MArch Critical Material Appraisals

The Critical Material Appraisal (CMA) is a group assignment undertaken by 5th year students studying on the MArch in Architecture and MArch in Architecture and Landscape Architecture programmes at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. The assignment asks students to work together to develop a body of design research in the material, technical and environmental realms associated with the focus, location or methodology of the design studio that they have joined for the year.

The work can address any number of aspects, from in depth material experimentation to rigorous analysis of a location’s climate, microclimate and future climate scenarios. Work is carried out over an intense two-week period and culminates in a day of presentations intended to share the work with the whole School. Students are also asked to publish the work as a resource useful to the rest of the students in their design studio, the MArch programme, the whole School or a wider community of research and practice beyond the Arts Tower. The results of this latter ambition are what you see below.

Architecture as Gesture - Ironmongery

Examining the material impacts of ironmongery, consumption and retention, we studied the manufacture of aluminium, brass and steel. Alongside this, we documented the design and crafting of a prototype steel door handle, working with Gregory & Tesseras, a local blacksmith in Sheffield, and recording the forging process. The project was also inspired by a presentation and workshop from izé, a bespoke ironmongery design studio in London. Our outputs consisted of a video and companion booklet detailing our journey and findings.

(Re) Activist Studio

Away from its ancient or colonial past, Cairo is built on, and built up in a haphazard and disorganised way within its hot, arid climate. In its wealthier areas are modern, western high-rise and apartment blocks whilst in poorer areas, construction is largely engineered by economic migrants built around concrete frames with brick infills.

Resultantly, Egypt’s government (spearheaded by President El-Sisi and his Adminsitritive Capital for Urban Development) has began evicting local communities of these low quality housing areas in favour of more westernised high-rise glass blocks, inappropriate for the climate; rejecting passive cooling methods of its traditional vernacular architecture.

This CMA study sought to investigate the dialectic between the government and the residents they are evicting. We looked at an alternative way Cairo can replace its poor quality housing by investigating these vernacular methods of passive cooling. Specifically focusing on Egyptian architect, Hasan Fathy, using his examples and writings to study how one could potentially integrate vernacular passive cooling methods into the existing concrete frames that makeup the impoverished and presently underdeveloped parts of the city.

Invisible Cities - Final Video.mp4

Invisible Cities - Feminist Ecologies

Our CMA assignment was based on the uses of woven natural materials used historically in Cyprus, and how we can learn from returning to vernacular making methodologies as environmentally conscious feminist practitioners.

We used creative conceptual explorations to apply the cultural craft to futuristic construction methods. We envisaged a feminine approach to workforce, looking holistically at the physicality of the women who traditionally weave, and how knowledge is dying out as it is passed down person to person. As a group, we questioned how we could reappropriate Zaha Hadid architects’ bridge at Eleftheria Square as a celebration of traditional vernacular craft. We went about this through conceptual diagrams alongside structural maquettes. We speculated about how this could be scaled up from basketry to a full sized bridge. Promoting a more personal relationship to materials where the craftsperson’s hand was represented in the finished product was key to the theme of care within feminist practice, focusing on the maker and process more than the end result.

To summarise our learning process, we created a studio manual on how to approach material through a feminist lens, stressing the importance of thoughtful selection and use of materials in our projects.

Building with Nature

Building with Nature studio is exploring how moving to bio-based materials can be a tool to restore the environment and aid our transition to net zero. Our project is investigating a vernacular response to the future climate of the Peak District. Due to predicted climate change, current housing is not designed to respond to the increased temperatures of the future summer. We have researched and created a database of Peak District vernacular in the past and present. We’ve set out to use these lessons to create a suitable future vernacular that will appropriately respond to the future climate.

To view our miro board database, click here.

Industrial Ecologies - Carbon Preservation in Attercliffe

Brick highstreet buildings; steel portal framed industrial units; and brick/steel steelworks make up the majority of buildings in the industrial hinterland that is Attercliffe. A typical version of each one of these has been modelled and deconstructed, allowing for speculative embodied carbon calculations that reveal how much carbon would be consumed if they were to be rebuilt today. The parts that make up these buildings and their embodied carbon are then exploded to the scale of Attercliffe, giving a total embodied carbon footprint for the whole area. Tom, Zhina, Ellen and Joe then use 1:10 entrance models of their studio projects to demonstrate various ways that reuse and retrofit can be used to preserve the carbon used to construct Attercliffe’s built fabric.

Resilient Futures - BiH Mapping

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital city, Sarajevo is home to numerous crises from air pollution and energy to immigration and ethnic division. We look to Sarajevo as a microcosm to draw conclusions to crises on an international scales. Through the methodology of design by making we investigate small scale inventions and there possible impact of the environment. Learning from siege time resilience, we studied devices, prior to our research, to understand how creativity, paired with limited materials and scarcity, create solutions as a way to survive. Our research has engaged with matters of pollution, division, migration and energy at the national, regional and UK scale. By treating Sarajevo as a city of inspiration our conclusions will aim to be responsive to a wider context. Our conclusions and maps will be distributed among our studio to further contextualise our engagement with the multifaceted city.

Click here to read the script

Landscape and Urbanism - Wood-Fibre Insulation

Local UK manufacturing of timber for structural uses is limited and expensive. Wood fibre insulation in particular has to be imported from Europe. As the UK used to have large forests we were looking at how we can utilise local woods for construction. The studio situates itself in Nottinghamshire mostly around Sherwood Forest, where decline in timber and the affect of the coal mining industry has left a scarred landscape. To remediate this scarred landscape a selection of native trees were used, most of which are hardwoods and are largely not used in construction. Our project looked at addressing this by looking at the historical uses of these woods and looking at applying modern construction to rejuvenate the UK timber industry.

Our research has shown there is potential for use of bark within the construction industry. Bark insulation panels can make use of an existing by-product of the timber industry that is not currently used within high value products. It offers potential for increased thermal mass of insulation panels and can provide fire resistant and anti fungal properties. Despite the increased weight and higher thermal conductivity, the use of bark within insulation panels proposes an improved composite to rigid wood fibre insulation, by utilising the structural support of a bark board, along with the higher insulative qualities of flexible wood fibre insulation.

Studio in Residence - Material Mining

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Studio NORA (A) - Retrofit as a New Vernacular

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Studio NORA (B) - Redefining Bioregional Mapping

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Collaborative Production - Pytoremediation + Biomaterials

On the periphery of Sheffield City Centre is a place with no name: historically, it is known as Long Island. Sitting in the land between the River Don and the Canal, it is both a place of disconnection and refuge for those marginalised from modern society.

Our Studio is interested in exploring the rich layers of history and quirkiness which characterises Long Island, how can we create ecological systems of production which enable circularity and environmental protection?

Our work proposes using phytoremediation processes in order to clean post-industrial sites while also reducing the embodied carbon of buildings through using innovative bio-materials.