StuCAN Festival

On the 18th and 19th of October, 120 students, creatives, practitioners and researchers from across the UK and Ireland gathered at Civic House to connect, learn and unlearn together through live making, workshops, talks, and discussions exploring the Student Climate Action Network (StuCAN) Festival theme of ‘Entanglement,’ delving into the interconnections and relationships between people, places, and materials. Architecture Fringe Co-Producer Scott McAulay was invited to facilitate and share one of the Anthropocene Architecture School’s participatory workshops and shares an insight into what was an exceptional event.

Participants were generously hosted, and over the course of two days were invited “to explore reciprocity in the built environment through the “more than human” relationships we share on global and local scales. From land, communities, people and buildings, to materials, systems, flora and fauna, [StuCAN] want to inspire discourse, learning and unlearning about how we situate ourselves and design within the complexities of our shared planet.” Care was woven throughout, thoughtfully adorning the walls of the space and shone through a thoughtfully curated programme of hands-on workshops, knowledge sharing, and communal meals – cooked each day the Scottish Kitchen Infrastructure for Activists (SKIFA).

The student-led festivities included an Introduction to Natural Building with Earth Building UK and Ireland (EBUKI), workshops with ACAN Ecology, Living Rent, Fuel Poverty Action, Retrofit Action for Tomorrow, and Resource 12, introductions to ESALA’s Materials Library and the winners of StuCAN’s mobile Climate Action Headquarters design competition, the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA), a last outing of the Anthropocene Architecture School,student Pecha Kucha sessions, lino printing, educational tours of Civic House by Collective Architecture and much more.

All in all, the weekend was a powerful and heartening example of what can emerge when students and younger architectural workers are empowered to collaboratively shape their own experiences, respond to the climate crisis, and of what ACAN’s 3rd Aim of Cultural Transformation looks and feels like, and I’m certain we’ll be tracing much back to this occasion in the future. More about the festival can be found here!

-Scott McAuley