The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the School of Art and Design
Location Coventry | Courses BSc (Hons) Architecture, MArch | Head of school Nick Gorse | Full-time tutors 7 | Part-time tutors 26 | Students 285 | Staff to student ratio 1:8
Undergraduate
Mohammad Zahidi
Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Comprehensive Design
Project title To dwell is curiosity. To dwell is human
Project description Responding to global activist initiative REhabit’s plans to build a REhabitarary, a building to transfer the ‘memory of the planet’ to future generations, this proposal explores little interactions between individuals: timeless experiences and happy accidents. It discusses how the architectural language of its site in Digbeth, Birmingham, was created from the industrial era in which it was built with its current creative communities hidden among the ‘soot’ of its past. Digbeth is like a book, layered brick on brick with no room for illustrations or dialogue. This project becomes the ‘rabbit hole’ through which one enters Digbeth’s hidden wonderland.
Tutor citation This project challenges building and dwelling practices and responds to our need to dwell as a bonding process. It demonstrates simplicity of construction, sustainability of materials, circularity of process, flexibility of use and change, and diversity of options. Hossein Sadri
Postgraduate
Nadezhda Semashko
Course MArch
Studio/unit brief Public Luxury and Private Sufficiency
Project title The Right to Life
Project description This project aims to reinstate the idea of public luxury in the built form by investigating the living conditions of asylum seekers in the UK. It began by looking at definitions of ‘luxury’ and ‘public luxury’, and how these could be transformed into a built form. While luxury is a desire to possess or experience something, public luxury is a place where everyone is welcome with the same rights and freedom, rejecting a culture of consumption. This idea of uniform continuity and equal access is inspired by Superstudio’s vision of the built environment: a continuous grid appearing in many of the studio’s works representing a platform for all.
Tutor citation This proposal follows careful observation of ‘arrival infrastructures’ in Newham, demonstrating a commitment to rigorous and empathetic research methodologies that forefront the needs of the served community with a focus on observed everyday experiences. Sebastian Hicks
