Our BA (Honours) Interiors students, too, have excelled in extending their range of investigations as a review of the work of Russell Jones illustrates. The design work of this student encompasses furniture, exhibition, film, the materiality of interior space and manipulation of the public realm. It demonstrates both the student’s personal aspirations as a rounded interior designer and those of our undergraduate Interiors Programmes.
A new and expanding area of research within the School is provided by the growing cohort of PhD students under the tutelage of Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti. They have broadened further the legitimate territories for investigation and their contribution in challenging convention and provoking debate is acknowledged by both staff and students in the School. The body of work represented by our yearbook is powerful and wideranging, and describes the experience of students who were prepared to experiment and take risks – I hope that you enjoy it. Professor Don Gray. Head of Kent School of Architecture
INTRODUCTION
drawing, have informed her Modular and Urban projects. Contrast this with the assured and competent work of Adam Summerfield, where invention and depth of intellectual attack combine to make a powerful exhibition of work that demonstrates a maturity of vision to be envied in an undergraduate portfolio.
M Arch (Master of Architecture)
M arch
with RIBA Pt II exemption
02
The beginning year of the M Arch (stage 4) provides an opportunity to survey the territory between the memories of undergraduate school, filtered through the experiences and orthodoxies imported with a return from architectural practice, and the challenges that lie ahead in the concluding graduating year (stage 5), where the onus is placed on self-generated and self-directed study. These are driven personal investigations into what constitutes architecture and where its boundaries lie. Our pedagogy is one of epistemology: our students re-learn empirically through discussion, drawing and making, and these experiences inform all subsequent investigation, building levels of knowledge allied to developed capabilities in critical thinking. Design investigations employ mixed media, traditional two-dimensional and hybrid virtual and physical three-dimensional studies. We strive to
strike a balance between the serendipity of haptic making and the sensuality of models whose components are conceived in the virtual world, then rigorously fashioned into physical form by our computer-driven machinery. The M Arch class of 2008 have all come from other schools, as we have yet to receive home-grown undergraduates into the M Arch. But they have made the course what it is, impressing on it their own personalities and enriching it with their concerted efforts. They have delivered a range of work that is as strong as it is diverse. Whether on a scale of personal growth, or in comparison with other schools, our M Arch graduates have excelled and we wish them well.
M ARCH stage 5
In the Major Design Project (MDP) students are free to select their own area of interest, infer a hypothetical or real client and develop a brief for a site chosen from a selection offered to them, each with specific issues affecting realworld initiatives for their regeneration. Our students examine these influences and this helps inform their subsequent decisions as the projects develop. Individual rationales form the basis of parallel MDP Design Reports, and the technological considerations, whilst
holistically developed, are abstracted into a MDP Technology Report. This year most students chose to situate their work on a brown-field, post-industrial slice of the Medway waterfront between the river and Chatham High Street. Proposals ranged from a new ‘Super-Casino’, through a Marine Technology and Innovation Centre; Aquatic Centre and Motorsport Academy to a Shaolin Monks’ Training Centre. In the Spring term M Arch students identified and refined their own preoccupations in a range of eclectic and diverse Independent Study Projects (ISP). These projects are seen as advanced architectural research projects and might be wholly written,
incorporate personal design work either before or after a piece of writing as critical speculation or reflection or largely design-based research accompanied by a written report. Areas of interest this year ranged from the need for water desalination in the North Aral Sea in Kazakhstan; interactive (architectural) devices; a vehicle-vending system; a live ‘eco-house’ commission; and an international competition entry for a skyscraper combined with a personally set project for a Medway Boathouse. Michael Richards Programme Director M Arch
M arch
In the culminating year of the M Arch students further develop their personal interests and build on the achievements of their previous year.
James Cregan
Jim’s Shaolin Training Centre delivers a meditative calm as counterpoint to his ISP. He situates his study of analogue interactive mechanisms between poles of technological purpose and architectural meaning. Jim is the recipient of the 2008 Most Original Independent Study Project prize.
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Tom HUGHES Tom’s Super-Casino immerses the user in the hyperenvironment of the poker game, synthesising black-box symbolism with an orchestrated spatial dÊnouement. His ISP eco-house persuasively aligns the aspirations of his real-world client with the genius loci of its stunning location.
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LEONARD MONTGOMERIE
Lennie’s focus on the automotive evolved, through a proposal for a Medway Motorsport centre, into an investigation into new automotive procurement systems for the 21st Century.
