Cardiff University spotlights 12 student architectural projects

A circular economy developed within a seaside town and a project that explores conserving the beauty of "eroded architecture" are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at Cardiff University.

Also included is a community for musicians and a dockyard transformed into a "cultural campus" for manufacturing and craft.

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Cardiff University

Institution: Cardiff University
School: Welsh School of Architecture
Courses: BSc Architectural Studies
Tutors: Michael Corr

School statement: "The Year three of BSc Architectural Studies is the culmination of Years one and two. Students can deploy understanding, knowledge and abilities to develop an ambitious and resolved architectural design in response to a unit brief. In the year 20/21, there has been a highly diverse range of units, 12 in total, covering a wide breadth of architectural themes.

"Due to covid restrictions, this year's units focused on locations in Wales or worked internationally from Wales. Yet, they have covered the urban, rural, political, social, economic, environmental and poetic. The outcome has resulted in a range of projects from small to large scale, from Cardiff Queen Street to the seaside of Barry Island, the Brecon Beacons, Pembroke Dock and Kochi in India.

"Regardless of location, each of the units is underpinned by the ethos of the WSA, Grounded Creativity. Unit tutors are drawn from practice and the school, with students selecting their unit of choice at the beginning of the year following the design briefs set by each unit team.

"The work that has resulted from this year's units is tectonically rich and rigorous in research. We applaud the students' response to the challenging conditions in which they have been working, which is exemplified by a body of work that is ambitious and thought-provoking."

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Virtue Lies in the Struggle, Not the Prize by James Miller

"In this unit, getting under the skin of a complicated town enables the development of a profound interest in how architecture can reach into the culture of a place and offer something social. Miller's project reflects the principle of 'Virtue lies in the struggle, not the Prize', a motto from Richard Monkton Milnes towards the respect for artistry to drive his proposal.

"The project stitches the fractured dockyard into a new cultural campus for manufacturing and craft, nurturing the historical and current condition."

Student: James Miller
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: jajmiller19[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 01 National Park
Tutor: Michael Corr and Tom Keeley

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The Circularity by Angeline Ng

"This unit aims towards the regeneration of a declined town, allowing them to tackle social, cultural, economic and environmental issues and develop solutions through their architectural schemes.

"Ng's project explores the implementation of a circular plastic economy in an attempt to close the loop of waste generation within this seaside town ecosystem. A recycling facility that plugs into existing industries is proposed, creating a designated collection point for plastic litter, and encouraging tourists to be more mindful of their waste."

Student: Angeline Ng
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: angelinengjoyee00[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 02 The Frontier Island
Tutor: James Alder and Geethica Gunarajah

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Palace of Care by Qinying Tan

"Making optimistic proposals for communal gathering spaces, this unit interrogates ideas of ritual, festivity, generosity, intimacy and interdependence. It also identifies different ways in which we gather – to celebrate; to work; to play and watch sport; to socialise, drink and dine; to protest or to perform civic duties; to commemorate and to mourn.

"The Palace of Care is the tip of the iceberg of social care challenges. It emphasises the importance of care and support services for neglected ageing problems. Beyond, the project urges architects to contribute their social responsibilities to society through helping to provide a long-term and sustainable social care architecture for the elderly, especially urgently following the pandemic."

Student: Qinying Tan
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: pobbytan09[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 04 Gathering
Tutor: Rory Corr and Brendan Higgins

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Water as a Lifeline by Luke Celinski

"The unit approaches cities as complex dynamic systems and undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Kochi about its social, economic, environmental, governance and spatial subsystems as well as how those systems interact with each other. Through an extensive literature review on the liveable and sustainable city, a critical position is developed on what will make cities liveable.

"Flooding is one of the largest dangers currently affecting Kochi due to rising sea levels and increased rainfall. Celinski's intervention is to provide a centre by the Mullassery canal. It focuses on three values: environmental education, improving the water quality of the canals and providing refuge for relief operations."

Student: Luke Celinski
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: CelinskiL[at]cardiff.ac.uk
Unit: Unit 05 Liveable Urbanism
Tutor: Dr Shibu Raman

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Harvest from a Ruin by George Wood

"This unit explores the experiential edge between post-industry, recovering woodland, urban, rural, and a once tamed but now frequently overflowing river, to enter dialogue with its ruins.

