Queen's University Belfast presents ten student architecture projects

A centre designed to help relax cancer patients and a "Carnival of Colours" feature in Dezeen's latest school show by students at Queen's University Belfast.

Also included is a performing arts theatre referencing Japanese architecture and a community centre featuring a community kitchen, market hall and allotments.

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Queen's University Belfast

School: Queen's University Belfast
Courses: BSc Architecture and MArch
Tutors: Dr Niek Turner, Clare Mulholland, Prof Michael McGarry, Catherine Blaney, Rachel Delargy, Tarla MacGabhann, Jane Larmour, Dr Gul Kacmaz Erk, Patrick Wheeler, Jennifer Harper, Dr Nuala Flood, Laurence Lord, Guido Vericat, Aoife McGee, Dr Rachel O’Grady, Fearghal Murray, David Magennis, Prof Greg Keeffe, Dr Seán Cullen, Prof Michael McGarry, Ben Weir, Prof Tom Jefferies, Dr Laura Coucill, Dr Amber Roberts, Jane Larmour, Keith McAllister, Catherine Blaney and Dr Colm Moore.

School statement:

"The BSc (Hons) Architecture programme is a dynamic learning environment that encourages students to develop professionalism, critical thinking and creativity by acquiring architectural design, research, analysis, and communication skills.

"The programme pivots around the design studio and is articulated around three interconnected and overlapping areas: architectural design and communication; history and theory of architecture and; technology and environment.

"For stage two and three students, joint studio projects, live projects for stage one and MArch students, shared skills development events and collaborative learning projects with planning and engineering students all enrich the curriculum. A well-established architecture society (ArchSoc) and the Queen's Climate Action Network (QCAN) provide further social, educational and cultural lectures and events.

"At its core, our M.Arch programme's ambition is for each student to understand what motivates them as architects in the expanding field that is the contemporary practice of architecture.

"Across the two years, each student builds a personal portfolio culminating in a thesis project which inquisitively seeks to define a position – to establish the ground from which they can develop their future practice. In doing so, we hope that our graduates enter the profession with clear values, ambition and confidence in both architecture itself and their ability as a designer to positively contribute to the shaping of our society."

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Growing Together by Kayla Enos

"This project aims to enhance the lives of the community by providing inclusive and accessible opportunities for social interaction. The scheme provides a community kitchen and dining room, a market hall and a series of allotments.

"It responds to research which associates proximity to green space with improved mental wellbeing and proposes gardening as a measure to improve wellness. The site is located along the River Lagan, in an area at high risk of flooding. Designing a flood strategy for the site became a priority for this scheme and a new flood wall for the area which also forms a footpath."

Student: Kayla Enos
Course: BSc Architecture
Tutors: Dr Niek Turner, Clare Mulholland, Professor Michael McGarry and Catherine Blaney

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The Healing Gardens by Rachel Murphy

"A calm and relaxing environment for cancer patients and survivors, the project provides therapy and counselling rooms together with residential spaces. Connections between interior spaces and garden and courtyard views have been prioritised in the planning of the building, and a library and living space connect directly to the outdoors through a large window with built-in seats.

"Armagh is known for apple orchards, and existing trees on the site have been preserved. The building structure uses timber construction. Cladding materials include handmade clay bricks which match the colour palette of the surrounding area."

Student: Rachel Murphy
Course: BSc Architecture
Tutors: Rachel Delargy, Tarla MacGabhann and Jane Larmour

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Performing Arts School by Arjun Bharj

"Using sustainable means of construction, a traditional Japanese style is imitated to attain a certain degree of visual softness and theatricality. The design provides a journey around shoji screens that aim to encourage exploration whilst maintaining the quietness of the proposal's thematic qualities.

"The design proposal considers the diversity of the Holyland's performing arts students. The spaces are designed to support contemporary pedagogy, diversity and equality."

