"If This Building Could Talk..." - A Collection of Short Essays by Students and Industry Leaders

2023 COLLECTION OF SHORT ESSAYS

2022/23 MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF REAL ASSETS

2022/23 MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF REAL ASSETS

2022/23 MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF REAL ASSETS

Abercorn Consulting Limited

Oliver Shah Limited

In 2022, The Academy started an initiative to publish essays from students at state schools across the UK.

That first book was published in July 2022 on the subject of “The Town of the Future Will….”

In 2023 we set another essay challenge about the built environment, asking students to submit 800 words on “If This Building Could Talk...”

This book is testament to how the students exceeded our expectations.

The purpose of the book is:

• To encourage students to think about the built environment around them.

• To reward them for their efforts in putting pen to paper – they will have this book with their name in it forever.

• To introduce students and teachers to The Academy and our members and, through them, to the extraordinary range and diversity of opportunities that our business of real estate and real assets offers.

• To build relationships with schools and teachers so that The Academy can help them further.

The Academy is only two years old but, through the efforts, enthusiasm and resource of our members we are making real progress in getting to students and being the first point of contact for them as they decide whether, and which aspect, of our business might be for them.

On behalf of everyone at The Academy, thank you to every single person that is playing their part in this project.

Stephen Yorke Founder July 2023

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To our members: Thank you to all of you for your support and enthusiasm. The Academy could not be having the impact it is without your involvement.

To the teachers: Thank you for encouraging your students to submit essays –we know you are stretched for time and resource.

The Academy looks forward to deepening our relationship with you and your school to help your students understand, and take advantage of, the opportunities that real estate and real assets offers.

To our allies: Thank you for helping to spread the word – particularly David Sheppard, Speakers for Schools and PiXL.

To the students: A huge thank you and well done to you. We had double the number of students enter our competition in 2023 compared to 2022, which is remarkable. Your essays and thoughts throughout this book are amazing.

HEYDON ABRAHAM

Trinity Catholic High School

Icarus had a hard time running away from the baker after stealing some savoury buns. He ran left and right to avoid the baker, but he was still on his tail. The baker was relentless in catching the thief to teach him a painful lesson because the boy has been stealing his fresh baked buns every week. Icarus kept on running and when all hope was lost, he had trodden on a pitbull’s tail. Hope was useless. The dog let out an ear-piercing howl and immediately started chasing Icarus without a thought. With the baker and the Pitbull behind Icarus knew he would be done for.

Icarus’s legs were losing fuel, but his heart roared in spirit. Fortunately, the two men grew fatigued and dropped to the floor whereas the Pitbull was persisting Icarus no matter what. To the left of Icarus, he could see a distant house surrounded by a 6ft wall accompanied with a vast acre of land leading to the perilous forest. Upon seeing his ticket to escape he took a left and headed straight towards village. The Pitbull was nearing Icarus, but the sight of the distant village made it stop in its track and whimpered back to its owner. Nearly everybody in the village saw the boy heading there. They wanted to warn him but that would get the plague’s attention...

An exhausted Icarus dropped to the floor flat spreading mud everywhere. He laid there for a split second until his engine roared for more fuel. He saw the buns and embraced each bite. He gazed upon the great wall and searched for any rock to smash parts of the wall down so he could enter and possibly live in. He remembered the last time he had been with his mother and the fun time they had until cholera took her away from him. A tiny but bold teardrop splashed on the floor from Icarus’s face but that was past, and this is the present and it is time to move on. Frantically looking for a rock Icarus had to avoid nights out in the open because predators will come and hunt him. Within 20 minutes he had found a large rock that he could carry and started charging at the wall along with the rock smashing a piece of it wall down.

Icarus stepped in the plague’s den without knowing the risks that he was taking. He could see many burnt houses that were collapsed but there was this one house that stood out. It was burnt due to the fire, but it was very stable like nothing touched it. As Icarus walked closer to the house, he saw countless of burnt bodies laid across the land. In horror he ran to the standing house and slam the door shut. His heart had a big pause. He was quite traumatised by the events until the voice spoke in a manly voice, ‘‘You look a bit shocked. Is it because of the deceased that lay open on the floor?’’ Icarus looked sharped and alerted and starting shouting ‘‘Who’s there.’’ But the voice was incredibly nervous. ‘’Please quiet down you don’t want him coming here.’’ Icarus was baffled and suddenly asked ‘‘Who’s him?’’ The voice was hesitant, but it had to tell the youngster the story. The voice began, ‘’Him is a murderer and he is known as ‘The Plague.’ He first appeared in this village a month before you were born.’’ Icarus was perplexed and asked,

‘‘How would you know?’’ The voice was not sure if it could say it, but he whispered ‘‘I am your father, Karlus Hyde, and I know it sounds weird, but my life was taken by the plague and my soul occupied this house.’’

Icarus was more than confused instead of asking questions he wanted to know more about the ‘Plague.’ Hyde began retelling the story in a quaking voice ‘‘The plague’s real name was Cain, but he was an adult orphan who came to stay with my neighbour, but the deaths didn’t start until people started treating him with hatred. I suppose the negativity around him was too much for him that he went ballistic. At night he lighted my neighbour’s house with a flaming cocktail in his hand and threw it.’’ He took a deep breath and started ‘‘It was like nothing we ever expected the fire he ignited spread across the wooden houses burning many innocent lives. I fought Cain to buy your mother time to run. You and your mother were lucky to escape.’’ He suddenly paused and saw the plague returning from the forest and told Icarus to hide but it was too late Cain had made it in the house.

Trinity Catholic High School

We are an outstanding and well established 11-18 Catholic school which is blessed with a reputation for academic excellence, pastoral care, high standards, outstanding students, exceptional staff and the warmest of welcomes.

PRINCESS AFRIYIE

Learning Field International school, Akosombo Eastern Region, Co-op Academies Leeds

Some buildings could speak like financial times,yet others would praise their maker or creator some would also whisper,some would loudly sing their own praises or praise God or Allah, whiles other would modestly murmur a few words and really have nothing to say. Some are plain dead and can not speak anymore.

Building are like people,in fact old and young, ugly and pretty,fat and skinny, energetic and lazy,rich and poor, healthy and weak,male and female, clinging to the past or reaching out to the future. Do not get me wrong: this is not a metaphor. Building do speak to us ! Some buildings would like to tell us what has happened years ago (their history) some could protect or keep us from danger or any misfortune accident. Some would even tell us what is coming to happen.

Some buildings would even save our lives, others would draw our attention for what is coming or run from any disaster. Of course buildings have messages for us. Some really want a constant dialogue with us. If building could talk they would have tell us their likes and dislikes. They would even like to render service.

Some buildings would like to advise us or show us the correct path to go. They would ensure us to live in a hygienic life without sickness. Some buildings would prevent us from death. If building could talk they would prevent or protect us from arm robbers, kidnappers and other bad people around us. They would probably tell us to shut our doors when they are open. If buildings could talk they would prevent us from fire outbreak to let us run from any danger or harmful disaster

Some buildings rather listen carefully first and you probably noticed. Some buildings like us a lot, others too at all,some less. Buildings like people,are subject to time and exist in three dimensional world. This is why are film is in 3D. It is a invitation to wander around to experience and to listen for once. The building you will encounter is a particularly gentle and friendly one, made for learning, reading and communicating. It's hills and valleys (yes, they exist in three) are eager to welcome you, to help you, to be of service, and be free. If this building could talk it would tell the tales of my life the knowledge and experience I have, the wisdom I gain, love I gain and loss,the laughter,the tears, the happiest day and sadness day of my life. It would tell you the experiences I had, the good ones and bad ones. It would tell the good friend I have make and bad ones I rejected too. If this building could talk it would tell the relationship I have made before, the good ones and bad.

Co-Op Academy Leeds

Co-op Academy Leeds is a welcoming and diverse community where we provide an ambitious and inspirational education that supports our young people to achieve exceptional outcomes.

MARCUS AGBO

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, would it speak out or die? Speak out its wonderful memories lingering in the air, despite the passing of days. Weeks. Months. Years. Even decades. Would it rather die suffering silently, slowly but surely eroding away with the passing of time? Perhaps a more exuberant exit by the hands of a grand inferno would be more fitting, unsettling the calm, quiescent nature of this lonesome dwelling.

Life. If this cabin could talk, would it call itself alive? Alive like the luscious green grass that encircled it many years ago.

Since birth, it bore witness to the wilderness, greeting each new day with the rustling of leaves as the harmonious wind danced effortlessly through the myriad of emerald green trees. Staring aimlessly at the carpet of fine evergreen needles sprouting from the rich soil beneath it, spanning across the entirety of the forest as far as the eye could see. The blooming of lavender and petunias emitted an ambrosial perfume that permeated the air, invading every crack and crevice of this vocal building. If these windows had words, it would use every single one to convey the euphoric atmosphere of this fragrant forest; its birthplace, its home. Years pass as the couple birthed children who, like the cabin, got to relish the elegant charm offered by this reclusive forest. This creation of human life amidst natural life itself only fuelled this house’s burning love and passion for its natural habitat, reinforcing its attachment to the forest and those contained within. If this kitchen could articulate its stream of thoughts, bubbling up inside it like water boiling on the stove, it would spend this lifetime and the next expressing its profound fondness of the life it got to live, unaware of its untimely demise that was soon to come.

Death. If this humble abode could talk, would it obtain the capacity to die? Would a cease to its vocalisation of its thought equate to an eternal slumber otherwise perceived as death? Would its expression of thought through words entice the notorious Grim Reaper who, without remorse, would effortlessly glide through the forest, leaving behind a path completely devoid of life?

As time went on, a thick autumnal mist descended upon the forest like a grey murky blanket, obstructing the sun’s revitalising light from latching onto the tremendous highrise trees. As deprivation became more prevalent, this house soon lacked the energy to talk. The eldritch atmosphere that had conquered the forest seemed relentless, draining the forest of all life. If this cabin could talk, it would scream and shout for help, for attention, for someone to satisfy its needs. As the inescapable changing of seasons occurred, the sun’s persistent battle with the clouds ended as celestial light cascaded from the sky. Reflecting off all the shiny surfaces of this building, such as its crystal clear windows, the rays of light frantically scattered everywhere, reviving all life it touched. On a hot summer’s day in July, all was well and well was all. That is what this home would say, if this home could talk. Who could’ve known the sun’s blistering heat combined

with parched plants would ensue disaster. As a concentrated ray of sunlight bounced excitedly off the cabin’s window it found itself striking a dead, dry and broken branch abandoned on the ground. Light smoke grew heavy and heavy smoke grew to flames. If this cabin could talk, could it have warned someone of the future chaos that would follow? As the flames devoured all within sight, unravelling vermillion across the now charred, withered blades of grass, the frail old couple lay helpless. Summer had arrived, but this time it was black.

A Black Summer.

Rather than being filled with joy and brimming with life, there was nothing but destruction and devastation.

If this building could talk, would it speak out and die? Would it recognise that it is living and by acknowledging its life, speak out its story, its life, so that others may remember it as something special. Would it desire to continue living, speaking out and crying for help, for attention, for someone to give it the opportunity to have its needs satisfied in the future. Or would it rather die, suffering silently while consumed by the hands of a grand inferno. I think that if this cabin could talk, it would speak out on deaf ears, leaving no one but itself to carry the weight of its own words, crushing itself in the process, meeting its inevitable end. If, this building could talk I’m sure it would value its lack of animacy for it would liberate it from the clutches of the Grim Reaper, from the unavoidable touch of death. If this building could talk, I’m sure it would wish it never could.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

HASSAN AHMED

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

If buildings could talk, what stories would tell? Perhaps they would speak of the joys and sorrows, the laughter and tears, the hopeful and despairing, that have echoed within its walls. Or maybe it would share tales of the people who have passed through its doors, each with their unique experiences and perspectives. Whatever the case may be, the stories of a building are often deeply intertwined with the history and culture of the surrounding community.

As I walk through the streets of my city, I can't help but wonder what stories the buildings around me might tell. Some are old and majestic, with colourful and bright faces and elaborate architectural details that hint at a rich and glorious history. Others are more modern and evolving within the world around them. But each one has a story to tell.

One building that has always captured my imagination is the old courthouse in the centre of town. With its towering columns and grand entrance, it looks like it was plucked straight out of a history book. And in many ways, it has been. Built-in the mid1800s, it served as the seat of justice for the county for over a century.

If the courthouse could talk, it would tell stories of high-profile trials and controversial verdicts. It would recount the drama and intrigue that played out in its courtrooms, from the sensational murder trials that awed crowds from across the state to the more mundane proceedings that filled its docket day in and day out. It would speak of the lawyers and judges who roamed its halls, each with their tales of triumph and defeat.

But the courthouse's history goes beyond just the legal proceedings that took place within its walls. It was also a gathering place for the community, a site of political rallies and public speeches. And during times of crisis, it served as a hub of activity, from organising disaster relief efforts to providing shelter for those in need.

But in recent years, efforts have been made to rehabilitate the building, both to honour its history and to ensure its continued use for future generations. And as the city grows and grows around it, the courthouse remains a constant reminder of the past.

As I stand outside the courthouse, I cannot help but feel a sense of awe for this building and the stories it holds. And it is a reminder that even in our rapidly changing world, the past is never truly gone – it lives on in the places we live.

In conclusion, if this building could talk, it would tell stories of justice and injustice, of triumph and defeat, of progress and decay. It would be a living record of the community it has served, a reflection of the values and ideals that have shaped its history. And most importantly, it would be a reminder that our built environment is more than just bricks and mortar – it is a repository of memory, a source of inspiration, and a testament to the law.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

Hassan Ahmed

ANGELA ANKRA

Weavers Academy,Wellingborough

Bittersweet. The feeling of leaving the building in which I grew up; the building that made me feel at home. The exciting feeling of starting a new chapter of my life and the nostalgic feeling of letting go of my fight for dominance laying a burden on my heart.

Memories flooding through my mind in synchrony like music notes on a page creating a rhythmic dance so perfectly they flash like a movie before my eyes. Yet as these memories come to a halt the synchrony is disrupted and the rhythm is lost. I'm left to acknowledge the blank pages in my mind. My memory showed no mercy, even for the music notes hidden behind creases.

This is when desperation kicks in. This is when I suppress the urge to run around one more time, looking for something; an object or even a person who would be the cue to help retrieve my memories.

I need this building to speak to me, evena slight whisper destined to be heard by my ears only would be enough to reach into the depths of my mind and bring those memories back to life.

If this building could talk, I would want it to remind me about all the reasons I slammed my bedroom door shut out of anger earning an equally frustrated scream from my mum. I want to remember how long our disputes would last before I caved in, begging for her forgiveness.

If this building could talk, I would want it to refresh my memory by reading back to me the little messages I wrote behind the old photographs of my parents I found under the mattresses that I would give to them on their birthday glued to a hand-made frame I would make from the scraps of paper I found in the paper bins.

If this building could talk, I know it would remind me of every time I whispered a snarky response to my older brother’s remarks, too cowardly to say them aloud. I know it would add all the times my voice wasn’t so quiet, when I would find myself on the floor screaming for him to set me free from his tight hold.

If this building could talk, I would ask how pathetic I looked crying at 1am trying to muffle my hiccups to avoid waking everyone up as I contemplated my life choices and if school was worth the stress. How many times had I stayed till 3am trying to finish my homework? How many times had I succeeded? How many times had I muttered curses under my breath towards my history teacher for assigning too much work?

If this building could talk, I would want it to describe the feeling of the hot sun on its bricks during the golden hours of the day, making its walls the perfect background for a picture. I would want this building to remind me of the shades and colours that decorated the sky on summer evenings as we both faced the sun disappearing behind the horizon.

If this building could talk, I would want it to tell me how many droplets of rain I successfully caught on my tongue as I stretched my body a little bit over the balcony railing during rainy days despite my father’s warnings.

So many memories yet so many blank pages; the connections between the events are gone and I desperately need them to cease the battle in my chest.

If this building could talk, I would have it fill in those gaps and experience those meaningful moments again. Had I reconciled with my mother and began a friendship? Had I been there for my brother during difficult times in his life? Had I spent New Year's Eve staring at the beautiful fireworks in the dark sky before going back to my monotonous school life?

I don't have answers to these questions, but I know this building would give me all the answers I'm looking for if it could talk. I'm certain that all my stories have been preserved among the carvings on the bricks that make up its walls.

If I could relive every moment that has been archived in the memory of this building I would; every cry, every scream, every restless night, every giggle, every hysterical laughter, every karaoke session in the living room with my friends; all of it, no les no more.

