Studio 10

Studio brief

INTER-ACT (Art/Architecture studio) 

INTER-ACT is an interdisciplinary studio between architects and fine artists with the potential for it to open to the wider school in the future.

INTER-ACT hosts both an INTERdisciplinary ACTion based research platform as well as one that is interested in social INTERACTions, towards original methods of making and responding to the city. Action based research directly engages in the city through direct interventions such as, on site making, discussion, film screening etc. For this reason all the projects of the studio will be live projects and situated within the city. They will set students up to both understand the complexity of the city as well as critically engage with their position within it and act to provoke, make commentary or create a lasting change. In a context where public and civic spaces of the city are diminishing it is important that we teach students to become motivated in taking back the public space of the city. This year we will do this by students taking over an infill site on the Roman road, designing and building “Roman roads museum of the everyday”. This is a commission by London Borough of Tower hamlets in partnership with The Whitechapel gallery and The Cass.

Both second and third year architecture students will design, and build the museum in collaboration with fine art students. Third year students will also design a public realm proposal for future cultural program and festivals on the Roman road.

In this studio architecture students will fulfil all the learning outcomes required for the architecture course through learning:

• Methods towards claiming public and civic spaces of the city for its citizens and enable citizen participation in its management and authorship.
• Designing playful/celebratory temporary architecture.
• Experimentation in recycling of found materials/objects into construction materials for our making projects.
• The studio will have a strong focus in making. These would range from model making, material prototypes and making of a full size small building.
• We will engage with real clients such as local residents, local authority, housing association and art institutions, which give the students a very real insight into practice of architecture.
• We will have interdisciplinary design sessions with fine art students and tutors.
• We will have interdisciplinary case studies about concepts and design language with fine art students and tutors.
• We will spend considerable amount of time discussing and making drawings and explore new representation techniques such as animation and poster making towards a well-crafted portfolio.
• We aim to have student models/objects drawings in an exhibition in a gallery around the Roman road.

The studio has received project funding of £30,000, which will pay for construction material of the “Roman roads museum of the everyday” and its cultural art programming in partnership with Whitechapel gallery.