Student: Arjun Bharj
Course: BSc Architecture
Tutors: Dr Gul Kacmaz Erk, Patrick Wheeler, Jennifer Harper

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Expanding Networks – Reimagining Architectural Education by Grace Carney

"The proposal challenges the current paradigm of architectural education and proposes spaces which enable the school to act as a network between practitioners, students and citizens.

"A grid provides flexible structures, and breakout spaces facilitate collaboration. The ground floor is designed as a covered street to accommodate exhibitions and markets. Sited along the Lagan, but building proposes new pedestrian networks to connect the school with other buildings across the city."

Student: Grace Carney
Course: BSc Architecture
Tutors: Dr Gul Kacmaz Erk, Patrick Wheeler and Jennifer Harper

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The Carnival of Colours by Ellen McKeag

"The Carnival of Colours is a three-day festival and circus based in Derry / Londonderry around midsummer. This scheme proposes temporary pavilions which provide performance spaces for the festival and a permanent headquarters for the festival organisation.

"The headquarters are made up of timber framework with smaller, integrated modules, which allow the building to expand and contract according to spatial demand. Construction is designed to be zero-waste – all components are demountable and fully recyclable."

Student: Ellen McKeag
Course: BSc Architecture
Tutors: Civic Stage

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Artificial Super-organism Eco-Town by Stavroula Perdikaki

"Artificial Super-organism Eco-Town (ASET) explores alternative economies based on an analysis of the Dublin housing crisis and the theoretical perspective of anarchism.

"Examining homelessness and dereliction about the policies which created them, the project imagines a society in which ownership, tax and surveillance do not exist and proposes a new form of urbanism to support this.

"ASET relies on social impact and low-profit investment. It goes against governmental decisions and mainstream financial systems to create a resilient economy and housing system. Renewable energy is the currency of this new society, powering."

Student: Stavroula Perdikaki
Course: MArch
Tutors: Professor Greg Keeffe and Dr Seán Cullen

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Scaffold by Juliette Moore

"Located in Railwayview Street, Bangor, the project takes the form of four detached dwellings, a local shop, café and community path which connects the street to Bangor train station. The project is an investigation of a design methodology that examines how linework in drawing can be manipulated to inform and justify design decisions.

"Tracing physical plotlines and analysing the geometries of the context with the predicted paths of movement through the site created patterns that guided internal spatial arrangements, structure and materiality. Lines of notation and sound were used to augment the project beyond technical configurations."

Student: Juliette Moore
Course: MArch
Tutors: Professor Michael McGarry, Ben Weir

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The Renewable Energy Landscape of Mourne by Louis Shing 

"This project aims to reconcile renewable energy and heritage landscapes. The possibility of distributing renewable energy in the Mourne Mountains is evaluated in terms of productive capacity and scenic value. The proposal unites vernacular and traditional building techniques with hi-tech renewable energy systems by integrating PV panels in traditional forms of drystone walling.

"The Automated Recycling Centre provides maintenance and recycling facilities which minimize the visual impact on the landscape. This introduces a new vernacular typology into the landscape and internal space is divided between automated maintenance and visitor experience capturing the view of Slieve Binnian."

Student: Louis Shing
Course: MArch
Tutors: Professor Tom Jefferies, Dr Laura Coucill and Dr Amber Roberts

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Kinbane: Curating the Historic Landscape by William Brady, In Praise of Adaptation

"This proposal narrates the historic landscape and the story of Kinbane to celebrate the area's unique cultural importance. It retraces the pilgrimage of past generations to lead to the salmon fisheries under the shadow of the cliffside.

"A reroofed cottage offers shelter and accommodation from the elements. Kinbane Castle hangs precariously over the rocks below, accessed by a new staircase and path. Beyond the castle, in the north bailey, new interventions bridge the enclosure to the rising headland."

Student: William Brady
Course: MArch
Tutors: Jane Larmour and Keith McAllister

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From Sienna to Dublin: An investigation in the picturesque by Katie Jackson

"This thesis project is a hotel for the city in Dublin that is grounded in the picturesque sensibility, informed by 'A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar'. Capel Street is a complex site with a deep plan in a dense landscape. It was a challenge to the conventions of architecture.

