Design Studio 10 Master of Architecture (MArch RIBA Part 2)

Toby Burgess & Arthur Mamou-Mani

Toby Burgess is a lecturer at University of Westminster. He has previously taught the Architectural Association’s Design and Make Course and the Advanced Digital Design Master’s at London Metropolitan University, with a focus on the funding and delivery of live student projects, designed and fabricated using digital design tools.

Arthur Mamou-Mani is the director of his award-winning architectural studio Mamou-Mani, specialising in digital parametric design. He is a lecturer at the University of Westminster and founded the digital fabrication laboratory, Fab.Pub.

DS10: Cities in the Sky

Yr1: Sanaa Bijlani, Nicole Zoe Freeman, Fin Gilbert, Chris Hegg, Joe Lilley, Erika Loustric, Ava MacGregor, Mohammad Nikan Arghandehpour, Fani Petrova, Anna Semenova, Hasan Uddin

Yr2: David Akindipe, Tobias Hobbs, Freya O’Donoghue, Shivani Panchal, Muhammad Shaukat Ali

In 2024–2025, DS10 invited students to co-design a playful, biomimetic and eco-parametric tower using AI, offering a platform for radical creativity, that merged sustainability, community and digital innovation into the architecture of tomorrow.

Drawing inspiration from figures like Kengo Kuma, Michael Pawlyn, Zaha Hadid, Frei Otto, and Paolo Soleri, the studio explored how natural systems and emerging technologies could inform sustainable urban design. The aim was to create a vertical mini-city – an arcology – that combined ecological performance with social engagement.

In Brief 01, students constructed timber models as tall as themselves using materials such as reclaimed wood, bamboo, or rattan. These models explored structural systems influenced by fractals, biological logic and tensile geometries, seeking a balance between expressive form and structural efficiency. Each project included a digital parametric twin to simulate variations and prepare proposals for the Burning Man Festival for which Joe Lilley was awarded $20K funding and will be building with other students over the summer.

Brief 02 asked students to develop their models into vertical, self-sustaining cities. Inspired by Soleri’s arcology principles, these towers integrated housing, education, recreation and public space into hyper-dense forms on TfL land in London.

AI tools such as Midjourney, Runway and ChatGPT played a central role in generating biomimetic forms, optimising performance and animating real-time environmental responses. Towers were designed to respond to wind, light and human activity, enhancing their relationship with inhabitants and the surroundings.

The studio also visited Oslo, Norway to study innovative timber architecture and go to Snøhetta as well as the world’s tallest timber building.

Students became editors of the DS10 blog wewanttolearn.net, showcasing their work to a global audience.

Guest Critics: Roberto Lopato, Urangua Sodnomjamts, James Solly, Jean Whitehouse, Kevin Wong

Special thanks: AKT Engineers for their structural advice for Joe Lilley’s Burning Man art project 2025