Hannah Durham

Architecture is at a tipping point.

Voices of the under-recognised are increasing in volume and are agitating for change. If we don’t collectively listen, re-adjust and change our outlook, we risk limiting the relevance of our profession in today’s society and, ultimately, the places we create.

Capturing insight from leading voices in the profession, this book encourages understanding and reflection. It addresses critical questions, providing steps towards meaningful change.

It will help those who are under-recognised to find the role models, community and tools to feel confident, supported and valued. It will also help those intimidated by change to understand why it’s so important and provoke constructive action.

The topics and experiences provide a rich foundation for building an inclusive future that truly represents the diverse population we serve.

This is a call for change. Now.

Today, world-wide architecture is recognised mainly for its visual qualities, yet we experience a landscape or building using all our senses. This ocular-centrism disconnects us from our habitat and makes us blind to the full extent of our landscapes, built or un-built. Our archives and libraries are filled with objects like books and artefacts which we look at, predominantly. Perhaps we should also be archiving in equal measure the smells, tastes, sounds and textures of the past and present.

Here, photography, drawing, writing, sound recordings, film and walking are explored as ways to expand the understanding of landscape qualities. Presented here is a core method utilised in architecture studios at Oxford Brookes University to support site analysis called ‘Transect Walks’. Students are asked to cut a line meandering along the different waterways of Oxford, England. The students record and document the ‘Transect Walk’ in their own way, using a creative method of their own making that also expands beyond simply the visual.

Presented are several examples of student work articulating the expansion of landscape understanding through the process of walking and making. The ‘Transect Walk’ exercise was devised to disrupt the standard approach to architecture and to challenge the traditional architect’s approach to site analysis. The aim was to enable the students to tune into and develop their own way of experiencing, way of seeing and way of representing the landscape around them. In so doing, we were encouraging a diverse collection of ways to read and understand a landscape, enabling inclusivity in the manner of documentation and expression.

Photography as a mode of representation was examined and re-interpreted in the ‘Transect Walk’ exercise by adjusting the filter for seeing to a specific aspect. When the eye is tuned to seek out and see a certain small fragment of a landscape, suddenly the vast, complex and detailed collage of a landscape no longer overwhelms the viewer.

Durham's postgraduate student design work features in this illustrated book of student projects. The book is a collection of student work from Diploma Unit 9 across three years, from the Architectural Association (AA), London. 

Invited Speaker talking about our Building Stories (Unit C) Oxford Brookes University Design Studio work linking storytelling and architecture. 

A conversation between a forester, an academic, an architect and a maker. With our audience we heard brief presentations from the four viewpoints and then had a discussion about our collective imagined future of working with timber.

Berman, Durham and Vasilikou led a group which created a timber pavilion in the Wyre Forest. We created a piece called Pause made by thin oak laths sweeping amongst sapling oaks providing a series of chairs, screens and leaning posts to stop and pause.

A making workshop constructing a timber pavilion with conference delegates. 

Durham, Guan and Holloway led a group which created a timber pavilion in the Wyre Forest where the woodland soundscape was played back onto itself via a digital translation. The timber installation included a robotic arm playing a tune on an oak piano, through an oak megaphone towards an oak sound mirror.