PATRICK O’MEARA PJ’s meticulous studies for the façades of his Classical Music Concert Hall in Canterbury resonate with the intellectual sensibilities of early 1980’s neo-rationalist architects. This is an obsessively considered piece of urbanism.
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ANDREAS PEYERL
Andreas’s design projects suggest an engagement with characteristics of their environment which are as equally orchestrated as the architectural forms that inhabit it. Responding to academic, competition, and personal briefs, his work meditates on what differentiates one from another. Andreas is the recipient of the 2008 MArch Portfolio Prize.
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WILL STEWART
Will’s Aquatic Centre uses exquisite physical models to demonstrate highly developed spatial complexity. Will’s ISP is a critical thesis on the catastrophic implications of man’s influence on the Aral Sea. He is the recipient of the 2008 Hays Prize for Writing on Architecture.
BA (Hons) ARCHITECTURE
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BA (Hons) Architecture
stage 3
This year we are curating an exhibition with selections of work from the three years of the Part I programme. Stage 1 students travelled locally – to St. Margaret’s Bay, and further afield to Barcelona, and projects were located in both of these places. In Stage Two we worked with a local secondary school on a project which proposed adaptations and extensions to a tired set of 1960s buildings, while in the spring term we stayed on campus to consider the landscape potential of our own university site. The specific building proposal was for a university arts centre and outdoor drama arena.
The work in the year is characterised by its wit, competence, and above all by its diversity of individual approaches. I wish the graduating students well during the year out, and look forward to hearing from you all.
Gerry Adler Programme Director BA Architecture
BA (hons) architecture
Stage 3 students began the year by considering the regeneration potential of a stretch of the derelict historic dockyard at Chatham. The project concerned the provision of modular housing. In January we travelled to Berlin and further on to Dessau, where we saw Gropius’s Bauhaus and Sauerbruch & Hutton’s Environmental Agency building. The year culminated with an urban project at Margate, inspired by the prospect of the start on site of the Turner Contemporary designed by David Chipperfield. The project, The Word, concerned the provision of a specialist library to promote the idea of reading aloud.
Ani awang matkasim
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Ani explored the sculptural and spatial potential of the moebius strip in her Word proposal for Margate.
Phil is the recipient of the 2008 Most Improved Undergraduate Student prize
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PHILIP BASTON
Flexibility is perhaps the keyword that Phil ran with this year. The Modular project Chatham Naval Dockyard is a frank expression of flexible placement of housing modules within an overall grid of superstructure, while The Word building for Margate takes a carefully positioned – and skewed – Pandora’s box that conceal and reveals its contents in a carefully artful manner.
tara bushe
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Tara has taken conventional plan types and expressed them paying careful attention to location, climate, and view. One can imagine the users of these buildings being at home there.
Sarah chebaro
How could the ubiquitous atrium building type be adapted for a specific cultural use? This is the question Sarah seeks to address with her Word project based in Margate.
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soultana efstathiadou
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Rhythm in architecture lies at the root of Soultana’s investigations this year, as can be clearly observed in her syncopated facade studies of her Modular and Word projects
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Murad El-Helw
Murad’s projects are boldly configured and come with an almost 1960s brashness.
caroline gingell
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Caroline’s engagement with The Word project has been to interweave an understanding of architectural transparency with the desire to accommodate existing buildings on the site in Margate.
matthew myhill gisbey
Matt – like Turner – was inspired by the sea in Margate. The wave began as a literal shape observed from nature, which was then skilfully turned into the sheltering roof form of The Word.
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stefania gyftopoulou
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Stefania was inspired by books and their shelving for The Word project. The walls that draw you in to the heart of the building are giant book stacks that create a careful play of scale between the delicacy of the original Georgian houses retained on site and the more massive, four-square early twentieth-century buildings.
eleni hajakyriacou
Strong geometricallyshaped and skewed volumes are carefully placed on the Margate site to make a convincing journey through The Word building in Eleni’s scheme.
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alex jackson
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What should be our contemporary response to the call for a sustainable architecture? Alex’s projects all explore this question in the design of buildings that speak of their locations in a convincing manner.
Tzi Man
Tzi’s work shows excellent understanding of the building type in question, whether it’s public housing in Chatham Naval Dockyard, or the library type in Margate. Working sensitively with photographic and computer imagery is a particular hallmark of his approach.
