Design Studio (Three) One BA Architecture

YEAR THREE – DS3.1

Tutors: Jane Tankard and Thomas Grove

Jane Tankard is a full-time member of staff in the Undergraduate school, Module Leader for Design and Technical Exploration DS3A, Major Design Project DS3B (with Will McLean) and Professional Studies 3. She has been teaching for 27 years and has taught all Undergraduate and Post Graduate architecture years and Part 3. Jane has been advisor to Schools of Architecture across the UK and have published books, articles and academic papers. She is also a registered architect and Director of a small design practice, whose work has been exhibited at RIBA. Jane has worked with the Arts Council, British Council and a number of London Boroughs. Her research examines the relationship between political structures, culture and architectural production.

Thomas Grove currently works for a small practice in Soho, which specialises in residential architecture within the borough of Westminster. His work so far has focused on contemporary ornamentation and the social/political ramifications of architecture/architectural practice. More broadly Thomas is fascinated by the act of drawing and the possibility of re-interpreting traditional modes of architectural representation. An ardent fan of film-makers like Derek Jarman and Federico Fellini, Thomas believes in the potential for architecture to not only provide shelter from the elements, but to also create incredible and extraordinary settings for our everyday lives.

Resistance

In the night while you were sleeping, the city ceased to be. The places of assembly, protest, divergence and rebellion have vanished.

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
and they flew…
(Christopher Logue 1926-2011)

Resistance – For us, Architecture is an agent for change, a tool for intervention and manifestation of dissent and social transformation. We propose a divergence from the party-line, a leap into the creative, intellectual and political unknown. We (as a creative collective) will engage with cinema, literature, art to inspire Architecture that could construct a new reality, confronting and proposing radical alternatives to the “neo-liberal” city and the modernist ideologies that shape contemporary practice. Old masters will be pulled from their pedestals, architecture will burn and through the eyes of others we will investigate an infinite number of worlds, unimaginable pasts and impossible futures. Le Corbusier is dead, what comes next is up to you…

DS3.1 see the design studio as the site of experimentation and innovation, a laboratory of ideas underpinned by the creative process and professional and technical understanding that can transform our environment. We believe architects should understand and engage with political, economic and cultural processes that shape our cities, working with or against these in an informed, responsible and creative way. We celebrate the potential that architects have to make the ordinary extraordinary and see no distinction between design theory and practice; innovation is central to everything we do.

This year we are collaborating with an art/architecture group in Norway. They have funding to bring specialists from Europe and the USA to run workshops with us and we will have opportunities to exhibit our ideas outside of the University.

Methodologies

We will be encouraging our students to work as a collective of radical practitioners to disrupt, to investigate and to create Architecture… We believe that form does not follow function…

DS3.1 treat the studio as a space of creativity and reflexive learning overlaid with a rigorous examination of what architects do and why. To this end, as in other years, our studio will be tailored to suit the particular individuals we have in the group. As we work through the exploration, research and design project in semester 1, we will identify the skills our students have and those they need to develop to be successful and dynamic graduates in control of the next part of their careers. We are experts at getting the most out of individual students whilst working within the structure and collaborative opportunities of the group. We use mixed media at all scales.