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Open until 14 July, the Projects Review at the Architectural Association offers an overview of the work created in one of the country’s oldest and most esteemed schools of architecture. As ever, this year’s students have exhibited the inner workings of the school’s focused programmes, collaborations, multi-disciplinary projects, workshops and fieldwork. The plurality that lies within these outputs speaks of an individual within a collective culture, diversely revealing the power of architectural ideas. Taking a closer look at this year’s show, Something Curated highlights some of the most exciting work being exhibited.

 

Altan Jurca-Avci | Intermediate 15

Altan Jurca-Avci’s ‘The School Of Athens’ project responds to two unique urban conditions that have gradually manifested in Athens over the last few decades. The first is a form of spatial potential that comes into expression within the vast amount of vacancy in the city’s urban environment. The second condition deals with the social potential that has emerged due to the inability of the traditional governmental institutions to provide Athenian citizens with some of their basic needs, pushing them to organise themselves by their own initiative, forming what one may call ‘solidarity networks’ between groups and individuals.

 

Arslan Arkallayev | Diploma 18

(via Arslan Arkallayev)

While architecture is often concerned with the formation of space through the composition of solids, Arslan Arkallayev’s project looks to fabricate a home environment based on physiological aspects. The home of performance is told through a series of drawings as well as a short film and narrative built around a blind man. A temporary structure on the roof resembles that of a film set home where the experience of a blind man’s idea of darkness informs spatial and experiential qualities which produces an enhanced sensorial engagement with the world.

 

Tiffany Attali, Henry-si-yuan Ngo, Chiyan Ho, Lisa Chan, Michael Ho, Carolin Bongartz, Paolo Emilio Pisano, Vasilisa Lucic, Daria Gavriova & Tim O’Hare | Diploma 11

The creases and fault lines that once safeguarded historical layers and anomalies in London are slowly being ironed out. Following the seamlessness of the urban fabric, the students of Diploma 11 arrive at a 5km-long railway viaduct between London Bridge and New Cross where the tide of development has yet to find a way in. The students explain: “The straight line of the railway became the datum for our exploration. We began gathering content found along this stretch – objects, textures, events and derelict spaces – in order to de­ collage the city by reassembling its parts, loosening up its architecture and deconstructing its boundaries.”

 

Matis Barollier | Intermediate 5

Expanding on the thinking behind his work, Matis Barollier says: “My proposal is an Aqua Market. The Aqua Market is a space used as a water reservoir and above as a market. The water filling the reservoir is brought by blimps f rom Greenland, it is then poured into the top of the market. There it is separated into different suspended pools which when overflowing generate: water columns; water windows and water walls. How it overflows w as a catalyst to my design. This allows the market to stay cool during the day to sell or trade fruits and vegetables grow n in the Oasis. Aft r having fallen in the pools below the water lows into the reservoir to be stored until needed for the daily irrigation of the Oasis.”

 

Martina Contento | Diploma 13

Martina Contento’s project aims to serve as an intervention on the USA-Mexico border, creating a geopolitical ‘stitch’ that connects the two nations with a bi-national response to alleviating pulmonary disease. The scheme proposes a ‘third state’ that is a space for cohabitation and cooperation. Against the backdrop of crumbling physical infrastructure in both cities that has resulted from continued economic depression, this border area presents a virgin and verdant oasis that imbues a sense of health through nature.

 

Natalie Eugenia Ow | Diploma 2

(via Natalie Eugenia Ow)

Touching on her interest in the physical potential of Google’s vast digital database, Natalie Eugenia Ow says: “Through the various trajectories within the city, we can become aware of the vast amounts of histories that have been lost and accumulated overtime. Once lost and ‘unseen’ and only existing within archives such as Google, it comes to life through the spatialisation and the over lay onto the physical environment. With the adjacency of information, pasts and presents co- existing simultaneously in the same space, we are able to tap into it, immerse and experience it.”

 

Cohen-Aharoni | Intermediate 12

Cohen-Aharoni’s project is located in Fiskars, a village in southern Finland. Fiskars was established in 1649 by a cast iron products company for the workers of the factories. Since then, the factories have moved out of the village, and Fiskars is now a home to a cooperative of artists and designers. The project proposes an alternative design to the village. In order to double the population of Fiskars, the structure of the village should be modified. In Cohen-Aharoni’s vision, the village is densified through the insertion of a grid of courtyards and houses which consist of two small, insulated bedrooms and a generous communal space.

 

Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES
23/6/2018 – 14/7/2018 | Monday to Friday, 10am–7pm & Saturdays, 10am–5pm

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