The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About
Location Cambridge | ARB/RIBA courses BA (Hons) Architecture, MDes Design, MArch Architecture, MPhil Architecture and Urban Studies, Architect Degree Apprenticeship Level 7 | Head of school Flora Samuel | Full-time tutors 22 | Part-time tutors 33 | Students 320 | Staff to student ratio 1:8 | Bursaries available Yes
Undergraduate
Niko Brewster
Course BA (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Studio 3
Project title Grow with Material
Project description This project is the adaptation of an existing warehouse in Deptford Creek through four actions: cutting, flooding, weaving and encrusting. Cutting through the warehouse opens access to the creek while cutting through the floor slab allows life into the soil beneath. Flooding brings the creek to the site, and weaving willow grown in the hybrid landscape forms a natural gabion, filled with rubble to create enclosures. Finally, plastering earth on top creates a seal, which can be maintained with tar and charcoal (a natural waterproofing) produced from firing willow. The scheme is a bathhouse and gardens with six flats above, facilitating a residency programme for studying the rapid change occurring in the creek, while preserving this chunk of waterfront.
Tutor citation Niko has given vision to a strange and possible new hybrid of industrial ecology where ubiquitous steel A-frame sheds take on a curious woven willow and clay-caked form. Anastasia Glover, Lara Karady, Rosie Hervey
Postgraduate
Jean-Marc Tang
Course MArch Architecture
Studio/unit brief Sample Studio
Project title Mannerism Today: a terraced house, a block of flats, a restaurant, a flower shop
Project description There are four parts to this theoretical work: house, block, restaurant and flower shop. With space, function and experiment as tools, the thesis rethinks Mannerism as a subversive mode of production for our time. It rejects the term Mannerism misused to infer self-indulgence, affectation or ambivalence, rather reclaiming a moral purpose. The project claims that to make effective contemporary architecture, while being a Mannerist, one must ask questions and doubt – be uncertain, like Georges Perec, who is known for questioning teaspoons.
Tutor citation Jean-Marc’s project is grounded on a mature theoretical framework rooted in an advanced referential knowledge base. With wit and joy, and through iterations and skilful design, this project doesn’t over-intellectualise or over-extend agency and has brought theories to life in a delightful way. Conrad Koslowsky, Sabrina Puddu
