The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL B-Pro Show 2021
Contents
4 Introduction Frédéric Migayrou, Andrew Porter, Bob Sheil 8 10 12
Automated Architecture Labs Material Architecture Lab Urban Morphogenesis Lab
16 Architectural Design MArch 18 RC0 Algorithmic Typologies 30 RC1 Monumental Wastelands: Climigration 44 RC2 Robotic Architecture 52 RC3 AI + Autonomous Architecture 66 RC4 Architecture and Automation: Platforms, Homes and Housing 78 RC5&6 Fragment 92 RC7 Biospatial Design II 106 RC8 Recycling and Mixing 118 RC9 Architecture for the Augmented Age 132 RC10 Habitat Tectonics 140 Architectural Design Thesis
148 Urban Design MArch 150 RC11 AI and the Future of Central Business Districts 164 RC12 Videogame Urbanism 178 RC14 Machine Thinking Urbanism: Cities Beyond Cognition 192 RC15 Pervasive Urbanism: Reprogramming the Urban Commons 204 RC16 DeepCity 218 RC18 Kiss the Ground 232 RC19 Excursions on Media Ecology 244 RC20 Monumental Wastelands: Autonomous Ecologies 256 Urban Design Thesis 262 Architectural Computation MSc/MRes 276 Bio-Integrated Design MArch/MSc 280 281 283 284 285 286 287 288
Our Programmes Public Lectures Conferences & Events Bartlett Shows Website Alumni The Bartlett Promise Architecture Education Declares Staff, Visitors & Consultants
Introduction Professor Frédéric Migayrou Chair, Bartlett Professor of Architecture Director of B-Pro
Professor Andrew Porter
Deputy Director of B-Pro B-Pro, or Bartlett Prospective, is a suite of graduate programmes devoted to advanced experimentation in computational architecture, design and urban environments. Architectural Design MArch explores the most advanced experimental research in design and fabrication. Urban Design MArch takes critical approaches towards creative urban and landscape design, defining creative strategies for global cities and communities. Our Architectural Computation MSc and MRes programmes engage with and advance the main technologies by which tomorrow’s architecture will be designed and constructed. In 2018 these programmes were joined by two innovative Bio-Integrated Design Master’s degrees, which respond to the impact of biotechnology, computation and climate change on the built environment. The B-Pro programmes welcome a diverse international student cohort, offering highly structured access to the realisation of research, and to the production of new schemes in architecture and urbanism. Architectural Design, directed by Gilles Retsin, is organised around research clusters driven by their respective tutors, including two labs – the Automated Architecture Lab and Material Architecture Lab – to explore specific speculative domains of application. The latest technologies – robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), CNC fabrication, 3D printing, supercomputing, simulation, generative design, interactivity, advanced algorithms, extensive material prototyping, biotechnologies, links to material science – and their many applications, are researched in great depth. The exploration of supercomputing and generative platforms also forms a core part of our innovative approach to conception and fabrication, enabled by exceptional digital production facilities. With extensive use of AI and of 4
simulation in virtual reality, the degree offers access to new fields for experimental research and generative design. Urban Design, directed by Roberto Bottazzi, looks at creative approaches towards environments and cities at all scales, innovative computational design, biotechnologies, artificial intelligence, and digital approaches to networks and territories. The research clusters and the programme’s lab, Urban Morphogenesis Lab, develop alternative proposals based on new morphological concepts and protocols, which reflect how cities are complex, dynamic living systems. Critical environmental and ecological questions are also viewed through an interdisciplinary lens, acknowledging the dispersed and often paradoxical nature of contemporary urbanism. Through contextual case studies and interventions, students address the challenges involved in resolving complex issues facing populations, public space, building typologies and land use. The Bio-Integrated Design Master’s programmes are led jointly by Professor Marcos Cruz (The Bartlett) and Dr Brenda Parker (UCL Biochemical Engineering). With access to the latest in biotechnology and advanced fabrication, students work collaboratively in the lab, studio and workshop to develop novel products and environments, in the context of critical issues of climate change and sustainability. The solutions produced hold the potential to be shaped into world-changing environmental and social innovations. Our Architectural Computation programmes are directed by Manuel Jiménez Garcia and challenge the boundaries of what architectural computation can achieve. Projects explore computational methods for automated construction, augmented reality applications for the built environment, and use artificial intelligence for space navigation and pattern generation. The work of this programme demonstrates the possibility of becoming truly fluent in computational language, opening up new domains for research.
Our B-Pro programmes are further enhanced by collaboration with the school’s Architecture & Digital Theory MRes, codirected by Professor Frédéric Migayrou and Professor Mario Carpo, dedicated to the theory, history and criticism of digital design and digital fabrication. We also look forward to supporting PhD research in this exciting arena. The B-Pro Prospectives Lecture Series, with numerous speakers, architects, historians and theoreticians, continues to present new opportunities for students to encounter fresh takes on emerging research in the fields of digital theory. Through a shared vision of creative architecture, B-Pro is an opportunity for students to participate in a new community and to affirm the singularity of their individual talents. These programmes are not only an open door to advanced architectural practice but also form the base from which each student can define their particular approach and architectural philosophy, in order to seek a position in the professional world. This year the work has continued to develop further the clear shift in the contextualisation of previous research, the application of digital design and thinking has engaged directly with political, cultural and societal realms. In particular the climate crisis is addressed by a number of clusters with an emphasis on changing landscapes and ecosystems, environmental sensing and materials. Issues of social justice and poverty are addressed through engagement with the political structures and economics of housing and population programmes. In the face of a second academic year which has been shaped by a global pandemic, B-Pro students have once again risen to the challenge of re-invigorating their working methods and production. The exceptional quality of their output continues to exceed the high standards set by previous cohorts. In addition to the online B-Pro show and this accompanying book, this year has been marked by also being the second year for which the ‘Supercrits’ and ‘Metacrits’ have emerged as new platforms for student
presentations and dialogue. Livestreamed to over 15,000 viewers, the Supercrit is an extraordinary celebration of work at the end of the academic year. The follow up Metacrit after the year has completed is an event that spans both the outgoing and incoming cohort of students, marking a moment of transition and exchange for their remarkable ideas and design research. These events encapsulate not only the resilience and ingenuity of the B-Pro community but the ongoing vision, passion and dedication of staff and students at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
Professor Bob Sheil Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture Academia is led by the mission to create new knowledge, understanding, reflection and critique, and for us at The Bartlett School of Architecture that mission is directed at the environment in all its forms, meanings, contexts and potential. It is a mission with fundamental human dimensions, intrinsically linked to the spaces and systems in which all things exist. Academia is not only a place to assess and prepare for plausible futures, but also a place to speculate on possible alternatives. To be prospective is to challenge norms and offer up experimental models that question our understanding of the present and its assumed trajectory. To be prospective is to maintain a perpetual mission to inform us of our potential and how it can be directed. On this basis, I wish to commend everyone involved in the ideas, provocations, discoveries and lessons represented in this year’s book. It’s been another deeply challenging year for everyone in the school – for our families, partners, neighbours and friends. Our staff and students’ determination to remain focused on their research is an acknowledgement of its importance for our discipline and our times. The rigour, innovation and commitment displayed here reflect an abundance of talent, imagination, determination and energy. Congratulations and thank you to you all. 5
Automated Architecture (AUAR) Labs, House Block, 2021. Photo: Gilles Retsin
B-Pro Labs
Automated Architecture Labs Lab Directors: Mollie Claypool, Manuel Jiménez Garcia, Gilles Retsin Affiliated with Architectural Design MArch Research Cluster 4
Automated Architecture (AUAR) Labs is a consortium of research streams at The Bartlett School of Architecture, operating at the intersection between architecture and technology. Our projects bring advanced technologies, design, people and communities together to radically rethink architectural production. The work of AUAR Labs focuses on architecture, automation and issues of social justice such as housing, platforms, the future of work, localised manufacturing and circular economies. We believe in the future of architecture being one that is inclusive and equitable, and that centres the role of automation simultaneously with people, their values and lived experiences of the built environment. Increasing automation requires architecture for automation. To do this we utilise the notion of the discrete, considering every element, part or particle as a piece of data that can be computed. Parts therefore take on the properties of a ‘bit’, becoming serialised, standardised and embedded with a simple rule: 0 or 1 (that is, connected or not connected). The emphasis on the part as a unit reintroduces the age-old disciplinary notion of part-to-whole relationships and constructs an architectural framework well-suited for automation. We engage automation to create a more inspiring built environment for all. We advocate for horizontal, participatory and equal social practices in architecture and technology where individual autonomy and freedom, supported in a structure of care, lead to more creative, inspired and empowered people and more equitably built environments. This embodies a fundamental shift in architecture and technology that is unique to our research and projects. AUAR Labs works with students in Architectural Design MArch Research Cluster 4 with an agenda on housing, automation and platforms. Current collaborators include: Claire McAndrew (The Bartlett), Knowle West Media Centre, KWMC The Factory, We Can Make, Hackney Council, Bristol City Council, Waltham Forest Future Creatives, New City College, The Building Centre, East London Dance, Studio Wayne McGregor and Nagami Design. AUAR Labs has received funding from UCL Innovation and Enterprise, UCL Culture, Transforming Construction Network Plus, Epic Games and EPSRC Impact Acceleration Fund.
Image: House Block asks what could our environment look like if our homes were not static structures, but could evolve over time? What if there was no set design, but an ecology of elements that constantly reorganise through automation? Could we even dare to think of a future that democratises access to building systems, one that alleviates the housing crisis and supports labour practices threatened by ever-increasing automation? Photo: James Harris 8
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Material Architecture Lab Lab Directors: Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig Affiliated with Architectural Design MArch Research Clusters 5&6
Our research starts by asking questions about materials through design, both digitally and manually. With the prevalence of digital tools, the capabilities of industrial production have migrated from factory floors to smaller-scale workshops, laboratories and research facilities. Coupled with advances in material science at a microscopic scale, and availability of specialist tools to customise materials, the prospect of a new kind of architecture is now imminent. Despite advances in technology, the cost of digital fabrication is high, while change in the construction industry is slow. Digitally driven fabrication is deterministic by nature: everything made has to be modelled digitally, without the element of chance. In Material Architecture Lab we encourage making without preconceptions, allowing the characteristics of the material and fabrication techniques to inform and enrich the outcome. In order to be experimental with processes of making, we look closely at existing crafts and manufacturing techniques with the aim of adding to existing knowledge when possible, learning from it at the very least. Exploring the potential of material design requires setting aside established ideas of not only how something should be constructed, but also how materials should appear or behave. New materials in architecture emerge rarely, but their impact is considerable. The fabric of our cities and landscapes is a testament to what prevails and endures. Traditional materials can be refashioned by altering the way they are processed or utilised. Material behaviour changes with quantity; performance differs depending on a structure’s size and on the environment in which it is constructed, while visual impact varies with distance. Our method of enquiry is hands-on, set firmly in the realms of empirical testing of matter and fabrication on an architectural scale. The development of material science goes hand-in-hand with technological shifts. As a research laboratory, our interest in material is mediated through not only experimentation with the latest in digital design and fabrication but also applicability, tested in the construction industry through live projects. Our methodology prioritises a hybrid of fabrication techniques, favouring customised systems, the design of processes as well as products, and use of digitally controlled machining and semi-automated processes. Our experiments are grounded in cyclical processes of making prototypes, with rigorous and iterative refinements. The lab’s work is as much about traditional making as it is about computation and digital technology. Image: Code Bothy 2020, Mixed reality brick construction in collaboration with Piercy and Co. Photo: Naaro 10
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Urban Morphogenesis Lab Lab Director: Claudia Pasquero Affiliated with Urban Design MArch Research Cluster 16
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, with the urban population due to double by 2050. Intense urbanisation has led us to rethink human socioeconomic development on a global scale, with particular emphasis on the relationship between human beings, their footprint and the environment. Cities are the biggest carbon emitters globally, therefore it is necessary to redesign their infrastructure and rethink consumption patterns. Is there a way to convert waste and pollution into raw material to feed new processes of production? How can we make visible what is now invisible and informal in cities? Innovative strategies for waste management, water conservation, recycling, renewable energy and trading are required, alongside implementing technologies for the filtration and re-metabolisation of air pollution. Though often overlooked, layers of informality in urban spaces supplement and complement existing public services such as water catchment, individual waste recycling and decentralised construction. Yet, effective ways of addressing vulnerabilities demand utilisation of the entire human and environmental systems in cities. We can design resilient cities that use their size and collective energy to create refuge for humans and displaced wildlife, promote the emergence of positive microclimates, replenish depleted water sources and restore degraded terrains. This entails innovative strategies of urban regreening and rewilding, as well as urban agriculture. In a collaboration with UNDP, the PhotoSynthEtica consortium (including ecoLogicStudio, the Urban Morphogenesis Lab at The Bartlett, UCL and the Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University) has been testing the potential of AI to develop a new green-planning interface, combining the scalability of a planning application with the sensibility and intuitive accessibility of its design interface. Using sophisticated algorithms to analyse hi-resolution data, the application produces simulated scenarios of sustainable urban development and a new way of urban planning: one that is dynamic, iterative and comprehensive. This year, the Lab has been involved in various international projects, including a main project showcase in the Corderie at the Venice Architecture Biennale, a photosynthetic playground in Warsaw for GlaxoSmithKline and a bio-factory prototype in Lisbon for Nestlé’s headquarters. The Lab is also working on an installation for the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow and a project for the Pompidou Centre, Paris. Image: BitBioBot: a prototype dwelling and collective experiment in biotech architecture, by ecoLogicStudio with the Urban Morphogenesis Lab at The Bartlett, UCL and the Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University, Venice Biennale 2021. Photo: Marco Cappelletti 12
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Cable-bot structure, With Without, Research Cluster 4. Photo: Santiago Del Aguila Ferrandis
Architectural Design MArch
Architectural Design MArch Programme Director: Gilles Retsin
Architectural Design at The Bartlett is invested in the frontiers of advanced architecture and design and its convergence with science and technology. Composed of an international staff of experts and students, this programme is designed to deliver diverse yet focused strands of speculative research, emphasising the key role computation plays within complex design synthesis. Design is increasingly recognised as a crucial agency for uncovering complex patterns and relations. Historically, the most successful architecture has managed to capture cultural conditions, utilise technological advancements and answer to the pressures and constraints of materials, economics, ecology and politics. This synthesis is now being accelerated by the introduction of computation and the ever-evolving landscape of production. Architectural Design students are introduced to advanced coding, fabrication and robotic skills, aimed at computational and technological fluency. Simultaneously, they are taught about the theoretical frameworks which underpin their enquiries. Students are part of a vibrant urban and professional community, enriching the process of learning and opportunities for networking. Placing advanced design at its core, the Architectural Design programme devotes a high proportion of its time to studio-based design enquiry, culminating in a major project and thesis. The programme is organised into research clusters, each with their own agendas, underpinned by the shared resources of technical tutorials, theoretical lectures and seminars. The latest approaches to robotics and AI, augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing, supercomputing, simulation, generative design, interactivity, extensive material prototyping and links to material science are explored. Students engage critically with new developments in technology, which are rapidly changing the landscape of architecture, its social and economic role and its effectiveness in industry applications. Students are introduced to theoretical concepts through lectures and introductory design projects, supported by computational and robotics skillsbuilding workshops. Throughout the year, students work in small teams or individually, according to the methodology of each research cluster, amplifying their focus and individual talents in the context of complex design research and project development. Projects are continuously evaluated via tutorials, with regular design reviews by external critics. Alongside our cutting-edge research, we host public lectures and seminars throughout the year. Image: More Than Human explores how deep learning can aid in developing novel design tools. It rejects the longstanding conceptual separation between humans and the natural environment and reintegrates non-human agency into architecture. Students: Yi Sui, Christopher Whiteside, Zhan Xu. Tutors: Richard Beckett, Levent Ozruh, Barry Wark 16
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Algorithmic Typologies
RC0
Alessandro Bava, Tobias Jewson
Digital technologies are radically reshaping how we work, and in turn, how we inhabit the planet. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated changes to working cultures across the world, forcing us to question long-established assumptions about the home and the city. If working from home – away from the office – is the new normal, how does the home have to change to accommodate it? Research Cluster 0 investigated the potential of automation to encode the spatial and programmatic qualities of traditional typologies into new algorithmic types. Architectural discourse has long foreshadowed the rise of live-work typologies. However, as this condition was limited to a small elite of knowledge workers, only provisional answers have been provided. Now that this is the lived reality for millions of workers, it will impact not only the home but the very idea of the city. Global megalopolises still represent the last evolutionary node of cities as diagrams of capital accumulation, yet it seems that the same degree of physical proximity is no longer required. If cognitive labour is the raison d’etre of the contemporary western city, and its capacity to aggregate is no longer needed by this form of production, then will the emergent conditions of remote work engender new forms of governance and new forms of life? The cluster makes a case for a future where workers can move away from the global metropoles towards the provinces, adopting an ethos of redistribution enabled by digital technologies. This year, students have been working in the Mezzogiorno of Italy, proposing new domestic and (sub)urban typologies suited to the needs of remote workers. They have explored the intrinsic formal and spatial qualities of algorithms to design new domestic typologies, replacing the analogue standardisation of modernism with a computational (non)standardisation.
Students Co-Condominium Yaxin Duan, Yu He, Ningzi Xue, Xinyi Yu High-Rise Allotment Garden Liqun Ma, Mark Oliver Trance, Chengyi Wang, Jiaxi Zhang Loft Palazzo Tianyi Gao, Lingwen Kong, Tianchen Shen, Quan Zhang Sponge Domus Gilang Fajar Kusumawardana, Kaifeng Liu, Jili Mei, Cristina Trovati Theory Tutor Julian Siravo Skills Tutors Özgüç Bertuğ Çapunaman, Vincenzo Reale, Milad Showkatbakhsh
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0.1–0.4 Loft Palazzo Remote working and working from home are becoming the new normal, a rapid shift that pushes us to rethink established domestic typologies. Loft Palazzo reimagines the typology of the loft while adapting it to the specific needs of people who work remotely. Lofts are traditionally undetermined columnless spaces resulting from an adaptation of a manufacturing typology to living. This project hybridises living and manufacturing in a space that combines flexibility with specificity. It introduces an algorithmic typology to automate the design process by encoding typological qualities into spatial relations and parametric interdependencies, generating precise yet adaptive spatial conditions. Using computational tools such as machine learning, computer vision and genetic algorithms, this algorithmic typology provides a possible answer to the challenges of remote work, while it also presents a new way of using computational tools in design: as organisational and programmatic tools rather than formal engines. 0.5–0.7 Sponge Domus Sponge Domus is a temporary building for a large and complex group of digital nomads. The design is a fractal version of a historical fondaco, a building dedicated to trading and temporary housing for travelling merchants, combined with the ancient Roman leisure villa, which also grows out of a central courtyard. The project answers the unique housing needs of the so-called nomadic worker whose lifestyle is associated with frequent travel, temporary housing and remote working. We explored solutions architecture can offer when augmented by computational tools, such as machine learning and genetic algorithms, which redefine how we approach the question of standardisation in mass housing. Sponge Domus utilises critical elements when automating the design process, with the database of Pompeii villas serving as the main design engine. Architectural plans embedded with the compositional, programmatic and spatial intelligence of the ancient Roman originals, are generated through a machine learning algorithm. 0.8–0.10 High-Rise Allotment Garden An 800 people multifamily housing project is designed to combine green space and living space in a non-rhetorical way, using green space as an integral part of the domestic typology. Living units, gardens and working spaces integrate seamlessly with each other while maintaining privacy. The design research also focuses on southern Italy’s rich architectural, historical, social and economic background, while still considering contemporary developments around the world. With an emphasis on the analytical and generative potential of Machine Learning (ML), the relationship between different garden living forms and applications of prefabricated modular BCORE slab systems made in China is examined. ML is used to transform output footprints into floor plans. The result is a new building typology that rethinks housing as an industrial product while positioning architecture as a tool to automate the assembly of specific spatial and programmatic patterns. 0.11–0.14 Co-Condominium Domestic life is challenged when working from home, especially when coupled with childcare. Co-Condominium is centred around the socialisation of domestic work, designed to alleviate the stresses triggered by this increasingly dominant condition, through a specific typological and spatial organisation. The qualities observed in a traditional multi-family typology are encoded and transformed into a new adaptive and flexible co-living typology using algorithmic tools. The plan is generated with the assistance of AI, optimising privacy gradient patterns in an open plan layout for a co-living set-up. The modularised domestic facilities are elaborately designed to fit in the shared 20
space. In terms of personal space, a flexible grid system provides users with multiple utilisations of space. A multifamily living set up is promoted in the condominium, becoming a new paradigm to alleviate domestic stress. The speculative scenario is that 3 to 12 families will establish new kinship by caring for children, cooking and working together in neo-domestic units. Domestic life unfolds in a long continuous sharing space.
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Monumental Wastelands: RC1 Climigration Hadin Charbel, Déborah López Lobato, Joris Putteneers Human rights lawyer Robin Bronen coined the term ‘climigration’ to describe the ‘forced permanent migration of communities due to climate change’.1 In broader terms, the notion of migration is linked to how one defines the concept of borders, which finds its roots in colonial attitudes that demarcate and ultimately control resources, accessibility and self-determination. In this sense, Research Cluster 1 understands the idea of a border as having implications in territories, cultures, biotopes and climatic zones, as well as various mediums and interfaces between the real and the virtual. In the Arctic specifically, communities face immediate threats from flooding, thawing permafrost, increasing river flow and coastal erosion. Historically, from an outsider’s perspective, these communities have been partly defined by subsistence, which inadvertently serves as a pretext for forced external intervention. Through a methodology of ‘decoding’ and ‘recoding’, projects emerged as strategies of preservation through adaptation; the aim of which was to empower various forms of decolonisation. The theme of climate-related migration is thus broadened to encompass humans, non-humans, material flows and resources, and their interrelated effects on culture, social spheres, policy, habitats, architecture, infrastructure and media. A combination of legal precedent, ecosystemic analysis and machine learning across different behaviours, architectural typologies, geological formations and media form the basis for data sets to be decoded. Using videogame engines, interactive world building is explored as a tool for recoding in the form of archiving, decision making, building and communicating the multi-layered effects of changing scenes, integrating dynamics, flux and uncertainty into the possible outcomes. The projects culminated in the production of immersive narratives, mixing different representational and interactive techniques to utilise their potential to project alternative realities through non-linear outcomes.
