UG - Unit E — The Oxford School of Architecture 2023-2024

UNIT E - (New Definitions of Community Lexicon)

In Unit E we create architecture from a place of personal experience, exploring space as a collection of narratives that intertwine. We use self-led research and observations to create programmes and architectural representation, coming from a deep understanding of site.

The concept of community is fluid, evolving and responding to changes in cultural stimulus and complex weaves of social, political, and economic pressures. This is evident in the way in which community “centres” manifest in different cultures, creating unique spaces deeply intertwined with a sense of place. Yet perceptions of the “community centre” can have negative connotations, anecdotal tales of poorly designed spaces, with little care for those who use them or what they may use them for.

Designing something inclusive and meaningful for the breadth of people encompassed by the word “community” is a distinctly challenging proposition, one that Unit E aims to tackle through projects based on a unique undeveloped plot in the heart of Oxford.

For all intents and purposes, the site appears to be a perfectly formed nucleus for wide-ranging user groups, activities, building typologies, and physical topologies. Yet at this epicentre lies only void, an emptiness, a lack of community. This year’s proposals inhabit this void, filling it with a new animated and diverse cultural community heart, with building programmes derived from extensive contextual research. Proposals form individual responses to the community centre defining what this building typology means within the specifics of the site's location and sense of place.

Unit Leader: Alex Chalmers, Unit Tutor: Tom Jelley, Technology Tutor: Mina Samangooei, Structures Tutor: John Hurle
Ribas Ale, Maria Biendarra, Josh Bloomfield, Alfred Duggan, Jani Flind, Demarrie Lewis, Farah Diana Mohd Zahid, Iryna Stadnyk, Ezzah Zamily, Toluwalope Adewusi, Barathi Amarasekaran, Tom Baker, Isabelle Farlow, Fedor Gubiev, Jacob Lawes, Henry Miles, Tam Oniyelu, Kelise Prince, Amelie Rahman Smith, Mia Wedeman

Worcester Street Car Park, Oxford

Isabelle Farlow

“Isabelle’s project tackles themes of slow architecture and material sustainability, through a sophisticated and conceptual exploration of the impact of our physical interventions and the cycle of ruin, preservation and re-invigoration over significant periods of time.”

Project 1: Is a Folly Art or Architecture? A folly is a decorative building with no practical purpose, it can be considered both art and architecture. This short project explores the purpose of a folly through materiality. Focusing on material experience and how this varies. Using two contrasting materials (light and heavy) to emphasise this. This Folly is constructed with rammed earth and bamboo rested on top, both materials are unprotected. Overtime the rammed earth will deteriorate and return to the earth, causing the structure to collapse. As this happens, the experience of the folly and the materials will change. Perhaps demonstrating that a folly could be classed as architecture as like buildings it is something that can be experienced spatially and emotionally.

Project 2: What Makes People Stop? Starting with questioning ‘what makes people stop?’, this project investigates whether the architecture itself can create a community, testing the need for a specific programme and spaces. This has been explored through materiality and design, using rammed earth as the primary material and focusing on the experience by designing through a series of moments. Rammed earth is considered a traditional artisan trade, one that requires a community to maintain it overtime. This promotes a focus on non-mass produced, slow and sustainable materials that can bring a new community together and educate people on the importance of maintaining these materials and crafts.

On a simple level, this project provides public space with shelter for people to stop in Oxford City Centre to resolve the lack of public resting spaces. However, it also provides space for various communities to come together and hold events, activities, workshops and classes all whilst developing its own community centred around the architecture.

Project 3: Are Buildings Built to Last? This project is positioned 150 years in the future when the previous project (project 2) has decayed, reusing the ruin of this. This project focuses on the decreasing lifespans of buildings and the issues this presents. Exploring the concept of ‘slow architecture’ by focusing on understanding the life cycle of buildings and materials and where they come from. Creating spaces that are crafted intentionally with time. This combines three elements: existing structures/ ruins, long lifespan materials and shorter lifespan materials.

Focusing on material life cycles, this project proposes material testing on site using natural materials that can be grown on site or sourced locally and transported on barges via the inland water network. Demonstrating that ‘slow architecture’ could be more efficient, effective and perhaps increase building lifespans.

Sheltering Hope

Tam Oniyelu

The project begins with the site. Worcester Street Car park, situated at the west end of Oxford City Centre, is a prime location for transportation and move-ability throughout the city centre of Oxford. However, Sheltering Hope has managed to obtain the car park and propose a space that embodies the identities of an underrepresented group within the Oxford community- people experiencing homelessness.

Phase 1 of Sheltering Hope proposes Pods and a Community Hub that allow people experiencing homelessness to come together to feel connected, share their thoughts, and express their identity. The Pods are an unconventional approach to tradition house units that aim to not only provide comfortable and habitable sheltering for homeless people, but challenge the conventional approach to housing and planning.

Phase 2 of Sheltering Hope aims to unify the rest of Oxford’s community by proposing interactive and social spaces at the centre point of the West End. Sheltering Hope will provide spaces such as a restaurant that serves anyone, growing produce on site, and allowing the primary user (of semester 2) to get involved in cooking and creating delicious recipes. Additionally, the pods proposed in Phase 1 of Sheltering Hope will now have a designated construction workshop and design studio, allowing for not only the construction of the cassettes and pods, but also the design iterations and deployment strategies for the pods. As a whole, Sheltering Hope strives to become a bridge to connected two distinctive groups that are disconnected, whilst becoming a beacon for commuting or locals experiencing homelessness that need support.

“A self-sustaining, integrated community is at the heart of Tam’s proposal, focussing on providing equal societal opportunities to the homeless populace, interrogating topics such as DfMA, social systems, and ‘guerilla-like’ occupations of the city. ”

Oxford Community Rock

Mia Wedeman

Located at the centre of Oxford City on Worcester Street Car Park, this project examines the 21st-century community centre, exploring the importance of multifunctional, community-specific spaces and third places in community infrastructure. The building provides niche, function-specific facilities for the local climbing and music communities with a new climbing gym; live music venue; and radio station, as well as a multifunctional community hall that can be partitioned into three smaller rooms to cater to multiple smaller community groups at once. A central cafe/bar links the spaces together, providing a third place for the facility users and the wider public. The intersecting meeting points between each space aim to increase exposure between the different community groups, contributing to social cohesion.

UNIT E - (New Definitions of Community Lexicon)

Worcester Street Car Park, Oxford

Sheltering Hope

Oxford Community Rock

UG - Unit D

UG - Unit F