Whether for reasons of size or our unique art and design surroundings, the RCA is a very special place to study architecture. We celebrate architecture as a distinct discipline. We also invite influence from product design, graphics and fashion, and in fact from any theme that might arise from any corner of the College. Looking at the city similarly, four Architectural Design Studios (ADSs) pursue urban themes with a cultural edge, creating a context for the thesis projects illustrated on the following pages. All of them are based in London, and reflect the life that Londoners lead or might want to lead. We believe in the link between the present and the future, and what role architecture should play in bridging between them.

ADS1: Elephant & Castle
Roberto Bottazzi and Tobias Klein

Rather than a city of objects, ADS1 is interested in continual change. By harnessing developments in digital practice we replace the static representation of the city with a more dynamic image based on flows and networks. We focus on Elephant & Castle as an area of London to be transformed by such a unifying vision. We also look for ways to highlight contradictions, and incorporate these into a seamless yet animated architectural whole.

ADS2: Big Crunch!
Bobby Desai, Clive Sall and Tom Teatum

What form might regeneration take in a post credit-crunch reality? In response we have explored strategies based on reappraising some high investment areas of East London – Canary Wharf, the O2 Dome and the Olympic Park to be. As an alternative to the developers’ speculative view, these projects suggest how a ground up economy might translate into building at the urban scale, and as a consequence reassert its identity.

ADS3: Tribes
Fernando Rihl and Charlotte Skene Catling

We ask what role tribalism has in the contemporary city. Our analysis has taken us through Hackney, a borough that accommodates a huge diversity of cultures and where new practices contribute towards new behaviours and shared codes. Architecture is normally tailored to social norms, but these projects explore the opposite. What happens when such tribes ask more from buildings, and would like architecture that gives shape to their desires?

ADS4: Hero
Gerrard O’Carroll, Nicola Koller and Ollie Alsop

In times of uncertainty it is often the hero, or the antihero, that channels our dreams. More taken by the latter, we investigate how today’s ‘heroic’ architecture can be turned on its head. We have defined anti-heroic architectural manifestoes, and explored their implications in a series of projects sited along London’s Jubilee Line. They visualise designs for new and highly specific local communities at some time in the near future.