The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the School of Art, Design and Architecture
Location Plymouth | Courses BA (Hons) Architecture, MArch | Head of school Simon Standing | Full-time tutors 11 | Part-time tutors 15 | Students 303 | Staff to student ratio 1:12
Undergraduate
Tyler Youngs
Course BA (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Revenant Republic
Project title Fragmental
Project description This project seeks to ‘re-public’ Plymouth through an architecture that aims to understand and build on various publics that will interact with it – from locals to those involved in its intended occupations. It offers an open-source intervention for the renewal of a pier in Mill Bay. As a framework of cores and control lines around which bespoke spatial-formal arrangements can be installed, it offers spatial complexity while challenging the notion of a default architecture. The low-tech construction is robust but low-carbon, recollecting the qualities of the former lives of the pier, while providing public housing and community-centric spaces in an area whose community has been missing.
Tutor citation Tyler pursued an inquiry into discrete architecture, seeking a framework for imperfect yet complex socio-spatial propositions. The result is grounded in open-source thinking and access to construction and materials practices for adaption within a discrete system. Ricky Burke
Postgraduate
Thomas Grimer
Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Emergent Ecology
Project title A Companion to Mother Earth
Project description Since the 1800s, the UK has seen a 25 per cent loss of its salt marsh area from landscape conversion leading to the release of ancient carbon stocks into the atmosphere. Steart Marsh is a site near Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, which is expected to emit 17 million tonnes of CO2 over its 60-year lifespan. The proposal focuses on the production of a carbon biomass device that acts as a catalyst for salt marsh regeneration and carbon sequestration. Bio-voronoi towers integrate with existing ecologies to create habitats suitable for accelerating marshland growth with a proposed expansion of 6,000 per cent.
Tutor citation The student’s work goes beyond traditional architectural approaches by using speculative and scenario design thinking. This allows them to envision innovative solutions while considering the dynamic nature of ecological systems. Mathew Emmett, Sana Murrani