Architecture BA (Hons)

norwichuni_architecture Congratulations class of 2025 BA Hons Architecture and MArch which graduated today! 🎉 🎉 🎉 (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture Featured Project: The Obstreperous System by Sophia Henley @sophiaahenley (BA Architecture Year 3)   This project interrogates domesticity, repression, and gendered authority through a spatial and material intervention at the ruins of Greyfriars Monastery in Dunwich – once a site of institutional and social control. Grounded in feminist spatial theory and inspired by the writings of the Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, the work reverses and reclaims the historical labours of women – such as limewashing and textile-making – by re-scripting them into acts of power, exposure, and unravelling. The design weaves soft, textile-based structures through the crumbling ruins, creating a performative architecture that entraps, directs, and reveals. New formations of domestic labour are rescripted in a new kind of domestic intuition proposed here. It suggestsa reimagined domestic institution where traditional roles are subverted: spaces of labour – material folding, scrubbing, and tending – are exaggerated and reassigned, inviting male participants into routines historically associated with women, while others, traditionally associated with domestic responsibility, gain access to secluded areas that symbolise authority, though fractured and impermanent. The structure is intentionally fragile, built to degrade and adapt with the landscape, mirroring the instability of power and the coast. By flipping gendered norms – placing men in visible labour and women in spaces of observation and retreat – the intervention challenges entrenched ideas of control and privacy. It encourages reflection on institutionalised domestic roles, spatial segregation, and the slow, material undoing of patriarchal authority. Tutors: Dr George Themistokleous, Sarah de Villiers (Design Studio), Romanos Tsomos, William Burgess, Dr George Themistokleous, William Hailiang Chen (Technology and Environment), February Philips, Tony Cleford (Professional Studies). Course Convenor: Claudia Morgado Programme Director: Prof Teresa Stoppani @norwichuni_architecture #norwichuniversityofthearts #wearenorwich #dunwich (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture Featured Project: Rhizomatic Decontamination by Jacob Spinks @jspinks13 (BA Architecture Year 3) Recipient of RIBA Bronze Medal nomination from Norwich University of the Arts (joint award) Rhizomatic Decontamination is a long-term remediation scheme located on the contaminated shingle spit of Orfordness, Suffolk. As an ex-military testing ground, the coastal landscape has suffered extensive displacement and contamination, layering over years of explosive ordinance testing, bombing runs and longshore erosion. Decades later, as remnants of humanity’s bid for efficient control, an abundance of impact craters scar the land. Drawing from theoretical frameworks outlined by Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble, the project embraces complexity, contamination and abnormality through a lens which allows and encourages adaptive reuse. Laboratory One, located on the border of public access, is retained and adapted as a threshold between accessible and contaminated land, operating as a research and development hub for phytoremediation. From here, a new axis is drawn along the historical Land Bombing Line (55° North) as a path of repair. By layering over a derelict vibration test facility, the proposal redefines inaccessible land as sites for potential post-human inhabitancy. Embracing the cthuluscene—where humans and non-human actors collaborate and entangle—a rhizomatic network of hyperaccumulator trees and architectural pods is planted into craters. Each pod responds to both natural and controlled growth, using a modular grid to support trees as cybernetic phytomining machines. This establishes a long-term choreography of healing, shifting perceptions toward responsibility, cohabitation and speculative repair. Tutors: Dr George Themistokleous, Sarah de Villiers (Design Studio), Romanos Tsomos, William Burgess, Dr George Themistokleous, William Hailiang Chen (Technology and Environment), February Philips, Tony Cleford (Professional Studies).  Course Convenor: Claudia Morgado  Programme Director: Prof Teresa Stoppani  @norwichuni_architecture  #norwichuniversityofthearts #architecture #orfordness (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture On June 19th, we and our award sponsors recognised outstanding projects in spatial design, highlighting achievements in areas such as environmental considerations, technological innovation, sustainability, social justice, critical practice, inclusive design, community focus, and global challenges. The celebration highlighted cross-disciplinary approaches and investigative practice. Congratulations to our award winners: – Sam Joy (MArch) @samjoyarch Taiwan Architecture Fellowship 2025 – Hekla Aradóttir (BA Hons Arch) @heklaara Architecture and Interior Design Writing Prize – Asya Milenko (BA Hons Arch Y2) @svit.lovyv RIBA Norfolk Design Achievement Award – Martine Qvernstrøm (BA Hons Arch Y2) @martineqve RIBA Norfolk Studentship Award – Joe Slack (BA Hons Arch) @joe._slack RIBA East Student Award 2025 Purcell Research Report Award – William Roderick (BA Hons Arch) Purcell