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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Transposing the Courtyard | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 oscar.maguire.15@ucl.ac.uk Since the 1850s The Courtyard Societies have been accommodated rent free in Burlington House, a grand neo-classical edifice built from Portland Stone, in the heart of London. Recently however the landlord, the UK Government, decided to start charging rent. The rent increases year on year at an unsustainable rate, setting the clock ticking to stay in
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
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
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
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
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
Dancing with Landscape | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 zofia.lipowska.20@ucl.ac.uk The human body inspired the programme of a dance studio located between Bowers Quarry and Tout Sculpture Park. The main inspiration for the project are the cliffs and boulders of the area, and how the landscape influences our moves, for example in how we support ourselves with a rock and the ways we experience stone by
The Sanatorium of Algorithm Design Case | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 nicole.ho.20@ucl.ac.uk The building project is aiming to help and deal with people who are chronically ill with COVID-19, as well as cure the patient and provide enough data for scientific research. Thus, creating a therapeutic environment that blends perfectly with the surrounding environment. Through exploring how architecture and aesthetics can create an environment conducive
Time/Erosion | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 Awarded the Year 2 Portfolio Prize nan-hao.chen.19@ucl.ac.uk The programme would be a series of leisure facilities along the coastal path in Portland for hikers and tourists. Each building occupies a great spot for observing various geological features, leading and attracting people to walk through the path to the lighthouse to enjoy the beautiful views of Portland. Doing so boosts
The Royal Academy of Music | Isle of Portland, UK | Unit 21 | 2022 cosimo.barry.19@ucl.ac.uk The project proposes a satellite facility for the Royal Academy of Music, based in London, on the Isle of Portland. The programme consists of a music studio complex and access to music equipment for use by both invited guests from the Royal Academy of Music, as well as for the local population. The Portland