Use Alternatives in the Easter Mountains of Bogotá Competition

2

Kevin Chen, Michael Kan, Tanya Lee, Esther Park, Kelly Tanim, Jade Wu

Humedal colectivo

3

Delan Aribigbola, Sabrina Findlay, Allegra Keys, Cristian Liu Chang, Ellis Shiels, Bartu Tort Bicilínea

Gaudi La Coma Artists’ Residences Competition

4

Kevin Chen, Michael Kan, Kelly Tanim Canopy

5

T anya Lee, Esther Park, Jade Wu

Dispersing seeds

6

Allegra Keys, Ellis Shiels, Bartu Tort Lines in the Landscape

7

Delan Aribigbola, Sabrina Findlay, Cristian Liu Chang Plataforma

Contributors

Helena Rivera

Review Critics

Moa Carlsson

Iván Márquez Muñoz

Ralf Merten Modolell

Laura Miani

unit 4 cryptoarchitecture building on trust

1

Meihan Liu, Jiayi Liu,Eloise Zha

LWAL

2

Jingzhi He, Ruoxin Tan, Jiahui Zhao Ghost Market

3

Ksenia Bobyleva, Kaiwen Chen, Ece Kantemir Porta

Studio Leaders

Yorgos Berdos, Andy Summers

Blockchain and smart contract applications are drawing a lot of attention, with an accelerating pace and promise to change the way we exchange, store information and trust each other. One of their main features is that they move the crowd from being the source of supply to being the intermediary who runs and owns the market itself. Despite their recent popularity, the possible spatial expressions of these relatively new technologies remains widely unexplored. But how can these technologies be viewed in an architectural or even spatial and physical context? Unit 4 explored ways in which blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in general may impact the ways we produce, reproduce, and think about architectural design across different scales.

Contributors

Julia Baeck

Sasha Belitskaja

Theo Dounas

Alexander Grasser

Wang Hongyang

unit 5 metamorphosis

1

Jessica Hindle, Lucy Hobman, Sofie McClure

The Biscuit Factory

2

Beatriz Herrera, Natalia Rutkovska, Harry Wood Edinburgh College of Art Architecture Building

3

James Armstrong

33–49 Giles Street

4

James Armstrong, Daniel Pratt, Cameron Whitelaw 33–49 Giles Street

Studio Leaders

Pilar Perez del Real, Georgina Allison

Unit 5 aimed to help students understand the importance of transforming and reusing the existing built environment to adapt it to current standards and new functions while dramatically reducing the environmental footprint of older, energy-inefficient buildings. To support the path to meeting net-zero carbon targets, we imagined new possibilities and explored approaches for the reactivation of different buildings in order to extend their life and upgrade their performance. If we live in a world with finite resources, how can we create a future that is restorative and regenerative? In this unit, we explored three interlinked strategies: retrofit (to minimize the impact of the construction industry, and to promote the adaptive reuse of buildings); adaption (also considering climate change and the accompanying increase in frequency of so-called ‘exceptional climatic events’); and reuse (we adopted circular-economy principles to decouple construction activity from the consumption of resources).

Contributors

Calum Duncan

Review Critics

David Byrne

Alex Liddell

David Seel

unit 6 lines in the landscape hedgerow

habitats

1 Freya Wang, Yulin Yang, Dorothy Zhao Foraging School

2

Reece Tsa, Alicia Gerhardstein, Tom Peng Mushroom Farm

3 Elizabeth Xu, Harvey James-Bull, Robbie Witchell Culross Community Preservation

4 Jasmine Yang, Eurus Feng, Jena Hwang Pickling Production

Studio Leaders

Andrea Faed, Thomas Woodcock

Through encouraging biodiversity – a variety of plant and animal life – Unit 6 explored, at the micro-scale, hedgerows, lines in the landscape, typically rich in biodiversity, and looked at what habitats were created from the spaces we leave behind.

Hedgerows accommodate shelter, perches, homes, and provide food sources. They provide a vantage point for birds, navigation beacons to bats, sunlight protection to plants, cover for mammals, footholds for introduced vegetation. They also act as habitat corridors, helping animals to travel through open farmland while staying under cover. They vary in structure and thickness, sometimes planted in two rows with a path in the centre. In Dorset they can be up to 4m thick and in Devon, hedgerows can include turf held up off the ground in hessian sacks. Hedgerows also create wind shadows - they slow the wind down for a distance five times the height of the hedge.

Variations in hedgerows’ physical make-up was researched and surveyed across territories and recorded in drawings and models. In the essence of the hedgerow, a Community Food Store was designed.

Contributors

Ted Swift

Maich Swift Architects

Margaret Stewart

Review Critics

Andrew Brooks

Kate Carter

Suzanne Ewing

Rachael Hallett Scott

architectural theory

Disembodied Architecture

Emma Astley Birtwistle Week 4 Journal Entry

Over 15% of the world’s population live with various degrees of disabilities, struggling to live in the hostile and exclusive environment that our built fabric presents.1 This journal investigates the innate problem integrated in both our architectural past and present, presenting a new motive which challenges ‘ableism,’ and what theorist Sara Hendren terms ‘normalcy,’ calling for a new directive centred towards inclusive design. Throughout history, space has been characterised by dominant values of a standardised conventional body type. As explained by theorist Robert McAnulty, in both classical art and architectural aesthetics, the unified body of the Vitruvian man became an appropriated model, so buildings could replicate harmony and order. 2 However, this only extended an estrangement of disabled bodies to the built environment. First hand, I have witnessed the struggle exclusive design can cause. My grandfather was wheel bound for 15 years of his life, struggling to keep up with the standardised ergonomic living of his Edwardian house. Subsequent elements of the property were changed and retrofitted, from the installation of a lift to handrails and temporary ramps. Nevertheless, if the buildings design had simply addressed the potential needs of all occupants, his daily struggle would have been significantly reduced. Undoubtedly, the profession must clearly undergo a systematic critique of ideals held by architectural theories and practices, sensitising architects to reconnect with physical and social concerns.

Furthermore, this subjugating architectural style can further be traced to the theory supporting modernist architect Le Corbusier. His conception of space was built on a narrative of the ‘Modular man’ and principles which generalised bodily forms.3 Although, on analysis, despite marginalising minority groups within his standardisation, Corbusier does address the average capabilities of our population. After all, without set architectural guidance, do the possibilities of design not remain limitless? Nonetheless, architect Rem Koolhaas revolutionises Corbusier’s exclusive and oppressive architectural perspective in the construction of Maison de Bordeaux, France (1998). Designed for a client confined to a wheelchair, the houses’ innovative design creates a spatial structure allowing for a multiplicity of choices for pedestrian movement, with a central lift connecting three-floors.4 Thus, with Koolhaas establishing a greater programmatic dynamism, design becomes emancipating, as presented in Jos Boy’s ‘Disordinary Architecture Project,’ commencing a cultural shift.5

Architecture of Disabilities calls for radical reorientation. A demystification of inherent assumptions of ‘normalcy’ which underpin recent contemporary architectural thought, to situate experiences of impairment as a new foundation for the built environment. Fundamentally, with our countries ageing population of rapidly changing needs and desire, our future relies on inclusive design, embodying new theories and forms to incite a liberation from the societal marginalisation of the disabled.

Course Organiser

Moa Carlsson

This course explores the relationship between theory and architecture. Exploring various forms of architectural theory—such as essays, lectures, books, case studies, films and other media—students developed skills to read, reflect upon, critique and discuss architectural theory, and means to apply theoretical knowledge to real world situations. This involved close reading of texts from within and outside of the discipline of architecture. We also analysed a range of case studies to better understand how theory can challenge assumptions and offer new ways of thinking about key problems. Through reading, writing and group discussions, we explored different ways of thinking about architecture in a range of geographic, social, political, historical and material contexts.

The eleven weekly modules involved thematic explorations of architectural discourse and practice, and sample different strands of architectural and critical theory, including theories of the environment, critical disability theory, modernism, postmodernism, new materialism, decoloniality, critical race theory, information theory and more. We made a class visit to the Pianodome in Leith, and had a private screening of the documentary ‘Scotland, Slavery & Statues’ (BBC/Urquhart Media 2020).

Journal Entry

References

1 Sara Hendren

What Can a Body Do?

How We Meet the Built World

2 Robert McAnulty

“Body troubles,” in Strategies in Architectural Thinking

3 Le Corbusier

Modular I and II

4 Kim Dovey, Scott Dickson

Architecture and Freedom?

Programmatic Innovation in the Work of Koolhaas/OMA

5 Jos Boys

The Disordinary Architecture Project: A Handy Guide for Doing Disability

Differently in Architecture and Urban Design

Tutors

Mark Hilley

Nikolia Kartalou

Hafsa Olcay

Paul Pattinson

Guest Speakers

Parisa Urquhart

Urquhart Media

Simone Ferracina

Liam Ross

Class visit to the Pianodome in Leith hosted by Tim Vincent-Smith and Matt Wright

practice working learning

Transitioning to a Circular Economy in Architecture: Rethinking Building Lifecycles and Prioritising Reuse

Charlotte Wayment

Architecture’s impact on the environment is overwhelmingly negative with close to 40% of all global carbon emissions deriving from the built environment. Certainly the current profitdriven linear economy is unsustainable, so the challenge is how to position sustainability as an inherent aspect of the profession instead of a specific interest undertaken by specialist practitioners?

