Algorithm – UNIT 21

Ioana Drogeanu

Towards a ‘Non-Universal’ Architecture: Designing with Others through Gestures (1:1 Scale) | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024ioana.drogeanu.18@ucl.ac.uk Click To See Thesis The project highlights the collaborative potential of digital tools in creating deeply personal and culturally resonant architectural experiences by integrating intangible cultural heritage into tangible forms. By tracing Spanish cultural gestures at a 1:1 scale in VR, we embed personal traces directly into architectural elements. Co-authorship with

Austin McGrath

The Institute of Artificial Intelligence Education | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024austin.mcgrath.22@ucl.ac.uk The Institute is an avant-garde approach to participatory design processes. Conceived as a hyper-contextual latent space, the project harnesses the voices of the very visitors that flock to Gaudí’s renowned Sagrada Familia basilica and its adjacent park – a verdant oasis that offers respite from the Barcelona sun pre- and post-visit. Audaciously sited at the periphery

Jeffrey Cheung

Parque Para Perros Español | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024 jeffrey.cheung.18@ucl.ac.uk Historically, dogs have adapted to human-centric environments, and their intelligence is often evaluated from a human perspective. This project emphasizes the collaboration between humans and dogs in architectural design. It explores the analysis and spatialization of human movements and cues to understand how dogs perceive human movement sequentially, rather than generalizing a set of movements. Human movement

Zijie Cai

Vivir la Utopia: Barcelona Anarchist Memorial | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024zijie.cai.18@ucl.ac.uk Click To See Thesis The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), founded in 1910, marked the rise of Spanish anarchism, which united workers across Barcelona and Spain. Despite the decline of the CNT’s influence during the Franco regime, this project hopes to revive the movement’s legacy in contemporary memory by establishing an anarchist memorial at the former

Wei-Tse (Weitse) Wang

The Infinity Valley | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024weitse.wang.23@ucl.ac.uk With Spain’s ongoing challenges of rising energy costs and the demand for a more independent energy grid, the Infinity Valley represents a beacon of innovation, aiming to mitigate these issues. This project proposes the transformation of Barcelona’s highest mountain, Mount Tibidabo, into a “Battery” by 1 million cubic metres of water. The Infinity Valley incorporates the integration of pumped

Hau To Charmaine Tang

Paintstrokes of Catalonia | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024charmaine.tang.19@ucl.ac.uk Situated on Montjuic Hill in Barcelona, a site embodied with Catalan history, this project celebrates Catalonia’s cultural heritage and artistic tradition through painting as a design process for architecture. Montjuic Hill, once a place where revolutionaries of the Spanish Civil War were imprisoned, executed, and buried, stands as a poignant symbol of the region’s struggle for independence and its

Alexandros Photiou

Corazón De La Comunidad: Sequential Generation | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024alexandros.photiou.22@ucl.ac.uk Located on the “Aguas Park”, in the sequentially created Eixample district of Barcelona, this project proposes a novel approach to a community centre, in which the programme revolves around the creation of a community centre which supports and facilitates the cohabitation and interaction of children and the elderly. By utilizing a series of modular spaces, the proposal

Elle Ngamprasertpong

Swimming Landscape Formation | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024kullaphat.ngamprasertpong.20@ucl.ac.uk The project is a swimming landscape sitting on a hill site overlooking the city center. It is a formation of water landscape following a specific topography. From building scale to human scale, the building is designed following two principles: “viewing angles” and “light reflection”. All elements are designed to be part of the landscape, with water flowing naturally from

Yufei Cheng

El Gòtic Plays Itself | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024 yufei.cheng.21@ucl.ac.uk Situated within the historic core of Barcelona, this project conceptualizes a center for Catalan theatre and craftsmanship, drawing on the Spanish proclivity for festivals and theatrical expressions that transmute quotidian street life into elaborate stage settings. The methodology involves documenting and translating the cyclical patterns of seasonal changes, theatrical productions, street festivals, and parades into digitally

Xavier Thanki

Depositing Bodies of Data | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024xavier.thanki.23@ucl.ac.uk ‘Depositing Bodies of Data’ explores how data can be encrypted within a site to respond to climatic instabilities. Addressing the rising risk of flooding in the Ebre Delta, it proposes an inhabitable dunescape that harmonises with nature, to protect the regions culturally and economically vital rice farming industry. The project aims to develop a new architectural language by

Sneha Parashar

Resonant Geometries: The Mechanics of Dance | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024 sneha.parashar.20@ucl.ac.uk Located in the Eixample area of Barcelona, the music and dance department extension for the Maristes La Immaculada school provides an alternate environment for learning the creative arts. The seemingly abstract geometries throughout the building are formed from three different types of rhythms found in flamenco: heelwork, guitar music and vocals, formed through specified TouchDesigner

Yumeng Yang

Re-weaving Can Batlló | Barcelona, Spain | Unit 21 | 2024 yumeng.yang.22@ucl.ac.uk The project explores the growth pattern from the study and simulation of tree’s mychorrhizal networks. Utilizing Grasshopper scripts, simulation networks are crafted between sources, with initial routes avoiding existing obstacles in the first generation. A new script is then introduced to establish connections between these routes through form generation and curve interference. The results drive the next loop, which

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

James Carden

The Ministry Of Ground | Venice, Italy | Unit 21 | 2020 Click to see Design Realisation Project OverviewThe Ministry of Ground is an architecture that speculates on the importance of dredged material and its reappropriation within the Venice lagoon. A constantly evolving floating terrazzo landscape is formed out of dredged masonry debris and silt, dug from the Venetian canals. This landscape is made up of square components formed by

Julian Besems

CreateGalleries.py | Venice, Italy | Unit 21 | 2020 Awarded Distinction for Design & Distinction for Thesis Awarded The Bartlett Medal Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work Click to zoom in -> Optimisation through Fragmentation in VeniceThis project is centred around the concept of how technologies that determine the way in which the digital environment is navigated could start to inform the built environment. The primary topic that is taken

Tom Band

Fondazione Gucci | Venice, Italy | Unit 21 | 2020 Click to see Design Realisation Venice is – and always has been – read through a series of images, from Canaletto and the vedute paintings synonymous with the Grand Tour, to the hyper-saturated documentation of social media feeds. These images permeate through the collective consciousness, absorbed through postcards, fridge magnets, and even artificial reproductions of the city, in Las Vegas

Misbah Mahmood

The Athens of Euripides | Athens, Greece | Unit 21 | 2019 Awarded Distinction for Thesis Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work Click images to zoom -> EURIPIDEAN LITERARY DEVICESEuripides, a playwright, was a major figure in Greek history and a part of an era when Athens was rich in culture and social identity. His contributions to theatre were pivotal and his works remain influential across

Minh Ngoc Tran

The Oculus | Athens, Greece | Unit21 | 2019 Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work The Oculus is a speculative Stock Exchange design based on the translation of the quantitative phenomenon in Athens, Greece. Additionally, the parameters derive from the unique human digital prints, the sun, and the collective stock movement. They are undergone an negotiation between pure algorithmic design and the realisation of space in

Julian Besems

Books as Bytes | Piraeus, Greece | Unit 21 | 2019 Click to see Design Realisation This project is not about the design of a single building, but the development of a software program that generates a building design based on user information. Click image to zoom–> The primary focus of the project is the development of such a program for a university libraries. In this the smallest spatial unit

Alan Ma

Digital Ruination | Athens, Greece | Unit 21 | 2019\ Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work Click image to zoom–> <My project focuses on the question of what is a future ruin by proposing a process that explores a series of digital monuments above the city of Athens aimed at celebrating Athenian heritage> The city of Athens itself after the economic downturn was left in a

Charlotte Carless

The Makers Collective | Turin, Italy | Unit 21 | 2018 Awarded Distinction for Design & Distinction for Thesis Click to see Thesis Click image to zoom–> Figures from the World Economic Forum esitmate 7.1 million jobs can be automated by 2050. The Makers Collective exists in a future economy where universal basic income and job automation change ‘capitalised labour’ or ‘work’ as we know it. Complete automation will relieve humanity of all

Jonathan Davies

SEA LEVEL: A THOUSAND PLATEAUS | Stockholm, Sweden | Unit 21 | 2017 Awarded Distinction for Design & Distinction for Thesis Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work ‘We don’t build cities by accumulating masterpiece buildings, architecture is only responsible for only a trickle of the world’s spaces while a firehose blasts out the rest, architects make stones in the water…but what if the water is

Camilla Wright

A {WIKI} LEAKING BUILDING | Stockholm, Sweden | Unit 21 | 2017 Awarded Distinction for Design & Distinction for Thesis Click to see Thesis Click to see 4th year work Sweden’s so called ‘neutrality’ is under question due to classified data leaks confirming that Sweden was spying on Russia throughout the Cold War and have continued to do so since. More recent leaks expose the Swedish government and intelligence