Unit 10

Unit brief

Transitional Strategies for Dublin and Limerick

INCOMPLETENESS IN COMPLETENESS

‘……That is one thing I am trying to do, position the project in an anticipatory way. That is what is given now, but what about the brief? What about things that are yet to be anticipated or even thought of? What happen to that building? How is it going to mutate, how will it absorb change when kids grow, when the family grows? Where does the potentiality of that lie?...... For me there is something particular about the traditional architecture that I have experienced. It always had the ability to absorb the changes that one had not thought about, but could anticipate. How do you include developments that are happening in and around you? The framework becomes critical, but again the way you implement the framework is another issue in itself.’
Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbai

The Unit

The unit is concerned with developing and designing interventions across a range of scales and ambitions, and seek as far as possible to develop authentic proposals in socially, economically, politically and environmentally challenging contexts. Central to the philosophy of the unit is the notions of tolerance, generosity, an economy of means and time.

The unit is looking for inspiration from the ordinary and every day as well as carefully designed and crafted architecture and urban spaces that has stood the test of time.

Through our design processes we encourage students to develop their own individual design sensibilities in response to the given context. Starting from a concrete situation of urbanity the unit stresses the use of a combination of research, thinking methodologies, and creative practice to propose strategic interventions that span extremes of scale, from the immediate and personal, to the collective and geographical. A common attitude and investigation into the material manifestation of the environment underpins continuity from the detailed to the large scale. Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism themselves are not seen as a shift in scalar thinking, but as overlapping and inseparable fields occupying the same territory.

We emphasize the development of intuition and process to test and develop new forms of architecture, landscape and urbanisms in practice as well as questioning the current state of play. We work with students as fellow innovators in a programme that is both visionary and hands on in seeking to propose architectural and urban futures that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, distinctive and enjoyable.

Dublin and Limerick

This year’s programme will be located in Ireland, where we will collaborate with colleagues at University College Dublin and Limerick School of Architecture, will develop urban, landscape and architectural strategies and proposals for the two locations.

We will focus on issues of rural versus urban (economic) diversification, rural depopulation and development in areas of outstanding beauty and fragility, urban agriculture and biodiversity. How can strategies for both cases take on the disastrous boom and bust cycle, urban over-heating and a rural economy over-reliant on tourism and grant aid.

Esther Worthington Diploma Unit 10 2011
Course Professional Diploma in Architecture RIBA Part 2
Tutors Signy Svalastoga
Jonathan Cook
Nina Scholz