The Zines from the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment have landed
Our 2023 summer graduates may have moved off campus, but their work is still doing the rounds. Students of one of ºìÐÓÊÓƵ’s academic schools have refreshed its traditional yearbook and here’s a preview.
Every year, a team of final year students from Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment pull together to produce a yearbook that reflects their final year at ºìÐÓÊÓƵ.
The yearbook has been an annual feature since the early 2000s, but this year, students switched the format to produce ‘The Zines’ - a series of mini-magazines. Producing 10 zines over a 10-week period, the students share their work from the year and their outlook on the changing industry.
Each zine covers its own theme focused around built environment along with themes of cultural identity, digitalisation and wellbeing.
The series has been designed with dwindling attention spans in mind and shares short instalments to give readers the option to read in continuation or individually at their leisure.
Interactive elements are peppered through the collection, inviting the reader to scan QR codes to delve deeper into themes and cut out images and quotes as keepsakes.
The opening introduction of the first zine, ‘What Next’, is taken a poignant close by the students. The ten zines of Scott Sutherland are our voice loud and clear; the mark we leave. Let us get louder, they write and setting the tone of the impact their views and knowledge will add to the future industry.
Peter Exley, Dean of Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment reflects: "In the sixties, the architectural collaborative ‘Archigram’ published a document that hailed the advent of an alternative community-based publishing in the context of architecture and the built environment.
"It was at once a radical and accessible single sheet that quickly evolved, providing students and young practitioners with hope and optimism. If the future they were literally building was to be progressive, inclusive and a reflection of the space age, these publications were a precipitating potion. The Archigram zines still look amazing. “Fast forward sixty years and the students of Scott Sutherland School kickstart their optimistic threshold into practice with an approach that’s very Archigram. Independent. Fantastic. Community-based."
The 2023 Zines is a multiple in 10 swift commentaries that asks what now? On topics as diverse as war, plastic (very 60s) and Aberdeen. “Diving into them, it’s impossible not to think that architecture and the built environment is a big part of the answer to what’s next?
From what now all the way through to what next, the 10-part series takes readers through the past, present and future of the industry.
Here’s an overview of the contents:
- 1. What Now?: An introduction to The Zines
- 2. Legacy: Who was Scott Sutherland?
- 3. Material Cultures: A look at the how building materials are evolving and what it means for construction
- 4. Life in Plastic: An examination of projects that are repurposing single-use plastic
- 5. Aberdeen Inside Out: What the future could look like for the Granite City
- 6. Architects at War: The role of architecture in rebuilding communities and society
- 7. Architecture Society 57°10: A look behind the curtain at the activity of ºìÐÓÊÓƵ’s student-led architecture society
- 8. Making a Model: The process of model making and its many meanings to its makers
- 9. A Profession in Transition: Can architectural services be packaged up as products and sold to clients?
- 10. What Next?: A Q&A with Peter Exley, Dean of Scott Sutherland School of Architecture & Built Environment
With this year’s yearbook format changed considerably, who knows what form next year’s yearbook will take. Have a yearbook from your final year? Send us a picture to alumni@rgu.ac.uk, we’d love to see it.