Research Report Award – Isabella Dawson (BA Hons Arch) @izzy.dwson Hudson Award for Sustainable Design – Marcelo Moerdyk (BA Hons Arch) LSI Architects Drawing Prize – Leo Coles (BA Hons Arch) @leosalter_ Commendation for Design Achievement – Maram Al-Rikabi (BA Hons Arch) @rikabiix Commendation for Studentship – Jacob Spinks (BA Hons Arch) @jspinks13 RIBA President’s Bronze Medal Nomination – Jordan Jewell (BA Hons Arch) @lurchlurks AJ Student 2025 Nomination, RIBA President’s Bronze Medal Nomination – Theo Galvin (MArch) @uncultivated.architecture Design Achievement Award RIBA President’s Silver Medal Nomination The Grad Fest exhibition of work by graduating students is open until Thursday, June 26. All are welcome! Thank you to our award sponsors: RIBA East @ribaeast RIBA Norfolk Hudson Architects @hudsonarchitects LSI Architects @lsiarchitects PURCELL @purcell.architecture @norwichuniarts #norwichuniversityofthearts #wearenorwich #architecture #awards (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture Featured Project: Ephemeral Resonance: The Dunwich Coast as Living Instrument  by Isaac Zipfel (BA Architecture Year 3) Sound on 🔊 On show at Boardman House, Norwich as part of @norwichuniarts Grad Fest Exhibition 2025 13-26 June 25 See the link in our bio for opening times Ephemeral Resonance proposes an acoustic architecture sited on the eroding cliffs of Dunwich, where the ground itself becomes a living instrument. This project listens to the landscape—its shifting geologies, disappearing edges, and atmospheric rhythms—and translates these distant, slow erosive processes into embodied sound. Inspired by W.G. Sebald’s evocation of a silenced landscape, the work responds to loss not through visual monument, but through auditory presence. Drawing on acousmatic theory and posthuman ideas of listening, the intervention uses site-sourced materials and embedded technologies to generate a journey of sonic encounters. It encourages both solitary and collective acts of listening, destabilising vision as the dominant mode of perception. Through installations that resonate with wind, rain, and tide, the architecture allows the terrain to sound—offering a space where erosion becomes audible, intimacy is forged between body and site, and the ephemeral is made momentarily perceptible through sound Tutors: Dr George Themistokleous, Sarah de Villiers (Design Studio), Romanos Tsomos, William Burgess, Dr George Themistokleous, William Hailiang Chen (Technology and Environment), February Philips, Tony Cleford (Professional Studies). Course Convenor: Claudia Morgado Programme Director: Prof Teresa Stoppani @norwichuni_architecture #norwichuniversityofthearts #architecture #dunwich (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture Featured Project: Threads of Labour by Isabella Dawson @izzy.dwson (BA Architecture Year 3) Recipient of Hudson Architects Student Award for Sustainability 2025 On show at Boardman House, Norwich as part of @norwichuniarts Grad Fest Exhibition 2025 13-26 June 25 See the link in our bio for opening times The unseen labour is woven into the history of Dunwich, where erosion over time has left just traces of the collective labour that once built the town. In The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald exposes the state of the lives of silk weavers, whose labour was tied to looms more “reminiscent of instruments of torture” than tools, revealing the stigma attached to the craft. The endangered status of silk weaving and hemp rope making in Suffolk reflects not only the marginalisation of physically demanding manual labour but also the impact of automation. The project proposes a space dedicated to silk weaving, where craftsmen can both practice their craft and teach others.  This enables the space to be constructed using historically local materials, such as hemp fabric and silk, which can be woven on looms as visual expressions of the craft traditionally practiced within. The ability of the structure to be assembled and disassembled in response to erosion deterritorialises tradition, preserving the woven language and autonomy of Dunwich craft for the future.  Tutors: Dr George Themistokleous, Sarah de Villiers (Design Studio), Romanos Tsomos, William Burgess, Dr George Themistokleous, William Hailiang Chen (Technology and Environment), February Philips, Tony Cleford (Professional Studies). Course Convenor: Claudia Morgado Programme Director: Prof Teresa Stoppani @norwichuni_architecture #norwichuniversityofthearts #architecture #dunwich (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture Featured Project: Negentropic Fire: Rituals of Memory and Renewal by Joe Slack @joe._slack (BA Architecture Year 3) Recipient of RIBA East Student Award 2025 for Norwich University of the Arts; Purcell Research Report Award   This project explores fire as both a destructive and regenerative force, drawing from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and the idea that “combustion is the hidden principle behind every artefact we create.” Set in Dunwich, Suffolk – a coastline shaped by erosion, deforestation, and human intervention, it investigates fire’s evolving role in landscape transformation. Beginning with Dunwich’s environmental history, the project develops through film, material studies, and speculative design, revealing cycles of memory, loss, and renewal. At its heart is a proposed intervention rooted in the Anglo-Saxon ‘need-fire’ ritual: a communal fire marking the end of a seasonal timber harvest. Through pyrolysis, it produces charcoal and biochar, resources that feed back into the land and local making practices, reframing fire as a stabilising, negentropic agent. The architecture comprises a series of fire-formed spaces that embody material change. Users encounter the physical and symbolic presence of combustion – scorched surfaces, transformed matter, seasonal rituals, grounding human activity in ecological processes. Informed by Galiano’s Fire and Memory, the project challenges dominant associations of fire with entropy, proposing it instead as a cyclical, purposeful tool for ecological and cultural renewal. Here, burning becomes ceremony; waste becomes matter for growth. The land is not consumed but composed anew, through rituals of memory, heat, and renewal.  Tutors: Dr George Themistokleous, Sarah de Villiers (Design Studio), Romanos Tsomos, William Burgess, Dr George Themistokleous, William Hailiang Chen (Technology and Environment), February Philips, Tony Cleford (Professional Studies). Course Convenor: Claudia Morgado Programme Director: Prof Teresa Stoppani @norwichuni_architecture #norwichuniversityofthearts #wearenorwich #dunwich (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture GRAD FEST 25 is now open! Come and visit some work of BA Architecture and M.Arch at Boardman House. Our work studies posthuman and ecological landscapes spanning coastal and watery conditions in Orford Ness, Southwold, Dunwich in our undergraduate course; and research connected to the watery planetarities in Accra, Lincoln, Varanasi, and Horsey in our postgraduate work. The exhibition runs from 13 to 26 June, and extends to many of our fellow programme sites across Norwich University of the Arts. See link in bio for more information and opening times. Featured work in these images: 1 — Hekla Aradóttir @heklaara 2 — Isabella Dawson @izzy.dwson 3 — Jacob Spinks @jspinks13 4 — Jordan Jewell @lurchlurks 5 — Leo Coles @leosalter_ 6 — Felix Ford @felix___ford 7 — Ryan Bonner @r_b0nner 8 — Marcelo Moerdyk 9 — Tracey Lin @_tracey1_ 10 — Adam Krupa @krupa9751 11 — Theo Galvin @uncultivated.architecture and Rohan Ganesh @rohanganesh Stay tuned as we feature some more work from the two courses over the exhibition. @norwichuni_architecture @norwichuniarts #norwichuniversityofthearts (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture We recently shared our exciting undergraduate course offerings on Dezeen Courses. The Architecture and Interior Design courses at Norwich University of the Arts begin with a shared first year focused on collaboration. Students work together in an integrated design studio that fosters experimentation and benefits from synergies with the wider university. The aim is to develop a critical design ethos from the start, with the collaborative studio culture continuing as students progress in their specific course. Rooted in Norfolk’s distinctive context – where centuries-old agriculture and coastal management coexist with innovative technologies and digital start-ups – the courses use Norwich and its landscapes as a living laboratory. Students engage with the city’s medieval layers and industrial heritage, eroding coastlines and vulnerable wetland ecologies. In Year 1, we explore how design enables temporary occupation and adaptive micro-architectures and reactivates disused spaces for socially generous interventions. Debate, curiosity and risk-taking are central to our teaching. Cutting-edge facilities – including digital fabrication, metal, wood and casting workshops and a dedicated wet lab – support hands-on, materially driven experimentation. Click on the link in our bio for the full article, and head to https://norwichuni.ac.uk/courses/find-your-course/ba-hons-architecture/ to apply. Image 1: Leo Coles, 2025. BA (Hons) Architecture, Norwich University of the Arts. Image 6: Tracey Lin, 2025. BA (Hons) Architecture, Norwich University of the Arts. Image 7: Jacob Spinks, 2025. BA (Hons) Architecture, Norwich University of the Arts. Image 8: Work of Ruby Sawyer, and Jordan Jewell, 2025. BA (Hons) Architecture, Norwich University of the Arts. @norwichuniarts @norwichuni_architecture @norwichuni_interiordesign #norwichuniversityofthearts (opens in a new window)

norwichuni_architecture We celebrate the A+ID Programme’s recent exhibition at @norwichuniarts GradFest 25 with a feature of work on Dezeen. ‘The Norwich Architecture and Interior Design Programme is committed to critical spatial practice in a time of social transformations and planetary fragility. Students are encouraged to define their role not only as designers, but also as citizens and activists with environmental responsibilities and agendas. From the shared first-year studio to the postgraduate projects, work is developed through transdisciplinary collaborations, experimental making, and critical storytelling, to culminate in research-led, socially embedded design proposals. Grounded in East Anglia’s coastal environments, heritage settings and agrotech transformation, and globally oriented, the work responds to today’s spatial urgencies with strategies of resistance, renewal, and care.’ — text by Prof Teresa Stoppani Click on the link in our bio for the full article. @norwichuniarts @norwichuni_architecture @norwichuni_interiordesign #norwichuniversityofthearts (opens in a new window)