"It also explores the balance between humanity and nature and, drawing upon the resources of the contemporary landscape, translate the site into a place of environmentally and socially sustainable making. Wood proposes a new vision for the ruined landscape at Treforest, renewing the relationship between man and nature through sustainable construction and landscape intervention."

Student: George Wood
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: georgecwood[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 06 Land
Tutor: Dan Talkes

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The Harmony and Revival by Junhyeon Song

"Our cities are struggling with the effects of the increasing urban population combined with our current unsustainable operating system in which we 'take, make, and dispose of'. Urban centres are unable to deliver current priorities like housing, mobility and economic development in sustainable ways while they remain wasteful in terms of resource consumption and waste generation and heavily contribute to the climate crisis.

"Currently, modern cities are struggling with the effects of high contamination of urban landscape, the exponential growth of population that is combined with our unsustainable operating system.

"Song's proposal focuses on revitalising the contaminated and abandoned past industrial site in Grangetown, located adjacent to River Ely and Grangemoor park."

Student: Junhyeon Song
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: SongJ14[at]cardiff.ac.uk
Unit: Unit 07 CircuBED
Tutor: Marianna Marchesi

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The Anchor by Priyansha Kamdar

"This unit enquires the ambitions, effects, challenges and possibilities that the post-industrial town of Treherbert is experiencing with the imminent transfer of the stewardship of publicly owned land to the community for an extended period of time.

"Kamdar's project is to initiate a transition in Treherbert towards an ecocentric future, where control is restored back to the woodlands. Proposing a Linoleum Leather Factory, where locally sourced materials and waste can be manufactured into an ecological material, the aim is to connect Treherbert to the landscape and revitalise its identity through an ecocentric architectural solution."

Student: Priyansha Kamdar
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: priyanshakamdar[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 03 Architecture of Territories
Tutor: Marga Munar Bauza

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Follow the Music by Evangelia Glentze

"The current pandemic and migration crisis together with the ongoing technological innovations raise questions about the making of our cities to which we, as architects and urbanists, can no longer avoid responding. In this framework, the notion of home and its merging and diffusion with the urban and the workspace are reconsidered.

"Follow the Music considers creating a connection between living, working and sharing with musicians as the primary user and consequentially the local community. The brief is divided into three parts: live, work and share."

Student: Evangelia Glentze
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: e.glentze31[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 08 Live-Work; The New Norm
Tutor: Fani Kostourou and Sepher Zhand

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The Boundary by Kate Urwin

"Smaller towns and rural areas have struggled to exist, as traditional work has been industrialised, meaning communities have shrunk and demographics have reduced to retirement age. Social infrastructure has been closing down at an exponential rate, only leading to further decline.

"Measures imposed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have prompted a 'permanent change in working culture'. Urwin's project studies the effects this may have on a place like Cymmer, a small village located in the Welsh valleys of Neath Port Talbot.

"By making the most of the village's beautiful natural landscape, Cymmer becomes the perfect destination for young professionals and commuters who want to escape the crowded city."

Student: Kate Urwin
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: kateurwin1[at]outlook.com
Unit: Unit 09 The New Rural
Tutor: Barnaby Hughes and Hamish Warren

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Hemptopia by Arno Decorte

"The unit seeks to consider themes of waste. This is done by treating the phenomenon in wide global terms, as a product of throw-away culture, yes, but looking at places and objects as they are located in and determined by time.

"Hemptopia exploits our deep fascination for production processes by unveiling all its inner workings through its architectural language. Responding to the various opportunities on-site such as water, scattered resource pockets as well as paths, Hemptopia aims to return life to the old gash by showing how 'waste' is simply a resource waiting to be used in the right way."

Student: Arno Decorte
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: arnodecorte00[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 10 Systems of Plenty
Tutor: Gavin Finnan

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Nurturing Erosion by Cecelia Huang

"This year, the Archiving Place unit is concerned with the past, present and future possibilities of agricultural landscapes within Wales. The unit will immerse itself in the process of archiving the places, cultures, and spirit of the Welsh landscape, focusing the research on the decline of agriculture in Wales.

"Nurturing Erosion" highlights the need to conserve erosion. Erosion is derived from the Latin word 'Erosionem', which can be defined as a gnawing away of. It is often seen with a negative connotation, but erosion itself is filled with benefits, capturing the fleeting moments and the always-changing flow of the river. This mobility and dynamism are the norms, constantly changing geography. Allowing this constant fleeting moment to become mundane."

Student: Cecelia Huang
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: cecelia.huang[at]hotmail.com
Unit: Unit 11 Archiving Place
Tutor: Stephen Maginn and Caroline Esclapez

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The Journey Through the Domesticated Masonry Arch by Rebecca Leeman

"This unit works with an artist based in London, who purchased a small piece of land in Swansea, with the intention of building or adapting a small warehouse. He keeps a collection of artworks in the warehouse, consisting mostly of paintings and drawings and a very small number of sculpture pieces.

"This proposal takes the arch as a form of structure that alludes to the industrial history of Swansea, but also as a series of domestically scaled and inhabited spaces as a setting for exhibiting the resident artist's pottery. The seemingly opposing relationship between the ideas of immense industrial structure and domestic architecture acts as an interesting design challenge that interrogates the conscious ways in which we choose to view art."

Student: Rebecca Leeman
Course: BSc Architectural Studies
Email: beckyleeman5[at]gmail.com
Unit: Unit 12 A Year of Painting Flowers
Tutor: Ryan Roberts and Siobhan O'Keeffe

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Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Cardiff University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Nuage à Plots shelving system by Charlotte Perriand for Cassina

Dezeen Showroom: Cassina has produced a reissue of French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand's modular, Nuage à Plots bookcase with curved aluminium elements.

The sort after Nuage bookcases were developed by Perriand in the mid-1950s and have been reissued by Cassina since 2012.

It is available as a freestanding unit

The Nuage à Plots is a bookcase that combines Perriand's concept of modularity, functionality and aesthetics. It can be suspended from the wall or used as a free-standing shelving unit.

It includes a collection of horizontal shelves and vertical curved aluminium structures that are connected by tie rods and bearings.

It can also be wall-mounted

Nuage à Plots shelving system has a 33.5-centimetre shelf depth paired with its curved aluminium elements that replace the classic dividers.

The curved aluminium elements can be finished with a natural anodize or painted black or white.

Product: Nuage à Plots shelving
Brand: Cassina
Contact: info@cassina.it

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.

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Christo and Jeanne-Claude's wrapped Arc de Triomphe captured near completion in Paris

The first photos of l'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped installation by late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been revealed days before its official opening in Paris.

The 49.5-metre-tall Arc de Triomphe monument has been covered by 25,000 square metres of silvery fabric, secured by 3,000 metres of contrasting red rope.

It fulfills the "life-long dream" of partners Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who were best known for wrapping famous buildings around the world, following Christo's death in 2020.

L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped is nearing completion in Paris. Photo is by Benjamin Loyseau

The final details are now being added to l'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped ahead of its official opening on 18 September 2021. The fabric coverings will remain in place for 16 days.

"L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped begins to come alive, more visibly approaching the vision of what was a lifelong dream for Christo and Jeanne-Claude," said project director Vladimir Yavachev.

The installation was "life-long dream" of late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo is by Lubri

"Early on 18 September, once we have finished adding all the ropes and the final details, the fences will be removed to allow the public to come, see and touch the artwork for free," Yavachev explained. "Making their art accessible to everyone was always essential to Christo and Jeanne-Claude."

L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped was first imagined by the pair in 1961, but Christo only began actively developing the project in 2017.

He had described the project as "a living object which will move in the wind and reflect the light" that "people will want to touch".

The monument is wrapped in 25,000 square metres of fabric. 

Both the fabric and ropes are made from polypropylene, a type of thermoplastic, and are recyclable.

Once the installation is complete, the large Place Charles de Gaulle road junction surrounding the monument is set to be temporarily pedestrianised.

Read:

Christo unveils floating Serpentine sculpture made from 7,506 barrels

Over 1,000 people have worked on the project, guided by Christo's team along with Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Centre Pompidou and the City of Paris.

According to the team, it has been entirely funded through the sale of original works of art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, including collages and models.

