We are interested in reimagining and adapting – building with and modifying the existing. Increasingly, architects are asked to work with exsiting buildings. We need to develop strategies for exploring the history, understanding the quirks and see future potential in the buildings of the past. Environmentally, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we must avoid building new and create with imagination instead of demolition. Adding another layer to the existing urban fabric creates unexpected situations – hybrids that speak from history to the future.
This year Unit 1 designed the library of the future. After critically questioning the existing typology of the library, we explored its potential for thematic expansion, through hybridisation with compatible social programmes. Libraries are increasingly hybrid spaces: they physically preserve knowledge, they are gateways to dispersed knowledge, and they also work as semi-public city squares, where communities can form.
Due to technological advances, the library’s position has changed. Knowledge is less solidified and centralised. Libraries are now also libraries-of-things and community hubs. Places that teach skills, empower individuals, and make communities more resilient. Unit 1 has looked to define new social roles for the library. A Third Space of hybridised and overlapping programmes.
Anders Luhr and Dejan Mrdja
Yuto Fujii, Denizen Works
Tatiana Vela Jara, Haworth Tompkins Architects
Nigel Heatherington, Haworth Tompkins Architects
The Warburg Institute
BA Architecture is a three-year full-time programme offering exemption from ARB/RIBA Part 1, and the first step towards a career as an architect. The programme interweaves the disciplines of architectural design, histories and theories, technology, and professional practice. The design studio is central to the work students undertake, with year 2 and 3 students taught together in design units. Each unit addresses a different brief and design agenda. This is a rigorous and highly inventive programme, dedicated to architectural ways of designing, thinking and seeing the world. It provides students will skillsets applicable to a wide range of careers.
See further details on our prospectus page.
