Architecture Highlights - Semester 1

Students were asked to research, ideate, and test the feasibility of a bamboo structure on the identified site. Research involved meaningful precedent studies on similar structures from around the world, in addition to design criteria, material qualities, characteristics and possibilities, and health & safety and regulatory knowledge considerations appropriate for such an approach.  

Ideation required each group to express their ideas through diagrams, drawings and models. Two selected structures were taken forward and were built and featured in the UK Bamboo Summit 2025. 

My roles in this project were mainly leadership and design concepts; helping others with their roles, helping others get roles that best suited their strengths, design development, final design concepts, and final design representation (modeling).

This project added to my previous experience working with bamboo, in the sense of paving the way to develop new leadership skills and to discover the importance of teamwork throughout the length of the project. Being a short-term two-week project, we had to work fast and in an efficient manner to successfully and meaningfully get our final design across.

Collaborating with new students from different levels made this project more interesting, being introduced to new personalities and skillsets made this project more enjoyable. However, it was also quite challenging having to work with new people I did not know much about, with little time until the final due date. But with all of that said, it felt all the more satisfying when everything came together. We were able to pass this through adequate planning, proper work and assignment allocation, giving people roles we knew would suit them - in harmony with their own strengths.

This will help in my own professional development since I truly saw the importance of teamwork and have become more cosmopolitan in these kinds of settings. Getting along with new people showed me how I will be exposed to a multitude of new and different individuals within the working fields of this degree. While also having to do my very best with the work I am assigned, so everything fits together and eventually falls into place with the final hand-in.