I have greatly enjoyed studying Architecture over the last three years.  Throughout my last year, my interest has been focused on philosophical thinkers in architecture and I have sought to understand some of their processes and theories. This has had a considerable impact on my work and thinking. It has pushed me to be more concerned with the process and the understanding of such, rather than, simply, the resultant set of drawings. I am currently working on a design book for the shown project. Having completed three years at the Mac, I am now looking forward to joining a practice as a Part 1 Architectural Assistant and gaining an understanding of other architects’ processes and how they allow a project to manifest itself in today’s age.

The project shown is of an activity’s centre and residential retreat, in Balloch, designed for Sistema Scotland. Sistema focusses on transforming children’s lives through music – offering group musical tutoring and social guidance to children and young adults in some of Scotland’s challenged areas.

The site stretched approximately 680m from the tourist office on Balloch road to the beginning of Loch Lomond and mostly consisted of green areas and forestry. I chose to design near the tourist office and engage with the urban material. Ultimately it was asked what this place meant to Balloch and what this place would mean to the children attending Sistema.

For the children it was a place of release, practice, and celebration: release from the day-to-day city life and a chance to experience a rural environment, of forests and picturesque views; practice of their instrument and social development within the Sistema program; and the celebration of the practice, by their performance in the activities centre hall.

To the people of Balloch the place served as a threshold between the urban and natural landscapes. It consisted of an uninviting gravel car park just off Balloch road. At the back of the car park was a grassy earth berm, that once you passed over, you were alleviated of all urban sounds, with no rumbling of cars or zinging of hedge trimmers. All that was left was you and a quiet path through a forest to the start of the loch.

I aimed to build on this change of scene, by placing two objects in the landscape that are experienced differently from opposite sides.  The two objects inform pedestrian movement and enhance the threshold between the urban and natural environment. Their material and structure take on a poetic quality that influences the experience of the passer-by and the child attending Sistema.

Pauls studied architecture at the Glasgow School of Art as well as the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Parralel to his studies, Pauls works with printmaking and investigates the technical drawing as a communication medium.

Pauls’ third year work at the Mackintosh School of Architecture looked at developing a venue and accomodations for a music education charity.

Project description:

Instead of taking place in sparse acoustic venues, Sistema orchestras have always dwelled in non-specialist settings directly within communities in need, prioritising social action over education tradition. How can a venue custom built for Sistema maintain this notion? To address this, Sistema’s methods were compared to those of Levi Strauss’ bricoleur. Similarly to a bricoleur, who “creates structures by means of events”, Sistema defines a venue by holding orchestra recitals in the available settings. By doing so, Sistema is shaped by the conditions and accessible resources, but at the same time can create new meanings and events within the environment. The response to the brief is not a design of a new building to be placed on the site, but rather an assemblage of the honest and mundane objects of the River Leven. A frame of one of warehouses on the riverbanks is dismantled and moved to a parking lot on the Balloch pier. There, it is furnished with rooms akin to giant bunkbeds and inhabited by the orchestra. A place to celebrate the education program and the unspectacular River Leven.

I am a Belgian-British student in third year architecture at the MSA. I like to take on ambitious and innovative projects and take pride in my work. At this stage I am currently finalising an 11 floor pyramidal housing complex in central Paris for my Erasmus at the École Nationale Supérieure de Paris Belleville. I am also looking for Part 1 internships between August 2020 and August 2021.

Hakki Tuna Taylan graduated the Saint Joseph’s French Highschool in Izmir Turkey where he is from. He came to Glasgow at 18 to study architecture. Interested with ancient antiquity sites, history and urban design since childhood he after considering archaeology as a major he understood he didn’t just want to discover the and study the past but was looking for a way to leave a physical mark on the world. Urban design and restoration are the two subjects he is most interested in and would like to further study after his bachelors.

This project is an accumulation of two separate parts comprised of a residential retreat and performance hall that together create an approach for a sustainable, sociable and environmental masterplan. In situation with the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, the concept is for an exciting client known as ‘Sistema Scotland’. Sistema is a charity programme that aims to transform the lives of children from challenging communities through the power of music. Whilst the primary aim is to develop core musical skills such as listening, concentration, teamwork and rhythm skills the secondary aim of the programme is also to develop social fluency and health and well-being. With such inspiring targets an equally aspirational and multi-functional building is needed: a building that is first and foremost a safe space; as well as an idyllic retreat where they can contemplate and reflect; a space where staff and pupils can free themselves to become immersed in creative experiences; and somewhere that can easily be personalised to suit the needs and preferences of the various individuals who will visit.
On my first site visit to the town of Balloch, enthralled by the picturesque landscape, the question occurred to me; in which way as a designer can I create a concept for a building that captures and compliments the natural untouched beauty already present? This burning question, along with my innate desire to create environmentally conscious creations was the catalyst for my completed design. To study the important relationship between Architecture and nature, I embraced the study of Phenomenology, which, when interpreted by and through human consciousness, seeks to understand the outside world. The belief of German Architecture theorist and Phenomenologist, Martin Heidegger, is that all man and nature are connected. He suggested that the best way to create an experience is to be more in touch with the mystery of existence. In architectural terms it is my challenge to create these experiences, which in turn create lasting, tangible memories. To make these memories more vivid I engage all of our human senses by manipulating materials, space and light. To truly embrace the theory of Heidegger my design also strives to bring man and nature closer together. By creating opportunities where we can submerse ourselves in nature Heidegger believes the more we will truly experience phenomenology and be at one with our consciousness, and once experienced, will have a lasting effect on how we view our world. It is my hope that through various design techniques and choices, a strong essence of the contextualism of nature and the experience that comes with that can be appreciated throughout the imagery of my Project.

My childhood unleashed a desire to know how things work, this soon developed into a more specific interest in Design, Technology and later Architecture. While looking for inspiration I discovered how architecture can enhance people’s everyday experiences as they move through and interact with a building. The right building can be both functional and beautiful, so that people feel engaged with it instead of being restricted.This strengthened my desire to be an architect, observing your hard work turning into a reality and having someone to not just admire it but use every day, I believe, is surely one of the best feelings in the world.

Having completed the BArch programme at the Glasgow School of Art, I will begin establishing myself as an intern in Vienna, Austria.

I hope to learn from the construction methods and materials applied to European projects and expand my knowledge on sustainable building methods.

Rachel is a third year student of the BArch programme. Her practice is driven by sustainable design, having been awarded the Krystyna Johnson Prize in the second year of her studies for displaying exceptional ecological thought and intent to her practice from the outset.

Passionate about equal opportunities and broadening the routes of access to the profession, in the summer of 2019 Rachel worked under DisOrindary Architecture as a teaching and supporting staff member for UCL’s Architecture Beyond Sight pilot scheme commissioned by Professor Alan Penn, Dean of The Bartlett Faculty.

The project brief was to create a retreat for Sistema Scotland, a charity who tackle social inequality through musical education by fostering a sense of wellbeing, self-esteem and aspiration among the young people taking part.

Developing her response through orthographic drawings and an iterative model making process, Rachel responds sensitively to the landscape, drawing on both architecture and geology to unite the land with the Loch.

Stephen Brown is graduating stage 3 at the Mackintosh School of Architecture. This exhibit pulls the key representations from a year-long project that addresses sustainability and contextual engagement through the design of a concert hall and a retreat centre that accommodates performers. The proposal is situated in the Trossachs National Park on a narrow strip of land that runs from the town of Balloch to the south shore of Loch Lomond.

The project engages the themes of energy, landscape, and culture, as an exercise in rethinking and expanding ideas around sustainability. The proposal’s environmental strategy goes beyond the sourcing of local and renewable materials, to consider wider criteria including low energy/passive design, prefabricated construction, and longevity in the buildings’ relevance to the cultural context of the locale. In this sense, aesthetics, adaptability and intuitiveness are paramount to the designs, ensuring their sensitivity to their natural surroundings and their capacity to serve the requirements of their users and the wider local community.

A key design challenge was integrating sustainability into the structural fabric of the two buildings. The exhibit is presented in such a way to show how this is achieved through the use of simple volumetric forms, around which hinge modular elements to make up the secondary structure. This approach seeks to establish an equilibrium in spatial arrangement that is both efficient of space and materials, whist being optimal to the scale and movement of the human body.

Currently in my third year of studying architecture I have developed a passion for sustainable and simple living. The brief to design a music retreat including a performance hall and accommodation for SISTEMA Scotland in Balloch was refreshing and challenging. It was important to consider energy, landscape and culture and bring them all together. With the site being so close to home i wanted to capture the feelings and memories i had of visiting the site as a child; taking the train to the last stop in Balloch where ironically the journey only just began, discovering Loch Lomond only a footsteps away. Inspired by my trip around Scotland visiting the Maggie’s Centres’, I further looked into the work of Frank Gehry. The curvature in his architecture and abstract angles led me to creating two very different buildings which were to contrast but also compliment each other.

In Urban Housing, the thesis sought to explore the notions of ownership in housing by utilizing an economic model that generates lower cost housing for affordable, long-term rental. By assuming the risks and working directly with the end users, the architect secures the viability of the project and removes the profit of the developer. The proposal of NO OWNERSHIP MODES adjusts the concept of fideicomiso to work with the state, meaning the state funding be used directly by the architect to produce housing at a lower cost and without the need of a developer. Engaging in a direct design process with the residents seeking socially rented housing would revolutionise the current notion of renting housing that does not respond to the needs of the end user.

In Urban Building, VESSEL FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY creates an accountable form of governance – for a time of crisis – expressed as a citizens assembly. Provoked by the definition of a civic building as being where every resident has a shared claim on the resource, the programme represents a symbiotic relationship between politics, people and the ecosystem. The architecture aims to establish an alliance with the environment by cultivating and re-wilding the landscape. The seating plan of the VESSEL FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY discards the form of the current house of commons, that can be interpreted as an expression of the political culture that it has helped to shape, us and them.

