02.2 1:1 Live Build — Kingston School of Art × 121 Collective

Under Construction

Built at full scale — a rammed-earth entrance and prefabricated sauna in hand-processed London clay and recycled brick.

Students assembling the timber framework of the rammed-earth pavilion on the Kingston School of Art campus — On site at Kingston School of Art — assembling the timber framework

Built at 1:1

Under Construction was a collaboration between Kingston School of Art and the 121 Collective, a student-led group of architects-in-training, to design and build a rammed-earth entrance and a prefabricated sauna at full scale. The brief was deliberately material: hand-process the London clay, mix and lay the earth in compressed bands, salvage recycled brick, frame the structure in timber. Build the thing.

The result is a quiet exercise in slow architecture — a practice that values the process of making as much as the finished form. The visible colour-banding of the rammed-earth walls reads as a record of each pour: the hours, the hands, the slight variation in the clay that day. The sauna sits by a stream on the KSA campus, canvas-wrapped, lit through a single small window that frames the trees outside.

What it taught the thesis

The lessons of Under Construction flowed directly into Jack’s later thesis work. The rammed-earth-supported timber truss that holds up the sauna’s canopy later informed the structural strategy explored at RAK Queen’s Reach. More than any technical detail, though, the build instilled a habit of designing with material reality — and an understanding of just how long architecture actually takes to make.

Fig. Process & outcome

Close-up of the layered rammed-earth wall, showing colour bands from successive pours — Layered rammed-earth wall — the visible record of each pour

Tarpaulin pulled back to reveal hand-processed London clay ready to ram — Hand-processed London clay, ready to ram

Three students working on the sauna's circular timber form, one holding a long ramming tool — Compressing the sauna’s circular timber form

Two students sawing a timber strut on the construction line — On the line — cutting and fitting timber by hand

The finished canvas-wrapped sauna with two people sitting inside — The finished sauna — canvas-wrapped, lit through a single small window

The sauna sited on a stone terrace beside a small stream on the Kingston School of Art campus — Sited on a stone terrace beside the campus stream

Photography by Jim Stephenson.