Ok, so in an earlier entry I got about half way through describing this year's Bartlett units before I got so tired I had to stop. It's weird - even though I worked all summer uni has hit me like a tonne of bricks. Anyway - the units in full follow (but if you want to skip the filler, head to Unit 24. Also, you can get the official blurb here.



Unit 10
CJ Lim/Bernd Felsinger
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Connections
I don't know these guys personally - our paths have never really crossed, but they seem friendly, hard working guys (most people in the Bartlett are). A couple of turn offs for me though: A lot of the work has seemed quite similar in past years which suggests a certain pressure to conform output to a certain style. This runs the risk that the output expected won't be appropriate for the project, or the project itself somehow conforms. Either way, it's not really what I'm looking for in my final year.
The field trip is a mystery which has to be solved be reading the clues hidden in the brief.

Unit 11
Mark Smout/Laura Allen/Anna Monrabal
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Field Operations
Anna is a 2001 Bartlett Graduate. Most of their students are ex-Bartlett undergrads (they used to teach there before moving to Diploma). They like landscape. Their 5th year is full, so they aren't an option for me.
Trip to NY for presidential elections.

PS. Thanks to namhenderson for reminding me of this interview with them both by Geoff over at BLDGBLOG.

Unit 12
Jonathan Hill/Matthew Butcher/Elizabeth Dow
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"Perhaps when you cut into the present the future leaks out"-William Burroughs
They like weather. Drawings. A lot of photoshop montages/collages were shown. They seemed like a friendly enough bunch but Jonathan is away on sabatical for at least the first half of the year. I had an interview with these guys today. I think we both felt that the unit's main concerns were not really mine. I worked quite a lot with erosion/entropy/weather/poetry/temporal architecture etc in Edinburgh (undergrad), so feel like it might be a step backwards. I'm ready to move away from that rather than back towards it.
Trip to Berlin.

Unit 14
Stephen Gage/Phil Ayres
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The Real Thing
Very temporal architecture. The unit is quite flexible but typically creates 1:1 prototypes/fragments/experiments rather than an entire building proposal. Lots of CAD/CAM and potential for electronics/robotics etc. Stephen has just been made professor emeritus so will continue teaching beyond his 65th birthday.
They'll be visiting Venice asap and then elsewhere later in the year.

Unit 15
Nic Clear/Simon Kennedy
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The Near Future Part II
They make videos. Really cool videos that are truly stunning. But it's not a building, so not really what I'm looking for as I try to finish my final year of architecture. They don't accept new 5th years anyway.

Unit 16
Simon Herron/Susanna Isa
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This sheet wasn't included in my pack by accident, but generally speaking, buisness as usual. Crazy, wacky, kitch with a critical edge etc etc.

Unit 17
Niall McLaughlin/Yeoryia Manolopoulou
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Very decent unit. They came across very strong and with conviction. I had an interview with them and it went well, but I'm not entirely sure that their methods of working are compatible with mine and vice versa. It would be an intereseting challenge to set myself, but I'm far from 100%.
Interestingly, they are experiementing with going anti-Bartlett this year and want to set real, unexpected constraints on projects so as to avoid the rather indulgent tendancies that have cropped up from time to time.
Trip to Cape Town. Also not accepting new 5th years.

Unit 18
Colin Fornier/David Ardill
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It's Unit 18. It's Colin Fournier (and there he goes again jetting off around Europe...). I get the impression from ex students of U18 that Colin is not around all that much and David can be a little hit or miss in terms of whether or not you gel. Nobody's fault, chemistry si important - but perhaps too big a risk for final year.

Unit 19
Neil Spiller/Phil Watson
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Neil writes books. He covers lots of interesting and abstract ideas. We should buy his books too, apparently. There was a project from an ex-student of a ship made from trees grown in a controlled way - "heavy metal bonsai". Did I mention he has books out?
Conclusion? Buy Neil Spiller's books.

Unit 20
Marjan Colletti, Marcus Cruz
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This year the brief is about 'Sublime Ecologies and Ecologies of the Sublime'. In this case it seems that sublime is not talked about in the Kantian way, but a more abstract sense.
The field trip is amazing - from Germany to Italy via the Alps.

Unit 21
Christine Hawley, Abigail Ashton, Andrew Porter
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Notions of the Emphemeral. They mostly showed past installlations done by students. Things that engage space, light, sound etc. Pretty ephemeral stuff. Abigail and Andrew are silmultaneously teaching in the undergrad Unit 3.
Field trip to New York

Unit 23
Bob Sheil/Emmanuel Vercruysse
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The making unit. They make things that are beautiful and these guys basically live in the workshop. They are going to Japan this year (if funding allows).

Unit 24
Michael Wilhart, Uwe Schmidt-Hess
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The new unit! These two guys are apparently the best two students to have come through the Bartlett M.Arch course. Both are from Vienna (I think) and come across as insanely intelligent and interesting guys.
Obviously being new, they didn't have any past Bartlett student work to show, so they showed some of their own experimental work, which seemed like a heady mix of U19 and U23.
Field trip is awesome: Sarajevo.


PS. The award for the best quote of the day goes to Michael:
"I had been drawing all day without getting anywhere. I got bored. So went out and bought a chicken. Then dipped it in bitumen"






I decided to go for U24 for reasons that I'll explain in another post. Suffice to say that it's super-exciting. Another good thing is that our old U22 studio space is now the U24 studio, so we have spent the last week cathartically destroying the reminents of last year, painting the walls, making shelving units, and constructing an uber-table to seat 4...


The old studio was dirty and dingy. This is about 80% gutted, so imagine it 5 times as bad.


Milad helping get rid of grimy walls and dodgy desk constructions


Rhys varnishing the new 2800x1500 table for 4 (made out of 3 sheets and a hige timber frame underneath)