If this building could talk, I don't think I would ever leave its side; I would sit on the ground, ear to one of its brown ageing walls, eyes towards another beautiful sunset listening to the stories we shared.

Weavers Academy, Wellingborough

Weavers Academy is an 11-18, non-selective academy and part of the growing Creative Education Trust. Weavers is large enough to offer a very broad range of opportunities within its innovative, comprehensive curriculum while small enough to provide the level of care required to ensure students feel safe, valued and happy.

KERI BEDIAKO

Trinity Catholic High School

The Sydney Opera would be a bright and lively person called Emma who was bursting with colours, music and passion. It would always have a lot of questions and would never stop talking. It would have a hypnotising smile, always showing off its pearly whites. She would love visiting the beach and surfing. Her backstory would be a positive one about her life in Florida, spending time with her family and friends. She wouldn’t have a care in the world and was always a genuinely happy person.

Oxford University would be quiet and shy, keeping to itself and would have a small friend group. It would be an amazing person to confide in and would always have the most interesting things to say. He would always have his head down in a book. He used to be bullied as a child due to his shy nature which caused him to hate himself and his life. But as he grew older, he met amazing people who made him happy and taught him how to love himself again.

Big Ben would be a wise and very knowledgeable man called Tom. He would’ve seen London change overtime go though many eras. He would have a posh accent and always be speaking about the past. He always had the most fascinating stories to tell. He would have survived World War 2 previously and would have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) about his time in the trenches. It would have scared him forever but he liked sharing his experience during the war by visiting schools and museums.

The Statue of Liberty would be a brave and courageous woman called Savanna. She would never fear anything and would be someone you could count on. She could be described as dependable and adventurous. She would always be out on an adventure or saving someone. She would have had a sad chidhood. With neglectful parents who were always working, she would have to find something to entertain her and her 2 younger siblings. It was then where she grew her love for the outdoors.

A football stadium would always be a loud and rowdy man called John. He would be boisterous and always causing chaos. When you’re around him you can never have a quiet moment. But with the uproars also come the fun and he would be a great person to be friends with. He would have been a British person who was brought up in Essex. He would have spent a lot of his evenings down at the pub with his dad and would often fall asleep there.

A hospital would be a quiet and very clean lady called Amanda. She would have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and would freak out at any uncleanliness or any signs of possible sickness. She would be the ‘mum’ of her friend group and would be one of the most reliable people you could ever meet. Her backstory was sad. She had an absent father and her mother relied heavily on alcohol which made her unable to fulfil her duties as her mum. She grew up ina dirty house with a rodent infestation and mold

problems. Her disorder developed since then and, she vowed to not have a house like her childhood home and would keep everything spotless and clean.

A museum would be a quiet, self-content man called Sam. He would always be reading about the past and keep a special collection of things like planes and historic artifacts. He would be shy but could easily warm up to you if you get close and would be an amazing comforter. He would’ve been bullied as a child for his shyness and quiet nature. He was also stabbed in the back by people he thought were his friend. After that, he was taught the valuable lesson of not trusting everyone since they could actually be snakes in disguise.

A shopping mall would be a loud, show off girl called Lucy. She would come off as a very rude and judgemental person. But once you get to know her, there would be a meaning behind her actions. She wasn’t treated well by her past friends and got taken advantage of and used when she was a kind, quiet girl. Now she resorted to being unkind and her reason was always ‘Be hurtful or get hurt, right?’

The Eiffel Tower would be an artistic, young man named Andre. His passion would be painting, and he would be a very optimistic person, given his backstory. All his life he wanted to be an artist, but his parents forbade it. According to them ‘art was for poor people and people with no talents’. But he longed to follow his dream and not take over his family business.

Trinity Catholic High School

We are an outstanding and well established 11-18 Catholic school which is blessed with a reputation for academic excellence, pastoral care, high standards, outstanding students, exceptional staff and the warmest of welcomes.

ELLA BROADBENT

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden

If this house could talk, they would have a lot to say. I’d talk to them for hours, but what would they say? Would they shout in anger or would they hide in shame? Would they express their views loudly or bottle them away? What language would they speak and what would they describe? Would their voice be calming or would it cause panic? Would it want peace or would it long for war? Would it chat with the neighbours or would it remain a recluse? Would the streets end up sounding like a party, with endless stories to tell or would a deadly silence ring through the streets?

Well, I asked them and this is what they would say…

“If I looked back on myself when I was born, I would not recognise myself in any way, shape or form. I’d look in a mirror and have to take a step back, like when you wake up from a particularly bad nightmare and see the traces it has left. I’ve been repainted, replumbed, rewired, reorganised, renovated and reimagined. But were my thoughts ever put into the picture and was I ever considered in the plans? I’ve never been good enough for my owner, that was clear when they’d change me, morph me into something that would only change again once they’d pack their bags, unsatisfied. It’s like a washing machine, once you get into the routine of something, you are spun around again. What would you do if someone tried to change you? The answer is that you wouldn’t have to change, you would change me, and that has got to stop. Once I’ve been used, I’m discarded, like a cardboard box, thrown to the side, with no purpose anymore. I ask you, what would you do if there were people living inside of you, acting as though they own you? It makes my stomach churn, the thought of having someone going through my insides, what is meant to be my private place, the place where I can think by myself, and be myself.”

“You may not think of me as a human, but I work the same as you. All my electrical wiring is your veins, my paint is your skin and my furnace is your heart. I know all about how you work, since I can’t help but listen in on your conversations, I know how you get upset when you lose someone and when you feel joy when you meet them. I know about jealousy and comfort, I know who likes who and who secretly wants them dead. So tell me, if I have the same intelligence as you, why am I not accepted in your society, where you claim to include everyone, no matter what their differences are? I would be willing to take on the daily struggle of your lives, if it meant that I could have some comfort through my dark, dark days. I’d take on the stresses of exams, deadlines and having relationships, if I could finally speak to someone. I already have exams and have to pass tests, in a way, if you count the plumber and the gardener and electrician coming to check on how well I have been doing. Tell me what I’m lacking and what I need to do in order to become one of you.”

“The road that I stand on feels like a cage, I feel trapped, like I’m in a chamber and with no way out. The four houses that surround me feel like the rope that ties a kite to the ground. I can’t stay here for much longer, I know that much. For what seems like an eternity, I have been filled with more objects than I can hold, and that has left me with a stretched, painful feeling. The only way I can describe it would be to say that it is like when you have eaten a christmas dinner, and then another one on top. As though you are Mary Poppins’ bag that can carry anything. But I am not magical and I cannot eat, so how do you expect me to take the strain? I am not a dumping ground, where you can let all of your rubbish rot away in a place where you can forget. I am like you, with feelings and ideas to contribute, if only you’d let me explain. I’d tell you about how you can fix your problems and help them stay away.”

“On the hallways inside of me, you hang pictures that say ‘home sweet home,’ and ‘home is where the heart is’, and although I am a home to you, I have never felt like I have a home, like I have a place where my heart can be at ease.”

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden

Roundwood Park is a school with a strong reputation as an innovative and exciting place in which to learn and to teach. It is a place where traditional values of smart appearance, excellent behaviour and acting with integrity mingle with modern learning and high academic standards.

ELIZABETH BROWN

Trinity Catholic High School

If this building could talk, oh the things it would say! It would talk about how upset it was that there were kids getting detentions. Watching them day by day get into trouble for silly things and know what was going to happen. It would smile at those getting merits and despair at those getting de-merits. It would weep at the sight of kids getting expelled and would wish they could learn from their mistakes. If this building could talk, it would moan about the amount of noise the teachers make and how much they would chatter about one subject for a whole hour. It would block it’s ears at the noise of a shouting teacher and it would also enjoy listening to the teachers gossip in the staff room with their cups of tea. It would laugh when the last biscuit was eaten, and the next teacher went to the biscuit tin to find it empty. If this building could talk, it would talk about the special times. When we would pray, it prayed with us. When we partied, it would party with us. When we won awards, it would celebrate with us. When we sang hymns, it would sing with us. If this building could talk, it would talk about the things that it has learnt throughout the years. When we learned, this building would learn. The building would know the elements in the periodic table by heart, it would know how to calculate the angles in a triangle, it would know how to speak French and play every instrument. It would know every detail in a painting and know how to cook the perfect macaroni cheese. If this building could talk it would talk about the worst moments. It would tell you how lonely and lost it felt over lockdown. It would tell you how much it missed the noise and bustle of crazy kids. It would tell you about how empty the school felt and how it was the longest never-ending fear in it’s entire time since being built. It would talk about past teachers and remember them fondly. If this building could talk it would talk about the happiest moments. It would talk about great grades and hard workers. Those who have gone on to achieve so much more in their lives. The building would be proud and feel honoured to have been part of the journey. If this building could talk, it would talk about the new. The new teachers learning their student’s names and new students being excited, but also scared at the same time. It would see the tiny year 7’s grow to be tall and gaining more confidence. If this building would talk it would laugh at the jokes students make. It would laugh so hard that the building would shake. It would laugh at the kids showing off and the silly comments the class clowns made. If this building could talk it would talk about the rainy days and the sunny days. The dry days and the wet days. The stormy and the windy. It would tell you how much it sweats when the teachers don’t open the windows and how cold it gets when it snows. If this building could talk it would talk about the great history, it has. It would talk about it’s past and present. It would tell you about the ghosts who float around the building at night, keeping it company. If this building could talk it would tell you how scared it gets when the builders come in and give it a face lift. It would tell

you that it hates the noise of the drill and the smell of paint, but how wonderful it felt to have a makeover. If this building could talk, it would tell you about the smell of the delicious food coming from the canteen. The breakfast bacon sandwiches and toast. The lunchtime chips, the sausage rolls and the pasta with melted cheese. The hall would grumble and make gurgling sounds. It would be irritated by the litter on the floors and would giggle at the year 7’s having to pick it up! If this building could talk, it would tell you which kids have a crush on each other and the emojis they send each other. It would know who would get rejected and it would know which kids were rolling their skirts up after school. It would tell you about the amount of gossip that it hears in the changing rooms before PE. If this building could talk, it would tell you how honoured it was to have seen many successful people come and go and how it missed those who had left. But the building will always remember them.

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK, OH THE THINGS IT WOULD SAY!

Trinity Catholic High School

We are an outstanding and well established 11-18 Catholic school which is blessed with a reputation for academic excellence, pastoral care, high standards, outstanding students, exceptional staff and the warmest of welcomes.

KAYA BROWN

St Anthonys Academy Sunderland

THE HOUSE OF STORIES

Iwalk forward, my shoes not touching the water between the ghostly, gray stonelooking-bricks on the ground. A soft hum escapes my lips as my eyes relax. I have a steady peace with a little skip. My favorite spot is coming up. My arms start to sway as if I’m about to fall asleep but I keep my composure. It starts to go lighter as I step away from the cool clasp of the tree’s shadow.

But suddenly something feels different. Not off but different. I stop as my eyes flutter open. I turn so my back is facing toward the road. The wind doesn’t twist and turn around my hair anymore but throws it’s self toward the building in front of me, as if to knock it down. A tile from the roof slides off as if the roof is slippery. It goes down, down, down. I watch, not even flinching when it comes closer and closer to the ground. All this time I see this in slow motion but you probably see it in normal pace. I can tell my eyes reflect the sad-looking scripture. It feels like 3 minutes before it shatters into a million smithereens. Another story that has fallen.

I run up to the tile as if it was a lost puppy. My knees rub against the grimy ground. I see a piece of tile a little bit smaller than my palm. I try to pick it up, but a cry of pain carves itself on my tongue. The very sharp sentence falls from my grasp and breaks a bit more on the ground. I put my right hand under my left while rocking it side to side. Salty water stings my eyes as everything goes blurry. All I can see is my peachy skin and a line pooling with blood. I choke down my tears as I try to pick up the tile again. I put both of my hands under the, now smaller, tile and slowly carry it up close to my face. My eyes start to close and stop to leave only slits of cloud white, dark brown and ink black. I am focusing on the sentence I have in my palm, trying to read it. Five minutes later I let out a sigh and put my hands down. I couldn’t read the crumb of tile that held the valuable piece of the story.

My eyes are drawn to a dark endless cave at the bottom corner of the building, something pops out. A wet pink sphere emerges twitching as it scans the ground. The reflective object proceeds to develop into the golden light. First appears a long nose, then a big head and larger, round ears. After that comes a white, fluffy body and a long-lasting, blush tail. But what transfixes me the most is the captivating, inky orbs that are staring at me. It is like we are communicating in a way that many people won’t understand. The milk coloured mouse scurries along the path keeping it’s nose on the ground. It finds a fragment of amber cheese lying on the dull, damp brick and the mouse’s eyes illuminate. I can smell the decomposing, disgusting cheese from where I was kneeling and it made me gag. It clutches the cheese like it was the mouse’s only way to survive and then it escapes back into the safety of the shadows.

As I stood up as my eyes retrieve themselves back on the two-story house. The sandcoloured bricks have eroding holes in them and a sort of lime green moss growing in between them. A few windows have gigantic holes which swallow an abundance of wind that floods the whole house. The door is a gloomy, mud-like brown with a large window on it. The window has cracks but it’s not broken from the battles it faces. It has rusty steel which has been bent, carved, shaped and mended to curl and turn into different shapes on the glass.

At the top of the abandoned building is a steep, red chimney. Phantoms of smoke run through my lungs making me cough and splutter but as fast as the phantoms came they went.

My mind fills with wonder and excitement of what this ancient building holds. Secrets? Songs? Memories? All I know is: every atom is a letter. Every brick, tile and window is a story. The whole building is ‘The House Of Stories’. I move my arm up into my bag to carefully place the tile in it. I hum a soft lullaby as I start to walk forward again resuming my original pace. But I stop and turn my attention back on the building. “I will learn your stories… someday.”

St Anthonys Academy Sunderland

We are a vibrant, loving and nurturing community situated in the heart of Sunderland city centre. We are an inclusive Catholic school welcoming all students both from faith backgrounds and none. As a Mercy Academy we are committed to pursuing excellence for all students.

MATTHEW BURKINSHAW

King Ecgbert School, Sheffield

WALLS

Walls. Tall, red, strong. Bricks. Bricks and nothing more to some. But as the finger of a playful child traces the mottled clay holding them together, carefully avoiding the cracks, the chunks missing that make it look battered and bruised, no one thinks of the last hands that touched those same bricks. No one asks who it was that made the cracks that that child now brushes past. No one asks what cold night brought such crushing, all-consuming grief of some teen infatuation’s undoing that took the chip off the shingled doorstep. Metal screeches when the hinges twist, door creaking just like it does every time it opens. It sounds like pain, almost reflexive and human in nature. It sounds difficult. Like joints withered with age. Muddied shoes drag across the mat and the sound of little feet stumbling off over the similarly labouredsounding floorboards which groan with each step echoes around the house. Just like it does every day, in every house. But no one takes the time to think what tiny footsteps it was that rumbled over the floorboards on a day when they didn’t creak in subdued agony. No one thinks of who painted the rushed squares of coloured paint on the kitchen wall, or who’s shoes were the ones that left a huge mark on the sideboard after their first Sunday league football match, or who laughed about it, or who’s endlessly wide smile stretched and curled across a face so innocently beaming as they clambered up onto the kitchen top while his parents screamed at them to get down. No - the paint is scratched and the mud faded, ready for a new scar that will resonate with a new life, tell a new story through each tainted furnishing, each hallowed section of a forgotten past. Tainted is better. That way it can mean something to someone. Each scar a promise to those who caused it that they are sacred in this place, that a fragment of their life is always here waiting for something. Or nothing; who knows? Walls. Tall, red, strong. Bricks. Bricks filled with memories locked in stony prisons, shadows whispering sweet nothings through plaster coverings over a parallel universe, falling on deaf ears. So unfathomably old yet vivid bordering on hallucination, coloured like a psychedelic fantasy. A story replaying, I like to think. Past lives, where another arm of a multifaceted youth is stored. The foundations of a human. As the next person sits in that bedroom, breathing in the same air, watching the dust hover in a slit of light through the same curtains, the walls still talk. Talk in some indetectable language, telling the story of how a father-daughter relationship crashed and burned in that room, the story of a life’s darkest nights spent pouring out anguish in tears onto that same pillow and how the scratch in the paint at the top of the room came to be. But no one asks. Nothing changes. You just become another electric soul intertwining with the ghosts of someone else’s time in the walls of a room. Another skeleton in the closet making friends with last year’s. Another number,

another tale in a book documenting the extent of humanity in both its extremity and its mediocrity. Brutality and abuse, the smell of blood. Murder. The sweat of teen love, the tears of the end of it. If this building could talk, it should tell the tales of a million lives and all they have entailed. It should cross the boundary between the walls and the real world. Walls. Tall, red, strong. Bricks. It should reel the memories of every person who knew this place in, every person who’s been in a photo hung on a wall here, every person who’s tiny little footsteps smacked the floorboards, every person who watched their child grow here, every last night of laughter with a loved one here, every first sleepover here. But no one asks. Everyone has their own memories of this house. Their own personal movie. Why would they want to hear someone else’s version of something they consider themselves to have ownership of? A sacrilege to the self, infringing on their perceived identity. But when asked this building would speak words of enchantment, mystery, horror, pain. Words of love and sacrifice. First kisses and last breaths. It would show you history. It would show you life.

