Design Studio 16 Master of Architecture (MArch RIBA Part 2)
Anthony Boulanger & Stuart Piercy with Yannis Halkiopoulous
DS16 is run on a platform for students to experiment and invent architectural and spatial constructs initiated through in-depth investigations of material techniques and the making of physical things, created both manually and digitally. The studio is taught by award-winning architects and academics involved in design research.
Anthony Boulanger is Senior Lecturer and co-founding partner of the design- and research-led practice AY Architects.
Stuart Piercy is a founding director of Piercy & Company, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a patron of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Yannis Halkiopoulous is a DS16 graduate from 2014 and an associate at Piercy & Company.
Radical Collective
Year 1: Luke Hickling, Maria Motchalnik, Ranukshi Seneviratne, Shona Thomson
Year 2: Morgan Anderson, Max Blythe, Charlotte Chin, Tonia Constantinou, Katrina Geen, Qingqing He, Sunghoon Jung, James Langlois, Oliver Longmore, Giovanni Musumeci, Mario Priore, Megan Rees, Talah Siraj, Bo Yean Teng, Joanne Wong
This year we interrogated the collective, both as a form of social/cultural practice and in the speculation of new architectural typologies. We examined the origins and history of collective action and questioned what the collective means today, in an age of individualism when personal expression supported by big tech is the most valued form of currency. That radical forms of collectivism could emerge from the current paradigm?
The first term was defined by a 5-week project ambitiously engaged in creative collective practice acted out at Grymsdyke Farm in Buckinghamshire. Here students in groups of four conceived, tested, constructed and installed a family of one-to-one installations on different sites linked by a common narrative, taking inspiration from a newly fallen 200-year old oak tree on the edge of the field, with itself becoming one of the project sites. Considerable emphasis was put on the testing of material techniques and the inventive re-use of salvaged materials found on site. The final outcomes supported a wonderful gathering of DS16 students and graduates celebrating the studio’s unique relationship with the farm, that began in 2011.
The investigation was then brought to the urban and rural environs of south-east France, the general location of our study trip and the site for the majority of main individual projects. Here we continued an exploration of local collective practices, underscored by a memorable stay at Le Corbusier’s La Tourette.
Students were challenged to form critical and experimental interventions to speculate new building typologies that support radical acts of working and living, informed by specific social, cultural, political, economic and environmental contexts. They carried out their own research, wrote their own briefs, chose their own sites and devised their own programmes.
Inherent in site selection and design approaches were strategies of adaptation, re-use and resourcing, enhanced by attitudes of passive environmental design. And as always, a design-through-making approach and the use of physical model making as a key design tool were highly encouraged.
Guest Critics: Chris Allen (FCB), Oscar Brown, Harry Bucknall (Piercy & Co), Mary Duggan (Mary Duggan Architects), Eleanor Evason (Piercy & Co), Rob Forsey (Piercy & Co), Rebecca Gardner (Grimshaws), Zadee Garrigue (Foster & Partners), Victoria Hinton, Ed Jarvis, Freya Kay (Hollaway Studio), Guan Lee (Grymsdyke Farm), Joyee Lee (Niall McLaughlin Architects), Wui Lin Lee, Miscia Leibovich (Piercy & Co), Will McLean, Callum Perry (Piercy & Co), Lemma Redda (Grafted), Tom Simmons
Special Thanks: To Guan Lee for his massive generosity in allowing students to continue to experience and enjoy Grymsdyke Farm! And thank you to all DS16 graduates who reunited there to celebrate this year’s projects.
Archive of DS16’s work from previous years:
