Studio 03

Studio brief

Crossing Cultures – Re-thinking Campus

The studio is concerned with architecture as a form of agency, involving civic making through practice. This means that we are concerned with how architecture is formed through local knowledge and festive practices, backdropped by the pressures of capitalism.

This year, we place ourselves at one of these pressure points in southern Italy, in the small mountain village Belmonte Calabro, which is experiencing gradual abandonment as the young locals migrate north for employment, and a new young estranged population arrive on the Italian shores in search of new beginnings.

We pose the question whether the introduction of industry and education to the village could bring the indigenous and new population together as a way of “re-thinking the local”. For our first project, we will work with the two architectural typologies from the local area; 'suburban sprawl' and 'medieval village', exploring these through models, animations and projections, and finally drawings. We will use these outcomes to develop the major design project 'Re-thinking Campus' for the village of Belmonte.

In November, Studio 03 will travel to Belmonte to explore the local culture through food and gather research for the major project aimed at strengthening Belmonte’s identity through industry and education. The building will be public in nature with a workshop and training centre to sustain old expertise and initiate new skills, reviving local agriculture, creating new potential for industry and employment opportunities. This is with the hope of attracting young people back to the area and foreigners to contribute to the 'crossing of cultures'.

We are asking you to question the current relationship between industry and education and challenge the status quo by introducing you to surrealist films, situationist texts, and by exploring these in relation to the occupational modes of Raumplan and Plan Libre.

Projects developed by our students will actively shape local discussions and show up new opportunities for the village. As a method of working, this ongoing live project involves existing undergraduate and postgraduate students, graduates, refugees, villagers, cross-school collaborations with the intention to build a vital insight to Crossing Cultures.