Buildings can no longer be viewed as temporary objects, occupied for a moment in time before being disposed of and replaced by something new. Buildings are a resource with infinite potential to be re-purposed, retrofitted and recycled. The current emphasis on initial capital costs, profit and embodied carbon data must be replaced by considerations of the entire lifecycle of the building. We need to shape a future in which the wholesale adoption of circular economy theory prioritises reuse and retrofit over building new. So what are the steps needed to make this happen?

This paradigm shift offers architects scope for creativity in the reclamation and reuse of existing materials, whilst reducing resource- and carbon-intensive processes. Utilising characteristics such as modularity to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the end-of-life and subsequent reuse processes of a building would increase the flexibility of spaces and open up opportunities for adaptability and repurposing of existing structures.

There are already several notable precedents demonstrating circular

economic principles including Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town. Completed in 2017, the architect chose to carve and slice through the honeycomb-like concrete structure of the existing grain silo to dramatically expose the original intersecting geometries whilst respecting its industrial heritage.

Currently the architectural industry propagates a ‘take / make / dispose’ consumption model which is unsustainable due to the finite nature of the resources being consumed. Numerous existing case studies show the potential of a reuse-driven architectural design process. However, my study of primary and secondary research by both students and professionals identified the economic strain this transition will cause at a global scale. We need to overcome financial barriers and facilitate the transition from a linear to a circular model. The implementation of an appropriate fiscal policy begins with global and national policy change-makers emphasising the immediate and quantifiable benefits of a circular economy.

Enlightened fiscal policy and incentive schemes, in addition to widening professional and non-professional understanding of a circular economy model, are necessary interventions to successfully navigate a transition from a linear to a circular economy.

Course Organiser

Mark Cousins

This course introduces 3rd Year MA students to the business of architecture in terms of its professional, ethical, procedural and corporate fundamentals. It also provides a framework to support students during their Practice Experience period in the second semester and facilitate an active reflection on their workplace activities. The course compliments Architectural Practice: Reflection (APR) and addresses a range of pertinent topics (such as the architect/ client relationship, the role of professional bodies, legislative framework and modes of procurement) in order to offer students a grounding in professional knowledge and help prepare them for future employment. A series of lectures offered at the start of the course examines key issues including the social and technical drivers impacting the profession today. We examine modes of professional accreditation, the sequencing of work, regulatory requirements and building contracts. We explain core competencies that will be required by students seeking employment, such as preparing a CV, collating a comprehensive portfolio, interview skills, working with on-line research databases, and recording professional experience. Knowledge gained through the lecture series is then tested through a series of distance-learning assignments. These set tasks are intended as work-based learning exercises and afford students an opportunity to analyse and reflect upon their work experience. We have accumulated a sizable database of international practices who have employed ESALA students in the past but students are encouraged to approach their preferred practices. We liaise closely with the Edinburgh Architectural Association (EAA) as well as professional bodies including the RIAS and RIBA. The availability of job opportunities depends upon market forces and, therefore, we recognise the benefits of other forms of experience such as construction work, architectural journalism, voluntary work, and other design spheres such as graphics, product design, interior design, acoustics, etc. Alternatively, students might get involved in architectural competitions, speculative design proposals, private commissions, or independent research projects in order to extend their knowledge of the profession.

MOCAA, Cape Town

Thomas Heatherwick, 2017

Guest Speakers

Lucy Boyd

Kate Carter

Eleanor Collin

Mark Cousins

Graham Currie

Neil Dall

Jane Furness

Christina Gaiger

Laura Harty

James Haynes

Peter Lusby-Taylor

Kate Richardson

Peter Robinson

Chris Stewart

Andy Summers

architectural practice reflection

Placement Practices

Scotland

Country Architecture

Elder & Cannon Architects

Hawkins / Brown

Hidden Door

Infinite Architecture

James Clydesdale & Associates

Konishi Gaffney

MacDonald Architecture

Michael Laurie Architects

ORA Architects

Smith Scott Mullan

studioEAST Architects

The Traverse Theatre

Yugo Student Living

United Kingdom

Foster+Partners

Heat Architecture

HB Architects

J P Hildreth Ltd

Weston Williamson & Partners

Europe

Bjarke Ingels Group

FRAME Magazine

TAGO Architects, Istanbul

Asia

Atelier Deshaus

Atkins, Hong Kong

China Architecture Design & Research Group

GMP

Sichuan Luyuan JinweiEnvironmental Technology

Shanghai ZhongXinArchitectural Design & Research Institute

DP Architects, Malaysia

Oceania

X STUDIO, New Zealand

USA

OTJ Architects, Miami

Devon Tabata Work Desk

3 * 4

Course Organiser

This course provides for recording and reflecting on professional practice in the MA Architecture degree’s practice period. A transitional and preparatory moment, it forms a bridge between academia and the professional world, providing a credit bearing opportunity to develop practice skills, expand practical experience and prepare for the dissertation to come. These experiences feature in the Academic Portfolio, are mapped against the requisite Criteria and Attributes and can count for Professional Experience Development Record (PEDR). Intended as an academic companion to work based learning, the course structure and brief of Architectural Practice: Reflection have been designed to foreground and facilitate working lives. The course is introduced through a short series of seminars and Alumni lectures, providing additional points of orientation, contact and consolidation. This is followed by active reflection during placement period through a structured journal. Much of the research is self-directed and students are asked to gather, collate and curate their experience across the semester, reflecting on it alongside contemporary questions which are currently challenging, unsettling or provoking the discipline.

Rachael

Laura

Akiko

Ewen

Laura Harty

Tutors

Michael Collins

Graham Currie

Sean Douglas Calum Duncan

Hallett

Harty

Kobayashi

McLachlan

Andy Summers

Charlotte Wayment Practice Experience Diagram: my network

practice experience

Sample Competition

Entry Submissions

Alexandre Langlois, Vasilisa Litvinenko, Daniel Yanez-Cunningham

Sound as a Means to Navigation

The Empty Space

Exhibition for Hidden Door 2023

Photograph: Iain Robinson

Competition Fund & Self Initiated Activity

While many students do secure work in architectural practices - many others chose to use this time to explore self initiated work, be this editorial, curatorial or speculative. To complement these alternative endeavours, and in recognition of the vagaries of market conditions, ESALA has set up and maintained a fund to support and encourage competition participation across the semester - see list below for competition entries supported in 22/23. Proposed entries are only approved after considering the value for money / pedagogical value of the proposed competition registration, together with a commitment from the student(s) to submit a valid entry by the relevant due date. Drawing on the array of University supported virtual learning platforms, and the sophisticated use of these in professional practice globally, competitions are often developed as a group working collaboratively across time zones and geographies. Complementing this, in 2023 we have initiated an open ‘Competition Crit’ in which funded projects are presented for discussion at a staff and student review sessions. The approach here is to supplement and extend existing design skills within a professionally recognised framework. Additionally, the long running ESALA Projects office has provided a space and platform in 2023 for a group of practice experience students to launch their circular economy reuse project: Scavenger Collective. ESALA students, therefore, actively solicit work experience across a broad range of domains, reinforcing that the skills and mindset developed in ESALA can be deployed across society and within a wide field of activity.

Competition Entries

Microhome

Tega Ejovwo-Digba, Reece Tsa, Tessa Tsui Rajni Nessa

Milan Affordable Housing Challenge

James Armstrong, Camila Rodriguez, Amy Graham, Issy Rice

Home of Shadows

Allegra Keys, Emily Grills, Amy Graham

Yoga House in a Bog

Daniel Yanez-Cunningham, Delan Aribigbola, Alicia Gerhardstein

Kaira Looro: Primary School

Connor Fyffe, Charlotte Wayment, Steven Carroll (Napier University)

Timber Skyscraper Competition

Xiaowen Wang

Kaira Looro: Primary School

Vasilisa Litvinenko

professional studies

The ARB maintains the register of architects in the UK but how successful are they at safeguarding both the architect’s title and the architect’s function?

Mhairi Dickie

The aim of the Architects Registration Board (ARB) is to deliver the Architects Act (1997) by keeping a public catalogue of every certified architect in the UK. Section 20 of said act states that: “ A person shall not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word ‘architect’ unless he is a person registered (in ARB) ”. In doing so, clients can be guaranteed that an architect titleholder has achieved the required qualifications and experience standards. Many UK architects support title protection but question the extent of ARB’s ability to maintain its status as a protected professional title.

Certainly ARB is criticised for its inability to police architectural services provided by ‘non-architects’. The Farrell Review (2014) stated that: “ even if [one was] to call themselves an architect, the current protection is relatively toothless. The maximum fine is £2,500, and it is difficult to justify prosecution, as it requires proving it is in the public interest and has a reasonable chance of success .”

