The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About
Location Bristol | ARB/RIBA courses BSc (Hons) Architecture, BEng (Hons) Architecture and Environmental Engineering, BA (Hons) Architecture and Planning, MArch Architecture, Architect Degree Apprenticeship Level 7 | Head of school Matthew Jones | Full-time tutors 60 | Part-time tutors 86 | Students 994 | Staff to student ratio 1:12 | Bursaries available Yes
Undergraduate
Isabelle Firkins
Course BA (Hons) Architecture and Planning
Studio/unit brief The Climate Change Institute: A Response to the ‘Climate Emergency’ (Design Studio 4)
Project title AquaUnity
Project description The brief called for a Climate Change Institute for central Bristol. AquaUnity aims to integrate people, the environment and climate education, while aligning with the UN’s sixth Sustainability Goal, addressing flooding and rising sea levels. The design has evolved from urban flood mitigation strategies, including SuDs. The building’s programme offers water management solutions at various scales. At basement level there is a wellbeing hub featuring an open atrium with water collection funnel. At every key entrance there is a moment to observe different uses of water before learning about the threat climate change poses to our resources.
Tutor citation Isabelle’s work stands out as a meaningful piece of architecture dedicated to tackling the complexities of flooding caused by climate change, the communities affected by it and the lack of awareness of addressing water in the built environment. Jonathan Bassindale, Elahe Karimnia
Postgraduate
Marcus Reid
Course MArch Architecture
Studio/unit brief Urban Cuts and Folds Across Media: Interfaces between matter, media and the city of Rome
Project title Fragments of Rome
Project description This project builds on an analysis of Rome through the lens of Will Self’s 2007 writings on urban experiences. The proposal sits on an elevated landscape with partial views of four of Rome’s monuments, aiming to emphasis the detached axis on which these landmarks sit. This thesis has been developed around a mixed media process which reinterprets in-between spaces. Fragments of the city are dissected through a mirrored interface. Film cutting and montage translate this urban analysis into an architectural intervention – creating complex surfaces which act as canvases onto which new perspectives of Rome can be projected.
Tutor citation Marcus’s project presents a novel approach to considering how we experience the city: as visual fragments increasingly linked to the digital realm and visual modes of consumption perpetuated by social media platforms. Matthew Hynam, Eleonora Nicoletti, Oliver Burton
