Design Yearbook 2017

Witch Bottles
Rachel Armstrong
Ecologies, Infrastructure, Sustainable Development
Layering of material according to a chemical and symbolic programmes that speak
to the elements of air, fire and water were located within the grounds of the Robert
Rauschenberg Foundation property as a charm that discusses the values at risk through
sea level rise. They symbolize our hopes, fears and dreams about climate change in a
manner that draws from local traditions – the production of charmed bottles – and
ancient knowledge practices, like channeling. These bottles are now part of the
foundation’s land art collection and were also “virtually” gifted to the BBC Museum of
Curiosity, Series 9 at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lj6yh
Acknowledgments:
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Fellowship Residency
Rising Waters 2 confab, April/May 2016
Pre-Columbian Tropical Urbanism
Peter Kellett
History, Cultures and Landscape
This AHRC funded project is evaluating the long term urban traditions exemplified by
the diversity of pre-Columbian tropical cities of Mesoamerica, to inform sustainable
urban futures. A series of interdisciplinary workshops will build on historically integrated
research on tropical urbanism and environmental design to formulate a collaborative
research project to test underlying principles. In addition to academic partners in
several countries, the project will engage with wider audiences through a design ideas
competition and public exhibition to create awareness of the archaeological relevance of
the past for future urban living.
Collaborators:
Benjamin Vis (PI) University of Kent, University of Leiden, University of Gothenburg,
RIBA South East, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts
The Alternative Public
Xi Chen
Processes and Practices of Architecture
The research will investigate the nature and creation public space in the city in Wenzhou,
a coastal city in the southeast of China. The research interrogates the theoretical
analysis and the experimental artistic practice that attempting to test the possibilities
of alternative approach towards the production of public space. It will re-examine the
effects and understanding of the modern introduction of public space in contemporary
Chinese society. By referring to the ‘right to the city’, the research aims to explore whose
power accounts in the development of public space through the cultural, social, spatial
and political lens.
Website:
www.unbuilt.net
Constructing Informality
Peter Kellett
History, Cultures and Landscape
Since 1985 I have been carrying out longitudinal ethnographic research into the growth
and development of informal settlements in the city of Santa Marta, Colombia. The
30 year cumulative data set documents the housing trajectories of communities and
households through changing economic and social circumstances and helps explain how
built form and social formations are mutually and dynamically constituted through
time. Living within a local family in a settlement for extended periods on multiple
occasions makes it possible to explore the interrelationships between processes of housing
construction, furnishing and habitation, and issues of identity (re)construction and the
role of the dwelling in people’s lives.
Collaborators:
Benjamin Vis (PI) University of Kent, University of Leiden, University of Gothenburg,
RIBA South East, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts
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