AA alum Giulia Rosa has received a 2023 RIBA Dissertation Medal Commendation for the thesis Going Beyond the Layers of the Façade

Giulia Rosa has been awarded a Commendation for her dissertation thesis, Going Beyond the Layers of the Façade. After Performance, Towards Care. The thesis is a response to the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy. It disassembles the façade of Grenfell tower through the essay by mapping actors and factors involved, while metaphorically crossing the strata of the building to learn from what happened in and behind its section.

The thesis argues that, in cases such as Grenfell Tower, the material disintegration of the facade becomes the metaphor for the immaterial dissolution of the notion of care in housing. The essay aims at exhibiting what cannot be read in the lines of an architectural detail, challenging the present incommunicability between care and performance while presenting care as the ultimate layer to performance. The binary understanding of performance and matter solely loaded in science and certainties is questioned in order to define a space for an understanding of immaterial concerns as design tools.

As part of this research, Giulia organised The Cladding Crisis symposium at the AA with Liam Ross in February 2023. More information on the symposium can be read here.

To see Giulia’s project on the RIBA President’s Medal website click here.

Image: Going Beyond the Layers of the Façade. After Performance, Towards Care, thesis cover.