When the Dezeen website referred to John Pawson as an ‘architect’, despite him being unregistered, Sarah Loukes (ARB’s professional standards administrator) admitted there are “ ... limits to what [they can] do ” in such a situation. Indeed, phrases such as

‘architecture’ or ‘architectural’ are not protected and loose descriptions such as ‘architectural designer’ are valid. As a result, ARB often fails to prosecut offenders. So, for example, in 2009 only three out of some 1,500 title misuses went to trial. There is no protection for the architect’s function in the UK, although over 75% of countries worldwide have enshrined such legislation. The architect Carl Turner (2013 Manser Medal winner) argues that “ ...all planning applications should be submitted either by a planning professional or a registered architect. ” He believs that this would “ ...raise the bar in terms of design quality for all projects. ” In contrast, Karl Grace (president of the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists) described function protection as “ ...unworkable in today’s multidisciplinary and collaborative working environment. ” So opinions remain divided on whether stronger enforcement and protection of the profession is either necessary and/or feasible.

Course Organiser Mark Cousins

This BA course introduces students to architecture as a professional practice. It explores the key issues of practice including the architect/ client relationship, role of professional bodies, current legislation and methods of procurement. A series of lectures in the first semester presents a comprehensive overview of practice and highlights a variety of topics shaping the profession. These include an introduction to business management strategies and the statutory frameworks within which projects are delivered. Students learn about the interdisciplinary relationships in the procurement, costing and realisation of architectural projects. The scope of these illustrated talks encompasses the role of the architect in society and the attendant challenges of being a responsible professional today. Guest speakers include a variety of academics and leading practitioners who talk about the organisation of their individual offices (from sole trader to employee-owned business) reflecting on how their legal constitution affects matters such as liability, profit-sharing and the ethos of the practice. We explore a range of building contracts commonly used in contemporary practice, offering a comparison of their relative benefits and why things are changing from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ modes of procurement. We also consider the key individuals within the construction team and how architects charge for their services depending on the different fee mechanisms employed for different kinds of work. We examine common cost control mechanisms and the sequencing of work (based on the RIBA Plan of Work), as well as the tribulations of a real project from initial commission to final completion.

During the second semester, students submit six short essays testing the information gathered during the lecture series, and their ability to read around these issues. The Professional Studies course encourages students to develop informed opinions on professional matters.

3 * 6

John Pawson

Photograph: Eric Petschek

Guest Speakers

Lucy Boyd

Kate Carter

Eleanor Collin

Mark Cousins

Graham Currie

Neil Dall

Jane Furness

Christina Gaiger

Laura Harty

James Haynes

Peter Lusby-Taylor

Kate Richardson

Peter Robinson

Chris Stewart

Andy Summers

4*1 4*2 4*3 4*4 4*5

architecture dissertation year 4 electives

architectural design

tectonics

architectural design

logistics

academic portfolio part 1

Architectural Design: Tectonics

Open Studios, Minto House

Photograph: Calum Rennie

architecture dissertation

Bingzhi Li Recognisable National Architectures in 1914

Course Organiser

Aidan Mosselson

The dissertation is a self-directed piece of research and writing, allowing students the opportunity to investigate a chosen topic, in written form, at length. Students work with their supervisors to devise and implement a short research project over the course of the semester. Supervisors guide students in narrowing down their research topics, selecting appropriate research questions and methods, and analysing the results of their research. Students are given five one-on-one supervisory meetings and feedback on drafts of their written work.

In addition to individual supervision, the course featured a series of talks outlining various methods and approaches to conducting research within architecture. Talks covered the following areas: Library Resources, Analytical Drawing, Working with Scientific Literature, Working with Bias and Doing Fieldwork.

Guest Lecturers

Jane Furness

Liam Ross

Victoria W. Lee

Francisca Lima

Penny Travlou

Getting [Re]Placed: The role of public art in Hackney’s gentrification

Lucy Boyd

Supervisor: Sepideh Karami

[Re]Placed

This paper places gentrification in dialogue with Hackney’s rich history of the public art scene, examining the inextricable and complex relationship between the two. The thesis aims to evaluate how the power play between gentrification and public fine art may lead to their assistance or resistance to one another. Additionally, the paper explores how public art can be used as an instrument to expose the realities of gentrification and make those affected by the process visible, heard and included.

The Japanese Screen Space: Yasujirõ Ozu and the Architectures of Screens

Kanto Maeda

Supervisor: Mark Dorian

This dissertation aims to investigate the multifarious definitions of ‘screens’ and their diverse conditions as both an architectural and cinematic device. In part a response to a footnote left by Erkki Huhtamo in his “Elements of Screenology” – this paper ventures into sites untapped in that , in peeling back the layers of screens to understand the fundamental condition for life in Japan, particularly in the postwar period, as a time of devastating yet hugely significant transition, from spiritual traditions to hyper-modernity.

Afrofuturism and Architecture: Black liberation in the built environment

Tahlor Jarret

Supervisor: Aidan Mosselson

This dissertation demonstrates that an Afrofuturist vision is materialised in the works of David Adjaye and Francis Kéré through the characteristics of Black Liberation in the rejection of western notions of ‘modernity,’ implementation of pre-colonial Black design motifs, and the assertion of presence and Place in the physical claiming of space.

Spaces of Protest:

The re-appropriation of urban space through nonviolent action

Sam Symes

Supervisor: Killian O’ Dochartaigh

Spaces of Protest

The

Through the examination of three nonviolent action campaigns between 2011 and 2014: the Egyptian Revolution: the Occupy Gezi Movement; and the Umbrella Revolution, the dissertation analyses the spatial-architectural tactics utilised within their duration, including geographical relationships, artistic interventions, social infrastructures, and architectural interventions.

year 4 electives

Caught in the Flood Net: A future Landscape, island traces On Drawing

Mikele Perez Jamieson

MA (Hons) students progressing to Year 4 are required to choose an elective course in Semester 1. This Level 10, 20-credit, course can be selected from a wide variety across the university. This is a key moment to tailor the programme - we suggest that it be deployed to challenge, complement or supplement the core teaching. Students use this opportunity to identify individual learning needs and to take personal responsibility for future educational and professional opportunities. The elective choice features in the final academic portfolio, and as such is mapped against ARB criteria as appropriate. We ask that students think strategically about their choice here, reaching out to peers, alumni, relevant Course Organisers and tutors for advice as required. The onus, however, is on the student to explore the range of courses available, and to determine their best fit. This catalogue contains a summary of ESALA-based elective courses. However, students may check other alternative options on the University Degree Regulations and Programmes of Study (DRPS) website.

www.drps.ed.ac.uk/23-24/dpt/drpsindex.htm

Elective 1

Landscapes of Abandonment & Inhabitation

Elective 2

On Colour

Elective 3

On Drawing

Elective 4

Structure & Architecture

Elective 5

Thinking with Fire

elective 1 landscapes of abandonment & inhabitation

Course Organiser

Francisca Lima

Landscapes of Abandonment and Inhabitation explores the concept of landscape through the perspective of population expansion and contraction in different historical periods of human history, including contemporaneity. Here students focus on the understanding of fundamental theoretical and historical concepts related to the discipline of landscape architecture and related fields, besides exploring the interplay between humans and the environment towards a richer comprehension of contemporary realities. Faraway and everyday landscape typologies shape human inhabitations, as well as cosmogonies, cosmologies, myths and folklore of different cultures. These spaces are sometimes the place of conquests, other times the place of retreat; sometimes regarded with fear, other times with fascination. The same landscape typologies can be the archetypical images of inhabitation, and the archetypical images of abandonment.

This course unfolds some of the meanings of landscape through the lenses of abandonment and inhabitation, shedding light over the pertinence of some concepts in particular historical periods and the cause of their oblivion in others; for example, concepts of nature and environment; wilderness and sublime; or landscape urbanism, social urbanism or informal urbanism.

The course is structured in weekly lectures and seminars where these topics are explored and discussed. Students present one week’s readings in the class and develop a log report of each week’s topic/readings, and then finally, choose a theme related to the course to develop into an extended essay.

Extended Essay Abstract

Image: A North View of the Cities of London and Westminster with part of Highgate. George Robertson, 1780

Hampstead Heath and the taming of the wild

Talluhah Bannerman

This essay focuses on the role of ‘wildness’ in the landscape of Hampstead Heath, London, and the perception of the human-nature relationships that have shaped its positioning within a centre of ‘urban expansion.’ People have defined ‘wildness’ in different ways and associated the term with conflicting connotations. Defining ‘wildness’ as akin to Thoreau’s assertions of the interconnectivity of people and place where he considers the human as an ‘inhabitant’ within nature and not something detached,2 supports the choice of Hampstead Heath as a case study to ascertain the conflicted opinions on ‘wildness’ throughout history. The paper will address the

differing methods of asserting control through the portrayal of wildness, particularly through literature and societal narrative, the protection of the wildness against rapid urban development, and the preservation of the wild - whilst examining the complex conflicts over land management, and the notion of nature and wildness more generally. Through the analysis of Hampstead Heath’s management, especially focusing on intervention from the 18th -19th century to contemporary practices, this essay will seek to address the ability of human intervention to influence the value of wildness within this setting and the forces at play when designing for public purpose.

elective 2 on colour

Course Organiser

Fiona McLachlan

Colour is an essential factor in the perception of space. Through this elective course, students develop a basic understanding of the principles of colour theory, the most common colour specification and navigation tools used in architecture, and an intellectual framework with which they may then approach their own investigation in order to develop a deeper understanding of a focused project theme.

