NAME: Alisa Wang

ATELIER: Praxxis

UNDERGRADUATE: The University of Edinburgh

ARCHITECTURAL INTERESTS: Intersection of architecture and social sciences, humanitarian architecture, sustainability and architecture as an expression of culture

HOBBIES: Badminton, playing piano and guitar, travelling, foodie

NAME: Janhavi Narayanaswamy

ATELIER: FLUX

UNDERGRADUATE: The University of Melbourne, Australia

ARCHITECTURAL INTERESTS: Humanitarian architecture, community-centred design, sustainable and green architecture

HOBBIES: Travelling, cooking, fitness, recently discovered climbing!

NAME: Chris Brierley

ATELIER: Some Kind of Nature

UNDERGRADUATE: Oxford Brooks University

ARCHITECTURAL INTERESTS: Sustainable design, physical model making, and social design

HOBBIES: Playing squash, getting out in nature, and cooking

NAME: Jiawen Li

ATELIER: Infrastructure Space

UNDERGRADUATE: China Academy of Art

ARCHITECTURAL INTERESTS: observing the city on foot to capture the lifestyles of people in different places and learning the real needs of building users

HOBBIES: Travelling, hiking, photography, and sketching

NAME: Lihong Xing

ATELIER: &rchitecture

UNDERGRADUATE: Wenzhou Kean University

ARCHITECTURAL INTERESTS: In-between spaces between indoors and outdoors, hierarchical sense of architectural space structure and intuitive architecture

HOBBIES: Travelling, enjoying delicious food, and appreciating scenic views that can relax the mind and body

Previously designed as a Parish hall by local architect James Medland Taylor in 1897, Birch Community Centre is an unlisted building that serves the community by providing educational, recreational and leisure opportunities. Working with statutory and voluntary organisations, they host various activities such as yoga, martial arts, a shared reading group and a monthly pub-and-pizza night. One of the most striking features of the community centre is its main hall, with a high vaulted, wooden hammer beam ceiling that can seat up to 120. The Centre offers its space for private hire at commercial rates to subsidise the cost of hosting socially beneficial events for the community. To further enhance its commercial value and appeal, the Centre aspires to enhance its interior and exterior lighting, with the former celebrating the architecture of the main hall’s ceiling and the latter serving as a visual cue to direct visitors to the main entrance. Additionally, they want to improve the building's circulation and programming by providing access and utilization to a presently inaccessible attic space in addition to providing alternative access routes to smaller meeting rooms alongside the main hall, which are currently only accessible through the main hall. These modifications are a valuable asset that ensures continued support to the community.

The project directly supports the local community by upgrading the space which would further facilitate social interactions. By enriching its appeal for commercial hire, the Centre can better reach out to the community by providing more classes, activities, and events at a subsidized rate.

This project provides a great opportunity to engage with a myriad of skills critical to aspiring architects. Workshops and collaboration sessions will be held to either learn new or improve existing software skills such as the Adobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign), Rhino for 3D modelling, and Vray for rendering. Physical skills such as hand drawing and physical model making will also be explored to communicate design ideas. Finally, there will be an opportunity to present the proposals to the collaborators, thereby applying verbal communication skills in a real-life setting.

Day 3: Digital Workshops

Today, the BA students from Groups B and C participated in digital workshops conducted by the M.Arch students to better understand 3D modelling and rendering.

Starting off with Rhino, the students were introduced to the basic user interface, followed by essential commands for 3D modelling. They were then tasked to use the existing floor plans of the site to model the building.

After breaking for lunch, the M.Arch students led a workshop on rendering using V-Ray. The BA students learnt about framing views, adjusting light settings, applying and scaling material textures on the models they were working with, followed by a brief exploration of post-production works on Photoshop.

Day 6: Group Feedback Round

We are back on site again! This provided us with an opportunity to check in with the other groups as well as update our collaborators on our progress. The BA students from each group, supported by their M.Arch leaders presented their ideas, which was followed by inputs provided by the collaborators and other students. Overall, the collaborators were very happy with our progress and are looking forward to our final outcomes!