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Fluid Territories: The North Sea  &  Beyond

Diploma 7 is organised as a research-by-design project that investigates the role of architecture in territorial and geopolitical disputes, aiming to problematise design, pedagogy and forms of architectural practice. Central to our attention is the sea and its associated social, physical, cultural and material geographies. Fluid, unstable and unresolved, this is the territory in which encounters between abstract and concrete spaces are most visible. The unit aims to challenge common misconceptions about the sea as a limitless spatial category, whose non-designed space of ‘wilderness’ and unpredictability resides outside the boundaries of architecture.

In Diploma 7 we reclaim a role for architecture as a projective and propositional possibility, departing from conventional dichotomies such as ‘land/sea’, ‘natural/artificial’ and ‘human/ non-human’, or from purely analytical and diagnostic approaches. A key concern within our work throughout the year was the development of architectural devices that are capable of operating on multiple scales, and which have the capacity to make visible the conflicts between space, the territory and its subjects. Moreover, the unit has a particular focus on the histories and practices of architectural and territorial investigations, developing visual languages that are plural, diverse and respondent to the various contexts, projects and identities at play.

In response to the realities of remote teaching and learning this year, Diploma 7 students developed projects in a multiplicity of different localities. From Marseilles to Mauritius, from Dubai to the Aegean Sea, from the Alps to the wetlands of Kolkata and The Wash, and from the peri-urban indigenous land of Hong Kong to Denmark – our focus remained on the intersection of architecture and art practice with questions of geography, culture, economics and society. Operating within multiple timelines and scales, these projects propose new spatial interventions that address the complex yet occasionally obscured juridical, environmental and geopolitical conditions of their chosen sites.