WELCOME
Exhibition Team:
- Chloe Little
- Amber England
- Catherine Bower
- Tracy Kong
- Alexander Haidoulis
- Paulina Lemos
- Grace Tapely
- Andre Deen-Swaray
- Sophie Davies
- Paulina Lemos
- Gina Bugten Dinesen
Image Credit – Amber Ryan
The School of Architecture end of year show this year is titled Collaborations to capture the community spirit we have in the School of Architecture with the full-time and part-time teaching staff, experts from practice and consultants, with our students and all the collaborators who have made this academic year a success.
The end of year show is a showcase of our students work and a celebration of their development over the last year. We have explored important social and cultural issues in our student design projects. In the BSc Architecture course themes relate to Reading town centre and public space, proposing re-using existing buildings, bringing dance and its culture into the civic centre, and in third year our students have looked at seaweed processing in Cornwall.
Our new Master of Architecture course has been exploring themes of community engagement and participation and retro-fit and building reuse. Important issues that support the community and consider the impact our architecture has on the environment. All these design projects are supported by developing student skills in model making, both analogue and digital, technical and theoretical studies and professional skills to prepare our students for their future careers.
We have also considered key issues that are impacting the Architecture profession around climate change and life and fire safety to respond to the changing professional requirements and building regulation change. We are incorporating these issues into our curriculum working with specialist consultants.
As architects, educators and students we need to be responsive to the changing professional and social contexts that surround us. Our students have resumed full size ‘making’ working with Xylotek to make full size timber structures at Open Hand Open Space artists studios in Oxford Road Reading. This process gives our students a real understanding of teamwork and the use of materials.
Alongside this our staff have been developing their research to consider important issues that impact our physical and social environments that informs their teaching in studio and lectures. The end of year is a time to reflect on our students achievements and to look forwards to support them in the next stage of their professional careers.
We hope that you enjoy this window into our student work, we are very proud of their achievements this year and we are pleased to welcome you to see their work and share their success.
Prof. Lorraine Farrelly - Head of School
2021 has been a year of constant re-thinking, of whirling, our delivery and discussion approaches for the blended learning environment, of COBR Zoom’s – the tactical Re-Dispersal of Delivery Resources. (RDDR). Of laptops, coffee cups, copiers and keyboards with the oily-lustre of the polyester-anti-viral wipe – dispose with care, remember to breathe. Resiliencies and work-arounds flourished. We air-elbow-bumped and appraised the foot shake. The alternative world became normal, the previously normal gradually distancing to become strange and alternative.
Huge thanks to everyone for working tirelessly, this doesn’t mean without getting tired. As we near the end of the year some of us have been luckier than others, our thoughts for everyone and everything lost, respect for everyone and everything found. And there have been finds, who noticed the sensible-social-distancing of our Initial Dots as they Tokyo Drifted the Miro Board, now skirting an exploded axonometric, now ducking into the craters of a densely rendered habitat analysis? Scope here for the, sadly long gone, QuarkXPress Alien.
We started to invite guests from around the world to reviews, why not? It was as easy, or difficult, as joining from Basingstoke. We jumpy-mouse-sketched, agreed, joked, differed, posted camels in the chat, tea-break-ed, mouthed ‘your mics off!!’, re-joined often. We hope you will enjoy the Beautiful, Smart, Individual and sometimes Quirky work that has flourished this past year on the BSc. Emerging from these experiences, the plans for next year already forming and, with so many meet ups promised ‘when/if things get better’, it is going to be a busy summer!
Take care.
Associate Prof. Oliver Froome-Lewis - Undergraduate Course Director
2021/22 is a very special academic year as it marks another milestone for the School of Architecture at the University of Reading. Not only has it seen, after two years of remote study, a much welcome return to face-to-face teaching, filling our studios with creative buzz, physical drawings, and models again, but we are also seeing the first ever graduating cohort of our Master of Architecture students.
This exhibition offers a glimpse into the Design Thesis Projects alongside works of year 1 students, articulating
their design agendas in response to the themes that we have collectively examined, including urban regeneration, retrofit and building adaptation, community engagement and participation. It shows our students’ commitment and passion for architecture. What is more, it reflects their
collaborative spirit, which is key to the ethos of our School and the success of the show.
It has been a busy year, full of exciting events, workshops, and collaborative projects, allowing our students to engage with the local community and better understand the agency of architecture. After a few years of visiting the sites through the ‘eyes’ of the drone and 3D scanner, we were also able
to go on trips again, including a visit to the Drawing Matter Collection and East Quay Watchet in Somerset, the ‘Waste Age’ Exhibition at the Design Museum, the Battersea Arts Centre, and the Dalston Curve Gardens in London, as well as a trip to Bath. Year 1 students also had an opportunity
to participate in a collaborative prototyping workshop, working with Invisible Studio and Xylotek to test ideas for the temporary pavilion at the art centre Open Hand Open Space (OHOS) in Reading.
After the first two years of our MArch programme, we are proud of the achievements of our students. It has been a fascinating journey, and we would like to thank the students, colleagues, partner practices, guest lecturers and reviewers, alongside the organisations and communities for their collaboration and engagement. You have made this journey not only possible, but immensely enjoyable.
We hope you enjoy the show and join us in wishing the graduating cohort every success in their careers.
We look forward to seeing how they will apply their creative skills and knowledge to shape the future of the built environment and architectural profession.