Students Arctic Everywhere Aiyasi, Ran Wang, Angui Li, Yanning Yang Gaming Consensus Junyi Du, Bingchuan Jiang, Beiyuan Zhang, Xiayi Zheng Hyper-Migration Sofiela Kotsi, Fonteini Terzopoulou, Tiantong Xu, Yuxiao Zhang Last Chance Tourism Ze Gao, Hongyi Wu, Zhe Zhang Sami Borderless Yuqi Liu, Fangrong Lin, Yuexi Liu, Jiaxi Zheng Theory Tutors Clara Jaschke, Daria Ricchi Skills Tutors Eleni Chasioti, Brian Cox, Patrick Danahy, Sherif Eltarabishy, Zehao Qin
1. Robin Bronen (2009), ‘Forced Migration of Alaskan Indigenous Communities Due to Climate Change: Creating a human rights response, (Eds.), Linking Environmental Change, Migration & Social Vulnerability, Anthony Oliver-Smith and Xiaomeng Shen (Bonn: UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security), pp68–73. 31
1.1, 1.3–1.12 Gaming Consensus 1.1 A catalogue of existing building materials is uploaded to a digital cloud to be later used in constructing a new town. 1.3 The virtual deconstruction of existing houses can be used for machine learning. 1.4–1.5 Successful training allows for the automated and unsupervised detection and classification of various housing elements. A game interface is also developed for test building and demolishing. 1.6 The material catalogue of all existing components is uploaded to a digital cloud, which can be accessed by anyone in the community in order to be reused and traded among inhabitants in the process of town reconstruction. 1.7–1.10 The gaming interface allows for collective decision-making at an urban scale and an individual house scale. Public urban-fabric elements, such as a school, church and hospital, are pre-made and laid out according to each user’s vision of the future town plan. Once consensus is reached, individual houses, composed of voxels made from existing materials, are able to be generated based on user needs. 1.11 A house generated using Wave Function Collapse in the game environment according to user preference. 1.12 The first-person virtual experience can be accessed by anyone in the town, allowing them to walk through the proposed urban and housing plans. These can then either be approved or rejected until consensus is reached. 1.2, 1.13–1.19 Hyper-Migration 1.2 The hybrid typology collapses different architectural precedents, material resources and human behaviours made using a constructional syntax, in response to a community forced to migrate due to coastal erosion. 1.13 Heat maps from agent simulations in existing international floor plans are used to decode behavioural patterns and find the closest corresponding match within the town’s inhabitants. 1.14 International floor plan fragments are reconfigured according to what best satisfies behavioural conditions, while adapting to a new site or modified footprint as a result of coastal erosion. 1.15 Due to limited material resource, a constructional syntax is created that reuses existing building elements; these can be reconfigured into voxels. 1.16 The constructional syntax also allows for building instances where a more specific spatial and architectural condition is desired, such as those created by international floor plans. 1.17 The hyper-migration system is designed to respond to changes in site conditions. Therefore no design is ever final, but is instead open to regeneration and the spatial redistribution of material. 1.18 In recreating a public gathering space, a classical typology best fits the boundaries of the new site while satisfying human behaviour. 1.19 A split-screen section compares the target architectural model generated from the international floor plans (left) with the built outcome once it has been translated using the constructional syntax and repurposed building material (right). 1.20–1.25 Arctic Everywhere 1.20 Linking digital and physical space, game voxels are representative of different ecological zones and embed characteristics such as resources and regeneration time. 1.21 A block-chain protocol is used to secure the execution of smart contracts, which can be negotiated between users as either human-to-human or human-to-non-human transactions. 1.22 Machine Learning Agents (ML Agents), represented as a ‘generator’ and ‘discriminator’, train against two different objectives: the generator harvests and extracts as many resources as possible, while the discriminator preserves and maintains ecological equilibrium. The goal of playing both sides is to establish a balance between maximising profit and minimising ecological damage. 1.23 Each player, as generator or discriminator, can acquire different abilities that 32
correspond to their respective objectives. 1.24 The game environment is designed to collect player data from both sides, which is used in training the strategy and intelligence of the system. 1.25 Stills taken from user game play at different moments show the variation in the world dynamics, such as the seasons and resources, as well as its response to over-extracting and regenerating by blocking certain zones. 1.26–1.32 Sami Borderless 1.26 A first-person experience allows users to navigate personal history archives. 1.27 A user’s memory fragments and their associations are tagged through a word2vec system, determining how each object is associated with – and ultimately underpins – the construction of one’s memory archive. 1.28 Eye-gaze tracking is used to create heat maps. Attention is translated into personal value, and thus is used as a metric for automating the decision process of what is archived and what is not. 1.29 A memory cube has infinite resolution and can be added to endlessly. Each point is a representation of a memory fragment, the collection of which constitutes the entirety of the user’s recorded life experience. 1.30 Different self-worlds are generated when specific fragments or memories are triggered in a particular sequence, resulting in infinite possible outcomes for how they are reconstructed, curated and experienced. 1.31 View of navigating a user’s personal history archive with audio and visual layers. 1.32 The decentralised platform enables multiple historical reconstructions to take place and is governed by a protocol that is constantly updated as new content is added. 1.33–1.36 Last Chance Tourism 1.33 A Cli-2-Vec system is created as a means of associating different natural phenomena with their climatic counterparts, growing the database for cause and effect across the climate change spectrum. Here a ‘Theme World Cluster’ is generated. 1.34 Disappearing landscapes are archived and organised according to the Cli-2-Vec system, which allows visitors to ‘spectacle surf’ from one to another. In cases where there is no archive of a given spectacle, a ‘Composite World Cluster’ is used to generate the spectacle. 1.35 The platform studies existing nature documentary aesthetics to decode camera angles, depth of field, position and movement, as well as colour schemes and composition. 1.36 Climate change in the Arctic has generated a social paradox as the global public who advocates for its preservation is made up of the same people who would seek to visit it as it undergoes irreversible change, perpetuating a positive feedback loop. The project responds by engaging the public through virtual content that is gathered during the archiving process.
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Robotic Architecture
RC2
Georgia Kolokoudia, Valentina Soana
Research Cluster 2 explores emerging design possibilities of autonomous material-machine systems. The cluster investigates the role of robotics in architecture, beyond their use as fabrication and construction tools, moving towards a novel concept of architectural robots. For a long time now, designers have envisioned building systems that could respond and adapt to multiple human, environmental and structural conditions. Recent technological advancements in robotics enable machines to be self-aware, plan and react to undetermined circumstances. Meanwhile, new interests in active materials and their behaviours have been fostered by advances in computational tools. Current simulation techniques enable novel design processes where form emerges from material behaviours and equilibrium of forces. The cluster investigates elastic systems in particular because of their structural efficiency and complex aesthetic qualities. Elastic materials are intrinsically adaptive, given their capacity to reversibly deform. The integration of robotic solutions into these material systems creates novel structures that can adapt to multiple conditions and perform complex behaviours with minimum resources (energy and material). During the year we focused on the development of novel material-machine-kinetic systems, able to self-form, reconfigure and achieve multiple states, operating and interacting at architectural and human scale. The design process required understanding of the material system and development of custom actuation and control strategies to enable informed performances. For each robotic structure a custom cyber-physical control system was developed. The system comprised a digital twin of the physical robotic system, enabling a real-time design process in which decision making and behaviours emerged from a negotiation between digital and physical parameters. The robotic structure could, therefore, respond to changes of internal and external conditions such as structural, environmental and design. Within this framework we explored new visions of human, material and machine interactions.
Students ARCreature Jiatong Ni, Xin Tong, Huan Zhang Elastic Choreography Yelay Bayraktaroglu, Cephas Bhaskar, Shahram Minooee Sabery LOOPS Ling Dai, Tongyao Lin, Yiting Ma, Yichao Shi Theory Tutor Alejandro Veliz Skills Tutors Christos Chatzakis, Emmanouil Dimitrakakis, Valentina Soana Consultants and Critics Giancarlo Di Marco, Mathias Maierhofer, Harvey Stedman
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2.1–2.4 Elastic Choreography This project explores the performative potential of elastic robotic structures at architectural scale. Large shape changes are achieved through the integration of modular robotic-materialsystems with elastic structures: Bending Active Tensile Hybrid (BATH). Inspired by the body movement of dancers, the project investigates how to design and control architectural robots to generate spatial performances. The robotic system comprises of BATH structures interreacting with robotic actuators. Robotic components are employed to manipulate the position and to induce a controlled deformation of the BATH modules. The synergy between rigid body spatial assemblies and elastic structures generates a hybrid system that combines high precision kinematic control of rigid bodies with large deformations and intricate forms in a compliant system. The project envisions the emergence of dancing structures, providing a new paradigm for Human-, Material-, Machine- and Space- architectures. 2.5–2.8, 2.10 LOOPS LOOPS is an autonomous mobile and self-forming architectural robotic system. It is comprised of BATH modules integrated with robotic actuators. LOOPS is an intelligent and lightweight dynamic system, where multiple states are achieved by leveraging material behaviours. Unlike other traditional approaches that rely on rigid body kinematics, the advantage of elastic kinetics is the ability to achieve a wide range of behaviours with material and actuation efficiency. Their behaviour, however, is very difficult to control. In order to overcome this challenge, the design of elastic robots needs the development of custom control systems that can integrate and process digital and physical data. The control system of LOOPS operates as a real-time design tool, where control values and resulting behaviours are generated through a continuous negotiation between material, structural, environmental and design criteria. The development of LOOPS focuses on the design and control of modular elastic systems that could crawl and self-assemble, in order to form large adaptive structures. In parallel to the design, multiple robotic systems are built and tested, providing a real vision of how intelligent architectural modules could crawl around the city, changing shape. LOOPS envisions novel architectural systems that can adapt to multiple conditions, emerging from complex interactions between materials, machines and human systems 2.9, 2.11 ARCreature This project proposes a dynamic architectural system. The structure can change shape according to different external environment information. This intelligent robotic architecture can walk in the city, reshape into larger scale and interact with citizens as multi-functional moving pavilion. ARCreature consists of two parts: rigid frame and stretch fabric. The rigid frame is the skeleton, while stretch fabric functions as a flexible variable space element. Changing the fabric to 3D provides possibilities for spatial effect. The system can continuously strengthen deep learning, receiving feedback from the constantly changing physical environment, thereby helping ARCreature to make adaptive behaviours.
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Living Architecture Lab
AI + Autonomous Architecture
RC3
Octavian Gheorghiu, Tyson Hosmer, Philipp Siedler Research Cluster 3 interrogates the notion of living architecture as a coupling of living systems with the assembly and formation of architecture. Our research focuses on developing autonomously reconfigurable buildings with situated and embodied agency, facilitated variation and artificial intelligence. Buildings have enormous costs and energy consumption, the potential for errors and require many years to build, yet become obsolete before they are completed because they are planned with linear life cycles. This leads to layered, overly constrained buildings, inflexible to future change, expensive to construct and laborious to assemble. Rather than optimising individual segments of this unsustainable life cycle, the studio reappraises it holistically, learning from living systems’ extraordinary scalable efficiencies of continuously adaptive construction with simple flexible parts. Our experimental design models are embedded with the ability to self-organise, self-assess and self-improve using unsupervised reinforcement learning. The work seeks to embed local adaptability directly into the design process by training models to learn to adjust and reconfigure to unforeseen and changing socio-economic needs and environmental conditions. One thread of the research focuses on physical reconfiguration, enabled through autonomous robotic assembly systems that are tuned and trained in digital simulation environments. Real-time control and sensory feedback of physical robotics is managed within bespoke digital twin simulation environments. Another thread focuses on design models that apply artificial intelligence to the spatial organisation of reconfigurable parts to improve at solving multi-objective architectural problems. In the face of the pandemic, the studio focused on rethinking notions of home, workplace and/or factory as separated building typologies, compressing them into new distributed and adaptive micro-ecologies, as autonomous architectural systems that are scalable, reconfigurable and extendable. Each team developed a new socio-economic model for distributed living, working and production, through the development of a computational platform and robotically reconfigurable building systems. Projects were developed using a series of bespoke robotic prototypes for physical adaptation and reconfiguration as actuated soft or rigid body systems, in parallel with intelligent computational simulation environments, in a tightly coupled feedback loop for an architecture that is self-aware and adaptive.
Student Teams ANT Abdullah Nasib Ummerfarook, Shizhao Wang, Yixuan Xu, Haoyue Zhang BEAST Ta-Hsin Chang, Xiangyun Dai, Lin Li, Yuehong Zhou MEHR Xiayan He, Tina Kalantary, Junsheng Shan, Meng Xia RAD Hou Jialu, Aikaterini Kiki, Boning Luo, Sai Sashank Pilla Tesseract Wanzhu Jiang, Ying Lin, Jiaqi Wang, Zongliang Yu Technical Tutors Baris Erdincer, Ziming He Machine Learning Tutor Panagiotis Tigas Theory Tutor Jordi Vivaldi Piera Skills Tutors Octavian Gheorghiu, Ziming He, Marko Margeta, Nastasja Mitrovic, Panagiotis Tigas Consultants and Critics Viola Ago, Kristy Balliet, Barbara-Ann CampbellLange, Mario Carpo, Peter Cook, Winka Dubbeldam, Yara Feghali, Jelle Feringa, Marcelyn Gow, Gonzalo Herrero, Elise Hunchuck, Damjan Jovanovic, Hanif Kara, Karel Klein, Daniel Koehler, Immanuel Koh, Zeina Koreitem, Farzin Lotfi Jam, Ryan Manning, Sandra Manninger, Lev Manovich, Mathilde Marengo, Andrei Martin, Ana-Maria Meister, Philippe Morel, Catie Newell, Marina Otero, Casey Rehm, Yael Reisner, Jenny Sabin, Jose Sanchez, Roland Snooks, Theodora Vardouli, Georg Vrachliotis, Lindsey Wikstrom, Philip Yuan, Alejandro Zaera-Polo 53
3.1–3.2, 3.10–3.16 Tesseract Tesseract is real-time adaptive living architecture that utilises a voxel-based robotic material system to continuously reshape multi-dimensional communities through a socioeconomic model which incentivises users to trade and share spaces. Tesseract sets up a comprehensive information collection port to monitor the status of its users and the environment in real-time. A novel agent based spatial planner algorithm was developed using reinforcement learning to provide adaptive policies for adjusting volumetric room boundaries to constantly changing scales, shapes, materials and atmospheres. Real-time negotiation balances the interests of multiple users and puts them in a dynamic equilibrium under the background of the pandemic normalisation and the second digital turn. 3.1–3.2, 3.15 Tesseract’s robotic material system continuously adapts and negotiates the needs of a user community. 3.10–3.12 An autonomous distributed robotic system was developed in synergy with a multi-material voxel-based unit system to navigate along rails on three axes, while using sequences of actions such as pushing, pulling, locking and unlocking linked components to continuously reconfigure the spatial structure. 3.14, 3.16 Inhabitants are able to customise their living environment for domestic, work and social activities and are incentivised to share space while paying a variable daily rate based on their space usage. An autonomous ‘room agent’ based spatial planner algorithm leverages unsupervised reinforcement learning to continuously adjust the boundaries of rooms, negotiating inhabitants’ objectives and patterns of life. 3.3–3.9 RAD proposes a new way of perceiving, creating and occupying buildings, where computational tools, robots and humans coexist and coevolve, enabling the built environment to be an adaptive ecosystem. RAD is a modular architecture consisting of flexible components with reversible joints allowing their assembly, disassembly and reconfiguration by distributed robotic agents. An architectural language was conceived where components and materials are organised following the logic of real language structure. Robotic agents were designed to assemble components while using them for navigation, saving on human labour and reducing waste. The RAD platform allows people to participate in the process of design and space customisation, enabling anyone to be the designer of their living environment. 3.3, 3.5–3.6 RAD’s distributed robotic material system enables the built environment to continuously adapt at different timescales in a circular life cycle. 3.4, 3.7 The robotic system evolved through a series of prototypes while incorporating AI through deep reinforcement learning to train robotic agents to learn adaptive and collaborative policies for reconfiguring spatial assemblies. Robots grab, release and lock linear components through mechanical node based joints while navigating in three axes along a track system. 3.8–3.9 The RAD platform enables users to customise spaces and full buildings with a building spatial editor developed to semi-autonomously generate editable building assemblies in collaboration with users. 3.17–3.23 ANT Amenities Navigation Technology (ANT) responds to today’s housing crisis with a logistics-based solution. Autonomous distributed robots reconfigure private and shared interior spaces to negotiate the requirements for inhabitants. Inspired by warehouse robotics and space stations where all surfaces are utilised, the project embeds a continuous system of rails for robots to navigate, distribute and store spatial elements and furniture across walls, ceilings and floors in a continuously adaptive building life cycle. A spatial assembly algorithm is used to generate continuous building assemblages while an agent-based algorithm 54
is developed to respond and negotiate the changing building occupancy. 3.17, 3.18, 3.22. The ANT system utilises a track system for distributed robots to move along floors, walls and ceilings for transporting and reorganising furniture and wall elements. With the ANT platform, users can customise their private spaces while spatial allocation of shared amenities and spaces is managed through an algorithm negotiating the life patterns of inhabitants. 3.19, 3.20, 3.23 A spatial assembly algorithm is developed to generate building typologies with continuous rail systems from spatial parts. 3.24–3.28 MEHR Driven by post-pandemic political fragmentation of our societies, the spread of remote work, and the increased allegiance to the global community, MEHR proposes a decentralised bottom-up platform for community building where users are connected through psychogeographical data and incentivised to share and trade space and resources through a smart contract system. The project is composed of autonomous robotic spatial units capable of self-assembly and reconfiguration. Adaptive parts are composed of robotic linear and rotational joints integrated with a flexible composite skin. Online virtual groups, forums and pages can now be lived in the physical world through the range of community topologies MEHR continuously reforms. 3.24, 3.25 Large-scale robotic prototypes are developed in parallel with a digital twin simulator linked through a robotic control system. MEHR’s robotic spatial parts are designed to self-navigate and self-assemble through robotic joints enabling locking and unlocking along with a large range of spatial transformation. 3.26, 3.27 The MEHR micro community platform negotiates the needs of its users while adjusting to optimal environmental configurations. Methods of self-analysis are developed such as sun exposure, graph-based neighbourhood relationship analysis and overall vitality distribution analysis. Micro communities are formed enabling and incentivising users to share spaces and trade property rights. 3.28 MEHR’s adaptive spatial parts enable transformation and customisation in both urban and rural environments for decentralised micro and macro communities. 3.29–3.33 BEAST The Behavioural Extended Adaptive Scissor Transformer (BEAST) investigates autonomous spatial embodiment through robotically controlled scissor structures. BEAST body plans are composed of linkages of various components with passive and active joints enabling them to maximise degrees of adaptation while minimising actuation. BEAST is self-aware through a lidar sensory system and through motor sensor feedback, evolving its self-adapting behaviour in relation to its changing human and non-human environment. The research involves parallel development and integration of robotic prototypes with sensor actuation control systems, and a Unity based simulator using reinforcement learning to realise adaptive policies. 3.29 Each assemblage is trained using unsupervised reinforcement learning in a simulator, to learn adaptive policies for actuating the structure to adapt and reconfigure to environmental and social goals including navigation, spatial configuration and shading in response to human behaviour. 3.30, 3.32 A lidar sensory system was developed along with feedback from internal motor sensors to give each BEAST an awareness and 3D mapping of its dynamic environment. 3.31, 3.33 Each BEAST model is generated with unique body plans and policies of reconfiguration enabling larger and smaller adaptive structures in different environments.
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Automated Architecture Labs
Architecture and Automation: Platforms, Homes and Housing
RC4
Manuel Jimenez Garcia, Sonia Magdziarz, Gilles Retsin, Kevin Saey This year, Research Cluster 4 continued its agenda on housing and automation, with a specific interest in platforms based on automation with discrete design and fabrication technologies. Mindful of the social and political consequences of automation, students developed community-driven platforms for homes and housing, creating everyday automated workflows, set in the present, while being invested in radical spatial and aesthetic agendas for the future. At the same time, the projects investigated new narratives for community, work, life and domesticity in an increasingly automated world. We questioned topics ranging from life with autonomous entities, artificial intelligence and mobile robotic mini-factories to viral platforms, primitive materials and activism. STNE-O is a platform that uses AI-driven automation for design and fabrication of housing build from raw stone. The design method allows users to compile a wide range of housing typologies directly from raw stone material, minimising the need for craft and customisation. YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) proposes to densify and redefine suburban blocks with a planning process that uses machine learning to negotiate program, typology and tectonics. A mobile robotic factory assembles modular timber buildings blocks on site, which are then assembled by self-builders. An intriguing high-density version of the typical English suburb emerges, questioning what is shared and what is public. Plan_Mediterranea consists of a crowdsourcing design tool where participants can collectively draw a masterplan. Data from the masterplan is translated and processed using volumetric algorithmic operations to functional housing schemes. The generated volumes can then be split into 3D-printed formworks for concrete casting. With Without also looks at crowdsourcing, using a game-based approach where participants play with timber building elements. The resulting models are then subsequently digitised using computer vision process, while their spatial and programmatic intent is then negotiated with the input of other participants. Ultimately, a cable-bot assembles life-sized timber building elements into large housing blocks. Earth Caster is a fully automated co-living platform which turns the earth of polluted brownfield sites into large-scale housing. Automated robotic excavators dig out the polluted earth and create large, megalithic earth cast parts which are then stacked into a primitive, brutalist housing scheme.
