This academic session 2020/21, we worked with a new overarching theme which was timely, percipient and enabled great freedom of exploration with which each Year 5 student identified their thesis topics. This overarching theme was ‘URGENCIES’ which encouraged students to discover and address current issues of our time which are affecting society on either a local, national or global scale.  These included a broad range of issues across ecological and climate emergencies, social inequalities and injustice, education and health.  

In Year 5 there are seven themed Design Studios with their own response to the meta-theme under the following headings: 

• Studio 01 Action | Graham Hogg and Siobhain Forde
• Studio 02 Provocation | Lizzie Smith and Ewan Imrie
• Studio 03 Technology | Michael Angus and Alasdair Tooze 
• Studio 04 Place(making) | Gordon Murray and Piotr Lesniak  
• Studio 05 Context | Derek Hill and Graham Ross
• Studio 06 Assembly | Neil McGuire and Hazel Wallace  
• Studio 07 Experiment | Mark Bell and Stuart Russell 

The Year 5 Thesis Project is the student’s opportunity to carry out a detailed examination of an issue or issues of particular importance. The topic is identified by the students, guided by the Year topic and supported by the weekly design tutorials and different studio directions and investigated over the entire academic year.

The first element of the programme is a requirement to undertake a period of in-depth research into an area of explicit concern that might encompass social, environmental, technical and professional issues. The intent is to formulate a comprehensive, well-argued and justified design brief.  

This brief will then form the basis for further design development into the Final Year 5 Thesis Project. The Thesis will typically be site-specific but there should also be the opportunity for some students to develop frameworks, which are not conventionally architecturally in character or explored through conventional architectural tools.