Will Himpe

MAKING

DRAWING

Kingston School of Art - 2012-15

The projects during the Bachelors degree at Kingston University engaged closely with the context of UNESCO world heritage sites in London, Bosnia and Japan.
The proposals consisted of a Horticulturalist's home and Museum in Kew Gardens, a new Youth Centre in a restored ruin in Mostar and a Satellite School for the Building Crafts College in Nara.

All the designs developed an eclectic material palette, strong spatial resolution, an in-depth understanding of the building's details and a continuous exploration of timber construction.

During the three years a skillset of model making, hand drawing, architectural design and 1:1 construction was developed, culminating in the Todaiji Nandaimon reconstruction at 1:5 scale for the London Festival of Architecture at Dorich House Museum in May 2015.

Architectural Association Diploma 15 - 2017-2018

The Diploma program at the AA opened horizons to a wider range of teaching methods focused predominantly on self-expression and new forms of representation.

The first year was with Diploma 15's 'Museum Lab', focusing on the ephemeral and unique impact of street art in Palermo's cityscape, proposing a framework that aims to preserve this cultural phenomenon from incoming tourist gentrification, and was part of a larger research and design proposal that was displayed in a group exhibition at Manifesta12, 2018.

The final proposal was supported by a series of maps, booklets and objects that aimed to make the research more accessible and engaging with the audience and involved conducting a series of primary interviews with local actors within Palermo's street art scene. All this was presented in a final book produced for the exhibition and thesis.

Architectural Association Diploma 11 - 2018-2019

The second year followed Diploma 11's ongoing engagement with London and the 'broken relationships' shaped by increasing commercialisation of the city. The thesis challenges the 'meanwhile use' typologies implemented in developments, to generate commercial gains through positive placemaking, at the detriment of creative production and social engagement.

The project then proposes a combination of subtraction, re-use and industrial hacking to transform the ground floor plane of the old London Fire Brigade Workshop at Albert Embankment, into a permeable and constantly productive site, that preserves and enhances its current cultural value by creating a new market economy and further community involvement.