Students Earth Caster Hsiu-Min Lin, Tongyu Fu, Yi Zhang Plan_Mediterranea Sehr Gupta, Stavroula Ioakeimidou, Yumo Wu STNE-O Shuning Chen, Qing Wang, Tianyu Zhang, Wenlan (Echo) Zhu With Without Argyrios Delithanasis, Santiago Del Aguila Ferrandis, Andrea Terceros Barron, Ghanem Mohamed Younes YIMBY Mengzhen Guo, Yusong Hu, Jingwei Li, Yangzhi Li Theory Tutor Mollie Claypool Skills Tutor David Doria
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4.1, 4.5–4.7 STNE-O Facing the global climate emergency and housing crisis, STNE-O is a platform that uses AI-driven automated design and fabrication technologies to reintroduce stone construction for mass housing. These design methods make it possible to compile a wide range of housing typologies directly from raw stone material, minimising the need for craft and customisation. A configuration software allows communities of future inhabitants to negotiate their preferred mode of living and space usage. An ML-trained virtual bot then interprets these programmatic schemes and organises raw materials from a crowd-sourced stone database into fully functional housing blocks. Using post-tensioning as a structural system, new types of stone buildings are enabled, providing an open-ended, natural and adaptive way of inhabiting spaces. 4.2–4.4 YIMBY Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) is an AI driven platform that helps self-builders to densify their own communities. The aim of the project is to provide a toolkit for citizens to use their own assets and know-how, and ultimately take the development of their communities into their own hands. Instead of building houses as commodities, we desperately need new ways in which people and communities can better meet their own housing needs, through community-led housing and self-build homes. Currently, the difficulties of self-build housing make it hard to scale up and it cannot compete with housing supplied by government and developers. The YIMBY platform serves as a collective toolbox to empower self-builders. The platform consists of four tools: automated planning, automated house design, robotically prefabricated modular elements and AR assembly instructions for self-builders. 4.8–4.11 Plan_Mediterranea In the context of the global pandemic, Plan_Mediterranea explores remote work and localised digital production. The platform focuses on turning local, neglected villages into smart villages by creating digital economy workspaces. The platform consists of a crowd-sourcing co-design tool for participants and existing villagers to collectively negotiate a community masterplan. As a prototype, over 500 user inputs were sourced and used as raw data to extract spatial graphs and programmatic intent. The collected data from user space functions is translated and processed using volumetric algorithms to obtain feasible schemes. The output geometries from graphs are analysed into parts using a voxelspace, these voxels are subsequently translated into interconnected lines and tubes which act as a formwork for concrete casting. 4.12–4.16 With Without The Gamekit was created as a technology to augment the collaborative participatory design aspect of the platform. The research explores the idea of creating a platform that acts as a governance model, mass negotiating different user intents to create housing. With the Gamekit, thousands of future inhabitants input their design intents and negotiate for the creation of the final building assembly. As soon as their designs are uploaded, the platform negotiates where necessary, providing feedback loops so that design changes can be agreed upon. The first step is giving users a choice of different site locations. The second step is to define the conditions or rules users need to follow in order to define their habitation. In the last step the platform takes all these different design intents and creates a master model. Ultimately, a large cable-bot is constructed to prototype the assembly process. 4.17–4.21 Earth Caster This research investigates a fully-automated co-living platform which turns the earth of polluted brownfield sites into large scale housing. Future inhabitants subscribe to the platform, which uses computational graphs and AI processes to negotiate their 68
programmatic desires and modes of living. Automated robotic excavators dig out the polluted land and create large, megalithic earthcast parts which are then compiled and stacked into a housing block. While the inhabitants’ co-living lifestyle could be compared to that of a modern-day caveman, the project simultaneously functions as a claim for the right to land. By turning toxic land into a living environment, this project questions the human relationship with land.
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Material Architecture Lab
Fragment
RC5&6
Adam Holloway, Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig
Our brief this year used fragmentation as a device for design to assume the critical responsibility of revealing and questioning the demand for coherent material assembly. In a conceptual sense the fragmented, be it already broken or potentially separable, always retains logical traces of the whole: a part of something greater. When is the fragment a facet of architecture? Is it during the conception of a design? Is it the moment building components take shape? Are they instances of incongruous experiences of space? Or is it when pieces of architectural ruin are excavated out of solidified history? The fragment is necessarily incomplete, but not always subservient to the whole that completes it. This primary meaning of the term differentiates between the essential and the accidental. While architectural fragments often do lend themselves to such reduction, they are just as often able to challenge the expected unity. Students this year looked at sustained and ecological design research through greater understanding of materiality as a series of fragments. This involved processes of making surrounding the intersection of digital and manual craft, science and technology. Our design research throughout is a balanced blend of speculation, experimentation and analysis. Going back and forth between prototyping, computational simulation and modelling, we engaged with digital processes across a variety of scales from furniture to large-scale public art and architecture. Key materials include plantbased hempcrete, mycelium, industrial waste slag, timber, animal waste and gelatine. How we design is a process of weighing up performance with environmental impact on industry and manufactured construction products. Design solutions will vary from place to place, with different cultures and cities demanding different approaches. The goal is to speculate on the material’s site-specific application, scaling intricate manual findings to design ways in which they can be viable over a whole building or architectural system.
Students Agaritecture Yuliang Bai, Mattice Boets, Yuwen Qian, Yue Wang Cornucopia Jianing Luo, Yi Shi, Boyuan Yu, Haoxing Zhang Hempstack Nora Brudevold, Matteen Haj Seyed Javadi, Hyelyn Lee, Danae Mavridi Shape to Shapeless Hui Gao, Zhihan Guo, Xinran Liu, Menghua Wang The Road Is Not a Road Yuan Jiang, Rui Jing, Jiajie Yang, Lang Zheng Theory Tutor Ruby Law Skills Tutors Bryan Ho, Tom Philips Sponsor Grymsdyke Farm
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5&6.1–5&6.2 Hempstack This project questions the sustainable viability of an alternative to concrete using hempcrete in flexible moulds. Research into plant-based material in construction is promising, but progress has proved patchy and slow moving. Hempcrete is essentially a calcified mixture of water, hemp shives and lime. The current industrial uses include infill for timber-framed walls and prefabricated blocks, which are seldom visible from the exterior. 5&6.3–5&6.7 Cornucopia The use and reuse of timber provide the main focus of this project. Cornucopia proposes timber as the answer to the carbon crisis in the construction industry and interrogates whether our use of it is as sustainable as it could be. With large amounts wasted and a trajectory of downcycling, how can traditionally unwanted and unusable parts be developed as a construction material? Employing artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in a quest to make recycling viable and efficient, this project uses multiple scales of design, from a chair to a school, to test the modular material’s potential. The final proposal explores the design potential of irregularly shaped timber. 5&6.8–5&6.12 Agaritecture The proposal that buildings are moving, evolving, degrading and growing masses rather than fixed things informs this project. Using mycelium, this proposal can be witnessed at an incredible rate, creating an organism that is architecture with a life cycle. Through extensive testing, it was discovered that natural substrates work well as bases for mycelium to feed and grow off. These tests were slowly scaled up to a 1:1 wall, with unpredictable but exciting results: the architecture was effectively designing itself. Proposing pavilions throughout Teat Nature Reserve – a place known for its rich mushroom species – buildings with sustainable life cycles were born, lived, supported life by harvesting their walls and died. Architecture can both facilitate living and can be in itself a living entity. 5&6.13–5&6.17 Hempstack Hemp has a long-standing association with narcotics in the Western world. Yet, as a crop, we know it has an 8,000-year-long history, from the rope on Christopher Columbus’s ship to food. Hempcrete is a sustainable replacement for concrete and has a vast array of benefits. This project is concerned with understanding how to popularise the material by considering its connection to localities and new construction techniques, using full-scale prototyping. The large-scale proposal is not only about the potential utility of this material, but also about creating a language that is unique to the fabrication technique. 5&6.18–5&6.22 Shape to Shapeless This project explores different ways of making and replicating shapes. This is done through manual casting, digital scanning and milling, and 3D printing. ‘Shape to Shapeless’ engages with casting without formwork. Materials take shape with property change over time. As the research progresses, 3D scanning and digital fabrication tools are introduced to explore other ideas of making casts without moulds. Architectural language emerging out of materials changing shape without predetermination influences how we see materials and time – a prerequisite for space making. The building proposal brings together textures and shapes based not only on the materials, but also on how they can be shaped with predetermined design. 5&6.23–5&6.27 The Road Is Not a Road The key material in this project is steel slag, a by-product of the steel processing industry. The amount of slag produced worldwide each year changes our natural landscapes, with damaging and irreversible effects. This project is built upon circular responses to environmental concerns. It explores how waste from the traditionally carbonintensive steel industry can be used to make products 80
for another carbon-heavy industry, construction. Steel slag has a variety of useful characteristics investigated through material experiments. Situated in the village of Yangxing, China – home to the world’s largest steel mill – this project proposes that the waste generated is used to make structural interventions, in the form of roads and retaining walls, to slow the damage being done to the environment and landscape. Our architectural proposal imagines the treatment of slag as a blend of buildings and infrastructure, mediating the need for steel production and waste material treatment.
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7.1 92
Biospatial Design II
RC7
Richard Beckett, Levent Ozruh, Barry Wark
Research Cluster 7 is an innovative design research studio that considers how advances in biology, engineering and understanding of the microbiome are affecting architecture. The cluster explores new modes of biodesign workflows and digital fabrication methods, as well as advances in the field of synthetic biology and material sciences. The work questions how these topics can challenge modern approaches to architecture, which have fundamentally sought to separate the human from the non-human world as the preferred condition. Instead, through a multidisciplinary and multispecies approach to design, we pursue new ways of building with living agencies for future cities that are sustainable, healthy and biodiverse in the age of the Anthropocene. This year students explored novel approaches for integrating living matter into architecture and cities, considering new concepts of space, inhabitation and performance for a range of building typologies that offer new strategies for healthy and resilient cities in the face of accelerating climate change. In so doing they pursued architecture that mixes computational methods, machine-learning approaches and principles of biology to develop new kinds of living architecture, tested through simulation and digital fabrication and represented within real time environment engines. The projects created building proposals that look to provide radical solutions around issues including urban growth, living buildings and healthy infrastructure. Computation and digital simulations were developed using machine-learning approaches, alongside sustainable material exploration and bio-digital fabrication. Topics this year included bio-augmented design, resilient infrastructure and novel architectural tectonics.
Students Bioplastic Tectonic Zhuoning He, Qing Tang, Zijun Wu, Xinyue Zhang CryptoGAN Pooja Harumalani, Nedas Jakimavicius, Panagiotis Kalaitzidis, Aijia Wang HempCliff Simiao Qi, Haochong Wang, Xingnan Wang, Jingjing Zhang More Than Human Christopher Cameron Whiteside, Yi Sui, Zhan Xu SimClay Yunhao Wang, Sixin Xie, Wenyuan Zhu Theory Tutors Luis Herman, Carolina Ramirez Figueroa Skills Tutors Levent Ozruh, Nayan Patel Sponsor Massivit 3D
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7.1, 7.8–7.11 More Than Human The project explores how deep learning can aid in developing novel design tools. It continues the biospatial design research agenda of Research Cluster 7, challenging the paradigm of building first and landscape second. It rejects the long-standing conceptual separation between humans and the natural environment and reintegrates non-human agency into architecture. Extensive experimentation with procedural dataset design and generative neural networks has culminated in the creation of a sketch tool that integrates both human and non-human spaces as lines are drawn. Simple human input is interpreted by a neural network and processed through a series of site-specific environmental analyses, producing a massing model with embedded ecological intelligence. This model represents a 3D map of the characteristics of the site and can be used to inform developed architectural designs. 7.2–7.7 CryptoGAN The focus of this project is advocating for the monitored rewilding of the city as a means to achieve an ecocentric urbanism. With the aid of computational tools and machine learning, it proposes an adaptive design system and building typology. These serve to blur the threshold of human and non-human activity and maximise ecological productivity as a prerequisite for a prosperous urban ecosystem. As we move to the era of Symbiocene, the urban environment needs to be redefined to enable a prosperous symbiosis of both human and non-human agents. This symbiosis rests in a monitored rewilding of the city. Nature in its pure essence is conducted in an orderly chaos: a flow of energy and matter that actively asserts dominance on space and searches for balance. This conjunction of worlds is, therefore, bound to set new rules of coexistence and safe interaction. Moreover, the enormous amount of ecological data needed to define and produce space for non-humans renders machine learning an essential part of the design process. In this direction, an architect assumes the role of curator of ecological intelligence in the design of artificial space, eventually setting the threshold for human activity to safely interact with the unmonitored ambiguousness of the wild. CryptoGAN questions how machine learning and computation can be utilised in the design of a building typology that effectively blurs the threshold between human and non-human activity in a symbiotic way. It offers a prototypical methodology to incorporate the aforementioned elements into a design system that is adaptive to different kinds of ecological conditions and is set for maximum ecological productivity. This space is then offered as a hub of economic activity under the principles of the Inclusive Wealth Index, and eventually sets a base for transition to the ecocentric definition of urbanism and the urban economy. 7.12–7.15 HempCliff The project explores an ecologically-driven approach for refurbishing post-war concrete buildings around the world which are in poor condition and are on the cusp of being demolished. It develops a systematic refurbishment solution, in a manner that uses bioreceptive materials to increase microbiodiversity by considering the building fabric as a landscape for nature. The method derives from the urban-cliff hypothesis, identifying our city as a template cliff habitat. We introduce urban wind simulation as a dynamic tool to carve the building volume and generate co-living spaces for human and non-human species; apply style transfer and digital fabrication to transform the carving spaces and original façade; and utilise hemp-concrete, which provides a substrate for non-human species and acts as a low-carbon alternative to concrete. The concept of a green corridor is applied to consider the refurbishment on a large urban-block scale, using Athens as a design site. The project rejects the 94
individual greening of single buildings and instead applies the methodology to whole urban blocks, determined by their adjacency to surrounding green areas. It therefore views urban greening as an interlinked network ecology, across a range of typologies and programmes. 7.16–7.19 Bioplastic Tectonic At a material level, starch-based biopolymers offer several advantages for architecture within a sustainable material agenda. Practically, these advantages include renewability, low-cost production, non-toxicity, biodegradability and availability. Alongside this, ease of fabrication, coupled with the emergence of the designer as material maker, allows for engagement with contemporary design agendas of multi-materiality and performance, alongside contemporary computational design and fabrication methods. Through our research into what we call ‘bioplastic typologies’, we pursue a contemporary development of the prototype that operates at the scale of the component. This approach challenges the huge cost of mass-customised industrial production methods and instead pursues an architecture that is adaptable and variable through multiple reconfigurations of the component. It is one that calibrates itself as operating between the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions, utilising technological advancements, but in consideration of the ethics and impact that emerging technologies are having on the world. In this manner, the approach is conceptually and typologically resource efficient, sensitive to the metabolism of material resources, but also driven by multi-layered contextual parameters, including the availability of local expertise and technologies. Here the prototype is seen less as a serially produced product but more as something embryonic, which permits and expects change or adaptation and can be varied according to different environments. These changes, driven by factors including hydration levels, decay, growth of secondary agencies, ageing and failure, can then be remapped, removed, re-formed or re-assembled. 7.20–7.26 SimClay This project explores the relationship between clay 3D printing and craft. It develops a new digital design program which is based on the fluidimplicit-particle solver system, allowing the gravitybased, robot clay-extrusion simulation results to be continuously fed back to the design program. This in turn helps the designer to predict the material distortion based on its characteristics and constantly to adjust it. Using this design program, the computational methodology creates, predicts and exaggerates the imperfections of the printing process. It creates a sense of digital ‘risk’, associated with wider definitions of craft. Through these simulations, which predict instability and drooping, the ‘hand’ of the craftsman becomes part of the digital fabrication. Designers become de facto craftsmen, not only carrying out design work but also operating tools to produce and build products. The design program re-establishes the role of co-creation in clay 3D printing and consolidates its relationship with expression and craft. SimClay provides various application examples of simulation-based computational design programs in the field of architectural design, showing the flexible and extensive application capabilities of this methodology at multiple scales.
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Recycling and Mixing
RC8
Kostas Grigoriadis, Lizy Huyghe, Martina Rosati
In Research Cluster 8, our main research focus is multi-material design and the wider implications that this will have on architecture and building construction. More specifically, we explore new procedures for designing and building with material gradients, aiming to rethink component-based assembly and the standard practice of 20thcentury mechanical connectivity. The first two cycles of the cluster’s research agenda are targeted at the rethinking of the building envelope, namely of curtain walling and its part-based build-up. The corresponding design projects investigate the use of robotic fabrication for in-situ 3D printing of building façades and the fusion of metal and glass to generate component-less, materially continuous envelopes. In the past two years our research has shifted to the redesign of transit hubs in central London. More specifically, new approaches to the tired, component-based, high-embodied carbon, large-span structures enveloping these hubs. This year we focused on the main concourse roof of King’s Cross Station. Our aim was to hybridise both the materiality of the envelope, through multi-materials, as well as the station’s programmes, by embedding a variety of alternative uses, which generate proposals that correspond to 21st-century material and urban space-use paradigms. An additional, environmental consideration was the embodied energy of the materials that make up our larger, multi-material topologies and how these could be minimised through recycled material use, 3D printing and fusion, as opposed to piece-by-piece assembly. The resulting projects are made up of a variety of recycled plastics, concrete aggregates and wood-plastic composites that were mixed at different ratios and fused together to generate variable responses to structural, environmental and internal occupation criteria. Continuous gradation in colour, rigidity, opacity and visual privacy became the main tools for designing spaces with blurred boundaries that merge into one another gradually and seamlessly, rethinking the absoluteness of walls and solid divisions.
Students Concrete Plas Zhiyuan Yan, Yiqi Hua, Zhengxian Zhang, Qikun Yang PlasTimber Vicente Bonilla Goncalvez Vieira, Daria Frygina, Dhwani Ruparelia, Álvaro Germán Villacís Salazar Recycled Plastic Lattice Sai Feng, Huiyin Pan, Gaojie Zhang, Sen Wei Topoplastic Yuchong Yao, Yiyun Liang, Anning Chen Theory Tutor Ilaria Di Carlo Skills Tutors Sam Esses, Alvaro Lopez Rodriquez, Levent Ozruh Consultants and Critics Didier Lootens, Marios Tsiliakos
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8.1–8.8 Recycled Plastic Lattice All projects use material gradation as the main method of redesigning the western concourse at King’s Cross Station in London. Here the station’s canopy is redesigned as a multi-plastic, heterogeneously patterned, tensile membrane. The voluminous form of the columns supporting the membrane allows them to accommodate various functional co-working spaces. Controlling the colour and transparency of the various plastics making up the envelope enables the appropriate lighting conditions for white collar work-related activities. The flexible tensile membrane and rigid support structures are made of recycled thermoplastics (TPU and PET/PETG). These are combined by gradient fusion and are 3D printed in large segments to minimise the number of components and complexity of assembly that typifies in conventional tensile membrane construction. 8.9–8.12 PlasTimber The project introduces a novel method for recycling and mixing plastics and woodplastic composites (WPC), to achieve functionally graded materiality on an architectural scale using additive manufacturing. The use of WPC in the building sector is growing, but there is not yet any fully developed means of recycling them. The project proposes ways of recycling in the form of 3D-printed, multi-material blocks, which are fused together by heat. The environmental benefits of building with these materials in their recycled form include: (1) reducing the huge amount of plastic and WPC waste that is produced in the UK every year; (2) capturing CO2 as the wood particles embedded in WPC act as a carbon sink; and (3) reducing the amount of material used in the design, due to the demonstrated capacity of wood fibres to enhance the mechanical properties of plastics when combined together in WPCs. 8.13–8.18 Concrete Plas This project, rooted in material research, investigates the combination of recycled plastic and concrete to generate a formally continuous canopy. Such a canopy enables the growth of urban flora on and below it. Using multi-material 3D printing, concrete can be moulded into complex shapes without producing unnecessary waste due to the use of stay-in plastic formwork and the improved performance that it enables. Transforming the current steel spaceframe canopy of King’s Cross Station into an urban garden, the project balances numerous performative aspects, with the help of computational methods and generative design, to achieve the best overall solution for people, the city and the environment. 8.19–8.23 Topoplastic The proposal combines knowledge spaces with standard urban transportation infrastructure programmes to form a new transit hybrid at King’s Cross Station in London. The main materials are recyclable plastics and concrete. A 3D-printed multi-plastic lattice forms a continuous skeletal structure that acts as rigid reinforcement for the concrete landscape at ground level; it also serves as a spaceframe, enveloping the station at the top. Additionally, the lattice changes in rigidity from hard to flexible at ground level, with the flexible regions coming out of the concrete to form sitting and resting areas. The canopy gradually changes from opaque to transparent to control the lighting conditions for the various spaces within the station. The ground consists of a series of undulating ‘hills’, allowing for flexibility in the configuration of knowledge communication areas and in the organisation of public and private zones of activity.
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Architecture for the Augmented Age
RC9
Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez, Igor Pantic, Jose Pareja Gomez Throughout history, technology has had a crucial influence on the development of our society. Different eras have been defined by sets of technological advancements, which have had a profound influence on the built environment and construction. It has been proposed that, after the Internet Age, we are entering a new era – the ‘Augmented Age’,1 while physicist Michio Kaku argues for the future in which architects rely heavily on augmented reality technologies.2 As we immerse ourselves into rapidly developing Extended Realities (XR), the barriers between humans and machines are increasingly blurred, with portable devices – smartphones, tablets, etc. – augmenting our perception of the environment. Research Cluster 9 explores how XR technologies can change the ways in which we design, build and interact with our cities. With this in mind, students have explored one of two research streams: mixed reality (MR) assisted design or fabrication and augmentation of the built environment. Traditionally, Research Cluster 9 explores a hybrid approach to making that is neither purely analogue or automated, through application of alternative strategies for fabrication, utilising cuttingedge head-mounted devices to holographically assist designers and makers in the design and manufacturing process. We ask whether full automation is the ultimate goal or whether the role of humans in the construction chain needs to be reconsidered as automation is more widely adopted. Making in MR reinvigorates traditional craftsmanship by augmenting hand and material skills with the precision and formal possibilities of digital modelling – occupying the territory between purely automated, exclusively robotically driven fabrication and highly crafted processes requiring human labour. It is crucial to understand that MR-assisted fabrication is not seen as an alternative to automation and robotics, but rather aims to expand the understanding of automated production. MR-assisted processes have the capability of enhancing human labour with data previously exclusive to machines, while enabling seamless inclusion of intuitive decision-making and experience, often absent from automated construction processes. Additionally, this year’s research included applications of XR technologies, which are not strictly limited to the construction industry, by exploring the concepts of gig economy and the development of digital platforms for multi-player design and distributed manufacturing, as well as immersive experience and interaction with the built environment and the metaverse. Under this speculative agenda, students interrogate how the surge of virtual platforms, understood as environments in which users can create, collaborate, explore, take part in social events and engage in economic activity, intertwine with the built environment and how architecture and the urban become the canvas and enablers of the virtual.
