Degree Unit D Begins!
Degree Unit D started officially on Tuesday the 4th. A few changes this year from the past 2 years, unit staff member Antonio Lipthay has left us and moved back to Santiago, Chile with his wife Justine, (all the best guys!). The second change is we are joined by new unit staff member Thomas Modeen of Small Architecture (welcome aboard Tom)! The unit is very large this year with 20 students who come from a variety of countries around the globe.
Lightness-Houses: Case Studies for livable spaces of evanescence in public and private London!
“In this architecture of “lightness,” buildings become intangible, structures shed their weight, and facades become unstable, dissolving into an often luminous evanescence.”
Terence Riley
“Taken literally, the term private house might apply to any dwelling that shelters an individual or family, whether it is a palace or a tent. However, in Western culture the private house has been subject to tremendous interest and controversy in that it has been considered as a type of housing intended for a specific class of people: the bourgeoisie in Europe and the middle class in the United States. As such, the concept of the private house has become associated with a range of political, moral, social, and economic issues. “
Terence Riley
This year Unit D will be engaging with living in the city and how the ‘private house’ settles into these conditions. With a demand for new housing in the UK at higher densities how does the architectural icon of the ‘private house’ relate to the new urban demands?
With new patterns of living, boundaries between public and private realms that seem to shift constantly and the hybridization of work and leisure in peoples lives today how does the private house currently project these sensibilities and issues and can the ‘private house’ change or modify the urban landscape?
Transparency, luminosity, and veils, with these and additional themes that the unit develops we aim to redefine the relationship between the observer and the structure.