I am a Third Year Student at the Glasgow School of Art, inspired by nature and human-centred design and focus on preservation, placemaking and sustainable building practices in my architectural work.
The musical retreat in Balloch strives to create a beautiful and calming environment to nurture the community and orchestral talents of children from the Big Noise organisation.
Sistema or Big Noise creates communities for vulnerable children through music, helping them engage with their studies, develop life skills and secure emotional wellbeing. To create a supportive environment for music, safety and serenity on the water I explored the typology of the docks as a safe space to tie down, subtly following the long narrows shapes of the boats, docks, paths, railway and the slipway.
The resulting courtyard structure serves as a protective boundary and the inward-oriented structure creates a community for the children who have come here to make music and connect as a group. To accommodate for the musical nature I’ve added domes, platforms and sloped objects to play with noise dispersion and perception, calling them acoustical wonders.
The appearance of the project was heavily influenced by several Latvian traditions such as Araisu Ezerpils to show an ancient protected community as well as ‘’Ezeru Skanas’’- floating musical performances.

Lily Sinclair, a Stage 3 student of Architecture at MSA, GSA. Born and educated in Newcastle Upon Tyne with a strong allegiance to the city and love of its coast and castles.

This year the Stage 3 Architecture Project brief was to design a residential retreat and music education centre in Balloch. The client was SISTEMA Scotland, a charity which takes young underprivileged children away from the stresses of everyday life on residentials to teach them music. The main theme of the project was ‘How Low Can You Go?’, this meant creating an eco-friendly build within a budget.

I brought to this project my experience in music education, which includes performing in various performance spaces from large venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and The Sage, Gateshead to smaller more intermate spaces, together with the experience of rehearsing in a residential setting. I loved this project as it felt very personal and learnt a lot about my style in architecture and where my strengths lie.

Currently, I am seeking 12 months placement in a RIBA certified practice for my Part I year out.

Part 1 Architectural Assistant

In response to our brief to design a performance space and accommodation for the music charity ‘Sistema Scotland’ in Balloch, I have proposed a linear building which acts as an extension of Balloch Park. This acts to connect the train station and main road with Loch Lomond and ‘The Maid of the Loch’. The positioning allowing for performance to spill out of the hall spaces and into the park, harnessing it as a musical destination.

The overall concept reflects the linear park with the accommodation placed directly behind the performance hall to allow students to have maximum freedom whilst remaining safe within the building. As a result the building provides a deeper feeling of security as you venture further through its layers into the bedroom spaces. A break out space in the form of a raised external courtyard separates the two buildings and provides a stopping point to reflect upon the surroundings. This also provides private access for students from the accommodation into the performance space.

In the educational process of becoming an architect. Awarded the 2017 Harvard summer School scholarship.
Inspired by nature and the beauty of elegant simplicity.

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.

Zoë Hyatt is a RIBA part 1 graduate of The Mackintosh School of Architecture. She approaches every project with empathy and care and is concerned with community empowerment and site specific sensitivity. Zoë’s projects often reference the vernacular with particular emphasis on Scottish heritage.

Zoë prioritises the needs of the client and skilfully combines efficient design with creative solutions for social sustainability.

Growing up in Glasgow she is passionate about giving communities a voice and has been involved with community engagement throughout Scotland. When working with WAVEparticle she helped with workshops and a series of government-supported charrettes. Being part of the arts organisation taught her to approach her own projects more creatively and with an open mind.
She prioritises context specific design and tailors each project to the specific needs of the local community. She believes sustainable architecture should empower and celebrate the community in which it is sited.

She is interested in the use of traditional craft and knowledge in a contemporary context. She has taken part in 1:1 builds including a Lime burning ‘working party’ with The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Through practical experience she seeks to gain a better understanding of the materials and construction and is eager to build upon this skill set.

Zoë has a pragmatic approach to design and has fostered a practice based on investigation and understanding. She is compassionate and navigates her work in order to enrich people’s experience of landscape, culture and community.

My practice explores the relationship between permanent and the changeable through playing with the extremities of contrasting scales, forms, textures, techniques and histories. I seek to create work that’s inclusive and human first; With people themselves acting as an integral element to the architecture, adding to the architectural space and their relationship with it, through the rhythms of their day to day inviting adaptation and involvement. I aspire for everyday design to have an effortless enjoyability and experiential quality, making the potentially mundane special.

Balloch, West Dunbartonshire is a village which lies on the banks Loch Lomond. This project is a Public Music Hall and accommodation for the charity, Sistema, that seeks to transform the lives of children, young people and their communities through music. Inspired by the history of the train line which ran through the town to the end of the pier as my starting point, the project is an exploration of journey, destination and place. I wanted to create a feeling of anticipation through designing the music hall to act as a monument at the end of the pier, an area that despite being naturally scenic views remained neglected. Sites like these are wholly deserving of buildings that create a sense of spectacle, with a strong rooting in community history.

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.

This work is a summative reflection of the final stage of a part I architectural education.

The project takes a focus on a design process exploring: site, concept, formation, detail and eventual resolution of scheme which becomes tied to its landscape: in Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond. It exists as a true reflection of the needs of its client, Sistema Scotland; a charity endeavouring to bring music and a sense of community to children of all ages and backgrounds.

There is a delicate edge between public and private in this project as the client requires a safe, intimate environment for potentially vulnerable children to retreat to, learning music whilst buried in a new landscape, for any time from a few days to a few weeks.
However, the second arm of this scheme requires a public space, a space that the students feel belongs to them but also one which ties the project back to the community of Balloch.
A performance space becomes the end point of the musical journey the students have embarked on during their time in the musical retreat. The phrase “celebration” is one I feel encapsulates the atmosphere this space should hold as it signifies achievement and camaraderie.

This scheme wholly represents a journey, both physically and metaphorically.

Debora Gyimah works with a range of digital software to create architectural designs that tell a story. This project is a Residential Retreat resting in the unruly environment of Balloch. The retreat is a place to which children, teens and adults escape to learn and celebrate music in addition to building their social skills. The themes of this project are landscape, energy and culture.

The project explores landscape through materiality and placement. It deals with how the building instills itself into the environment and how it interacts with it. It also examines how the building can amalgamate its environment outside with that of the inside. Furthermore, the notion of placemaking is explored through landscaping. It allows the history of Balloch, the existing community, and the retreat to connect to one another.

Materiality also bleeds into the notion of energy. It is a factor that works in conjunction with form to create a design that conforms to the zero-carbon approach. Careful considerations were applied in the buildings form and materials for a design that is more sustainable.

Lastly, culture is explored by understanding those that will utilize the building, and their main goals, which are musical education and building communication skills. Tailored spaces are provided to accommodate these interests as well as other needs.

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.

Jorge Velasco holds a Bachelors in Architecture from the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. After working and beginning his own architecture firm in Mexico he has decided to expand his knowledge and experience by journeying across the pond.

His work in Mexico was varied, creating projects for the residential sector, the retail sector and even an experimental theatre. His move to Scotland, and his studies at GSA, is fuelled by an interest in how culture, geography and history has an impact on architecture, with a particular interest in conversions and reutilising spaces.

Yik Yeong Look is an architecture student from Malaysia. He received his architecture degree from a local university and spent 2 years working in local architecture firm before moving to Glasgow in 2019 to pursue Part 2 in Mackintosh School of Architecture. His design approach focuses on challenging the conventional architectural typologies and the boundaries of urban realm.

When Glasgow first started off as a bishopric and then later burgh, domesticity and labor were inseparable where craftsmen and family worked and lived together in timber structures. During industrial revolution, the emergence of factories separated work from domesticity. Factories at that time were in the center of the city with collective dwelling structures built around them to cater the massive immigration of laborers. After the war and economic depression, factories fell into decline and were being zoned out of the city. The industrial buildings in the city were later converted into flats and offices. The primary reason factories are moved to area outside of the cities is because of the noise and pollution. However, factories now are getting smarter, cleaner and quieter. They are more ready than ever to return to the city. Factories in the city would be closer to skilled workers and urban amenities. This design thesis investigate the relationship of domesticity, labour and the city through exploring the idea of factory being brought back to the urban fabric, as a generator of the city, in the form of hybridization with urban housing.

Maisie Tudge – Graduated with First Class Hons from Oxford Brookes University in 2017. Worked at Shoreditch based practice, HÛT Architecture, between July 2017 and August 2019. Collaborating on a range of large and small scale residential and commercial projects, lighting installations, internal refurbishments and furniture design.

Ana is a 4th Year Student of the Bachelor of Architecture with Honours. She is of English and Guatemalan descent and has worked for architecture practices in both countries, as well as volunteering in Guatemala City for the ‘Fundamental’ initiative and taking part in architecture and design community engagement at the Lighthouse in Glasgow.