Students LaminAR Xinlu Chen, Zeshun Liang, Yiguan Liu, Laizhen Wu miXR Xuanyang Chen, Pengfei Mu, Shuhui Yu, Congyuan Yuan Saeculum Indrajith Aravinda Gamage, Tin Ching (Kelvin) Law, Anastasiia Metelskaia, Saee Sanjay Pagar VernaculAR Jing Feng, Yue Qin, Yifan Ran, Wenqiang Wei xREF Haoya Chen, Yuling Guo, Yingxuan Tang, Haonan Wang Theory Tutor Clara Jaschke, Ruby Law Skills Tutors Octavian Georghiu, Hanjun Kim, Jelena Pelijevic, Diego Pinochet Consultant Hanjun Kim Critics Jelle Feringa, Soomeen Hahn, Farzin Lotfi-Jam, Yael Reisner, Jenny Sabin, Faysal Tabbara
1. Michio Kaku (2014), The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind (New York: Doubleday). 2. Brett King (2016), Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International). 119
9.1–9.6 LaminAR This project examines novel ways of fabricating complex laminated timber structures. With the help of augmented reality (AR), humans have the ability to interact with both physical and digital objects in an interactive real-time feedback loop, changing the way in which we design and make. LaminAR proposes a democratised user-owned platform for building off-grid wood house communities with the help of AR, which empowers community members to design collaboratively. LaminAR opens up a new realm that allows the public to join the creative process. 9.1 Interior detail of architectural proposal. 9.2 Laminated timber physical prototype. 9.3 Catalogue of laminated timber nodes. 9.4 A design proposal for complex laminated timber structure. 9.5–9.6 AR assisted fabrication of a physical prototype. Holographic guides are displayed through a mobile device. 9.7–9.11 VernaculAR This project proposes a fast and affordable system for building low-cost housing in Chinese rural areas, by weaving a series of bent bamboo elements. The use of AR guides in fabrication allows people without previous construction knowledge to collectively engage in the construction process. An AR app for Hololens is developed in order to guide the process, in which the builders bend and assemble bamboo in place following holographic templates. 9.7 Close up detail of bundles of bent bamboo elements. 9.8 Architectural proposal, exterior view. 9.9 Architectural proposal, interior view. 9.10–9.11 AR assisted bending and assembly process of 1:2 physical prototype. Bundles of bamboo strips are bent into shape following holographic guides projected through an AR device. 9.12–9.16 Saeculum This project proposes a reusable and reconfigurable formwork system for on-site concrete casting. With AR technology, Saeculum allows for a real-time exchange of information on construction progress through an augmented platform that provides instructions for prefabrication of formwork, its assembly and reassembly on site and subsequent casting of concrete. Formwork is produced from flat metal sheets, folded into shape following the holographic template. Once the casting process is finished, the formwork is removed, and the pieces are reused to create new casting templates or form internal partitions. A design-tofabrication app is developed in order to guide the users through the fabrication process. 9.12 Design studies of 3D aggregations generated with Wave Function Collapse algorithm. 9.13 Architectural proposal. 9.14 Formwork assembly, re-assembly and concrete casting process. 9.15 Formwork prototype. 9.16 AR assisted formwork manufacturing process. Holographic guides displayed through an AR device guide users through the bending and welding process. 9.17–9.20 miXR It is expected that in the near future, personalised wearable mixed reality (MR) devices such as AR glasses will become as affordable and widespread as mobile phones are today. With this in mind, miXR proposes a MR platform, which allows users to personalise and change their view and experience of the real environment through a series of virtual overlays. This urban MR game turns people from passive consumers to active participants in the creation of constantly changing and evolving digital twins of our cities, posing the questions on possible positive and negative impacts of such technology. 9.17–9.19 The images show a user browsing the library of available styles for perception customisation. Once selected, a style alters the environment through augmentation. A growing library would offer endless opportunities for customising the perception of the city. This approach opens up the aesthetic and semiological possibilities of architecture beyond the physical and introduces time as a flexible variable in the customisation process. 120
9.20 Digital overlay on physical environment, generated through style transfer. 9.21–9.25 xREF Recent developments in the field of MR suggest that we will soon be living in a world of ubiquitous MR, completely integrated into our daily lives. This has the potential to change the way in which we perceive and interact with our environment, through full digital overlay of information over physical reality. Therefore, xREF proposes an adaptive augmented space that will cater to specific user needs, through which the users will generate and interact with digital data which responds to and changes their perception of the physical world. 9.21 This layer of augmentation allows for the integration of ephemeral events and temporary urban spaces, such as pop-up markets or art galleries, as ever adapting public experiences. 9.22 As a multi-user platform, experiences can be shared or individualised. 9.23 Combinatorial assemblies enhance the adaptability of spaces and events. 9.24 Augmented spaces offer ever evolving aesthetics and styles. Users are able to chose from a constantly growing library. 9.25 Digital layer interaction with the urban environment.
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Habitat Tectonics
RC10
Vishu Bhooshan, Federico Borello, Henry David Louth
Architectural geometry (AG) focuses on the synthesis of shapes that guarantee optimal structure and fabrication. It is closely aligned with the development of robotic and digital fabrication technologies and design methods. In Research Cluster 10 we explore the relevance of this state-of-the-art design and construction paradigm applied to computational housing projects that adapt to local contextual aspects, including supply chains and fabrication technologies. Addressing the housing challenges in the City of London, students this year explored methods and algorithms used to produce AG in the design of bespoke modular components – slabs, columns, roofs, walls, etc. Such an architectural kit of parts seeks to build on historical precedents, combined with contemporary technologies in digital timber and concrete, to enable structural efficiency, fast production and ease of assembly. Two teams aimed to create systems that could be instantiated on multiple site conditions with similar challenges. Using this geometric basis in combination with game and automobile configurator technologies, students researched platforms for stakeholder participation in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. Syn-katoikisis proposed to bring together design stakeholders – architects, planners, developers, engineers, contractors, fabricators, etc. – as digital actors in a unified, collaborative, design-to-production platform to expedite the process. AIRS, on the other hand, focused on end user participation. Students developed a platform for gathering data concerning residents’ requirements for add-on spaces, along with housing unit customisation. The content, tools and workflows presented are representative of the imminent future of the construction industry. Over the next few years it will shift from building information modelling for documentation to a design for manufacturing and assembly paradigm.
Students AIRS Mayue Gao, Despoina Grigoriadou, Shanyi Li, Chen Yue Syn-katoikisis Yuan Cheng, Vasiliki Sargkani, Le Xu, Zhengqing Zhang Theory Tutor Provides Ng Skills Tutors Federico Borello, Jianfei Chu, Cesar Fragachan
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10.1, 10.8–10.13 AIRS 10.1 Visualisation of the project proposal on a prototypical site in the heart of London, featuring an existing railway and an adjacent residential development. The project utilises airspace as ground for the development of a new vibrant residential community, showcasing configurable housing units, sustainable materials and rapid construction via offsite prefabrication and assembly. 10.8 Design process of the structural timber columns using 3D graphic static. The polyhedra represents the forces acting axially in each structural member (force diagram), while the line graph represents the resulting form given the input boundaries and constraint conditions. 10.9 Modular versus bespoke elements of the residential unit system design. The structural chassis is presented as a modular assembly of timber parts, whereas the envelope and finishes are presented as customisable parts made by digital fabrication. 10.10 Stakeholder participation platform and resultant choices made by user to configure each residential unit according to their needs. 10.11–10.12 Visualisation of two proposals for prototypical sites, highlighting different urban scales and conditions and showcasing the adaptability of the AIRS system to different scenarios. 10.13 Prototype at 1:5 scale of a 3GS timber structural column, developed as a proof of concept of the design and fabrication methods proposed. The prototype showcases a hybrid compression-tension structural system, materialised using bundles of timber segments connected by 3D-printed nodes. 10.2–10.7 Syn-katoikisis 10.2 Visualisation of the project proposal on a prototypical site in the heart of London, featuring a promenade facing a canal. The building features double-height space at ground level and on the rooftops, with a dynamic interlace of balconies and terraces on the main façade. 10.3 Early-stage procedural massing strategy based on user input of site boundaries and a design-control graph. 10.4 Design of residential interior layouts, addressing variable end-user needs and financial constraints. 10.5 Stakeholder participation process, consisting of physical and digital actors collaborating through a shared platform from the early design stages onwards. 10.6 Façade and balcony add-ons, highlighting outdoor terraces and interior concrete-ribbed structural slabs. Prefabricated parts and assemblies define the building envelope. 10.7 Façade system deployed across the whole building on a prototypical site.
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Architectural Design Thesis Module Coordinator: Mollie Claypool
In this module students write at Master’s level, analysing text to establish content relevant to their individual programme of study. The vehicle for this is an introduction to key theoretical concepts in architectural design, taught in the first term, which are then taken forward during the rest of the academic year. These concepts are varied but specific to the clusters’ research for that year. The module gives students an overview of the skills required to undertake a theoretical, cultural and historical study at postgraduate level, looking into the issues that underpin a study of architectural design, and introduces students to appropriate lines of investigation. Students develop their knowledge of the theoretical and historical issues that underpin a study of architectural design and gain an understanding of the skills required to undertake a theoretical and historical study. They then undertake a written essay (including a literature review) with a bibliography and illustrations, examples of which are shown on the following pages.
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Defetishising Living Architecture: A study on Adorno’s commodity fetishism in reconfigurable autonomous spatialities Hou Jialu Tutor: Jordi Vivaldi The term ‘fétiche’, first used to describe West African religious objects and later conceptualised to ‘fetishism’, has left an indelible influence on philosophers as diverse as Marx, Lukács, Benjamin, Adorno and Derrida. Based on Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, Theodor W. Adorno developed his critique of psychological manipulation and false illusion from capitalism. He argues that the human consciousness has become commodified in obedience to capitalism, which is credited to some of the new technology of the 20th century, and contributes to the loss of authenticity in art, culture and creative individuality. Architecture, which has been manufactured and mass-produced since the last century, is facing the same critique. From social-political workers to product designers, people have been investigating how commodity fetishism can be diminished. In the 21st century, the arrival of post-digital platforms and artificial intelligence has enabled collaboration and co-individuality in the design process. Furthermore, French philosopher Bernard Stiegler critiqued and expanded Adorno’s idea of commodity fetishism, stating that human beings and technics co-evolve and the latter can become ‘therapeutics’.
The thesis argues that contemporary technics, such as post-digital media and artificial intelligence, have the potential to reinstate autonomy and diminish commodity fetishism in architecture. The argument unfolds in two parts: the first is a theoretical elaboration on commodity fetishism, Adornoian aesthetic theory and attempts of defetishism in the 21st century. The second introduces the educational praxis RAD, a living architecture which employs artificial intelligence and post-digital platforms as the drive of design. The embedded customisable and reconfigurable system, which renominates the user as the commander, enables individual dignity, collaboration and human-technic co-evolution. As the quantitative change becomes qualitative, the system gives a promise to a new living architectural style. In all, although it may not fully defetishise the commodity character from architecture, it foreshadows a recession of commodity fetishism and a new strategy to house us more genuinely, with rebuilt relations between humans, architecture and technics.
Image: RAD project under construction, 2021. Image by the author 141
An Algorithmic Housing Typology to Adapt the Relationship Between Productive and Reproductive Labour in the Scenario of Remote Working Lingwen Kong Tutor: Julian Siravo Lately, more and more people are choosing to work remotely. With the invention of technologies such as the internet and smartphones, remote workers are able to collaborate with colleagues and communicate with clients more easily. Furthermore, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the proportion of remote workers has increased by 9.4% when compared to 2019, reaching 35.9% in 2020. It is estimated that by 2025, 70% of the workforce will work remotely for at least five days a month. Consequently, as both productive and reproductive labour are addressed in the domestic sphere, it is necessary for remote workers to renegotiate a new balance between production and reproduction in many ways. It is an opportunity to review the long-lasting domestic crisis and propose an alternative housing typology to adapt to this new relationship. This thesis investigates the historical changes between productive and reproductive labour and their impact on architectural typologies, using both Marx’s Labour Theory of Value and Social Reproduction Theory to prove the value of reproductive labour. It theorises an intertwined relationship between 142
reproductive and productive labour in remote working. By analysing the architectural experiments of material feminists in the late 19th- and early 20th-century, changes in architectural typology are proposed, requiring both complexity and flexibility in space. The loft is used as the prototype to develop a flexible typology. The idea of algorithmic typology is also proposed, using algorithms to encode knowledge and automate the design process in order to make architecture typology more adaptive.
Image: Axonometric drawing of the proposed algorithmic housing typology, 2021. Image by the author
Branching Narrative: A new direction of narrative architecture applied in virtual space Tiantong Xu Tutors: Daria Ricchi, Clara Jaschke The research on narrative architecture in virtual space is an emerging field, and is also a field full of practical exploration and challenges. With the development of computer technology, the development of architecture in the direction of virtualisation is an inevitable process. As an essential branch of architecture, narrative architecture also plays a vital role in the practice of architecture in virtual space. In the research of traditional narrative architecture, the research object often consists of existing buildings in physical space. With the development of digital technology, the emergence of videogames provides a new practice platform for narrative architecture. In these fields, the rules in virtual space are different from those in physical space. The laws of gravity and perspective are no longer inevitable factors restricting architecture in virtual space, instead how to tell a good story becomes the critical point. In addition, videogames also increase the possibility of more interaction between buildings and people in virtual space. According to the different media of the architecture in the virtual space, the discussion about narrative architecture and virtual space extends into various topics such as ‘architecture and videogames’, ‘architecture and movies’, and ‘architecture
and free-roam VR’. Some architecture schools also provide a series of courses based on these topics. However, books related to this field are scarce, and most of them are based on the architecture in virtual space or branching narrative in virtual space, rather than discussing the topic of narrative architecture in virtual space from the perspective of the branching narrative. In order to discuss how to apply branching narrative to architecture in virtual space, this thesis will start by introducing the theoretical background of virtual space, narrative architecture and branching narrative, and discuss the relationship between these three themes. By analysing two videogame cases in the overlapping fields between the three themes, this thesis will summarise how narrative architecture interacts with players and how branching narrative can be applied in the storylines of videogames.
Image: Narrative architecture in virtual space, 2021. Image by the author 143
Artificial Intelligence, Perception and Creativity: How deep neural networks can be used to augment human agency in the design process Christopher Whiteside Tutors: Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa, Luis Hernan Artificial Intelligence (AI) arose as an attempt to recreate intelligent entities from the natural world, such as the human brain, and has captivated popular interest since its early representation in science fiction.1 Throughout its history, AI has been pitted against our own human intelligence, from the Turing test to world title chess matches and dystopian predictions of machine takeover. Whilst early AI aimed to replicate the human mind, today the focus has moved to Narrow AI, which can excel to superhuman levels of intelligence in specific tasks, but lacks the general intelligence of humans. AI remains a technological tool like the human inventions which came before it, and its potential lies not in replacing human intelligence, but in augmenting it. It is deep learning, powered by artificial neural networks, that offers the greatest potential and has powered the AI revolution in many industries, from ecommerce to autonomous vehicles. This has resulted in huge increases in productivity through automated management and distribution systems, yet is also spawning new challenges surrounding data privacy and bias. In the field of architecture, these effects have not 1.1 been felt, with the application of deep yet 144
learning limited to a few pioneering firms and academics. Of particular interest to architectural designers are Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which transform AI from a purely analytical tool to a generative agent.2 By a process of pattern recognition, neural networks are able to build their own perception. They are able to view and analyse data in a way that can be compared to our own human perception. Our perception contains preferences and prejudices built up through our past experiences. Can the machine perception of neural networks be used to challenge our own preconceptions? Can it augment and extend the creative potential of architectural design? This thesis will analyse machine intelligence, perception and creativity in order to form a response to these questions. It will use case studies of pioneering neural architects, as well as a series of design experiments exploring the application of neural networks. In doing so, it will investigate various methods of curating, designing and augmenting datasets for use with deep learning, and will speculate on the future potential of neural networks within architectural design. 1. Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig (2010), Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach 3rd ed, (New Jersey, Prentice Hall) 2. Stanislas Chaillou (2019), The Advent of Architectural AI. Harvard Graduate School of Design Image: GAN synthesised image from digital sketch, 2021. Image by the author
Commons that Design: Crowd-sourced design and platforms in the context of automated architecture Andrea Terceros Barron Tutors: Mollie Claypool, Provides Ng ‘Commons that Design’ explores the implications that the participation of the Commons in the architectural design process could potentially have. It will furthermore discuss the importance of democratising the design and production of architecture through discrete architecture and the use of platforms for participatory design. Lastly, it will explore notions of crowd-sourced design with the use of physical toolkits and the potential of using games as platforms for creating architecture. Based on Jose Sanchez’s notions of the Commons and Nick Srnicek’s ideas about platform capitalism, this paper addresses the importance of the participation of the Commons in the architectural process and the use of platforms to enable this. By using crowd-sourced design, the architect could give tools to the inhabitants and act as a guiding person rather than designer. The collaboration between architect and client and a design process that considers automation could potentially change how people see design and how people inhabit their spaces and form their communities. This paper investigates the use of collective human intelligence for the design of architectural spaces. The democratisation of design has had a significant impact in the role of architects and architecture.
Rosi Braidotti describes posthuman thinking as a relational activity that occurs by composing points of contact with a myriad of elements and across multiple subjects situated in the world. This thesis explores the potential of the use of platforms in architecture and posthuman thinking in order to design collaboratively with large groups of people. The data inputted by the Commons could be used to inform a design based on their individual needs, raising questions about the levels of genericness versus customisation that are necessary for the design of diverse living spaces.
Image: An assemblage of tables using a game toolkit for designing customised flats, 2021. Image by the author 145
B-Pro, Urban Design MArch Supercrit, 2021
Urban Design MArch
Urban Design MArch Programme Director: Roberto Bottazzi
Urban Design at The Bartlett is a Master’s degree dedicated to the analysis and design of emergent issues in global cities. Students consider cities as privileged vantage points from which to investigate and speculate on the most pressing contemporary conditions, such as the conflation of digital and physical domains, climate change, gaming culture and ever-expanding urbanisation. The main drivers of the design investigations are the research clusters: small groups of students working closely with dedicated tutors. Each cluster responds to a unique research agenda and brief to develop their sophisticated design proposals. Within their clusters, students are able to investigate a particular set of urban concerns and are introduced to advanced computational methods to analyse and generate new urban programmes and morphologies. Each cluster acts as an incubator for new spatial ideas in which design and digital technology merge, giving rise to new modes of inhabiting and experiencing urban environments. The range of topics covered by the different clusters includes the impact of big data and machine-learning algorithms for design, biocomputing, the role of mass-customisation in urbanism and speculations on how urban environments may be altered and experienced through gaming environments. Within each cluster a lively and creative conversation is promoted through tutorials, workshops, lectures and exchanges, exposing each student to new ideas and methodologies that they can expand upon in their final project and thesis. The variety and richness of the research agendas pursued by students is underpinned by an integral interest in the role that digital technologies play in shaping our urban environment. The B-Pro Prospective lecture series, journal and dedicated theory modules support students in their research. Though operating within the uncertain environment caused by a pandemic, students and staff developed ideas and proposals of the highest standard and took creative advantage of digital tools to expand the learning offer.
Beyond the Grid: Territories of Resolution: Jiahua Dong, Yandong Liu, Kun Luo, Carolina Safieddine, Research Cluster 19 148
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AI and the Future of Central Business Districts
RC11
Julian Besems, Philippe Morel, Soungmin Yu
I’m pretty confident we will see [post Covid-19] more bankruptcies than in any business person’s lifetime. James Hammond, CEO of BankruptcyData In 2000, when speculating on architecture and urban planning of the future, it seemed to some that the city would be ‘post-urban’. The built environment would no longer be made up of entities identifiable as architectures, but would be simply defined by the technical specifications (‘specs’) imposed by computational and logistics economics. These entities were reduced to only three types relevant to a global production system: the vertical box (skyscraper), the horizontal box (shed) and the individual cubic box (house). All human or non-human activities could find their place among these three elements. This phenomenon of reducing construction to three elementary types of architecture was simply named The Principle of Reduction. Today, if we look at the vertical box, we cannot help thinking that, with the advent of computationalism, it will undergo a major change. The replacement of intellectual tasks by extraordinary artificial intelligence tools forces us to question the very existence of skyscrapers and central business districts (CBDs) whose economic rationality is no longer evident. Through a study of CBDs around the world, in particular Europe’s largest, La Défense in Paris, Research Cluster 11 speculated on AI’s impact. By making extensive use of data from various sources – the French national statistics office, Métropole du Grand Paris, social networks, etc. – and AI tools, including deeplearning techniques, students did not solely speculate on the future of a specific CBD; they designed it.
Students Equal Right of Space Wanting Ding, Peiwei Jiang, Yan Li, Di Wu, Fan Zhuang Refreshment of the Local Cuilan Chen, Zixuan Huang, Ye Lu, Sixuan Song, Yiwei Zhu Smart Communism Ziyuan Gao, Yunyun Guo, Xinsong Li, Yanbo Wu Threading-city Zhichen Liu, Yiming Liu, Yichen Xie, Yuhao Zheng Dissolution of La Défense Yuxi Ji, Jiaqi Niu, Zhaoyu Wang, Zheng Zhang Theory Tutor Philippe Morel Skills Tutors Julian Besems, Philippe Morel, Soungmin Yu
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11.1, 11.3, 11.9, 11.14 Equal Right of Space The 21st century has witnessed the revolutionary age, when high-tech made cities closer, blurring the sense of distance. The necessity of Central Business Districts (CBDs), the architectural clusters that occupy most central spaces in cities and bring together the elite workers in one location for productive activities, is constantly being debated. This study began with research on economic and social context, specifically of La Défense in Paris, France, in both spatial and socio-economic terms. Findings and experimental data were collated in a unified way to create a data library. By combining the results of different evaluations, a series of experiments and studies of design concepts, urban planning, transport planning and building monoliths were made. The core concept of the design is to create equal rights of space by overturning and reorganising the traditional spatial evaluation system, thus diluting the CBD. Simply put, it is decentralisation based on egalitarianism, giving every citizen equal access to space in this highly informative era. Benefiting from machine learning technologies, we can build analysis engines and design engines through languages such as Python, Mathematica and related platforms, and plug-ins to process large amounts of site, social and spatial data. Generative Adversarial Network is employed for the spatial organisation of urban and architectural design, to analyse and process large amounts of spatial data and customise the ideal space. 11.2, 11.7, 11.13, 11.16 Dissolution of La Défense With the proliferation of personal computers, the internet and digital platforms, particularly with the accelerating impact of Covid-19, the spatio-temporal boundaries of cities are blurring, with the model of urban development no longer the traditional centripetal high-density urban sprawl. This leads to a situation in which the CBD, with its high-density office integration, should be redefined. As the largest purpose-built business district in Europe, La Défense also faces problems such as high vacancy rates, over-concentration of offices and low levels of life satisfaction. The project uses the world’s major CBDs as case studies, taking into account the changing context of the times and people’s needs, and proposes the concept of CBD dissolution, which attempts to redefine the form of the CBD by using computational technology to meet the changing requirements of people. The design section of the project is presented on an urban scale, a block scale and an architectural scale. The urban scale is the siting of new sub-CBDs in the vicinity and their dynamic connection to La Défense; the block scale includes the creation of community circles and the redistribution of functions within La Défense; and the architectural scale is the creation and application of modular buildings. 11.4, 11.8, 11.12, 11.17–11.18 Smart Communism We live in a contradiction where all existence is presented to us as ideal. Yet the problems created by the capitalist economy over the years have become impossible to ignore. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Capitalism brought us evolution and prosperity, but also resulted in monopoly – the inevitable post-capitalism economic product – which led to non-negligible problems at both social and economic dimensions. At present, in La Défense, oligopoly is the dominant economic system. Large enterprise severely squeezes the living space of small businesses and individuals. To change the status, it is time to realise the communism economy at the crossroads of history. We boldly predict the 2080 business scenario, when collaborative economy, circular economy and gig economy has become the economic pillar, which emphasises small businesses and individuals. 152
The project has four phases, in which CCG economy gradually replaces monopoly economy. Smart Communism is not only an attempt at architecture reformation, but also a critical innovation of future business mode, represented in architectural form. 11.5–11.6, 11.10–11.11, 11.15 Threading-city With the urban economic accumulation and population growth, La Défense will inevitably face density problems in practice. Although top-down planning can control density, it is difficult to have organic interactions on urban streets. Organic urbanism thus advocates spatial democracy, that is, urban designers should create a framework with sufficient freedom for a bottom-up, autonomous design to occur. The advent of urban science in the era of big data has brought new possibilities for urban design. The digital urban design, verification urban design and computational urban design derived from urban new science are supported by quantitative, human-based, accurate analysis, which allows us to achieve a balance between bottom-up autonomous urban renewal and top-down planning. Our project is an experimental and forward-looking case study of urban design combined with participatory design and new urban science. Through the use of a series of research methods and tools brought by the New Urban Science, the research explores a workflow that uses Python as the main data-acquisition and analysis tool, Mathematica for mathematical analysis and Grasshopper as the visualisation tool. During an era in which Python and Mathematica have not been popularised in urban design, this workflow provides a reference for the future. 11.19–11.22 Refreshment of the Local Due to the boom of the internet economy and the impact of Covid-19, it seems that CBDs will face a heavy recession in the future, especially the sub-CBDs. In this project, the ‘worst’ areas were identified through the analysis of the lives of local citizens and the functions were reorganised based on citizens’ activities. Through the transformation of those areas, CBDs gradually change to become more diverse and fascinating. They can regain their attraction to the public and their vitality. In this process, the relationship between time and space is discussed and a CBD evaluation system, with diversified dimensions, is established. Dynamic time intervals are connected through static spatial paths, so that people can reach a space that better meets their requirements at different time periods to carry out corresponding activities. These activities and the daily rhythms of life are centred on the daily lives of local citizens. In addition, AI is used to make this process more efficient and improve the total satisfaction of all users. The ultimate goal is gradually to replace the single office space with the daily life space of locals. After all, CBDs might decline with the financial crisis, but citizens’ lives are eternal.
