RCA School of Architecture ResearchRCA SoA Research

Historically our architecture courses have prioritised learning through making at all scales. They nurture an approach to practice which embodies and directs students to explore the spatial materiality of things and question the role it plays for the social context in which we build. Our studio offers a project in Calabria, Italy, where we have established the project Crossing Cultures over the last years together with the not-for-profit organisation La Rivoluzione Delle Seppie.

The project grew out of a student-led summer school project in rural Italy during the summer of 2016. It followed a desire to test and activate what students had learnt in the studio, in a situation “beyond the institution”. Its location in Calabria, Southern Italy, is at a fulcrum of global and local concerns; the effects of migration and unemployment are issues which significantly charge the students’ imagination in terms of questioning the role they should play as architects for change.

The setting of the partially abandoned town of Belmonte has become their protagonist for the last few years. The site questions what it is to settle and (re)build, and what their role is as architects in the making of these places to successfully attract and build new communities.

La Rivoluzione delle Seppie operate in the field, “beyond the institution”, whilst the AAD studio works from a distance, within the institution. Both enter from different directions; however, they are in the same arena and complement each other with regard to the social implications their schemes might bring.

This has a two-fold effect for the project as a whole, as it builds local awareness and confidence through engaging with “paperless” live building projects, but also ignites the imagination of the local population through the paper-based visions of Belmonte as a new civic place for living, learning, and working. But for the students, how to bridge the gap between studio and fieldwork is a constant question.

In the autumn of 2020, the University went into lockdown for the second time, providing perfect motivation to consider temporarily moving to Italy and working “in a bubble” on site from the ‘Casa’. A group of ten students decided to do just this and set up home for several months in the village as Studio South. The location in Italy allowed them to become embedded in the local activities, share their experiences working together as a team, and renovate the Casa in moments of digital overload.

Using interview techniques and video diaries, we compared the differences, highlights, and challenges for the three stakeholder groups “beyond the institution”: Calabrian locals, “bubble” students, and London “Docklands” students. It is clear from this opportunistic venture that those in the “bubble” benefited from their embedded learning, as did the locals, who developed a sense of belonging through the knowledge of their greater global presence and hope for a more prosperous economic future. What remains to be seen is how this has been reflected in the students’ work, and how they see their role for the future.