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Tristan more
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Tristan has applied his own personal engagement with the social in architecture, via his work with Architectes sans Frontières, with both the Modular and Urban (The Word) projects. His is a balanced approach, paying equal attention to technical means and social ends
jack morgan
What does architecture value from the past? Jack finds eloquent answers to this question in his schemes for Modular and Urban.
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nima mossayeri
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Nima’s readings of Jung, which developed with his dissertation, have spurred on his engagement with the archetypal in architecture
Similarly in contemporary architecture today there is a returning to the natural processes shown in sustainable and eco-friendly architecture. It becomes comprehensible then, that the tribal palm-thatched roof and pole frames of traditional architecture, will soon to be considered contemporary.
troy okwuosa
If you follow a straight line it will inevitably lead you back to its starting point for you actually follow a circle that leads you through a 360° rotation encompassing the universe.
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EVI PAPADOPOULOU
How can the conceptual start to be present in architecture? Through her design work for The Word, Evi carefully embeds spaces within spaces, and leads the visitor through a variety of spatial experiences to the heart of reading aloud.
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BEN PRINCE
Ben’s engagement with the conceptual abstraction of Mies van der Rohe, explored through his Interdisciplinary Option, was played out in his design for The Word in Margate. A scheme of great simplicity and sophistication is the result.
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Vishwa sachdeva
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Vishwa developed the conceptual – and literal – device of the frame in order to explore the forms and spaces of The Word project in Margate.
jason scammell Jason has played with a simple set of forms to make an urban sequence of richness and delight for his Word project.
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Ben-david seligson
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The conceptual starting point of a set of hinged boxes akin to books – leads to a powerful grouping on site at Margate for Ben-David’s Word project.
wendy smith Wendy’s architectural design work never loses sight of her initial visual analyses of site and programme, such that the final schemes for her Modular and Urban schemes are richly rewarding at the level of planning, resolution and imagery. Wendy is the recipient of the Stage Three Architect Portfolio prize 2008.
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julien soosaipillai
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Julien’s Interdisciplinary Option on the reality and idea behind the Renaissance Ideal City spurred him on to develop a richly complex proposal for The Word in Margate.
adam summerfield
Adam’s work has been thoughtful, considered, thoroughly developed and driven by the social potential of architecture. It can be enjoyed aesthetically, technically, and above all by putting oneself in the shoes of the intended users. Adam is the recipient of the Undergraduate Most Innovative Written Work prize.
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chris terry
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Architecture as sculptural response has been a particular enthusiasm of Chris’s. The Word in Margate takes the folded plane and makes a convincing urban sequence out of it.
Tom wallace I grew up in Falmouth, Cornwall and after completing my A levels and careful consideration decided to study Architecture at the University of Kent. It has been a great experience with many
ups and downs, but a learning curve that has made me a stronger person with the skills to go into the working environment, hopefully this is reflected in my projects.
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matthew wittrick
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Matt’s concerns in third year have been with the banality of the everyday, and the possibilities of developing architecture responsive to this. The results are anything but banal.
konstantina xiroutsikou
Konstantina’s work is characterised by her high-energy response to the keywords of modularity, flexibility and transparency. Both her Urban and Modular schemes are conceptually driven, and are well resolved in terms of architectural space.
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BA (Hons) interiors
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Programmes in Interiors The Interiors exhibition reflects the evolving focus of the Interior Architecture and the Interior Design programmes. What remains is a concern for the sense and materiality of interior space with an emphasis on ‘making’. This is now accompanied by an added impetus to the students’ grasp of the reciprocity between architectural meaning and spatial relationships. Design projects have investigated the soma and viscera of the human body and its complicity in the production of space: in a physical as well as a conceptual sense. Demonstrated is a concern with the ‘little things’ and the ‘big things’; the private and the public; the detailed and the general. This provides the students with the confidence to make a contribution in the physical and metaphysical continuum from body to landscape: be it urban environment or digital terrain.
BA(Hons) Interior Architecture The work in Interior Architecture recognises the prevalent and ever-increasing condition that new architectural projects confront existing building stock. The designs presented demonstrate the process of analysis, synthesis and metamorphosis. The act of intervention underpins the narrative from a personal through to an urban scale. In the projects shown the University of Kent (Eliot College) and Canterbury (represented by Cathedral and ‘Goods Shed’) initiate and culminate a single linear axis or street. This evokes a storyline of static versus active historical knowledge; or the distinction between a market (making, nourishing, diet, food and fashion), set against the intellectual health promoted by the University.
