22 September 2010

UNIT SIXTEEN 2010-2011


  … This is not a gateway!


Consider the image presented above, good even tonal lighting, balanced contrast, clearly defined shadow structure, a scene of simple domesticity or perhaps romantic abandonment? Table and chair, carefully aligned, all the basic equipment needs of the absent protagonist hard wired into the ether. An uncompromised staged landscape; Workbench assorted tools, various small wires and pieces of equipment. Distant technical vistas skillfully arranged as a contemporary still life of the near future.

The New Society, benevolent capitalism repackaged as the Market Leveraged state. Mass deregulation, finance, health, law and order, education, planning, outsourced government everyone’s a consumer now! Banking failures, double dip recession, economic stagnation, rising social unrest, leads to unprecedented urban flight, tax starved, abandoned London falls into protracted decline. Around the Peripherique, latent memories of Abercrombie plan, the incorporated new towns of the M25, a borderland of corporate consumer driven dreams.

Last year we crossed the Midwest of America from Chicago to failed city of Detroit. The unit explored the origins of the Common-Wealth, examining the instruments of wealth and power. This year the unit will draw from its experiences of Detroit, applying these lessons to the City of London. This is not a Gateway is a collective call to challenge and re imagine the utility and function of the City of London, rejecting traditions, by proposing new futures.

We will start the year by exploring London’s New Peripherique, the City seen as a reflective gaze through the rear view mirror, heading East along the A13. In the second and third terms, Fifth year students will develop individual thesis projects, centered on the City of London. Forth year students will design a New Institution for the City of London, guided by themes developed during the first terms project. As their major building project, this will form the basis for their Design Realisation reports.