Design Studio (Two) Three BA Architecture
George Christofi & Ursula Dimitriou
George Christofi is an architectural designer focusing on hand drawing and narrative architecture as a tool of dialogue in contested spaces.
Ursula Dimitriou is an architect and director of Studio Syn, working in the composite space of architecture, art and academia. studiosyn.co.uk
DS(2)3: Archival Futurism: Performance of information
Students: Aisha Abdi, Eva Apsalone, Meryem Bennani, Pelagia-Danai Bitrou, Yoana Bozhinova, Ethan Coyl, Marija Denisko, Nadeen Elboushi, Melis Eroz, Izbel Kayim, Mikaela Koufou, Aryan Mahootchian Asl, Narmeen Parvaiz, Danilo Pinheiro, Aristote Raffeneau, Sarah Tolba
In an age where data flickers and fades, replacement overrules preservation, and the architectural fabric remains sedimented with memory, resisting the erasure of time, Archival Futurism is not simply a place to hold archives but an archive in itself. The architecture of tomorrow must anticipate the instability of the present, the urgency of preservation, and the politics of forgetting.
We challenge perception of time; rather than a linear progression, we instead imagine it as a layered
experience. Thus, our site, the Compuertas Canal in Camden, becomes a spine of decay and renewal. s temperatures rise and tides shift, so too must our civic imaginaries. How would human interaction with this site change by the year 2100? What, and who, survives the future? What is left behind, and by whom? The archive, once a static vault, now becomes a theatre of transition: public and porous, responsive and resistant.
The studio embarked on this task by creating a Monument to Now, an edifice to simultaneously stand as a translation of the present and an offering to the future. Semester 1 served as a springboard for students to develop a distinct mode of thought and new forms of representation. In Semester 2, these monuments evolved into building programmes, forming libraries, archives and performance centres.
Our studio challenges paradigms of social politics and community; it questions the conventional notions of site-specificity and displacement. The students interpreted the brief through narrative and in turn designed buildings for shelter, ritual, remembrance and revelation. These architectures challenged what it means to collect, conceal, protect and project. They choreographed information as performance; inscribed spatial sequences cast in light and shadow; and encoded material layers that may one day be performed as a script.
Guest Critics: Florian Brillet, Elizabeth Dow, Beatrice Frant, Hanna Gudny Hendrickson-Rebizant, James Hepper, Amy Kempa, Constance Lau, Kylie McGuiness, Tadeas Riha, Felix Sagaar, Laurie Schram, Raoul Tomaselli, Tia-Angelie Vijh, Nasios Varnavas, Silver Wang, Stamatis Zografos
Special thanks: Constance Lau, for the guidance and support, encouragement and dedication to supporting DS(2)3 through the year.
Archive of DS2.3’s work from previous years:
