Foreword

An interdisciplinary approach to architectural research interrupts, interpolates and interweaves the concrete tactilities of the built environment with the socio-environmental and psychical theories that undergird its conception.

‘Investigating Space’ is a compendium of dissertation work by the 2023 cohort of Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies third and fourth year students at UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. The compiled abstracts and extracts are indicative of a sustained and engaged investigation of space, “the purest, irreducible substance of architecture” in its various instantiations (Forty, 2000, p.256).

This collection is published at a turning point in architectural history. Just as architectural historian Beatriz Colomina argues that tuberculosis underpins the emergence of the modernist architecture movement (Colomina, 2019), architectural theorists like Albena Yaneva argue that the COVID-19 Pandemic will transform architectural practice for years to come (Yaneva, 2022).

The varied and variegated investigations of the built environment presented in this collection illuminate, edify and challenge established streams of architectural discourse. We hope that you will enjoy reading as much as we have researching and writing.


Best,
AIS 2023