A project that examines restoring damaged peatlands in Scotland and another that addresses the housing needs of income poor young people in Beijing are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at the University of Westminster.

It also includes a mycelium product factory where a repurposed prison provides ideal conditions for growing sustainable products and a redesigned climbing wall highlighting the connection between sport and the natural world.

University of Westminster

School: University of Westminster, School of Architecture + Cities
Course: Architecture BA (Hons), Architecture and Environmental Design BSc (Hons), Interior Architecture BA (Hons), Architectural Technology BSc (Hons), Designing Cities BA (Hons), Master of Architecture (MArch) (RIBA pt II)
Tutors: Constance Lau, Stephen Harty John Zhang, David Porter, Paolo Cascone, Panagiota Adileniduo, Ro Spankie, Diony Kypraiou, Allan Sylvester, Ana Araujo, Tabatha Mills, Adam Thwaites, David Mathewson, Elisa Engel, Kester Rattenbury, Sean Griffiths, Anthony Boulanger, Stuart Piercy, Callum Perry John Cook, Laura Nica and Ben Pollock

School statement:

"The School of Architecture and Cities offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses as well as research degrees a few moments from Baker Street. Here, students can enjoy state-of-the-art facilities, including the extensive Fabrication Laboratory and dedicated open-plan design studios.

"Open 2021 is a rolling programme of events being created by the school's staff and students, which reflect the varied design approaches of the School of Architecture and Cities and their place at the heart of London.

"It will feature 750 student projects, drawing on the vast body of developmental and finished work imagined and realised over the course of the last academic year. The show will transform student work into digital assets, creating an extraordinary display of new architecture and a compelling visitor experience. The show opens on 17 June until 30 September."

The Bioengineering Experimental School of Architecture: Designing for the Prevention of Fires by Momchil Petrinski

"In this project, the notion of 'fire' from the laboratory experiments serves multiple purposes, from the 'gallery' for public knowledge, heat distribution to the surrounding buildings and the cultivation of the green spaces.

"The dense urban site of Little Britain and proposed Tower is approached as a Borgesian labyrinth where the ever-green public gardens extend across the horizontal and vertical landscapes, and resting places for the homeless community are embedded within the public realm."

Student: Momchil Petrinski
Course: Architecture BA (Hons)
Tutors: Constance Lau and Stephen Harty
Email: [email protected]

Ideal Landscape from Luo Shen Fu Tu by Yunuo Zheng

"The proposal is a spatial narrative telling the ancient Chinese story of the painting Luo Shen Fu Tu created by the famous Eastern Jin painter Gu Kaizhi based on the plot of Cao Chi's work Luo Shen Fu.

"This is not just a love story – it is a story of frustration and anger caused by feudalism when people could only express thoughts and feelings through landscapes and myths. It is these landscapes and myths that give the form to an immersive exhibition situated in London."

Student: Yunuo Zheng
Course:  Interior Architecture BA (Hons)
Tutors: Ro Spankie, Diony Kypraiou, Allan Sylvester, Ana Araujo
Email: [email protected]

Intercultural communal living as a catalyst for refugee integration by Anne-Flore Smits

"Nature avoids monocultures and lives in diversity to feed its system. The harmonious living between living forms is known as symbiosis. Through intercultural communal living, symbiosis is regenerated, where the forgotten lives of refugees can integrate back into society.

"With local and foreign amalgamation, the most vulnerable group in society can write their futures. The design of social-communal connectivity incorporates multi-use courtyards, creating a unique spatial arrangement within the male and female quarter and central community compound.

"A common roof with various environmental qualities ensures the proposed and established buildings receive minimal solar radiation, that is experienced in its extreme within Cameroon's Far North capital of Maroua."

Student: Anne-Flore Smits
Course: Architecture and Environmental Design BSc (Hons)
Tutors: Paolo Cascone and Panagiota Adileniduo
Email: [email protected]

 Ark for an Ant Tribe by Yuen-Wah Williams

"This project addresses the acute housing needs of well educated but income poor young people who come to Beijing to seek their future – affectionately known as the 'Ant Tribe' in China.

"The project is a co-living mega-block with floating courtyards, rooftop running tracks, and community programmes open to the broader neighbourhood at the ground level. The novel tectonics draws inspiration from traditional low-rises, high-density Hutong courtyards and local experiments in soviet-era social condensers.

"The generous and intensely social outdoor spaces become rooms in themselves, responds to the changing patterns of life in a pandemic."

Student: Yuen-Wah Williams
Course: Architecture BA (Hons)
Tutors: John Zhang and David Porter
Email: [email protected]

Climb Air Theatre by Zhiqing He

"The conditions of isolation and lack of physical interaction due to the pandemic gave birth to this project with the aim of evoking memories of intimate communication stemming from the past. Inspired by The Phantom of the Opera, London's historic musical production (forced to close during the lockdown),  the proposal suggests an open interactive theatre, situated at St Dustan park in London.

"The audience gets invited to follow actors through the theatre's three main theatre stages and participate in distinct moments of the play while re-connecting them to each other through this musical, theatrical and spatial journey."

Student: Zhiqing He
Course: Interior Architecture BA (Hons)
Tutors: Ro Spankie, Diony Kypraiou, Allan Sylvester, Ana Araujo
Email: [email protected]

The Arch Climbing Wall by Tom McGinnity

"The Arch Climbing Wall is located in Bermondsey, London. The redeveloped climbing centre uses all the existing building while also developing a new building adjacent to the existing one. The design aims to highlight the connection between climbing and nature.

"New climbing walls were positioned in the existing building to create an environment of valleys and mountains. The new building acts as the final challenge, with climbers able to scale the exterior of the building and the tall structure within. The new building is open-air with large use of open mesh, allowing climbers to connect with nature."

Student: Tom McGinnity
Course: Architectural Technology BSc (Hons)
Tutors: Tabatha Mills and Adam Thwaites
Email: [email protected]

Old Kent Road: A New Precedent for Mixing Leisure, Manufacturing and Housing by Daniel Sefton

"By combining industrial, residential, and leisure spaces using innovative changes of level, land-use pressures in the inner city could be significantly alleviated.

"An undulating raised park set against the side of an existing recycling centre creates a pocket of urban rurality. Pavilions break through the park's surface for exhibition and retail space, with micro-manufacturing occurring on the submerged ground floor.

"HGV access to ground floors occurs through a road network beneath the park. The park removes both social and physical barriers that industrial land creates through controlled, increased public proximity to manufacturing and community-connecting active transport routes."

Student: Daniel Sefton
Course: Designing Cities BA (Hons)
Tutors: David Mathewson and Elisa Engel
Email: [email protected]

The Mycology Institute by Gemma Mohajer

"The Mycology Institute re-purposes existing buildings at Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Former cells provide ideal conditions for growing mushrooms, used to make sustainable products. The project extends one of the cell blocks creating a mycelium product factory.

"It forms a route to the scrubs and a public square created by demolishing the prison wall. The building is constructed using sustainable products, including rope elements, developed from chance operations. These are used as part of the roof structure and as a screen that shades the building and takes rainwater off the roof. Columns and floors reuse the 916,000 prison wall bricks."

Student: Gemma Mohajer
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch) (RIBA pt II)
Tutors: Kester Rattenbury and Sean Griffiths
Email: [email protected]

The Rotherhithe Cooperative Press by Rebecca Gardner

"Newspapers are dying, and with them, an integral part of London's civic life and tacit skillset is at risk of extinction. The Rotherhithe Cooperative Press reinvents newspaper production, turning away from mass media favouring temporal print that focuses on specific events and protests.

"Through exploiting the natural diurnal cycle of the printing industry and the Thames, the scheme acts as a production framework and distribution network for marginalised media outlets at night whilst a community print-work mobilises the community to engage in protest during the day."

Student: Rebecca Gardner
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch) (RIBA pt II)
Tutors: Anthony Boulanger, Stuart Piercy and Callum Perry
Email: [email protected]

Peat Observation: Carbon Cycles through Plant Matter by Seni Agunpopo

"The project looks at preserving and accelerating the restoration of damaged peatlands in Scotland – one of the world's most effective carbon store/sinks.

"This project uses a wider parametric masterplan strategy of landscape probes and responsive blanket systems to alter and control the conditions of soil moisture, temperature and humidity, as well as the deployable modular research units that support the ongoing scheme."

Student: Seni Agunpopo
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch) (RIBA pt II)
Tutors: John Cook, Laura Nica and Ben Pollock
Email: [email protected]

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the University of Westminster. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.