"Light is carved through the building using light wells and light objects. The objects are aedicules, mini architectures held within the hotel. The thesis is about making architecture that can exist at all scales. It explores how to design a space like a painter would compose a painting with a picturesque sensibility."

Student: Katie Jackson
Course: MArch
Tutors: Catherine Blaney and Dr Colm Moore

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Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Queen's University Belfast. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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REDO Architects creates theatre-inspired interior for Puppeteers House in Sintra

REDO Architects had stage sets in mind when redesigning the interiors for a pair of houses in the former Puppeteers' Quarter in Sintra, Portugal.

The two homes, now known as Puppeteers House, are part of a series of buildings that were originally built for a local puppeteer's family, but had more recently been used as storage for farming tools.

A curved wooden bench creates a window seat on the first-floor landing

With its renovation, Lisbon-based REDO Architects has brought the buildings back into residential use as homes for two of the puppeteer's great grandchildren.

The revamped buildings are designed to capture the spirit of their heritage, with lightweight wooden joinery constructions that evoke theatrical scenography and circular details that suggest a playful character.

Bathrooms are concealed within the wooden joinery

An all-new interior layout was needed, so this was designed to reinforce the theatrical feel.

Elements like the staircase and first-floor window seat have a stage-like quality, while secondary spaces like bathrooms are concealed within the walls.

The larger house contains a dedicated kitchen and dining space

"The relation between the existing external walls and the new interior walls – two different skins – was explored and dramatised throughout the project on different scales," explained studio founder Diogo Figueiredo.

"This friction generated misalignments, which are expressed in the windows as opaque panels," he told Dezeen, "and it also created in-between spaces for built-in furniture and bathrooms, like a back-of-stage area."

The homes sit on opposite sides of a garden courtyard

One of the houses is single-storey, the other is double-storey, and they are located either side of a private courtyard.

The buildings are designed to function as self-contained properties, but they are also very open to one another, with large windows fronting the shared courtyard garden.

The smaller property contains one bedroom on the ground floor

The smaller of the two homes contains a living space with a kitchenette, a separate bedroom and a bathroom.

The other home has a similar layout, with a living room and a separate kitchen and dining space on the ground floor, and two en-suite bedrooms upstairs.

Living spaces feature lioz stone flooring

A consistent materials palette features throughout. An ivory-toned regional stone known as lioz was used flooring in the main living spaces and surfaces for the kitchen and bathrooms.

Flooring in the bedrooms is wood, matching the doors, furniture and shelving that feature throughout the two homes.

Circular details feature throughout the interiors, at a range of scales. Some are full circles, like the porthole window and cabinet handles, while others are large curves, like the window seat or the rounded wall partitions.

"We used a precise quarter of a circle as a tool – like a compass – in different radii, orientations, combinations and materialities," explained Figueiredo.

The main first-floor bedroom features a corner window

"It was explored in different moments of the project: to differentiate and disconnect the new internal layer from the existing walls, to connect different rooms, and to create smooth circulation routes," he said.

Many of these curves are mirrored in ceiling details directly overhead, which contrast with the linearity of the exposed roof beams.

The second first-floor bedroom features a porthole window

Other recent examples of house renovations in Portugal include House in Fontaínhas, a home with candy-coloured details, and Rural House in Portugal, a house created in an old granite community oven.

Photography is by Do Mal o Menos.

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Project credits

Architect: REDO Architects
Project team: Diogo Figueiredo, Pedro França Jorge

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Kengo Kuma creates 3D-printed sunglasses from castor beans

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and eyewear brand Vava have launched a capsule collection of 3D-printed sunglasses made from Indian castor beans.

The two pairs of sunglasses, which combine traditional Japanese design with modern technology, were designed as a continuation of Kuma's architectural ideals.

