Since 2023, Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore have been running NEW ORDER, a design studio for masters students at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, assisted by Fanny Nöel and Simone Turkewitsch. Each year, students engage with a loose theme that is principally defined and evoked through a list of books – the fictional space of novels.

The studio is explained for the students at the beginning of the year in descriptive briefs, extracts below. (For full description and list of books click the theme names):

(2023) Displacement

We are interested in the lives of buildings and the stories they contain. Exploring these narratives we will locate our projects in great works of fiction. Like great buildings, as artefacts these works speak of much more than the mere stories they tell. By inhabiting these books we will find clients, explore contexts, negotiate climates and the vastly differing rituals and social hierarchies of our world.

Our brief is deliberately open ended. We have selected books that allow us to engage with and understand diverse places, climates and socio political histories in order that we can develop architectural responses to these… What to expect: Imagining Fictional Places. Drawing these into being. Thinking about how they are constructed. Assembling insights. Working in pairs. Changing a real place with your imagined version of it. Debates. Laughter.What to expect: Imagining Fictional Places. Drawing these into being. Thinking about how they are constructed. Assembling insights. Working in pairs. Changing a real place with your imagined version of it. Debates. Laughter.

(2024) Water

In the abiding spirit of the Accademia we are interested in what constitutes a territory today. Any site has its interconnection with processes, places, and social structures in the world. We equally understand the territory of the architect – their histories, fascinations and ethical imperatives. We site our studio in the intersection of these two territories. Our educational project is based on using our brief to act as an armature to allow each student identify and refine their intuition, judgment and skillset. So we will locate our design projects in the territory of the school and of our imagination.

The physical territory will be defined by water, its flow, its levels and its demands. Starting with a tap running in Mendrisio we will find our sites in the places this water comes from, or where it goes. This site finding exercise will be augmented by setting great works of fiction as a mental site to develop ideas, understandings and depth of encounter. By inhabiting these books we will find clients, explore contexts, negotiate climates and the vastly differing rituals and social hierarchies of our world. We have selected books that allow us to engage with and understand diverse places, climates and socio political histories. We do this as we agree with Alvaro Siza when he says that architects don’t invent anything, they transform reality … Your sites will be found in the novels you read from the assigned list of books, in the territory of the water catchment of the school a track that runs from the mountains around Mendriso, through rallies and lakes to the Po, and on to the sea— it can include infrastructures, sites of pleasure, sites of labour or support.

Selected student work from NEW ORDER is presented as annotations, which can be seen in the list on the right hand side of this page. During the semester, students are introduced to different strategies for engaging with these books and creating an architecture from the discussions, responses and ideas that emerge from them as the work alone, in pairs and as a studio. Near the beginning of the semester, students engage with Memory as Generator. Later on, they investigate their architectural proposals with a Fragment Model.

Other annotations also appear, including one made in response to earlier teaching by Andrew Clancy with Laura Evans at Kingston School of Art related to Purple Hibiscus.

Below is a selection of student work responding to books written by men (2023) The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa; The Return, Hisham Matar (2924) The Ice Palace, Tarjei Vesaas; Perfume, Patrick Süskind; A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemmingway.