Photograph by Paul Smoothy

Exhibition @ Christ Church Spitalfields, London

Sublime Flesh brings together, for the first time, new designs for contemporary spiritual spaces developed by students in Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. A collection of research projects located in international cities including Istanbul, Rome, Turin, Lisbon, Havana and Miami, each explores a unique sense of sacredness and the Sublime. The complex nature of these themes is articulated in a series of exquisite models that express a new ornamental, spatial and technological approach and also a reconsidered religious and cultural dimension for contemporary architecture design.

Sacred Spaces have long been the apotheosis of architectural genius; buildings created by some of the greatest names in architectural history in which stylistic and spatial innovations are revealed and new technologies tested and developed. The theory and theology of Sacred Spaces holds renewed interest in the current historic moment where religious faith is under intense scrutiny.

Sublime Spaces are primarily associated with experience bound up in the powers of nature, but as nature has changed throughout the ages, so has our sense of the Sublime. Expressing grand passions and utopian ideas, Sublime Spaces illuminate the emotional involvement between the creator and the user of architecture spaces.

Housed in the Nave of Christ Church Spitalfields and displaying designs for churches and other spiritual spaces, the exhibition will offer a direct dialogue between historic and contemporary architecture. The exhibition will be accompanied by a symposium in which key architects, historians and critics discuss contemporary architecture in the context of the exhibition. Speakers are Sir Peter Cook, Marjan Colletti, Rev Rod Green, Robert Harbison, Ali Mangera, Yael Reisner, and Marcos Cruz (chair).

Curation: Marcos Cruz with Lisa-Raine Hunt
Exhibition design: marcosandmarjan with Unit 20 (Aleksandrina Rizova, Luca Rizzi Brignoli, Leonhard Clemens, Amanda Bate, Richard Beckett, Linda Hagberg, Wendy Teo)
Collaboration: Johan Voordouw and Wanda Yu-Ying Hu
Manufacturing of Exhibition Tables: Special thanks to Emmanuel Vercruysse - CAD/CAM workshop, Bartlett School of Architecture UCL; and Guan Lee - Grymsdyke Farm + MESA Studio
Manufacturing of models: DMC London, Bartlett School of Architecture UCL
Media: M.A.D. London
Participants: Jay Williams, Sam White, Johan Voordouw, Hannes Mayer, Laurence Dudeney, Kasper Ax, Yousef Al-Mehdari, Yaojen Chuang, Vicky Patsalis, Jason Chan, Kenny Tsui, Tobias Klein, Jenna Al-Ali, Aleksandrina Rizova, Luca Rizzi Brignoli, Leonhard Clemens, Amanda Bate, Richard Beckett, Linda Hagberg, Wendy Teo.
Speakers during symposium: Peter Cook, Ali Mangera, Marjan Colletti, Robert Harbison, Yael Reisner, Rev Rod Greene and Marcos Cruz (chair)

Opening Reception Monday 29 March 19.00-21.00
Exhibition Continues 30 March to 11 April
Opening Hours Mon-Sat 11.00-18.00, Sun 13.00-18.00
(The exhibition is closed on 2 and 3 April for Good Friday and Easter Saturday)
Exhibition Symposium Tuesday 6 April 14.30-18.30
Film Screening Friday 9 April 19.00-20.00

Film Screening : Friday 9th of April 19:00 to 20:00

Experimental Architecture Short Films by Wanda Yu-Ying Hu

A series of short films exploring new ways of perceiving architecture by focusing on the experiential qualities of space

Urban Framing - Rivington Place
ProHD, 16:9, 5mins38secs, 2008
Blank Slate Digital Shorts, sponsored by UK Film Council and B3 Media
Screened at Urban World Film Festival, New York, 2008; Blank Slate promotional tour around the UK, 2008; East End Film Festival, London, 2009
An experimental documentary about Rivington Place London, designed by Adjaye Associates. In this film the building itself acts as narrator, documenting an unspoken conversation between its façade and urban context, alongside a visual dialogue with users of the building. The dual character of the building’s interior and exterior, created by an enigmatic façade, is reflected in the shooting and editing style of the film; while the outside is dynamic and colourful, the inside is contemplative and monochromatic. The flux and flow of interwoven images and accompanying sound throughout the film provides an unexpected cinematic experience that challenges the viewer to look more intimately at the architecture encountered on a daily basis in our cities.

Stephen Lawrence Centre
SD, 4:3, 5mins8secs, 2007
Shown at David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, 2008
This documentary about David Adjaye’s Stephen Lawrence Centre, made during the building construction stage, aims to unravel architectural ‘truth’ without relying on the glossiness and cleanliness of a newly finished building. The film explores the way in which the building creates a singular dialogue with the surrounding urban context (the DLR and Canary Wharf in the distance) and natural environment (the park next to the site). Highlighting specific interior features such as the glazing in the reception areas (designed by artist Chris Ofili), the dynamic shape of the studio space, and the vivid colours used in a variety of circulation spaces, the film develops a rich experience of the unique character of the building.

19 Hanover Square (Lend Lease Europe HQ)
SD, 4:3, 3mins30secs, 2007
Shown at London Open House - 19 Hanover Square, 2007
This short film documents the interior of Fletcher Priest’s refurbishment of Lend Lease European Headquarters in central London. Beginning in the public areas of the ground floor reception, the film then moves to private upper workplaces; spaces that are rather more secluded but are nonetheless catalysts for change, innovation and collaboration. The film focuses on sustainable design solutions implemented by the architects, including the exposure of the existing concrete frame, recycling bins, natural recyclable materials, and a bamboo veneered wall that links several meeting rooms to the reception.

The Red Lizard - 75th Lisbon Book Fair (web edit)
SD, 4:3, 1mins27secs, 2009
Partly broadcasted on RTPN – ‘Estação das Artes’, Porto, Portugal, 2009
A documentary exerpt exploring marcosandmarjan’s project for the 75th Lisbon Book Fair 2005. Visually describing the tectonic and formal complexity of the auditorium and cafeteria and comparing the use and atmosphere of inside and outside spaces, film footage is complemented by conceptual explanations from one of the designing architects. The film reveals the rather special (very low-tech) construction method and the animal-like features of the building, tracing the inhabitation of public areas at different times of the day and observing the way the building relates to its site, with extraordinary views over Lisbon and the river Tejo.

Station
SD, 4:3, 1mins30secs, 2005
Part of 90 Second Challenge: Viewing Architecture Through a Lens
Screened at Watershed, Bristol, 2005
This short film tells the story of the Station, an art gallery that is hosted in the old fire station of Bristol harbour. The interview with artist Louise Short, who runs the gallery, is the main soundtrack through which the conceptual and historic significance of the place is explained. The images of the station and its surroundings follow her explanations, often using her words to open up unexpected directions.

I remember the sound of raining
SD, 4:3, 4mins42secs, 2003
Pinch Punch exhibition screened at the Cobden Club, London, 2003
This film narrates two parallel journeys, one by bus and the other by tube, from Central London to the Cobden Club in West London, where the film was subsequently screened. Exploring the subjectivity and ephemeral nature of our perceptions during travel in urban environments, it observes surreal associations (with roasted ducks hanging from shop windows in China Town) that we experience in our daily life.

I forgot the image of movement
SD, 4:3, 28secs, 2003
This fleeting film creates dream-like layered imagery of a sci-fi city. Filmed and edited directly on a Bolex 16mm B/W film camera inside Westminster tube station in London, the work was transferred to a video format and subsequently coloured.

Up into the unknown / Back into the real world
SD, 4:3, 5mins5secs, 2006
Screened at Architecture Film Festival, Rotterdam, 2009
An experimental documentary about the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria, designed by Spacelab Cook-Fournier GmbH (Sir Peter Cook and Colin Fournier) and short-listed for the prestigious Stirling prize 2004. The film is composed of two distinct parts which explore the architecture from two very different yet complementary angles; the first is more dynamic, even hectic and rooted at ground level, the second is more contemplative and peaceful, transcending the building to reach towards the sky. In both parts the façade, the ‘skin’ plays a crucial role in explaining how this ‘alien’ building relates to its surrounding urban context. The two movements together create an interwoven composition of image and sound, constructed from a site-recorded soundtrack, offering a rhythmic sense of the visual changes on the site and offering an atmospheric experience of the space.

