00029 Acts of Activism, London 2022     00028 Wilcox Road, London 2022     00027 Knock Knock in Knokke, Knokke 2022     00026 AJ Pavilion for All, London 2022    00025 Artist Studio, London 2022     00024 6x6 Home for the Suburbcular, London, 2022     00023 Slow Logs, Tallinn, 2022     00022 Windflower, London, 2021       00021 Rock Paper Scissors, London, 2021      00020 The Cyprus Pavilion, 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021      00019 House for Two Painters in Hackney, London, 2020       00018 House for a Painter in Ghana, Aburi, 2020        00017 Wind Pavilion, Brighton, 2020        0016 A Tapestry for Malmi Park, Helsinki, 2020        0015 Angler’s Hut, Winnipeg, 2020        0014 University Campus for Human Rights, Vienna, 2020        0013 Salina Archipelago Park, Larnaca, 2020        0012 Play, Walk, March: Power Walks!, London, 2020        0011 To The Singing Whale, Falkland Islands, 2020        0010 Hou Gou Fondue, Vevey, 2019        0009 Fragments of Waltham Forest, London, 2019        0008 LFA Roly Poly, London, 2019        0007 Wanderoll, Bang Lamung, 2019        0006 Pixelboom, London, 2019       0005 Floating Cinema, London, 2019        0004 Crossroads, Milton Keynes, 2019        0003 Bench It, London, 2019        0002 Anteberg, London, 2019.      0001 Free Play, London, 2019
A pre-concept design for an International NGO:  University, student campus, research and conference centre which focuses on human rights, peace and democracy, aiming to facilitate and educate students. The building concept is derived from our client’s vision to work worldwide with communities - to bring people together to promote positive change and provide a platform to access knowledge, while training future leaders from developing countries , who will drive change towards a brighter future.

Our response was to develop a bold architectural element; composed of three main threads that wrap around to generate the circle - a place of gathering, unity and exchange. The building form is thus conceived around the circular courtyard, the heart of the community, a gathering space to share, exchange and meet; where the main building activities pivot and weave around it.

A generous circular space will greet the visitor and set the tone directly relating to the University’s ethos and vision. Here, the heart of the project is filled with life, pumping social activity and consequently acting as a catalyst for the surrounding spaces.

University Campus for Human Rights, Vienna, 2020          
South Vienna, Austria
Collaborators: Nicos Yiatros
Render Visualisations by Ahad Almeida







The design is generous yet compact. A simple knot exercise of union. By celebrating the circular gesture, the building’s three main programmes are combined into one simple movement. The three threads weave the building into one beautiful unified organism.

This means that groundworks will be limited and that materials and forms will be coherent and part of one big whole making it economical to build and powerful to become an icon to which people can start relating to.
Another economic benefit of using sequential building is that it will allow for growth, meaning that the University can select which wings or linear programmes to start with and tune it to the financial strategy of the scheme. The relatively compact arrangement means a lower carbon footprint.

The gesture also allows for integrating the landscape and planting more trees on site. This can become part of the initial stages, an opportunity for the first students to contribute to the campus whilst becoming part of a positive group activity.













The three main programmes: campus, research centre and hotel accommodation, take the form of three threads which are interwoven around each other to generate the building diagram resulting in a bold yet simple concept, an iconic building yet human in scale and resolution.

This bold and clean gesture allows us to effortlessly weave the spaces together and allows for scalability and flexibility in the construction sequence – our client has the opportunity to choose to start from building one of the linear spaces and follow from there to complete the circular form.





In the centre, the heart of the campus becomes both a space for socialising and one for self-reflection; beautifully landscaped trees and vegetation which breathe life.

The garden will change with seasons and we are aiming to develop this further with activities and vegetation which will respond to the seasons – blooming in the spring and gently contracting in the winter.

The University campus, therefore, becomes an iconic figure highlighting the notion of unity, collaboration, sustainability and coming together.
 
© Urban Radicals # OC440119 | London