"The collection manifests many of Kuma's architectural imaginings, especially the architect's tendency of recovering and reinterpreting the traditions of Japanese architecture to fit seamlessly into the 21st-century world," Vava told Dezeen.

Top: the CL0015 glasses are one of two pairs of sunglasses Kengo Kuma designed for Vava. Above: the glasses were informed by Kuma's architecture

Both pairs of glasses are made out of castor beans sourced from farmers working in India.

Castor oil from the beans was used to produce Polyamide 11 – a thermoplastic polymer that was used as the material to 3D-print the glasses.

According to the brand the material can be used to create complex forms that are strong and do not fade when exposed to long periods of direct sunlight.

The glasses were made from castor oil

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), a technique that melts and fuses the polyamide particles together, was implemented to build the frames.

Each layer of the frame was built one at a time. Afterwards, any leftover material was removed to give the frames a clean finish.

The CL0015 design is based on weaving techniques

Both pairs of sunglasses were designed to "reflect Kengo Kuma's holistic architecture."

The CL0015 model is a rounded pair of sunglasses with a woven bridge and frame that was informed by the process of weaving.

"Many of Kuma's design projects can be understood as a pursuit of different types of weaving of diverse materials," said Vava.

"CL0015 was inspired by the notion that the production of architecture is fundamentally a process of weaving."

Wooden building techniques informed the CL0013 design

The second pair in the collection – CL0013 – was informed by the Japanese wooden architecture that Kuma is known for.

"These approaches have been explored by Kuma for his wooden structures, which arise from a simple pattern of assembly, building on different intersections and angles to generate a complex whole."

"The design process began with Kengo Kuma's sketches and during the development of the technical draws, each part brought their own perspectives, giving everyone a voice," added the brand.

"The aim was to come up with something that captured the essence of both Kengo Kuma and Vava souls."

Japanese architect Kuma is one of the world's most recognised architects who founded Kengo Kuma Associates in 1990.

Some of his most significant buildings include the national stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the V&A Dundee museum. He recently designed a curved library in Skien, Norway.

Austrian eyewear manufacturer Rolf also used castor castor beans to make sunglasses in 2010.

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Ten peaceful Scandi living rooms that feature minimalist design and natural materials

For this week's lookbook, we have picked ten Scandi-style living rooms from the Dezeen archive that play with textures and showcase natural materials, elegant accessories and muted colours.

Scandi style is a term used to describe designs from the three Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – but has also become a catchphrase that denotes minimalist interior design that uses plenty of natural materials, especially wood.

Wooden floors are traditional in Scandinavian homes, where they are often matched with wood details such as panelling and classic mid-century modern furniture.

Scandi living rooms often feature white or pale walls, which are common in the Nordic countries where the long, dark winter months mean people tend to choose light colours for their interiors.

Many of the ten interiors below also play with textures, adding fluffy throws to simple sofas, tactile rugs to wooden floors and rattan and leather seating.

This is the latest roundup in our Dezeen Lookbooks series providing visual inspiration for the home. Previous roundups include L-shaped kitchens, interiors that use internal glazing and inviting courtyards.

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Gjøvik House, Norway, by Norm Architects

Located an hour outside of Oslo, Gjøvik House comprises six interconnected blocks with interiors featuring mottled grey walls, earthen textiles and warm wooden panelling.

Pale grey hues were used for the living room, which has a soft Bollo chair designed by Andreas Engesvik for Foglia and a modular sofa in a neutral grey tone.

According to the architect, the spaces were designed to have a "cosy and inviting feel, where you can truly hibernate while taking shelter from the frigid days of Nordic winter."

Find out more about Gjøvik House ›

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TypeO Loft, Sweden, by TypeO

The living room area of creative studio TypeO's guest loft in southern Sweden features floor-to-ceiling glazing that opens up onto a large balcony.

A coffee table by Isamu Noguchi for Vitra matches the wooden floor and beams and is complemented by Ligne Roset's Togo armchairs in black leather. Sculptural decorative details add an art gallery-like feel to the bright living space.

