Unhappy Archive
Unhappy Archive forms part of the M.Arch Research Dissertation module and invites students to critically investigate the uncomfortable, and invisible spatial conditions embedded within everyday life. Drawing from Sara Ahmed’s idea that “happiness involves the comfort of repetition, of following lines that have already been advanced,” the brief asks students to challenge the accepted habits, norms, and pathways that continue to shape architectural thinking and practice.
The module encourages students to explore how space, affect, memory, politics, technology, and social relations shape our lived experiences. Students begin by identifying a “disturbing object,” moment, event, or spatial condition and use experimental research methods to unpack its physicality, affect, and spatiality through drawing, mapping, sculpting, storytelling, puppetry, speculative representation, and archival practices.
The module places emphasis on process - through a series of creative investigations, students critically examine how architecture participates in systems of control, exclusion, desire, and repetition, while simultaneously speculating on alternative futures and new spatial possibilities. Research becomes an embodied and creative act — one that moves between theory, experimentation, narrative, and material exploration.
Unhappy Archive positions the dissertation as a site for critical reflection, speculative thinking, and methodological experimentation. The brief ultimately supports students in developing independent research trajectories that challenge inherited assumptions and rethink architecture’s relationship to society, emotion, and the politics of everyday life.
Year: 2021 -Now
Mission: Circular Economy; Inclusive Communities
RaRe Actors: Cagri Sanliturk , Robert Schmidt III
Theme: Place-making; Urban regeneration; Youth Engagement
Output: Stage 1 proposal
Methods: Re-use Strategies; System Design; Drawings; Manifesto
Unhappy Archive 2023-24 student work catalogue Lewis Foster-Jeapes Manifesto
RaRe operates as a distributed network of actors.
The Collective frames and guides, Contributors deliver targeted expertise, Collaborators expand the field of knowledge, and Clients anchor the work in real-world contexts.
RaRe operates as a distributed network of actors.
The Collective frames and guides, Contributors deliver targeted expertise, Collaborators expand the field of knowledge, and Clients anchor the work in real-world contexts.
RaRe operates as a distributed network of actors.
The Collective frames and guides, Contributors deliver targeted expertise, Collaborators expand the field of knowledge, and Clients anchor the work in real-world contexts.
RaRe operates as a distributed network of actors.
The Collective frames and guides, Contributors deliver targeted expertise, Collaborators expand the field of knowledge, and Clients anchor the work in real-world contexts.
Unhappy Archive 2023-24 student work catalogue Lewis Foster-Jeapes Manifesto