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Videogame Urbanism
RC12
Krina Christopoulou, Luke Caspar Pearson, Sandra Youkhana
This year Videogame Urbanism continued its research at the intersection of architecture and game design by examining the most ambitious computerised game ever devised by an architect, Buckminster Fuller’s World Game (1964). World Game was published as a series of documents that outlined a giant game to be played by citizens and governments, based on a global material resources database compiled by Fuller. While never realised as such, Fuller saw this as a networked game played on computers, a massively multiplayer endeavour for solving problems in global society. With concepts such as the ‘metaverse’ once more gaining momentum, suggesting complex game architecture as a perpetual, virtual counterpart to the world, Fuller’s idea of a global game is gaining traction. Yet current discourse reflects that no one person or body could build this world. This year, Research Cluster 12 tested how future World Games could be held through a diffused network of more focused games operating at a granular level. In our Game Worlds project we embarked on virtual field trips, visiting seminal videogame worlds to understand their unique forms of architecture, geography, society and politics. Through this we critiqued the agency of virtual worlds, developing a deep understanding of how games can be applied as new methodologies for urban designs and defining world building as a practice that can also change our physical world. We then designed urban videogames that prototype alternative futures, testing them through real-time computation. This produced different definitions of games-as-urbanism: as platforms for creating social spaces and new forms of user creativity; as problem-solving tools, allowing people to experiment with systems and test solutions in the ‘safe’ environment of a virtual game where failure is accepted; as communication, with the complexities of reality and all the information we can gather being abstracted down to be understood by citizens; and as economy, with innovations such as blockchain non-fungible tokens (NFTs) giving digital objects a tangible value and scarcity equivalent to finite resources. Our games are a system of ideas and research projects to be tied together into a networked World Game.
Students Fulfilment City Honghao Du, Long Tan, Jue Wang, Qian Zang Non-Fungible Life in the Metaverse Yichen Kang, Weijun Kong, Mincun Shi, Razi Qadi, Jiajun Wang Symbiocity Siming Chen, Yetong Jin, Yuxin Liu, Xinyue Shou Urban Enclaves Yonghao Chen, Yuan Deng, Yiting Hu, Zhuangting Li UtopAI Ya Chen, Xiaokun Xiu, Kexin Yang, Ziyu Zhao Theory Tutor Agostino Nickl Consultants and Critics James Delaney, Elie Gamburg, Ricky Haggett, Ben Vickers Thanks to the following institutions and platforms for showcasing the work of Videogame Urbanism The Architects’ Journal, Architekturmuseum der Tum, Dezeen, Epic Games, EPFL, Japanese Association for Architectural Informatics, University of Toronto, Media Architecture Biennale, RIBA Books
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12.1–12.3 Fulfilment City Deploying the unique logics of an Amazon fulfilment centre at the scale of a city, the project questions what the impact would be in taking the organisational systems of ‘non-human’ architecture and using them to generate an urban form. The game takes place in a giant warehouse, where an array of urban elements are organised on towering shelves as items to be picked and utilised. Players take on the role of both human and robot to fulfil randomly generated orders and construct a city. Different player types hold different capabilities, with some robots moving faster than others, some with greater loading capacities or superior visual interfaces to find components. As players struggle to keep up with the pace of contemporary logistics, they create a towering city above the warehouse composed of all their deliveries, successful or otherwise. Fulfilment City ultimately explores how stretching the design logics of non-human architecture out to the design of urban space can generate productive tensions and provide a spatial embodiment of the logistic networks that structure our contemporary life. 12.4–12.6 Urban Enclaves Inspired by a study into different ethnic enclaves in New York, Urban Enclaves is a game that allows players to explore identity and the origins of architectural style. It is a collaborative, multiplayer world in which players construct their own ‘embassy’, comprised of different architectural styles, promoting exchange with other players to unlock new ways of building and special behaviours. Players are able to choose a base architectural style and manipulate a set of components through a building system that allows them to place, resize, reposition and edit the objects to design space. As players construct their embassies, they gain ‘culture coins’, which can be traded for new architectural features or exchanged with other players for their building pieces. Certain special pieces also confer effects on the architecture of the embassy, such as rescaling objects or switching their identity, allowing for players to experiment with creative ways to blur the boundaries between different cultural styles of architecture within the city. By encouraging cultural exchange between players, the game suggests a future city where the previous rigidly designed enclaves start to blend into and across the city. These enclaves create new hybridised architectural styles that reflect the complexity and diversity of contemporary urban centres. 12.7–12.13 Symbiocity Many of our urban centres face a precarious future due to climate change. Geographic positions that were once favourable to trade and exchange will become inhospitable. In this context, Symbiocity is a game that prototypes a future in which cities become more tightly integrated with nature, allowing players to explore different mitigation methods through a virtual re-wilding of the urban environment. In the game, players can use a series of ‘environment’ brushes to alter the city, introducing different biomes that attract animals and plants – generating new urban microclimates by procedurally naturalising the city. Players must grow and nurture habitats for both human and non-human inhabitants. As different biomes are applied to the city, players can change from the ‘God’s eye’ view of the human administrator to embody various different animal types that proliferate in these new environments. Embodying a bird, a bee, a squirrel or even a tortoise, players are able to engage with the city through the unique umwelt of each species, investigating the agency that each creature has as part of a larger ecosystem. By combining human and non-human players together into one multiplayer game environment, Symbiocity allows us to explore the potential of cities that are closely integrated with nature, prototyping new urban forms through re-wilding. 166
12.14–12.15 Non-Fungible Life in the Metaverse This game tackles the emerging rhetoric surrounding the Metaverse – a persistent virtual second world that is a fictional technology from the 1990s currently being promoted by Silicon Valley’s most notable figures. In Non-Fungible Life, players can experience a prototypical life in the Metaverse, exploring an alternative urbanism shaped around the logic of videogames and networked computation. By foregrounding a series of urban typologies relating to work and play in the physical world, Non-Fungible Life explores the possibilities for a spatial Metaverse to challenge the two-dimensional hegemony of the World Wide Web. The game explores how this virtual realm will connect into our existing urban infrastructure, and provides new possibilities for economic growth, social gathering and leisure. At the same time the game highlights the contingency of such worlds and the massive-scale computation and energy use they will doubtless require. By exploring notions of value in digital materials, property and labour, NonFungible Life questions which parts of our social and economic structure we might want to include in the Metaverse and what parts we might wish to reinvent if we are building a second, entirely synthetic world from scratch. 12.16–12.18 UtopAI A game that examines the relationship between historical narrative and contemporary AI in the design of cities. The history of utopian design is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. By imagining alternative societies, these worlds hold a mirror up to reality. Rather than using technologies such as AI to make cities more efficient, UtopAI creates a world where players can travel to historic utopia and train AI in their social and cultural principles, providing learnings that can then be applied back in the real world. The player’s AI functions as both a sidekick and a history generator, learning and responding to the decisions made in the game. Through repeated learning, the AI grows from a ‘baby AI’ to an ‘adult’ state, enabling it to create new tools for the player to use in the design of their real-world city. By combining human-led decision making with AI-led analysis, the game allows players to create a complex picture of historical utopia, literally researching their culture and meaning together. In this way, UtopAI suggests that future cities, and the AI that will undoubtedly organise them, can learn from new types of information – the fictional worlds that have helped to define our collective cultural understanding of space. 12.19–12.22 Game Worlds This year we began by voyaging into the parallel world of videogames, on a series of virtual field trips. We visited a selection of seminal videogame worlds to understand their unique forms of architecture, geography, landscape, inhabitation and politics. Each game was critiqued through both its narrative and its systems, the social sphere of the game and the interfaces upon which it is played. We used various forms of analysis, including conventional mapping, architectural reconstruction, data-mining, screenshot recording and hacking. Through this comprehensive analysis we defined how designing for virtual environments is a future-facing practice that resonates with the concerns of the physical world. The games featured were: Death Stranding (Kojima Productions, 2019), Animal Crossing (Nintendo, 2020), Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013), Gravity Rush 2 (Japan Studio, 2017), No Man’s Sky (Hello Games, 2016).
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Machine Thinking Urbanism: Cities Beyond Cognition
RC14
Roberto Bottazzi, Vassilis Papalexopoulos, Eirini Tsouknida, Tasos Varoudis
Research Cluster 14 explores the role of algorithms in mining, visualising and designing with very large datasets, to conceive innovative urban environments. Such research relies on both sensing and data-gathering technologies and learning algorithms, which categorise data in an unsupervised manner (machine learning). These techniques allow students to expand the remits of design and consider factors where scale, time frame and connectivity fall outside the purview of our perceptual abilities and design methods. From environmental qualities of space to rapid urbanisation, the speed and scale of transformation calls for a conceptual approach and methods that capitalise on technological development to conjure up new designs. The consequences of these observations can be profound for urban design: perceived notions of type, programme, site, representation and inhabitation are reassessed to give rise to more complex, fluid, open, incomplete and inclusive urban proposals. Design is mainly understood as a problem of distribution, concerning the organisation of objects, bodies, data and algorithmic operations in both physical and digital domains, straddling the mathematics of data and the space of the city. This year Research Cluster 14 continued its research into the public spaces of London by concentrating on the post-pandemic city. Five projects proposed alternative designs for pressing urban issues. Nutri.Net looked at the issue of food distribution in dense and multicultural urban environments by proposing a networked system of canopies and robotic gardens. Shadow-Shaped City studied areas of physical and digital deprivation to propose a dynamic piece of infrastructure for the River Thames. Upon Iso-Individuals imagined the future of higher education in the post-pandemic city by using data and machine-learning algorithms to organise a distributed campus. 55,000 rented rooms in London were analysed and then re-imagined as nodes of a new university campus. Inter-Pelagos utilised machine thinking to analyse the open spaces of Canary Wharf and tested their ability to perform as theatrical stages. The final project imagines a new series of public spaces catering for the young and nocturnal communities living in the area. (De)stressed City employs learning algorithms to couple high-density living with psychological wellbeing.
Student Teams (De)stressed City Xiao Peng, Weiheng Qin, Jinyu Wang, Yue Xu, Hongying Zhu Inter-Pelagos Mengyue Han, Qingrui Jiang, Licheng Yao, Miao Zeng, Xuan Zhou Nutri.Net Alankrita Amarnath, Ioannis Bousios, Margarita Chaskopoulou, Junqiao Li Shadow-Shaped City Yanni Ren, Flora Mistica Selvaraj, Valeriia Volkova, Ruilu Yu Upon Iso-Individuals Jiang Chang, Qiyuan Hong, Yuhan Shen, Shiqi Wang Theory Tutor Efthymia Kasimati Skills Tutors Anna Kampani, Eirini Tsouknida, Zhao Xinzhuo Consultants and Critics Julian Besem, Stefania Boccaletti, John Cook, Alberto Fernandez Gonzalez, Tom Holberton, Anna Kampani, Andreas Kofler, Klaas de Rycke
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14.1–14.2 Inter-Pelagos 14.1 ’Network Mapping’. The network map shows the different layers of interaction among the agents, while also indicating a potential area of intervention based on data. 14.2 ‘Design Atmosphere’. The final design creates a new ambiance for the city. At this ‘urban theatre’, the free movement of the users is encouraged, through the organised distribution of the visual attraction – the theatrical elements in this case. 14.3–14.6 Nutri.Net 14.3 ‘Exploded Masterplan’. The masterplan is organised based on functionality. The productive surfaces are expanding through the streets as well as above the station, using the barrier infrastructure as a backbone and bridge, bringing together people of different ethnic groups and economic backgrounds through food. 14.4 ‘Productive Landscapes’. The growth network targets flexibility and variety in production from cultivation related to water, to contemporary labs. The combination of locations depicted by the algorithm, along with the main hub as the core of the network, allow for a significant amount of food to be cultivated, contributing to the annual consumption of surrounding areas. 14.5 ‘Hinterlands Connection’. Rapid urbanisation has revealed unsustainable ecosystems, where the imbalance between the city-consumer and the productive countryside is evident. The road network depicts this dependence with urban territories resembling nodes of converging roads, the modern-day paths of supplies. 14.6 ‘GNA 0.2’. The Growth Network Algorithm recognises the spatial function of the existing situation and evaluates the optimal use for each cell. It allocates functions such as markets and restaurants, aiming to provide equal food accessibility and improve food desert areas as well as creating communal spaces to increase social integration. 14.7 Inter-Pelagos ‘Dimensionality Reduction’. Part of the analysis introduces different Machine Learning Methods to analyse multiple data stacks. 14.8–14.10 Nutri.Net 14.8 ‘Human-Machine Interaction’. The cooperation of human and non-human actors in the creation of the new food network is a core concept of this project. The human actors are responsible for the tending of the plants while the non-human actors transport the modules and maintain the structure. Their communication is feasible through the interactive interface. 14.9 ‘Connectivity Studies’. Visual connectivity is restricted by the railway platforms in the Vauxhall area. Visibility analysis and isovist rays allow the understanding of the visual segregation in the urban context and influence the final intervention. 14.10 ‘Food Landscapes’. The new productive landscape expands not only in between the existing urban context but also along the River Thames. The intervention along the river hosts aquatic food landscapes as well as allowing the regeneration of the urban activities, reinforcing the connection of inhabitants with the water element. 14.11–14.14 Inter-Pelagos 14.11–14.13 ‘City Lighting Analysis’. The urban theatre concept requires the study of the different parameters that are affecting the city. A multi-parameter lighting analysis is conducted based on lidar data, as well as a hue/saturation analysis to identify the existing atmosphere. 14.14 ‘Design Outcome’. Based on the flow system, different theatrical elements, multiple stages, lights, screens and stands are distributed to transform the atmosphere. The area along the canal, which used to be ‘dark’ and ‘inert’ is now lit up and activated. 14.15–14.18 Shadow-Shaped City 14.15–14.16 ‘Shadow Inversion’. Shadows are an aesthetic aperture in perceiving the distorted cityscape, while simultaneously being a tool to scrutinise the negative aspects of the city. This project addresses various urban issues of London, employing big data by means of weighing the existing 180
synergies in data points as urban shadows. 14.17 ‘Design Outcome’. The project redefines the concept of the urban bridge in the Age of Information. The overview shows the connection between the structure and urban surroundings. The path into the shadow allows passive recreations, digital screens occur occasionally along the path to enrich the idea of multiple realities layered within the new urban space. 14.18 ‘Design Ambiance’. The formation of this dynamic system redefines the bridge as a new urban space, as an extension of the city referencing its historical significance and enhancing the experience of multiple realities. 14.19–14.21 Upon Iso-Individuals 14.19–14.20 ‘Distributed Network Optimisation’. GPS tracking data is used to simulate the most likely paths that people would take to get the different study facilities. These paths become the base of subsequent design. The combined area is processed to generate a new distributed network, which is returned to the 3D model to obtain the final position. 14.21 ‘Plug-in Spaces’. Using the collected timelines and the users’ requirements, different slots are generated, and several clusters are ultimately created. Some of them have more study spaces, while others have more spaces for recreation, rest or temporary exhibitions. 14.22–14.24 (De)stressed City 14.22–14.23 ‘Sky-View Factor Analysis’. A custom evolutionary algorithm for topological optimisation of the generated voxels is applied by using the sky-view factor parameter as the main dataset. This process rearranges the position of the cubes to increase the natural light quality as well as to improve mental health issues related to light deprivation. 14.24 ‘Design Output’. The (De)stressed City project adopts a data-driven approach to couple the need for dense, compact living in the city with a perceptually rich and diverse urban environment. A prototype living scheme in East London proposes a community built around density and spatial diversity.
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Pervasive Urbanism: Reprogramming the Urban Commons
RC15
Alican Inal, Annarita Papeschi During the past decade, the evolution of distributed technologies has radically reshaped the way in which we interact with each other and the environment that we inhabit. The exponential diffusion of sensing and tracking devices has resulted in a varied offer of responsive urban experiences. While we relish the opportunities that broad data sharing offers to the governance and production of urban space, the practice continues to raise critical issues linked to ownership and traceability. Research Cluster 15 explores the complex network of the political, ecological and cultural protocols offered to the systems of urban design and governance through the emergence of ubiquitous computing, with a particular focus on the reconceptualisation of the urban commons. Our methods are based on an ecological praxis founded on aesthetic assemblages of collaborative rationalities, human and non-human, computational and non-computational. By opening the digital participatory scholarship to ecological, neo-materialist and post-humanist theory, the work explores a better understanding of the complex nature of collective feedback, creating the potential for the affirmation of novel urban narratives and aesthetics. Five sites were selected amongst London’s most popular outdoor destinations and were explored with an approach that examined the correlations between large public datasets and the granularity of environmental and biometric sensing. Our investigations mapped sensual and emotive readings of urban space, collating quantitative and qualitative information to identify local issues and opportunities. The results offered the speculative design of a series of partly digital, partly physical, transcalar and transindividual platforms. These were designed as ecological and heterogeneous assemblages, a confederation of human and non-human, computational and non-computational elements, collaborating and interacting as vital and pervasive matter. Constructed as collaborative cognitive infrastructures, our designs engage with ideas of mixed realities, multiverses and decentralised worlds, catering beyond human needs to challenge the boundaries of the ordinary notion of public space.
Students Civic Sensorium Songlun He, Dhruval Piyushkumar Shah, Qirui Wang Decoding Gentrification Pingyue Cui, Zhiyu Liu, Hao Zhang Ecognosis Kehan Cheng, Divya Vipul Patel, Hui Tan Emotional Dynamics Xuanbei He, Zixi Li, Shan Lu Surveillance Urbanism Zetong Li, Xiaodong Lu, Jiachuan Shen, Lujia Yang Theory Tutor Ilaria Di Carlo Skills Tutor Vincent Nowak Consultants and Critics Yota Adilenidou, Yusuf Ali, Marjan Colletti, John Cook, Frederic Fol Leymarie, Kostas Grigoriadis, Mariana Ibañez, Anna Kampani, Katya Larina, Shneel Malik, Yusuke Obuchi, Vanessa, Panagiotopoulou, José Pareja Gómez, Juan Pablo Porta, Yael Reisner
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15.1–15.2 Ecognosis A porous and multi-scalar infrastructure is generated from a process of spatial optimisation of wildlife habitats, allowing for the coexistence of vertical allotments and connective corridors for a diverse range of species. The diagrams illustrate the generative design process. 15.2 The fragmentation of wildlife habitats represents a dangerous threat to biodiversity in urban settings. The diagram illustrates the sequential steps for the generation of wildlife corridors in Camden using a combination of habitat maps, resistance maps of the built environment and the Least-Cost Path Algorithm (LCPA). 15.3–15.7 Surveillance Urbanism The study maps the position of security cameras in Canary Wharf as well as mapping their identification recognition and observation ranges, measured in pixel per meter (PPM) before plotting potential anti-surveillance routes across the site. 15.4 A detail of the speculative proposal that illustrates the intertwined layout of the data-farm, the data-playground, and the service and structural infrastructure. The proposal is envisioned as a selfregulating urban intervention, where citizens can digitally hold the ownership of their own data to be used as currency for the negotiation of space and experiences. 15.5 The natural surveillance intensity of Canary Wharf is measured by calculating the interaction of isovist field and occlusion levels for each openly accessible viewpoint. 15.6 A bird’s eye view of the design proposal shows how the service and structural infrastructure acts as distribution network. The stackable modules of the data-farm are the breeding ground for data harvesting, while the data-playground, with the embedded supports for livestreaming, allows for new opportunities of virtual and physical networking and micro business. 15.7 The CCTV camera, natural surveillance and data checkpoint explorations are collated in a threedimensional map of the overall surveillance ecology of Canary Wharf, called the Data Iceberg. In this diagram, the visible and analogue traces of surveillance are mapped above the zero level and the invisible digital traces below. 15.8–15.10 Ecognosis An Arduino Sensing Hub consisting of noise, CO, NO2, PM2.5, PM10 and GPS sensors is assembled and used to collect granular environmental information at the site. The different data sets are weighted accordingly to the impact on the life-cycle of the different agencies taken into exam. 15.9 An impression of the speculative proposal showing the allotments and the vertical wildlife corridor connections. 15.10 The detail of a test 3D print of the porous infrastructure displays how the differentiation in porosity might allow for differently sized nesting and roaming spaces. 15.11 Civic Sensorium A visualisation of touch-related experiences in Chinatown. The study explores the multi-sensorial experience of urban space via social media. Methods involved keyword twitter data-scrapping. The tweets were then visualised as a network of geolocated points and evaluated to visualise attractiveness for hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste. 15.12 Decoding Gentrification The project explores the effects of gentrification in Kings Cross, with a focus on the correlation between increased land value, the dynamics of the cultural infrastructure and the emerging environmental inequalities. The diagram illustrates the relation between house prices, crime rates, air pollution and noise, visualised from a combination of governmental open-data and context-sensed information. 15.13–15.15 Emotional Dynamics The project draws on the theory of emotional contagion (Adamatzky 2005) and uses social media scraping and environmental simulation to develop generative methods exploring the design of a 194
diverse set of market enclosures as a positive contribution to the mental ecology of cities. The image illustrates a 3D printing test of the proposed spatial articulation. 15.14 This wind speed simulation in Borough Market is part of a series of studies investigating the experience of wellbeing through the correlations between emotive galvanic skin response (GSR) feedback and the simulation of microclimatic conditions. 15.15 A bird’s eye view of the proposal for the banks of the River Thames, in close proximity to Borough Market. The project explores the use of bio-rock for construction, envisioning the use of low-voltage electrified frames in direct contact with the tidal waves to construct large emerging reefs as new inhabitable land. 15.16–15.17 Civic Sensorium How are the experiences of places remembered and shared? The project investigates experiences as sensory impressions. The image represents an immersive visualisation of a GSR exploration of Chinatown. A GSR signal gives an indication of the emotional status based on the electrical conductance of the skin. 15.17 To explore the experience of smell, the team assembled an Arduino Hub composed of nine different gas sensors, exemplifying the human experience of smell in line with Zwaardemaker’s odour classification. The data was collected at 29 locations and then visualised as an overlay of the nine signals in a series of smell-rose diagrams. 15.18–15.20 Decoding Gentrification 15.18–15.19 The project proposes an agent-based design method to respond to the complex design problem posited by the engagement of a distributed and diverse community of low-level decision-makers, with an approach that simulates the programming and deployment of many decision-making entities acting in parallel. 15.20 A bird’s eye view of the proposal for Tiber Gardens, King Cross. The project looks at reversing the mechanisms of gentrification, proposing a new cultural infrastructure, engaging the diverse group of inhabitants with the intention of anchoring the long-term benefits of new increases in land value within the community.
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Urban Morphogenesis Lab
DeepCity
RC16
Filippo Nassetti, Claudia Pasquero, Eirini Tsomoukou
The current global health crisis has almost instantly pushed most human relationships into the virtual world; Research Cluster 16 is no exception. We have been connected by dense flows of data, a vast amount of it. These flows have almost entirely replaced all other perceptual stimuli, including visual, spatial and pheromone. Yet, this uniquely deprived condition offers a unique opportunity. First, it has forced us to realise how cyborgian we actually are and how indiscernible our material and digital worlds have become. Second, and perhaps more interestingly, it has brought to the centre stage, once again, the profoundly material nature of what we still call cyberspace. If ubiquitous computing is materialising a new kind of cognitive ‘noosphere’, then this is actualised in profound material transformations that involve the structures of our brains, bodies, the spaces we inhabit, the cities we live in and the ecosystems we belong to. We could argue that artificial intelligence is now everywhere. As such, it is no longer the sole domain of computer science. It is now primarily architectural, since it involves aspects of planetary communication, interspecies interaction and, most of all, spatial and material organisation. The aim of Research Cluster 16 is to design a collection of radical urban visions that are entirely virtual and yet profoundly material. These visions index specific material transactions in real world cities, as relayed by remote sensing technologies. They evolve their own artificial intelligence through accelerated co-evolution with real living organisms. Research Cluster 16 designs, codes, inhabits and co-evolves with our architectures. In that, sense architecture has never been more embedded in the material processes shaping the evolution of the cluster and potentially of the world beyond it. As such, this year the cluster explored the notion of DeepCity, a design philosophy that encompasses all the processes and systems – human, animal, microbiological and digital – that are currently accelerating the transformation of our Urbansphere.
Students Urbanrrhizae Zhiyue Gan, Ning Zhou, Liangchen Zhu Physarum Poly-xylem City Marco Antonio Alfaro Ruz, Heyuan Chen, Siyi Li, Shiyu Qin Gan.Os101 Sheng Cao, Tao Chen, Shusheng Huang, Anshika Tajpuriya, Meng Zheng Mossy Biopolis Lianglu Hou, Bo Liu, Xuehan Tong, Ruiyi Wang, Liuyang Wu Bio-Flourish City Ruoyu Hou, Man Qian, Zihan Zeng, Jinyue Zuo Theory Tutor Manos Zaroukas Skills Tutors Filippo Nassetti, Eirini Tsomoukou Consultants and Critics Roberto Bottazzi, Haoyi Chen, Mirco Daneluzzo, Artem Konevskikh, Maria Kupstova, Seung Meng, Frédéric Migayrou, Marco Poletto, Vadim Smathkim, Melissa Sterry, Oscar Villareal, Xiao Wang Partners ecoLogicStudio, Synthetic Landscape Lab
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16.1 Urbanrrhizae ‘Architectural View’. Biodegradable architecture is grown from multiple mycelium bricks. This is a city dominated by biological and artificial forms of intelligence that are able to transform waste into product and therefore establish a new city metabolism. 16.2 Gan.Os101 ‘Geological Adversarial Network (GAN) of Shelters: Architectural Scale’. This project looked at geological inhabitation in Kamchatka, Russia. 16.3–16.6 Urbanrrhizae This project establishes an embedded waste collection system integrating distributed recycling stations for the City of London based on the deployment of mycelium and bio-computational algorithms. 16.3 ‘City View’. 16.4 ‘Interior Landscape‘. 16.5 ‘BioBrick Detail‘. 16.6 ‘Urban Morphogenesis‘. 16.7–16.10 Physarum Poly-xylem City The project presents an urban scenario where the relationship between the green spaces and the built environment of London is explored, deploying biological and artificial intelligence in algorithmic form. 16.7 ‘Interior Landscape‘. 16.8 Urban design generated by biological and artificial intelligence feeds basic data back into the ecosystem, replacing human-centred urban design methods, integrating landscape in built environments. 16.9 ‘Urban Scenario‘. A regenerated landscape based on a CycleGAN algorithm. 16.10 ‘Terrace System‘. 16.11–16.16 Gan.Os101 Exploring an active volcano site in Kamchatka, Russia induces us to rethink the relationship between the natural and the artificial. 16.12 ‘Sheltering Ecologies‘. The redesign of an underground strata completely redefines the morphology of the existing landscape. Shelter ecosystems are generated by a volatile environment through the redesign of the existing landscape strata. Volcanic ash from the eruptions acts as a propagator for the growth of microorganisms like algae. This is used to propose architectural spaces as a symbiotic sheltering landscape for humans and non-humans. 16.13 ‘GAN Simulation‘. Underlining the process of generating point clouds to design new topographies and to identify initial algae production. 16.14 ‘Prototypical Section II – Hydrothermal Deep Ground‘. This deep ground section explores the ecology that supports hydrothermal fluids, the coexistence of species that live at higher temperatures, the formation of different soil layers and mineral deposition as an underground strata for sheltering spaces. 16.15 ‘Architectural scale‘ presents a substrate design that allows growth of non-human forms of life. 16.16 ‘GAN Studies‘. The shelter network distribution on an active volcano site is examined. A site that hints of recent volcanic activity is taken to propose distribution of the topography through previous GAN studies. At macro scale the design proposal focuses on envisioning underground ecosystems. Factors like volcanic ash deposition and erosion are used to derive conditions that could cater to different geological details the site presents. 16.17–16.20 Mossy Biopolis ‘Eco-Plugin Visualisation‘. Different structural units and moss systems interact, encouraging the coexistence between humans and surrounding species. 16.18 ‘Detail View of Eco-Plugin‘. A representation of the ecological coexistence embodied by the eco-plugin. 16.19 ‘Clay 3D Printing: Clay Moss Planting Module‘. Using clay as the basic material for the eco-plugin allows vegetation to flourish from the planting module in blocks, expanding on the assumption of the possibility of printing the whole Mossy Biopolis. 16.20 ‘Reconstructed Urban Morphology‘. This reconstructed map generated using CycleGAN techniques explores the regeneration of East London after flooding. 16.21–16.23 Bio-Flourish City ‘Urban Regeneration‘. This project examines the biological intelligence of physarum polycephalum (left) and mycelium (right) 206
using the CycleGAN algorithm. 16.22 Through the CycleGAN algorithm and the biointelligence of slime mould, the project simulates the shortest traffic bridges, corridors, and networks connecting various congestion spots, resulting in a road texture for a new metropolis. 16.23 The ‘Generation of Future Transportation Network, Fibre Structure’ is the result of combining green point cloud data, representing the city’s landscape, and a frame structure generated from white point cloud data, representing the city’s human facilities. 16.24–16.25 Urbanrrhizae ‘Bio-Sensor Mycelium of Heavy Metal Waste‘. A dynamic landscape transformation process using a StyleGAN algorithm in Norilsk, Russia. 16.25 ‘Bio-Sensor‘. A synthetic landscape formed by combining datascapes and geomorphic geographic features. 16.26 Mossy Biopolis ‘Botanic Renovation – New Vorkuta‘. A visual proposal in reborn Vorkuta, Russia. Moss and snow algae flourish within this morphology, transforming the urban repair process into urban structures and generating various eco-plugins.
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Kiss the Ground
RC18
Zach Fluker, Enriqueta Llabres Valls
Research Cluster 18 investigates how urbanisation alters Earth’s biochemical cycles, in which global ecology has become a capitaldriven process. A capital-driven Earth system is one in which many agents interact in a non-linear way, with different levels of organisation and hierarchies, each of them ruled by their own laws. In such behaviour, resulting from a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, where small changes in the initial conditions have significant effects, extreme unexpected events occur more often, with interacting agents modifying their strategies as experience accumulates. The cluster starts by understanding the Earth’s primary biochemical cycles – nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous – as a complex dynamic system. Students identify the relevant scales, from the molecule to the global, and rules of law to identify a site and research question. The cluster’s design methodology embraces the non-linearity of the Earth system, leading to a much larger spectrum of disciplinary niches. Students study how the main life components – nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus – cycle across the biospheres, employing a wide range of design methodologies including flow modelling, time-based platforms representing change and evolution, and network technology data-mining strategies. In doing so they gain greater understanding of how current urban trends alter biochemical cycles, resulting in extreme weather patterns and biodiversity loss. The new urban models proposed by the students encourage positive behaviour and correct negative environmental externalities caused by urbanisation.
Students Between_Void Qichen Cui, Siyi Liu, Chuandi Wei, Qianyun Zhou Carbon Colossus Qingyi Li, Qinyuan Li, Yaping Wang, Jiyingzi Xu CountrySide Healer Xuanyu Bai, Biyan Ou, Senlin Wu Data Island Yuqi Leng, Xinfeng Lu, Jinhui Shen Forest Ecotope Anastasiia Fedorova, Yulu Huang, Zhaoyang Li, Wenqi Liu Lo-Fi. Agriculture Siwei Hu, Tingting Peng, Han Yan Teaching Assistants Dimitra Bra, Egmontas Geras Theory Tutor Sheng Yang Huang Skills Tutors Mohammed Makki, Maria Paneta, Xiao Ran, Zhu Yue Consultants and Critics Fabrice Bourrelly, Katya Larina
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18.1, 18.13–18.15 Between_Void In the new geological era of the Anthropocene, increasingly extreme climates illustrate the impact of human activities on the spatial relationship of agricultural society, the transformation of land-use systems and the planetary ecosystem. Through AI, evolutionary algorithms and the exploration of complex problems, a multi-objective solution strategy is proposed to solve current food problems caused by conflicts between cities and villages, capital and local residents. In the end a new agricultural paradigm contributes to the city’s ecological diversity and richer food culture. 18.2–18.5 Forest Ecotope Our current world is unsustainable as we face dramatic climate change. Today’s levels of carbon dioxide are higher than they have been at any time in the past. ‘Forest Ecotope’ is a new form of urbanism which combines data and reality, introducing new design paradigms in which a form of urbanisation is controlled by data. This project focuses on the carbon biogeochemical cycle, recovering industrial forests, maintaining a carbon sink to develop a circulation system in the city and bringing urban development close to nature and forestry. 18.6–18.7 CountrySide Healer In the context of climate change, nitrogen emissions have gradually become a controversial issue. With the acceleration of urbanisation, agricultural land is gradually decreasing, with people relying more on nitrogen fertilisers and harvesting enough food on less land. In the face of the ecological crisis, it seems that there is a tacit consensus to defend the idea of urbanism and agriculture in producing sustainable cities – a kind of fusion between the two. 18.8–18.9 Data Island Compared to the way of life in the past, people now live in a world made up of data. Data centres are almost the only means of intervention. Therefore, in the context of knowledge sharing on the internet, public awareness of data use on energy consumption has become more and more important. The decentralised data centres, instead of large data centres, can remap carbon emissions. This project redefines a new spatial paradigm through culture and public engagement, integrating the machine landscape into the role of the city. 18.10–18.12 Carbon Colossus This project reassesses the relationship between the carbon cycle and materiality in architecture, and challenges the built environment’s social and environmental significance. The lifespan of buildings is largely extended: environmentally – which does not disrupt the carbon sink on site – and socially – the ruins of the timber-proposed materiality can be used as a monument to evoke public consciousness about carbon and provokes the collective memory on the efforts made in the city to reduce carbon emissions. 18.16–18.19 Lo-Fi. Agriculture Rural areas in the Information Age may experience more drastic changes than cities. This project uses high-tech algorithms and low-tech construction techniques to build a design process based on reading, executing and adjusting. This involves the nitrogen cycle and redefining agricultural production and distribution systems. By considering non-human space, that is the crop space, the nitrogen cycle, crop production and farmers are inextricably linked.
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Excursions on Media Ecology
RC19
Corneel Cannaerts, Michiel Helbig, Joris Putteneers
Research Cluster 19 explores the intersection between urban design and media ecologies, looking into the impact of communication and information technologies on the environments we inhabit. The concept of media ecology was devised by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, and proposed that media is an extension of human capacities. McLuhan argued that media, more than its content, impacts how societies and cultures develop. 60 years and several digital revolutions later, our environments have become saturated with digital technologies. The discourse on media ecologies has emancipated from its humancentred origins to include more-than human agencies. Through recent developments in the fields of media theory, media archaeology and media geology, media technologies can be described as material, in addition to technological and cultural formations. In this extended understanding, media ecologies operate on timeframes, ranging from the instant to deep time, and span across scales from the microscopic to the planetary. This year, the cluster explored compression as a concept to grasp the complexity of the contemporary moment. Compression – defined in data science as the reduction of file size or the bandwidth needed to store or transfer information – can be understood more broadly as having societal, political, economic, experiential, aesthetic and spatial dimensions. Research Cluster 19 explored these notions through theoretical reflection, drawing from media theory, urban design and architectural theory. We built a collective body of references through hoarding examples, mapping and data visualisation, interfacing with media ecologies through computational techniques such as data scraping, web crawling, image processing and computer vision. This resulted in four field guides: Other Eyes: Visual Cultures of Compression; Compression of Living and Working; Material Manifestations of Media Ecology; and Beyond the Grid: Territories of Compression. Four speculative design projects were developed – Reclaiming Data Centres; Archiving Artificial Landscapes; HyperLearning and Unlearning; and Beyond the Grid: Territories of Resolution – which demonstrate different dimensions of compression, using narrative, time-based and computational media as a means for telling stories and undertaking excursions on media ecologies.
Students Artificial Xingyu Huang, Jingyi Sun, Tong Tian, Jing Xiao Hybrids Baiyao Liu, Yining Wang, Kelei Wu Hypermedia Yue Hua, Jindi Jia, Anqi Wang, Xinyue Zhang Resolution Jiahua Dong, Yandong Liu, Kun Luo, Carolina Safieddine Theory Tutor Provides Ng Skills Tutors Sam Lavigne, James Melsom, Joris Putteneers Consultants and Critics Vincent Adayemo, Enrico Pavone, David Van Oostende, Lui Xin Partners Currentcam, Fieldstation network, Fieldstation studio
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19.1 Hypermedia ‘Hyper-Learning and Unlearning’. A visualisation of a personalised and gamified learning environment, adapting the concept of the memory palace into augmented reality. 19.2–19.8 Resolution ‘Beyond the Grid: Territories of Resolution’. The project looks at the territorial impact of emerging digital technologies across several scales through the lens of resolution. The media ecology enabled through these digital technologies does not manifest itself globally with the same density, both in terms of accessibility of infrastructure and degree of mediation. Resolution is an important measure of understanding our contemporary environment as it manifests itself in the interface between the physical and the digital, the material and the mediated. Digital information is fundamentally stored as discrete data, it represents information at a certain resolution. Resolution, in addition to being a technical notion, can be understood as a spatial and temporal measure of the density of information, with substantial political, economic, social and environmental implications. Resolution can be seen in horizontal territories, delineating borders between hi-res and low-res zones and as a technical limit of imaging and mapping technologies. Resolution can be understood vertically in overlays of heterogeneous data sources and in the zoom-levels of digital mapping services. The project explores not only the extremes of connected and unconnected, mediated and unmediated, but is also interested in the territories where friction and confrontation manifest themselves and resolution is introduced as a means to describe the continuous territories in-between. 19.9–19.12 Hybrids ‘Reclaiming Data Centres’. The hardware infrastructure needed to support contemporary media ecologies has a vast impact on our environment. These material manifestations can be seen at various stages in the lifecycle of digital technology: from extraction of raw materials, transportation and production; to energy needed to operate networks and data centre; to disposal and e-waste. Data centres are essential infrastructures that enable media ecologies. Often owned by tech companies, they employ platform economies that use data to extract value from local markets. They are often housed in anonymous architectural structures isolated from their direct surroundings and the communities that live there. Through reclaiming data centres, this project proposes a more beneficial relationship between data centres, local urban environments and communities. Looking at three existing platform-based economy services in Los Angeles, the project is designed through web scraping, ripping models of existing data centres and their environments and remixing them through kit bashing. 19.13–19.17 Artificial ‘Archiving Artificial Landscapes’. The project is a reflection on the condition of artificial landscapes within a compressed city. It proposes an archive that scans, collects, preserves and simulates lost, existing and new artificial landscapes, as dynamic digital environments. The archive makes these artificial landscapes accessible through several interfaces, a material architectural archive and a mixed reality application layer within the compressed city, and a digital overlay on actual material landscapes. Archiving artificial landscapes not only creates a system for users to archive the past and present, allowing them to imagine and speculate about the future, but also helps us think about how to reshape our position within the natural environment. 19.18–19.21 Hypermedia ‘Hyper-Learning and Unlearning’. The pervasive impact of digital technologies requires us to rethink notions of knowledge and learning. 234
The current pandemic and the forced shift to online teaching are just the latest example of an ongoing trend of digitising learning, through online classrooms, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), video and interactive tutorials. Digital technologies are not only affecting how we learn, but also what we need to learn and what is doing the learning. With constant and instant access to information, traditional ways of learning that are focused on reproducing information are no longer valid. The project reflects on the impact that media ecologies have on the blurring of digital and material learning environments, questioning the role of educational institutions and infrastructures. By including machine learning, the project speculates on the role of platforms, mixed reality applications and gamification, questioning what skills we must (un)learn as humans navigating the compressed city. Using architectural education as a case study, it proposes an augmented reality learning system distributed within the city. This system questions the role of the institutions and formalised architectural education as gatekeepers of knowledge on urban design and architecture, proposing the use of media, technology and data to enable a more open relationship between the city and the public.
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Monumental Wastelands: RC20 Autonomous Ecologies Hadin Charbel, Déborah López Lobato
Human societies have been, and are still, in the process of reshaping ecological patterns and processes across the Earth. This happens directly through terraforming and the relocation and domestication of species, as well as indirectly through by-products and the accumulation of effects such as pollution and climate change. However, interventions and preventative measures, despite their intentions, may further alter ecological patterns and processes in unpredictable and unprecedented ways. In some instances ecologies under severe threat, possessing a monumental aesthetic, contributing a life-sustaining resource or any combination of the above, have been given legal rights similar to those granted to humans. Yet such legal forms of protection often still require some form of human mediator, leaving ecologies’ interests open to interpretation. If one of the human arguments against the attribution of rights to non-human and non-living things is their inability to participate in discourse, then the cluster’s response to this is to devise ways to imbue them with sentience, intelligence and autonomy. Located in Arctic zones where modes of life are disrupted from permafrost thaw and increasing temperatures, Research Cluster 20 examined what urbanism means when human and non-human interests meet. Through a methodology of ‘decoding’ and ‘recoding’, projects emerged as strategies of preservation using adaptation and researching varying systems of value, law, strategy and locality to recognise that change will result in novel approaches to navigating the inevitable. A combination of legal precedent, eco-systemic analysis and machine-learning across behaviours and aesthetics formed the basis for data sets to be decoded. Using videogame engines, interactive world building was explored as a tool for recoding in the form of archiving, decision making and communicating the multi-layered effects of these changing scenes, integrating dynamics, flux and uncertainty into the possible outcomes. Projects culminated in the production of immersive narratives, mixing different representational and interactive techniques, pushing past a form of storytelling and instead utilising the potential to project alternative realities through non-linear outcomes.