Wind scythed my body as I walked by. I stopped on the pavement and stared up at the brown, wooden door. The carport was still overgrown with moss. I smiled to myself, remembering how I always said I’d go up and clean it off, but never did. Freezing air swirled around the house as it breathed it’s cold, heavy sigh, a cloud of air surrounding it. I still like to believe it remembers me. That it remembers that wall I ran my finger down, breaking off chunks of clay. Just as I steeled myself to walk up to the side of the house, the door opened. A family with a child, running his tiny fingers down those same walls I did, dodging the cracks my blistered hands had made. I moved on slowly. Thinking about how I had been that same child, blissfully unaware of life, forging bonds and memories with a building most forget about. As I walked, I glanced back at the house. I longed to hear those sweet-nothings the shadows whispered in those walls each and every day. No one hears and no one asks. It would be a sound like sweet, symphonic music. Symphonic is right. I wish you could tell me of the tales inside your walls.

King Ecgbert School, Sheffield

A welcoming and highly successful school where students are valued as individuals. A ‘System Leading School’ and part of the Mercia Learning Trust, King Ecgbert School is rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

SZILARD COBAN

John Willmott School, Birmingham

If this building could talk it would be a story of secrets, wisdom, mortality, and sorrow. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the resting place of Pharaoh Khufu is one of the oldest buildings in our history. It has witnessed the rise and fall of the sun countless times. Just think of all the stories we would hear. It has witnessed the coming of great empires and civilizations, such as Egypt itself, the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire. Such a sizable building witnessed and survived it all. The rich and powerful Egyptians which have domesticated the lands, introducing the mysterious hieroglyphs, the road systems of the Roman Empire, the medical professionalism of the ottomans introducing forceps and scalpels, and the industrialization of the British Empire. Countless amounts of rules and countless amounts of inventions has this great building witnessed, however, there’s much more. Think of religions. The Great Pyramid of Giza also served a religious purpose, as preparation of its masters for the afterlife under the ancient Egyptian Gods like Seth. It has witnessed the rise and spread of Christianity and Islam, bringing numerous customs of Christ and Allah to its people. Such wisdom lies behind this building, which it has learned over the centuries.

And have you ever wondered about the secrets of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Just think of all the possible treasures and mysteries that it could be hiding. The many riches of the ancient Egyptians, just waiting to be uncovered, the numerous rooms and corridors snaking in the dark and cold. Although some may find this more scary than interesting and worth learning from, I think the pyramid and its riches would give us chances to learn a lot more about our history and its civilizations. Its secrets keep teaching us more and more to this day as our archeologists dig deeper. Just think of all the secrets it could teach us if it could talk.

Standing with its brothers, the Pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, they show also us the mortality of the Pharaus of the past. With The Great Pyramid of Giza being the largest, it teaches us of no matter our wealth and power, we still cannot avoid the inevitable. As we take to move further into our lives and our future, this is something we all must learn to live to the fullest and not waste our time on this Earth, relating to us on a personal and professional level. However, their unity also shows us the importance of connection and friendship, which build one another, helping us grow through support and inspiration, just as the Great Pyramid of Giza has inspired the Pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure to be built. And if this building could talk, this is one of the many ancient pearls of wisdom it would tell us about.

However, unfortunately, progress and peace is not the only thing that the Great Pyramid of Giza has witnessed. It could also talk to us about much pain and sorrow. Starting with the slavery of the Jewish population, which themselves have built with hard labor and determination, not only of males and females but also children before

escaping to the lands of Israel. Followed by the casualties and destructions of the Roman Wars, the Crusades, and the World Wars. Oh, how much blood and pain could it tell us about? So much beauty and progress lost in a few months or years, forcing slow healing and recovery. However, such pain also enriches its wisdom, teaching us the value of peace and freedom, reminding us of the past that we left behind and which we should avoid going forward to a better life.

However, like all things, not even the Great Pyramid of Giza will last forever. As the forces of centuries have worn its stones down, we are slowly running out of time to learn from it before it inevitably eventually becomes a thing of the past. Therefore, I think it is important for us all to listen to it and learn from it while we still can. And like the many different ways which I have talked about, yet again the Great Pyramid of Giza has the potential to link to our personal lives, as we may have the opportunity to listen to our parents and grandparent speak of their wisdom and lives.

But for now, still standing tall as a relic of the past and cultural identity of the Egyptian nation and its people, if the Pyramid of Giza could talk, it would teach us individuals and societies the values of peace, stability, unity, and mortality enriching us all and showing our generation direction forward for a better future with more lessons from stories worth remembering. So if this building could talk, let’s learn from it!

John Willmott School, Birmingham

We are a vibrant school community which empowers our students to become resilient and to fulfil their potential in all that they do both in school and beyond. Each and every day we strive to fulfil our school motto, ‘Potential into Reality’.

ELDAL ELINAM CUDJO

Learning Field International school, Akosombo Eastern Region, Co-op Academies Leeds

There were not many brick buildings in the town. The only known ones were the St. Michael Catholic Church building, the building of the church’s primary school, the building of the health centre of the town. The fourth would have been the one a few metres from the outskirts of the Dzolali township. Its walls stood naked carrying a wine-coloured roof on the head. The colour of the walls posed confusion to the few eyes that saw it as they did not know whether it was black, grey, brown or a combination of these.

It was a building with skeletal walls and from a distance, the bones of the bricks and the mortar bonds holding the bricks together in the walls could be seen.

Not so many cared about the building. It had been sitting sorrowfully on that piece of land for about five years and was now being guarded by tall grasses. The elephant and cane grasses had outgrown the view of the building. Only the roof of the building managed to peep at those passing on the main road. A small path led to the building. It was a U-shaped building, and on each wing were three rooms of the same size and on the base were also three rooms but of different sizes. Each room was filled with a network of cobwebs as if that was the headquarters of spiders.

Whenever anyone asked about the building, nobody seemed to know anything about it. Who was in charge? Whose responsibility was it? Who had answers to the questions some people had on their minds? Nobody seemed to know anything concerning the building. Sometimes, a few concerned youth would argue about it, but as usual, the arguments always ended only as arguments.

Meanwhile, in the government’s “Book of Progress”, the skeletal-wall building lived as a paramount queen. A beautiful building well painted and well furnished with desks. It had electricity and a computer laboratory filled with computers. It also had a library fully filled with books. It stood elegantly with an ultramodern toilet facility behind it. The toilet facility was spacious enough and convenient to cater for the needs of girls during their menstrual periods. All this beauty existed only in the government’s Book of Progress. That was how the elegant picture of the building sitting in the bush was portrayed. It was used as one of the successes achieved by the government and being used to campaign. It was a great sight in the book and many applauded the government for such a great project.

It was so painful to see such deceit flying around in places, receiving standing ovations, glory, and commendation.

If this building could talk, society would hear how the intended junior high school block had been abandoned for five years and how it now lived in the bush. If this building could talk, the world would hear that the money for the construction had been spent by

some individuals and that was why the building was now stuck. Meanwhile, junior high school students had to walk to the next town to attend school. Parents could not afford to endanger their children’s lives by allowing them to sit under the old, dilapidated structure called school. Whenever it rained, it meant there was no school for the junior high school students in Dzolali.

If this building could talk, the whole world would hear how the intended school block was now a multipurpose avenue for dubious acts. The world would hear that the building served as an inn for livestock, which decorated the classrooms with their faecal waste. The world would hear that the building was a brothel for some deviant teenagers and adults who scoured the ground with used condoms and packages of emergency contraceptives.

If this building could talk, the world would hear that the building that was supposed to be a cure for social vices had now become a haven for thieves and smokers. Every evening, the classrooms became chimneys, filled with clouds of smoke. If this building could talk, the world would hear that it had been abandoned and remained incomplete but had been projected beautifully complete in a book.

But since this building could not talk, how would the world ever know? Everyone had been concerned in only things that would bring them money. So was I the one going to say something? Who was I? Who would even listen? Did anyone care? What did I know? Who knew me? If this building could talk, the world would know the truth, but since it couldn’t Dzolali and the rest of the world continued to swim in the darkness of lies and innocent children continued to suffer.

Co-Op Academy Leeds

Co-op Academy Leeds is a welcoming and diverse community where we provide an ambitious and inspirational education that supports our young people to achieve exceptional outcomes.

TRISTON DALRYMPLE

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

Behind the bright blue gates was Ravenside, a small red brick building with misty windows and water stained grey paint. The purple doors open to white hallways and oak floors, but if this building could talk, the sound of children’s laughter would emanate through the old wrinkly walls. The shadow of children messing around would appear from the sun shining through the stained window as the blind is missing, the odd one out as all the other windows are partnered with a sleek dusty blind.

The subtle scratching of pigeons coming from the mouldy ceiling, the room was filled with subtle sounds, behind the brown desks were the rusting radiators releasing a deep hum, or the squeaky buzz coming from the lights, the lights had a few dangling wires who hung lonely in the empty room. The walls released no sounds, they were covered in posters that children once made and hung on the wall and the fact sheets to help students when they’re in need.

The building is quite small and only had space for a limited amount of students, the building is most likely filled with happy energy from the close bond of all the people who attended the school, the playful times students had whilst using the footballs or the quite whispers that took place in the halls and toilet or classrooms.

If this building could talk it would say it is happy with the experiences, it held and the joyful memories of students and teachers. This building is unappreciated and is full of special memories of everything that has ever taken place at this school, Timmy suddenly awoke in his science class and though of the strange dream he just had, and told his teacher what he thought of this building, and he appreciated it just a little bit more. It was all a dream…

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

ANAIS DAM-CAPEL

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden

If this building could talk, it would talk to neither you nor I, It would speak straight to our mournful souls, it would speak to the sky…

On the building’s inside is a world of its own, twisted, compact and busy. And this building can feel what’s going on within, so much that it makes it feel dizzy.

It’s that feeling that urges it to speak aloud, It speaks of dreams of moving away. It wishes to travel and explore the world But it’s stuck, tied forever, in one spot to decay.

If this building could talk, would it chuckle, would it sneer? Would it scream, would it question? would it whisper, would it sing? If this building could talk, would it choose to keep quiet, Or drool out its soul to us, lost and idling?

If this building can talk, it can see, it can smell, it can touch, it can hear, it can feel.

But if this building has senses, emotions, awareness, Then is it really a building or a living thing?

This building tells tales of the people who pass it, who stare at it, who enter it, who draw on its walls. This building tells stories to any who listen, of the world that it lives in The world where it’s grown.

When you looked through the windows straight into the building, Did you look past the people, did you squint till you saw… A small light inside of it, desperate to shine through A thin gleam of hope, longing to break through the walls.

When you looked past the curtains straight into the building, Did you listen so intriguingly, for the cry of galling despair, Did you hear past the drilling, the chatting, the laughing To the roots of the building, clawing it down to the ground, confined from air.

This building talks of rain, of sunshine and of snow, This building talks of storms and of friend and of foe. This building could never run, never hide, never call, But this building remains upright, and this building won’t fall.

Because this building stands, This building stands tall. This building towers and glares above all. This building has power, and it has a role Without this building, there’d be nothing at all.

This building is jealous of what it could be, the life it could have and the things it could see. But a building is not made to dream and to ponder This building has purpose and this makes me wonder:

If this building could talk, would it be a monument still? If it opened its heart to us, would life still be real? When one is content, another is crying, When one is so grateful, there’s still people dying. In this building’s inside is a world of its own, A world that it shares with us, a world where it’s grown.

As the sun rises and sets, this building stands firm, As leaves fall off trees, this building won’t squirm, As new life is made, this building won’t change, This building’s eternal and spits out its rage.

It hisses “if I were the tree across the street from me, I’d grow and die free, Oh if I were a tree, I’d let go of leaves, for flowers to sprout and to see. So soft pollen for the bee Who flies over my bliss street To bring joy back to me. But I’m a building so I plea, Give me back my esprit!”

This building’s chant is but fantasy and desire, Hidden deep inside it’s bricks, ready to catch fire,

This building can talk, it talks to neither you nor I, It speaks straight to our mournful souls, it speaks to the sky.

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden Roundwood Park is a school with a strong reputation as an innovative and exciting place in which to learn and to teach. It is a place where traditional values of smart appearance, excellent behaviour and acting with integrity mingle with modern learning and high academic standards.

VIOLET-MAY DAVEY

Harris Academy Battersea

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK, THEN NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE EVER HAPPENED...

It was midday when Detective Koda John arrived at Garrison Manor. The building looked horrendous, with its decaying structure and atmosphere of abandonment. There were no other houses in sight, only a vast field of forgotten land. One could not tell for how long the area was derelict, but what was certain was that something must have happened here. For it seemed too quiet for Koda. As he moved closer to the building, he noticed its features more clearly. The paint was slowly peeling, as if a spirit was removing its skin, revealing mixtures of decaying mould, the windows were no longer transparent, but instead covered with dust, signifying its ancient age, and covered in finger drawings of smiley faces and a phrase saying ‘Don’t come in’. Yet the most noticeable thing was that there was no door. This made the Detective curious so he walked in.

Cautiously, he looked around and saw the state of the interior. It looked relatively normal, as if someone had been cleaning it. There was even an unpacked suitcase underneath the couch; making it clear that no one has left. This then brought a huge question to Koda’s mind: ‘Where was the person that was living here?’ It seemed strange that there were no footsteps heard nor any person in sight as someone must be here to have called him. The only reason why Koda came to investigate this house was because he received an anonymous phone call claiming that someone was missing, and because of his job, he had to come and confirm whether this was true. But how could he if the

caller was not here? Koda decided to wait for a couple of minutes to see whether anyone would come in through the front entrance or come downstairs to him when he noticed a dumbwaiter at the end of the corridor. Curiosity got the better of him as though something told him to check the dumbwaiter. He walked towards it and went to open it. Once he lifted the door up, he froze in shock. Within the small compartment were five more suitcases, each with different names on them: ‘Carla J’, ‘David P’, ‘Owen S’, ‘Sophia Q’, and ‘Alpherine Z’. None of these names matched with the owner of the suitcase under the couch, ‘Mitchell R’. A realisation occurred from the Detective, this was not one person missing. This was a six missing case.

After staring for what felt like hours, Koda knew he had to get to the bottom of this. He knew that he had to go into the dumbwaiter and allow it to take him to where the other people must have gone. This is exactly what he did, after removing the contents of the dumbwaiter, he squeezed himself in, closed the door and grabbed the rope. As he was pulling, he noticed a sudden decrease in temperature. Without stopping, he continued to pull until he reached the next floor. He took a deep breath and once again, opened the door. Struggling for a moment, he managed to get out and observed his surroundings. It was like he was in an entirely different house; the halls were not clean. All that was in sight was a dark stone door and a telephone table, with what seemed to be a fully functioning telephone on top. Koda went over to pick up the receiver, only to realise that the telephone itself was dead as there was no sound coming out of it. So, he checked the lead by following it until it should connect to a plug. However, whilst looking, he could see that it had been cut, causing him to jump back in fear. It dawned on him that if the telephone was dead, how did he receive a call from this location and who, or what, made the call.

Before he could react any further, the coldness amplified and created an icy trail, leading him to the stone door, which was now open wide. He thought he heard a soft whisper, “help us......we are in here....”. Without thinking, he ran through the open door, only to stop dead in his tracks. In the centre of the room was a completely cracked mirror, smeared with fresh blood. Koda hurriedly turned to leave but realised that he was locked in. He did not hear the door shut behind him. Suddenly, as he pulled on the door handle, Koda could see a shadow moving in the corner of his eye. When he turned back around, everything went black ... He was gone....

