Accelerate Design and Construct Challenge
Over the weekend of the 27 and 28 March, Accelerate students gathered at the architecture studios of London South Bank University to undertake an exciting and collaborative ‘Design + Construct Challenge.’ The task was to build five new ‘gates’ for Southwark, taking inspiration from buildings in the borough.
Students began by writing a collective manifesto of adjectives that might describe an ‘open city’ with words like respectable, youthful and green being important to the whole group. Pairs of words from this manifesto were given to small groups of students to start to think about how they might design a gate. Each group was also assigned a local building to draw inspiration from.
Buildings and their corresponding adjectives included:
a ‘layered’ + ‘ornate’ Dulwich Picture Gallery (John Soane);
a ‘kind’ + ‘towering’ Siobhan Davies Dance Studio (Sarah Wigglesworth Architects);
a ‘brick’ + ‘frail’ Red House (31/44 Architects);
a ‘dense’ and symmetrical’ Tower Bridge;
a 'balanced' and ‘flamboyant’ Dawson’s Heights (Kate Mackintosh)
Before beginning their ambitious constructions, students learnt how to work with the materials of the day: cardboard, paper, string and tape. Through a close analysis of their own shoes, each student used templating and tailoring techniques to turn 2-dimensional cardboard into a range of impressive cardboard shoes, which were later flaunted on a makeshift catwalk! To understand how to build at 1:1, and how things are held together, everyone also made their own cardboard carpentry joints, before upscaling to their group’s larger designs.
Throughout the weekend, students created some fabulous and well-designed models that will be showcased in their end of course exhibition.
Enjoy the images from the day and go to @opencityaccelerate on Instagram to see the student's amazing work.
Photos: Luke O’Donovan