Design Studio (Three) Five BA Architecture
Samantha Hardingham & John Walter
Samantha Hardingham is an independent architectural designer, writer, curator and scholar in the field of experimental practice and time-based architecture.
John Walter is a visual artist known for large-scale installations incorporating science communications and architectural discourse. He collaborates across disciplines and exhibits work internationally.
DS(3)5: The Diffraction Chalet
Students: Malak Almalkawi, Maria Boanta, Hattie Cosgrove, Danyaal Fox, Meryem Haydar, Melek Hatice Hussein, Eryk Karys, Josephine Low, Eleanor McSpadden, Andreas Nicou, Marianthi Pitikari, Usman Rahman, Mufsy Rahman, Ayesha Shahzad, Edwin Zhou
The Diffraction Chalet invites students to challenge traditional dualisms between the natural and the technological, the cultural and the material, and between human and non-human elements. Informed by architecture, art, and an expanded ecological framework, the studio investigates the notion of ‘naturalcultural practices’ – a hybrid understanding of nature and technology as an indivisible whole.
The town of Rochester in Kent and surrounding countryside is an area of deep historical and nationally strategic significance that has experienced centuries of change – most recently the loss of city status due to an administrative error in 1998. More picturesque features include an A-list of heritage assets: a cathedral, a castle and Charles Dickens’ Writing Chalet – a flat-pack building that arrived at his home in 54 packing cases as a gift from a friend in Austria. Sitting within a 10km radius is the new 800-acre Silverhand Vineyard in Luddesdown – now the largest vineyard in the U.K. and a small family run pick-your-own fruit farm that is diversifying its offer to adapt to current economic, social, agricultural and environmental needs and desires.
The students in DS(3)5 have studied the changes and witnessed the impact on communities and infrastructure. Working through three methodological movements: Sludge, Nudge and Kludge, they have explored both the physical and conceptual layers of the area and made spatial proposals that consider time-based design, life cycles and ecological thinking. All projects engage with the contemporary architectural challenge of what it means to be resilient.
Guest Critics: Paul Feeney (FAR), Matt Whittaker (Whittaker Parsons), Ella Daley (Selenky Parsons), Thomas Harris (Mulroy), Kester Rattenbury
Special thanks: The archivists at The British Museum’s Prints & Drawings Collection, Pippa and Bev Brown (White Finch, Broomfield Farm), Lisa Caleno and Abby Found (Medway Council and Eastgate House), Geoff Ettridge (aka Geoff Rambler), Maria Nottage and Gary Smith (Silverhand Estate), Sho Ito, and the University of Westminster’s Technical Studies team and Fabrication Lab.
Archive of DS3.5’s previous work