Self-funding artwork and retaining complete artistic freedom in this way was central to the mission of the art duo.

The area surrounding the Arc de Triomphe will be pedestrianised during the installation's 16-day run. Photo is by Matthias Koddenberg

"I won't give a millimetre of my freedom [away] and damage my art," Christo told Dezeen in 2018.

The Arc de Triomphe's eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier will continue to burn throughout the installation.

Its interiors and terrace will also remain open, with ticketed tours updated to include details on the installation and past projects by the duo.

Over 1,000 people have worked on the project. Photo is by Benjamin Loyseau

Christo's final realised project before his death was The London Mastaba – a giant stack of brightly coloured barrels placed on the Serpentine Lake in London.

At the time, the artist told his life story and shed light on some of his best-known artworks in an exclusive two-part video filmed by Dezeen.

"Many people have difficulty reading our projects," he told Dezeen. "They're not normal sculptures, they're not normal paintings. They're many things."

Read:

Eight key projects by Christo and Jeanne Claude

Other famous installations by the duo include Valley Curtain, a partition of orange fabric hung between two mountains in Colorado, and Surrounded Islands in Florida, where they used luminous pink fabric to encircle a series of islands in Biscayne Bay.

The Arc de Triomphe is also due another makeover as part of a wider masterplan to convert the iconic Champs-Élysées avenue into a pedestrian-friendly public space.

As part of the overhaul, pockets of greenery will be introduced all around the monument and along the 1.9-kilometre-long road in an effort to improve air quality.

The photography is by Wolfgang Volz, unless stated otherwise.

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Yinka Ilori creates 18 colourful crossings over London's streets

London-based designer Yinka Ilori is transforming 18 pedestrian crossings for this year's London Design Festival, using vibrant bands of colour.

Ilori has replaced the usual black and white stripes on 11 colourful crossings on Tottenham Court Road in central London with bold shades of blue, orange, pink, purple and green.

The designer has also teamed up with students from University of the Arts London to design a further seven crossings for the City of London, with one set to be painted by volunteers during the festival.

Ilori has created 11 colourful crossings over Tottenham Court Road

The project, called Bring London Together, is intended to bring joy to the thousands of people walking through London's streets every day.

It follows a series of other temporary road artworks that have created in the city, by designers including Camille Walala and Eley Kishimoto.

"For me, colour and pattern have always been a way of celebrating places, communities and experiences," the designer told Dezeen.

"Instead of being mundane, these crossings can become a focal point where people can experience art. Hopefully, it will make them smile and bring a sense of joy and positivity to their day."

The design consists of lines dissected by circles, as a symbol of connectedness

Bring London Together is one of the landmark projects for London Design Festival 2021. It also forms part of Let's Do London, a tourism campaign spearheaded by London mayor Sadiq Khan, with the aim of supporting the city's creative, retail and hospitality sectors following the pandemic.

The same design features on all the crossings along Tottenham Court Road.

The pattern consists of lines dissected by circles, intended to represent the strength of connectedness we feel from the people around us. Ilori said he was thinking about relationships he formed with friends and neighbours over the past 18 months.

These kinds of motifs are a common theme in Ilori's work, with past examples including his Colour Palace at the London Festival of Architecture in 2019, and his pandemic artwork, Better Days Are Coming I Promise.

Ilori has created the designs for London Design Festival 2021

As the city tries to move forward from the challenges of Covid-19, Ilori hopes the design will help Londoners feel happy to be out and about again.

"It's about trying to bring our community back out onto the streets to celebrate," he said.

"We are still in a pandemic, but we're trying to get out of it slowly. I'm trying to make Londoners feel they can actually live their lives again."

The project is also part of a tourism campaign led by London mayor Sadiq Khan

For the seven crossings in the City of London, the city's central business district, Ilori worked with student designers Annabel Maguire, Sophie Cornish-Keefe and Eliot Everton on a series of different designs.

One of these seven will be located on the Queen Street pedestrian area outside the headquarters of Bloomberg, the company that funded the project. This crossing will be painted by volunteers over two days during London Design Festival, on 20 and 21 September.

