Advanced Design Studio: Porphyrios

YALE UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
ADVANCED STUDIO, SPRING 2012

THE BAY SCIENCE & INNOVATION CAMPUS
SWANSEA UNIVERSITY, WALES
Dr. D. POPRHYRIOS
Louis Kahn Visiting Professor
GEORGE KNIGHT
Design Tutor

Building a university campus is similar to building a town. Good academic institutions are best able to provide a balance of uses and of public/private spaces and buildings as the physical framework for academic life. The masterplan of a University Campus must provide a robust framework while allowing for adaptability and change.

The new Bay Campus of Swansea University capitalizes on the University’s growing research expertise and interactions with major international knowledge economy companies. The academic faculties for The Bay Science and Innovation Campus will be science, engineering, technology, mathematics and business. The Bay Campus has a 63‐acre site on the waterfront of Swansea Bay gifted by British Petroleum to the University and its Developers and comprises academic/industry buildings, student residential accommodation for 4,000 students and student facilitiesbuildings.

Students will focus on buildings of varied uses (student residential, lecture halls and teaching spaces, library and exhibition spaces, research laboratories, dining halls, faculty and administration) addressing both the design of the buildings and of the surrounding spaces. Each student will be responsible for the design of one/two buildings. The studio will focus on the design of buildings and public spaces and the way in which architecture empowers the city with character and value.

Students will be given full documents of the approved masterplan prepared by Porphyrios Associates. There will be a trip to the site in Wales, meetings with the University, the Developers and other key members of the team as well as Planning officials. In addition there will be visits to Oxford and Cambridge to study precedents in collegiate architecture, technology and industry buildings.