Mature and crafted ‘befogged’ dystopia by Viola Sze Wing Poon of the Bartlett is commended in the student category
Student, commended
Viola Sze Wing Poon, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
In a judging process which, for understandable reasons, seemed to be veering away from notions of the architectural dystopia, Viola Poon’s submission was a survivor.
Her ‘Data-scape’ takes as given that, in order to be truly sustainable, the ‘romantic’ concept of nature needs to be jettisoned for one of broader readings. ‘This project poses the question: could we create better architecture if the segregation between forests, digital data and humans, is befogged?’ Poon’s ‘Cloud’ is thus an ecological reading of data: sunlight, soil quality, altitude, humidity, which choreograph the process of growth’.
Jan Ameloot was a keen supporter of her ‘mature and crafted’ drawing, with its ‘good sense of technique. It seems vague but you can interrogate the image to the detail.’ Tatiana von Preussen, while acknowledging technical skill – ‘you’d be chuffed with her in your unit’ – nonetheless saw the work as of a type. Ed Crooks and Verity-Jane Keefe admired the style but were less convinced, feeling a sense of ‘muddying’ of the drawing and a lack of clarity. That ‘befogging’, what Pearman called ‘a mossy dystopia’, won a commendation.