Design studios

Our design studios consist out of four studio units as described below:

Asterios Agkathidis – Advanced Architectural Design Unit (AADU)

This unit is focusing on advanced design methods, computational design techniques and biomorphism. We will explore analogue and digital form-finding techniques using nature as a design driver, incorporating parametric design tools and CNC technology, in coherence with material-structural performance and the natural context. We will cast a critical view on current parametric design trends, highlighting typological-formal-performative innovation in contrast to formalism. Physical and digital models will be essential through the entire design process.

Katerina Antonopoulou – Architectural Reco(r)dings (ARU)

The aim of this studio is to produce recordings of the extraordinary landscape of Hilbre Islands and to work on their transformation into architectural language. We will reflect upon what it means to architecturally participate in a landscape and to contribute to it. In the first stage of this project, we will develop (visual or acoustic, filmic or static, digital or analogue) recordings of our observations that need to be short, precise, and carefully edited. Then, through notational drawing, we will begin to graphically spatialise them. By taking into account the scale and the horizontality of the site, the visual positions and the programmatic possibilities our recordings and notations open up, we will construct architectural propositions that will act as ‘mediating devices’ between ourselves and the landscape.

Richard Dod – Genius Loci (GLU)

A key teaching interest for me is the special qualities of a site or genius loci. This often involves researching the history of use, identifying characteristics which make it unique and any inherent design opportunities. So often a successful design can be generated by what is actually there on site and the requirements of the programme. Naturally, this approach requires an analytical mind but also creative response too: a successful and responsive plan arrangement; manipulation of structure to shape form; choice of materials according to performance, aesthetic and context and much more. These come from the skill, hard work and imagination of the individual.

Urun Kilic – Architecture and Human Habitation Unit – “The Poetics of Place” (AHHU)

Places are more than abstract locations, they are a totality comprised of not only the physical i.e. climate, light, topography, geology, hydrology, flora and fauna but also of the social i.e. archaeology, anthropology, history and heritage. They are also comprised of the intangible i.e. memories, dreams and emotions. Combined, these things determine the essence of the place i.e. its ‘Genius Loci’. The purpose of the studio is to first discover this ‘Genius Loci’, and then make it both physically and psychologically tangible through form, space and materiality i.e. through architecture.