After completing part one at the MSA, I spent a further three years in Paris and Buenos Aires working in atelier architecture/interior design studios. Having gained this experience I have returned to Glasgow to complete part two.

Having completed my undergraduate degree in University College Dublin, I moved to Glasgow to broaden and re-contextualise my architectural education. My work focuses on presence and the balance between heavy and light taking particular interest in materials and what they offer the user over time.

I aim to think of the built environment as a living, ever-morphing realm and carefully consider time passing and a building’s continuous existence through it. True sustainability and usefulness comes not just from fulfilling a brief but imagining the brief in many years to come and taking ownership of your responsibility to design for humanity.

Jonathan’s research project, A Complex Whole: Kyrka to Kulturhuset, attempts to understand the varied architectural language developed by the Swedish architect Peter Celsing. The photographs shown here were taken whilst visiting each building during a research trip to Stockholm and Goteborg.

Celsing was an underrated architect who deployed architectural language with wit and intelligence. Even a brief glance over his work highlights this, from the deep and tactile language of the Helsingborg brick used at Harlanda parish church to the light and transparent language of glass stretched over steel and concrete at the Kulturhuset complex in the centre of Stockholm city.

With a love for art, history, travel and culture, Celsing was an architect for whom reference and imagery could be used freely as an artist would; his buildings were formed by the movement of his hand, pen on paper, brush on board. The language that he developed for each project seems always to have become a study of the relationship between the interior and the formal whole; the constellation of parts becomes something more.

His practice was artisanal and deeply rooted in history, but he did not shy away from international culture and global aspiration, and so his projects, regardless of scale and brief, were optimistic and profoundly civic.

Vivien Wan Ting Neoh has just completed Stage 4 at the Mackintosh School of Architecture. The following images are taken from the Urban Housing project, sited in Merchant City in Glasgow. Often housing is planned with the nuclear family unit in mind: two parents with children. As society evolves to become include new living situations – multigenerational families, single parents, young urban workers, the traditional three-bedroom apartment may no longer be suited to the needs of everyone. This project considers how apartment types for three different groups of people: multigenerational families, live-at-home professionals and artisans whose dedicated workspace is located in proximity to their homes. The project also explores the inclusion of levels in a single living unit, in contrast to typical flats which spaces are spread out on one floor.

I have a strong interest in conservation and restoration architecture, having loved my experience in my year in practice, working for a conservation practice, Simpson and Brown.

I am also interested in designing for children and enjoy using my experience working with children, as a Rainbow Guide leader, to influence my work.

During my fourth year, I was part of the editorial team for MSA’s student-run magazine, MacMag and helped produce the 45th issue of the publication.

In my spare time I enjoy singing as part of the Glasgow School of Art choir, climbing and hiking in the Scottish highlands and I am learning German.

Rihards Saknitis is a Stage 4 Diploma in Architecture Student at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, who has been awarded a Bachelor of Architecture with Honours from the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design. Professionally, he has experience working on architectural projects in a variety of scales and contexts in the UK and Latvia.

Rihards Diploma study has been focused on establishing and experimenting with frameworks to identify and address social and environmental issues in the context of Glasgow. His projects explore how the city can function with less detriment on natural systems, by reestablishing and mimicking those systems in the built environment and how architectural planning can support more self-sufficient lifestyles. By designing space for nature, natural systems and principles of democratic production into the urban context, the consumerist culture and its impacts on the world are attempted to be reduced.

Throughout my time at MSA, I have maintained an interest in sustainable practice, pursuing this within a wider context in my part-time work at erz Landscape Architects alongside my studies.

My personal sustainable micro-home build project (from design to construction) has been endorsed by GSA Sustainability (see @studio_occupy). I’m developing my practical skills alongside my research project entitled ‘Occupation and the Right to the City: combining politics and action to reclaim the power of the working class’ to investigate the potential of physical building to unite and politically empower communities; this is a consistent theme in my design work.

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, would like to state my support for the Pause or Pay Campaign To read the full manifesto click here

Jemima Harold-Sodipo is currently a Stage 4 Diploma of Architecture student, having completed her Part 1 BArch degree at The University of Nottingham.

The following is the thesis statement of the project showcased here.

In a society where many are separated or isolated, this scheme looks to retain community. Creating a place in the city catered to all ages and abilities, promoting inclusion and integration. All in light of the Glasgow City Council’s goal to repopulate the city centre.

It seeks to strengthen community infrastructure through shared experience and shared resource, creating a diverse and immersive communal space to engage with others. This is primarily achieved through participation and collaborative design within the immersive theatre space and craft facilities.

Tool hire, DIY advice workshop, and a community kitchen with a cooking workshop, share skills often shared within families and communities. Providing essential facilities for people from different social and economic backgrounds.

The program looks to support existing social infrastructure, with workspaces provided for existing networks that also seek to sustain community, boosting their reach.

A holistic approach to sustaining a community is advocating for longevity and sustainable practices. This is achieved through optimisation of passive technologies and natural resources.

The following illustrations have been selected to convey my thesis for the Urban Building project, which explores the hybrid of performance and education.  The design manifests itself as a performing arts venue in Glasgow’s Merchant City, providing an all-encompassing cultural hub accessible to every demographic.

This project is prompted by observations of current performing arts venues in Glasgow, often failing to be inclusive of all in the community and engage a multitude of arts categories in one space.  Supporting spaces within the design are formulated to be utilised by the community for collective and personal development – aiding education and leisure.

The design delivers a venue to experience performing arts in a variety of circumstances.  Permeable in nature, visitors enter from all angles of the building – emphasising its identity as a destination within the city.  Abundant void space in the venue affords the opportunity for sub-division, generating informal performance spaces.  Concrete stairs appear dense and sculptural within the light and open architecture, generated by the steel framed structure, resulting in a visual contrast between solid and void.  This contrast is employed further to convey visual legibility within the design, informing visitors of the function of spaces.  Ascending the building, spaces become increasingly “solid” and introverted for isolated practice to take place.  Polycarbonate curtain walls and glazing portray movement within the building to the streets as animated shadows, engaging the external context of Merchant city.

With boutique stores, galleries, annual festivals celebrating the arts, and many creatives basing themselves there: Merchant City is renowned as the cultural heart of Glasgow.  This venue is synonymous with this context and provides a civic space to cultivate a collective experience of performing arts to inspire personal growth, and collaboration.

As an advocate for the natural environment and the conservation of wildlife, Gabrielle Buckley takes the premise that an empathy and understanding of nature should be at the root of good design.

At this moment in the shared global environmental crisis, she believes that every architect has a responsibility to do their utmost to change the current mindset from focusing solely the ‘built environment’ to the ‘environment’. This will enable the creation of places which harmonise both the urban and natural realms.

This years final design thesis titled “Act Natural: can mankind live harmoniously with nature for a healthy functioning ecosystem and planet through the medium of architecture?” explores ways to integrate urban development in nature sensitive and environmentally conscious manner.

With an awareness and interest for the endless possibilities and opportunities created by the cross collaboration of design disciplines and the allied arts, along with the belief that nature has the potential to be the greatest model that mankind can emulate to create a better world, initial research started with biomimicry which informed the building type and program.
This naturally led to further research into low key solutions and a design that retained and enhanced the integrity of the site through a ‘light touch’ approach to form and materials.

After graduating with an Honours degree and embarking upon the final year of Architecture, I sought to build upon skills and interest from the previous Honours year. With a particular interest in Sustainable design and Passivehaus, the final design thesis for Stage 5 focused on an educational institution within the urban landscape of Antwerp.
Taking the concept from Hermon Hertberger’s Space and Learning and applying it to the site, a project is proposed which creates a “Learning Landscape”, sculpted from the tools and measures which promote social interaction. This is achieved through designed space which embodies the idea of inhabited circulation that is given equal importance to the classroom with regards to space and lighting. By providing a communal area to bring together the different cultures of users, a catalyst is created for greater social networking.

Fluid/ Terra:

A climatic architectural response to place within the extreme environment of the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard; which addresses concerns of economy, geographic insularity, energy dependency and the physical sufficiency of place together with the historic relationship between land, ocean and human interaction.

My thesis challenges the permanence of the city through the speculation of a new type of roaming civic architecture, challenging the centralisation of power and culture in Antwerp, whilst recharging these civic institutions as democratic forces for urban repair.

The idea of a civic centre is here adopted as a vehicle with the potential to shift social and political investment away from the medieval core of the city of Antwerp. The thesis proposes to establish a new civic centrality directly on top of the ring road between Antwerp’s historic city centre and the 20th century belt district of Morkhoven. The ring road is a product of permanent urban scarring inflicted by the medieval fortifications and this has subsequently been immortalised by the motorway that currently circumnavigates the inner city.

The civic centre can be defined by the presence of institutions of both culture and political power within the city. However, it could be argued that these institutions, namely our city halls and national parliaments, have become increasingly ambiguous in their contributions to the civic realm and in turn influenced the public’s perception of what constitutes civic architecture. This project aims to address this ambiguity within a new civic typology where institutions of power can now fully embed themselves within host communities with a renewed civic importance.

Institutions of power and culture are planned to move site every 15-20 years in an effort to repair more of the fabric of the city. Whilst these programmes are free to move, this thesis takes a critical position on the longevity of it’s architecture, whereby a balance is struck between permanent construction and the design of key spaces that are critical to the programme, thus are temporary and bespoke.

When the programmes of these civic institutions relocate, host communities inherit the site, where permanent structure is re-purposed for housing and community facilities. The dismantling of temporary structures allows for public courtyards to adopt new roles, shifting it’s responsibility from from serving the city, to serving the community and the individual.

To be continued.

An aspiring designer interested in adaptability, metabolism within an architectural/ urban framework, future technologies and sustainable systems. I explore architecture mainly through photography and it’s manipulation as we currently live in a world in which our smartphones are an altered perspective of our collective realities.