Students Collapsed World Jen-Hsien Chang, Ting Pan, Siqi Yi Hyper-Borea Chunlan Wang, Hanwei Zhang, Miao Zhang, Yiqu Zhang Media & Surveillance Yang Bai, Jin Du, Haoran Jiang, Qian Wan Post-Anthropocentric Lijia Huang, Lingchen Kong, Jia Yan, Zehua Zheng Theory Tutor Albert Brenchat Skills Tutors Eleni Chasioti, Brian Cox, Patrick Danahy, Sherif Eltarabishy, Joris Putteneers, Zehao Qin
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20.1, 20.17–20.25 Hyper-Borea 20.1 The Arctic can be gamified via augmentation and introduced into urban environments. Player data is used to train an autonomous Arctic management system. 20.17–20.20 Real parts of the unclaimed Arctic are up for grabs and rich with resources. Hyper-Borea uses gameplay to simulate different real-life actions, such as harvesting wind energy or oil fracking, in an attempt to train an autonomous system to allow the Arctic to govern itself while balancing human and non-human interests. 20.21–20.22 The game interface allows players to place different objects, represented as voxels, which affect the health points (HP) of the environment. When certain thresholds are crossed, the system prohibits activity or entry into some zones to allow the ecology to recover. 20.23–20.25 The system is designed around simulating and monitoring real-world actions. Having a digital twin with virtual data to compare against real data allows the system to understand and adapt as it builds up intelligence for its autonomy. The sequence illustrates the difference between ships not being granted any restrictions and the banning of entry into certain areas, as well as harvesting energy to sell back to people in order to sustain maintenance costs. 20.2–20.11 Post-Anthropocentric ‘LIVES’. Landscapes can be protected under various criteria, one of which is distinct features. Using generative adversarial networks (GAN), unique landscapes are generated and translated from 2D images into 3D models to be executed on a real site. 20.3–20.4 The images are generated using GAN and are trained on various landscapes. These possess qualities that can combine potentially to allow unprotected landscapes to qualify as protected. 20.5–20.6 The 2D generated images perform as ‘stamps’ to be translated into 3D landscapes. 20.7–20.10 The 3D landscapes are evaluated against different criteria and constraints, such as landscaping construction logics, ecological food-chain simulation and environmental effects, all of which are weighted in order to determine the viability and longevity of the target outcome and any ecological side effects of their creation. 20.11 A walkable virtual experience, which the public can access, is part of the pre-construction evaluation. Visitors are tasked with finding and taking a photo of the ‘money shot’, which is otherwise described as the view with the most value. Data is collected from where virtual tourists take the shot and is used to determine the potential value of the outcome. 20.12–20.16 Media & Surveillance ‘Insula’. Insula is a videogame that reshapes real human behaviour through virtual human behaviour, by allowing users to experience non-human perspectives. The diagram illustrates the multiple relationships between players, objects and the ecology. 20.13 Each person has their own idea and image of what the Arctic is, which is largely influenced by media. Social media is one way that Insula gathers data when customising each island for players. 20.14–20.15 The two examples illustrate slight variations in the stylistic representation of the island, as a means of maximising its appeal and interest to the respective players. 20.16 The custom island that is generated is strategically populated with living and non-living humans, as well as real-world content, which is used to generate empathy between the user and the island. 20.26–20.30 Collapsed World Warming temperatures will radically redefine cities through a new climate regime. The project begins by archiving relationships between various city typologies – human behaviours, bioindicators and the environmental changes they experience – and creating or ‘collapsing’ connections between places that are traditionally seen as geographically and physically separate. 20.27 The multi-layered data is used for plotting onto various Arctic sites that may be suitable 246
or desirable for human colonisation in the future. 20.28 Suspicious about human behaviours in how cities are made and the effects on local ecologies, the system uses GAN in order to predict how future target landscapes may take shape. 20.29 The 2D GAN images are translated into 3D in order to simulate a set of effects, such as human flow and predicted environmental conditions, in order to test the viability of certain urban possibilities. 20.30 An immersive virtual experience, which connects various cities through climatic variables. It allows users to experience how their cities and others around the world might evolve when looked at from the perspective of different bioindicators.
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Urban Design Thesis Module Coordinator: Emmanouil Zaroukas
The Urban Design thesis enables students to create a set of concepts, ideas and arguments that will enhance their design explorations. Students move beyond the disciplinary boundaries of urban theories, venturing to computation, logic, data mining, AI, biology, ecology, video gaming, online platforms, economic theories and politics, to formulate a novel theoretical argument that affects and is affected by the design studio. The thesis is a critical and focused inquiry into a specific research area that invents new directions through which the design studio can be augmented. The autonomy of the thesis allows a genuine investigation into other disciplines and complements the design studio without being subsumed by it. Students are required to study, work and produce in a varied intellectual context created by the overall richness of the programme’s research cluster structure. Students are consulted and supervised by History & Theory tutors. The product of the research is a written study, with a structured critical argument based on a valid research hypothesis. The thesis provides students with the capacity to design by other means and to produce innovative theoretical orientations that can influence the course of their design work.
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Invisible City Smells: Aesthetics of smellscape in the perspective of urban memory Qirui Wang Thesis Tutor: Ilaria Di Carlo In the field of urban design, the study of the urban senses has received increasing attention, and the importance of the sense of smell should not be overlooked. This paper discusses the special status of smell as a human sense, including its physiological specificity in relation to the brain and its involvement in the field of psychology. It reviews some of the historical research on the sense of smell including its stigmatised past by philosophers and the inability of scientists to study its nature. It also examines how the sociological and literary fields have had an indelibly positive effect on the growing attention given to the sense of smell. As for the combination of smell and the city, after arguing that the two are closely related, the concept of urban memory is introduced and the idea that smellscape has aesthetic value is presented. At the same time, the functional value of smell in the city is summarised in order to help guide design practice. Faced with the difficulty of qualitative and quantitative research on smells, this paper explores an integrated approach from macro- to meso- to micro-scale research, and provides an outlook on the future of olfactory related design.
Image: Invisible City Smells. Image by the author
Facing the Dark Side of Urban Ecology Zhiyue Gan Thesis Tutor: Emmanouil Zaroukas When facing the growing ecological crisis and urban problems of the Anthropocene there is a tendency to blame anthropocentrism. The fields of environmental ethics and social ecology have tried to find new approaches from a non-anthropocentric discourse. However, both biocentrism and ecocentrism continue to see nature as a tool to sustain human development and provide a better living environment for humans. At its core it is still anthropocentrism, dominated by human evaluation criteria, and therefore unable to find an actual cure. A reorientation of this view, which allows us to focus on the intrinsic value of all entities on this planet and to discover hyperobjects that transcend humanity on both temporal and spatial scales, will lead us to an alternative future. The concept of decentralisation takes inspiration from the object-oriented ontology (OOO) movement, which rejects human privilege over nonhumans and top-down policy leadership from an anti-correlationism perspective. By exploring the intelligence of non-human entities an attempt is made to imagine the possibilities of urban design with non-humans as decision-makers.
Image: Urban networks from the perspective of mycelium. Image by the author 257
Ecological Game: A worlding analysis Xinyue Shou Thesis tutor: Agostino Nickl The videogame is world-making. Its worlding processes are distinguishable as objectoriented programmable entities. Under this structure, ecology in the videogame is the process of relationship identification and formulation. In the ecological videogame worlding, this thesis focuses on the interconnectivity of various spatial-temporal scales, the speculative fabulations that provoke futural awareness and the emergence system that procedurally unfolds. It identifies this world as a unity in its spatio-temporal being. Videogames tell stories as a sustained bearing down of multi-decade, multigeneration problems.1 Ecological thinking urges for storytelling full of potentialities, envisioning scenes and pictures, multispecific participation and truth unveiling. The speculative fabulation focuses on the day-to-day presence, with an ambition of provoking futural foresight. Every step is a minor move forward, but the aggregated whole can lead to massive transformations. The expediency is to live with the world we are already in, making conditions for the storytelling capabilities of all beings on the Earth, and letting things serve the mission of their magnitude without hindering them. Like other media, videogames may not directly solve real world problems by providing technical support, but they are a platform for sharing ideas, passions and 258
imaginations. Videogames create a framework where different players with different voices can show their distinctive intelligence for problem-solving. As designers in videogame and urban realms, we require the intention to design a dynamic, evolutionary and masscollaborative system: a platform with the potential for self-regulating and selfdevelopment with multiplayer foresight.2 The formulation of ecological awareness also urges for a paradigm shift of strategies from the designers’ side, letting participants tell their own stories. Our design should give players a suitable framework that can open the gates of imagination but also use appropriate rules to limit excessive creativity to create multi-agency harmonious cooperation and coexistence opportunities. Real world urban design and game world design can learn from each other, and the combination of them, along with the introduction of advanced technology is a promising field. We shall leverage the visualisation tools, create immersive and convincing scenes, to construct strong narratives, convey notions and raise ecological awareness.
1. Jane McGonigal (2011), Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. (London, Penguin). 2. Ibid. Image: Nonhuman agents proactively engage in the human-nonhuman collaborative environfmental building via videogame worlding technique. Image by the author
Revealing the Unobservable: Weaving together physical and virtual worlds Ruilu Yu Thesis Tutor: Efthymia Kasimati In discussions on the emergence of digital technologies, the ubiquity of computing and the growing reliance on the internet with the pervasive use of smartphones, space and its definition are facing the challenge that new urban theory has raised to shuffle the current structure of urban morphology. A new cultural pattern has emerged in this era, due to the impact of the Second Digital Turn, which brought data processing, data transferring and data storage into everyday life.1 Urban life has been altered accordingly, associated with the changing perception of the surrounding physical environment under such invisible forces and the increasingly obvious impact of the digital realm. In this case, the discussion between physicality and virtuality has come to light, as space is no longer determined by what is traditionally understood. Connections of places could exist within the network, literal but unobservable, as city remains exist within such virtual networks.2 The understanding of what space is has become more complicated, thus, new urban theories reflecting such changes need to be raised to adapt to new environments with greater influence on the digital layer. It also brings into debate what is observable and unobservable within the urban space, as nowadays, certain elements are unobservable while existing virtually, such as data.3 It could be suggested that in the
Information Age – to comprehend the complexity of space and its relationship with human society – the focus on the unobservable quality of urban spaces should be investigated as the response to the changing cultural patterns and evolving definition of spaces and places.
1. Mario Carpo (2017), The Second Digital Turn: Design Beyond Intelligence (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press). 2. Manuel Castells (1997), An Introduction to the Information Age: City, 2(7), pp6–16. 3. Marc Alspector-Kelly (2004), Seeing the Unobservable: Van Fraassen and the Limits of Experience. Synthese, 140(3), pp331–353. Image: Sun/Shadow Analysis in Greater Context. Image by the author 259
At work in the studio. Photo: Richard Stonehouse
Architectural Computation MSc/MRes
Architectural Computation MSc/MRes Programme Director: Manuel Jiménez Garcia
The Bartlett’s Architectural Computation MSc and MRes programmes engage and advance the main technologies by which tomorrow’s architecture will be designed and constructed. The programmes are designed to provide students with the depth of understanding needed to exploit computation fully in the context of design, research and industry. Students investigate computation as a technology, driving fundamental shifts in industry and society by changing the way we produce and think. They develop technical knowledge, such as computer coding, not only as a skill, but also as a framework for thought. A broad theoretical understanding of algorithms and philosophies of artificial intelligence (AI) and related domains supports this technical knowledge. Theory modules position the use of computation in the design process, ranging from analysis in space and structure, using AI techniques to learn about design performance and the role of computation in creativity. Practice modules allow students to develop their personal interests within a range of themes, such as technologies of interaction, cybernetics, physics simulations, AI, automation and robotic manufacturing. A stream of skills-based modules teaches research skills and programming, guiding students through the multiple possibilities that computation offers in design environments. This year, students engaged with a wide range of digital media and tools to develop their projects through studio modules, workshops and lectures. The modules and thesis produced research projects that ranged from the generation of architectural forms using AI; spatial navigation using VR-immersive experience; an archival system for temporal and geo-based 3D scans, using deep learning and XR; exploring players’ levels of engagement in first-person shooter VR games; the effect of colour on spatial navigation; and spatial navigation through sound-based AR, amongst others. 262
Students Nick Aliberti, Giuseppe Bono, Calin Craiu, Moxiong Cui, David De Miguel Vidal, Heba Eiz, Elhadidi Hosni Elhadidi, Jakob Freek Engstrom, Tryfon Foteinopoulos, Eleni Georgiou, Jianian He, Miguel Ángel Jiménez Domínguez, Minisha Khandelwal, Hannah Kopeliovitch Simons, Tianwei Li, Xudong Liu, Yuqi Liu, Anastasios Michos-Archimandritis, Miona Milenkovic, Iliana Papadopoulou, Zikun Quan, Ottavia Rispoli, Raquel Roces, Sathish Somasundaram, Zhenan Tian, Qinyuan Wang, Henry Windle, Yingcan Xie, Yan Xu, Yue Yang, Bowen Zhang, Jing Zhang, Tengfei Zhang, Xulin Zhang Teaching Staff Manuel Jiménez Garcia, Philippe Morel, Prof Sean Hanna, Dr Sam Griffiths, Ava Fatah, Valentina Soana, Vishu Bhoosan, Tomasso Casucci, Shajay Bhooshan, Martha Tsigkari, Stamatios Psarras, Vasileios Papalexopoulos, Marcin Kosicki, Khaled ElAshry, Sherif Tarabishy, Petros Koutsolampros, Martin Traumueller
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AC.1 Xudong Liu, Iliana Papadopoulou, Tengfei Zhang ‘Machine Nostalgia: An interactive urban experience integrating algorithmic errors as a creative input’. This project explores a way to incorporate the emerging paradigm of machine errors into a playful and interactive experience. It combines the reduction of urban information into signals (x, y, z, R, G, B) with the exposure of dataset bias occurring from medium specific 3D scans. AC.2 Calin Craiu ‘Voxel Micro Worlds’. Micro world code is largely focused on generating terrain and associated assets based on user specification. The project leverages the optimisation potential of genetic algorithms to ‘evolve’ pixel patterns on height maps. These maps act as guides to a voxel-building algorithm that creates the micro worlds. The purpose of this exercise is to explore alternative methods for generating terrain that allow for more control in the generative process. AC.3–AC.4 Anastasios Michos-Archimandritis ‘Topology Optimisation on Dynamically Relaxed Shell’. The project combines a dynamic relaxation algorithm with a genetic algorithm in order to optimise the process. The objective is to produce a free-form shell based on user provided inputs and to then optimise the topology of the frame in terms of structural efficiency and material minimisation. AC.5 Eleni Georgiou, Tianwei Li, Qinyuan Wang ‘Digital Timber Research on Architectural Kit Generation’. The project examines the automated process of generating parametric building components for lightweight construction working on voxels. More specifically this project focuses on parametric building component toolkits for walls, slabs and roofs combining existing research in geometry, structure and fabrication. AC.6–AC.7 David de Miguel Vidal, Anastasios MichosArchimandritis, Raquel Roces ‘Procedural generation of interlocking blocks with an objective to create an architectural kit element: wall’. The project showcases the use of sign distance fields (SDF), Voronoi diagrams and distance evaluations – Manhattan and Euclidean. The SDF enables extractions of print paths which are made amenable for 3D concrete printing. AC.8–AC.9 Miguel Ángel Jiménez Domínguez ‘Adapting the Wave Function Collapse Algorithm to Architectural Design Configurators’. This project proposes that human-machine design collaboration through architectural design configurators can be augmented through automation. To explore this, the Wave Function Collapse Algorithm, a widespread procedural generation technique in the videogame industry, is tested in the configurator context. AC.10 Tianwei Li ‘Shape Planner’. This project proposes an interactive tool that combines graph theory and shape grammar algorithms to automatically generate residential space layouts. AC.11–AC.13 Qinyuan Wang ‘Procedural Massing Generation for Residential Buildings by Using Texture Synthesis and Cellular Automata’. Continued population growth and urban regeneration have made the design of residential buildings one of the most significant topics for architects. With the development of automation and computational tools, an increasing number of algorithms are being applied to architectural design to save time and labour, while exploring a diverse range of results. This project establishes a computational process to solve procedural massing generation for residential buildings based on the combined use of texture synthesis and cellular automata. AC.14 Heba Eiz ‘Bending Morphology’. This project explores active bending rod behaviour of a generic topology from 2D planar into 3D geometry under tensile forces. 264
AC.15 Giuseppe Bono, Calin Craiu ‘Deployable Modular Robotics’. The research project combines modular robotics and deployable structures inside the construction of adaptive and scalable architecture. In order to achieve this target, the adoption of robotics is assumed through two main considerations: firstly, that robots can be used not only to make, but also to stay – namely, to become permanent parts of the final construction; secondly, that a robotic system not only leads to an architecture, but has the potential to go beyond it, towards a different tectonic perspective. AC.16 Elhadidi Hosni ‘How to Create a Push Button Tool for Aeriel Robotic Construction’. This thesis proposes a universal pipeline that can test and simulate the assembly process of modular structures. The algorithm handles the discretisation of the volumetric input into predetermined modules and then performs structural analysis on the structure to check its integrity. After the user is satisfied with the aggregated structure, it is translated into instructions for the simulated drones to complete the assembly process. AC.17 Yue Yang ‘A Field Study Exploring Level of Awareness of and Interaction with Thermal Imaging Projection’. This thesis studies the forms of interaction between people and thermal imaging projection in public spaces. AC.18–AC.19 Yingcan Xie ‘Projection Mapping to Change Urban Lost Space: A case study in Beijing’. This research explores the effect and feasibility of using projection mapping to transform lost space in the city, examining the impact of an installation on different types of lost spaces and the influence of different design methods in projection mapping on people’s perception and interactions with the lost space. AC.20 Zikun Quan ‘An Exploration to Enhance Eye-Gaze Based Mobile Robot Teleoperation’. Using an eye-gaze based mobile robot teleoperation system with four teleoperation modalities, this project explores to what extent automation can assist or enhance human performance in eye-gaze based mobile robot teleoperation. AC.21 Nick Aliberti, Xudong Liu ‘Extended Virtuality: Exploring the position of presence with the physical world as an anchor’. Existing studies have shown that people’s perceptions of presence are altered when physical surfaces and virtual video signals overlap. This new kind of virtuality is defined as superimposed reality and a series of experiments has been designed to test the notion of presence in two different superimposed virtual environments. AC.22–AC.23 Iliana Papadopoulou ‘ARchive: The development and evaluation of an archival system that combines deep learning techniques with XR to process and access geo-based temporal 3D scans’. This research focuses on 3D scanning as an archival medium, specifically in the possibilities of combining different techniques to declutter, organise and communicate with a spatio-temporal archive.
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Bio-ID Open House, Here East, Autumn 2021. Photo: Ramandeep Shergill
Bio-Integrated Design MArch/MSc
Bio-Integrated Design MArch/MSc Programme Directors: Marcos Cruz (The Bartlett School of Architecture), Brenda Parker (UCL Biochemical Engineering) Our Bio-Integrated Design (Bio-ID) programmes integrate advanced computation, biotechnology and digital fabrication in the context of climate change to create a radical and sustainable built environment. They take these life-changing phenomena as the foundation to explore sophisticated yet also critical design solutions, which will help to shape our future society. Taught collaboratively by The Bartlett School of Architecture and Biochemical Engineering, Bio-ID proposes a new sense of materiality with emergent hybrid technologies that form innovative products and environments, infused with natural and synthetic life. With two different Master’s programmes working in tandem – MArch and MSc – each student’s work balances laboratory research, computation and advanced manufacturing. The programmes are hands-on, combining design and scientific research. Emphasis is given to the translation of phenomena observed at a microscopic level into architecturally relevant scales. Nature plays a central role, beyond that of a model or inspiration; it is in itself the medium of a new, multi-layered design approach that is biologically, materially and socially integrated. Bio-ID brings together a multidisciplinary community of students, including architects, designers, urban planners, artists and landscape architects studying the MArch, and scientists and engineers studying the MSc.