If this Building Could Talk, then it could have warned Koda not to come there and maybe he would not have become, the house’s seventh victim.

Developing our young people both academically and personally is at the heart of everything we do. They should leave us not only having fulfilled their personal best in terms of academic results, but also equipped with our core values of knowledge, integrity and resilience to thrive in all stages of their lives.

Harris Academy Battersea

SABRINA DEVJI St Albans Girls School

If this building could talk, lives would be saved. Leaders would rise. Empires would fall. If buildings could talk.

I have sat in many buildings, felt its presence with me as I worked, played, spoke, laughed, cried. It never reciprocated. The walls never spoke with me, played with me, cried with me. It simply watched. Felt what I was feeling. Suffered in silence. I wonder what those walls would have told me, what hid behind their façade that remained pent up inside of them. What they couldn’t tell me. If this building could talk.

Buildings possess more than bricks and mortar, their concrete made not from cement, but wounds that were forced to heal. Scarring that made them stronger. I think about the walls in New York on September 11th 2001, the ringing they could hear as the clock struck 8.45am. The panic that set in when they realised they couldn’t move, escape. Couldn’t save themselves. How they must have stared as workers ran from all the violence, whilst all these walls could do was succumb to the bruising. These walls suffered more than most, yet they were demolished before they could tell their story. If this building could talk.

I think about June 17th 1972, in the offices of the White House occupied by America’s former President, Nixon. What would those walls tell me, tell us about the course of history as we know it? The lies, the secrets, the hushed conversations that this building could have shed light on. If it weren’t for the unfortunate change in luck those burglars experienced through being caught, history may have been just that; history. Then, would Nixon have resigned from office? Would America still be standing today? If only this building could have said something to save that country. To stand up to the tyrants controlling the system. To stand up for themself. If this building could talk.

One interpretation of what a wall really is defines it as something that imprisons something in a restricted place. We think of walls as a confine, a place that allows us no freedom. But at least we can say this. How we can in good conscience say this, I cannot fathom, when it is these walls, these buildings that are imprisoned, confined. They cannot speak, they cannot fight. Imagine being forced to be silent. Imagine having no mouth, only eyes and ears, senses that permit you to listen and see, as though life inside this building is one long movie and you are its only viewer. That is what a building does every second of every minute of every day; it stands tall, strong for others, protects them, confines them from the ferocity of the outside world, all whilst having only themselves for comfort, having only their own hand to hold. That is what it means to have no liberty, no love. If this building could talk.

But maybe it can. Maybe we just don’t know how to recognise it. Perhaps buildings do speak to us, through their profound architecture, each structural detail so intricate that its message is merely a whisper, something that disappears with the wind. If we

learn to listen instead of speak, we can hear a building utter words like a form of ritual, trying to get us to hear them. Trying to break free from their manacles in order to share their stories.

Tales of woe and heartache, but also of bliss and wonder, marvel and euphoria. A building that stood in solitude witnessing Britain’s history unfold before its eyes; the crowning of a new monarch, the elation that accompanied the termination of treacherous wars, the eruption that stormed the nation following a staggering World Cup win. Walls that watched in wonder as Bob Geldof and Midge Ure entranced the world with a concert that flourished into more than a mere set-list of songs, but an epiphany that preached harmony with our neighbours, structures that glowed with pride as the faint yet striking edges of boots, heels and sneakers grazed the surface of a fresh crimson carpet on a cold November night in 2006, a frantic rush descending on it as a colossal number of lights blared incandescently from every corner of Leicester Square whilst a pertinent new image was forged into society’s minds, that of Daniel Craig’s Bond depiction on the opening night of premiering, an illustration marking the beginning of a new era, the shaping of dreams emerging from the utopia we call imagination.

But Craig is no longer Bond, Elizabeth no longer reigns, and so a new era has dawned. The making of each moment of history has now been carefully traced into leather-bound journals, waiting to be found in each era that precedes them. After all, this building cannot talk, can it?

St Albans Girls School

We are proud of our school and rightly so. Not only do we achieve excellent public examination results at all levels, but we have a thriving community with a superb extracurricular programme and a wealth of activities to engage all age groups.

ENA EASON

King Ecgbert School, Sheffield

If this building could talk, its haunted voice would murmur the secrets of its past: the indiscretions of humans, the flaws, and the damage all performed by the creatures who claim to be righteous and powerful. Now they crawl for salvation at the hands of anyone who will help- such a pitiful sight. The Church of the Nine Ghosts is a place of worship left to rot as the world plummets into a new age where spiritual aid is forgotten, and technological advancement takes its place. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, as we scramble for the solutions to the crises we have caused through our own inadequacies. With the world we call our home crumbling beneath us, its inhabitants are left to fend for themselves as those in power allow them to suffer and struggle to survive. If this building could talk, each protector of the church, each ghost, would tell a different story each interlinking into a story without a happy ending. Pride, a monster taking the form of an emotion, hiding within us all. On the outside it is a performance, deceiving the naïve that their actions are pure and are for the benefit of the masses. In reality, an egotistical ploy to capitalise on the treasures of power. If this building could talk it would deceive, every word calculated, every word a piece of the plot- twisting into an incoherent riddle. Prejudice is a never-ending circle of ignorance: silencing and blinding people. A mere layer within the societal hierarchy, banishing diversity to the outskirts, leaving a monotonous civilisation that only sees in black and white, never able to see the beauty in difference. If this building could talk, it would not be heard, the wisdom and tales of the building falling on deaf ears. If this building could talk, its candour would be heard too late. Manipulation. The puppeteer pulls the strings skilfully to bend the puppet against its will. Swayed by the sweet song of ideals, the promise of a utopia and a life of luxury- all things we want but are too afraid to desire. Hidden deep beneath the façade, the desire for all we want lingers, festering. If this building could talk, would the puppet be so easily deceived, would their opinion be so readily influenced. If this building could talk, would the puppeteer have control? Corruption clings to the walls of this building- it is unavoidable. The archaic souls inhabiting the church grasping to an outdated and biased hierarchy that empowers the unworthy and the morally dubious. With entitlement that excludes them from their own ruling and a system that bends to their shortcomings and empowers their ‘strengths’. Infecting the walls with a black mould that grows and defiles the significance of the power and weakens the trust and control: eventually dwindling to nothing. If this building could talk would trust be meaningless, would it have an essence of importance, not a pleasantry exchanged in an attempt to comfort? Control is easily lost but not so easily gained- or so we would like to believe. Collapsing, left to become the desolate building before us, is an example of what a loss of control looks like: what we cannot control, we leave hidden far away from prying eyes to decay. Taking what is wanted by any means necessary, no care for what

mess is left, and caring not for what we need but what we desire is rudimentary nature. If this building could talk, perhaps control would not be clung to like a loose threadimpatiently waiting for it to snap and leaving chaos in its wake. Greed, an emotion most often denied due to its distasteful nature, is an unstoppable impulse that drives us to crave more. Never fully satisfied with what we have, a constant yearning to have more, be more. Greed cannot be denied only repressed-but for how long? If this building could talk, would there be more of an appreciation for what we have before it is lost? Egotism, a disease of an incomparable magnitude. Infecting more and more, dragging the little humanity left to the depths, in its place ignorance and carelessness. If this building could talk would there be accountability for insolence and cruelness, or would we all ignore it in hopes it will disappear? If this building could talk, would we be capable of neglecting the obvious problems of the place, we call home, would we ignore the fatal flaws we all harbour? If this building could talk, would we depend upon the puppeteers of the world? If this building could talk, the demise of the human race would not be inevitable. But if this building could talk, would we listen?

If this building could talk, its tales of salvation would conceal, it would deceive. The final ghost is the building itself, and if it could talk it would lie.

