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
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
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