MArch @ CAT

MEHEFIN • JUNE 2025 FDP-ing together one final time. After 8 hard months of working on our Final Design Projects, the week finally came of final pin-ups for most of us 5th years. An accumulation of analysis, our own contexts and how we envision making places better. Also our last proper week on the CAT site. On which, we had watched the seasons, and each other, change immeasurably for the last 2 years together.

MAI • MAY 2025 The One Where We Did Details; May was in full bloom as we worked away on 1:1 models to demonstrate retrofit solutions to the existing buildings around site. 🔨✍📏 On our last Friday we took a field trip to North Wales, where we visited Frân Wen; ‘An arts, culture and community hub for Bangor,’ Gwrych Castle and the 16th Century Plas Mawr in Conway. 🏰⛵

EBRILL A MAI • APRIL & MAY 2025 As the slates of Llyngwern Quarry were warmed by the higher angle of the Sun being able to get over the valley’s crests, CAT was bustling with activity. 4th Years and Hannah, took a trip to the National Library of Wales with Zoe to have a look at the amazing pieces in the CAT archives as part of a reflective writing module. Visiting lecturers included Muneebah Shaheen of Nyami Studio ( @nyamistudio ) who took us on her journey from student to practice rooted in reciprocity and social value. As well as Morag Rose ( @moragloiters ), a Manchester-based psychogeographer, part of the Loiterer’s Resistance Movement, who spoke on the importance of walking, access, serendipity, and public space as a way to know where we belong. As well as so many other things. “Everywhere is interesting”. 4th years got to fire up the lime kiln and processed some shells into lime with the green building MSCs and visiting SPAB scholars. 5th years had a week of more interim FDP presentations, fine tuning our presentations for a final time on site. Our teaching week coincided with Beltane and so, Beltane celebrations were had ! Crowning a May Queen and Green Man around the slate hearth up on the hill, with live music and intention casting into its flames. The week ended with a trip to the annual Mach Comedy Fest and much fun, so good to see Machynlleth so full and joyous.

MAWRTH • MARCH 2025 March welcomed in even more winter sun and a much more active week for us all. Kicking off the week with weaving, @studioclaash hosted workshops with volunteers to construct panels for their pavilion roof. (Stay tuned for pictures of our Trafalgar Square build) 🧺 Annually, MArch-ers engage in a collaborative 1:1 drawing workshop in which 4th and 5th years can collaboratively share ideas about key details for their projects. We were aided by our Pat Borer and Elinor Gray Williams ( @pegwarchitects ) As well as guest speaker, Becca Thomas ( @becca_mthomas ) of @_newpractice after the 5th years visited their Kinning Park Complex retrofit in September 2024. She spoke on intersectional threading of social value in place and practice and delivered a very real and grounded lens upon which we can enter in to and engage with the industry. Also championing people-centric design, community-led briefs and consensus decision making in their processes. ♟️ 4th Years also were joined by Jan Kattein ( @jankatteinarch ) on his annual endeavour to change the way we design with model making. An exploration of materiality, physical space and ideas that can be touched. 🏡 In a talk titled “Things Could Always Be Otherwise” Daisy Froud spoke to us on architecture adjacent practice and collaborative hands-on embodied design process. 🙌🏼 5th years were also joined by fire, structure and ecology consultants to further develop strategies concerning those areas in our FDPs. 🧯⛩️🌿 After intervals of swimming in the River Dulas, a St. Patrick’s/St. David’s Day bash, studioclaash building their structure, a number of us made a trip to the @dyfi_osprey_project to visit the newly arrived couple from Africa, finishing the week with a wholesome beach trip to Aberdyfi. 🦅

. CHWEFROR • FEBRUARY 2025 Warm and cosy eras of CAT call for collaging, collaborative ateliers and campfires. We were lucky enough to be joined by ex-CAT student, Janna Laan Lomas and partner Seb Laan Lomas @llamacroft_hr4 of @grain_architecture , Janna led us through the lifelong process of building her dream house almost entirely natural building materials, and did some tutorials alongside other consultants with 5th years, contributing toward our FDP development. 4th years and members of other modules also visited Passivhaus and low energy construction company @pycgroup and visited Ysgol Cymraeg y Trallwng, a sensitive Passivhaus retrofit and expansion designed by @architypeuk . We ended the week with a Valentine’s day party and everyone received homemade gifts from their secret admirers 💘

. IONAWR • JANUARY 2025 We stepped in to a new year with frost and winter sun. Us 5th years had been woking hard over Christmas on our FDP interim pinups, more collaborative atelier and some of us our Professional Studies presentations. Lectures this week included Ric Frankand on modular design and Patrick Hannay about the politics of architectural photography and how most stage everything. John Carter also proceeded with his professional studies workshop series, with a conversation about development control regulation and the Building Safety Act. For our FDP Technical Reports we develop alongside our scheme, we also had tutorials about Structural and Environmental strategies with external consultants. We ended the week with a space themed interim exhibition and party. 🪐🛰️✨

RHAGFYR • DECEMBER 2024 Nadolig at CAT ! 🧣🌨️🧦 We are aware that it’s August, we’re just catching up post FDP madness. It looks like we had more fun than anything, but our December week was actually quite a busy one, more developing our FDPs through collaborative ateliers and talking Ecology and biodiversity net gain with Gregor for the 5th years. The Barmouth Exhibition also took place for the 4th years, showcasing all of their IDP1 proposals post community consultation . Roasting, Dancing, Gifting, another lovely Yule on site. 🎄

TACHWEDD • NOVEMBER 2024 November was a snowy but quiet month for the 5th years, much colder than the year before. Doing our first presentations of ideas for our final design projects. ❄️ We had great lectures from 2 very welcome guests: - Nick Newman of Studio Bark @studiobark , who talked about adventures in modular self-build and what the intersection of practice and activism looks like through action. 🪧 - Sumita Singha of Ecologic Architects, asking the important question, “Where are the women in architecture?” Detailing the barriers to inclusivity in the sector and how we can overcome them. 📈 We also started our Professional Studies presentations with John Carter and had a discussion about the registration process associated with becoming an architect. 📑 We had a lovely reflective essay writing workshop with Zoe and Carl and all wrote haikus. 🔖 As well as a thorough introduction to embodied carbon and how to asses upfront, in-use, and end of life carbon, as well as circular economy principles linked to it. ♻️ We ended the week with a introduction to the Tech Report to be done alongside our FDPs. 😬 A suitably chill month as the temperatures descend and the festivities begin 🤍

HYDREF • OCTOBER 2024 🍄 4th years started the week out with Pat Borer by learning how to install a slate roof, on a lovely sunny autumn morning! 🌞 This involved cutting down slates, by hand, to the appropriate size. We also got to spend some time in the workshop with Dieter, learning some basic tool skills… 🤠 We had the joy of doing a workshop with Zoe titled the ‘Banquet of books’. 📚 We each bought in a book that we connected with, then spent a day doing writing activities anaylsing all our texts together. Getting to talk about our chosen books with our classmates was a great bonding experience and it was really exciting to engage with architecture through written word! 4th and 5th years did a joint design charette together so that our year groups could get to know each other better ⭐️ It was fun to bond through creativity and very cool to see all the different outputs at the end of the day. We got to do some fun daylighting techie times with Pat, using the artificial sky! ☁️Followed by a Three Horizons workshop and discussion looking at systems change. We ended our week with our ‘Fireside soup symposium’ consultation event in Barmouth! We hosted an event to engage with local residents about their experience of living in Barmouth, whilst sharing homemade soup and hot chocolate! ☕️ It was a jam packed second week but we loved every moment! 🫶🏼🌱💓

HYDREF • OCTOBER 2024 Sori ! For the massive hiatus on the alt_march (blamely Jordan and Thea) We’ve been busy working on special things that we will likely be sharing on here in the coming months, but not before we get up to date with what we’ve been up to since the new 4th years joined us in October. 5th years kicked off the week with an MArch alumni @_constructivechaos_ giving us her radical approach to the course and consequently what she got involved with post CAT, being the fantastic @_recollective_ , who direct construction materials away from waste streams towards community projects, enhancing social value and locking in carbon. We then spent the whole next day excitedly unveiling our thoughts for our final design projects, some of which feature here and will be revealed when the time is ripe. @hemaxeyy very kindly organised an amazing quiz so that us 5th years could get to know the new 4th years, which went down a treat ! We continued the next day mingling between years doing a mindful charette, in which we imagined and visualised a space given to us as a descriptive piece of text. We then ended the week with an introduction to our Strawbale Friday nights, halloween edition 🍁🦇🕸️ Oh ! Also, we had goat friends helping us out on the meadow for the week 🐐 #MArch #SustainableArchitecture #Architecture #CentreForAlternativeTechnology #Machynlleth

BUILD WEEK 2.0 - Triumph of Art In October Cat, Louis, Anna, Alfie, Sam and Hannah (@studioclaash ) spent a second week on-site, along with Team Acoustics, working on the structure they started during Build Week in July. The structure will be part of The Triumph of Art by artist Jeremy Deller, commissioned by the National Gallery, London, as part of its bicentenary celebrations. Working mainly with timber they made good progress with the build, which is to be finished in time for an event in Trafalgar Square, this summer, on the 26th July. More to follow! 🪩

BUILD WEEK 2.0: WISE Acoustics Team acoustics came back, along with @studioclaash , in prior to their October week to install more hemp and pressed flax fabric acoustic panels in the WISE restaurant extension/lobby space. Ellen, Jordan, Amy, and Brandon (and Thea in spirit) were joined by skilled carpenter, Carwyn Jones to oversee the build, as well as Naomi who volunteered with us for a few days. The build is very similar to our intervention in the Brook Trust Room (See earlier build week post): Hemp batts ( @indinature ), locally sourced timber, and pressed flax fabric ( @organoid.naturalsurfaces ). All natural and vegan materials, which we felt complimented the existing WISE palette. Noisy tea breaks and dinners are no more, the remediation works were a success and recently the space has been able to accommodate for an all staff site workshop and dinners with overlapping courses and volunteers. Team Acoustics are super happy with that result. #SustainableArchitecture #Hemp #Acoustics #NaturalBuilding #NaturalBuildingMaterials #Retrofit #MArch #ArchitectureMasters #Wales #CentreForAlternativeTechnology #Machynlleth #DyfiValley