In the first four weeks students undertake painting exercises, observing the effect of adjacency, colour matching by eye, investigate the spatial affects of colour through models, consider social and cultural meaning and association, light reflectance and material surface, and learn digital tools.

In Stage 2, students write an individual ‘Palette Proposal’ to identify a secondary source from which a colour palette is derived.

In the final weeks there is an opportunity to apply their abstracted palette to a small colour design project for a community café at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital using the knowledge developed over the semester. The emphasis is on a strategic use of colour in architectural design. This is a largely self-directed course and is not intended to be prescriptive in any way. On the contrary, the nature of the individual investigation is promoted as a means of developing a reflective process of experimentation and critical review. The projects open up complex questions about visual perception, surface and form, figure and ground, way-finding, cultural associations, narrative, sensory experience, colour and place, landscape, character, light, translucency and volume, material surface and colour and cultural identity.

Review Critic

Rachael Scott

Students

Aisha Aikinola

Charlotte Brooks

Shan Liang

Chengke Liu

Hannah Macaulay

Sebastian Macchio

Yufei Min

Shuyue Pan

Ioanna Peponi

Tereza Staskova

Yunan Wang

Yidi Wang

Hechen Yuan

elective 3 on drawing

Course Organiser

Victoria Clare Bernie

1

Divya Sunil Shah

Ruin and Reclamation: Canonmills, before the rain and after the flood

2

Cosmo Wezenbeek

The Act of Architectural Site

Drawing: transcribing instrument, detail view

3

Chloe Tunnell Displacement Traces: the dust of drawing, detail view

Contributors

Adrian Hawker

ESALA, Metis

John Darbyshire

Consultant Ecologist

Lisa Williams

Author & Poet

Specialist in Edinburgh’s Black History

On Drawing is a project to reimagine the idea of the architectural site through drawing. Where the prevailing history of architectural drawing describes the inevitable dominance of descriptive geometry, On Drawing offers a counter narrative. An acknowledgment of the act of drawing as a method of visual research, as a design practice at once: investigative, critical, ambiguous, revelatory and inventive. Where the architectural site is most often limited to the metric of the masterplan, the site plan and the building footprint, On Drawing recognises a more complex terrain. An unquantifiable landscape of the found and the made, of human artefacts accumulated over time, of geology, climate, stories and histories. Through a closely choreographed sequence of fieldwork, archival research, thematic drawing exercises and critical reflection, On Drawing calls for the production of an individually authored architectural site drawing together with a pamphlet publication. The Water of Leith from Canonmills to the Shore was the site of our investigations. Once the engine of the city, punctuated by snuff and paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, sugar houses and factories producing rope and glass, this seemingly bucolic landscape registers the impact of human use both benign and destructive. Walking with an ecologist and an historian the students engaged a form of graphic archaeology seeking out the deep time of the site, of industry and empire, old railway lines, derelict mills, long forgotten shipyards and fading business parks, the fine grain of fluid dynamics in an engineered river and the discrete ecology of a single relict Elm tree. They interogated the value and economy of the site, lines and codes of ownership and the shifting patterns of occupancy caught in historic maps and archives. All in service of two questions: what is the site of architecture and how might it be drawn out? year 4 electives on drawing

elective 4 structure & architecture the birth of the design team

Lecture slides illustrating example of reading a building as a structural object.

Hualin Temporary Elementary School Chengdu, Sichuan earthquake Shigeru Ban, 2008.

Course Organiser

Angus Macdonald

This course is concerned with the influence which structural technology has had on architectural design in the Modern period. It offers an alternative history of Modern architecture. Specific themes which are explored are the relationship between structural form and structural performance, the types of relationships which have existed between architects and engineers in the Modern period, and the different philosophical approaches which are possible in the relationship between structural design and architectural design. Included in the course are critical appraisals of prominent buildings such as the Sydney Opera House (Utzon), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (Piano and Rogers), the Lloyd’s Headquarters building, London (Rogers), the ‘Gherkin’, London (Foster), the Riverside Museum, Glasgow (Hadid), the CCTV Headquarters, Beijing (Koolhaas), the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (Gehry), the Bloomberg Headquarters, London (Foster) and the Luma Arles Arts Centre, Arles (Gehry). The effects that structures have had on the ecological footprints of buildings and the consequences of this for the current climate and environmental emergencies and the development of future sustainable forms of architecture are an integral part of the course. The Course is a lecture course that is examined by an essay and written examination. Contributor Irem

Serefoglu

Reading a building as a structural object

A building designed in response to an emergency;

the basic configuration is non-form-active;

‘improved’ in logitudinal profile;

further ‘improved’ in logitudinal profile by internal triangulation;

further ‘improved’ by the adoption of suitable crosssections for sub-elements.

elective 5 thinking with fire

Course Organiser

Liam Ross

In current discourse, Fire has become a powerful metaphor for understanding climate change. Activists assert that ‘Our House is on Fire’, while historians suggest we think of our current geological epoch as a ‘Pyrocene’. Fire has long been recognised as both a constructive and destructive agent, key to the emergence of human civilisation but also a risk to it. Nonetheless, the importance of this element for both urban safety and planetary health have perhaps never been greater. This course studies the way fire has shaped our built and natural environments, but also the way this element offers explanatory metaphors for environmental change. It invites students from architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and related disciplines to reflect on the way fire has, and might, shape thinking in their own field. This course studies the ways that our built and natural environments have been shaped by fire. It does so through lectures and seminars that study texts prompted by fires in natural or designed environments; by new technologies of construction and environmental conditioning, or by natural and anthropogenic fires occurring in urban and landscape contexts. The selected texts are drawn from a range of disciplines; the history and theory of architecture, landscape architecture and engineering, but also related fields including art history, cultural studies, economics, earth science, engineering, sociology, literature, and philosophy. By studying these texts, the course will reflect on fire as a physical tool for modifying environments, but also as a conceptual tool for understanding environmental change. Reading between these texts, the course will track tensions between our physical and conceptual mastery of fire, and so between the environmental sciences and humanities. Through their own contributions to seminars, and through essays exploring selected research topics, students will be challenged to explore how fire and fire metaphors might help us to imagine a more sustainable future for our cities and wildlands.

Essay Excerpt

Image: Ngalangka Nola Taylor & Kumpaya Girgirba at work on Kalyu, 2014. Parnngurr, Western Australia © the artists

Photograph: Tristan Derátz

2 Hannah Ord Essay Excerpt

Image: Satellite image showing selective burning of peat moorland in the Lammermuir Hills. Image courtesy Google Maps

Fire as Mother: The maternal characteristics of fire for the Martu

Molly Deazley

The extent of plant and land diversification as a result of controlled burning is portrayed through paintings called the Yarrkalpa fabricated by the Martu women. Their mosaic character is to represent the different seral stages that the areas have been calculatingly burnt to create. Women paint the land to show how fire has painted the land...

‘England’s national rainforests’: exploring the consequences of anthropogenic fire though the North York Moors

Hannah Ord

Controlled burns are especially common practice on the grouse estates which cover much of the North Yorkshire moorland, as over time it results in a mosaic of heather dominated patches with recently burned areas with exposed soil providing food for young grouse and older regrowth acting as nesting sites. In addition to the use of rotational burning as a means of grouse habitat management, many land managers practice controlled burns in order to mitigate wildfire risk. Customarily the patches of vegetation are burned and extinguished by hand within minutes before the underlying peat soil can ignite, however grave concerns have been voiced by various scientific and local parties regarding the impact of such practices on local ecology. Succinctly put in The Guardian shortly after the contentious legislation was introduced, in the case of managerial burning ‘to grouse farmers, it is a vital act of preservation; to environmentalists, it is arson’.

architectural design tectonics

Alon Shahar

Telephone Bench and Loom for Urban Homestead

Course Organiser

Liam Ross

Architectural Design: Tectonics is the last of the sequence of studio courses in the Undergraduate Degree programmes in Architecture at ESALA.

The word ‘Tectonic’ derives from the Greek tekton , which meant a “builder, carpenter, woodworker”, or more generally a “master in any art”. In architectural discourse the word has more specific connotations. The lightweight ‘tectonics’ of frame construction is sometimes thought in opposition to the massive ‘stereotomics’ of earthwork; the diversity of regional construction practices are sometimes described in terms of ‘Tectonic’ cultures. This course does not specifically advocate either regional or lightweight construction, but through the theme of the Tectonic it does ask students to think carefully about the way material specification, construction processes, functional and environmental requirements shape and are shaped by our design decisions. The course is delivered through six thematic Units, each of which addresses an urgent professional, environmental or societal concern; speculation on post-carbon infrastructures, building in timber, material re-use, building re-use, design for environmental risk, and design for an ageing population. Students work to detailed briefs set to address these six themes, and their individual project work is supported by specialist architectural and technical tuition. Complimenting these specific themes, a series of shared events sets common expectations for technical resolution, addressing topics of Matter, Construction, Structure and Use through film screenings, Unit lead presentations, and invited talks from speakers including O’Donnel Brown, Will Thomson and Will McLean. There completed projects represent key opportunities to integrate learning from across this programme by design.

