Studio Bates &

Master Project

The Master Project, which is open for MA students, is a design project run over the course of a semester. The project, framed within a thematic investigation, is carried out in small groups, each contributing to a wider group study of a given situation and project. A specific neighbourhood or context is chosen in a European city within which students act on a variety of sites.

The main design engages with three overall themes: programme - examining arrangements of use and the spatial potential in the plan, type - exploring how type informs use and affects our experience and construction – seeking a rigorous and conceptual understanding of construction.

Underlying these themes is an interest in atmosphere in relation to experience and adjustment in relation to place. In the last two years emphasis has been given in the teaching to the programmatic theme of spatial planning and then to building type or typology. This year we are focusing on construction.

When we refer to construction we do so as both an artistic and practical endeavour. We encourage construction ideas which, through their strategy and detail, reinforce the idea of the building, the space within and the space between. We expect a practical understanding and an appropriate respect for structure and material. What we seek overall is an expression of an appropriate character, atmosphere and presence through the physicality of construction. Our interest is in the relationships between building, place and use. We therefore prioritise a phenomenological approach to the study of this theme which is analytical but based upon ideas and concepts rather than rules and dogma.

WS 27/27 – Master Project
Silent buildings
Inhabited structures in Copenhagen

The Danish architect and photographer Ole Meyer published 'De Tavse Bygninger' in 2000 showing, through black-and-white images, industrial buildings without an architect: brickworks, sawmills, warehouses and drying barns. He found beauty in their stillness, the walls shaped by the work inside them and nothing else it seemed. There is a thread of interesting values that underpins vernacular buildings - economy of means, efficient use of resources and basic common sense - that continues to inspire us. The superficial ordinariness of these buildings belies the constant refinement of materials and details, tested over time, repeated and adjusted to suit needs and circumstances. There is a wealth of embodied knowledge in such expediency. But in these ‘silent buildings’ that rest in the landscape of Jutland, Denmark there is also an atmospheric power that is palpable and while the buildings are both expedient and pragmatic they are also meaningful beyond use. This prompts an enquiry into the aesthetic sustainable work of architecture which has the capacity to stay meaningful and communicate something of the human spirit even as the world is in a constant state of change. Is it because the building remains open to new interpretation? Is it because it offers the promise of continual adaptation? The American writer Stewart Brand argued that an adaptive building ‘must allow slippage between the differently paced systems of the Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space plan and Stuff. According to Brand, rather than planning for a fixed programme, 'scenario planning' must allow room for an unknown future if buildings should be built to last. Similarly, the context of a work of architecture is in a constant process of change. In a rapidly changing reality, physical matter as well as use and place change all the time. John Ruskin pointed out that 'imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change.' To Ruskin, original material, traces of craftsmen's tool and the result of wear and weathering is what gives the building character. In fact, 'in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty.' In his discussion on ‘good architecture’ Bob van Reeth writes: “A building is a possibility, is conducive, preferably taciturn, silent, is willing, liberates space, mediates. Building as intelligent ruins. Suitable for use, ‘fit for purpose’, as Charles Voysey expressed it, good buildings hide daily use, they are stable and stubborn, obstinately distributive and (following Kant) ‘purposive without a purpose’. Therein lies the quality of their durability, of their cultural durability, which yields dignity. Expediency asks for the right scale, an utmost precision that leaves everything open that cannot be predicted. Aldo Rossi used to point unceasingly at this: a feeling for measure, discretion and preparedness, committed but not concerned.” The focus of this semesters work is on how to build anew in the current condition of climate emergency, economic uncertainty and changing demographics. When reuse is not an option how do we make new buildings which are resilient and meaningful over time? How do we make these kinds of ‘intelligent ruins’ whose rich figurative structure offers both expressive character and a broad potential for inhabitation – a space available for reappropriation over time, open to being reimagined. Buildings with an open character, a sense of the improvised, made of elements placed loosely together but with the rigour and discipline that conscious work demands. Our work will be set in Copenhagen where the task will be to add to and extend an existing ‘host’ with new construction, offering opportunities for new forms of inhabitation for both work and domestic life. Through ‘adding and unlocking’ the existing and the new will form a new entity. Buildings should be intelligent, open to adjustment but should also have a strong physical presence and be imbued with a specific urban character, so that they are a recognizable element in the city. This positive attitude to making quiet landmarks that are both useful and artful explores a more tolerant, organic way of making architecture, open to forces at play in a particular context, and an instinctive resistance to designing abstract, self-referential architectural objects.

Stephen Bates, September 2026