Bartlett Research Conversations: Beatriz Gomes-Martin and Thomas Parker

A hybrid Teams link is available – please contact Emmy Thittanond, g.thittanond@ucl.ac.uk, to request access to the link by midday, Tuesday 14 January 2025.

Speculative Assemblies: The Construction of Drawing as a Generative Framework

Speaker: Beatriz Gomes-Martin
UCL Supervisor: Prof Nat Chard & Prof Penelope Haralambidou 

Abstract

This thesis asks how architectural drawings can become dynamic agents in the organisation, recording, and reprocessing of knowledge, moving beyond their traditional role as static representations. Exploring speculative constructivism to reshape drawing into a generative framework.  Central to this is the concept of assemblage, understood as the interaction of diverse elements forming interconnected systems that stimulate new ways of thinking in architectural practice.

The research investigates intersections of skiagraphy, stereotomy, and projective geometry, examining how these principles inform the methods and tools of the work, including hybrid imaging techniques, digital modelling, and fabrication technologies. Case studies include a speculative reconstruction of Giulio Camillo’s The Theatre of Memory and a reinterpretation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, exploring how visual constructs operate as gathering devices and open-ended assemblages.

Triggered by the writings of Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, how can drawing and assemblage contribute to creating indeterminate architectural artifacts and advancing experimental practice.

Latent Fields of Potential Architecture: Aesthetics of Noise and Operations in the Non-Visual

Speaker: Thomas Parker
Supervisors: Prof Nat Chard, Prof Marjan Colletti and Dr Christopher Leung 

Abstract

Through a series of methodological orbital loops around the moon this research conversation will explore and question the technical, aesthetic, and philosophical opportunities of a foundational shift occurring in 3D scanning due to the emergence of artificial intelligence. Charting a journey between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of measurement, this conversation will interrogate the aesthetics of noise and the operational logics of non-visual forms of representation, speculating on the potential new forms of architecture that can emerge from the latent field.

About The Bartlett Research Conversations

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Research Conversations seminars comprise work-in-progress and upgrade presentations by students undertaking the Architectural Design MPhil/PhD and Architectural and Urban History and Theory MPhil/PhD. All current UCL staff and students are welcome to attend.

Held regularly throughout the academic year, the seminars are attended by the Programme Directors, Professor Sophia Psarra, Dr Tania Sengupta and Dr Nina Vollenbröker; PhD Coordinators, Dr Stamatis Zografos and Dr Stelios Giamarelos; and other PhD supervisors.

Image: Nasmyth's Latent Potential: Maroylcus and Barocius, James Nasmyth, 2024

Description: 'Neural Radiance Field study combing James Nasmyth's journal entries with the plaster model of the lunar craters 'Marolycus and Barocius'.