Unit 1

Getting Un-Stuck

Unit 2

Timber studio Unit 2

No Blank Slate Unit 4

Civic Structures

Unit 5

Carp Dragon Snake Dance

Unit 6

Weathering Well

1

unit 1 getting un-stuck (de)signs and

stories beyond petroleum

Studio Leaders

Sepideh Karami, Laura Harty

This unit aims to expand architecture as a support structure. It seeks to explore potentials for architecture to release and facilitate action in troubled sites at the intersection of environmental, political, and social crises. We focus on sites and situations that suffer from the impacts of extractive industries, particularly petroleum and oil, to examine how architecture might operate in these situations to enable alternative futures. We situated these questions in four ecologies of Muds, Middens, Mines and Movements around Mossmorran Chemical Plant in Fife. The Unit studied and worked with four tectonics parameters of Resources, Sequences, Constructions and Inhabitations. Experimenting with a variety of methods such as Architectural Devices of Unknowing, Construction of Tables, Thick Sections and Fictions, students imagined and designed post-petroleum scenarios and novel typologies that assist us to move towards and inhabit a world that would no longer get stuck in petroleum industry and its products.

Cosmo Wezenbeek

The Hydrological Commons

2

Charlotte Brooks

A Campus of the Ground

3

Astrid McInyre

Commemorating the Void

Nominations & Awards

Charlotte Brooks

EAA Nomination

Yeldar Gul

EAA Nomination

Terry Feng

RIAS Sustainability

Award Nomination

Cosmo Wezenbeek

RIAS Andy McMillan Drawing

Award Nomination

Review Critics

Anaïs Chanon

Lisa MacKenzie

Naomi De Barr

David Lemm

Contributors

Nigel Peake

Sam Illingworth

Angus Macdonald

unit 2 timber studio

1

Meihan Liu

Smoke House

2

Eilidh Duffy

Stories of Urban Crofting

3

Alon Shahar

Urban Homestead

4

Michael Becker

In the Habit of Building: Considering Labour, the Architect and the Construction Site

Studio Leaders

Rachael Hallett Scott, Jamie Henry

Timber Studio aims to address 3 themes of enquiry: contemporary material histories with a focus on the timber industry in Scotland; the care for, and reuse of, existing urban fabric; and the creation of community buildings that engage with issues of material waste, social justice, and food insecurity. Initially through research and drawings, students investigate material selection as a holistic process that considers the lifecycle of timber from the planted forest, its harvest, to the milling of components that arrive on site. This knowledge is then transplanted to a ruinous back land site in Leith. Through making a series of models, and drawings students consider how we can care for neglected urban fabric and potentially prop, repair and re-inhabit it using timber structures. Alongside these strategies of reuse, students engage with two local charities as clients, writing a brief for buildings that foster communal gathering and the reuse of surplus food and materials. The resultant projects aim to propose a framework for caring for the environment that extends beyond the bounds of the materials, buildings and their courtyard, and into the wider community.

Nominations & Awards

Eilidh Duffy

EAA J R McKay Medal

Meihan Liu

EAA Nomination

Michael Becker

RIBA Bronze Nomination

RIAS Andy McMillan Drawing

Award Nomination

Ice Chitmeeslip

Architects Journal Nomination

Alon Shahar

RIAS Best 3rd Year Student

Contributors

Jodie Adamson

Ana Miret Garcia

Jack Green

Angus Henderson

Laura Jaap

Vsevelod Kondratiev Popov

Theo Shack

Fiona McLachlan

Felix Wilson

arch. design tectonics timber studio

unit 3 no blank slate architectures of reuse

1

Zhe Wang

Rebearth Commune

2

James Haynes

A Tober: an Architecture of Resilience + Joy

3

Caoilin O’Meara

Making in the Meanwhile:

Edinburgh’s Construction

Futures Hub

4

Tereza Staskova

A Wee Re-Assembly

5

Chloe Tunnell

(Hyper)Local:

Redefining Ocean Terminal

Studio Leaders

Moa Carlsson, Simone Ferracina

This unit reconsidered architecture’s relationship with existing structures, embodied materials and waste. Working directly with Scottish buildings at risk of demolition, the studio aimed to catalyse a transition from the wrecking ball of “blank slate-thinking”—in Scotland, approximately 50% of total waste comes from construction and demolition— to the care and attention of building deconstruction, disassembly, and reuse. We worked across, and peeling back, the “shearing layers” (Brand 1994) that make up buildings at risk of demolition, developing methods for surveying, researching, salvaging, classifying and evaluating their structure, components and materials. We prototyped new architectures that spring directly from the opportunities identified on sites, from local and regional material flows, from the latent potentials discovered and activated in existing buildings and components, and from the engagement with local stakeholders and communities.

Nominations & Awards

Molly Deazley

EAA Nomination

Chloe Tunnell

EAA Nomination

James Haynes

RIAS Sustainability

Award Nomination

Review Critics

John Brennan

Ana Miret Garcia

Rachel Harkness

Aythan Lewes

Joanne McClelland

Andy Summers

James York

Contributors

Lasse Kilvær

Resirqel

Gary Moyes

Narro

David Seel

Janet Quinn & John Kingston

Glasgow Wood

Theodore Shack

Ross

Glasgow Architectural Salvage

Stuart & Scott

Glasgow Salvage

unit 4 civic structures time & the tectonics of public space

1

Ching-En Lin, Jaaziel Kajoba

Delaminated Tectonics Study

2

Ching-En Lin

Stepping Stone Food Hub

3 Holly Ng

Leith Children’s Library

4

Cristian Liu Chang, Hagar Badawy Model Study: Museum of Natural History, Berlin

Studio Leaders

Kieran Hawkins, Nicky Thomson

Unit 4 are fascinated by the civic potential of architecture; how it can embody and encourage the common ground of living together in a city. How might our built environment offer resistance to the toxic polarization of contemporary public life, defining places to gather, talk, play, work and enact the rituals that bind communities?

We explored load-bearing structure as the most enduring of a building’s layers. How can we make this construction re-configurable and primed for future re-use, while maintaining a strong figurative character? If we can do this well, we will drastically reduce the carbon cost of demolition and destructive adaptation.

We drew these strands together in Leith, with proposals for civic architecture that explicitly recognises the differing rates of change of a building’s layers. We see the ruin latent within the new construction and welcome that too into a future city more supportive of civic values than where we stand today.

Nominations & Awards

Tallulah Bannerman

EAA J R McKay Commendation

Louis Ross

EAA Nomination

Ching-En Lin

RIAS Best 3rd Year Student

Contributors

Rory Corr

Jack Green

Rowan Mackinnon-Pryde Callum Symmons

1

unit 5 carp dragon snake dance

pyro-seismic tectonics

Studio Leaders

Liam Ross, Elle Wood

This unit is framed through a precise technical challenge, that of pyroseismic design. Students were challenged to address novel structural and constructional concerns, those created by the twin risk of earthquake and fire. These concerns were also framed through specific representational techniques. Students were asked to research and design through the use of physical and digital testing of seismic performance. This focus was used to foreground a particular architectural and environmental concern; the role that environmental risks play in shaping our cities and buildings. The students began by studying the pyro-seismic logic of traditional Japanese architecture, typified by buildings that dance like snakes, and are symbolically protected by water-spewing, dragon-headed carp. It concluded by asking them to make building proposals for contemporary Tokyo with a tectonic language that expresses the dynamism of two things we usually take as stable; our buildings and the earth.

Kevin Chen, Michael Kan, Kim Lee

Toji Pagoda Analysis

2

Athina Kotrozou

Horizontal Metabolism

Kyojima

3

Esther Park

Shibuya Co-operative

Multigenerational Housing

4

Michael Kan

Defensible Housing

Sumida Ward, Tokyo

Nominations & Awards

Athina Kotrozou

EAA Nomination

Eurus Feng

EAA Nomination

Michael Kan

RIAS Best 3rd Year Student

Contributors

Akiko Kobayashi

Steven Brown

unit 6 weathering well

1

Lucy Boyd

Re-choreographing

Structures: Dance, because you can

2

Jena Hwang

Legacy of Material: Considering Aging as the Beauty of Time

3

Kaiyin Zhao

Dancing in Atmosphere

4

Kaiyin Zhao

Film still from movement workshop with Janice Parker

5

Ioanna Peponi

Space Embodied

Studio Leaders

Fiona McLachlan, Mike O’Dell

This unit draws parallels between human aging and the weathering of buildings. The aim was to find an equilibrium between an expression and healthy acceptance of aging well and the need for preservation and durability to reduce maintenance and repair. The programme is centered on movement and mobility through varied forms of dance including aerial dance. Using an existing building– the redundant fly tower to the King’s Theatre in Dundee– the tectonic agenda focusses on threading a new structure and programme within an existing ‘container’, considering stability, solid/voids, junctions, layers, and the weathering of materials and surfaces. Students are invited to develop a position in relation to the existing fabric. The new skin may push and pull against the old creating spaces of varied volume and height, covering or revealing, healing, or invigorating and renewing. Projects also consider seasonal shifts in climate, frost, and bio-colonisation.

