Design Studio (Two) Six BA Architecture
Neil Kiernan & Paco Esteras
Neil Kiernan is an architect and educator. He is design tutor for 1st and 2nd year BA Architecture studios at the University of Westminster. Neil has a continued and developing interest in research in gender space and architectural practices.
Paco Esteras is an architect and educator. In 2020, he established Guillen Esteras Architects, along with Yannick Guillen. In 2021, the practice won an open competition for a new-build kindergarten in Berlin, commencing on site in 2023. He previously worked with architecture practices including Witherford Watson Mann and Duggan Morris, and has taught all years of BA design studio at Kingston School of Arts since 2019.
DS2.6: Moments of Pleasure to Civic Pleasures
Students: Sevval Acar, Khawla Ahmed, Inaaya Amer, Samia Ar-Rumi, Vani Arora, Rbiya Bashir, Angela de la Vega, Claudia Gomez-Perretta Esparza, Meryem Haydar, Jameelah Hussain, Vanessa Kwan, Kadijah McDaniel, Zahra Muhith, Zaina Nabi, Munira Osman, Usman Rahman, Aderito Tran, Christian Wolff, Vanessa Yuksel
DS2.6 investigates the relationship between remembered events and their physical environment as ‘moments of pleasure’. Pleasurable experiences, however brief, can be vivid and powerful, and have the ability to remain in our memories for our whole life. he studio analyses this connection between our mental and physical maps to constructed spatial encounters. Just like Proust’s madeleine and the memory it evokes, by contemplating a moment and its associated pleasure, a constructed space – either natural or human – can be identified.
Semester One: Focused on a small allotment site, the gateway to the Poplar East neighbourhood adjacent to the A13, the studio asked students to select their own ‘moments of pleasure’ and manifest these in the design of a small temporary and experiential pavilion where the experience could be shared with passers-by. The students were asked to investigate and question the pavilion’s ability
to push boundaries, both actual and abstract, and how it can result in a new engaging experience.
Interlude: An intensive period, focused on some of London’s most iconic public arts buildings as well as some more recent contemporary additions. Through research, guided visits, drawings workshops and detail maquette building, the students drew and drew information from these visits and meditations, considering how they may apply elements to their Semester Two design work.
Semester Two: Building on their research and pavilion design from Semester One, the students interrogated further how their ‘moment of pleasure’ could actively work on a larger scale, serving public individuals and the wider communities of Poplar East and afar.
Finding references through architectural design processes and the construction and deconstruction of ideas, architectural precedents, artistic commentaries and future scenario speculations, the students were guided to design a community-led public arts building on the expansive site of the former Poplar bus garage adjacent to the River Lea.
Drawing from their explorations of London, the students designed a space for the community, celebrating all that a creative arts programme can offer, along with the pleasurable moments it brings.
Guest Critics: Azzam Hakim, Sofia Rota, Axelle Sibierski, Lourenco Viveiros
Archive of DS2.6’s work from previous years:
