Unit 18 invited students to investigate the lost, forgotten, imagined, and undiscovered, using architecture as a mnemonic device capable of generating new narratives. Rather than treating memory as something fixed or factual, the brief frames it as fluid, subjective, and constantly reconstructed through storytelling, perception, and material culture.
The work focuses on cultural mnemonics such as rituals, artefacts, ruins, landscapes, and architectural forms that preserve and transmit collective memory across time. These remnants of human history are seen not as relics of nostalgia, but as foundations for imagining future possibilities. Students were encouraged to reinterpret fragments of the past creatively, engaging in a “mnemonic resurrection” that transforms inherited memories into speculative architectural visions.
Set within an age dominated by artificial intelligence and overwhelming digital archives, the brief questions humanity’s changing relationship with remembering. It asks whether architecture can help us slow down, revisit, and reimagine forgotten knowledge in meaningful ways. Ultimately, our students were challenged to become “architects of memory,” designing imaginative spaces that merge past, present, and future while giving form to the unseen, misremembered, and the culturally significant.
Thomas Hillier
Matthew Brooker (Formation Architects) for his practice support, Kaja Hayes for Future Rep support, Laura Bowie, Naomi Gibson, and Simon Withers for thesis support, Pascal Bronner (U18 misses you!) and all our guest critics who so generously gave up their time, knowledge and expertise across the year.
The MArch Architecture is a two-year full-time or three-year part-time programme offering exemption from ARB/RIBA Part 2. It combines rigorous professional training with creative and speculative design exploration. In the first year, students join a themed design unit to undertake a creative building design project combined with a technical and professional report. In the second year, students pursue a comprehensive speculative architectural design project, and an in-depth theoretical thesis tailored to their personal interest. The programme fosters independent thinking, innovation, theoretical and technical excellence, preparing graduates for advanced architectural practice and ongoing professional development in a dynamic global context. See further details on our prospectus page.
