Design Studio (Two) Four BA Architecture
Camilla Wilkinson, Christopher Bryant & Urna Sodnomjamts
Camilla Wilkinson is an architect and lecturer. She has worked in high profile practices in Germany and the UK. Camilla makes research and lectures on the 1914-18 war camouflage system Dazzle Painting.
Chris Bryant is a founding director of London practice Alma-nac Collaborative Architecture.
Urna Sodnomjamts is an architect with a special interest in the retrofit, re-use and repositioning of existing buildings influenced by the deconstruction of ancient vernacular communities and their circular economies.
DS2.4: 2030 and The Long View
Students: Maxim Artemenko, Dimitrios Atsaves, Esteban Bedoya Bedoya, Daile Cerneckyte, Thomas Gilsenan Best, Noah Hohbach, Aniseh Hoveizavi, Melek Hussein, Josephine Low, Mufsy Rahman, Meryem Omerspahic, Sneha Sachin Shenoy, Bamdad Saghafi, Sana Amir Khan, Ayesha Shahzad, Vania Talwar, Yi Shen, Sayyada (Naba) Rezavi
This year DS2.4 students have begun to explore complex architectural ideas in relation to long- and short-term sustainable urban development. Our site is located at the access point to the Camden Highline on York Way, a bold proposal for 1.6 kilometres of linear park, reanimating a disused high level railway track through Camden.
Our first brief asked students to design an access point to the Highline on the site of the former Maiden Lane Overground Station. The initial task invited students to work in pairs to fabricate from found material a 1:1 architectural fragment comprising steps, a handrail and a surprise. The fragment had to be demountable (for public transportation) and designed to allow for disassembly and re-use.
For the second brief, and for the first time as a studio, we embarked on a deep retrofit project. We imagined forward thinking political leadership that would support the adaptive re-use of a former storage unit adjacent to the railway viaduct on York Way. The brief outlined an exploratory social and sustainable multi-use programme. At ground level we asked for a materials re-use depot and at higher levels a Camden Highline Visitor Centre, exhibition, event or other imaginative programme offering modes of gathering and exchange with views across London to the City and Kings Cross.
Our studio’s approach is to learn through making. All students created a 1:50 frame of the existing building (their ‘site’) with which to experiment and test ideas of context, environment, programme, spatial design, materiality and tectonics.
Thanks go to the generosity of our guides and critics who have helped shape conversations and influence developments in our studio. Our one day field trip to Manchester and Maggies Oldham offered an invaluable experience and understanding of the value care, craft and design in architecture can bring – to 2030 and the Long View.
Guest Critics: Maria Bahrim (AFK Studios), Scott Batty, Josh Bulman, Rachel Foreman (Alma-nac), Holly Galbraith, Emma Hafner (Flower Michelin Architects), Chris Leung, Mirna Pedalo, Balveer Mankia, Maria Motchalnik, Tatiana von Preussen (vPPR), Dylan Radcliffe Brown (6a Architects), Kester Rattenbury, Urna Sodnomjamts, Susanne Tutsch (Erect Architecture), Paolo Zaide
Special Thanks: Trish Morgan and Maggies Centre Oldham, Duncan Laird and Castlefield Viaduct, Joseph Winters and Peckham Levels, Roisin Morrison, William Ginestier and The Camden Highline, Alice Hardy and Global Generation, Urna Sodnomjamts for her much valued contribution to our studio.
Archive of DS2.4’s work from previous years:
