NTU Architecture Subject Group

Atelier 1

The New Bauhaus?

Re-thinking Architecture: Sustainability is sexy.

Sustainability in essence means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of others to meet their own needs.

Sustainability is not about tree hugging or socks-and-sandal wearing. It’s thinking of others, the future generations – it’s the antithesis of selfishness. And that is sexy.

This re-framing, re-thinking of architecture needs to come from the beginning, from architecture school.

A new education.

Architectural education has to change and adapt to survive. Design Atelier 01 started from the beginning again, to consider how a new school of architecture can create a societal change stemming from how we adjust to new ways of unselfish thinking.

The original Bauhaus was an avant-garde think-tank of ideas, that changed the way the world thought about and designed architecture. Walter Gropius’s aim through the Bauhaus was to unify the arts through craft. The London based school, Architectural Association has established similar goals through their woodland campus, Hooke Park using the principles of thinking and making to carry out design, craft, workshop, construction and landscape projects.

Like the Bauhaus, The London School of Architecture’s (LSA) and the AA’s rethinking of how education works will produce the collaboration of practitioners providing cross disciplinary teaching and learning from other Built Environment professionals such as engineers, surveyors, craftspeople, roboteers, construction professionals etc.

The Project

The project proposes a new independent school of architecture, an off shoot of the Architectural Association in London. The idea was to set up the AA of the North in Nottingham, as a centre for excellence in Architectural Education. The goal was to recreate the avant-garde thinking of the Bauhaus for the 21st Century, and to re-invent how architecture is taught, with an emphasis on learning by doing/making and design based on empirical evidence.

The new architecture schools seek to merge the boundaries between education and practice by embedding architecture practices within the school environment and similarly encouraging innovative building industry product manufacturers and materials companies to be part of the institute. There was also an opportunity for cross disciplinary learning and teaching involving other Built Environment Professionals within the same building. E.g. engineers, surveyors, construction professionals etc.

The goal was to demonstrate that beautiful buildings can be designed that are truly sustainable.

Lead Tutors
Rebecca Pallett/Gemma Sayer & Steve Banks
Support Tutors
Ana Souto & Gavin Tunstall – Architecture in Context 3
Tom Hughes & David Boden – Tech. And Environment in Arch. 3
Guest Reviewers
Gemma Sayer, Matt Gilbert & Gavin Orton

Projects