Studio 8

Studio brief

Manufacturing Landscape

Studio 8 explores the large and ugly structures central to the global economy. This year we will continue to investigate the contemporary rural condition and the design of spaces for making.

We will study the productive landscapes around Chichester and Langstone Harbours on the south coast, where boat sheds, industrial estates, and farms overlook coastal wetlands of global importance. Half of all wetlands in the UK have been destroyed by industrial and agricultural development over the last 100 years; the remaining sites are protected by national legislation and an international treaty but threatened by climate change.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrialists and governments used model factories to test social and organisational systems and to promote their products. As the UK looks towards a possible period of enforced self-reliance, a new model factory might combine elements of the local maker movement and the internet-enabled mass customisation of the "smart factory".

We will visit industrial and public buildings created by named and unnamed authors. We will collaborate with the Weald & Downland Museum to learn about the fundamentals of making a building, and with manufacturers to learn about the economics of modern industrial construction. Your final designs will consider the use and re-use of standard building components and the relationship to landscape and water.

Project one: We will begin by visiting the south coast, studying and drawing historic and contemporary vernacular architecture.

Project two: Working with a manufacturer, you will design and make structures combining standardised and recycled industrial components.

Project three: You will study, photograph and investigate your site and a precedent building in preparation for the final design project.

Field trip: We will go to the engineered landscapes of the Netherlands and northern France, visiting Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and seeing the Van Nelle factory and the work of Lacaton & Vassal, SANAA, and OMA.

Project four: Your final project will be a design for a new productive and sustainable factory building, closely related to the landscape and the water.

You can learn more on the Studio 8 website.

Studio 8 is taught by design and research practice CarverHaggard.