BA (Hons) INTERIORS
BA(Hons) Interior Design The projects in Interior Design recognise the multi and interdisciplinary nature of the subject. They reflect contemporary perceptions and the convergence of parallel fields such as art, fashion, film, dance, exhibition design, architecture and interiors. The work exhibited is exploratory and experimental employing installation, sculpture, stage and set design. The embracing of a design and disciplinary commonality gives rise to the transfer and cross-fertilisation of traditional and new technologies in interiors, furniture and product design. The broad spectrum of the compact yet rich Interiors exhibition points to the potential for innovative spatial topographies. The show indicates the direction for future work exploring the extremes of inner space and outer space.
Taseer Ahmad Director of Programmes
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lama haddadin
In her major project for a new Library within the existing Main Hall at Eliot College, Lama has set out to explore the role of anthropometric data and the spatialising effect of the human body in an indeterminate architectural setting. Her sensitive design studies of organic structures suggest the potential for an environment for nurture and learning.
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russell jones Three challenging & rewarding years in which I have discovered as much about myself as I have about Interior Design. I have graduated a different person from that which walked in the doors 3 years ago. A big thank you to all the staff and tutors that helped me every step of the way.
Russell is the recipient of the Stage 3 Interiors Portfolio Prize.
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prizes
M Arch Portfolio Prize Andreas Peyerl, MArch Stage 5 M Arch - Hays Prize for Written Work on Architecture Will Stewart, MArch Stage 5 Stage 5 MArch : Most Original Independent Study Project James Cregan, MArch Stage 5 Stage 3 Arch : Portfolio Prize Wendy Smith BA (Hons) Architecture Stage 3 Interiors : Portfolio Prize Russell Jones, BA (Hons) Interior Design U/G Most Improved Student Philip Baston, BA (Hons) Architecture U/G Most Innovative Written Work Adam Summerfield, BA (Hons) Architecture
COntacts Ani Awang Matkasim ara9@kent.ac.uk Phil Baston pb64@kent.ac.uk Tara Bushe tcb4@kent.ac.uk Sarah Chebaro sc272@kent.ac.uk Soultana Efstathiadou se50@kent.ac.uk Murad El-Helw me41@kent.ac.uk Caroline Gingell csg5@kent.ac.uk Stefania Gyftopoulou sg232@kent.ac.uk Eleni Hajikyriacou eh61@kent.ac.uk Alex Jackson aj47@kent.ac.uk
Tzi Man tlm5@kent.ac.uk Tristan More tm97@kent.ac.uk Jack Morgan jm275@kent.ac.uk Nima Mossayeri nm228@kent.ac.uk Matthew Gisbey mg206@kent.ac.uk Troy Okwuosa to37@kent.ac.uk Evi Papadopoulou ep60@kent.ac.uk Ben Prince bpp3@kent.ac.uk Vishwa Sachdeva vrs2@kent.ac.uk Jason Scammell js267@kent.ac.uk
Ben-David Seligson bs69@kent.ac.uk Wendy Smith whvs@kent.ac.uk Julien Soosaipillai jjs25@kent.ac.uk Adam Summerfield as289@kent.ac.uk Chris Terry ct57@kent.ac.uk Tom Wallace tww2@kent.ac.uk Matthew Wittrick mtw4@kent.ac.uk Konstantina Xiroutsikou kx2@kent.ac.uk
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M arch stage 4
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Stage 4 navigates between interests in regional histories, psycho-geography, and more contemporary moral and ethical dilemmas. These are investigated through a pedagogy that encourages ‘process’ as a re-learning tool to reinvigorate design sensibilities along a directed pathway as preparation for the demands of the self reliance expected in Stage 5. Investigations begin in the autumn term at the urban scale in Urban Landscapes, and lead on to a spring term project that anticipates the beginnings of the subsequent Stage 5 Major Design Project.
We seek to inform ourselves about the diverse influences on the processes and practices of design beyond the physical, and attempt to engage with them to further our understanding. We expect responses that go far beyond the programmatic and pragmatic. Design investigations are provoked and constrained by staff-set project briefs that strive to be fresh and responsive to contemporary concerns or sometimes anticipate or even precipitate them.
