Jonathan Zhu

Hidden in Stereopsis | Florence, Italy | Unit 21 | 2023 This project investigates the use of computer vision ML techniques to create a piece of architecture on a site and city obsessed with the human act of looking. It proposes a paediatric ophthalmology specialist research and treatment centre open to the public by the 14th Century Torre de Niccolò, an ancient watchtower of the municipality previously as a part

Alp Amasya

The Blue | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 The Blue is a film park that consists of multiple film galleries and filmmaker residencies that create a place of pilgrimage for Derek Jarman, a filmmaker who lived in Dungeness between 1986-1994. The project spatialises ‘Jarmanesque’ qualities architecturally in a filmic way that captures the relationship between time and landscape. Jarman developed a deep blue field of vision before his

Rory Browne

Orchestrating Geochronology | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded the Bartlett School of Architecture Medal, BScAwarded First Class Honours Geochronology is the field of geology concerned with determining the age and history of Earth’s rocks, sediments, and fossils. Time is inherently encoded into the landscape; this project aims to quantify varying scales of time across numerous architectural elements. The scheme proposes a geochronology museum, archive, and research facility.

Tom Band

Rendering the Dungeness Percept | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded Distinction for Design & Distinction for Thesis The iconic image of Dungeness – the totemic object sited within a barren landscape – is synonymous with the mechanistic production of the Architectural Photograph. Disseminated by sites such as The Modern House and Dezeen, the imagery shapes our collective understanding of the place, imposing a romanticised fiction upon a

Zixi Chen

Mise-en-Dungeness | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded First Class Honours The project aims to explore an architectural approach to forming the mise-en-scène, applying this technique to create ‘hyper-authentic’ experiences of Dungeness. Mise-en-scène is a cinematic concept used by filmmakers to create images that express style, narrative, and experience. At the same time, the natural scenery of Dungeness encapsulates characteristic visual qualities that evoke the cinematic perception, attracting

Seb Coupe

The Stone Organ | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 sebastian.coupe.21@ucl.ac.uk The environmentally positive ‘stone renaissance’ many hope is beginning within the construction industry runs contrary to an island that has suffered and continues to suffer environmental degradation of its natural landscape at the hands of the quarrying industry. Many within Portland see the preservation of its natural beauty as a crucial element in generating future tourism

Ayisha Belgore

Boundaries | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 ayisha.belgore.20@ucl.ac.uk ‘Boundaries’ addresses the definition of architecture across administrative boundaries – how does this impact the building’s form and development ? With two sites spanning across the Isle of Portland and Weymouth, this project focuses on the dichotomic relationship of the edge – allowing the boundary to become a defining element in the building design and construction. Materiality is

Alp Amasya

How to Draw a Hyperobject | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 a.amasya.16@ucl.ac.uk Alp’s work takes Timothy Morton’s theory of ‘Hyperobjects’ as a test ground to create a drawing system that translates Hyperobject principles into architecture. The philosophical approach to high dimensional systems is spatialized through digital simulations, focusing on the Jurassic Coast of England. The project creates a drawing method performed by the fossils inhibiting the

Carmen Kong

Archiving Jurassic Coast | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 carmen.kong.14@ucl.ac.uk Sited on the Jurassic Coast, this project highlights the paradox of conserving an eroding coast. The Jurassic Coast, the only natural heritage site in the UK is a geomorphological landscape encompassing 180 million years of geological history. The coastline contains multiple fossil localities from the Mesozoic era. The Jurassic Coast acts as a natural archive preserving

Ajay Mohan

Between the Line and the Land | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 ajay.mohan.20@ucl.ac.uk Within the fault lines of subjective perceptions, small probabilities are overlooked and rare occurrences overestimated. Psychological biases and intuitive sensibilities are the hidden noise in distorting seemingly objective entities and resolute cultural artefacts; our collective institutions become vulnerable to these speculative series of meditations, allowing entry to a series of consequential cartographic incursions

Rolandas Markevicius

Cross-Modal Compositions | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 Awarded the Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize rolandas.markevicius.20@ucl.ac.uk The developments in deep neural networks force us to reconsider the role of references. The project frames this statement through the challenge of establishing synaesthetic links between architecture and music suggesting that the new instruments offered by machine learning allow designers to play with abstract features systematically. The project proposes a

Lewis Brown

Printed Morphologies | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 Awarded The Bartlett Medal lewis.brown.20@ucl.ac.uk The Isle of Portland is an experimental testing ground to explore a novel methodology of architectural design through the medium of the physical model and the digital vector toolpath. Portland is a landscape formed through the geological layering of organic matter, compressed into sedimentary Portland Stone. Similarly, the deposition of material through the

