Architectural Association School of Architecture

Richa Muchia, Propagating a Green Corridor (Diploma Unit 14; tutors Theo Lorenz, Peter Staub, Neil Davidson)
The project deals with the integration of landscape and urban infrastructure in relation to the proposed Thames Gateway bridge. The proposal is a strategy for the extension of a greenspace network creating a multi-layered habitat and providing a green solution to various political and physical problems.
A central theme of the project is architectural representation in the public realm. The project proposed a more direct form of representation in order to open up the design process to public debate and participation.

Yi Cheng Pan, Resisting the Generic Empire (Diploma Unit 6; tutors Chris Lee, Sam Jacoby)
The project in Marina Bay in Singapore, a 139-hectare area of reclaimed land, challenges the sustainability of difference and participation in the city in the age of corporate domination through challenging issues of control and flexibility in urban planning. My conjecture is that localised and intensive control is necessary to enforce and cultivate freedom rather than leading to its total negation. Flexibility and difference are made possible by not reserving each plot for a single large corporation, but instead by creating difference through absorbing diverse types and stakeholders, from budget shop or housing plots to mega investment skyscraper plots.

Jean Taek Park, Space of Intensities (Diploma Unit 3; tutors Pascal Schöning, Rubens Azevedo, Julian Löffler)
The project explores the dynamics of water currents and its water-spray spatiality around Cap Martin, the site of Le Corbusier, and overlooking the cabanon he built for himself. The process involves making a film that investigates the intensification of experience from the calm side of the site to the rough. From the data, a network of grooves and tunnels carved into the rocks is proposed to accentuate the behaviour of the waves as they hit the shore.
The technical study looked at how to create uncertainty of time in sequences of splashes. The principal consideration is the changing intensities of splashes with time.

Pavlos Sideris, Membrane Organisation (Diploma Unit 4; tutors Michael Hensel, Achim Menges)
The basic function of the membrane is to provide for the integrity of the cell – to separate outside from inside. In doing so, biological membranes perform intelligent filtering of substances and information across their threshold. The development of membrane assemblies here is in some ways different, as it does not clearly divide an inside from an outside, but rather provides for a smooth spatial and environmental transition between degrees of enclosure and exposure.