Courses / projects

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MA S&D: Urban Ecology

Roland Karthaus and Alan Chandler

The city block is the pivotal scale in the city: the influence of architecture on the public realm can be understood, but it is also the unit that contains the 'DNA'of the city and is repeated imperfectly to form wider patterns.

'Layered' models are constructed of blocks in Bermondsey and Bloomsbury, to explore the symbiotic relationship between different development forms in London. The interaction between layers above and below ground and backwards through time reveal common forces that have produced the built form and from which they continue to emerge. This exploration is used as a counterpoint to a LEED ND analysis of the blocks to analyse the different dimensions of each place. Design is used as a tool to intervene in this analytical picture and generate fresh insights.

Design as a factor of Urban Ecology

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Live projects paper

Alan Chandler

"Education constrains variety, because (although it may open new vistas) it leads us to reduce the alternatives that we are prepared to entertain" Beer, S. (1975)

So, why do a live project?

Download: paper / slides

Presented at Live Projects conference, Queen's University, Belfast, 25th March 2011

Construction week

Alan Chandler, Sofie Pelsmakers, Roland Karthaus, Diploma tutors

with: muf, Article 25, Groundwork

Fourth year diploma students spend the first two weeks of term designing and constructing live projects. Each project is designed to deliver a new understanding of places, materials and the investigative role of collaborative design for real clients. Projects have been built in public parks, meanwhile sites, schools, housing estates, on campus and in testing labs, generating a widening body of work that continues to learn from what has been built before.

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