The Big Here and The Long Now

When we think of context in our design projects we might conventionally consider neighbouring buildings, the street and community, or even the town or city where the project is located. But construction in the C21st is an international process, using raw materials and fabrication processes from all over the world. What implication does this ‘bigger here’ have for the choice of materials? Similarly, when we think of building’s lifespan, we might consider how our projects can be de-constructed at the end of their life, but what happens to their fabric after that? How can the materials be re-used or recycled and continue to be useful in a ‘longer now’?

This studio focuses on the creative use of materials, and the geological, ecological, technological and social systems that make up the process from sourcing them to using them. We look at strategies to use materials in many shapes and forms: historic, local, high-tech, vernacular, not-yet-existing or recycled.

These strategies are multi-scale throughout the year: regional and urban strategies of sourcing-transporting-manufacturing-building; building scale of selecting, recycling, constructing, adopting, disassembling; and a product scale ranging from joints to furniture.

A global strategy of reducing carbon emission will need a holistic approach from architects, including a slowly emerging environmental, economic, architectural and social framework to create systems that are not just more efficient than what we have now, but aiming to be waste free. Many such strategies exist and have started influencing urban and architectural design, construction and even behavioural principles, such as cradle-to- cradle and regenerative design principles. We explore these to understand design through a process-oriented systematic approach. These principles call for ways of integrating needs of communities and society as a whole, while putting sustainability in a wider system of ecological and technological flows.

Studio tutors: John Kinsley and Anna Czigler