ARCSR Journal: Collaborative documentation of situated fieldwork in transitional urban settings The Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies

An AAD Books event hosted by CUBE.

The Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR) is a studio-based, teaching and research area within the practice and academic discipline of architecture. It examines and extends knowledge of the physical and cultural influences on the built environment, focusing on situations where resources are scarce and where both culture and technology are in a state of rapid change. 

Since 2006, architecture students (UG, PG and MA/PhD) in this research area have been involved in direct, on the ground, cultural and physical surveys of marginal urban settlements in India, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Greece and London. Live projects have involved the construction of schools and water and sanitation projects. 

This session discusses the role of the annual studio booklet (ARCSR Journal Series) in providing continuity of content and overall thematic and theoretical discourse across time and space, binding the work of ARCSR students and researchers, and seeding PhD theses, books and exhibitions.

Speakers

Bo Tang is a Reader in Architecture and co-director of the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR) research group at London Metropolitan University. Bo is co-editor with Shamoon Patwari of Learning From Delhi (2010) and The Architecture of Three Freetown Neighbourhoods (2013), and co-author of Loose Fit City: The Contribution of Bottom-Up Architecture to Urban Design and Planning (2018). Her work focuses on the nature of collaborative hands-on making and the culture of bottom-up city-making, explored and examined through her teaching, research and live projects in India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Greece and the UK.

Maurice Mitchell teaches MArch Unit 6 at AAD, London Metropolitan University, and at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales, and has also taught at the Architectural Association, Oxford Brookes University and the Development Planning Unit. He is co-author of the book: Loose Fit City: The Contribution of Bottom-Up Architecture to Urban Design and Planning (2018). His area of interest lies in the narrative interplay between technical and everyday cultural factors in the production and sustainability of the built environment, particularly in situations of rapid change and scarce resources where new identities are forged in the process of remaking.

Chair

Beatrice De Carli is a Reader in Urbanism at the School of Art, Architecture and Design of London Met and Deputy Director of the Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE).

Image credit: ARCSR