University of Edinburgh, 2019-20
Co-instructor: Simone Ferracina
Studio Catalogue
In this one-year Master of Architecture (MArch) vertical studio, students worked with highly calibrated environmental models as a means to develop a conception of architecture as environmental instruments. We worked between the controlled environment of the studio and the curious thermal environments of the geothermally-active Blue Lagoon, Iceland and Bath, England.
Both the Blue Lagoon and Bath are sites of strange, fluid material presence. They are both contexts of ‘thermal asymmetry’-- places of unexpected, visceral climatic variability. The built landscape of the two sites have inverted figure-ground relationships; the Blue Lagoon is an analogical landscape to Bath’s, an extreme version of the curious climatic inversation possible when contrasting thermal conditions (and their associated programmes) meet. Students developed projects that harnessed and recalibrated the thermodynamic underpinnings of both sites, exploring the role of heat sources and material sinks as spatial drivers.