Following taking Urban Design courses during her ERASMUS Semester in the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid, she developed an interest for multi-scale master planning in social and historically complex urban contexts. Her first experience of working with these conditions was with the multi-disciplinary firm ‘Taller Ken’ in Guatemala City, where she was involved with a project to build upon and improve informal housing occupied by climate change refugees. From the inception, the design was community led and the engagement of the residents was paramount in order to seamlessly weave the proposal into the complex pre-existing social and urban fabric. This led to Ana working on the regeneration project of a historically important post-modernist bank building, into the Cultural Centre ‘Mil y Una’ located in the commercial centre of the City. The creation of public space and community engagement was at the heart of both projects and where invaluable examples of how bottom-up design can work to alleviate problems in socially complex regions of the developing world and megacities.

Working for Donald Insall Associates, a practice specializing in historic conservation and urban regeneration: Ana was able to continue working on community led projects in historically complex urban sites, such as the conservation of Lincoln College in Oxford and Master planning for Bournemouth Council. These projects have all served to inform the design decisions in her academic portfolio, as she has learnt to use historic research, cultural trends in society and social discourse as tools for designing at different scales.

__________________________________________________

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

Digitalization & Physicalization

Everything is increasingly passive in this modern world of ours, mostly indicate through image instead of touch and body response. People tend to focus on how physical things being digitalized. However, many are forgetting the fact that we are also physicalizing digital things at the same time using 2D and 3D printing. Thus, digitalization and physicalization are both happening in our society and should be treated equally.

The proposal for this project is to explore and experience both the digital and physical world. In order to provide different experiences, elements such as structure, material and lighting are designed carefully to create different environments. The idea for the physical world is representing by something rigid and solid while the digital world is more like something ephemeral and void.

My name is Sandy, I’m a stage 4 student of Architecture. Below are texts relating to each project from my stage 4 projects.

Urban Housing
The Anisotropic Grid

Today the digital world gives everyone access to a vast network of resources and connectivity. New formations of labour are arising, operating as a ‘gig economy’. This has led to a blurring of labour and domesticity from home to the city. Reordering domestic and labour activities into a spectrum from social to private, a greater flexibility of living and working can coexist. Inhabited walls scale up to form populated blocks punctuated by a series of public and private spaces. Separation between the dwelling and free labour programs is formed by the mass sitting perpendicular creating a series of hierarchical courtyards.

Urban Building

Primarily Labour was a Fordist approach, where workers and resources would arrive at the place of work, and revolve around a rigid framework. New formations of labour are arising such as the ‘gig economy’, where free-lancers, home-workers and temporary jobs are more common. The industrial city was built around places of labour and at the heart of the civic realm.

“Glasgows history is in making, in craftsmanship. Its legacy is in buildings.” Toby Webster

My project attempts to create a new civic building in Merchant City, Glasgow, that accommodates space for creative practices to occupy and adapt. By bringing the act of crafting and creating into the public realm, the process can become the performance itself.

Cultural institutions based on historical formal social structures have stopped working well. I propose non hierarchy architecture as civic institution. It is an open architecture that the servant space and the served space are switched and the functions are changed from time to time. This building functions as a library in everyday life and as a concert hall in Extraordinary. The building has a open ceiling space in the center with a gentle slope surrounding it. The slope allows you to go up and down without division, creating a continuous space and bringing the experience of connecting the city to the ground.

Yichen Li is a RIBA Part II student studying in Mackintosh School of Architecture. His works are focusing parametric design and sustainable structure strategies.

My focus this year was to investigate, analyse and reflect on the themes of imagination, play and education. I’ve developed an interest in design for play as a form of education and have tried to integrate this passion into all three projects of 4th year. Three projects have been included in my exhibition each studying different techniques of architectural design that enhance socialisation, education and play aimed at a range of ages.

Projects remain unfinished but will be updated on both this page and my instagram as progress continues. @g_reiddesign

Leanne is a Scottish part II architect and artist. She graduated with a Master of Arts in Architecture from University of Edinburgh before attending the Glasgow School of Art. She has an international portfolio, with work in practice from offices in Amsterdam and Taipei, Taiwan. Here she also completed an intermediate course in Mandarin Chinese through attending language classes in the evening at Tai Da University. Previously, through her studies in Scotland, she won first place in The John Byrne Award for the submission of a series of portrait painting and a play. Since then she has always used a combination of art and technical drawing to communicate her projects.