Nominations & Awards

Ioanna Peponi

EAA Nomination

Jena Hwang

EAA Nomination

Lucy Boyd

RIAS Best 3rd Year Student

Contributors

Janice Parker

Jennifer Paterson

Clive Albert

Miriam Delaney

Irem Serefoglu

David Seel

architectural design logistics

Human centred design: Rotating bike tyre planter

Mikele Perez-Jamieson

Course Organiser

The course bridges between architectural practice experience and the design studio. It asks students to engage with an aspect of building design and procurement relevant to the workflows experienced in the design and construction sector. Students select a logistical theme and re-contextualise it within the framework of their own parallel design studio work in AD: Tectonics. Just like life, real life architectural practice is unpredictable, sometimes messy, sometimes frantically busy and complex. This course provides an opportunity to learn from practice and practitioners. Students write an analytical report on a recent Scottish building, speaking with the project architect and visiting the building where possible. The learning is subject to practice circumstances and not all students have the same experience. Students learn to be professional, agile and responsive.

Architectural Design: Logistics is taught in 3 stages:

Fundamentals : a short series of orientation classes, providing knowledge and skills to the student in relation to specific themes; procurement and programme, sustainability, assemblage, and legislation

Reflection : students work in small groups to research the challenges and processes at work through a typological case study, drawn from a list of suggested Scottish contemporary architectural projects. This work is developed into an illustrated report. Application : students use their acquired knowledge of a particular theme to consider and apply an analytical lens to enrich their own design work through an individual drawing.

Tutors Jim Grimley

Alex MacLaren

James Mason Andy Summers James Tait Guest Lecturers Graeme Acheson Smith Scott Mullan Robin Livingstone Fraser/Livingstone

Fiona McLachlan

1 Terry Feng Application: Water Recylcing & Peatland regeneration

WATER RECYCLING & PEATLAND REGENERATION

WATER RECYCLING & PEATLAND REGENERATION

SPHAGNUM MOSS CULTIVATION CENTRE

SPHAGNUM MOSS CULTIVATION CENTRE

Logistics of Sustainability / Environment

Terry Feng s2007824

WATER RECYCLING & PEATLAND REGENERATION

Logistics of Sustainability / Environment

Terry Feng s2007824

SPHAGNUM MOSS CULTIVATION CENTRE

The project is located at Mossmorran, a site with a history of extraction: coal mining, peatland extraction for fertiliser, and the current LNG plants operated by Shell and ExxonMobil. This project suggested a non-extractive approach to the site and formed a bond with the nearby Cowdenbeath Town in a post-petrolite future. Unlike the current site conditions that produce air pollution that causes unwellness and flaring that causes panic, the proposed project goes for a harmonic and passive approach that converts part of the power plant into a grey water processor that contributes to the Cowdenbeath town, surrounding farmlands, and the local habitat. Furthermore, this project seeks to reuse and utilise the

The project is located at Mossmorran, a site with a history of extraction: coal mining, peatland extraction for fertiliser, and the current LNG plants operated by Shell and ExxonMobil. This project suggested a non-extractive approach to the site and formed a bond with the nearby Cowdenbeath Town in a post-petrolite future. Unlike the current site conditions that produce air pollution that causes unwellness and flaring that causes panic, the proposed project goes for a harmonic and passive approach that converts part of the power plant into a grey water processor that contributes to the Cowdenbeath town, surrounding farmlands, and the local habitat. Furthermore, this project seeks to reuse and utilise the

Logistics of Sustainability / Environment

The project is located at Mossmorran, a site with a history of extraction: coal mining, peatland extraction for fertiliser, and the current LNG plants operated by Shell and ExxonMobil. This project suggested a non-extractive approach to the site and formed a bond with the nearby Cowdenbeath Town in a post-petrolite future. Unlike the current site conditions that produce air pollution that causes unwellness and flaring that causes panic, the proposed project goes for a harmonic and passive approach that converts part of the power plant into a grey water processor that contributes to the Cowdenbeath town, surrounding farmlands, and the local habitat. Furthermore, this project seeks to reuse and utilise the

existing components on the Mossmorran chemical plant as parts for a Sphagnum moss (moss that forms the peatland) farm and mycelium workshop. The intention of the design is to minimise the manufacturing of new materials and the potential pollution caused by transportation. As an example, the main body of the moss farm involves the disassembly and assembly of a liquid nitrogen gas tank onsite. This not only reduced the energy for new material production, but the waterproof and well-insulated properties of LNG make it suitable in this case. The movable rack that holds and transports the moss panels around the site also uses steel parts found onsite. The moss cultivated on the site is then used for peatland regeneration, which contributes to a diverse habitat for the area.

Terry Feng s2007824

existing components on the Mossmorran chemical plant as parts for a Sphagnum moss (moss that forms the peatland) farm and mycelium workshop. The intention of the design is to minimise the manufacturing of new materials and the potential pollution caused by transportation. As an example, the main body of the moss farm involves the disassembly and assembly of a liquid nitrogen gas tank onsite. This not only reduced the energy for new material production, but the waterproof and well-insulated properties of LNG make it suitable in this case. The movable rack that holds and transports the moss panels around the site also uses steel parts found onsite. The moss cultivated on the site is then used for peatland regeneration, which contributes to a diverse habitat for the area.

existing components on the Mossmorran chemical plant as parts for a Sphagnum moss (moss that forms the peatland) farm and mycelium workshop. The intention of the design is to minimise the manufacturing of new materials and the potential pollution caused by transportation. As an example, the main body of the moss farm involves the disassembly and assembly of a liquid nitrogen gas tank onsite. This not only reduced the energy for new material production, but the waterproof and well-insulated properties of LNG make it suitable in this case. The movable rack that holds and transports the moss panels around the site also uses steel parts found onsite. The moss cultivated on the site is then used for peatland regeneration, which contributes to a diverse habitat for the area.

Two firewater ponds are selected for their ability to store water; their original purpose was to store water for fire emergencies. Grey water gathered from Cowdenbeath and the surrounding areas is transported to Pound A through a pipeline that was reused from the power plant site. Pound A condenses the solid materials in the water and allows it to pass through stone and sand filters. The water is then sent to Pound B, which has been reconstructed into a moss farm. The water is pumped up and sprayed onto the moss panels through spring kellers. This system is closed for at least 4 days before the water is carried to the final treatment.

Two firewater ponds are selected for their ability to store water; their original purpose was to store water for fire emergencies. Grey water gathered from Cowdenbeath and the surrounding areas is transported to Pound A through a pipeline that was reused from the power plant site. Pound A condenses the solid materials in the water and allows it to pass through stone and sand filters. The water is then sent to Pound B, which has been reconstructed into a moss farm. The water is pumped up and sprayed onto the moss panels through spring kellers. This system is closed for at least 4 days before the water is carried to the final treatment.

Section of level 1 and 2 of

Section of

1. Pound A for primary treatment

1. Pound A for primary treatment

2. Pound B for secondary treatment

Two firewater ponds are selected for their ability to store water; their original purpose was to store water for fire emergencies. Grey water gathered from Cowdenbeath and the surrounding areas is transported to Pound A through a pipeline that was reused from the power plant site. Pound A condenses the solid materials in the water and allows it to pass through stone and sand filters. The water is then sent to Pound B, which has been reconstructed into a moss farm. The water is pumped up and sprayed onto the moss panels through spring kellers. This system is closed for at least 4 days before the water is carried to the final treatment.

3. Sphagnum moss units

2. Pound B for secondary treatment

3. Sphagnum moss units

4. Moss and Mycelium cultivation & research centre

5. Water pump

4. Moss and Mycelium cultivation & research centre

1. Pound A for primary treatment

a. 800mmx800mm sphagnum

b. Sprinklers

a. 800mmx800mm

b. Sprinklers

c. Steel platform from exsisting

d. waterpipe

c. Steel platform

d. waterpipe

e. Water pump

6. Artificial wetland for final treatment

5. Water pump

2. Pound B for secondary treatment

6. Artificial wetland for final treatment

3. Sphagnum moss units

4. Moss and Mycelium cultivation & research centre

a. 800mmx800mm sphagnum

e. Water pump

b. Sprinklers

c. Steel platform from exsisting

Final Treatment

Species of flora are selected peatland, which includes Sphagnum moss, Erica Dicranum scoparium, the drainage next to surface with the spagnum the site now becomes habitat for the selected part of the water treatment, roots. Finally, the recycled surrounding farmland,

Species peatland, Sphagnum Dicranum the drainage surface the site habitat part of roots. Finally, surrounding

Species of flora are selected peatland, which includes Sphagnum moss, Erica Dicranum scoparium, which the drainage next to the surface with the spagnum the site now becomes flooded habitat for the selected part of the water treatment, roots. Finally, the recycled surrounding farmland,

Location map in relation to the peatland (black) and Cowdenbeath Town

Final Treatment Subsurface flow constructed wetland Water filtered by plant roots

Water reused by Cowdenbeath and nearby farmlands

Location map in relation to the peatland (black) and Cowdenbeath Town

c. Section of level 1 and 2 of the

Section of Subsurface flow constructed wetland

Subsurface flow constructed wetland Water filtered by plant roots

Water reused by Cowdenbeath and nearby farmlands

Location map in relation to the peatland (black) and Cowdenbeath Town

5.

Section of Subsurface flow constructed wetland

REGENERATION

REGENERATION

REGENERATION

b.

as parts for a Sphagnum workshop. The intention materials and the potential main body of the moss nitrogen gas tank onsite. production, but the watersuitable in this case. The around the site also uses then used for peatland the area.

plant as parts for a Sphagnum workshop. The intention materials and the potential the main body of the moss nitrogen gas tank onsite. production, but the watersuitable in this case. The around the site also uses is then used for peatland the area.

REGENERATION

parts for a Sphagnum workshop. The intention materials and the potential main body of the moss nitrogen gas tank onsite. production, but the watersuitable in this case. The around the site also uses then used for peatland area.

a. d.

d.

c.

water; their original purgathered from CowdenPound A through a pipeline condenses the solid materials filters. The water is then moss farm. The water is spring kellers. This system the final treatment.

water; their original purgathered from CowdenPound A through a pipeline condenses the solid materials sand filters. The water is then moss farm. The water is spring kellers. This system the final treatment.

c.

chemical plant as parts for a Sphagnum and mycelium workshop. The intention manufacturing of new materials and the potential example, the main body of the moss assembly of a liquid nitrogen gas tank onsite. new material production, but the waterLNG make it suitable in this case. The the moss panels around the site also uses cultivated on the site is then used for peatland diverse habitat for the area.

e.

Section of level 1 and 2 of the Sphagnum moss unit

a. 800mmx800mm sphagnum moss panel

a. 800mmx800mm sphagnum moss panel

800mmx800mm sphagnum moss panel

b. Sprinklers

b. Sprinklers

Sprinklers

ability to store water; their original pur-

c. Steel platform from exsisting structure

c. Steel platform from exsisting structure

d. waterpipe

emergencies. Grey water gathered from Cowdentransported to Pound A through a pipeline

water; their original purgathered from CowdenA through a pipeline condenses the solid materials filters. The water is then moss farm. The water is spring kellers. This system final treatment.

d. waterpipe

e. Water pump

e. Water pump

Pound A condenses the solid materials stone and sand filters. The water is then reconstructed into a moss farm. The water is panels through spring kellers. This system

Section of level 1 and 2 of the Sphagnum moss unit

Secondary Treatment

Secondary Treatment Vertical moss filtration

Species of flora are selected according to the habitat of the nearby peatland, which includes plants such as Eriophorum vaginatum, Sphagnum moss, Erica tetralix, Vaccinum oxycoccus, and Dicranum scoparium, which have a habitat of wetland. By blocking the drainage next to the moss tower and covering the ground surface with the spagnum moss cultivated from the moss tower, the site now becomes flooded and stores water, creating a wetland habitat for the selected species. This habitat also acts as the final part of the water treatment, as the water is distilled by the plant’s roots. Finally, the recycled water flows back to Cowdenbeath and its surrounding farmland, closing the cycle of the water reuse system.

Species of flora are selected according to the habitat of the nearby peatland, which includes plants such as Eriophorum vaginatum, Sphagnum moss, Erica tetralix, Vaccinum oxycoccus, and Dicranum scoparium, which have a habitat of wetland. By blocking the drainage next to the moss tower and covering the ground surface with the spagnum moss cultivated from the moss tower, the site now becomes flooded and stores water, creating a wetland habitat for the selected species. This habitat also acts as the final part of the water treatment, as the water is distilled by the plant’s roots. Finally, the recycled water flows back to Cowdenbeath and its surrounding farmland, closing the cycle of the water reuse system.

of flora are selected according to the habitat of the nearby peatland, which includes plants such as Eriophorum vaginatum, Sphagnum moss, Erica tetralix, Vaccinum oxycoccus, and Dicranum scoparium, which have a habitat of wetland. By blocking drainage next to the moss tower and covering the ground with the spagnum moss cultivated from the moss tower, now becomes flooded and stores water, creating a wetland for the selected species. This habitat also acts as the final the water treatment, as the water is distilled by the plant’s Finally, the recycled water flows back to Cowdenbeath and its surrounding farmland, closing the cycle of the water reuse system.

Species of flora are selected according to the habitat of the nearby peatland, which includes plants such as Eriophorum vaginatum, Sphagnum moss, Erica tetralix, Vaccinum oxycoccus, and Dicranum scoparium, which have a habitat of wetland. By blocking the drainage next to the moss tower and covering the ground surface with the spagnum moss cultivated from the moss tower, the site now becomes flooded and stores water, creating a wetland habitat for the selected species. This habitat also acts as the final part of the water treatment, as the water is distilled by the plant’s roots. Finally, the recycled water flows back to Cowdenbeath and its surrounding farmland, closing the cycle of the water reuse system.

Species of flora are selected according to the habitat of the nearby peatland, which includes plants such as Eriophorum vaginatum, Sphagnum moss, Erica tetralix, Vaccinum oxycoccus, and Dicranum scoparium, which have a habitat of wetland. By blocking the drainage next to the moss tower and covering the ground surface with the spagnum moss cultivated from the moss tower, the site now becomes flooded and stores water, creating a wetland habitat for the selected species. This habitat also acts as the final part of the water treatment, as the water is distilled by the plant’s roots. Finally, the recycled water flows back to Cowdenbeath and its surrounding farmland, closing the cycle of the water reuse system.

Seperate of solids from liquids

Seperate of solids from liquids Greywater

Primary Treatment

Greywater from Cowdenbeath

a.

b.

Axo of the Sphagnum moss unit base floor

Greywater from Cowdenbeath

Section of level 1 and 2 of the Sphagnum moss unit

Axo of the Sphagnum moss unit base floor

from Cowdenbeath

2.

4.

a. 800mmx800mm sphagnum moss panel

a.

a.

b.

b.

c.

c.

d.

e.

e.

d.

Primary Treatment

Seperate of solids from liquids

Greywater from Cowdenbeath

Secondary Treatment Vertical moss filtration

4.

Primary Treatment

Greywater from Cowdenbeath

1.

2.

1.

3.

4.

portfolio part 1

Course Organiser

Laura Harty

The decisive step in the BA and MA(Hons) course sequences, Academic Portfolio: Part 1 requires students to curate the work produced during their degree and present it in the form of a single, integrated reflective document. This document – a digital portfolio – is defined by the Architects’ Registration Board as: ‘a comprehensive chronological record of student’s design project work together with all coursework, including reports, dissertations, sketch books and any other evidence of work, (with project briefs and examination papers), that have been assessed as part of the degree leading to an award of Part 1’.

The act of curating and configuring the work produced across the programme rehearses and synthesises the cumulative, iterative nature of the coursework. Distinct from the courses themselves, the Academic Portfolio is an act of conscious co-ordination and reflection, emphasising the design and conceptualisation skills required to present diverse knowledge and media. It is introduced during years 1, 2 and 3 to ensure that students document their work as part of a personal development plan.

Ultimately, the goal of the reflective exercise carried out in Academic Portfolio: Part 1 is to demonstrate full student coverage of all ARB/RIBA criteria corresponding to Part 1 level, in accordance with the professional accreditation of the BA and MA (Hons) degrees. It stands as a record of the learning journey across the programme, a fitting testament to time at ESALA.

4 * 5

1

Michael Becker

Academic Portfolio

Excerpt: p.102

2

James Haynes

Academic Portfolio

Excerpt: pp.149+162

Tutors

Moa Carlsson

Andrea Faed

Simone Ferracina

Rachael Hallett

Laura Harty

Fiona McLachlan

Susana Do Pombal Ferreira

x*1 x*2 x*3 x*4

geddes visiting fellowship

gloria cabral

puclic programme frictions / alumni:assembly ecan! esala climate action now!

student society arcsoc

Workshop with Earth Building UK ESALA Climate Action Now!

Photograph: Simone Ferracina

geddes visiting fellow gloria cabral

Debris of History, Matters of Memory

x * 1

Coordinator

Gloria Cabral’s architectural practice, developed in collaboration with Solano Benítez in Paraguay as Gabinete de Arquitectura, engages with vernacular materials, construction techniques local labour to produce buildings that are able to withstand the nation’s extreme heat and heavy rains. Their practice relies on this situated-expertise as a source of innovation for an architecture that cares for the environment, for those that will use their buildings and for the city around them. Their practice constitutes a poetic encounter with local culture – climate, materials, economies of labour, etc. The tectonic quality of their architectural production and the inventive way that it harnesses resources is inspiring to student design cohorts across the school, while it introduces us to current Latin American architectural culture.

www.gloriacabral.com

Ana Bonet Miro

Gloria Cabral & Sammy Baloji, with Cécile Fromont La Biennale di Venezia, 2023

public programme frictions / alumni:assembly

Frictions Convenors

Sepideh Karami, Richard Anderson

Alumni: Assembly Convenor

Laura Harty

Frictions, the ESALA Public Lecture Series

2022–23, invited architects, landscape architects, scholars, and creative practitioners from around the world to engage with our school. The series situated our disciplines at the intersection of environmental, political, and social crises, highlighting ESALA’s ethos of critical and creative engagement with the social and ecological urgencies of our time. Students and staff participated in nominating invited guests. ‘Frictions’ has contributed to ongoing debates in research, practice, and pedagogy by celebrating a diversity of voices and a multiplicity of approaches, thereby providing thematic focus for the intellectual life of our school.

