Tutors: Samuel Esses, Aurore Julien, Olivia Riddle, Sara Shafiei.

As evolving architectural, structural and environmental designers, our students develop skills that fundamentally respond to the challenges we face in the early part of the 21st century. Within their work, students are invited to speculate on the potential of creative expression across all three disciplines, challenging normative practices by positing unique and integrated research vehicles.

This year commenced with a focus on the work of Olafur Eliasson, an acclaimed environmental artist whose visually rich experiments explore intangible or ephemeral conditions within structural apparatus. In term one, students were invited to explore their own experiments in relation to an introductory site at Limmo Peninsula Ecology Park in east London. 1:1 devices were evolved to expose or record an atmospheric or environmental condition or change of state.

Our field trip to Marrakech extended this conversation between environment and site with students forming an appreciation of traditional and sustainable environmental design and other necessary protections from the harsh Moroccan climate. Self-directed programmes have been developed to respond to a range of sites in the Medina. Relating to this unique cultural and environmental context, students were able to further explore the relationship between climate, building fabric and structural approaches.