THIRD YEAR

Tutors: Adam Thwaites, Paul Smith, Tabatha Harris Mills, Virginia Rammou

Virginia Rammou is a chartered architect and the Course Leader for BSc Architectural Technology at the University of Westminster. She has extensive experience in practice and is interested in the relationship and cross fertilisation between architecture and technology. Her research focuses on the relationship between architecture, health and palliative care.

Adam Thwaites’s primary areas of interest revolve around design within constraints and the importance of the ‘detail’, in terms of both function and aesthetic.

Tabatha Harris Mills is Senior Lecturer at Westminster where she has taught for 9 years, and previously at Leeds Met and Sheffield Hallam. With 16 years industry experience, she is a practicing Architectural Technologist and has had her own studio since 2005. Her keen interest is in technological solutions and skills for self-building and residential community housing.

White Cube Gallery Marylebone

The third year students were asked to create schemes for the latest White Cube gallery, having acquired a plot of land in Marylebone. The client seeks proposals for the creation of a significant new arts exhibition space. The land acquired comprises the northern most, two thirds of the vacant lot bordered by Moxon, Aybrook, Cramer and St Vincent Streets. The remaining one third will be sold on.

The students were asked to address the client’s brief for a largely column-free exhibition space or spaces, provision for all associated ancillary spaces, and extensive outside space or spaces to comprise a ‘sculpture garden’.

An initial ‘feasibility study’ was undertaken, including the analysis of the site. Proposals were made regarding massing/volumes which were expected to be feasible given the site constraints and area. Once the initial feasibility study was completed, the students developed schemes in order to provide the required accommodation and associated spaces for this new arts complex. The students were expected to carefully examine White Cube Galleries existing facilities, Bermondsey and Mason’s Yard, in order to make proposals which complement and expand the existing provision at these locations. Of importance at White Cube Marylebone will be the ‘sculpture garden’ space or spaces, differentiating it from the other sites. The students had to make provision for the inclusion of a café/restaurant, shop, ancillary spaces and additional amenities, such as storage spaces, utility-room, plant room, and exterior landscaping.

Each student was expected to make relevant provision for all public access in the proposed design, as well as the client’s requirement for the building to be ‘super-insulated’, and that provision be made for the inclusion of renewable technologies and/or passive strategies resulting in a low or ‘zero’ energy consumption building.