Design Studio 23 Master of Architecture (MArch RIBA Part 2)

TUTORS: Richard Difford, François Girardin & David Scott

Material Archaeologies

Rooted in the history and ideas that define architecture as a discipline, DS23 explores how new technologies and techniques can provide creative possibilities for reinvention.

In the nineteenth century, architect and theorist Gottfried Semper proposed that the essence of architecture was to be found in ‘material motives’: the original expressions of material and assembly that characterised architectural creation. However, since Semper’s time, the tools with which we shape materials have been radically transformed. This year, DS23 took Semper’s thesis as a point of departure and challenged it by asking how contemporary technologies and media (both digital and physical) can allow us to re-imagine Semper’s classical understanding of material expression and tectonics.

Our investigation was situated in the Spanish city of Valencia. A city rich in architectural and cultural heritage, Valencia is also a major industrial port – continuing our studio’s multi-year study of European port cities. Built on the banks of the now diverted river Turia and the Mediterranean coast, the city’s diverse fabric provides a complex terrain for intervention and opportunities for creative architectural projects.

Valencia’s status as European Green Capital 2024 also provided a critical imperative lens for our work, inspiring us to foreground material provenance, life-cycle analysis and ecological sensitivity.

Seeded by material research and by analysis of the city, projects developed from the ground up. Responding directly to the vibrant cultural, commercial and industrial activities of Valencia, each student developed their own programme in response to the conditions and opportunities their analysis uncovered. Crucially, projects addressed the fragile balance between land and water in this coastal, historically flood-prone region, and sought to forge a more resilient relationship between architecture and its environment.