Tutors: Tabatha Harris-Mills, Adam Thwaites, Tumpa Fellows, Stefan Shaw, Paul Smith

Adam Thwaites: A passionate advocate of architectural technology as a distinct profession and route into a career in architectural design, Adam worked for a series of small architectural practices prior to his appointment as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster. Current research/areas of interest include the use of Timber (CLT) in construction within urban areas and medium to high-rise buildings; using vegetation in the built environment to mitigate air pollution; and energy efficient and sustainable construction methods.

Tabatha Harris Mills: With 17 years’ industry experience,Tabatha is a practicing Architectural Technologist who established her own studio in 2005. With a background in a variety of projects from residential to healthcare, she brings her industry experience into the studio setting. Teaching at all levels and excited about the future of the profession and the course,Tabatha is a passionate technologist focused on pushing educational boundaries within the specialism.

Tumpa Fellows: With over ten years’ experience working for various award-winning London-based architectural practices, Tumpa co-founded the inter-disciplinary practice Our Building Design and the charity Mannan Foundation Trust. She was awarded the RIBA Rising Star Award, 2017. She is currently a PhD researcher within the Experimental Practice research team, exploring practice-based research on co-designing architectural responses to climate change in Bangladesh.

YEAR 3: Borough Triangle Park

THIRD YEAR STUDENTS developed proposals for a new park and associated community facility for a site in the Borough/Elephant and Castle area of North Southwark. Students were asked to include within their proposals for this new green amenity an element(s) of ‘verticality’ and to consider how to create the experience of being in a larger and more interesting space within the confines of a relatively small area.

Students were asked to consider ‘thresholds’, ‘distance’, ‘privacy’, ‘exploration’ and ‘discovery’. Following on from last year’s project, students were asked to produce design proposals which might mitigate air, sound and light pollution within the site and wider area.

In addition, within this new landscape students were asked to design a ‘community facility’ of their choice which would be of benefit in terms of the psychological and/or physical health of this community, an area of central London subject to significant re-generation and densification.

This year-long project comprised two stages. In semester one, following on from a research and development process and feedback from tutors, students produced a concept/spatial design which was developed to approximate a planning proposal. In semester two, again informed by a research and development process, students developed working drawings and details of their individual designs.