This year, the BSc AED course will have its first graduating cohort and a good number of well-designed thesis projects were produced by the final year students. All Yr3 students worked together as a group to conduct in depth historical, cultural, social and site microclimate analysis of a number of specific sites in Hackney Wick. They then individually chose a particular site which suited their individual thesis project which, supported by the Cultural Context module, helped students to set the architectural, environmental and theoretical grounding for their thesis projects. As part of the final thesis project, the Prototype Fabrication and Testing module delivered in the second semester required students to identify and develop a particular building component or façade design in detail. Special thanks to the Professional Studies and the Work Placement Team for their joint efforts in organising the Placement Scheme for our final year students. The course was granted RIBA Part 1 Candidate Status in March 2019 following the visit of the RIBA Exploratory Board. The University is confident of gaining full validation from the RIBA in 2020 following the graduation of its first cohort. At this point all students who have successfully completed the course will be awarded a RIBA (Part 1) validated qualification required for Professional Registration.
This year, the BSc AED course will have its first graduating cohort and a good number of well-designed thesis projects were produced by the final year students. All Yr3 students worked together as a group to conduct in depth historical, cultural, social and site microclimate analysis of a number of specific sites in Hackney Wick. They then individually chose a particular site which suited their individual thesis project which, supported by the Cultural Context module, helped students to set the architectural, environmental and theoretical grounding for their thesis projects. As part of the final thesis project, the Prototype Fabrication and Testing module delivered in the second semester required students to identify and develop a particular building component or façade design in detail. Special thanks to the Professional Studies and the Work Placement Team for their joint efforts in organising the Placement Scheme for our final year students. The course was granted RIBA Part 1 Candidate Status in March 2019 following the visit of the RIBA Exploratory Board. The University is confident of gaining full validation from the RIBA in 2020 following the graduation of its first cohort. At this point all students who have successfully completed the course will be awarded a RIBA (Part 1) validated qualification required for Professional Registration.
BASED ON CONCEPTS of transformation and application, second year students developed skills to incorporate both intuitive and evidence-based tools in their design. An evidence-based approach provided students with tools to implement environmental design principles on top of which they could playfully develop their design proposals.
Four briefs introduced students to gradually more complex scenarios and allowed them to familiarise and eventually master new digital and analogue tools to understand, simulate, and immerse themselves in the urban and environmental context with analytical precision. The data underpinning these exercises constituted the basis for the development of their design proposals.
All briefs focused on one site: Hackney Wick.
With the first brief students were asked to analyse Hackney Wick and communicate both its urban character and environmental data, such as light/shadow, air pollution, wind, thermal [pattern of temperatures], and acoustic [noise pollution]. The outcome of brief one was a meaningful environmental design strategy that informed the design of a Climate Change Hub [brief 2].
Brief 3 and 4 looked at the effects of climate change on the performance of existing buildings, in particular on the historic chocolate factory at Queen’s Yard. Based on the climate predictions for London in 2050, students developed performance-based designs to retrofit the former chocolate factory to make it resilient to the new challenging climatic conditions.
Technical and Environmental Studies The module offers a multi-scale approach to the study and practice of environmental design and its integration to the architectural design process. It is in this module that the principles of environmental design acquired in first year technical and environmental studies are deepened, creating explicit links with the year’s design projects and paving the way for more advanced applications in third year.
The module is structured as a combination of theoretical lectures immediately followed by applicative workshops ranging from climate and site analysis to building analysis and human comfort. Building and industry visits and guest talks complete the students’ learning experience.
WE CONSIDER ECOLOGICAL architecture as a productive device able to support local communities from the environmental, economic and social point of view. As a matter of fact, architects are asked more and more to tackle climate change issues and rethink the relation between productive activities and sustainable living in our cities. Therefore, this studio was conceived as a researchby-design laboratory, investigating innovative forms of productive architectures through the negotiation between multiple social and environmental dynamics.
With this premise, students investigated a paradigm shift in environmental design, bridging techne and nature, in order to regenerate wasted fragments of Hackney Wick in East London, one of the most challenging and ever-changing areas in the UK. This neighbourhood developed over time in parallel with the industrialisation of the Lower Lea Valley and is now going through a process of regeneration and ‘gentrification’. Students explored the transformation of the area with a critical and constructive vision to identify suitable sites for their proposals of ‘productive architecture’ stitching together the existing and the new, the industrial and the social.
Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the site were developed, taking advantage of the environmental tools learned in the third year Technical and Environmental Studies module, such as the IESVE software. Through an evidence-based process, students have developed design strategies that defined specific sets of performative criteria, aiming to regulate cause-effect relations between the geometry, the material system and the performances of their mixed-use and energy-efficient architectural proposal.
Students were also asked to integrate an eco-digital construction process into their project through the DS3B module which explored prefabricated solutions within a circular economy approach. Each student was asked to fabricate one specific architectural component (façade component, structural component etc.) of their building to investigate its materiality as well as the assembly systems. A series of ecological prototypes resulted from these investigations and were realised at different scales.
The interaction between analogue and digital fabrication was explored using natural and recycled materials processed with computer-aided manufacturing techniques.
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