Unit 0 Summer Exhibition

UNIT 0 SHOWREEL

Monastery for Gardening Monks / Konrad Holtsmark

Set in a scenario when government cuts mean that the state can no longer afford to maintain Regent’s Park, this project envisages a monastery for ecologically focussed monks who collect the plant waste in the park and process it in an anaerobic digester, maintaining the park and rendering themselves self-sufficient. The monastery combines spaces aimed at religious devotion and a desire to live sustainably on the threshold between London’s urban environment and the park, exploring the overlaps between the sacred and the everyday. Located around are sunken spaces for collective contemplation. Whenever enough believers are gathered together and standing on the floor-plate, the resulting weight triggers the unexpected opening of the roof ‘petal’ segments overhead.

Health in Chaos / Jack Sardeson

In a future where bacteria have become fully resistant to our current antibiotics, this project suggests an innovative form of health clinic where recovering patients can be fully isolated and hence escape any fear of hospital super-bugs. It also remembers the past history of the now-buried Fleet River, turning it into an entrance tunnel that leads into the new Crossrail station, while also harking back to the Fleet River’s medieval reputation as a notable spa with healing waters. In the culverted tunnel, special devices automatically open and light up whenever there is no water present, and yet are triggered and closed whenever the tunnel becomes inundated after rainfall or tidal surges.

Park Hin Yeung / Self-Sufficient Restaurant

This scheme imagines that the part of the Kings Cross redevelopment zone that lies next to the incoming Eurostar trains will be transformed into a self-sufficient terraced growing zone. A complex network of hydroponic tubes and planting beds are mixed with vegetarian restaurants for visitors to enjoy and brush up against a new breed of urban farmers who are growing their own produce. Taking its layout from the gentle curve of the railway line above, the aim is to enhance food productivity in London and bring vibrancy to a regeneration area that is otherwise likely to become a dull office environment.

Nine Elms Flower Market (Underground Station) / Rufus Edmondson

As part of the regeneration of the Nine Elms area, an underground spur is to be added to the Northern Line. Rather than the usual dull box, this design envisages daylight and planting cascading down into the central void that will be cut for the tube station. Set within a small park, the various entrances into the station are mixed with flower markets linked to the adjacent New Covent Garden Market. The structural design builds upon a series of investigations into beautiful lightweight objects, each of them held in place by a minimal tensegrity structure. Fluttering glass canopies provide a glimmering aesthetic for the station’s lightweight structure at night.

Organically Grown Market and Restaurant / Andrew Yap

Borrowing from the Hackney ideal of an organic restaurant that can grow all of its own food, this project proposes a giant food market and hydroponic growing centre at the eastern end of Oxford Street, set over a street entrance into the forthcoming Crossrail station. A stratified section places the market stalls on the level just above the main entrance, while on the floors above are a street food hall, a more deluxe sit-down restaurant and then the growing greenhouses. Ingeniously, the building is heated by siphoning off the excess heat produced in the train tunnels below for Crossrail and two underground lines, solving also the problem of overheating in trains.

Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Centre / Alexandra Edwards

Using a colourful illuminated palate of materials and lighting effects from an initial project to design far livelier and attractive bus stops for London’s dreary streets, here a similar line of investigation went into how one might subtly alter the daylight levels inside treatment rooms and courtyard spaces for a new health building. In the scheme, set on the western edge of Hampstead Heath round the corner from the Royal Free Hospital, patients can undergo orthopaedic treatment and/or physiotherapy for problems with joint movements in their arms and legs. Echoing this idea of joint movement, pivoting coloured screens within the ceilings enable interiors to become lighter or darker, and provide enclosure for the courtyard gardens.

A Cycling Bedlam / Christian Georcelin

There are over 540,000 bicycle journeys in London each day, yet cyclists have a very tough time. In the busy Old Street area, this project creates a new social centre where London’s cyclists can meet together to exercise or play cycle hockey on the giant sculpted roof canopy, get their bikes repaired, or contribute to the energy supply for the workshop pods by plugging in special dynamo batteries they have charged up through human-powered flywheels. The building’s structure seeks as far as possible to recycle materials from old bicycles and other sources, offering overall a more collectivised vision for those who choose to cycle around the city.

Multicultural Student Dining Centre / Benedict Tay

There are around 100,000 overseas students in London and yet the social integration between them remains weak. Here is a project for a new kind of student facility in which different ethnic groups can come together to share knowledge of food and cooking. It is located within a small community park in the West End that lies equidistant between a few major universities. As part of the building’s external skin, fine screens cover the external terraced areas and are able to collect rainfall and then release it slowly  such that they drip for effect over a period of a few hours, helping to cool the heat produced in the kitchens inside.

Sclater St. Jazz Club / Doug Croll

As a place where jazz musicians from London can mix with those from around the world, this project envisages a building enlivened by music and the noises of the city around. Onto Brick Lane is a small speakeasy-type club and behind is a small hostel for visiting musicians, plus a series of platforms where jazz musicians can improvise for those shopping in the market outside. A prosthetic piece was built to test out the ideas, being worn under one’s outer clothes, and able to played and strummed as one passes through the city. It allows one to create an entirely different aural experience of London as we know it.

Kensal Green Crematorium / Kevin Meng

As a place where jazz musicians from London can mix with those from around the world, this project envisages a building enlivened by music and the noises of the city around. Onto Brick Lane is a small speakeasy-type club and behind is a small hostel for visiting musicians, plus a series of platforms where jazz musicians can improvise for those shopping in the market outside. A prosthetic piece was built to test out the ideas, being worn under one’s outer clothes, and able to played and strummed as one passes through the city. It allows one to create an entirely different aural experience of London as we know it.