BSc Architectural Technology Year 2

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Tutors: Hocine Bougdah, Tabatha Mills and Adam Thwaites

Hocine Bougdah is a Senior Research and Teaching Fellow with three decades’ academic and industrial experience. His research interests cover topics aligned with sustainability in design and include low energy strategies; culture and heritage in the sustainable built environment; users’ spatial experience-focused design; and issues of rapid urbanisation/globalisation and their impact on cities.

Tabatha Mills is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader at Westminster where she has taught for 16 years. With 18 years’ industry experience as a practicing Architectural Technologist, she established her own studio in 2005. With a background in projects from residential to healthcare, she brings industry experience into the design studio and is focused on pushing educational boundaries within the specialism.

Adam Thwaites is a passionate advocate of Architectural Technology as a distinct profession and route into a career in architectural design. Adam is Senior Lecturer and worked for a series of small architectural practices prior to moving into education. His research interests include the use of timber (CLT) in construction, demountable structures, ‘de-growth’ and energy efficient and sustainable construction methods.

The Peckham Arch: A community-inspired local development

Building on last year’s Peckham project, we set out to explore a community-inspired project in response to the local authority’s attempts to develop the Peckham Arch area into a gentrified mixed-use development. In doing so, we wanted to see what role a designer can play in addressing socio-economic and climate inequalities.

What ensued out of the recent pandemic has highlighted the power and potential of community action to act locally to raise or address the concerns of local communities affected by socio-economic, racial, housing or health inequalities. Our initial research tools included community engagement approaches, ethnographic practices and site analysis to explore the local context.

The findings were translated into a series of diagrams that highlighted the opportunities and challenges associated with developing the site. The students made use of these findings and the initial proposed brief to develop their own design brief for a community-based facility offering the opportunity to host social, commercial and cultural activities.

The initial proposals put forward in semester one were further developed in semester two with a view to offer technical resolution to the architectural proposals whilst keeping in mind the sustainable dimension of what is being proposed.

In synopsis with the Technologies of Architecture 2 module, fabrication and testing of technical designs created a deeper understanding of passive strategies and applications.

Archive of Architectural Technology Year 2’s work from previous years:

BSc Architectural Technology Y2 2016-2017

BSc Architectural Technology Y2 2018-2019

BSc Architectural Technology Y2 2019-2020

BSc Architectural Technology Y2 2020-2021