Ella has a BA(Hons) Degree and Diploma in Architecture from the Mackintosh School of Architecture and has professional experience working abroad in Denmark.

Ella started her thesis project while on exchange at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and has based her project within the Stockholm Archipelago.

Her thesis is concerned with understanding anthropogenic relationships with the Baltic sea and using these to establish a strategy of remediation within a public landscape.

About me

I am curious about transformation of underused spaces, co-creation, rootedness, connection with nature, finding creative ways of working with communities and facilitating balanced urban developments.

I worked as architectural assistant with O’DonnelBrown Architects in Glasgow, Konishi Gaffney Architects in Edinburgh and EFFEKT Architects in Copenhagen. Also, I am a co-founder of Un/Common Glasgow (Architecture Fringe 2019 programme participants).

I would be pleased to discuss my thesis work or a future collaboration. My contact details are below.

Estate of Change

The thesis seeks to bring the diversity of urban life to Antwerp’s peripheral modernist social housing estates by improving the quality and equality of everyday spaces. Normally demolished as part of comprehensive redevelopment plans the four slab blocks of this proposition will be retained thus respecting the unique character of the modernist housing and allowing the existing residents to continue to occupy their flats during construction.

This proposition to transform modernist blocks in Luchtbal neighbourhood will focus primarily on re-working the ground level, which is so typically underused in modernist urbanism. Between the blocks and their existing pilotis the principles of shared commons, mixed use, gradation of scales, distinct spatial identities and lasting quality of design are explored.

Identified needs of the ethnically diverse and economically deprived residents were used to inform a new masterplan and related architectural interventions at multiple scales. The existing situation of a private dwelling, a common stair and an overwhelming open space outside are mediated in this proposal by adding the ‘missing’ in-between spaces, thresholds encouraging stronger social relations and trust between the residents of the blocks and the wider neighbourhood.

The proposition includes:

1. Additional ground floor housing to redefine the public realm. Existing flats are provided with new sunrooms to increase desirability and common stair landings are made more generous to provide space for conversation between neighbours;
2. New pedestrian streets with active façades linking major attraction points in the neighbourhood (for example, train station and leisure destinations) to create spaces with distinct architectural identities and reduce car dependency;
3. Affordable work spaces, community education facilities and the associated civic spaces are proposed to address unemployment and bring more visitors to the area;
4. Clear distinction between public streets and semi-private courtyards shared by the residents of the blocks in order to encourage ‘ownership’ of the underused green spaces and create opportunities to strengthen trust between neighbours. This introduces ‘fronts and backs’ to the serially planned slabs;
5. Shared community facilities such as kitchens and laundrettes in the semi-private courtyards to allow the possibility of residents to re-think their daily lives on more communal terms;
6. Architectural language, design code and materials of the newly formed spaces are respectful of the existing buildings, ease navigation and give a sense of scale, ‘warmth’, comfort and lasting quality.

By 2040, most of the world will have a severe supply to demand issue regarding the surface water. The purple represents countries that will face the struggles the most. As 97% of the world’s water is saltwater, 3% is frozen freshwater held in the glaciers and the remaining 1% is liquid water. Though in that 1%, some of it lies underground, making it very expensive to extract, with the only choice but to deplete surface freshwater.

What the speculative aim is to critique the careless free-flowing faucets which humans leave on; to reflect and to preserve a natural resource that we would die without. From research to realisation, the hypothesis opposes to a utilitarian architecture having so little attention. A promise of childish pleasure – city as a playground. Marrying to a combination of an eco-consciousness of water with the appeal to a desire that people have of their surroundings, to engage and excite them. The really impressive achievement is to respond to that desire with infrastructures that have more than one function.

Antwerp has a lack of designed urban green spaces within the dense urbanised blocks. Finding a way to incorporate a way of green living with natural resources.

A framework and narrative for a heterotopian place that critiques the real value of the natural resources which surround us, the most important natural resource to humankind: water. People who live in cities have access to taps, but the true value of this commodity is lost through it ease of availability, it isn’t valued the same as gold or diamonds.

Heterotopia comes from Greek “Hetero” – other/opposite and “Topos” – place

Utilizing preservation as a driver and bringing the idea of this crisis closer, from global to macro. We begin to reflect, be good to the planet, and have a laugh. Function follows fun. The combination of an environmentally conscious public facility with inhabitable architecture.

To be spectacular, blatant, and memorable, opposing to the idea, and culture which cares so little about aesthetics invests so little indignity in the beauty which supplies and powers our towns and cities.

A counter to the medieval city core, to produce a heterotopian place on the left bank – Linkeroever.

A public facility with the water desalination plant. Bringing a social integration of play and environmental consciousness together. Allowing the interaction of traditionally separate functions to operate and unite as one singular holistic approach.

The aspiration of this thesis is to create a connection between Den Dam and the rest of Antwerp thus making this community feel included and not excluded. Not only creating a connection within the local area/district, will reduce the sense of isolation for the people.

The role of the architecture is to create a relationship with the land (market space) and the water (the dock) and examine whether if it is possible to utilise this resource to help generate the produce for this community led and ran market space, thus making it more sustainable for all the factors involved, whilst also reducing the reliance on the citiy’s mains water structure which can be utilised elsewhere within the system.

The scope of this design thesis will be able to benefit the community by connecting them with one another through the creation of this market and urban farm; therefore creating a desire for the public to visit therefore re-establishing a connection to this area and community with the city and re-purposing this once vibrant area, which bands together the community.

It is a place where cultures clash, which can be a valuable resource to act as a seed to foster a vibrant society. In conjunction with the artist could create a cultural hub and space for the north of Antwerp thus connecting to the rest of Antwerp and feel included and not excluded.

Through connecting the community together via a food market/hall which will be community lead and ran providing the people with jobs and therfore a source of income and the ability to share their culinary knowledge between themselves and the rest of Antwerp, thus benefiting all the people, the workers, the businesses and organisations within this community, hence connecting the people together and sharing this gift with Antwerp bring this community closer together with the city.

Tom Stark BSc DipArch studied architecture at the University of Strathclyde before completing his diploma at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, in 2020. He has worked for a range of practices within Glasgow including Hoskins Architects, Dress for the Weather, Marc Kilkenny Architects, and most recently with Baillie Baillie Architects on several residential projects throughout Scotland. In 2017, he was awarded the Glasgow Institute of Architects’ student prize for third year.

Since 2016, he has worked in partnership with James Faulds, a collaboration which is founded on a common philosophy that speaks to the on-going dialogue between a universal simplicity, context and the long lineage of architectural history. Through an appreciation of the humble and mundane, the studio maintains an approach which strives to make concrete an architecture which is subtle, considered and meaningful.

James Faulds BSc DipArch is an architectural designer, educated at the University of Strathclyde, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and The Glasgow School of Art, where he graduated in 2020. Prior to completing his studies, James worked with Collective Architecture in Glasgow, where he gained experience working in the public-housing sector. In 2015, he was the recipient of the Glasgow Institute of Architects’ J.B.Wilson Prize.

Since 2016, he has worked in partnership with Tom Stark, a collaboration which is founded on a common philosophy that speaks to the on-going dialogue between a universal simplicity, context and the long lineage of architectural history. Through an appreciation of the humble and mundane, the studio maintains an approach which strives to make concrete an architecture which is subtle, considered and meaningful.

An Architecture of Emotion acts as a critical reappraisal of the value and necessity of collective and solitary emotional space, proposing a revised typology that considers the future of emotion, contemplation and memory within the contemporary city. Seven chapels form a constellation at the heart of the block, fed into by four gardens which are screened from the street by a series of modest gatehouses, each addressing their immediate context. Each chapel serves to offer space in which one may seek comfort, solace or celebration: spaces that aim in atmosphere, scale and material expression to elicit and sustain an emotional and spiritual need.

jamesfaulds6@gmail.com / tstark.arch@gmail.com

Ollie Scott is an illustrator whose practice explores the topic of silence and noise in public spaces through a medium of writing, drawing, drypoint etching and book making.

In her most recent project titled ‘Observations of Strangers’, she delves into the interactions with strangers that often seem insignificant, exploring feelings of awkwardness and shared discomfort within the infra-ordinary.

Originally from Spain. My background in advertising influences my illustration work. Solving the problem while telling a story is my aim.

For this showcase I selected a movie poster project that I will be updating.

My name is Katie Muir and I am a graphic designer and filmmaker. My work centres around the themes of the intersection of nostalgia and current world issues. The film ‘Sequoias are Dying!’ is a documentary short about human effect on the giant Sequoia trees in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The film was made with the aim to see how nostalgic archive imagery behaves when placed within a modern context, and the effect this has on the topic itself. The project was expanded on with a series of satirical postcards. The film ‘Eastfield Jam’ also uses archive footage, and acts as a moving collage for the 10-minute musical piece it was made for.
The logo development and leaflets are part of a project reworking the identity of grassroots Glasgow-based charity Urban Roots. The project began by investigating current identities of smaller, not-for-profit companies, and aimed to create a visual identity that has a playful, professional and easy to use set of visuals that can be translated throughout the all aspects of the identity, and can be used by anyone in their offices and remain consistent.
The final project is an ongoing commission for a children’s book. It was made in collaboration between the author and another Communication Design (Illustration) student Bethany Millican, whose black and white ink paintings are featured.
I have also included an image from the Pause or Pay campaign in solidarity with the graduating class.

Abby Bayani is graphic designer working and living in Glasgow. With an interest in underlying structures, she utilises graphic design as a way to explore and visualise them in new ways.

Working across disciplines, her practice is process-led, experimenting with various methods and materials to develop ideas. She makes use of printmaking, bookbinding, and animation to aid her creative process; and is inherently driven by the possibilities of playful exploration and meticulous making.

Printmaker, illustrator and schemer.

Elisabeth is most immersed when getting tactile with ink, making drypoint engravings and woodcuts. it is a process-oriented practice; chipping and burring, scraping and turning. tranquility is the result.

Looking for a press, for images to make, and finding ever more thrilling means to produce prints.

I’m a photographer and multidisciplinary artist born in Brighton (1996) and based in Glasgow.

My current projects focus on human intervention, exploring globalisation, public space, British culture, urban environments and social behaviour.

Through contemporary photography I attempt to extract new meanings from within the landscape and materialise ideas, tensions or emotions that are otherwise unseen. Interested in the reciprocal relationship between human and environment; I often manifest my ideas through reoccurring motifs and patterns found in people and objects. My work has become more socially and politically motivated in recent years, a natural response to our current climate. Conveying the human condition through a sense of unfamiliarity, I attempt to reveal new interpretations of ‘truth’.

My current project ‘In Moleca’ documents the events and effects of the ‘Acqua Alta’ (high-water) which transpires annually in the city of Venice, Italy. This tidal activity is a natural occurrence, however in recent decades it has been aggravated by the effects of human activity. Mass-tourism, global warming, urban expansion and industrialisation are damaging factors which have influenced the deterioration of the Venetian lagoon, this has led to the increasing tide and subsidence of the ‘floating city’. Exploring issues caused by human intervention; this series highlights the tender balance between urban inhabitants and the environment. ‘In Moleca’ questions how cities like Venice can harmonise this interdependent relationship and adapt to the age of the Anthropocene in an increasingly globalised world.

This year I worked on a short film commissioned by the Scottish Football Association (SFA). This documents United Glasgow FC, a club who campaign for refugees rights and champion the ideals of inclusivity and accessibility in Scottish football.

In recent years my work has been published by Intern-mag, CNN, Public-Source XYZ and Issues-mag. Please contact me via email for any enquiries, commissions or collaborations!

Mairi Louise Caldwell is a Glasgow based illustrator, and recent graduate of the Glasgow School of Art.

Characterising the main themes of her practice as ‘Hidden’ Histories, Memory and the Mythological (that is, concerned with untold stories, folk knowledge, superstition, personal recollection and the unwritten history) her work typically combines analogue drawing, writing, collage and photography.

Molly Lindsay is a Communication and Design graduate, specialising in photography.

The work presented centres around the theme of walking; tracing and tracking the journey by drawing into the landscape. The red line continues into the project Uses of the Erotic, a visual response to Audre Lorde’s essay, challenging classical depictions of the nude in attempt to reclaim a definition of the erotic through a female photographer’s eyes.

In my final year at Glasgow School of Art studying Communication Design specialising in Graphics where I have immersed myself in a wide range of subjects, undertaking independent research projects, answering design briefs and finding creative solutions to problems within tight deadlines.

For most of this year I have been working on a short film on the improvement on mental health and well-being through football — with the focus on physical and emotional well-being and how they are interconnected.

Through mental well-being, I have tackled underlying topics such as anxiety, depression, addictions and how football (particularly the football community) can play a vital role of support for coping with such problems for some individuals. Emphasising that team spirit, and being part of something bigger than yourself, can help people gain confidence and self-worth through community support and the camaraderie of the game itself.

Commissioned by the SFA I have been working with Stenhousemuir Warriors which is part of Stenhousemuir Football Club one of the most community-active professional football clubs in the UK.  Warriors in the Community is the community arm of the football club which aims to have a positive impact on every household in Stenhousemuir and the surrounding areas; either directly through club activity or through the Tryst Community Sports Club partnership. They strive to encourage more boys, girls, men and women to participate in regular physical activity and to be an active part of their local football club and community; regardless of their level of ability.

Due to the current situation I have been unable to finish this project. I plan to upload the finished film in due course.

If you would like to reach out please feel free to get in contact.

Thanks

Mark

Rebecca Ashton is a multidisciplinary illustrator with a heavy focus on film and painting. She uses a culmination of stop motion approaches, drawing frame by frame, as well as creating props and costume to create an authentic yet often disturbing reality within her film. This exchange of mediums through out help to create a collage like feel, playing to her referential approach to narrative. She is currently working on a pixilation animation exploring the concept of virginity.

Zoë Ward is a womenswear designer from Brighton, currently based in Glasgow, Scotland.

She appoaches design and making with a visceral exploration of craft and craft history resulting in textiles and garments rich in detail.

Zoë prioritise’s a slower approach to making – isolating techniques, such as hand smocking and appliqué that would enforce a more mindful and meditative approach. By applying honest, traditional craftsmanship, the garment can be seen as a narrative object; it tells a story of time and care before its even worn. Zoë believe’s considering clothing in this way we come to respect and value our belongings in a deeper sense. Applying this philosophy she hopes to re-address the relationship we have with what we use and what we wear.

Sustainable practice is at the core of what Zoë does. Utilising second hand, up-cycled, found, or in some way repurposed cloths and materials. The resulting textiles and garments reflect this history, the provenance; the landscape they come from and the people who created them.

Zoë hopes her collection honours the communities that have inspired her, that it recognises the traditions and processes of generations of craftsmen, and that it celebrates narrative in the objects we own and treasure.

Sophie Marshall is a Womenswear Designer and Pattern Cutter based in Glasgow. Throughout her studies, Sophie has developed a keen interest in tailoring which has become a fundamental component of her graduate collection. Sophie is passionate about the physical aspects of the design process, particularly creative pattern cutting.

Her graduate collection, ‘These Will Be Our Pink Days’ is a womenswear tailoring collection which aims to challenge society’s construction of femininity. By deconstructing sexualised representations of women in the media, it is possible to instead create a flattened sense of sexuality- leaning towards androgyny- which will allow women to exist outside of the confines of their gender. Sophies research consists heavily of female artists whos practices are fuelled by a desire to emancipate women from the patriarchal gaze of our heteronormative society.

Sophie’s practice involves using traditional tailoring found in menswear, alongside silhouettes and fabrication techniques from women’s lingerie. Her design process involves analysing the cultural significance and sartorial power associated with certain items of clothing- namely, traditional tailored pieces-and using these symbolic references to distort and subsequently rewrite society’s idea of how a woman should dress, look and behave.

The aesthetic drive for this collection lies within the highly sexualised and auto-erotic representation of women in 1990’s/early 2000’s advertising and the media in general. Sophie is interested in the individualist portrayal of women in postfeminist imagery, which suggests that women are empowered and in control through consciously conforming to a heteronormative, patriarchal construction of sexiness. This collection has been influenced by feminist theory and an in depth understanding of the need to disturb and breakdown stereotypical representations of women in the media.

Even when worn by a woman, it is difficult to see a suit and not also have an attached idea of that suit belonging to menswear. For this collection, Sophie takes specific elements found in tailoring and uses these in nontraditional ways to grant women the power which belongs to men’s tailoring, without there actually being any notion of gender.

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, would like to state my support for the
Pause or Pay Campaign. To read the full manifesto click here

Melody Uyanga Ramsay is a Scottish-Mongolian fashion designer whose work focuses on heritage, ethics, sustainability and its intersections using fashion.

After gaining invaluable experience in the Concept Design Department at Ralph Lauren, she has honed her own creative vision working between fashion, installation, performance and video.

As you start to figure out her visual language; the process of theoretical and historical research becomes evident as a form of figurative expression, transporting you with tailored British narratives and a homage to Mongolian horse-riding culture. This melting-pot of culture and art forces to overwhelm and define you.

Through her research, she has developed a design process that involves a rich cross-pollination of sources, bringing together literary, material and visual references.

Her 2020 graduate collection is presented as a meditation on cultural narratives, presented within a carefully considered scenography and casting.

Drawing upon the images and textiles of authoritarian dress in a transnational dialogue, she moves across time and space by bringing these references under the lens of a new era in postcolonial critique.

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, would like to state my support for the Pause or Pay Campaign.

Exploring the role of place as the cause and outcome of social action, Gibb’s work examines how the multiple and dynamic identities which emerge from and within place impact the past, present and future. Her work primarily comments on the influence of Christianity in the shaping of social relationships, attitudes and outcomes within the context of her native Northern Ireland.

The graduate collection featured, Where There Is No Vision the People Perish, explores the influence of strict Christian morality in our affinities to each other, ourselves, our bodies and our space. Gibb scrutinises the manifestation of creed in the sculpting of societal ideals of sexual virtue in contemporary Northern Ireland and respectfully commemorates the subsequent detriment with the objective of equality. Through the study of changing bodies, posture and psychology, healing and mending Gibb presents this relationship to materiality through the creation of genderless, slow fashion.

As a graduating student of the Glasgow School of Art, I won’t be using this platform to present and promote my practice as an act of solidarity with the Pause or Pay Campaign. If you would like to see my full works please follow this link to my website: gibb.cargo.site

With an enthusiasm for story telling and cultures of the past, Caitlin Fraser is a unisex designer from Glasgow. Whilst studying her BA in Fashion Design, Caitlin has had a keen interest in garments of the past and how they could convey so much information about the person wearing them. This interest has spanned from the tudors of the 1500s to the punks and skinheads of the 1980s.

Caitlin’s current project is about exploring her own heritage and identity by focusing on the city where not only she grew up but also her family generations before her. The main inspiration behind this project comes from old family photographs, poems and film as each garment aims to tell a different story through the cut, silhouette and fabric choice.

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, would like to state my support for the Pause Or Pay campaign. To read the full manifesto click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MwdvZfLTp1udaASJ1EAmRT9XR-OPQIyU/view

Born in Germany, Isabell is a Glasgow based designer and seamstress. After successfully finishing an apprenticeship as a seamstress she moved to Glasgow in 2014 and will graduate with a BA (Hons) in Fashion Design summer 2020. Isabell gained a wide range of knowledge for manufacturing and garment construction, throughout her studies and work in the bridal, costume and performance sector.
Especially through her work for bespoke bridal gowns and creating her own collections at the art school, she developed creative problem solving and pattern cutting skills.
Isabell herself is outside the studio passionate about a wide variety of outdoor activities. Her connection to nature and her creative way of thinking is her drive to push sustainability in the sports industry forward.

