Mariana Cabugueira Custódio dos Santos (MArch DRL 2017) has been interviewed by the architectural YouTube channel BlessedArch, discussing her time as a student in the Design Research Laboratory and her time working at Zaha Hadid Architects.

In the interview she discusses the way that the DRL course allowed her to explore new areas of design that weren’t encouraged in her previous studies: ‘we didn’t talk about aesthetics, we didn’t say the word aesthetics, we didn’t say the word form, it is a big “no-no” to talk about form. But I was very driven by form and the integration of form in landscape.’

These interests lead her to investigate the DRL as a possible postgraduate programme were she could pursue these interests: ‘I started looking for postgraduate courses, I saw the AA, I had never heard of the Architectural Association in London and they were doing an open day, and I went along, I had never heard of the Design Research Laboratory, DRL… I saw the final presentation of the DRL and Patrik Schumacher was there, and I started listening to what they were saying and for the first time I thought that they are about exactly about the things that I have been talking about in my country, that nobody agreed or understood… I left, and I thought “this is me, this is where I belong, I truly understand that we are speaking in the same language.’

Watch the interview now

Photo: DRL Final Jury Presentation models, 2017