London Design Festival 2021 takes place from 18 to 26 September. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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New ISO standard will create international guidelines for carbon-neutral buildings and products

The International Organization for Standardization is developing a global standard that will allow architects and designers to certify their buildings and products as carbon neutral.

Due to be published next year, the new ISO standard will for the first time provide an internationally recognised benchmark for carbon neutrality.

It aims to clear up confusion over what the term means and how it differs from the more onerous net-zero standard.

"I'm working on an international standard that will explain to organisations how they can achieve carbon neutrality and what they can claim about it," said Ian Byrne, who is chairing an international group of experts that will define the standard.

"It's attempting to come to a common definition that isn't the lowest common denominator."

Projects claiming to be carbon neutral such as 3XN's extension to Hotel GSH on Bornholm island (top) and the No Footprint House in Costa Rica (above) will be able to apply for ISO certification

Byrne, who is principal at Ian Byrne Energy & Carbon Consultancy Services, added that the standard will be "probably rather stronger than what is out there in the market."

The International Organization for Standardization is an independent, non-governmental body that brings together standards organisations from 165 member countries.

The ISO standard will build on the British Standards Institution's PAS 2060 standard, which is currently the most widely recognised benchmark.

Confusion leads to "carbon washing"

It will provide guidelines for determining the carbon impact of projects and define the kinds of offsets that will be allowable to compensate for emissions.

Confusion over the meaning of carbon neutrality has led to numerous examples of "carbon washing" whereby companies make unsubstantiated claims about the carbon footprint of their products and buildings.

Both net-zero and carbon neutrality involve reducing emissions as far as possible and then offsetting the remainder.

Yet the two terms often get confused, with The Carbon Trust admitting earlier this year that explaining the difference is "a challenge".

Carbon neutrality is "on the path" to net-zero

Under net-zero, which is the benchmark standard in the race to tackle climate change, offsets must actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This can be done via methods such as afforestation and carbon capture and storage.

"Put simply, net-zero means we are not adding new emissions to the atmosphere," says the United Nations, which is coordinating the global Race to Zero campaign.

"Emissions will continue, but will be balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere."

In addition, net-zero can only apply to organisations and entities such as cities and countries rather than individual products or buildings.

Byrne said that net-zero is "well and good, but for most organisations, net-zero is not here now and is not likely to be here before 2030 or 2035."

"And that's where carbon neutrality tends to come in because carbon neutrality says that you should be on the path to net-zero," he said.

Details of ISO standard 

Carbon neutrality, by contrast, is less demanding and allows offsets that do not remove atmospheric carbon. These include investing in renewable energy or buying carbon credits.

This means that, despite its name, carbon neutrality does in fact involve making a net contribution to atmospheric carbon.

Tech giant Google admitted this to Dezeen recently, when questioned on its own claims to carbon neutrality.

The company claims to have been carbon neutral since 2007 but has in fact emitted around 20 million tonnes of carbon since then.

Robin Bass, real estate and workplace services sustainability programs at Google, said that "carbon neutrality still allows you to emit."

Byrne's ISO group has yet to decide whether the new standard will cover emissions for the entire lifecycle of a building or product.

The discussion we're still having is whether you do it from cradle to [factory] gate or cradle to grave, or maybe even an intermediate level where it's for the cradle to consumer," Byrne said.

ISO standard will clear up confusion over timber

The standard will attempt to clear up confusion over whether timber can be considered a carbon-negative material.

Currently, many architects claim that the carbon contained in timber can be deducted from emissions created elsewhere in the supply chain.

Byrne said it was likely the new standard will not allow this. "What you can't do is deduct the carbon locked up or embodied in the timber," he said.

Projects will have to prove that the timber they have used will be regrown in order for it to count as a carbon-negative material, Byrne said.

Forestation projects will have to demonstrate longevity to ensure that harvested timber is regrown, with Byrne suggesting that a 100-year timeframe could be likely.

"I know some people [on the working group] are pushing for 1,000 years to make it pretty strong," he said. "You don't want something that's just going to go quickly back into the carbon cycle again," he said.

Unless managed properly over a long timeframe, it is hard to guarantee that commercial forestry results in long-term sequestration of carbon since the timber can rot, burn or end up in landfill.

"You have to be certain that it's not going to flow back into the system," Byrne said.

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