Populous’ London Office Hosts Student Exhibition
July 18, 2016
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Populous’ London office are pleased to have been able to sponsor the end of year exhibition of Unit C at the Oxford Brookes University Architecture School. This unit is co-lead by Maria Knutsson-Hall, Senior Associate at Populous and part-time lecturer at the School. With an extraordinarily high level of quality, some of the final projects are currently being displayed in the foyer of our office in Putney.
About the exhibition
Entitled ‘Towards a Biophilic Architecture’, the ambition of the unit was to question how building programmes could integrate basic architectural needs to improve our quality of life. The unit looked to nature to address the energy demands of our workspaces, by devising structural, material, spatial and environmental mediation systems.
The resulting projects looked at notions of light, privacy, adaptability and the integration and diffusion of our interface with the natural world. Some looked to challenge our very notion of biophilia, through the exploration of aqua acoustics, or the creation of novel biomorphic, layered-light mediation systems.
Others created a ‘Savannatecture’ that had spatial conditions derived from the very essence of our primal spatial comfort zones, as a provocative response to the open plan office. All the projects embedded themselves within the El Poblenou area of Barcelona to create a series of architectural responses that would fundamentally improve the experience for somebody working in those buildings. These responses were textured, layered, topological, dripping, hanging, growing, mediating spaces, and ultimately towards a biophilic architecture.
Maria said, “I’m delighted with the response that our students took to this challenge. I’ve always been passionate about architecture and education, and the response of the next generation of architects to these challenges are really awe-inspiring.”