More about Studio 1

Mike Guy & John O’Shea

From extremely environmental to environmentally extreme.

Semester One:
The remains of Old Blackfriars Bridge, north side; a strangulated terrain vague crossing of sweltering Tube tunnels, overground railways and Embankment traffic, with living bridge potential. The task, to convert this latent energy into a hotspot for ecological Pecha-Kucha spaces to re-kindle the dormant Greenhouse eco-hub initiative and architecturally spark the Underground’s Cool the Tube competition.

Semester Two:
With equally ecological concerns, students designed new educational and display facilities at London Zoo to commemorate Darwin’s bicentenery, assert the Zoo’s conservational pre-eminence, popularize the sciences and introduce the newest of animal kingdoms; the Extremophiles. In contrast to Greenhouse aspiration for environmental equilibrium, students explored the capacity of architecture to create, contain or simulate the thinnest of atmospheres, the darkest of caves, deep ocean volcanic trenches and boiling mineral springs - and celebrate the tenacity of life to survive in them.