Studio In Process

Studio lead: Lettice Drake

Studio Collaborators

• Shane Sugrue, Architectural Designer and Community Organiser, Unqualified Design Studio
• Oscar Cooper, Builder & Contractor, Lignin Builds Ltd.
• Paloma Gormley, Partner, Practice Architecture
• Tom Moore, Researcher, SSoA
• Kate Purver, Structural Engineer, HRW
• James Harrington & Bryn Davies, Studio Build & Design alumni, SSoA
• Matt Wilson, Reuben Golden, Sim, Mike Hawkins, Radical Routes Housing Co-op

How do we produce our built environment? Studio In Process asks whether our methods of creation can be culture-producing, community-generating exercises in themselves. Can we, as architects, have a great time? In focusing on the how, this studio invited students to imagine and advocate for their dream ways of practicing creatively as architects, as agents in the world.

Studio-members took the lead on outlining and determining the themes of their research, programme and site – the what, who, where and why. As a studio, what we explored together, across a range of independent projects, was the how - how designs could be developed and realised in greater detail, be that driven by an interest in collaborative design methods, in community activism, in material sourcing, in generating projects, in project-management, in self-build processes or in construction methods more broadly. The richness of final designs came from a vivid understanding of how the architecture could come to be, and outlining those processes formed a key part of final proposals. As a studio we explored and reflected on methods of working supportively and collaboratively across the different tangents of our projects.

We explored precedents of designers and artists acting as community-project-generators – as collaborators, as builders. We looked at low-embodied energy materials and  construction methods, talking to builders, hearing their experiences of construction work and of working with architects. We considered well-being along the production line, reflecting on the working cultures and conditions of construction workers and architectural workers, and how those worlds relate to each other. Beyond “working conditions”, we explored how our methods of producing can creatively, experimentally and ambitiously demonstrate and advocate for the type of the world we want to live in.

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