Charlotte Holland is a creative technologist exploring the intersection of art and technology. Her latest body of work explores our relationship between the real world and the virtual, through the lens of online gaming.

Her work incorporates the “W”, “A”, “S” and “D” keys, which are a common input when playing computer games. Each letter acts like an arrow key, moving the player up, down, left, or right in relation to its position on the keyboard.

Mirroring these controls, she has used each letter to signify a direction. Generative line drawings are created by analysing a text and then plotting each instance of “W”, “A”, “S” and “D”, moving the line in the corresponding direction.

She developed a particular interest in the unique language patterns used in gaming chat logs. Taking gaming conversations out of their original context, she uses chat-log messages as input data to create these generative artworks.

Chat-log language is typically informal, rude, misspelt, and laced with gaming jargon. She found it humorous to create works of art inspired by this which from the outside seem sophisticated and mature. Her work plays with perceptions of what is worthwhile or important in this new digital age, finding beauty in unexpected places.

Throughout her practice, Ailsa’s work focuses on the subject of identity, which has been explored in several different mediums. Many of the works focused on the face; specifically how history, culture and similarities passed on through the generations help to define us as individuals.

This year Ailsa’s work consists of various studies looking at the gestures that we all use to accompany our dialogue, predominantly centering around hand movement. People often display nuances in their movements, emphasising how gestures are specific to that individual. It is Ailsa’s belief that these subtle differences in gestures can convey as much information and emotion as the spoken words they accompany.

Starting with detailed pencil drawings of hands, Ailsa progressed to several small studies. These included looking at contrasting performing arts and exploring the ways people use hand gestures to express themes and passions. Through a series of interviews, she scrutinised the way in which people’s bodies responded to her prompts and guidance. Experimenting with both digital machine learning and physical plotting devices, Ailsa’s work continues to explore the use of sculptural materials as a means of data visualisation.

Sally’s practice primarily focuses on ideas and issues related to mental health. From experiencing mental health problems herself, Sally has become passionate about using her personal lived experience and creative practice to open up much needed conversation and challenge existing stigma and ill-informed perceptions of mental health problems. She uses technology to develop interactive and immersive audio and visual experiences that communicate the often hard to explain realities of living with a mental health problem.

Sally often combines her creative practice with her voluntary youth work role at See Me Scotland. In her most recent work Sally has been working closely with other young people from See Me to develop a series of engaging and interactive works that communicate voices, lived experiences, challenges and stigma that young people face in relation to mental health. This work focuses on three key themes; stigma, medication and barriers to accessing support.

Rebecca Lindsay is a digital artist and designer who in her recent work explores the act of cognitive offloading and the trust we place in technology storing information without error. We often misremember things as our memories change over time and can be altered due to outside influences. As our minds are fallible we take pictures to remember events which we backup to computers and phones under the assumption that this information will remain unaltered. Many of us use memory apps through social media to remind us of events. However, as our devices and apps can be hacked our information can be compromised – could we remember clearly enough to dispute that our information and consequently our memories had been altered?

Inspired by artists such as Zbigniew Rybczyński and Sophie Calle, her recent work uses machine learning and coding as a method of generating imagery. Using personal information uploaded by others and herself ranging from text to images Rebecca’s work explores our relationship and reliance on technology to both save and express aspects of our lives and identities within a non secure digital landscape.

Zach Mason’s work investigates the relationship between digital and physical spaces through design research across both spaces. The liminal space created between these environments is experimented with in order to reproduce objects in alternative forms. This subverts their purpose, and reduces their forms to better understand them, and the process of object reproduction.

Hoping to break down the stigmas associated with digital space, he uses 3D modelling and machine learning along with 3D printing to move objects and ideas from one facet of space to another. Using surreal and intangible notions, he aims to break down engrained barriers within the spaces we inhabit, in order to invite users to approach them in a less fragmented manner. He sees mental, physical and digital space as a continuous realm to be explored, made tangible through a symbiotic trifecta which allows for the creation of objects in liminal space.

Callum Blair is a Scottish born creative technologist who is interested in discovering how design and technology can be used to convey movement in sports, particularly in tennis which he has a passion for. By comparing the elegance and beauty of the movement in tennis to an improvised dance he can see the relation to art. The skills required to perform at highest levels allows players to develop shapes and styles while they move on court which Callum transfers into his design practise.

Callum’s work looks at how he can turn this motion into data visualisation, by listening to radio broadcast of past tennis matches he turned the language used in the broadcast and turned it into data. With inspiration from Brian Eno rule based thinking, Callum explores how rule-based patterns could influence his work using them to direct his design choices when using data to create his visuals.

Along with the data visualisations of past matches, Callum experiments with machine learning, feeding a computer algorithm text from radio broadcasts. He taught the machine how to reproduce its own tennis points. By interpreting the points made he would draw the interpretations and create prints and calling it a collaboration between human and machine, drawing the interpretations and creating prints.

YongWon Choi is an artist based in the Glasgow, United Kingdom and Seoul, South Korea. He is working on various subjects of art and science conflict, reality and virtual, immersive content, brain-computer interface, data visualisation, and user experience based on the question of human essence and humanistic knowledge.

His latest study, “Implementation of Interactive Content in Virtual Garden with Application of Personal Data,” is questioning about “Can future immersive content, such as virtual reality, be used as a form of art?” and “How can we use reactions such as the mind and the emotion of human nature to provide a different experience in art?”

His work is a virtual garden space where you can experience a new form of multisensory (visual, auditory, tactile) as an immersive content, and implements a responsive brain-computer interface based on theoretical backgrounds such as immersive content, simulation, and user experience data. His work consists of a brainwave recording device (EEG) and a virtual reality headset, and that produced in the Unity programme.

The new value presented by his proposal is that the user’s creative response (sensory experience) to virtual reality, emotions and empathy can be interpreted and understood in a new way by integrating into the art in the form of ‘data’, and this value can lead to new forms of creativity that are different from existing art. His work says that the act of seeing in the future will be an active process based on interactive communication, not a passive process that unilaterally accepts transmission from a two-dimensional screen. This change of experience will eventually change the future beyond our conventional and general perceptions and lives.

Inspired by the blurring line between reality and the imagination, Ankita Nagaraj’s work is an experimental exploration into our relationship with the technology we have created. Finding the most interest in the journey of research and development, her work branched from the imagery of machines gaining consciousness, free thought and emotions, shown in the music video ‘The Music Scene’ by Blockhead. Basing her work on this science fiction idea, while pulling reference from the concept of singularity in Eastern culture as discussed by Alan Watts, she uses browser extensions, popups and physical pieces of technology to personify and humanise these machines.

Light is the primary creative medium of Sean Mallon’s practice and he has been increasingly inspired by the technological use of light in invisible wavelengths for networking and data distribution. He is concerned with using visible light to express the effects of connectivity on the psyche. Seminal texts have been drawn from, such as those by Marshal McLuhan, who famously wrote of the interplay between the development of our brains and the media processed by them or as his contemporary John Culkin said; ‘we make the tools and then in turn the tools help to shape us’ (Culkin 1967). His work aims to express this interplay between technology and human experience and to show that we are at a new intersection of adaptation as we are exposed to networked media.
These ideas are expressed with interactive installation work which aims to draw attention to the body / self. An awareness of oneself is created by mirror images of pixel-like white light, transplanting the body with a digital representation of such. Light follows the movement of the viewer, reaffirming the interplay and our close ties with technology; symbolising the technological human condition we now inhabit.

Valentine Scherer is a French/Australian interaction designer who is interested in finding and making connections between generative and organic processes, analogue and digital, material and non-material, to discover new lenses on sense-making in a world of chaos & disinformation. Her most recent research and work were initially inspired by some of Richard Sennet’s writings on craft and how we live in the built environment.

Her work interrogates processes in making, production and consumption in the networked digital society. Allusions to the circularity of the economy are made throughout her work as an attempt to make a playful commentary, drawing from a broad range of inspirations such as Dadaism, George Brecht’s instruction art or more contemporary artists and designers like new media artist Philipp Schmitt. Much of her research and work on the ecology of modularity stems from a fascination with the role of craft as a means of sense-making in society.

Much of this work is based on a set of images of hybridised furniture pieces which were produced using Machine Learning algorithms via Runway ML software. This process enabled the generation and computational ‘imagination’ of a new set of furniture designs based on standardised IKEA graphic instruction covers.

Seeking to critique flat pack and modular furniture and the IKEA model which is hyper-dominant for all students and young people worldwide, she uses machine learning, 3D modelling and printing methods to uncover the flawed value system underlying the culture and production ethos. Using a playful and absurdist spirit of inquiry, she developed a way to auto-generate semi-functional modularity which shows just how ridiculous it is, and how it is just creating toxic landfill at an exponential rate, how this culture in itself is a huge driver of economic externalities that can only be eliminated by thorough system change.

As a designer I enjoy combining imagination and speculation with logical and rational outcomes. I am passionate about exploring disciplines outside my own such as illustration and textiles and incorporating them into interior projects. I am eager to explore numerous aspects of design both within and outside the realms of Interior design. The House Of Stories is a project which intends to restore engagement with Scottish Mythology whilst also encouraging users to engage with oral culture. Scottish myths have evolved organically from generation to generation for thousands of years and this project aims to create a space to continue this practice. The building allows users to learn about myths whilst also evolving and building on them. The creation of new stories is also encouraged and users have the opportunity to document and archive their own myths. The design of the building symbolises the myth ‘The coming Of Angus and Bride’ which tells the struggle of ‘Beira- Queen of winter’ with her son ‘King Angus’ (the physical embodiment of Summer) and ‘Bride’ (the embodiment of Spring). The tale, which was created by the ancient people of Scotland to humanise and rationalise the unpredictable weather patterns, represents the battle between storm and calm, spring and winter, growth and decay, light and darkness, and warmth and cold. This is conveyed throughout the space through various design choices such as, moss, rust and flowers cast in resin which are a preservation of both growth and decay.

The activities within the space are also inspired by the tale, the main body of the design is taken up by the mythology library which is a reference to Beira’s knowledge and age as she is the goddess of all gods and goddesses for she is all knowing and seeing. The creation of new stories is inspired by Angus and Bride as they symbolise youth, spring and summer which can be interpreted as the blooming of new ideas. The building should remind the visitors of the strength and great presence of nature. This is done by numerous structural implementations which connect the building to its surroundings as it is situated on the edge of the River Clyde as it flows through Glasgow Green. This is also done in less overt ways, by using forms and patterns which have been constructed from the topography of Scottish mountains and weather graphs. The main structure of the building echoes that of a Tholos, which is a type of Greek temple. The application of ancient Greek architecture is important within the space as the House Of Stories should encompass a modern day temple in which to celebrate and honour Scottish mythology and storytelling.

My approach to interior design is playful, experimental and investigative and involves a rigorous site analysis, which enables me to take inspiration from local characteristics. In addition, I use model making as a key tool in the development and refinement of my spatial designs. My recent thesis researched social and environmental impact within interior design. As a result, I strive to be environmentally and socially conscious in my approach, specifying sustainable materials where possible and ensuring my designs are inclusive and accessible to all.

After being awarded first prize for my community hub design for the Linwood Community Trust in 2019, and thoroughly enjoying the project, I was keen to further this interest and develop something that would positively impact our society in Glasgow. My project focused on creating a space to facilitate the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into their host community in Glasgow, providing support as they rebuild their lives. I aimed to design a safe, comforting and inviting space for all where enriching experiences could be had, whether educational, cultural or social. The project was highly rewarding from start to finish, challenging me in many new ways. I enjoyed working with local people and organisations on such a multifaceted project, designing a range of spaces with varying functions, requirements and user needs.

Outwith interior design, I enjoy running, yoga, painting and travelling. I also have a passion for foreign languages, and speak French and German fluently.

Samuel is a graduating designer from Liverpool showcasing a multidisciplinary approach to spatial practice, with a key focus on structural context and materiality leading to an increasing insistence on circular economic principles.

His work emphasises the phenomenology of space to create respectfully adapted and contextually significant spatial environments whilst applying understanding gained from working experience with companies including MADE.com and bluesky.

This year I have been working with a local blacksmith to gain a greater understanding of traditional techniques within ironworks. Through my research, I have discovered a wealth of information on the steel & ironworks of Glasgow, specifically the work of Walter Macfarlane. I wanted to explore how iron could be used in Glasgow today. For one of my projects, I chose one of Macfarlane’s structures that was local to me; Kelvinbridge. The current staircase joining the road to the walkway beneath is well-used and worn out. Redesigning the stairway, I wanted to apply what I had learned to a new connecting structure. My proposed design is wood encased in steel, with windows inlaid to give a panoramic view of the Clyde.

I took advantage of this last year to tackle the themes that obsess me in my design practice.
The themes of memory, psychogenealogy and synaesthesia of the senses have often surfaced in my work in the past, often unconsciously. With this project, I unearth these motivations, these design impulses, and try to dissect them in order to better understand myself as a designer.
My grandfather left a memoir before he died. I used it to explore the possibility of transforming his memories into emotional spaces. in an exhibition context. Visitors would wander through each space and experience the journey while projecting their own emotions and personal grief.
This project aims to address my own grief, to imagine someone’s life, and to challenge the visitor, who in turn would question his own memories and family.
In order to show my ideas, I like to try various mediums. This allows me to communicate sensations that are difficult to replicate with traditional design limits such as technical drawings and CAD. I love to use animations, sculptures, emotional drawings and textiles to trigger the viewer. This more abstract and conceptual approach to design helps me connect my practice to my personal creative obsessions. Making the process more intense and exciting.

I am an Interior Designer from the Highlands. I have studied Interior design at The Glasgow School of Art for the past three years. During my studies, I have researched the history of social housing, with a particular focus on Glasgow and have developed a passion for affordable, sustainable and high-quality design that can improve the quality of peoples lives. For my graduate project, I developed a social housing scheme which I named LYCHEE.

LYCHEE Housing stands for Light, You, Community, Health, Education and Environment. Its main goals are to provide tenants with a high quality of life by focusing on sustainable, affordable living that encourages a community spirit and sociable behaviour.

To provide a sustainable, affordable and high-quality environment, a range of energy-saving products and systems can be installed to achieve this.

Internal insulation, new energy-efficient doors, windows, lighting, and water-saving plumbing will be used to increase the energy efficiency of the building to also keep the cost of living and running the flat to a minimum.

Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery can be used to improve air quality and keep heating costs down. An MVHR system removes moist stale air and delivers fresh air to a property, in an energy-efficient way. It works by extracting warm, moist air from around the home, putting it through a heat exchanger to extract the heat and then expelling the cool stale air to the outside.

32.7% of households live in fuel poverty. Tumble drying is the healthier option for drying clothes but this is energy-intensive and indoor drying increases mould spore count in homes and can lead to health problems such as asthma and eczema. With a communal laundry room, this allows homes to have better air quality and also save money on energy bills by using the wastewater from washing machines to heat communal clothes dryers and louvre windows to ventilate the space for air drying clothes.

The communal laundry also acts as an opportunity for tenants to socialise and get to know one another encouraging the idea of community living. The focus of social space is considered throughout the building, dedicating the top floor to entertainment for tenants of all generations, in addition to wider corridors, to accommodate the voids through the centre of the building, which provides the corridors with natural light. This decision has been made to bring the sense of the streets indoors, giving peoples doorways personality and also providing a boundary between public and private space with the use of curved walls doubling up as storage on one side and a light void on the other.

I joined the GSA Interior Design programme in 2016, having received my Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Newcastle College.

In my time at Glasgow School of Art I have worked on a range of conceptual and live interior design projects. In this time I have developed my studio skills including sketching and model making, with a view to exploring spaces . I have developed digital skills that allow me to convey my designs, using Vectorworks and Adobe programmes including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

In June 2019 I was a Student Ambassador for the GSA Overseas Immersion Project, which involved working in collaboration with interior design students from GSA Singapore.

In July 2019 I worked as an intern with ICA Architects in Glasgow, assisting the interior design team with a number of hotel projects. Working with ICA provided valuable experience of working in the industry.

My final year project is a proposal for a new Hotel and Cook School in Glasgow. The concept occupies The Wheatsheaf building at Speirs Wharf, which was once a part of the Port Dundas Whiskey Distillery. A structural void throughout the building plays with verticality, allowing light to travel throughout and create a visual connection to the cook school from the floors above. The ethos of the cook school is founded in the seasonality of Scottish ingredients. This is expressed throughout the project in the materiality, aesthetic and atmosphere of each key space.

My chosen site, The Crystal Palace, is currently home to a Wetherspoon pub, however I wish to re-establish it as a hotel celebrating Scottish authors of the 19th century and the building’s historic relationship with the Great Exhibition of 1851. The site was constructed five years after the exhibition’s grand opening as a result of the architect, John Baird’s, appreciation for the cast-iron and glass venue, which showcased the best of British design alongside notable global works. I chose to focus on hotel design as I have been keen to look deeper into the hospitality industry – particularly hotels – as I am fascinated with how one space must meet the needs of many, consequently impacting an individual’s experience in a given environment. Books are a great passion of mine so I was eager to explore the country’s storytelling past, researching Scottish writers’ works to enable an investigation into ways I could intertwine their illustrious imaginations within my hotel concept and design.

“As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.”

George MacDonald (1824 – 1905) in The Marquis of Lossie

I am Megan Collins, an Interior Designer from Glasgow. I studied at The Glasgow School of Art for four years whilst maintaining consistent employment throughout. In 2018, I and a group of collaborators designed and produced the school’s Graduate Fashion Week pop-up for that year’s graduates, seeing the development through from a charette based project into a fully realised scheme.

My Graduate Project – “The Waverley Studios”- surrounds the repurposing and restoration of a forgotten community building in Glasgow’s Southside. Originally used as a Cinema, the design aims to showcase several fundamental features that were discarded over time through revealing the barrel-vaulted ceiling and staircase in the building’s main hall. Split into two parts – The Waverley challenges the old and the new. The Entrance Hall acts as a tribute to Victorian Era in which the building was built, whilst adopting contemporary finishes. The Main Hall maintains its element of theatre through the construction of studios on the stairway, creating alien forms which allow glances into the workspaces through slit windows – revealing only moments of what is happening internally. Theatricality is also maintained for the user – with the addition of a louvre roof that when opened allows them to hear the sounds from throughout the building as well as maintain a visual connection with their surroundings.

Overall, The Waverley Studios presents Glasgow’s Southside with a new way in which to gather and celebrate both the Arts and the Local through both the building itself and the Community that inhabits it.

Having studied the Interior Design Honours programme at the Glasgow School of Art over the past four years I have been able to explore my continued passion of the way that spaces make us feel.
During my final year, I found a way to express this interest. My project focusses on providing a space for people to disconnect from the stress of daily life and reconnect with themselves both mentally and physically.
The Graving Docks in Govan are a rich piece of Glasgow’s ship building history and currently lay abandoned. The site is an oasis sitting directly on the edge of the River Clyde where one building still stands, Pump House Number One. To create a sense of unity between past and future, connection to water was vital. I therefore shaped this site into a Thermal Reconnection Centre- exploring the varying properties of water in the form of sauna, steam and temperature pools. Ensuring the legacy of this site lives on, I have ensured that it’s past leaks into every bone of my design process. This project injects life into the local area as well as widening this community to create a larger sense of unity throughout the city. This enables the purpose of reconnection to be; personal, communal and historical.
My main interest within my discipline has always been the ways in which users interact with space and the impact this can have not only on their experience but on their wellbeing within these spaces and beyond them. This project allowed a perfect form through which to express this thinking and I look forward to further investigating this marriage of psychology and space throughout my professional practice.

