BA_DS3.1

2020-2021 Continuing our exploration of filmic narrative as a mechanism for understanding architectural discourse,wehavestudied the following threeefilms where the relationship between architecture and society takes centre stage; Ladj Ly’s story of police and state violence in the banlieues of Paris ‘Les Misérables’ (2019), David Byrne’s suburban fantasia ‘True Stories’ (1986) and a BBC documentary profiling the architects of the social housing scheme, Robin Hood Gardens ‘The Smithsons on Housing’ (1970) These films provided an opportunity to interrogate our recent architectural history and consider the ways in which through cultural, social & architectural interventions we might challenge the orthodoxies of the “neoliberal city” which seeks to obfuscate the often anecdotal and culturally specific histories of our societies. Pleasure Garden: An anatomy of social space in the 21st centur y In the first semester we focused our attention on the borough of Poplar in East London and the remnants of Robin Hood Gardens. Considering the challenges of the ongoing pandemic and the privatisation of public space, we proposed the creation of a Pleasure Garden to provide both the existing community and their new neighbours with a unique ‘threshold’ for social connection and sensory pleasure. Additionally, students were asked to provide a dwelling for a custodian, a member of the community who would care for site. Discourse, Dialogue and Exchange: Performance for a time of plague In the second semester we relocated to the site of a former Bell Foundry in Whitechapel, an area undergoing significant gentrification where we asked students to make propositions for a theatre and place of cultural exchange . Considering the challenges posed to such institutions by the ongoing pandemic they have developed proposals with hybrid programmes in which performance spaces are juxtaposed with a secondary and entirely self-sufficient use that responds to the needs of the immediate community. Jane Tankard Jane Tankard is a full-time member of staff at the UoW. The BA Architecture Year 3 Leader, Senior Lecturer, practising Architect and active researcher, her work focuses on experimental pedagogy, praxis and the role of the architect in collaborative multidisciplinary contexts. Studio work embraces politics, film and feminism. Thomas Grove Thomas Grove studied at Liverpool John Moores University and The University of Westminster. He works for an architectural practice in London and is interested in film, ornament, traditional modes of representation and the socio-political ramifications of architecture.