Sam Pierce

Rehabilitative Landscapes: YOI Portland | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 samuel.pierce.20@ucl.ac.uk An exploration into the benefits of integrating digital architectures in physical institutions through the design of a young offender institution that utilises virtual environments to provide personalised, therapeutic, and rehabilitative experiences that moderate the physical. The architecture utilises parametric design, incorporating user tracking and site data to provide a wide range of democratised spatial qualities

Hugo Loydell

Defining the Architectural Foveal | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 h.loydell.16@ucl.ac.uk Within the scarred landscape of Portland, a proposed climbing research and training centre explores the agency of the eye’s gaze as a design tool. Through experiments in spatialising foveated level of detail (LOD), the fixations and saccades of the eye are utilised to encode and refine spatial narratives. Whilst utilising the same technologies to explore

Joseph Tang

Coastline Infinity | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 yat.tang.20@ucl.ac.uk The thousand-million-year geology formation’s collision with human interventions holds exciting tensions for the ever-changing coastline of Portland, which contributes to the island’s unique identity. Algorithms are developed with the notion of erosions and the carving processes of the landscape that formulates a set of design methodologies. The project dedicates to reconstructing and translating the coastline of Southern

Kiran Basi

A ‘Non-Extractivist’ University | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 kiran.basi.20@ucl.ac.uk For thousands of years, Portland stone has been extracted for the construction of notable buildings around the world. Whilst these buildings represent the wealth and power of their respective institutions, the Isle of Portland has been left with voids cut into its landscape and high levels of social deprivation. This project investigates how adopting a non-extractivist

Marilena Petalidou

Unwrapping Heritage | London, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 m.petalidou.16@ucl.ac.uk Unwrapping heritage proposes a thematic garden of unwrapped artefacts where one can experience their aura through architecture. The design is based on 3D scans of artefacts taken from the British Museum during the last months. The scanned models are cut, unwrapped and rewrapped to create new spatial forms that generate a landscape that reflects not only the qualities of

Jacqueline Yu

The Playscape Garden | London, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded First Class Honours The Playscape Garden is a versatile community centre where architectural elements can be altered by the community within the building or from afar. The community’s presence is felt in the garden, whether through digital or physical means. With the mouse-tracking and manipulation techniques developed in the previous project, one of the ‘tending’ actions–sifting–is translated into

Ioana Drogeanu

Building a Bathhouse within a Room | Bucharest, Romania | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded First Class HonoursAwarded Year 3 Portfolio Prize ‘The creation continues incessantly through the media of man.’ – Antoni Gaudi The project prompted a consideration of the scale at which people think about, design, and interact with architecture. Time spent indoors during the Covid-19 pandemic led to an exploration of ways in which objects can be moved

Beatrice Frant

Scattered Potential | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded First Class Honours Fighting the hungry landscape and its climatic intensity through paper-thin defiance, the project culminates in the design of a seed bank tower in the Dungeness Power Plant complex, to be built in parallel with the decommissioning of the reactor. As well as being actively involved in the repopulation of flora, the building also helps to reduce

James Carden

Guerrilla Film Festival | Dungeness, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 A proposed film festival is located on the boarder of the Dungeness estate. The project speculates on the complex issues of ownership within Dungeness. A guerrilla film Festival challenges authorship of the filmic medium, relating film to the physicality of space. The typical segmented typology of a film festival is challenged. In a post pandemic future where the consumption

Sam Pierce

The Observer Effect | Brighton, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 In physics, the observer effect is the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. This project attempts to embrace the uncertainties of observation through developing frameworks that transform records of everyday presence into a spatial form.

Ed Sear

The Continuous Sea-Wall | Dymchurch, UK | Unit 21 | 2021 Awarded Distinction for Design The Continuous Sea-Wall is a proposal for an inhabitable section of coastline in Dymchurch, Kent. Occupying the boundary between land and sea, the scheme is comprised of a public esplanade, a fish & chip shop, a slot machine arcade, and a terrace of almshouses. Building upon a fascination with lighthouses, the Esplanade occupies a similar

Ina Ioan

Resting in Myths | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 ina.ioan.20@ucl.ac.uk The project aims to bring together mythology and leisure in a storytelling environment buried deep into a hill whilst also being lightly cantilevered off the ground, overlooking the pristine natural surroundings. Its ambition is to create a dialogue on both sides of an existing hikers’ path that leads to the ruins of the Rufus Castle and

Rafiq Sawyerr

A Preserved Current | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 rafiq.sawyerr.19@ucl.ac.uk A Preserved Current assesses how buildings that have been ‘frozen’ to preserve, through the listing process, can be adapted to satisfy the needs of the ‘current’ environment it exists in? 200 meters off Portland’s coast sits The Mulberry Harbour Phoenixes. Two grade II listed caissons, built as part of the artificial Mulberry Harbours. Part of the