This three-phase project was conceived as an intelligence gathering exercise, to ‘know the enemy’ and produce an analogue for the struggle against torture by considering how such devices could be disabled by a second device. Their engagement is then abstracted to offer the beginnings of spatial form for this struggle, then move this forward to develop a design, in Secretariat, for a new headquarters building for a human rights organisation. In this iteration the project serves as a research vehicle.
The contrary view would confront the proposition in a completely different way. Either and all are acceptable as long as each engage in the educational process. For some reason this became a news story. The partial reporting of the project immediately precipitated much irrational reaction, and more slowly some rational understanding and support. Thank you to the Architecture Society of the University of York; Zoe Berman, in her essay ‘No stars in our eyes’ RIBA Journal May 2008; Paul Fortune, Head, Department of Industrial Design, National College of Art and Design, Ireland; the Gandhi Foundation; Dr. Peter Hancock, Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Central Florida and Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kieran Long, in his ‘Leader
and Comment’ AJ 07.02.08; Adrian Truss for reference to his ‘Punishment Device’ for the 1999 production of Kafka’s In a Penal Colony, and all the other journals, institutions, and individuals who expressed positive interest, support, and offered encouragement, either on or off-the-record, in the face of overwhelming antipathy.
m arch stage 4
This spring Torture proposed ‘morally ambiguous methods to achieve critical aims’1. We believe it is quite possible to invite a response to a proposition that anticipates a contrary view, when ethical questions are posed. That’s the definition of politics, and part of an established academic pedagogical tradition, to provoke as a means of enabling learning.
And a special ‘thank you’ to all our Stage 4 students who endured almost unimaginable pressures and were characterised as the pariahs in the very campaign they were seeking to promote. The continuance of a process-based design methodology became a predictable casualty of the episode, but we contend that the ideas generated can be traced into the finished product. 1
Kieran Long Leader and Comment AJ 07.02.08
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48 M arch stage 4
49 m arch stage 4
BA arch stage 2
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In Stage 2 students broaden their horizons and engage with complex and demanding sites. The first design project of the year is entitled ‘Adapt and Extend’, and requires them to design alterations and additions to an existing building, with a demanding brief and, often, facing challenging site topography. The second project, ‘Landscape’ requires thinking on a large scale; a building is designed as a component of an overall landscape scheme, with emphasis on sustainable construction and long-term thinking. Both projects are accompanied by exercises in technological, constructional and environmental design.
Alongside the design projects runs the communications module, Advanced Computer Modelling & Animation (ACMA). This module allows the student to explore areas outside architectural design that will help to illustrate and develop their design and presentation skills. ACMA deals primarily with video, film and animation and students use these skills to create a promotional video/film/advertisement for their design proposal for ‘Adapt & Extend.’ Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin Stage 2 Co-ordinator
51 ba arch stage 2
52 BA arch stage 2
53 ba arch stage 2
ba interiors stage 2
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BA(Hons) Interior Architecture BA(Hons) Interior Design Stage 2
Stage 2 Interiors students set out to investigate, to explore, to experiment and above all to challenge and be challenged. The design projects pose searching topographical and spatial questions. Through a series of analogous and contrasting study projects, centred around the human body and machines, students have sought out what they perceive to be the boundaries of design and have been encouraged to go beyond them.
Projects: par·a·dox: That which is apparently, though not actually, inconsistent with or opposed to the known facts in any case. sym·bi·o·sis: A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence. syn·the·sis: The combining of separate elements or substances to form a coherent whole. met·a·mor·pho·sis: A marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function. Also called transformation. Taseer Ahmad Director of Programmes
55 ba interiors stage 2
56 ba interiors stage 2
57 ba interiors stage 2
ba interiors & arch stage 1
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Since the start of the Kent School of Architecture in 2005, Stage1, the first year cohort of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Interior Design students has risen steadily. This year we had 140 students engaged in the 8 modules that make up Stage 1. The 4 Design, 2 Technology and Environment and the 2 History & Theory modules introduce and expose the students to the fundamental issues that surround the objectives of the making and/or manipulation of space to create memorable ‘enclosures’ for human activity.
