Lecture date: 2014-11-20
DSDHA’s Studio is founded on a persistent search for new forms of beauty through active design, research and agency. As a practice, their projects span from macro-scaled urban strategies and infrastructure studies, such as the redesign of area of Camden’s West End in which the AA sits (between Tottenham Court Road, Gower Street, Warren Street and Shaftesbury Avenue) though to highly acclaimed individual crafted buildings which celebrate the act of making and materiality within architecture, such as Alex Monroe’s Studio in Snowsfields, London or their new Covert House – an uncompromisingly radical concrete cottage within a historic conservation area. These projects have evolved through a unique design methodology that deploys tactics developed through 15 years of parallel research in academia and on the ground, and which have been widely recognised as ground-breaking.
The lecture will focus on research carried out within the Studio, and as part of Deborah Saunt’s recently PhD at RMIT Europe, revealing not only the qualities and preoccupations found within the projects which engage with nature and contemporary conditions but also how architects must invariably demonstrate agency within the practice of architecture so that they insert themselves into the project, create impulses that propel the progress of design forward.
DSDHA is a design and research studio based in London, whose works spans across the boundaries between architecture, landscape and urbanism. DSDHA is best known for its innovative approach to urbanism, sustainability and public engagement. Their projects have been recognised with 12 RIBA Awards in the last decade, and they have twice been nominated for the European Uniion Mies Van Der Rohe Prize for Contemporary Architecture.
Recent projects range from a gateway building for London’s Olympic Village, a flagship store in the West End and a new studio for writer and artist Edmund de Waal. In addition, DSDHA has been involved in significant urban design proposals including the redesign of Tottenham Court Road in London’s West End, improvements to the public realm between The Albert Memorial and The Royal Albert Hall, as well as urban regeneration projects for Waterloo and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
Deborah and David Hill also lead the studio’s urban research, regularly writing and broadcasting on architecture, and have taught widely including at the AA, EPFL (Lausanne), University of Cambridge, RCA and currently The Cass School of Architecture.
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