Students Year 1 Sarah Zaki Aljishi, Zainuddin Ansari, Junmei Chen, Sheng-Han Chen, Agathe Helene Chevee, Philia Yi Chua, Arnav Abhay Kele, Mangesh Madhukar Kurund, Winnie Lau, Shylaja Regunathan, Ophelie Eloise Tousignant, Barna Soma Biro, Sarah Jane Olsen, Ebyan Alexander Rezgui, Lina Marta Sarma, William Marcus Scott Year 2 Sohyun Ahn, Dona Saleh Alalula, Faraz Alian, Alexandros Georgios Angelidis, Isabelle Satsuki Asakura, Ekaterina Beliaeva, Charles Frederick Boyd, Ayelén Franceschini Couceiro, Saumya Gupta, Ella Rosamund Hetherington, Wen-Chi Huang, Leyli Kursun, Madeline Marie Maker, Tinghong Ouyang, Vasiliki Panagiotidou, Guillem Perutxet Olesti, Shivani Rastogi, Gitanjali Ravi, Prathiksha Ravi, Nonna Shabanova, Jorge Ignacio Soto Parejas, Sitthitouch Surabotsopon, Prantar Mahanta Tamuli, Mackenzie Evert Van Dam, Ningkang Wen, Zheyang Yao
Biomineralised photosynthetic architectural tissue panel for living architecture, Prantar Tamuli, 2021. Photo: Mangesh Kurund 276
Tutors Bastian Beyer, Marcos Cruz, Sofoklis Giannakopoulos, Junichiro Horikawa, Nina Jotanovic, Andreas Koerner, Alexandra Lacatusu, Tairan Li, Shneel Malik, Brenda Parker, Jevgenij Rodionov, Javier Ruiz Rodriguez, Anete Salmane, Shogo Suzuki, Barry Wark, Harry Watkins Laboratory Co-ordinator Anete Salmane Theory Tutors Carlos Bausa, Bastian Beyer, Kostas Grigoriadis, Andreas Koerner, Hannah Laeverenz Schlogelhofe, Ruby Law, James Lawrence, Maj Plemenitas, Jake Robinson, Maria Vilafañe, Harry Watkins, Duncan Wilson
Critics Dorit Aviv, Thora Arnadottir, Paolo Bombelli, Blanche Cameron, Kunal Chadha, Matthew Chin, Dana Cupkova, Marjan Colletti, Nancy Diniz, Pedro Font, Andrew Gregson, Kostas Grigoriadis, Damian Iliev, Jack Jeffries, Tom Kendall, Elli Keshavarz-Moore, Alexandra Lacatusu, Ruby Law, Josep Mias, Jonathan Minchin, Yessica Mendez, Daniel Murray, Justin Nichols, Jason O’Shaughnessey, Annarita Papeschi, Marielena Papandreou, Carolina Ramirez, Jake Robinson, Adrien Rigobello, Graham Rook, Suzana Soares, Narinder Sagoo, Mike Tonkin, Emile de Visscher, Clements Winkler Partners UCL Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, UCL Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering, UCL Institute of Making, Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, IAAC Barcelona, University of Coimbra, Design Museum, Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London
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The B-Pro Show 2019. Photo: Richard Stonehouse
Our Programmes 280 Public Lectures 281 Conferences & Events 283 Bartlett Shows Website 284 Alumni 285 The Bartlett Promise 286 Architecture Education Declares 287 Staff, Visitors & Consultants 288
Our Programmes The Bartlett School of Architecture currently teaches undergraduate and graduate students across 25 programmes of study and one professional course. Across the school’s portfolio of teaching, research and professional programmes, our rigorous, creative and innovative approach to architecture remains integral. You will find below a list of our current programmes, their duration when taken full time (typical for MPhil/PhDs) and the directors. More information, including details on open days, is available on our website. Undergraduate Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Three-year programme, directed by Ana Monrabal-Cook & Dr Luke Pearson Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 &2) Five-year programme, directed by Sara Shafiei Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc Three or four-year programme, directed by Elizabeth Dow Engineering & Architectural Design MEng Four-year programme, directed by Luke Olsen Postgraduate Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) Two-year programme, directed by Julia Backhaus & Professor Marjan Colletti Architectural Computation MSc/MRes 12-month programmes, directed by Manuel Jiménez Garcia Architectural Design MArch 12-month programme, directed by Gilles Retsin Architectural History MA One-year programme, directed by Professor Peg Rawes Architecture & Digital Theory MRes One-year programme, directed by Professor Mario Carpo & Professor Frédéric Migayrou Architecture & Historic Urban Environments MA One-year programme, directed by Professor Edward Denison Bio-Integrated Design MSc/MArch Two-year programmes, directed by Professor Marcos Cruz & Dr Brenda Parker (MSc only) 280
Design for Manufacture MArch 15-month programme, directed by Emmanuel Vercruysse Design for Performance & Interaction MArch 15-month programme, directed by Dr Ruairi Glynn Landscape Architecture MA/MLA One (MA) and two-year (MLA) programmes, directed by Professor Laura Allen & Professor Mark Smout Situated Practice MA 15-month programme, directed by James O’Leary Space Syntax: Architecture & Cities MSc/MRes One-year programmes, directed by Dr Kayvan Karimi Urban Design MArch 12-month programme, directed by Roberto Bottazzi Advanced Architectural Research PG Cert Six-month programme, directed by Professor Stephen Gage Architectural Design MPhil/PhD Three to four-year programme, directed by Professor Jonathan Hill Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD Three to four-year programme, directed by Professor Sophia Psarra Architectural Space & Computation MPhil/PhD Three to four-year programme, directed by Ava Fatah gen Schieck Architecture & Digital Theory MPhil/PhD Three to four-year programme, directed by Professor Mario Carpo & Professor Frédéric Migayrou Professional Professional Practice & Management in Architecture PGDip (ARB/RIBA Part 3) 7, 12, 18 or 24-month course, directed by Professor Susan Ware
Public Lectures Visit our Vimeo and YouTube channels to watch this year’s recorded lectures – search ‘Bartlett School of Architecture’ to find us. The Bartlett International Lecture Series Attracting guests from across the world, our International Lecture Series has featured over 500 distinguished speakers since its inception in 1996. Lectures in this series are open to the public and free to attend. Due to the extraordinary nature of this year, the series was held live on The Bartlett YouTube channel with a change in tone and format, moving away from ‘lecturing’ to ‘conversing’. Each event was curated and co-hosted by a student and tutor from the school, and guests included diverse groups of thinkers, practitioners and activists from within and around the architectural sphere. Lectures this year featured: — Intersectional Architecture Ben Campkin (The Bartlett), Esther Fox (Accentuate), Clare Murray (Levitt Bernstein), Akil Scafe-Smith (RESOLVE), Danna Walker (Built By Us), Sarah Wigglesworth (Sarah Wigglesworth Architects) — Can Architecture Be More Horizontal? Pooja Agrawal (Homes England), Antonia Blege (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios) — The Artists’ Drawing The Singh Twins — Nightclubbing Catherine Rossi (Kingston School of Art), Mykaell Riley (University of Westminster) — Built Environments and the Lives of Children Eddie Nutall (Felix Road Adventure Playground), Penny Wilson (Mudchute City Farm) — Exchanging Parcels Eva Prats (Flores & Prats Arquitectes), Soraya Smithson (Artist)
— Defining Diversity Through Lived Experience Adam Furman (Architectural Association), Vinesh Pomal (TateHindle), Sumita Singha (Ecologic) — Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World Carolyn Steel (Kilburn Nightingale Architects) — Advocating Architecture in Kampala Doreen Adengo, Nina Peters, Franklin Kasumba (Adengo Architects) — No Such Place as Away – Creative Ways to Deal with Waste Julia Christensen (Oberlin College) — Taking Back Power: Working at the Intersection of Communities, Arts, Design & Technology Melissa Mean & John Bennett (Knowle West Media Centre), Amahra Spence & Amber Caldwell (MAIA) — Exploring Feminist Design Practices Then and Now Torange Khonsari (Public Works), Jenny Richards, Sophie Hope (Birkbeck, University of London) and Lesley Lokko (University of Johannesburg) — Distance Phil Ayres (CITA, Royal Danish Academy), Irene Cheng (California College of the Arts), Amy Kulper (Rhode Island School of Design), Ayona Datta (UCL), Huda Tayob (University of Johannesburg) — Female Imagination and the Production of Space Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno, Penelope Haralambidou (The Bartlett) with John Cruwys, Faye Greenwood, Paula Strunden, Lewis Williams (Bartlett Alumni) — Intensive Care Joshua Bolchover & John Lin (Rural Urban Framework and University of Hong Kong) — Inaugural Lecture: Winged Words and Weighty Numbers: 3½ Books on Architecture Professor Sophia Psarra (The Bartlett)
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Prospectives The Bartlett’s B-Pro History & Theory lecture series continued to offer a platform for the presentation, discussion and theoretical reflection on the links between digital thought, architecture and urban design. Speakers included: — Vera Bühlmann (Vienna University of Technology) — Bradley Cantrell (University of Virginia) — Tessa Leach (Accenture) — Anna-Maria Meister (TU Darmstadt) — Kas Oosterhuis (ONL) — Jose Sanchez (Plethora Project) — Kostas Terzidis (Tongji University and ShangXiang Lab) — Theodora Vardouli (McGill University) — Andrew Witt (Certain Measures and Harvard GSD) Work in Progress A new public lecture series from Landscape Architecture programmes, the series comprised curated but informal talks from practitioners and academics. Speakers from a range of disciplines were invited to reflect on their work in progress, working methods and the process of working with landscape. Speakers included: — Phil Askew (Peabody) — Ceylan Belek Ombregt (Martha Schwartz Partners) — Devin Dobrowolski (Somatic Collaborative and University of Virginia) — Johanna Gibbons (J & L Gibbons and Landscape Learn) — Meaghan Kombol (University of Greenwich)
Bartlett Research Conversations The Bartlett Research Conversations series featured presentations of research from students undertaking the Architectural Design or Architectural and Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD programmes. Students were joined by senior academics from across the school, including PhD programme directors and supervisors, alongside members of the wider Bartlett and UCL community. This year research was presented by: — — — — — — — — — — — —
Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminars This academic seminar series featured researchers sharing their findings, discussing their ideas and showing work in progress from The Bartlett’s Space Syntax Laboratory. Seminars were moderated by PhD candidate Sepehr Zhand. They were open to the public and attended by The Bartlett’s staff and students. Guests included: — — — — — — — — —
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Alena Agafonova Atheer Al Mulla Sebastian Buser William Victor Camilleri Kerri Culhane Elin Eyborg Lund Stephannie Fell Contreras Clemency Gibbs Zoë Quick Ramandeep Shergill Anna Wild Katerina Zacharopoulou
Liam Bolton (The Bartlett) Howard Davies (University of Oregon) Stella Fox (The Bartlett) Yuhan Ji (The Bartlett) Sam McElhinney (UCA Canterbury School of Architecture) Vinicius M. Netto (Fluminense Federal University) Ermal Shpuza (Kennesaw State University) Gianna Stavroulaki (Chalmers University of Technology) Alice Vialard (Northumbria University)
Conferences & Events The past year has seen a dramatic change in the usual schedule of Bartlett events as the school moved to an online environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A full programme of conferences was held virtually, exploring innovative ideas and current issues, with inspiring speakers from across the globe. Fabricate, 9–12 September 2020 was co-organised by The Bartlett School of Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology and Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. The triennial conference brought together pioneers in design and making to explore how digital fabrication impacts the future of architecture, engineering and construction. The poignant Homework: Lived Experience Through Architectural Histories – Architectural History Symposium, 5–6 November 2020 examined what was afforded and lost to us online during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Parliament Buildings International Conference spanned four days across 12–13 November 2020 and 18–19 February 2021 exploring architecture of power, accountability and democracy in Europe. It was supported by UCL’s Grand Challenges of Cultural Understanding. A range of performances were given over three days for Situated Practice: Perform, Screen, Exchange, 18 November– 2 December 2020 exploring issues of injustice, displacement, exhaustion and care.
The 15th annual PhD Research Projects Conference 23 and 25 February 2021 included two days of intense debate and discussion between students, staff, invited guests, critics and the public on doctoral work in development and drawing to conclusion. Over 900 people attended Gender and Infrastructure: Intersections between Postsocialist and Postcolonial Geographies, 4–5 March 2021 to investigate the relationship between gender, subjectivity and space, specifically the ways in which this is experienced and theorised in post-socialist and postcolonial contexts. This online international symposium Intersectional Climate: Conversations Towards COP26, 16 and 18 March 2021 celebrated climate practices that prioritise ecological, political and poetic engagement with communities, places and disciplines. Young architects and activists joined academics in the roundtable discussion How Can I Build Change? Architectural Activism Against the Status Quo, 22 March 2021 to question how designers can interrupt architectural dogma and challenge the status quo. Finally Automated Architecture (AUAR) Lab, a research laboratory at The Bartlett, presented a series of takeovers in Spring 2021 to showcase a new housing prototype, House Block.
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Bartlett Shows Website Last year the school launched its bespoke digital exhibition environment, presenting The Summer Show 2020. Since then five further student shows have been shared digitally: The B-Pro Show 2020, The Autumn Show 2020, Fifteen 2020, PhD Research Projects 2021 and The Summer Show 2021. The school’s digital exhibitions have been visited by over 90,000 users from across the globe. The digital exhibition space was designed by creative agency Hello Monday, working together with the school’s exhibitions and communications teams, to create a unique online experience for the visitor. Hello Monday delivered a virtual show space that allows the user to explore the work spatially, within exhibition rooms and in detail, on student project pages. Students have the opportunity to display their work using video, high-definition imagery and 3D models alongside detailed narratives.
With each exhibition, the digital environment is being refined to improve the visitor experience and to encourage greater engagement with the student work displayed. New for 2021, projects will be searchable by thematic concern and all previous shows will be available to browse from one single landing page. The Bartlett’s digital show environment has won web design awards at both the Awwwards and Favourite Website Awards and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Archiboo and D&AD Awards in the Digital Design category. Within the UCL community the virtual shows team, specifically Chee-Kit Lai, Director of Exhibitions, Professor Penelope Haralambidou, Director of Communications, and David Shanks, Project Manager, have been recognised for their outstanding contribution to the learning experience with a UCL Education Award in the student-staff partnership category. www.bartlettarchucl.com
Screenshot of Summer Show 2020 website. 284
Alumni The Bartlett’s diverse and vibrant alumni play a vital role in the life of the school, as staff, visiting lecturers, mentors, sponsors, donors and participants.
Nudge (Shanks Raj), TDO (Doug Hodgson and Tom Lewith) and We Made That (Holly Lewis). The event was chaired by Paul Monaghan, Director at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris.
Each year we organise several alumni events, including an ‘R&V’ evening, founded by and for alumni as the ‘Rogues and Vagabonds’ over 60 years ago. Usually taking the format of a dinner, during this exceptional year we moved to a virtual platform for an evening to celebrate the ten Bartlett alumni practices featured in the 2020 Architects’ Journal ‘40 under 40’ list, renowned for highlighting emerging architectural talent.
We also invite alumni to join us at The Bartlett Summer Show at an exclusive Alumni Late.
Each practice presented their work in fastpaced PechaKucha format to an audience of alumni, staff and students. The audience enjoyed inspiring presentations from Alma-nac (Caspar Rodgers, Chris Bryant and Tristan Wigfall), Archio (Kyle Buchanan), Assemble (Amica Dall), Freehaus (Jonathan Hagos), McCloy + Muchemwa (Steve McCloy and Bo Muchemwa), Nooma (Ramsey Yassa), Office S&M (Hugh McEwan and Catrina Stewart),
All Bartlett School of Architecture alumni are invited to join UCL’s Alumni Online Community to keep in touch with the school and receive benefits including special discounts, UCL’s Portico magazine and more. Registered alumni have access to: — Thousands of e-journals available through UCL Library — A global network of old and new friends in the worldwide alumni community — Free mentoring and the opportunity to become a mentor yourself — Jobs boards for the exclusive alumni community aoc.ucl.ac.uk/alumni
Illustration by Simon Hayes for the Architects’ Journal ’40 under 40’ list. 285
The Bartlett Promise Across higher education and in industry, the built environment sector is not diverse enough. Here at The Bartlett we promise to do better. The Bartlett Promise Scholarship has been launched to enable UK/EU students from backgrounds under-represented in The Bartlett Faculty to pursue their studies with us, with the aim of diversifying the student body and ultimately the built environment sector. We want a Bartlett education to be open to all, regardless of means. The scholarship covers full tuition fees for postgraduate Master’s studies, plus an annual allowance to cover living and study expenses. All Promise scholars will also receive ongoing academic and career support during their study.
Professor Christoph Lindner, Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment says: Society works for everyone when it is shaped by everyone, but right now that’s not happening. We know that the cost of education is a very real barrier for many – The Bartlett Promise Scholarship will help to address that by removing this barrier to entry whilst providing additional support. Prospective students who are offered a place on a degree course at The Bartlett are invited to apply to the scholarship in the summer before they begin with us. When selecting scholars, we consider the educational, personal and financial circumstances of the applicant and how these relate to the eligibility criteria. Details of the application process and eligibility criteria can be found on our website. ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/bartlett-promise
Students at 22 Gordon Street, The Bartlett’s Bloomsbury home. 286
Architecture Education Declares Architecture Education Declares was formed in June 2019 by architecture students from leading schools, including The Bartlett School of Architecture, in response to global scientific predictions of catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss. Architecture Education Declares calls for a radical overhaul of architectural education – not just what we do, but how and why we do it. The aim is to move towards a collaborative culture of care to address the climate and ecological emergency and social and environmental justice issues. The declaration calls for a move from Western-centric narratives to a more holistic education that respects diverse cultures, history and heritage. In response, The Bartlett School of Architecture declared a climate and ecological emergency. Through citizens’ assemblies and workshops, students started to explore how design briefs, assessment criteria, tutorials and crits could change. This year, in the midst of the pandemic, the main goal was to establish a framework of ideas and systems for future students and committee members to use. The Bartlett School of Architecture Society launched a podcast series interviewing alumni on their views and experiences, while further initiatives are planned for the months ahead. In April, students from the society co-chaired a public UCL event, ‘Healthy, Biodiverse, Equitable Cities’, opened by the new President & Provost, Dr Michael Spence. The event was used as a platform for diverse practitioners to present ideas on how architects and built nvironment professionals can respond to the climate and ecological emergency.
Architecture students joined campaigns such as the London Energy Transformation Initiative against lowering UK building energy standards; the Architects’ Journal’s RetroFirst campaign, promoting the refurbishment of buildings instead of demolishing them to make space for newbuilds; and the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN), who have produced an Education Toolkit to help drive curriculum and culture change in architecture schools. ACAN also founded the Student Climate Action Network (StuCAN), with Bartlett students forming a StuCAN group. The determination of the school’s students to make a better world is inspiring, especially during such a challenging year. We look forward to supporting their efforts for a progressive education and a strong student voice in 2021–22. The Bartlett School of Architecture Society Committee President: Daniel Langstaff Treasurer: Jatin Naru Vice-President: Isabella Shen www.architectureeducationdeclares.com
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Staff, Visitors & Consultants A Ana Abram Vasilija Abramovic George Adamopoulos Visiting Prof Robert Aish Rezwana Akhter Prof Laura Allen Dr Rahil Alipour Sabina Andron Arveen Appadoo Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani Abigail Ashton Edwina Attlee B Julia Backhaus Kirsty Badenoch Beth Barnett-Sanders Stefan Bassing Paul Bavister Simon Beames Richard Beckett Ruth Bernatek Bastian Beyer Shajay Bhooshan Vishu Bhooshan Jan Birksted Prof Peter Bishop Isaïe Bloch Eleanor Boiling William Bondin Prof Iain Borden Roberto Bottazzi Visiting Prof Andy Bow Matthew Bowles Dr Eva Branscome Pascal Bronner Alastair Browning Tom Budd Mark Burrows Bim Burton Matthew Butcher C Joel Cady Thomas Callan Blanche Cameron William Victor Camilleri Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange Dr Ben Campkin Alice Carman Dr Brent Carnell Prof Mario Carpo Dan Carter 288
Martyn Carter Ricardo Carvalho De Ostos Tomasso Casucci Dr Megha Chand Inglis Frosso Charalambous Haden Charbel Prof Nat Chard Po-Nien Chen Prof Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno Sandra Ciampone Ed Clark Mollie Claypool Jason Coe Gonzalo Coello de Portugal Prof Marjan Colletti Emeritus Prof Sir Peter Cook Marc-Olivier Coppens Hannah Corlett Miranda Critchley Prof Marcos Cruz Lisa Cumming D Christina Dahdaleh Amica Dall Gareth Damian Martin Satyajit Das Kate Davies Tom Davies James Daykin Klaas de Rycke Luca Dellatorre Prof Edward Denison Pradeep Devadass Max Dewdney Dr Ashley Dhanani Ilaria Di Carlo David Di Duca Simon Dickens Visiting Prof Elizabeth Diller Katerina Dionysopoulou Paul Dobraszczyk Patch Dobson-Pérez Oliver Domeisen Elizabeth Dow Georgios Drakontaeidis Tom Dyckhoff E David Edwards Fatma Ergin Sam Esses Ruth Evison
F Pani Fanai-Danesh Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Donat Fatet Timothy Fielder Lucy Flanders Zachary Fluker Emeritus Prof Adrian Forty Emeritus Prof Colin Fournier Prof Murray Fraser Daisy Froud Maria Fulford G Emeritus Prof Stephen Gage Laura Gaskell Christophe Gérard Egmontas Geras Alexis Germanos Octavian Gheorghiu Dr Stelios Giamarelos Pedro Gil-Quintero Agnieszka Glowacka Dr Ruairi Glynn Alicia Gonzalez-Lafita Perez Dr Jon Goodbun Dr Polly Gould Niamh Grace Marta Granda Nistal Emmy Green James Green Kevin Green Sienna Griffin-Shaw Dr Sam Griffiths Dr Kostas Grigoriadis Peter Guillery Srijana Gurung Seth Guy H Soomeen Hahm James Hampton Tamsin Hanke Prof Sean Hanna Prof Penelope Haralambidou Jack Hardy Visiting Prof Itsuko Hasegawa Emeritus Prof Christine Hawley Robert Haworth Ben Hayes
Thea Heintz Jose Hernandez Colin Herperger Simon Herron Parker Heyl Prof Jonathan Hill Thomas Hillier Ashley Hinchcliffe Mark Hines Bill Hodgson Tom Holberton Adam Holloway Tyson Hosmer Delwar Hossain Oliver Houchell William Huang Elise Hunchuck Vincent Huyghe Johan Hybschmann I Jessica In Anderson Inge Susanne Isa Cannon Ivers J Clara Jaschke Will Jefferies Manuel Jiménez Garcia Steve Johnson Helen Jones Nina Jotanovic K Jon Kaminsky Dr Kayvan Karimi Dr Jan Kattein Anja Kempa Jonathan Kendall Tom Kendall Maren Klasing Jakub Klaska Fergus Knox Maria Knutsson-Hall Kimon Krenz Dirk Krolikowski Dragana Krsic Sir Banister Fletcher Visiting Prof Perry Kulper Diony Kypraiou L Chee-Kit Lai Elie Lakin Lo Lanfear
Ruby Law Jeremy Lecomte Roberto Ledda Dr Guan Lee Benjamin Lee Stefan Lengen Dr Christopher Leung Sarah Lever Visiting Prof Amanda Levete Ifigeneia Liangi Prof CJ Lim Prof Christoph Lindner Enriqueta Llabres-Valls Alvaro Lopez Deborah Lopez Tim Lucas Genevieve Lum Abi Luter Samantha Lynch M Abel Maciel Sonia Magdziarz Nazila Maghzian Alexandru Malaescu Shneel Malik Prof Yeoryia Manolopoulou Robin Mather Emma-Kate Matthews Billy Mavropoulos Claire McAndrew Hugh McEwen Prof Niall McLaughlin Dr Clare Melhuish Visiting Prof Jeremy Melvin Prof Josep Miás Gifre Bartlett Prof Frédéric Migayrou Doug Miller Sarah Milne Tom Mole Ana Monrabal-Cook Philippe Morel Shaun Murray N Tetsuro Nagata Elliot Nash Filippo Nassetti Rasa Navasaityte Chi Nguyen O Kyrstyn Oberholster
Toby O’Connor James O’Leary Luke Olsen Andy O’Reilly Visiting Prof Raf Orlowski Daniel Ovalle Costal P Yael Padan Igor Pantic Marie-Eleni Papandreou Annarita Papeschi Dr Brenda Parker Ralph Parker Thomas Parker Claudia Pasquero Jane Patterson Thomas Pearce Dr Luke Pearson Prof Alan Penn Prof Barbara Penner Drew Pessoa Frosso Pimenides Alicia Pivaro Maj Plemenitas Danae Polyviou Andrew Porter Alan Powers Arthur Prior Prof Sophia Psarra James Purkiss R Carolina Ramirez Figueroa Robert Randall Prof Peg Rawes Dr Sophie Read Dr Aileen Reid Guang Yu Ren Prof Jane Rendell Gilles Retsin Farlie Reynolds Julie Richardson Sam Riley Dr David Roberts Felix Roberts Gavin Robotham Daniel Rodriguez Garcia Martina Rosati Javier Ruiz Rodriguez S Martin Sagar Dr Kerstin Sailer Prof Andrew Saint Dr Shahed Saleem
Anete Salmane Tan Sapsaman Sanyal Saptarshi Ned Scott Peter Scully Dr Tania Sengupta Alan Sentongo Sara Shafiei David Shanks Alistair Shaw Prof Bob Sheil Don Shillingburg Naz Siddique Maya Simkin Colin Smith Paul Smoothy Prof Mark Smout Valentina Soana Jasmin Sohi James Solly Harmit Soora Amy Spencer Ben Spong Matthew Springett Prof Michael Stacey Brian Stater Iulia Statica Emmanouil Stavrakakis Tijana Stevanovic Rachel Stevenson Sabine Storp Greg Storrar David Storring Kay Stratton Michiko Sumi Tom Svilans T Jerry Tate Sam Taylor Baldwin Philip Temple Colin Thom Michael Tite Claudia Toma Martha Tsigkari Freddy Tuppen
Viktoria Viktorija Amilea Vilaplana de Miguel Jordi Vivaldi Piera Dr Nina Vollenbroker W Michael Wagner Andrew Walker Adam Walls Prof Susan Ware Barry Wark Gabriel Warshafsky Tim Waterman Visiting Prof Bill Watts Patrick Weber Paul Weston Alice Whewell Amy White Andy Whiting Alex Whitley Rae Whittow-Williams Daniel Widrig Freya Wigzell Dan Wilkinson Gen Williams Henrietta Williams Graeme Williamson James Williamson Dr Robin Wilson Oliver Wilton Nick Winnard Simon Withers Katy Wood Anna Woodeson Y Sandra Youkhana Michelle Young Z Emmanouil Zaroukas Sepher Zhand Dominik Zisch Fiona Zisch Stamatis Zografos
V Melis Van Den Berg Kelly Van Hecke Kim Van Poeteren Afra Van’t Land Dr Tasos Varoudis Prof Laura Vaughan Hamish Veitch Emmanuel Vercruysse 289
The B-Pro Show 2019. Photo: Richard Stonehouse
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