We believe that students entering these disciplines want to confront the problems of thinking and communicating their design aspirations and consequently our purpose is to expose them to the tools that will allow this process to start. We give the students the opportunity to develop these skills, practical and cerebral, in a supportive environment that respects the sanctity of individual thought, expression and development. In this catalogue and in the exhibition you will see a cross section of the design and technological solutions that Stage 1 has produced to a wide range of problems. From the initiation of the year with a proposal for a pied-a-terre on the campus, through a remodeling of Ildefons Cerdas’ Barcelona Grid, the Eixample, to a small pavilion housing 5 paintings in Barcelona –
where the annual Field Study programme is held. Following this the students were asked to consider a new foyer for the Marlowe building – where the School of Architecture is situated and then to a hot chocolate and ice cream café on the beach at St. Margaret’s Bay. The Design Modules are underpinned by an integrated Technology and Environment programme that begins to open up the students to the consequences of their proposals. The History and Theory programme completes the triangle as the students begin to understand their place in the history of their discipline and the possibilities of contributing to future histories. Chris Seaber Stage 1 Co-ordinator
59 ba interiors & arch stage 1
60 ba interiors & arch stage 1
61 ba interiors & arch stage 1
research
Research at Kent School of Architecture
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The KSA Research office has been lively this year. Research staff have taken part in publishing books, essays and articles, presenting papers at conferences, submitting bids for major grants in UK and Europe. Three major European applications were submitted: one within Framework 7 and two proposals within Interreg schemes; one small grant proposal was given to the British Academy. The Centre for Research in European Architecture (CREAte) has been formally approved to serve as the umbrella for research activities within the School of Architecture providing a European focus. The School has consolidated partnerships
with a number of universities within the UK and Europe for future collaboration. Our productive involvement with the Architecture Humanities Research Association AHRA continues with members of staff taking part in research events and conferences. Negotiations continue on the 2010 AHRA International Conference which will be hosted by the School of Architecture on behalf of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent. Relations with local and regional stakeholders such as SEEDA, Kent County Council and Canterbury City Council have developed further to include
a more coordinated approach between the demands of the region and the research programme of the School. The MPhil/PhD Programme in Architecture was launched in autumn 2007. The programme runs weekly research seminars designed for PhD students. These seminars are a mixture of research directives, student presentations and guest speaker presentations. They included: Dr. Gerald Adler, Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Melissa Trimingham, Donna Landry and Gordana Fontana-Giusti. Current PhD candidates are Anja Karina Nydal, Grant Mitchell and Lindy Weston, and you can see examples of their work on the following pages. Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti Director of Research
Denying the Vertical its Verticality: the Mastering of Stones and Geometry in Mountaineering and Architecture My research explores how mountaineering from the 19th century until today relates to the architectural traditions of stereotomy. It endeavours to show how an architect and a mountaineer share the ability to imagine complex geometrical forms and master them on an empirical level before reducing them to an image. The architect and the mountaineer traverse the same space by proving through their work an ability to negotiate, imagine and remember its geometries.
research
Anja Karina Nydal Since the invention of the perspective, representations have distanced us from learning to master space and its geometries on this corporeal level, inhibiting our geometrical imagination.
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research
Can Buildings Heal? – Evaluating the Therapeutic effects of Healthcare Design
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Grant Mitchell Evidence-based design practice and their associated therapeutic benefits are critically examined across four UK rehabilitation centres. Highlighting the advantages and limitations of the evidence-based model, it could be argued that the short-term healing effects of current static hospital architectures are negligible when compared to the long-term potentials of emerging pervasive technologies. As architectural design processes become increasingly automated, sensory mapping tools are set to revolutionise 3D visualisation, allowing patient-centred environments to finally go beyond the purely visual.
Wave UFO by Mariko Mori (2005)
Lindy Weston
research
The research is focused on informing contemporary building practice about the status of a sense of the holy. Sacred building practices take into account the whole (med. Eng. hole, holy) form as it arises from the individual materials. Specific historic examples of medieval vault construction illustrate the relationship between matter (origin, source, mother) and wholeness. Contemporary materials, although commonly seen through a desacralised viewpoint, can play a role in a ‘contemporary sacred building practice’. The thesis will highlight how such a manner of building potentially holds important implications for contemporary society.
