Southwark sketching competition winner announced

This Spring, Open City teamed up with Southwark Council to launch an exciting sketching competition for Open City's Accelerate students and sixth form students from Southwark schools.

The competition was inspired by Southwark Council's 'New River Commons' project which will see the fruition of a host of exciting infrastructure projects including the expansion of the South Dock Marina boatyard; the completion of the Thames Tideway ‘Super Sewer’ and the creation of new homes and leisure facilities for local communities.

Enthused by the exciting regeneration plans we challenged young people to think about what a future River Thames might look like and how their vision contrasted with the River in its present and past states. We set a competition brief to capture the River in the past, present and future in one sketch.

Competition entries were very high in quality and very imaginative. There were some wonderful depictions of the River's past spanning from the City's first agricultural dwellers through to The Plague, the River's famous Frost Fairs and the Industrial Revolution. Present day scenes were captured through wonderful and very detailed drawings of Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, the 'Walkie Talkie' building and surrounding skyscrapers. Future scenes included floating cities, monorails, buildings powered by renewable energy sources and flying cars.

The competition was judged by Cllr Leo Pollak, Open City's Head of Learning, Sophie Draper, Accelerate Course Tutor, Elliot Nash and Accelerate Advisory Panel member and architectural assistant, Bareera Borhan.

The winner of the competition was Alaa Abdi. The competition judges especially liked Alaa's juxtaposition of a future floating city positioned next to ancient city dwellers and buildings from the Industrial Revolution. Judges also thought that Alaa's drawing addressed the competition brief very well and that he demonstrated excellent technical drawing ability.

Alaa Abdi, 16, St Saviour's and St Olave's Church of England School

When asked to describe his sketch Alaa wrote;

"For my composition I took inspiration from the Frost Fairs that were held when the Thames froze over in 1800’s and decided to represent the past in blue because it is a cool colour so goes well with the cold environment. I depicted the present in green because it a natural colour and I chose pink for the future because it went well with the other colours. I added blue ice cubes into the pink to show how the past has some bearing on the future. As for the boat, I think the future will be heavily industrialised, so I thought it could be carrying hologram plans for the construction of new buildings including houses and flats, hopefully resolving the issue of homelessness in London".

Runner up positions were awarded to Eleanor Terry and Gabriela Manata. The judges particularly liked the technical ability, use of colour and compositional qualities captured in both Eleanor and Gabriela's drawings.

Open City would like to thank all of the young people who submitted entries to the competition. Open City would also like to thank Southwark Council who have not only supported this competition but who also very generously support our Accelerate programme. Please watch this film to find out more about the Accelerate programme.