Sublime Flesh Symposium : Tuesday 6th of April

soon: WATCH VIDEO PODCASTS OF THE SYMPOSIUM

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14.30 Welcome by Lisa-Raine Hunt

14.35 Introduction by Marcos Cruz

14.50 Introduction by Rev Rod Green

15.00 Marjan Colletti - Exuberance

15.30 Yael Reisner - Emotional Architecture

16.00 Robert Harbison - Hawksmoor and the Baroque

16.30 Ali Mangera - Knowledge and Light

17.00 Sir Peter Cook - The Temptations of the Spooky

17.30 Round table discussion and question time

Marcos Cruz is the Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL and Unit Master of Diploma/March Unit 20. His teaching activity as researcher, tutor and critic has been carried out at numerous international universities, including major commitments at UCL, University of Westminster, UCLA. His research work won the RIBA President’s Research Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis in 2008. Cruz is also co-founder of marcosandmarjan and editor of Flesh and Vision (Forum da Maia, 2000), Unit 20 (University of Valencia/ACTAR, 2002), Unpredictable Flesh (Mimesis, 2004), marcosandmarjan – Interfaces/Intrafaces (SpringerWienNewYork, 2005), AD – Neoplasmatic Design (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), and PhD Research Projects 2009 (Bartlett, UCL, 2009).

Marjan Colletti is co-founder of marcosandmarjan and currently a lecturer in architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL (Unit Master Unit 20), and the University of Westminster (Unit Master DS10). He was guest professor and design instructor at various European, US and Asian institutions. His PhD on Digital Poetics (Bartlett UCL); the current AD issue Exuberance (Wiley); the book marcosandmarjan: Interfaces/Intrafaces (SpringerWienNewYork); and the print collection 2&1/2D Twoandahalf Dimensionality (Bucher Hohenems) all favour a poetic digital avant-garde developed through 2D, 3D software and advanced manufacturing technologies.

Yael Reisner has a PhD in architecture from the RMIT in Melbourne, a Diploma and RIBA Part 2 from the Architectural Association in London, and a BSc in biology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Practising in London, she currently teaches internationally after nine years of teaching architectural design at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL (MArch and Studio Master of Diploma Unit 11). Her book, Architecture and Beauty: Conversations with Architects About a Troubled Relationship written with Fleur Watson is to be published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd in 2010.

Robert Harbison is Professor of Architectural History at London Metropolitan University and the author of many books, including The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable (MIT Press, 1991), Eccentric Spaces (MIT Press, 2000), Reflections on Baroque (Reaktion, 2002) and Travels in the History of Architecture (Reaktion, 2009).

Ali Mangera studied Structural and Environmental engineering at the University of Leeds completing a Masters degree at Pennsylvania State University, USA in 1991. Ali then studied architecture at the Architectural Association and London Met and has worked at Skidmore Owings and Merril Chicago and Zaha Hadid London. In 2002, Ali founded Mangera Yvars Architects with partner Ada Yvars Bravo. The practice has offices in London and Barcelona with several international projects. Current projects include a University and campus scheme in Doha, an Office Tower in Dubai Business Bay and a Civic Centre in North London.

Peter Cook is a founder member of Archigram. His architectural studies at Bournemouth College of Art were followed by those at the Architectural Association in London where he subsequently taught from 1964 to 1990. From 1984 to 2004 he was Professor of Architecture at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt, and from 1990 to 2006 Bartlett Professor and Chair of the Bartlett UCL. As member of Archigram he was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. He has also received the Jean Tschumi Medal of the UIA, the RIBA Annie Spink award. He is a Commandeur d’ordre des arts et letters of France, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2007. He has published innumerable books and his work has been exhibited worldwide.

Sponsored by:
Bartlett School of Architecture UCL
Christ Church Spitalfields
Grymsdyke Farm + Mesa Studio
DMC London
Building Design Partnership

For further information contact Lisa-Raine Hunt 020 7426 5363 arts@ccspitalfields.org

Christ Church Spitalfields is located on the corner of Commercial Street and
Fournier Street, London E1 6LY. Nearest tubes are Liverpool St and Aldgate East.

Sublime Flesh London Symposium Live

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The venue: Christ Church Spitalfields

Sublime Flesh Exhibition Opening

Sublime Flesh Exhibition Opening:

Welcome speech by curator Dr. Marcos Cruz

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Yousef Al-Mehdari

Ornamental Transfigurations - Two Chapels for St. Catherine in Malta and Istambul, 2008

Explorations into spiritual experiences of the body and religious rituals practiced in sacred spaces have been developed into Two Chapels for St. Catherine situated along processional routes in Malta and Istanbul.

The various designs attempt to investigate the possibilities of visual and theoretical representations of a collective ‘body’ in its abstract and figural form. By blurring the boundaries between the animate and inanimate a new form of ‘body baroque’ is achieved - where vortices of limbs ossify into Cathedrals; and overlapping anatomies become passages and valves. These ornamental transfigurations aim to rediscover a new figural ornamentation in contemporary architecture as a revived mode of narrative. 

Yousef Al-Mehdari is an architectural designer with both Maltese and Kuwaiti background. He studied architecture at the University of Greenwich before gaining his Diploma and Masters degree from the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. His Diploma and Masters work was featured and reviewed in the American Building Blog and exhibited at the Dreamspace Gallery, London, ‘Perdidos’ exhibition at the COAM, Madrid and London Eight exhibition at Sci Arc in Los Angeles. He worked for CRAB (Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham) in London and is currently a project architect at LASSA Architects in Brussels. Yousef is also an assistant tutor at the Architectural Association in London.

Aleksandrina Rizova | Luca Rizzi Brignoli | Amanda Bate | Linda Hagberg | Richard Beckett | Leonhard Clemens | Wendy Teo

A new façade for the Ermida N.S.Conceição, Lisbon 2010

This is an ongoing project for a new façade for the Ermida N.S.Conceição, which is an old chapel recently reconverted into a prestigious cultural centre in Lisbon. Being a small but historically relevant chapel, the building is dwarfed by its proximity to the famous Jeronimous Monastery and also due to its unremarkable outer presence. During the Great Lisbon Earthquake it was strongly damaged, having lost its Baroque interior and also some of its outer decorations.

Consequently, the aim is to re-establish the dignity of the chapel with a grand new outer façade. The construction of this is due in December 2010.

Aleksandrina Rizova is a Bulgarian student who is currently a 4th year student in Diploma Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. She took her Bachelors degree at Kingston University, having been awarded the Komfort Award at RIBA President's medals in 2008.

Amanda Bate is English with a mixed Chinese background. She is currently a 4th year student in Diploma Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.

Leonhard Clemens is a German student who was taught at the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart (AdBK) and worked for Graft Architects Berlin before moving to London. He received the Rudolf Lodders-Prize in 2009 and since 2008 he is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Studentenförderung of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. He is now a 4th year student in Diploma Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.

Linda Hagberg is Swedish. She took her BSc studies in architecture at the University of Westminster and RMIT, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, before joining the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where she is currently in her 4th year.

Luca Rizzi Brignoli is an Italian student who trained in architecture and urbanism at the POLITECNICO DI MILANO before joining the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where he is currently a 4th year student. He worked for Jacobs Webber in London, Aarstiderne Architecter in Copenhagen, and DP Architects in Singapore. He won the second prize in a competition in Milan, Italy (AAA Architetti Cercasi).

Richard Beckett is an English student who previously trained at the University of Westminster. He is currently a 4th year student in Diploma Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.

Wendy Teo is a Chinese Malaysian architectural designer who graduated from FengChia University and National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. Her work was awarded several international prizes, including the 1st Prize in Holcim Sustainable Architecture Competition (Next generation category) and Distinction work in Revit Cup Architectural Competition of China in 2008. She is currently a 4th year student in Diploma Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.

Laurence Dudeney

Monument and Continuity - Mausoleum for the House of Savoy, Turin 2009

The project for a new mausoleum for the House of Savoy in Turin manifests the family’s ideologies and the relationships of succession between each ruler within the dynasty. Inspired by the symbol of dynastic continuity, the Savoy Knot is used to tie together the lineage of the Royal family with a line and points. These are ideological and represent military associations, influential marriages and religious dedication. The result is a progression of spaces that traverse through the building in which the continuity of lineage is used to reflect generational relationships between individual members of the family.

The design for this mausoleum was driven by a brake-away approach from traditional monumental compositions that historically relied on heaviness and permanence. Instead, the project looks at the convolution of mortality and history within a temporal understanding of death and the Sublime, being boundless and continuous.

Laurence Dudeney is an English Part II architect who studied architecture at The University of Liverpool before moving to London where he gained his Diploma at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. He is currently working for Foster and Partners.

Yaojen Chuang

Chronicles of a Cure - Congregation Centre, Miami 2008

The new Miami Congregation Centre is located on one of the main canals of South Beach Miami. It explores the ephemeral and poly-sensorial experiences of the body, based on Jean Cocteau's 1952 book Opium.

Through an ongoing research into digital algorithms and simulations, a series of ‘spatial collages’ were created to capture transient phenomena, such as the disintegration of the boundaries between the body and its surrounding, and a sense of spiritual weightlessness in space.

The design is derived from a series of studies that interpret the concept of ‘architecture of moods’, playing with the theatrical experience of sacredness, the elasticity of spaces, and the spatial formulation of perceptions and senses. The dramatic scale and purposely manipulated experiences of the building aim to engage the viewers by appealing to all the senses, with an underlying objective of promoting coherence between both the physical and psychological wellbeing of the inhabitants.

Yaojen Chuang is originally from Taipei, Taiwan. He studied his BSc and Diploma in architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL, graduating in 2008. His Diploma work was featured in Building Design, Blueprint Magazine and AD Architectural Design. He recently exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and Dreamspace Gallery in London and is currently working for Alison Brooks Architects in London.

Jenna Al-Ali

Recognising Ineffable Spaces - Beyond the Forces of Nature, Geneva 2009

In and Ex-plosion

Architectural forces in Nature

The project is an interdisciplinary investigation into notions of the ineffable, aiming to understand the role of indeterminate, irrational and even unexplainable forces in architectural space.

These empirical experiments play with the 'interplay of two opposing forces and the creation of space between them'. Nature’s fugacious way of obtaining order from chaos can also be likened to a more spontaneous closing of two opposing boundary conditions into a loop. This loop represents the most erratic but shortest possible route.

Drawing from Victor Schauberger's experiments into natural forces, attempts were made to inflate the boundary of the loop in order to create spatial conditions that demonstrate this turbulence between the forces while still displaying a navigable route through. The clearest illustration of the loop is the spiralling geometric form caused by the implosion of opposing forces: a quasi-sublimation of architectural space.

Jenna Al-Ali is British from an Iraqi background. She studied her BSc and Diploma at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where she graduated with First Class Honours in 2009. She is currently working for CRAB (Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham) in London.

Samuel White

Chapel Extension at Wells Cathedral, Somerset 2004

Wells Cathedral is a hybrid space. When by the end of the thirteenth century Catholicism had spread unevenly through England and its class society, the local masons who built the Cathedral still carried much of their Pagan ancestry into their work. They created a mix of local pagan characters juxtaposed with more traditional Christian iconography. The Cathedral was also built throughout many centuries, which gave it a rather eclectic (and thus original) dimension in terms of space, form and style.

Following this tradition, the project proposes a hybrid space that is both a chapel and a medical laboratory for experimentation with living scared sculptures. By joining these programmes the project reintroduces an old practice in which theological and medical expertise were developed in parallel within religious institutions.The juxtaposition of these activities thus creates a spatial interface with a symbiotic interdependency for otherwise unsustainable operations.

In the chapel are visible a series of suspended tissue scaffolds and mechanical service devices that move silently between positions. Their movement is slow and ritualistic and with a powerful atmospheric effect, remaining, however, as a separate activity and with little discernable action upon the activities in the chapel.

Sam White studied at the Welsh School of Architecture and The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL, where he graduated in 2004. Subsequently he has worked for Michael Hopkins Architects and Knight Architects, most notably being responsible for the delivery of the Stratford TCL bridge and Lochnagar Street bridge.

Hannes Mayer

A House for Friedrich Schelling, Germany 2010

Friedrich Schelling (1775 -1854), born in Leonberg Southern Germany, grew up in an environment of Prostestantism and mysticism. He studied theology in Tübingen together with Hegel and Hölderlin and is considered as one of the main philosophers of Idealism. Later and in response to Leibniz he developed a concept, which made him the protagonist of what is called Naturphilosophie, a strand of philosophy, which considers Nature in its totality and combines spirit and nature in one system. This theory became a major driver for Romanticism in the 19th century. The movement had great influence on the organic tendencies, which are taken on by Rudolf Steiner in his concept of Anthroposophy.

It is this ‘organic’ and overarching spiritual thinking that forms the starting point of the project of A House for Friedrich Schelling.

Hannes Mayer is a German architect based in Zurich. He studied at the Universities of Technology in Cottbus, Eindhoven and the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where he graduated with a Diploma degree in 2007 and Masters degree in 2008. In 2007 he founded M-A-O/architecture and optimism in London. He is also one of the principal editors of archithese, an international architecture magazine based in Zurich.

Jay Williams

The Pilgrimage of Eisegesis - Sacramental Cubicula in the Catacombs of St. Domitilla, Rome 2007

The concept of this project as an eisegesis (a process of misinterpreting a text in such a way that it introduces one's own ideas, reading into the text) is related to the mediaeval construct of the fourfold exegesis, a way of extracting meaning from both scriptures and poetry. In this case, it provides the link between the religious context of the site and the literary context of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy.

The project proposes spaces for the observation of the sacramental rites of Baptism, Confession, and Prayer. Connecting into the catacombs below, the building provides a departure point for pilgrimage, helping to connect an iconographic and narrative journey through these burial galleries to explain their importance in the history of Christianity.

This pilgrimage is also imbued with a second programme: it is an allegorical temple to Divine Comedy and to Dante’s procession through the inferno, purgatory, and paradise, as both are journeys into moral significance and divine grace and ultimately aspire to human redemption. If most visitors to the catacombs come on a pilgrimage; to pray and to gain a better understanding of the way in which their systems of beliefs and sacred rites were formulated and consecrated, Dante went on an exploration into sacramental penance and the accountability of man. These references imply an exploration into the human condition, the divine and the profane influences, and their ultimate consequences.

Jay Williams is an English architect who studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where he graduated with a Diploma degree in 2007. He worked at MAKE in London and is currently working at UN Studio in Amsterdam.

Johan Voordouw

Printed Aedicules - Library for Religious Manuscripts, Tivoli 2009

The project Printed Aedicules developed a new mode of architectural expression for a library in Tivoli, Italy. The library was proposed for the Museum of Manuscripts located at the Villa d’Este.

Seeking to explore new spatial constructs within the confines of a book, this project develops architectural space on and through the page. The books explore the process and spatial representation of manuscripts and book printing to blur the spaces imagined through reading and the physical spaces developed through construction.

The project was inspired by the representation of architecture (aedicular frames) that separate illustrated narratives in medieval manuscripts. The Printed Aedicules books attempt to three-dimensionalise these spaces and lift them off the page. While it is recognised that manuscripts are not printed, as the project title alludes, the term ‘printed’ was used to describe the process of the making of the books themselves. Printing was used at each stage during the process - to print the original thesis, printing the pages to form the final book and lastly, through computerised processes, printing three-dimensional models of parts of the library.

Johan Voordouw studied at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg before moving to London where he gained a Diploma and Masters degree in architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. His Diploma work was recently chosen for the Hinterland exhibition at the Arup Gallery in London. He worked for HKR Architects and is currently employed at Foster and Partners. Since 2008 Johan has also been a History and Theory lecturer at London South Bank University.