Find out more about TypeO Loft ›

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20 Bond Apartment, US, by Home Studios

Design firm Home Studios filled the 20 Bond Apartment in New York with bespoke furniture and vintage finds, including a leather Safari chair by Danish designer Kai Winding.

An entire wall is taken up by a bespoke shelving unit that the studio made from oak wood and brass, adding another Scandinavian-style feature to the room. A rattan table and a pink resin side table by Sabine Marcelis add a tactile touch.

Find out more about 20 Bond Apartment ›

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Sculptor's Residence, Sweden, by Norm Architects, Menu and Dux

Norm Architects, Menu and Dux collaborated on this installation that was designed to resemble the "eclectic living quarters of a creative." Muted brown and beige hues lend the interiors an earthy, organic feel, which is contrasted by the elegance of the black marble table and black sculptures.

Menu's Hashira floor lamp adds a subtle nod to Japanese interiors, and its sleek surface offsets the knobbly texture of the brand's Eave Dining Sofa Bench.

Find out more about Sculptor's Residence ›

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Villa Weinberg, Denmark, by Mette and Martin Weinberg

Wienberg Architects collaborated with fellow Danish architects Friis & Moltke to overhaul the 1940s Villa Weinberg. The result is a warm, inviting home lined with oil-treated oak walls.

The wood-clad living room also has a simple wooden coffee table and poufs for lounging on, as well as a built-in leather-clad bench. A rice lamp and sheepskin throw add texture to the wooden interior.

Find out more about Villa Weinberg ›

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Solviken, Sweden, by Johan Sundberg

Scandi living rooms tend to have very neutral colours, but in this space in a Swedish holiday home, two comfy sofas in a calming seafoam green create a bright focal point in the room. The hue is picked up by a painting at the end of the large, open-plan kitchen and living room.

Small unpainted wooden coffee tables match the floor and the wooden storage cabinets alongside one wall.

Find out more about Solviken ›

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London townhouse, UK, by Daytrip

Design studio Daytrip's renovation and expansion of an east London townhouse includes a living room with white walls, a wooden floor and furniture in muted colours.

A textured "Banana" sofa designed by Danish Cabinetmaker, contrasts with the glass Trebol side table by Oscar Tusquets Blanca.

Numerous ceramics and sculptures surround the open fireplace and add life and interest to the sleek white interior.

Find out more about London townhouse ›

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Lyceum Apartments, Sweden, by Andreas Martin-Löf Arkitekter

The Lyceum Apartments in Stockholm are located in the Old Technical College's Pharmaceutical Institute and feature light-filled rooms with clean designs and historical details.

In the living room, a curved white sofa contrasts against the angular shapes of Pierre Jeanneret's wood and cane Easy Chairs, Soft beige curtains match the neutral hues of the rest of the room.

Find out more about Lyceum Apartments ›

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Sommarhus T, Sweden, by Johan Sundberg

This summer house by Johan Sundberg features a green sofa and a matching armchair. Both are from Danish brand &tradition and match the verdant greenery outside the large glass windows.

A practical wooden table holds globe-shaped glass vases matching the slightly uneven glass lamps in the ceiling. The entire room is clad in pale wood, including the spruce floors, creating a calm, peaceful interior. The fixed furniture in the home was made from oak.

Find out more about Sommarhus T ›

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Birkedal, Denmark, by Jan Henrik Jansen

A circular holiday home on the island of Møn in Denmark features a playful living room with white-panelled walls and a floor covered in small white pebbles collected from the beach.

A built-in curved sofa has brown leather seats that have been made cosier with added throws and pillows, and a small circular side table provides space for books, magazines and snacks.

Find out more about Birkedal ›

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This is the latest in our series of lookbooks providing curated visual inspiration from Dezeen's image archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks showcasing colourful interiors, calm living rooms and colourful kitchens.

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