1st Year Projects

The theme for Design Studio A is Identity. The theme marks the beginning to architectural education, a journey that asks the students to continually reflect on their self and their work as an intimate relationship between a person’s values, lived places, experiences and design philosophy. The projects through the first year explore key dimensions of architectural design in relation to identity – space, context, element – that build toward the final Home project which asks students to bring these considerations together through an architecture.

The Home project emphasises how the identity of architecture can be defined through the relationship between space and its users – starting from inside-out, imagining the activities in the space and creating a building that can reflect on this interplay in an elegant and generous way. The Home project asks the students to design a house that serves as a home and workplace for a “modern craftsman”. Students choose the craft and select a specific site for the home within Abbey Park in Leicester.