Kenny Tsui

Veiled Voids - Chapel Extension at the Basilica of St. Clemente, Rome 2007

This project explores the mysterious qualities of emptiness in virtual space. Sited in the Basilica of St. Clemente, an unused church in Rome, the church is an archaeological site of mystic edifices with a blissful mosaic depiction of the Bible’s 'Holy Tree of Life'. Its symbolical foliage has been interpreted as a ‘veil’, a divine spark that generates a projective construction system of nodes: seeded particles that project, duplicate, repeat, and explode into layers of interstitial boundaries. These exuberant veil-surfaces intuitively guide the pilgrims and frame the nodes, which in turn can be understood as architectural voids that conceal confessionals, altars and communal spaces.

The proposed chapel reinvigorates the original Basilica by acting as a vertical intervention into the horizontal archaeological strata, in which the veils intertwine the old and the new. Mass and voids seemingly slip, flip, oscillate and pulsate, entailing a spatial and strategic vision that includes the significance of atmospherics and bodily experience in conjunction with a technological and poetic awareness in digital designs.

 

Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui is mixed Chinese-Japanese. He is an architectural designer and educator who studied BSc and Diploma architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL, graduating with a Masters degree in 2007. He has taught at the ESA - EcoleSpecialed’Architecture in Paris, London South Bank University, and is currently running a degree unit at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Kenny was co-founder of the academic platform Horhizon and is also working for Urban Salon in London.

Vicky Patsalis

Arcade for Sacred Relicts at the Museum of Anatomy, Turin 2009

The Arcade for Sacred Relics at the new Museum of Anatomy in Turin is located in a small urban void behind the Piazza del Vittorio Veneto. It reflects a rich lineage of ‘passages’ that were inserted in the urban fabric of Turin during the late 19th and early 20th century. This not only extended the previous grid of street arcades, but also created a new network of internalised and hidden urban spaces for the emergent Italian Bourgeoisie.

In this context, the project became concerned with a new relationship between the figural body and architecture, challenging the understanding of harmony and beauty in Bourgeois terms - proportion, balance and symmetry - with bodily expressions (the scream) of a conspicuous grotesque beauty. The proposed arcade reflects such body aesthetics as it builds upon a spatial and material exuberance that is both visceral and topological: a neo-architectural body of Sublime Flesh.

Vicky Patsalis is a Greek-Cypriot British architectural designer who studied architecture at Central Saint Martins and the University of Westminster where she was nominated for the RIBA Bronze President's Medal before graduating from the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL in 2009 with works published in Icon Magazine and in the current issue of AD - Architectural Design. She has been working for Make Architects in London since 2006 where she has recently completed her role as project leader on a commercial refurbishment in London and is now working on a refurbishment project in Geneva whilst studying for her Professional PracticePostgraduate Diploma and guest critiquing at the University of Westminster.

Tobias Klein

Synthetic Syncretism - Inverted Chapel of Our Lady of Regla, Havana 2006

Synthetic Syncretism describes the artificial condensation and unification of different religions and cultures as well as spatial concepts and design techniques. The project’s narrative background is based upon the Cuban religion of Santeria - a mixture between Catholicism and the African Yoruba tribal beliefs. As a result of this unusual syncretism an altered kind of religion evolved, which hybridised Catholic Saints with folklore animals and the ‘Sakralraum’ with sacrifices.

The necropolis Christobal Colon, the main cemetery in Havana, does not provide enough burial space; hence the proposal for a processional route through the city for a ceremonial funeral in the sea. The ‘Chapel of Our Lady de Regla’ is proposed for this processional route, slotted inside an existing cross-shaped courtyard. It forms an ‘inverted’ chapel that, containing numerous Santerian relics and utensils, is an architectural highlight during the procession.

Tobias Klein is a German architect and educator. He studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Prof. Wolf Prix before gaining his Diploma and Masters degree at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. His Diploma work was widely published and awarded numerous prizes, including a commendation at the RIBA Silver medals in 2007 and the Student award at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show in 2008. He is co-founder of Horhizon and currently a design tutor of the Masters course ADS1 at the Royal College of Art and a studio master at the Architectural Association in London.