In Process

Studio In Process focused on how we produce our built environment.

Can that process be a culture-producing, community-generating exercise in itself? Can we, as architects, have a great time?

In focusing on the how, this studio invites you to imagine and advocate for your dream way of practising creatively as an architect, as an agent in the world. 

Students were asked to take the lead on outlining and determining the themes of your research, programme and site - the who, what, where and why. What we aimed to focus on and explore together as a studio, across a range of independent projects, was the how - how students' designs could be developed and realised in greater detail, be that driven by an interest in collaborative design methods, in community activism, in material sourcing, in generating projects, in project-management, in self-build processes or in construction methods more broadly. 

The richness of final designs came from a solid and vivid understanding of how the architecture will come to be, and outlining those processes was to form a key part of students' final proposals. 

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As a studio we aimed to explore and reflect on methods of working supportively and collaboratively across the different tangents of our projects.  

Alongside speculative projects, the structure of the studio aimed to support any students who have live projects they wanted to develop through their masters thesis.  

We sought to explore precedents of designers and artists acting as community project generators – as collaborators, as builders. 

We explored low-embodied energy materials and construction methods, talking to builders, hearing their experiences of working with these materials.

We considered wellbeing along the production line, reflecting on the working cultures of construction workers and architectural workers, and how those worlds relate to each other. Beyond "decent working conditions", can our processes creatively, experimentally, demonstrate and advocate for the type of the world we want to live in?

Studio tutor

Lettice Drake