The Notion of Sacred and Architecture
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communications
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Communication is an integral part of the school of architecture. The ability to design is diminished without the ability to communicate the ideas. In 07/08 the school has seen an advance in the use of communication developing new methods of presentation, integrating traditional principles with modern technologies. This has been demonstrated with the use of our monochrome darkroom facilities together with the digital darkroom to create a rich and vibrant presentation to this year’s external examinations. The computing facilities that we have in the school have been used extensively and creatively this year. The high quality printing that is provided has helped with the marked improvement in presentations and crits. This year has also seen an increase in the use of film, video and animation as a tool to communication design ideas and concepts. This seemingly omnipresent
medium has allowed the students to diversify their skills and schemes. My thanks go out to Brian Wood who has been instrumental in keeping these facilities running at all times. The model workshop remains an integral part of the school. Again the development of digital technology has blended well with traditional methods and workmanship. The introduction of an additional laser cutter machine has reaped benefits clearly evident in crits and presentations. However, the workshop has also promoted the development of more diverse methods, such as resin injection into flexible forms. In addition to this the spray booth facilities continue to be well used. On behalf of the students, I’d like to thank Kevin Smith and his team of Enzo Labrosciano and Janice Shales for all the help and guidance they have provided throughout the year.
The drawing lessons given to students in their first year have been cemented and complimented by digital technologies and have given a solid foundation to the student’s skills. This year’s graduating students have taken these skills and demonstrated to a high degree of quality what these skills can achieve.
Howard Griffin Head of Computing and Communication
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technology & environment
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As global warming rises to the top of the political, social and economic agenda, we too focus even more strongly on developing the understanding, skills, and imagination required to re-envision the design of human habitation, so that it might respond to the crisis. With carbon reduction targets of 80-90%, nothing short of a new paradigm for building will be sufficient.
Free sources of energy – for both cooling and warming – are critical factors. A clear understanding of the varying annual and diurnal paths of the sun across the sky is put into practice in the Climate module, where students design solar shades for the overheated offices in our own building. The same knowledge is exploited to heat buildings in winter, using passive solar design.
The key first move in environmental control is passive design – learning how to achieve comfortable conditions inside buildings without recourse to bought energy – when outside temperatures are anything but comfortable. We begin the journey on the Enlighten module in Stage 1 with light – the primary mediator of architecture – and daylight in particular; first qualitatively, by drawing and modelling, and later quantitatively, to see whether we have sufficient to avoid the need of artificial sources.
At varying stages across the degree programmes, Technology and Environment is both integrated into the design projects and disaggregated. There are good pedagogic reasons to focus on a specific aspect of architectural design when first venturing into a topic area – such as making spaghetti models in Stage 1 to explore structural design principles – but later, students need to juggle and meld a wide range of skills during the complex and iterative design process. Mark Bolitho of the British Origami Society provided the catalyst for Stage 2
students’ investigations into the paradoxical strength of folded paper structures. On the Form and Structure module students tested the carrying capacity of their own ‘Bricks on Sticks’ structures before designing bridges to replace the missing city walls around Canterbury’s tannery site. In preparation for independent practice, MArch students undertake research into innovative building technologies, searching for synergies between different industries, and finding fresh candidates for technology transfer – such as the lightweight stressed skin panels which originated in the aircraft industry – which move architecture into new territories. Keith Bothwell Head of Technology and Environment
69 technology & environment
CULTURAL CONTEXT
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During their first year all our students are introduced to the leading domestic architecture of the last hundred years, and they combine historical study with model-making and analysis. They are later introduced to Western architecture through landmark buildings presented in their historical, social and aesthetic context. Students begin their second year with a look at key chapters in architectural history from the end of the eighteenth century up to the 1950s. These are linked to the ‘Adapt and Extend’ design module which challenges them to engage with historic or existing buildings. A series of lectures then looks at international and historical landscape design from across the world,
accompanying the ‘Landscape’ design module. At the same time, interior design and interior architecture students examine current ideas, manifestoes and theories. In their final undergraduate year, architecture students prepare an ‘apologia’ in the form of an analytical, historical essay that accompanies and explains their design approaches, as well as writing a dissertation. At KSA we value very highly the way in which theory and practice run side by side, believing that the newly qualified architect who is comfortable with architectural history is better placed to respond with facility and experience to the challenges of modern professional life. Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin
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study tours
Stage 1 students explored the city of Barcelona in November. The study tour coincided with the Sensibilia design project using a town square near to the port. The students also experienced the rich culture that Barcelona, Figueres and Girona have to offer.
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Stage 2 students spent a week in Utrecht and Amsterdam in May. Highlights of the field trip were visits to the ‘undisputed pinnacle of Dutch architecture’ – the Zonnestraal Sanatorium outside Hilversum and to Mecanoo’s iconic grass-roofed library in Delft. Stage 3 students travelled to Berlin in January to look at the regeneration that is taking place in the city since the fall of communism. Many buildings and memorials from the city’s troubled history were visited, with the Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind being of particular interest.
