Oscillating between the abstract and the concrete, the unit interlaces process-based design methods with an interest in the physical presence of buildings. Experimenting with references from the mineral world, we are developing an agenda for a ‘mineral architecture’ – an architecture of interiority, solidity and groundedness.

Our initial research into crystals allowed us to define their structural and geometric tendencies and material qualities, and set up an inventory of formal and material systems. These were then transformed and grown, delivering a series of rule-based proto-architectural forms which were tested against the spatial notion of foyer: an interior or ‘carved’ space, a fragment of a larger whole that did not yet exist. This constituted the first of a larger conglomerate of spaces, evolving into a series of drafts for a specific public building on one of three sites in east London.

The current preference for complex geometries within architectural processes often materialises into structure, but not space. The unit explored the potential of monolithic construction and single material articulations to see how these geometries could develop inhabitational qualities and be implemented with an economy of means. The use of brick or other monolithic/mineral materials formed our technical focus.

The unit went to Berlin and Moscow to study the work of the ‘Crystal Chain’ group and the Russian Constructivists, both obsessed by the formal potential of the crystalline. In Berlin we visited the studio of Olafur Eliasson, whose work is informed by natural processes, and met Thomas Demand, whose work with architectural models is of particular relevance.

Students worked consistently through one coherent building proposal, from strategy to detail, from envelope to interior.

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