2003 - 2004: Weight & Measure

Simon Herron, Susanne Isa

The year is structured with one central project B, sub-divided into a series of episodes A.

A - raum 606, the prototype

B - the Institute

Initial investigations are designed to develop a range of tools and skills. Students are encouraged to discover an individual architectural language, an alphabet of techniques and attitudes, which in turn will inform their understanding of site, materials, aesthetics, establishing a position on culture and technology.

Questions are posed, apparently impossible and irreconcilable scenarios are established. The intention is to be familiar, yet the initial architectural outcome to be uncertain, to allow room for speculation and invention. The delight is to be found in discovering their ultimate architectural expression.

Proposals are not just rational physical entities, but also composed of the potency of momentary perceptions, fragments of experience, memory, disassociated elements and uncertainty.

Projects have been set in the diverse habitats of the American West, arid heat of the day and sub zero nights of the high desert or the wetter, damper parts of the English, Essex, coastal marshes, to the politically charged atmosphere around the houses of Parliament, Westminster.