Our Alumni: Assembly Series was initiated this year as a partner to the public lecture programme. The shared identity of Edinburgh as Alma Mater was the springing point for this project, which aims to build a sense of community beyond graduation. This pilot aims to nurture and build active conversations between alumni and current students –welcoming voices back to the school.

x * 2

Frictions Speakers

Gloria Cabral

Simone Ferracina

Ruth Lang

Craig Martin

Cataline Majia Moreno

Marie-Louise Richards

Huda Tayob

Ed Wall

Alumni: Assembly Speakers

Oliver Brandenberg

Nigel Peake

Catherine Slessor

RIBA Sustainability

Award Winners

Inka Eismar

Gergana Negovanska

Sonakshi Pandit

on climate changes in the of 2019. and staff, threads: to reduce emissions campus as second thread and reuse, well as the use and pollution. impossibility of also promoting supporting wider these concerns individuals — vital the School’s in 2022, Climate Action and three Outreach)

of School and Programme Directors in reviewing existing programme structures, courses, and learning outcomes to promote curriculum changes in response to the climate emergency and to student survey findings. These strategic aims were at the centre of an Away-Day organised by the Head of School in 2022, which also featured a talk by Sofie Pelsmakers. The Outreach task group aims to facilitate workshops, events, and collaborations within and beyond the College and University. The Operations task group facilitates the adoption of climate-conscious protocols, including minimising waste and the use of resources within the School.

Staff convenor and task-group lead roles correspond to mirrored student roles, ensuring a collaborative approach that is attuned and responsive to student needs and ambitions. Here, perhaps the most important activity of ESALA Climate Action, organised by the student leads, is a yearly survey that asks ESALA students across disciplines and programmes to rate their courses from a sustainability and climate change perspective, and to identify areas for improvement. This forms the basis for further discussions and action, focusing the attention of the task groups towards specific — and yet dynamic — sets of goals.

While last year’s student survey, a summary of which is published here, still charted many areas for improvement, this poster celebrates, alongside student work and outputs from staff research and practice, the wide range of curricular changes made, at all levels and across courses and programmes, in response to it.

Simone Ferracina & Anaïs Chanon, on behalf of ESALA Climate Action.

ECAN! at ESALA Graduate Show, 2023

Photograph: Calum Rennie

2022/23

ESALA Climate Action has promoted conversations about the impact of the built environment on climate change, and about how these prompt changes in the education of architects, since the summer of 2019. As a group championed by both students and staff, we have foregrounded three interconnected threads: Carbon, Resources, and Society. One of the group’s goals was to decouple these concerns from the initiative and efforts of specific individuals—vital as these may be—and to embed them within the School’s organisational framework. This was achieved in 2022, when ESALA formally recognised ESALA Climate Action as a Working Group, with co-convening roles and three task groups (Curriculum, Operations, and Outreach) co-led by dedicated staff. Staff convenor and task-group lead roles correspond to mirrored student roles, ensuring a collaborative approach that is attuned and responsive to student needs and ambitions. Here, perhaps the most important activity of ESALA Climate Action, organised by the student leads, is a yearly survey that asks ESALA students across disciplines and programmes to rate their courses from a sustainability and climate change perspective, and to identify areas for improvement. This forms the basis for further discussions and action, focusing the attention of the task groups towards specific — and yet dynamic — sets of goals. The second in a series of fold-out posters celebrates, alongside student work and outputs from staff research and practice, the wide range of curricular changes made, at BA | MA (Hons) Architecture, and all levels and across courses and programmes, in response to challenges we face.

www.esalaclimateaction.eca.ed.ac.uk

x * 3

Staff Members

Kate Carter

Anaïs Chanon

Simone Ferracina

Laura Harty

W. Victoria Lee

Francisca Lima

Angus MacDonald

Ross McLean

Anna Rhodes

BA/MA (Hons) Members

Malanie Chen

Simona D’Sa

Eilidh Duffy

Thomas Everett

Yeldar Gul

Mingrui Jian

Matthew Johnson

Allegra Keys

Athina Kotrozou

Tanya Lee

Campbell Murray

Oscar Nolan

Mina Pabuccuoglu

Ioanna Peponi

Chris Pirrie

Farah Saiful Bahrin

Felix Wong

Arya Yang

student society arcsoc

ArcSoc Architecture Ball 2023 Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh

Photograph: Berenika Murray

ArcSoc is the official student body representatives for ESALA, run by students, for students. ArcSoc is responsible for the organisation of various events throughout the year, contributing a multifaceted, energetic and much appreciated dimension to our school community.

As a non-profit, student-led society, ArcSoc focus on complimenting the academic core structure, organising a weekly Friday lecture series, social events, excursions, team sport groupings, lunchtime climate conversations and an annual ball. These frequent events punctuate the academic calendar, reinforcing cross year and cross programme connections. Providing welcome opportunities to celebrate, make new connections, wind down and share experiences. These well-attended occasions are a vital dimension of school lifeconcentrating on life outside the classroom. The society is completely self-funded and sustained through sponsorship, membership fees and fundraising. As a charitable organisation, all profits are incorporated back into the society for future events. For all beginning, and continuing, within our school community, ArcSoc can help build social and academic bonds between students, professionals, academics and practitioners, enhancing the student experience and creating opportunities for you to discuss, learn and share all levels within ESALA and beyond.

To get involved in our working group or simply to find out more drop us an email or get in touch via social media.

www.arcsoc.co.uk / @edinarcsoc

Committee 22/23

President

Áine Lynch Secretary

Noa Barak Treasurer

Harsha Gore

Social Secretary

Ralf Merten

Excursions Secretary

Hamish Jackson

Sustainability

Thomas Everett

Social Media & Web

Augustus Wray Membership

Julia Twardzisz

Georgia Whitehead Lectures

Ryan Hillier

Claudia Maude

Joel Pacini Graphics

Giles Davis

Yeldar Gul

Ellie Greenwood

Rogers Stirk Harbour Scholarship

Awarded on submission of a project and two statements

Megan Jones

Alexander Dowell Prize

Awarded for the best performance in Year 1 Architectural Design at ESALA

Adam Chen

David Gardiner Hardie Technology

Prize

Awarded for the best performance in Year 1 Technology & Environment at ESALA

Chiara Mesquita

David Gardiner Hardie Design Prize

Awarded for the best performance in Year 1 Environmental Practices at ESALA

Anna Gillibrand

ESALA: Year 1 Architecture Bursary

Awarded for the best performance in year 1 in Architecture at ESALA

Ella Dai

ESALA: Year 1 Architecture Bursary

Awarded for the best performance in Architectural Design: Assembly at ESALA

awards & accolades year

Bella Fane

Rogers Stirk Harbour Scholarship

Awarded on submission of a project and two statements

Douglas Crammond

Walter Allan Yuill Memorial Prize

Awarded to the best Year 2 student studying Architecture at ESALA

James Langham

Nancy Rosemary Henderson Design Prize

Awarded for the best performance in Year 2 Architectural Design at ESALA

Jessica Zhan

Nancy Rosemary Henderson Technology Prize

Awarded for the best performance in Year 2 Technology & Environment at ESALA

1 year 2

Jiayi Liu

ESALA: BA Architecture Prize

Awarded the best performing student in BA Architecture at ESALA

Amanzhol Kellett

Helen A. Rose Prize Graduating Student BA Architecture

Alon Shahar

UG Architecture Professional Studies

Prize

Awarded for the best placement report of the year at ESALA

Charlotte Wayment

ESALA: MA Architecture Prize (Year Out)

Awarded to the best performing student in MA Architecture (year out) at ESALA

Laura Dew, Thomas Everett, Issy Rice

ESALA: Year 3 Architecture Bursary

Awarded for the best performance in year 3 in MA Architecture at ESALA

Audrey So, Xiaowen Wang, Shuyan Zhang

ESALA: Technology Prize

Awarded for the best technology project in Architecture at ESALA

Michael Kan

Gensler Diversity In Design

Micro Prize to support purchase of materials

James Haynes

ESALA: MA Architecture Prize

Awarded the best performing student in MA Architecture at ESALA

Michael Becker

Helen A. Rose Prize

Graduating Student MA Architecture

Lucy Boyd

ESALA: Architecture Dissertation Prize

Awarded for the best Honours

Dissertation in Architecture at ESALA

Ice Chitmeeslip

ESALA: Tectonics Prize

Awarded for the for the best integration of technology and environment in a UG studio project at ESALA

James Haynes

Alexander Flynn Bequest

Awarded for best essay on some aspect of art and design outside the curriculum in any or 1st, 2nd or 3rd year Architecture at ESALA year 3 year 4

Khaira Ambimbola Women in Property Nomination

ESALA Graduate Show 2023 Lauriston Campus, Edinburgh College of Art

Photograph: Calum Rennie