I'm writing this blog entry while watching final year masters cross-crits - and I'm struck by the sheer volume of work that's been produced by the cohort so far this year. We're into the final push - half way through the final term - plenty of time to bring final projects together for the end of year. We've seen all years of projects developing - and I personally cannot wait to see the end product - it's shaping up to be a brilliant end of year exhibition!
What's On
OxArch's CV workshop is on this Thursday - it's time to start thinking about the end! Whether you're graduating this year or looking for some work or internships over the summer, this is a great event to go along to for CV advice.
Student of the Week
Our student of the week is Rob Goacher from DS4. His project focuses on community led housing within Skopje, Macedonia. His abstract reads:
"Inhabiting Karposh, a suburb of Skopje is hard, housing is unaffordable, young people are stuck living with parents, lacking space; the current uncontrolled neo-liberal attitude to housing has failed residents. In response, new typologies of change and addition have emerged, from enclosure of balconies to exoskeletons and roof extensions. We can speculate narratives and futures of these additions and the informal network of makers who create them; the ‘maker’s’ economy; expansion of this economy could allow community cooperation, developing more radical additions.
"Revisiting the Yugoslavian model of enterprise allocated housing and community provision, I’ve formed a new typology of community controlled living, playing on the addition typologies evident and speculated in Karposh. This community endeavour takes over public space and constructs child forms of demarcating masts, creating metabolist-style artificial ground. Residents of parent blocks are allocated volumes within new child forms dependent on their needs. They purchase prefabricated capsules to infill the volumes, hung from masts, which are made by the established ‘maker’s’ economy. Child communities grow from piers, with self-made connections. Piers also act as service routes, connecting service infrastructure within the child forms providing a resilient community service system.
"The new typology provides Karposh with capacity and resilience to take advantage of future opportunities from potential EU membership and insulated from potential adversities, and provides a new model of living which could be explored across several situations internationally."