Stage 4 in January travelled to London to visit Amnesty International UK Human Rights Action Centre in Shoreditch, where we were given a tour by Guy Watson of Witherford Watson Mann Architects, the architects for the new centre. We went on to visit Amnesty International International Secretariat; St. Gilesin-the-Fields Church, Elms Lester Painting Rooms; and Congress House, Headquarters of the TUC. Thank you to all these institutions and the individuals who participated.
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St Anselm’s During the course of the Autumn Term our Stage 2 architecture and interior architecture students undertake a twelve-week design project that helps them engage with existing buildings. In 2007 we designed major extensions and alterations to St Anselm’s School, a popular and successful local secondary school located in the Old Dover Road, Canterbury. This was originally a highquality mid-1960s building that had become too small for its increasing number of pupils, and our students designed new facilities in accordance with a brief that reflects the real needs of the school, including a ‘black box’ theatre, an art gallery, and a new dining hall. In addition to working in and around the fabric of the old buildings, we looked at the spaces between them, suggesting how the school might over the long term improve the quality of its green environment. We undertook the project with the full support of the school itself, and look forward to sharing our ideas with pupils and governors.
Golf Pavilion Students were offered the opportunity to enter a competition to design a golf pavilion in Greece in association with Carrick, Howell & Lawrence Architects. The competition was a great success with many diverse proposals entered. The eventual winner was Tom Hughes from Stage 5, whose design is now going forward for construction.
Medway Renaissance In the autumn term, Stage 4 students engaged in the urban regeneration of Strood in Medway working together with Medway Renaissance to develop strategies to include a provision for 600 new homes, recreational waterfront with leisure facilities and new public spaces.
Eco-House Stage 5 student Tom Hughes was the perfect fit when Graham and Sue Mitchell brought their ‘ecohouse’ project to the Kent School of Architecture in January 2008. Tom’s considerable expertise in ecological/green architecture reflects his own interests galvanised by specialised first-hand experience gained through working in practice. A difficult site in an area of outstanding natural beauty, previous attempts to gain planning approval for a house had been refused. Tom forensically navigated through the legalese of pertaining planning policy to construct a case for approval. In parallel he developed a relationship with his clients that provided them with the confidence to embrace the concept of a truly exemplar building. It is hoped that Tom will follow this project to completion after graduation, and achieve one of the first ‘level 6’ house on the BREEAM Code for Sustainable Homes scale in Kent. All involved would like to extend their gratitude to Graham and Sue Mitchell.
kasa
KASA - Kent Architecture Student Association. A student organisation which organises a series of lectures and educational and social events
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Staff: Alan Latham Construction Technology Chris Gardner Design and Construction Chris Seaber Stage 1 Coordinator Dr Gerald Adler Programme Director, BA Architecture Howard Griffin Communication & Computing Keith Bothwell Environment & Sustainability Michael Richards Programme Director, March Professor Don Gray Head of School Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti Professor of Regional Regeneration/Director of Research Taseer Ahmad Programme Director, BA Interior Design/BA Interior Architecture Tim Brittain-Catlin Cultural Context Support Staff: Ben Martin Administrative Assistant Brian Wood ICT Technician Claire Woodhall School Secretary Enzo Labrosciano Workshop/E&T Technician Janice Shales Workshop/Modelmaking Technician Jeanne Straight School Coordinator Kevin Smith Model-Making & Workshop Supervisor
With contributions from: Alison Pooley Azhar Cherie Yeo Chris Romer-Lee Corinna Dean David Reason (Master Keynes College) Dylan Haughton Edda Jones Edmond Rube Fiona Raley Graham Bailey James Bellamy James Lowe Jef Smith Julia Bailey Julian Bore Kathryn Siveyer Ken Davis Liz Freemont Lucy O’Reilly Lynn Kinnear Mark Bolitho Nicholas Hobbs
Nick Brown Paul Davies (Drama) Professor Malcolm Andrews (English) Professor Susan Standring (KCL) Rebecca Hobbs Robert Nice Roger Turner Sam Cooper Steve Bowkett Stuart Tappin Susanne Tutsch Timothy Carlyle William Edwards (Gordon Museum)