The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the School of Art, Design and Architecture
Location Plymouth • Courses BA (Hons) Architecture, MArch • Head of school Andy Humphreys and Mathew Emmett (interim) • Full-time tutors 11 • Part-time tutors 13 • Students 238 • Staff to student ratio 1:10
Undergraduate
Dafyn Richards
Source:Dafyn Richards
Course BA(Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Social Prescribing (BA2 + 3 Vertical Studio)
Project title The Energy Exchange
Project description The Energy Exchange is at the heart of a masterplan designed to reverse fragmentation, dissolve topographical and socio-economic barriers and address shortfalls in energy production and access to healthcare. Using a former limestone quarry, later used to store fossil fuels, the project seeks to reverse past trends of extraction and distribution, processing biowaste from homes and businesses to generate biogas, which is fed back into the local grid, restoring local control over energy. On its north-south axis, perforated and glazed façades open the building up to the community it serves.
Tutor citation The way in which the project articulates the quarry as a public ground relandscaped for biodiversity is exceptional. Dafyn’s proposal understands the use of passive systems to provide comfort and become a beacon for sustainable power production. Andy Humphreys and Alex Aurigi
Postgraduate
Joshua Earl, Chris Trigg and Aaron Walkley
Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Centrifugal Forces, Centripetal Forces
Project title Choreographing a Landscape Performance
Project description The project speculates how the environment and form of Damietta on the River Nile will have changed by 2075, due to sea level rise and the loss of arable land and easy access to fresh water. It looks at how the place has prospered with the development of a new boat-building industry and a desalination strategy to embrace, rather than fight, the new environmental conditions. An urban landscape of bio-indication towers gauges the quality of the water alongside other structures such as water farms and fabrication halls.
Tutor citation This collaborative work shows insightful speculation on the future of a city and region threatened by rising sea levels. The proposition pursues a believable transition to a near future. The result is ambitious in reach, but subtle in tone. Robert Brown, Mathew Emmett and Sana Murrani
