ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES

The Master of Architectural Studies course gives students a unique opportunity after the completion of their Diploma to extend their design, organisational and research skills after gaining exemption from the ARB Part II accreditation.

The course is set within a rigorous creative studio environment and allows students to explore architectural concepts and methods by extending the study of an aspect of their self-directed Final Design Thesis or an aspect of their Architectural Technology five or Professional Studies five course to produce work at a postgraduate level.

The course runs through one semester for full time students or two semesters for part time students and provides students with freedom to be develop creative outputs, focusing either on a written output or a design output.

This space and a focused approach have opened up many opportunities to students to consider alternative futures within the field of architecture.

A Horizon of Possibility: The ImageArchitecture of Mies van der Rohe and Beyond

CARL C.Z. JONSSON

TThrough writing and image-making, the particular legacy of Mies van der Rohe concerning his approach to the architectural image is analysed, situating a selection of his collages and associated imagery alongside those of the contemporary Belgian practice Office KGDVS.

The title of the project, borrowed from queer theorist David M. Halperin, presents the conceptual guideline of the horizon, which explains the potency within a Miesian image as providing an architecture native to the page, and independent from its built counterpart, if there is one. This built counterpart, in turn, may have its own architecture reappraised, due to the new understandings of experience or formal language an image, be it a collage or a photograph, reveals of the subject matter. This interchangeability between image and material reality, what can be called an “image-architecture”, applies just as much to the work of Office KGDVS, giving us an opportunity to critically revisit the functionings of Mies’ architecture in the 21st centurythe city's nutritional needs.

Fixing Societal Issues

HELENA WAGG

For the Masters by Conversion I produced a series of articles, exploring some of the most prevalent issues facing society today, and some of the ways that space and place can potentially provide some solutions to help ease these issues.

Through this research project I found a greater understanding of the reasons for these issues and the impact they have on society, and I was able to question the role that architecture has within the sphere of “fixing” societal issues, and to what extent it can even do this.

The articles reflect on the ways that people currently come together and how these experiences aren t currently enough to sustain the level of social bonding and ties that we need, how place can provide a sense of belonging, giving people an attachment to place and tying them to localised community, and how space can provide certain opportunities and affordances for forming social bonds.

While there are many other agencies that are relevant in assisting the easing of these issues facing our society, this project has allowed me to explore some of the ways architecture can assist with this, through facilitating the forming of social bonds and attachments, and the creation of sense of belonging to place.

See right: Scan to open a collection of articles by Helena Wagg.