Through her childhood spent in the national parks of America, she has developed a keen curiously in the topology of space, both natural and urban. This is portrayed in her Stage 5 project,

As a response to the expanding city and the large amounts of abandoned industrial warehouse areas, the thesis explores the possibilities of deconstructing abandoned industrial 20th Century buildings for the potential of reusing all their materials and elements to create new buildings for different functions.

Elements and materials from 20th Century warehouses that are considered to be of a low architectural value are taken in use for testing their ability and future as a base for new public buildings. A catalogue of elements can be used to promote the modern production of reuse and remaking, seen as an important and publicly accessible activity, therefore creating a monumental space expressing the importance of remaking in the modern world of consumerism.

I am testing this in the district of Den Dam in the north east of the city centre, where I have identified thirty three warehouses that are abandoned or that lack potential for adaptation for new use. All elements and materials that these buildings are made up of have been catalogued and studied, which has been taken in use when designing the new buildings. The entire masterplan is made up of new buildings, determined by the amount of materials available.

In order to test new expressions with the elements they have been tilted, rotated and combined in different ways, allowing larger spaces to be created and new textures to be explored.

The programme of the building explores the push of remaking, made up of workshops for professional and for public use. The process consists of a waste collection point, going through to workshop spaces, and with remade and fixed objects being sold at the market. Additionally there is a teaching facility for sharing the knowledge of making and remaking, so that it is accessible and available for
everyone.

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.

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.

My design thesis explores condensing the experience of walking in the historical urban quarter into the scale of a building, which accommodates a literature museum in Antwerp.

i. architectural interest
The first part of the project focuses on abstracting and miniaturising some identical spatial configurations found in Antwerp into one building. Aiming to creates a sequential experience works as a leading thread through the entire building three-dimensionally.

ii. experience and literature
Combining the architectural idea with a literature museum program on a chosen site, the second part of the project leads to questioning the relationship between the spatial narrative and the literature exhibits.

Ahyoung Lee is a Diploma student in Mackintosh School of Architecture from GSA. In another degree, she earned a Bachelor of Architecture from KonKuk University in South Korea, where she had an experience to produce articles as a reporter of the Architectural Institute of Korea.
As a future architect, she is interested in the responsibility of architecture in a broad sight, which can influence not only the everyday life of humans but also our society. In her thought, the responsibility can be thinking of how to make user’s architectural experience rich to enhance their quality of life, and how we can deal with existing context or regionality for the social community.

This year, her thesis explores ambivalent water’s roles in the city, such as being constructive and deconstructive, to understand the relationship between them, and also following architectural response. Considering sustainability as an aim, re-designed waterway, as an anchor of the sites, is to capture, store, purify and reuse rainwater. This is for flooding remediation as well as transforming water’s environmental issue and economic utility into pleasure and indulgence for the public. The architectural intention will be focused on the integration of water treatment processes and public activities, which help people to engage in, experience, and celebrate it.

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

Since graduating from University College Dublin in 2017, I have gained a wide range of experience working as an architectural assistant for Hoban Design in London and John Halligan Architects in Ireland, both award winning practices with international profiles.

Project experience to date has involved work at a variety of scales and functions, both nationally and internationally, from residential complexes, civic infrastructure and cultural centers to individual house design and interior fit outs. Passionate about designing places where materiality, detail design and sustainability are intimately connected.

I believe that architecture presents the opportunity for transformation – materially, conceptually and sociologically. The
work I create is driven by the desire to enrich and improve daily life by designing places that aspire to meet the diverse needs of the communities they serve. Inspiration is drawn from many local and global influences, and the work clearly articulates this enthusiasm for issues of place and identity.

Miguel Espinosa Cancino is a stage 5 student from the Glasgow School of Art. His thesis explores threshold spaces between a private plastic recycling factory and public facilities in an urban environment.

The plastic recycling factory open to the public aims to bring
environmental awareness to the city. Since the 1950s, around 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced worldwide and currently accounts for 73% of beach litter.

The combination of both an otherwise alienated and unwelcoming industrial process with inviting and engaging public amenities aims to create new opportunities that help change the negative connotations surrounding waste facilities.

This innovative thinking promotes strong bonds with the immediate communities in the Cadix District, Antwerp and the public’s inclusion to the recycling process through accessible and transparent architecture.

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.

Type design and interactivity have been the underlying themes of my practice during my final year at the Glasgow School of Art. Throughout my Third year on my graphic design course i began to learn basic coding skills. This in turn opened up a whole realm of possibilities for my practice. It engaged my interest for the potential that lies between the border of communication design and interactivity.

Thus this drove my final years work. Scene 3.0 is a typeface I have designed which is reactive to the spoken word. It is a three Axes variable typeface. The parameters change in reaction to the sound. Focusing solely on the qualities of the human voice it measures the Volume, Pace and Pitch of the audio that is fed through it. Words are read to be spoken with this in mind i wanted to challenge the perimeters of type design to expand the capabilities of communication in letter form.

Balancing a sensitive and camp visual language, I explore the artificiality of photography through constructed image making. With colour, form, and semiotics being main components of my process, I tend to allude to elements of staging within my photographs to explore the relationship between photography and reality.

PLASTIC PHOTOGRAPHY & TWIN(S)

Plastic Photography is an ongoing body of work that examines and scrutinises this conflicting relationship between photography and reality by representing familiar objects in unfamiliar still life constructions. I have used the camera to challenge the idea of the real by creating a disconnect between reality and what is depicted in the photographs.

Twin(s) is an unresolved project that questions ideas surrounding the creation of self through both nature and nurture. By photographing myself and my identical twin, I wanted to better understand where our similarities and differences originate, with specific focus on the origin of our differing sexualities. Working thematically, this body of work dissects our relationship.

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!

I am an observer! Through both photography and film, I explore landscapes and those who seek the outdoors and the adventure it brings. Thriving in challenging conditions, I aim to capture moments in which humans interact with the environment, whether it is through athletes pushing their bodies to the limit in extreme conditions, or simply as an onlooker to a landscape.

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.

My work, although mainly graphic, is at the intersection between several disciplines, between printed projects, proposals for the public space, for musicians or associations, and more physical work, from material research to exhibition design… A cultural and often contextual graphics work, as a tool for opening up to other disciplines and other worlds.
Often starting from personal proposals, I also work collectively and from commissions. I’m interested in different production/printing techniques and ways of subverting them to explore the connections between my tools and the subject I work on.

I’ve spent the last months of this year working on research-based editorial design. The project Silent Storm is a book investigation on the representations of the Gulf War and the strategic and ideological role of images in a context of war.

Throughout my studies in Communication Design, I have explored a broad range of interests, working with both digital and analogue photography. I have particularly liked working on documentary projects that have allowed me to embed myself within a community. It is rewarding to be able to represent people I’ve met and places I’ve explored with my images.

During my final year, my practice extended to working with staged photography. The new challenge allowed me to have more control over the outcome and overall aesthetic of my work. I enjoy working in the photographic studio but also on location, embracing the use of additional lighting or utilising daylight.

Art direction is another area of interest and since the lockdown, I have had the opportunity to invest more time in my collaborative work, with my friend Grace Elder. Named Crown Gewelz, we strive to create vibrant imagery using playful and surreal sets.

Moving forward, I would like to begin my career with a creative internship, ideally in London.

Aside from that, I hope to have the opportunity to revisit The Isle of Eigg to further develop my project documenting the community there.
Finally, I will continue to make work for Crown Gewelz to expand my experience as an art director and staged photographer. We have been loving working on our tongue-in-cheek recipe card series and have much more to come!

I am a graphic design graduate of The Glasgow School of Art looking for opportunities within the field. My interests in graphic design are shaped through the ways the domain is present in all visual communication aspects of our lives; through the transmission of information and the influencing of intellect. Good graphic design for me is a social, cultural and interpersonal navigational matter.

I like to gather inspiration from a broad range of fields across the arts, design and technology. Looking at a publication, I enjoy when I hold a piece of quality in my hands. Similarly, I find delight in looking at digital media that both communicate to me, and serve as food for thought in our daily lives. It gives me great joy when I get to work on a project that has an extra layer of meaning. I believe in collaboration and the sharing of different perspectives, skill sets and knowledge. Good dynamics and a positive working atmosphere mean a lot to me.
My portfolio includes a variety of self-initiated and collaborative works.

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

I am a graphic designer based in Glasgow, primarily focusing on motion and identity design. I enjoy constructing user focused narratives that draw people in, encouraging engagement and a sense of experience within my design.

Throwing myself into my research process helps me achieve this. I don’t tend to start any designing until I have thoroughly – and perhaps a wee bit exhaustively – torn open the brief to explore every visual concept, historical relevance, social aspect and practical use. With this process I feel more informed in decision making, confident I have left no stone unturned.

I believe that having an appetite for knowledge of the worlds surrounding your own is vital for a designer in navigating the design process. Being able to reference a multitude of perspectives, stories and experiences allows us to create a more conscious, kind, inclusive and sustainable experience for everyone.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.