DS17 : Gabby Shawcross & William Firebrace


This year DS17 continues its investigation into architecture based on time. We will examine different types of time - social time, personal time, microtime, seasonal time, future time, ultra-fast time … and the relationship between them. Sites can be examined as containing richness and complexity through these different types of time. Use of film making techniques transform how we think about architecture, and enable us to produce an architecture that observes and responds to changes in time. In dealing with time we need also to consider unpredictability and chance.
Site We will use a strip of land across east London, which includes various different social conditions and use: a run-down east end high street, industrial parks, yuppy developments, transport links, the channels and streams of the river Lea. The future of this area remains undecided, influenced by the temporary boom of the Olympic games, vague plans for regeneration, and the liberating scruffiness of east London. What social programmes, and what forms of architecture might be proposed for such a site?
Programme and techniques The work of DS17 is based on each student evolving a year long design thesis: finding your own way of working, conducting research, and making architectural proposals, within an outline structure provided by the studio. We are particularly interested in the use of film and animation to represent architectural proposals within time, using slow motion/high speed, stop frame, green screen and story boards. Alongside film we emphasise the use of physical models, to provide a sense of materiality in contrast to the concern with the purely digital. This year will be divided into three parts: beginning with short projects examining different types of time within a specific site, moving on to the design of a large scale and complex intervention, and finally concentrating on producing high-quality film/model/drawings of the project.
Studio Trip There will be a studio trip to Madrid in late November for the Festival of Experimental Film, checking out some current architecture - and tapas, cervezas…
And …. we will be arranging workshops with filmmakers. This year there will be a sponsored prize for best film.