Dezeen School Shows: a community centre hosting cultural activities to address gentrification is among the architecture projects from Cardiff University.

Also featured is a redesigned university campus adapted to modern study habits, and a proposal for a music label headquarters.

Cardiff University

Institution: Cardiff University
School: Welsh School of Architecture
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed

School statement:

"Our two-year MArch will take you to an advanced level of architectural design. You'll explore the full range of skills required to be an architect, while focusing on developing your personal outlook and professional experience.

"The first year of the programme will be spent predominantly in architectural practice, on a placement which you will need to secure before you enrol.

"You will attend three short courses to help you reflect on the professional and legal aspects of the practical work you're engaged in. Your second year will be spent on a dissertation and design thesis, immersing yourself in the dynamic and collaborative studio culture of our school.

"This combination of practical and theoretical gives you a unique opportunity to learn from and reflect on professional practice to develop your individual stance and professional perspectives."

Reinterpreting the Kiln by Petra Tina Vasilache

"How can architecture regenerate both earth and memory, guiding us through cycles of making, unmaking and becoming?

"The project radically reimagines the notion of what brick can do and be. In a neighbourhood once defined by a skyline of kilns, the scheme revives local craft while embedding reuse and recycling at its core.

"Its reputation as 'trash island' is transformed into a resource for urban mining, drawing on the stream of C&D waste from nearby industry. Materials are collected, sorted and processed into grog for ceramics workshops, while the surrounding sponge park reuses brick for its porous qualities.

"This layered programme follows hedonistic sustainability principles, turning waste into possibility and craft into quiet resistance against forgetting."

Student: Petra Tina Vasilache
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: tina.vasilache[at]outlook.com

Material Memory: Ministry of (De)Construction by Piotr Hejdysz

"The Ministry of (De)Construction reimagines the partially demolished former Ministry of Construction as a monument of continuity rather than erasure.

"Located on Berlin's Museum Island, the project critiques the post-reunification demolitions driven by critical reconstruction.

"Instead of replacing the past, it embraces deconstruction as a method of transformation, reusing salvaged structural elements and rebuilding from reclaimed components.

"At the heart of the proposal lies a civic purpose - creating a platform for reflection and discussion about the future of the city.

"By employing reversible construction, the building grows from its ruins. It becomes a living archive of material memory, offering a vision for the self-propelling reincarnation of Berlin's layered pasts."

Student: Piotr Hejdysz
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: hejdysz.piotr[at]gmail.com

Thresholds of Collective Storytelling by Shivani Nareshkumar Suthar

"The project reimagines the disused Merthyr House site in Butetown as a civic and cultural space that confronts displacement, cultural erasure and climate vulnerability.

"Informed by the Love Grangetown community consultation and Butetown's rich multicultural heritage, it empowers marginalised communities through participatory design, collective storytelling and spatial agency.

"Drawing from the Butetown Carnival, it uses ritual and performance to resist gentrification and revive erased narratives.

"The proposal includes an urban room, debating chamber, archive and public plaza. It engages with the legacy of the Windrush scandal and addresses surface-water flood risk through sustainable drainage, rainwater harvesting and modular, adaptive construction."

Student: Shivani Nareshkumar Suthar
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: sutharshivani706[at]gmail.com

The Dry Dock Studios by Dylan Taank

"'Society is driven to consume the product, not the method.'

"This project reimagines music production as an open and participatory process. Replacing a closed corporate tower, the new UMG (Universal Music Group) headquarters becomes a transparent infrastructure where artists, producers and audiences intersect.

"Public and private spaces merge through glass-fronted studios, adaptable performance venues and interactive digital interfaces – enabling visitors to observe, engage with and better understand the transformation of raw sound into finished music.

"The architecture promotes visibility, collaboration and spontaneity, turning the production process itself into a shared cultural experience."

Student: Dylan Taank
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: dylantaank[at]hotmail.com

Adfywio Calon y Gymuned: Reviving the Heart of the Community by Bethan Davies

"Once the heart of a coal mining community, Penallta Colliery is reimagined for post-industrial life as a new local centre within Caerphilly County Borough.

"At its core, the project focuses on the adaptive reuse of the Grade II-listed Engine Hall, transformed into a social and lifestyle centre that reclaims its role as a community anchor.

"Treated as a 'shadow box', the design inserts and layers new spaces for daily life within the existing industrial frame, guided by the rhythm of key structural features.

"The wider masterplan supports a low-carbon, walkable neighbourhood rooted in Welsh placemaking principles."

Student: Bethan Davies
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: bethandavies94[at]yahoo.co.uk

Sim-Biotic City by Mohammed Awadalla

"A city is comprised of a series of complex systems as parts that work in symbiosis with nature and the built environment. With the rapid growth of cities, the concern of health has come to light.

"To tackle this problem the thesis looks at an adaptive approach that creates a pedestrian green necklace linking to scattered pearls of vibrant, public and green spaces.

"The interventions canopies, supported by its structural branches create spaces for active engagement, while the systems connect through a network of roots that service the built environment."

Student: Mohammed Awadalla
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: mo.a.awadalla[at]gmail.com

Perpetuating the Temporary by Oluwatobi Ladipo

"The thesis begins with a confrontation: architecture has long been defined by permanence, yet Cardiff bursts with fleeting occurrences.

"A life shaped by pop-up stalls and community gatherings that appear and vanish by night. These ephemeral moments are no less spatial, no less significant, just inherently transient in their manifestation.

"The proposal explores how architecture can engage with this aspect of nomadic commerce, not by fixing it into permanence, but by developing a language that holds space for movement, repetition and memory.

"The project proposes interventions that support and sustain the temporary, celebrating the fleeting without erasing its transient identity."

Student: Oluwatobi Ladipo
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: oluwatobikladipo[at]gmail.com

Rebuilding the University Experience: Densify, Adapt, Connect by Roma Richardson

"Responding to changing student patterns, falling enrolment and the rise of remote study, this project fosters a people-centred university campus by reimagining the university experience.

"Focusing on the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) building as a case study, the thesis advocates adaptive reuse.

"Transforming a single-use, shockingly low-occupancy facility into an efficient multi-use academic, residential, retail and recreational building.

"This boosts building efficiency, campus vibrancy, and supports the university's financial future. By utilising existing structures, land and services, the project significantly reduces embodied carbon compared to demolition and new build.

"This approach conserves resources, minimises cost and avoids the environmental impact of developing green/brownfield sites, whilst freeing those areas to be upgraded to vibrant, landscaped civic spaces for students, staff and the wider community to enjoy."

Student: Roma Richardson
Course: Master of Architecture (MArch)
Tutor: Yasser Megahed
Email: roma.richardson[at]gmail.com

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Cardiff University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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