The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the School of Architecture
Location Reading | Courses BSc (Hons) Architecture, MArch | Head of school Lorraine Farrelly | Full-time tutors 8 | Part-time tutors 15 | Students 200 | Staff to student ratio 1:12
Undergraduate
Cameron Wilkie-Allan
Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Sulham Biodiversity Condenser
Project title A Site for Change
Project description The biodiversity net gain (BNG) programme change to UK legislation promises to bring fundamental changes to design priorities for new architecture by requiring the environmental cost of proposals to be balanced by environmental improvements. This project is based in Sulham and draws on a live BNG initiative in the area, which includes the distribution of natural landscape elements. The brief called for an environmentally innovative building incorporating internal and external spaces for produce, educational/community space and a food outlet – all linked by a network of public pathways.
Tutor citation An imaginatively researched project that demonstrates outstanding ambition, sophistication and refinement. The project brings together multiple agendas: sensitive land/material use, activism and human interaction with nature. Louise Humphreys
Postgraduate
Luke Collinson
Course MArch
Studio/unit brief The Agency of Architecture (Units 1 and 2)
Project title The Waterside Workshop: A place where communities can connect through nature and craft
Project description The Waterside Workshop is a brown and rainbow trout fly fishery targeting mental health and loneliness, particularly within the ageing community of Midsomer Norton in Somerset. Material reuse is central to the project, achieved through inventive repurposing of materials such as earth to create trout pools within the construction of rammed-earth walls. Bamboo, grown on site for construction, celebrates the craft of curating split cane bamboo rods, connecting the programme and architecture.
Tutor citation Luke has proposed a sensitive project with community and biodiversity at it heart and with a thoughtfully developed spatial narrative around environmental strategies, crafts, circular economy and material reuse. Lorraine Farrelly, Izabela Wieczorek, Piers Taylor