Project I: Atelier Clancy-Moore

We are running our studio as an encounter and an expansion of the conversations in our practice. The tuition will be lead by Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore working in conversation with our assistants and students. Architecture doesn’t happen in isolation, and we prioritise the social construction of each proposition as a key part of the learning experience. We are joined by two incredible assistants - Fanny Noël; and Simone Turkewitsch who will be a key part of this conversation. 
For this reason we ask all students to work in groups of 2 or 3. We know there will be differing interpretations and lines of enquiry and so the tuition will work to develop skills and insights into collaborative working. We will hold open, supportive and critical conversations about how we work, open spaces where nothing is off the table, and there are no taboos. We recongise the unique frustrations, joys and insecurities of architectural production and do not ignore them - part of our teaching is to allow students develop their own tools for navigating doubt. Yesterdays certainties no longer apply in the same way - and the cultivation of curiosity, care and compassion as part of architecture are essential to our disiplines relevance.

NEW ORDER 
In the abiding spirit of the Accademia we are interested in what constitutes a territory today. Any site has its interconnection with processes, places, and social structures in the world. We equally undertand the territory of the archtiect ‒ their histories, facinations and ethical imperitives. We site our studio in the intersection of these two territories. Our educational project is based on using our brief to act as an armature to allow each student identify and refine their intution, judgment and skillset. So we will locate our design projects in the territory of the school and of our imagination. 
The physical territory will be defined by water, its flow, its levels and its demands. Starting with a tap running in Mendrisio we will find our sites in the places this water comes from, or where it goes. This site finding exercise will be augmented by setting great works of fiction as a mental site to develop ideas, understandings and depth of encounter. By inhabiting these books we will find clients, explore contexts, negotiate climates and the vastly differing rituals and social hierarchies of our world.  We have selected books that allow us to engage with and understand diverse places, climates and socio political histories. We do this as we agree with Alvaro Siza when he says that architects don’t invent anything, they transform reality. 
The evolution of both a universal and personal architectural language is rooted in these transformations and translations from one time or culture to another and from the individual author to the collective conscious. 
There is a great need for an architects ability to read and translate. Climate change means historic forms of building, vernacular intelligences, gain new value in their translation from one context to another as the weather shifts and our geography is remade. For us this starts with an ability to read beyond our habitual understandings and develop a tectonic language that speaks of this new order.

• Quality education
• Gender equality
• Clean water and sanitation
• Sustainable cities and communities
• Climate action

In presence

We do not have an agenda for how you draw, make or share your ideas. We encourage all modes - analogue and digital. We will be setting final model works to be made in paper (via the zund, or other technology). We work this way in our office, and enjoy its precision, economy and recyclability.
Your sites will be found in the novels you read from the assigned list of books, in the territory of the water catchment of the school - so site information will follow once this selection is made. 
Our trip will be to follow the watershed of the school and will take place from 12-14 October. More informaiton will be provided closer to the time. 
The entire semester is a considered engagement between the student, their work, and their relationship with architecture. We encourage students to take risks, find the aspects of the subject that fascinate them, and speak openly. We anticipate that each student will find different ways to articulate and advance their work, and will assess on the basis of their trajectory, reasoning and best work across this period.

Final critiques

• Copenhagen, 09.10.24 - 12.10.24 (Compulsory)