Design Studio (Three) Six BA Architecture
Victoria Watson & Kirti Durelle
Victoria Watson is Senior Lecturer. She is the director of Doctor Watson Architecture who design and publish work about architecture.
Kirti Durelle is an architect and a PhD student in architectural history at The Bartlett, UCL, where he also teaches.
Victoria and Kirti have recently co-edited a book about the studio, published this year under the title Finite Impossibilities. Their book is part of the School’s Studio as Book series, and captures the theoretical premise of the studio and project-based work between 2019 and 2023.
DS(3)6: Architectural Dialectics
Students: Matthew Adey, Selen Bayraktar, Esteban Bedoya Bedoya, Daile Cernecktye, Kieran Edgecock, Noah Hohbach, Aiza Iftikhar, Nina Klodt, Ayat Laymi, Carlota Monjardin De Aranda, Zahra Muhith, Zaina Nabi, Leticia Siles Cupe, Andrine Sivertsen, Vania Talwar, Elina Taraldsoey, Enida Xhaferaj
Architecture has its own way of thinking that is inherently dialectical, which is why it has been able to prevail over the vast sweep of historical time. Architecture is a form of art, which means it is incapable of destroying anything without at the same time creating something new. To engage in the art of architecture obliges us to recognise, understand and confront the geopolitical forces of dissolution currently at work in the world we live in; and it obliges us to find a way to harness those forces, converting them into a source of energy that can drive into the future – for better or for worse!
DS(3)6 selects its places of work very carefully, identifying a geopolitical location where the forces of dissolution have set in, making it ripe for research, experimentation and, ultimately, the formulation of architectural proposals. This year we returned to work in London’s financial district, famously known as the City.
In Semester 1 we studied the traces of historical buildings that once stood on key locations in the City, and used them as the basis for design research experiments, building models and making plans for the future. e called this activity ‘Curiosity and Babble’, which led us to Semester 2 where we moved to the activity of ‘Designing a Building’.
Remaining in the City, we now turned to a site at Crutched Friars, close to Fenchurch Street Station. ased on interests and themes that had arisen through their experimental work in Semester 1, each student was asked to formulate a programme for an imaginary institution, to research and develop appropriate technologies for its realisation, and to represent their design process and proposal in a lucid and compelling portfolio of drawings and models.
Guest Critics: Anthony Boulanger, Harry Clark, Tom McLucas, Joshua Ricketts, Guy Sinclair, Sanna Wennberg
Special thanks: Lee Higson & Sven Heimann for a rich and instructive visit to the EPA studio, Alessandro Toti & Thomas McLucas for contributing essays, and Lindsay Bremner & Harry Charrington for facilitating the publication of Finite Impossibilities.
Archive of DS3.6’s work from previous years:
