S2 - Territories of Transformation: Harry Burrows

This studio explores architecture as a transformative force, capable of driving meaningful social and urban exchange - extending its influence far beyond the building’s physical limits.

Harry graduated from 乐播传媒 in 2022 and completed his Part I placement year at EPR Architects, he has now finished his 6th year, Master of Architecture at 乐播传媒. He is passionate about the reuse of existing buildings in the urban landscape in order to produce sustainably rich designs that activate the urban realm at various scales, for all users.

Harry Burrows

Usine D’art du Canal (Canal Arts Factory) – Derhardening the Urban Fabric

This studio explores architecture as a transformative force, capable of driving meaningful social and urban exchange - extending its influence far beyond the building’s physical limits. By redefining institutions and what it means to institute through programmatic, spatial and constructional innovation, the unit positions architecture as a catalyst for public engagement and urban renewal

My thesis investigated the urban spatial performance of the growing and evolving relationship between institutional and public space, specifically in the dense city of Paris where the impact of creating public space is critical to urban life.

This proposal reflects the thesis research by exploring a strategy that ‘dehardens’ an impermeable urban block in the periphery of Paris by utilising an old electricity generation factory, which was once the centralised hub of activity on the Saint-Martin Canal. This former industrial site aims to reactivate the canal frontage, whilst working with the idea of collage to provide a juxtaposition of the existing industrial vernacular and the bolder proposed injection in order to create coherent public spaces for amateur artists and the local community to inhabit. These feed into flexible and programmed spaces such as workshops, exhibitions and residency accommodation, with the ambition to catalyse and provide agency for the inner block to further deharden, providing more public space and a decentralised institutional city presence in Paris.