Our studios in UCD address the challenge points of the climate emergency and housing, allowing our students build skills, tools, knowledge, but also criticality, inculcating an ability to design with thought and care, based on a solid foundation of knowledge.
This studio considered two buildings on UCD campus, asking how they might be repurposed for new life and uses. The buildings were surveyed and modelled and then five ‘users’ introduced, mostly from within UCD, with interesting activities which needed better or more prominent or expansive accommodation. These users established the briefs for students to pursue. In developing their strategies, students were asked to be conscious of the embodied energy and environmental conditions of the existing buildings and invited to consider carefully how to capitalise on and benefit from these latent conditions. Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn was a key text.
The project moved through successive stages. In the initial stages the students undertook studies of examples of reuse projects, then surveyed the buildings and made drawings and models.. The students subsequently divided into groups, one for each ‘user’ or brief, with both buildings represented among the group. Each group was led by a tutor, with oversight from the module co-ordinator. Input on techniques and methods, including digital modelling, was delivered by staff and current researchers.
This studio engaged closely with the existing fabric of the buildings being reused. Individual elements and their constituent materials were analysed for their value and potential. How to value and make use of existing materials became a driving factor for many design projects in the studio.
Working with existing building teaches a lot about building organisation, structure etc. – in some ways it brings students much closer to these issues than designing something from scratch would. Working with clients was very useful and motivating for students. It allowed their projects to be grounded in real concerns and needs, while actually increasing the level of ambition and imagination – i.e. it was not a curb to creativity.
