Andrew Boughton Research 2025

Cyprus Summer School and Workshop

A collaborative workshop and summer school was organised jointly by Westminster’s School of Architecture + Cities and BAU Cyprus University in northern Cyprus. With the dual objectives of enabling knowledge exchange around developmental problems and creating an exploratory collaboration, the workshop was attended by architecture and engineering students from four different universities across twelve nations, all beyond Europe. Participants were drawn from professional chambers of architects and engineers, with several local and international academics, including four lecturers from A+C. Over several days of site-based study around the subject of sustainability interventions at differing scales, the event culminating in a presentation of group work.

Northern Cyprus presents a microcosm reflecting globally-encountered challenges, particularly in terms of developmental practice, framed by its newly-colonised status and post-conflict dislocation. Although characterised as inward investment in the tourism sector, the north of the Island of Cyprus has seen disproportionate and rapid growth of residential developments. Largely for foreign use with an associated in-migration, this has resulted in unsustainable patterns of development with little consideration for infrastructure or environmental consequences. 

The purpose of the Summer School was twofold: to explore what sustainable forms of development might look like; and, in practical sessions in the northern coastal zone, to conceptualise opportunities for interventions while considering the large scale coastal perspective. A third and important element of the workshop was to consider, at a very local level, the contributions that the unique but disappearing rural heritage of the island might make to more sustainable patterns of tourism.