Model Environments

^{MArch Studio Catalogue Essay
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Related: Streamlines, Vortices & Plumes
Cover Image: Rachel Briglio}


This essay establishes the theoretical and environmental ambitions of a one year Master of Architecture studio, The Streamlines, Vortices & Plumes of the Blue Lagoon and Bath. The essay describes how environmental models act as bookends to the structuring of the studio. The first environmental model is a physical artefact that lead to a conception of architecture, tested first in the Blue Lagoon, Iceland, as environmental instruments. The second environmental model is a mental ideal, a radical speculation for a possible future in an improbable place. This framework enabled speculation about post-carbon futures in sites of thermal asymmetry (Rahm 2009), where heat is a resource in abundance due to the presence of either high grade (Blue Lagoon) or low grade (Bath) geothermal activity.