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 the role architecture should play in bridging between them.

ADS1: IN-FORMATION 


Roberto Bottazzi, Tobias Klein


How is the physical space of London going to be changed by the raising popularity of digital modes of communication, such as social networks and portable technologies? What role can architects play in manipulating these emerging infrastructures? This year ADS1 worked on developing prototypes for the next infrastructural revolution. These proposals imagine future situations in which buildings will react to their users, change over time, create artificial urban environments, and, most importantly, will act as catalysts for new modes of inhabiting the city.


ADS2: NEW POLITICS, NEW URBANISM

Clive Sall, Bobby Desai, Tom Teatum, Will Hunter


With Gordon Brown’s government increasingly in turmoil and a forthcoming general election set for May, we asked our design studio to start the academic year with a feeling of hope that, hey, things can only get better. Looking at two large-scale London sites, Kings Cross and Chelsea Barracks – not only separated geographically, but socially, culturally and economically – this collection of projects proposes alternative urban visions for the capital. While the architectural language employed by each student has evolved to be highly personal, connecting all the projects is an uncompromising pioneering spirit. With some highly provocative, others more propositional, each offers a glimpse of what our city might become.


ADS3: HORROR 


Fernando Rihl, Charlotte Skene Catling, Marc Frohn


Horror is a ‘thrill of awe’ or ‘imaginative fear’. We live in such safe environments that we seek danger, fear and horror as an antidote to boredom. Horror films, extreme sports, crime and natural disasters fascinate us. London is haunted by its accumulated memories and events; these ‘ghosts’ – and current social anxieties – have been the means to define a site and a programme. We have used horror as a pivot to stimulate a polemical argument classified by category, including: Social Horrors, Health + Biological, Religious + Political, Architectural and Environmental. 


We researched into horror to gain an understanding of the various architectural, sensory and narrative devices used for generating specific emotional responses. Our aim has been to develop an architecture that uses a new language of form and vocabulary of materials to activate a range of sensory reactions beyond the purely visual.


ADS4: IMMORTALITY 


Gerrard O’Carroll, Nicola Koller, Rosy Head 


This year we have explored the concept of ‘immortality’, speculating on the consequences of a society increasingly in denial of death. Youth, beauty, the media and celebrity fuel our desires. New technologies dazzle us with progress and hope, but in a future of increasing complexity, contradiction and dilemma, how might our desire for immortality manifest itself? What will the architectural consequences be? These projects question who will be the key characters with an immortal agenda: who are the new Olympians, how will they compete and what will be the pay-off? In our search for an architecture that resonates far into the future, we postulate what criteria will enable us to choose what or whom will become immortal.