Live projects

Principal Investigators: Professor Jane Anderson and Ralph Saull, Senior Lecturer 

Building Empathy is a live project to design and install a Making Space on campus for the School of Architecture. The structure will enable the making of large objects, prototypes and further live project installations. It is a demountable structure made form ultra-locally sourced waste material. To date, a prototype of 24 wall panels and a frame have been constructed and tested. The project employs circular design methods in order to address waste in the construction industry by establishing construction and design methods as well as forming connections between the university, local businesses and the construction industry.

The project was conceived in response to the presently ongoing 'once in a life-time' curriculum shift in architectural education instigated by the RIBA and ARB. Embedding the newly prioritised criteria of designing for sustainability, safety, ethics and professional skills into the first and formative experiences of Year 1 undergraduates, may have a profound impact on the way in which such qualities are demonstrated and valued throughout the remainder of their degree and onward into a professional context. The study is centred on the learning experiences of year 1 architecture students at Oxford Brookes university, as they design and make a 1:1 building scale live project using hyper local waste streams and modern methods of construction.

The purpose of the study is to provide evidence of the impact that teaching sustainability, safety and ethics through a live project can have in respect of the new direction and expectations set by the profession. Beyond the learning outcomes, we also seek to analyse the inherent difficulties and idiosyncrasies of undertaking live projects in the context of a large institution and when building from waste, such that the dissemination of this case study might enable other educators to build on the findings to foster a wider adoption of live project learning in architectural education.

Anderson, J and Saull, R, Designing for sustainability, safety, ethics and professional skills from day one of year one, via a live project. In: Productive Disruptive: spaces of exploration in-between architectural pedagogy and practice. Association of architectural educators conference 2023, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. 12-15 July 2023.

A prototype of 24 wall panels and frame was been constructed and tested in the academic year 2022-23. It was displayed in the Glass Tank Gallery, Oxford Brookes University from October - December 2022 and will be reconstructed for Earth Day celebrations in the Forum of Oxford Brookes University in April 2023.