My work mainly involves posters, collages, book design and other fields. I am good at hand-making stuff. I love to complete the design through hands-on technology, such as screen printing and laser cutting. As a young visual designer, I want to reflect some social problems through my own effort. For example, one of my projects is about the redesign of waste paper. I have been doing research on the reuse of waste paper, trying a lot and enjoying it very much. I try to make my own paper, make posters with my own paper, make books and other things, and make some installations and books from waste newspapers.

Another project is about collage, because collage is one of the things I am most interested in graphic design. In this project, I explored the difference between East and West about collage in my own way, hoping to have a deeper understanding about collage through the combination of materials, numbers or handicrafts.

Žarko Dumičić is a graphic designer who is exploring and re-imagining ways we communicate by creating more immersive modes of information exchange through a hybrid of design, sculpture and installation art. Influenced by the Radical and Critical design movements, the work developed as part of the GSA Master’s programme is a reaction to the current social and political environment riddled by misinformation and distrust, as evident by the spread of conspiracy theories and anti-science movements online.

Žarko’s GSA design work encompasses research on the impact of physical dimensionality on graphic design, especially within the field of data visualisation. His primary focus is on experiential and emotional aspects of communication that aim to create a conducive environment for critical thinking. As part of his research he developed a series of sculptural graphic design work constructed out of abstract data, statistics, as well as typography. By grounding communication in a three-dimensional physical form that one can interact with and experience in relation to their body, the work aims to slow down the consumption of information and create a tactile reference of the data presented. The resulting tangible objects and multi-sensory environments engage the audience emotionally and invite them to critically examine the information.

Originally from Zagreb (Croatia), Žarko is an alumnus of Parsons School of Design in New York (USA), was a co-founder and co-director of an award-winning and internationally published design studio in Mumbai (India), and has been selected for an exchange to Tokyo University of the Arts (Japan) during his Master’s studies at the Glasgow School of Art (Scotland). As a result of his international experience, he believes in a global outlook and reach of design that strongly influences his practice. For more projects, images and details of the developed work please visit his portfolio website at zzzzarko.com

As a student from China, I have had to adapt to many new ways of thinking and learning throughout my studies in the vast and sometimes overwhelming space that is Communication Design. I don’t think of graphic design as merely a form of utilitarian communication, I consider it a powerful platform for authorial practice and self-expression. My work primarily focuses on social issues, like cyber sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and more broadly, the change of women’s rights in the course of social development.

Hannah McInally is a Scottish illustrator and ceramic artist, currently working between Stirling and Glasgow. Her practice pushes traditional expectations of illustration by exploring three dimensional forms and spatial occupation. Through an instinctive approach to making and thematic exploration her work aims to inspire visual engagement and interaction with the audience, whilst still being highly emotive. At GSA her work has been guided by loss and creation, opposing states working in tandem, allowing her practice to be informed by emotion in a conducive manner. Hannah’s practice exists in a shifting state, fluctuating between art and design.

Before completing her Masters at GSA, Hannah graduated from the Illustration course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 2018. During her undergraduate studies she undertook a semester abroad at the Alberta College of Art and Design, where she diversified her creative practice and expanded outwards into ceramic sculpture and design.

Alessandro Prepi Sot is a highly motivated Italian graduate of The Glasgow School of Art who is deeply interested in editorial and typographic design. For him, graphic design is not a hobby, job or even a love anymore: it’s an obsession. Designing a project means telling a story where the concept is at its core, with nothing left to chance; all details are meticulously attended to and it is hoped projects are timeless but with a degree of tension.

During his two years on the MDes Communication Design course, he has continued experimentation in the field of publication design and production, deepening an existing understanding of layout, materials, printing techniques and bookbinding. During the second year of the course, and in collaboration with fellow course mate Apolline de Luca, he conducted a deep and rigorous investigation in the field of typography which led to the realisation of the DIASPORA typeface. Through this successful collaboration, Alessandro and Appoline have formed GOODEGGS TYPEFOUNDRY, their own type-foundry to continue releasing type related projects.

Alessandro graduated with honours from UNIRSM DESIGN in the San Marino Republic in 2017. He has worked with ROVAIWEBER DESIGN STUDIO (Florence, 2015) and the photographic collective CESURA (Milan, 2017), with a particular focus towards the independent publishing activity of CESURA PUBLISH on which he continues to contribute.

email: alessandro.prepi@gmail.com
instagram: sir_sot
websites: alessandroprepisot.com, goodeggstypefoundry.com

Having graduated from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication & Information Design, Qiaojia Song joined the Masters in Communication Design programme at Glasgow School of Art in 2018.

With interests that range from cyber- and youth culture to pop art and feminism, Song’s current work seeks to explore the impact that emerging communication technologies are having on our identities and relationships with one another.

As an undergraduate student, Song’s final year project received an award for excellence and she has exhibited in China, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Apolline de Luca is a graphic designer who focuses on editorial and type design. During her studies at GSA, she experimented with book design and its components such as printing techniques, book binding, and layout design, working both with clients and for her personal research. Her design practice is research based and she finds interest in telling stories through design creating physical or emotional experiences for the user/reader/viewer.
Alongside her graphic design practice, she specialised in type-design. During her final year at GSA, she designed Diaspora (a display font exploring Italian immigration to Scotland) with her class mate Alessandro Prepi. From this collaboration and love for type-design, they are now launching their own type foundry, GoodEggs TypeFoundry, to release Diaspora and future projects: goodeggstypefoundry.com

For her next steps, she is aiming to expand her practice at the intersection of graphic and type design.

Prior to joining the Glasgow School of Art, she graduated in 2018 from ECV Bordeaux with a Bachelor in Graphic Design. Throughout her studies, she completed several internships as a graphic Designer at Bordeaux’s CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, at Studio Kubik in Bordeaux, and at Glasgow-based studio Cause & Effect. More recently, she was in charge of the design of A New Spirit in Painting, 1981, an art book published in 2020 by Koenig Books, London.

e-mail: apolline.deluca@gmail.com,  hello@goodeggstypefoundry.com
website: apollinedeluca.com, goodeggstypefoundry.com
instagram: apolline.deluca

Whilst my background is in traditional Chinese painting which carries its own skills and theories, I found myself becoming increasingly interested in publication design. This led me internationally from CHina to study here at The Glasgow School of Art on the MDes Communication Design course.

Graphic design for me is an expressive tool to communicate information and it provides me with a clear path to introduce or covey complex ideas and emotions. I believe graphic design cannot always solve problems for everyone but can offer different thoughts and perspectives allowing the on a range of issues.

The 2 years of study at The Glasgow School of Art has allowed me time to observe, research and process and issues that I was not previously familiar with allowing for experimentation with ideas. During this times, I focused on exploring how digital media influence our reading habits and how much it had changed our intake of daily information. The past decade or so has seen a rapid development of information technology has brought great change to our lives. While enjoying the convenience brought by technology, we also suffer from information overload, fragmented reading, and reduced attention. Based on this research and through my outcomes I want to highlight issues that may not have been so obvious to the viewer and I consider a physical publication the ideal vehicle to consider the advantages of paper reading to digital reading.

Zilin Dong is an international student from China, she has studied at the Glasgow School of Art on the MDes Communication Design specializing in graphic design and illustration. During this two year period, her work has covered type and publication design and iconic mask design using a combination of illustration and graphic design. Works always begin with an element of hand-rendering to then be developed and finessed digitally.

Zilin explores the concepts of uncontrollability whilst to reach an outcome combining dreams and three-dimensional book works. Another topic has been identity and personality in contemporary culture—particularly those of political figures—and drawing links to masks used in Peking Opera.

Leda Bartolucci is a visual designer and storyteller. In her practice, the narrative comes first, allowing her to work with a variety of medium depending on which is more suitable for the message to come across. Her projects include the use of photography, graphic design, illustration, moving image or a combination of the above.

During her studies at The Glasgow School of Art, she researched and consolidated the relationship between activism and her professional practice. Believing in the role of Citizen Designer, she is interested in applying intersectional work ethics to the fields of photography and design.

In 2019, she spent a year documenting climate strikes in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Italy, producing a reportage where pictures are paired with the narration of her intimate take on the events they portray. At the same time, she volunteered as a graphic designer and teamed up with youth strikers to develop environmental campaigns such as the global strikes for climate, both at local and international level.

She was the European winner of the 2019 Wunderman Thompson ‘Helen Lansdowne Resor’ scholarship for female creative students. She is currently working with themes such as the climate crisis, migrants and refugees, human rights and the interdependence of these issues.

Competing in ‘The Greener Glasgow’ design competition when I was younger sparked my interest in sustainability. Winning 3rd place, it has ignited my passion for incorporating sustainability with design. Furthermore, by being part of a volunteer group working as a Neighbourhood Improvement Volunteer (NIV) for my local area allows me to see the current environmental problems. This has always been the push for my packaging box design in hopes to change waste consumption in the packaging industry.

My Product Design Engineering final year project is an Accessible Auto-injector Dispenser for people who suffer from severe allergic reactions. The product is designed to be installed within indoor public places such as shopping centres and restaurants for emergency situations where an adrenaline auto-injector is immediately required. The presence of this product will bring more awareness of anaphylaxis (severe allergic reactions) and potentially save peoples’ lives.

I have gained experience throughout my time at university working on various projects within GSA as well as volunteering with a start up business in my free time. In addition I have acquired skills in website creation, creative photography and the conducting of effective user testing.

In the future I would like to explore this area of design further and be able to use my knowledge and skills to design and create unique and beneficial products.

I am graduating from Product Design Engineering (MEng) a multidisciplinary course with a unique balance of engineering and design philosophy and practice. Throughout my time at Glasgow School of Art I have developed a passion for environmental and social design working both in and out-with my studies on a range of design and research projects in these areas.

For my final year project I began by researching the social-political relationship with rivers as an example of our damaging relationships with natural systems, looking into how design can create positive change. Through a mixture of qualitative, literature research, lab testing and an iterative human centred design and testing process I created a micro-plastic citizen science testing kit and surrounding data analytic system. This combines public engagement and scientific study to improve the understanding and create the foundations for systematic change.

I have recently completed my MEng undergraduate degree in Product Design Engineering at the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow School of Art. Within my coursework, I have been able to address, and design solutions for, a range of problems in several industries.

With my final year project, I addressed the effect that a drop in incidents attended by firefighters has had on their operational experience through designing an augmented reality system which displays real-time situational and environmental data.

In my fourth year, using geographical information captured by NASA from the surface of Mars, I designed and manufactured a small batch of jesmonite coasters which were sold at a retail level through the GSA shop. In the same year, within a group of students, I also helped to design a range of smart telecare products which granted the elderly and vulnerable more autonomy and independence within their own home.

During my third year, within a group of my peers, I looked at the potentials of ultrasonic technology from which we developed a product for students that stimulated the brain to induce a relaxing, de-stressing effect. On my own, I continued developing the product by designing it for manufacture. Some of my work from this project was shown in the “Ultrasonic Glasgow” exhibition in the Glasgow School of Art in late 2019.

Alongside my studies I have also completed two internships; as a graphic design intern at CCL Design, and as a product design engineering intern at Cohesion Medical. I continued working for Cohesion Medical throughout my fifth year where I have mostly worked on UI/UX projects.

Having been born and raised in Hong Kong for the best part of my life, I have been able to appreciate technological marvels all around me; from the behemoth skyscrapers and the array of luxury vehicles roaming the streets, to the smaller gadgetry in home devices and telecommunications. I have always had a passion for knowing how things work, learning about the inner processes behind products and taking them apart to better understand them. From as early as I can remember, I have used creativity as an outlet for self-expression, whether that be through sketching, painting or designing weird and wonderful products as a child.

Product Design Engineering was an incredibly well balanced course for me as it enabled me to combine my love of using artistic methods and fascination with technical engineering challenges to produce a fully realised product, working from conceptualisation and concept generation to prototyping and creating a final item to solve real-world problems.This balance in design and engineering coupled with the broad array of skills learned and honed throughout this degree has enabled me to feel confident in the future to tackle design challenges in different disciplines, with the goal of creating innovative solutions to dealing with real-world issues and make a meaningful impact in people’s lives.

The “Helping Hand” is designed to be a portable
solution to emergency medical scanning using
ultrasound at the scene of an accident. Emergency
services will utilise this in a last case scenario
where the life of the patient is in imminent
threat. The device uses ultrasound imaging to
diagnose any internal injury due to either blunt or
penetrative trauma that resulted in severe internal
haemorrhaging. It then uses high intensity focused
ultrasound to cauterise and seal the wound non-invasively. The two forms of ultrasound transducer will be led autonomously by an onboard AI software which utilises a reference library of images of both healthy and unhealthy scans of key points in the human body. These will then determine the injury and provide the diagnosis, then serving as a guide for the HIFU beam to cauterise the damaged tissue within one cell thickness.

Ignacio Amui is an Argentinean inventor and engineer. As a product designer, he is a spirited advocate of environmental sustainability. In 2016, Amui entered the University of Glasgow, where he developed his passion for renewable energy technologies. During his stay in Glasgow, he pursued most of his projects in the topics of IoT and renewable energy. In 2019 he was awarded the Best Student Certificate by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Nanode, his most recent project, shows a homogeneous relation between design and technology. By using dye-sensitized solar cells, he created a portable solar charger which benefits form this technology. Amui believes that energy micro-generation can bring numerous advantages to users and guide us towards a sustainable future, as the user has more control over his energy sources.

Studying PDE, I have developed a crucial blend of technical engineering knowledge and creative design practice to deliver successful products. Through a diverse range of projects over 5 years of studio work I have seen how vastly applicable the design process is to problem solving in any sector and love that no two briefs are ever the same. User-centered project work has ignited my passion to tackle overlooked problems and use design to positively impact peoples lives.

My final year project, Elecgo, is a lamppost-connected, e-bike Battery Swapping Charge Station for Urban Cycle Hire Schemes.

Current share scheme e-bike charging options are either logistically difficult or create hefty operational expenses and a pool of untapped value while the vehicles are recharging. These barriers prevent the widespread implementation of sustainable, shared e-mobility for cities of the future.

Elecgo is a lamppost-connected charge station developed to provide secure, on-site battery charging and swapping. E-bike batteries are housed in digitally locked, secure units with 24/7 self-service access for users of cycle hire schemes. The swapping model essentially provides ‘instant’ charging which boosts bike availability and revenue potential. A modular design allows quick install and is flexible to the changing demands of a city.

I have had a passion for Product Design from a very young age and the Product Design Engineering course was the perfect opportunity to allow me to develop on this. I have thoroughly enjoyed both the Engineering and Product Design aspects of this course and look forward to applying these new skills and knowledge in a professional setting.

Aside from Product Design, I am also a very keen skier. Having done a lot of backcountry skiing I was aware of the dangers and numerous fatal accidents that occur while partaking in this sport. This formed the basis for my final year project. The focus of this project was to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities in backcountry winter sports caused by avalanches.

Following research with some of the leading backcountry skiing and avalanche experts it became clear that preventing people from triggering avalanches in the first place was the route that my efforts were best focused on. Through this, a design for a device which would allow individuals to quickly and accurately measure a slopes gradient and aspect was created. The majority of people involved in these accidents are well trained in avalanche awareness but had just missed certain warning signs. The device encourages people to stop and take the time to make their assessment due to its simplicity. The information provided by the device, alongside the users own knowledge, allows them to make a better and more informed decision on whether a slope is safe or if it should be avoided.

Aside from my academic work I have also started a few small businesses designing, manufacturing and selling cufflinks and 3D printed products whilst at University. These have been hugely successful and I have over 500 customers to date.

For my final year project, I made the decision to design for death. This presented a challenge as death is a topic that can’t just be approached with arm’s length academic interest because it affects us all existentially. It isn’t simply an event at the end of our lives; it’s the horizon against which our entire existence unfolds. As such, this project became more than simply developing a product to deal with the prolific problems within the funeral industry, which includes a lack of burial space, the environmental damage caused by cremation and the high cost for families. I also needed to develop an understanding of current cultural practises and the meaning of the corpse and how it is treated. This was achieved through close conversation with various user groups and industry stakeholders.

The resulting design focuses on body composting, a process which transforms the deceased into soil. The body is placed inside a vessel, surrounded by sawdust and interred into a chamber. This provides the perfect environment for naturally occurring microbes to break down the body with aeration and slow rotation. The chambers and their glowing doors make up the future cemetery, one which is situated in the city and simplifies the current funeral process.

This topic was vast and complex but hugely rewarding. It gave me the chance to develop a product that functions not only on a biochemical and mechanical level, but more importantly, on an emotional one. It opens up a conversation that I believe many of us need to have, and never more so than right now.

I am a University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art student who has recently completed an MEng Product Design Engineering degree, of which I was a GU68 Engineers Trust award recipient for my final year project.

I am actively seeking employment in a design or engineering role from September 2020 to begin my career.

This collection portrays structures that capture the inner workings of the mind and nervous system. The primary source of influence is neuroscience imagery, in particular brain scans used to diagnose various medical conditions. These detailed images of the brain and how they bring to light the intriguing shapes which lie within us all, are revelatory, natural cartographies of one of the most mysterious organs of the human body. The collection represents a process of practice in development; such structures, as they evolve, resemble forms of the human body similar to plant genetics, which, in Darwinian terms, comprise ‘endless forms’. Therefore, the objects presented here convey these interconnections between humans and the natural world; exquisite parallel realms of arts and science on a micro-scale.

Designs for this collection derive from my engagement with photography and its particular handling of perspective. Over the course of development in this collection, the different ways in which photographic processes can distort, skew and determine perspective has provided models and sketches that can be transposed into contemporary geometric tableware. For example, the concentration on line and scale is especially useful when working with materials such as Perspex, which is included in many of these objects. Perspex, combined with metal form a highly polished aesthetic, well-suited to designs for dining. The precision with which Perspex can be cut with a laser enables a good deal of artistic and creative freedom, as demonstrated in the presentation of this collection.

Alaitz MM. Gavilan is a visual artist originally from Barcelona now based in Glasgow. Inclined towards jewellery making as mode of expression, Alaitz also engages with other self-taught artistic practices, like illustration and collage, to present her work.

The series of objects designed for this collection derives its meanings from social movements and reflects on how the fundamental rights that we take for granted today have always been achieved by public protests and demonstrations on the streets, and very often with violence involved. To create an aesthetic of resistance, of a type of distressed materiality, the jewellery pieces have been abused or damaged; putting the enamel under the pressure of a press form, for example, and creating a crackled texture, as metaphor of a broken individualistic society, characteristic of neoliberal economics and politics. The objects here call for empathy and solidarity, a demand for a more community-minded society, symbolised in these small-scale works. Importantly, this collection is part of a broader personal project to expand silversmithing & jewellery designs and bring these closer to a wider spectrum of people, from different social classes, a goal of many previous generations of craft-activists.

The works shown on this showcase are works in progress, (the completed pieces will be shown at a later date) yet the artist is open to commissions.