Masters in Architecture /
QED
Civilization is intrinsically rooted in the built environment, the development of science and technology and related societal organisation. Architecture reflects human aspiration and embodies our relationship with the worlds we know and imagine.
About the Atelier
The contemporary world is characterised by the development of a more profound understanding of how the human species affects the global ecosystem of which it is an integral part. This emergent knowledge field is fuelled by the increasing capacity and sophistication of computational processing that enables complex models to be developed that simulate our existence and cultural operation. This evolution is beginning to affect the way we both understand space and anticipate architecture by informing the concept of developing urbanism and the capacity of our world to support civilized cultures in perpetuity. We are poised on a threshold where systematic and holistic ecological models will promote a paradigm shift in the concept of development as it is applied to operations that take place in, on, over or under land.
The atelier is concerned with the operation of buildings over time and as a result promotes simulation as a point of departure for conceptual thinking and a methodology for presenting the flow of design construction, use and adaptation. Rethinking the ecology of building and landscape use and the instrumental competence of materials, construction and environmental systems in an increasingly urban world is a critical aspect of the unit agenda. Understanding the ecology of buildings using biomimetic models engages students with strategic attitudes to sustainability and ecologically viable approaches to building design, use and adaptation that meet the challenges or exceed the expectation of aspirations for our relationship with the environment in a global ecology.
Projects during 2011/12
The qed atelier engaged in a number of international competitions undertaken in teams and by individual students as major projects that allowed us to explore evolutionary design strategies in a variety of contexts that address the environmental challenges for architecture in its contemporary setting and promote models that respond positively to change in the future.
Student success included the winning entry and a shortlisted finalist in the in Natur 2012 competition, category wins for both Sustainable New York and Masterplanning in d3 : Housing Tomorrow 2012 and first, second and third prizes in the 2012Tata / BCSA Airport competition. Fourteen of the sixteen atelier students were recognised for seven separate projects in international student competitions with five students being recognised twice (for two separate projects).
Ateliers
Atelier Staff
Colin Pugh
Unit Leader
Siobhan Barry
Senior Lecturer
Dominic Sagar
Senior Lecturer