Design Studio (Three) Three Architecture BA (Hons)

TUTORS: Constance Lau & Stephen Harty

Complexity and Contradiction: A critical History of Collecting

The studio is defined by the spaces of future knowledge exchange and acquisition, embedded in physical, intellectual and virtual landscapes.

DS[3]3’s interest in London institutions continued, focusing this year on the National Gallery and the Project Domani extension that marks its second century. Looking beyond the competition brief, the process-driven design methodology of a ‘questioning and unlimiting’ approach and emphasis on the creative user starts with ideas raised in Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966). The main argument concerning critical histories of collecting began with explorations of a contemporary Cloud Atlas where the workings of a physical historian and material collections are projected towards ideas of data storage.

This formed the basis of innovative discussions pertaining to futuristic notions of culture where knowledge exchange, negotiations and acquisitions are embedded in datascapes of public/private, local/international, analogue/digital networks of a virtual cloud. The resulting proposals demonstrate multi-faceted openness that reinforce the necessity for new progressive frameworks that encapsulate and ignite cultural institutions of and for the future in Expo 500: and The Theatre of Auctions.