King Ecgbert School, Sheffield

A welcoming and highly successful school where students are valued as individuals. A ‘System Leading School’ and part of the Mercia Learning Trust, King Ecgbert School is rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

ACACIA-ANGEL EKA-ETEH

Theale Green School

If this building could talk the world would be loud. The rows of buildings overcrowding the streets would pollute the air with sound, making life insufferable to anyone and everyone. Would humans finally be quiet if buildings could talk? Finally realising that some things are supposed to be kept unheard. We live in a society divided heavily between wealth, and a lot of us take their housing arrangements for granted. Realising the blighted areas would be the loudest as the building has been so damaged and hurt. Maybe buildings would react the same way as humans do, I mean it’s bound to happen, anything with a voice will speak its opinion whether needed or not. Some people live in settlements that are densely packed together, could you imagine how loud it would be if the buildings could talk? These places are like trying to fill a balloon with way too much helium, it rises and rises while looking fine and then it pops. Silence. Silence is all that is needed in an overbearing world. Somewhere to lay your head and rethink what has happened up to this day. Humans have interesting brains but buildings have no brains, I wonder what things they would say, the meaning behind their incomprehensible words. The lack of self would take a toll on the language and the way that they would speak. In a world with over one hundred million buildings sometimes it feels as if there are billions, even trillions. They are so overpowering and grand in size that compared to any human it would seem like a larger quantity. There are no desolate roads left in this world, no roads left for the animals or the ones that roamed before us. No place to pinpoint home or belonging in a city full of towering buildings and infrastructure in every single direction. If buildings could talk the world would be a dangerous place, after all, most buildings are inhabited by humans and their animals. The strong words leaving the buildings illogical thoughts are sure to upset humans. After all, we do have brains and we do have feelings and feelings can be shattered so easily with just a few worthless words. Words that hurt others are words that were never meant to be said; words that were never supposed to be heard. How unfair would it be to go home after a long depressing day and hear your own home, the only place you can be at peace with yourself call you worthless or nothing that would be so rejecting? In my eyes, if buildings could talk they would reflect however they were treated as it’s an instinct to react when something is done to you but this would cause so many insolvable problems in the world today. The people who have it the easiest, the ones with massive amounts of money, the beings with power, and the happy ones will be spoken kindly to by their well-treated houses. On the other hand, the notso-fortunate ones, the people in poverty, the elderly, the disabled, and the people with mental illnesses will struggle even more as they won’t be able to keep their houses in half as good condition. You can only give so much before you can give no more. Sometimes your most isn’t enough in this world and that won’t ever change.

Theale Green School

We are very proud to be part of the Activate Learning Education Trust group of schools (ALET) and colleges, and on our journey to achieve the ALET vision of “transforming lives through learning”.

St Albans Girls School

If this building could talk, it would choose to be silent. Of course, many would notice no change. This building has always been silent.

But when it is silent by choice, the quiet has a weight. You feel it gently nudging you, and pushing down on your shoulders. Everywhere you turn, where the silence was once a comfort, was once a gift, now is an unbelievable pressure. The building isn’t static anymore. It is waiting.

As a person inside this house, you feel guilty. You feel bad, relaxing while the building is waiting to tell you what it wants to say. How do you approach it? What can you ask?

Nothing. So you sit inside, restless, in uncomfortable silence.

No longer is watching tv a break from the stress. Always, the building is waiting in menacing silence.

You never fully noticed the building before. Now, there is this uneasy silence that echoes within the walls and calls out to you, drawing you in. You see every brick, feel every piece of dust. Your heart feels like it is slowly being stolen from your chest. When this building was just a building, you were at peace. Now it is waiting, watching, judging, and all you can feel is sorry. For what? You don’t know.

You wish that the building could be free of whatever torturous thoughts are haunting it, and you. You wish the building could release the weight it is holding. Whatever thoughts it is holding in, they are poison. They are rotting its soul, leaving it empty, silent, and alone. And, somehow, they are dragging you down too.

After living in this tense quiet for far too long, you stop outside the building on your way home. Each of the windows omits a golden light. Inside, you can see your family. Upstairs, your sister, scrolling on her phone. Downstairs, your brother, headphones over his ears, frantically ducking and diving in a world of monsters and death, deep within a television screen. One of your parents is in the kitchen window, manically cooking, scrubbing, grimacing. The study window announces the other, yelling through a computer.

Take a step back. You stop seeing the people inside. The shapes, the windows, catch your eye. They almost make a face. Yet, with the thick curtains hung across the corners, its eyes look downturned, and evoke a feeling of tears being pushed back.

Slowly, you approach the door. Terror crawls up from your toes. It uses every nerve as a foothold, and plays your heart like a drum.

You open the front door. And the hall welcomes you, as it always has, and always will, with its pleasantly fragranced candles and warm glow. Still, you can’t relax.

As you blink, you hold your eyes closed, and take a long, deep breath. When you open your eyes, you close them again immediately. Delicately, you open them again. Then close. Then you are blinking like an idiot - there is no difference between your eyes being closed and open.

Anna Foster

The world has gone black.

It’s got to be in your head; if it was a power cut or an actual problem, you would hear the infuriated cries of your family.

A light goes on. When you eventually open your eyes, you see a candle. It appears to be miles away, down a long, thin corridor. Yet, somehow, it sucks the fear from your soul and leaves you content.

You are expecting the voice at your shoulder, and it shocks you anyway. If you turned around, there would be no one there.

And so, at last, the building talks.

The voice is a long hug. It’s deep and confident and calm, and is coming from over your shoulder. However, it also feels as if it is within your mind, and speaking from your soul.

The building talks. It is mythical and insane, and, like everyone else you have ever met, it begins with, “Hello.” And you are at home.

“Your life has been within these walls. Your first steps, your first fall. Your most recent tears, your anger, your joy. I have seen you and your family grow up.

“And now I see you fall apart.”

“You sit in your separate rooms. You live in your separate screens, in your own, private worlds. You don’t know anything about each other anymore. I know more than you all, and I am nothing.”

You want to tell the building – ‘You’re not nothing! You are everything. You are everywhere!’ But that is beside the point.

You think of the silence that the building had imposed on you. You realise that, perhaps, that wasn’t the building at all. You can project your thoughts onto anything.

The hall reappears, the lights turn back on. Maybe, the silence came from within.

St Albans Girls School

We are proud of our school and rightly so. Not only do we achieve excellent public examination results at all levels, but we have a thriving community with a superb extracurricular programme and a wealth of activities to engage all age groups.

FARAH FREEMAN

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

Pieces. Everything as far as the eye can see lies in pieces, tatters, ruins. The sky is grey. The ground is grey. The people - both dead and alive - are grey. Sounds of shrieking and screaming surround me. I feel some slight force in my side and avert my eyes to see a teenage boy kicking my walls over and over, silently crying, clutching a bundle of mismatched clothes in his arm. Tears stream down his face, yet he does not cry out. He sees everything and nothing. Events that he never could have imagined playing out in his worst nightmares race through his mind and cloud his thoughts. He swallows harshly and throws down the bundle of clothes and items for his one-yearold sister. He starts to punch and kick my walls harder, until his knuckles are bloody, and he finally sinks down in a heap on the ground, head in hands, crying loudly for his parents, even though he knows they are gone. He saw it himself. I saw their deaths too, we all did - all the buildings on our street, Kaya Sokak. Ironic, isn’t it? ‘Kaya’ meaning rock… that is all we see now - rock and rubble and the ruined hopes and aspirations of the inhabitants of Osmaniye. It was rock that buried the boy’s parents. I watched as they were pulled from the rubble, their faces ashen and chalky, a sort of whiteish-grey. Their eyes were closed, but at least they looked at peace.

They left behind a teenage son and his little sister. Little Banu is still being suckled and her elder brother doesn’t know what he can do for her. He imagines his mother’s voice, “You are all she has now. Be strong for Banu. Be strong for us.” This repeats in his head like a sad song on loop. His only comfort is that at least he will remember the warmth and love of his mother and the compassion of his goodhearted father. He sighs, a sigh full of grief and frustration, yet there is a new sheen of determination in his eyes. I watch with sympathy as the boy picks himself up and repackages Banu’s belongings - her old teether, milk bottle, picture books with no words… anything salvageable from the destruction. He hastily brushes the tears from his eyes and walks away, back to his little sister who has been waiting for him in one of the few apartments still standing.

Young women holding their babies and old men hobbling on cracked sticks climb my stairs two at a time, in a messy stream of frantic, broken people. Glancing at my surroundings, I notice the many heaps of rubble and broken bits of dusty past belongings at my feet. Once forgotten items - the pair of school shoes that were too big when bought and have never been worn, toys from a previous generation - have lain waiting to be used, shoved in a dark corner of a cupboard in the forgotten nook of a house. They now rise to the top of the piles of wreckage, yet still no one glances in their direction. Material goods no longer mean anything to the people who now wail whilst clinging onto each other, pleading with anything and everything that they may find their loved ones underneath the mountains of worthless ruins.

I was once home to families, friends, new couples, couples who have grown old together, newborn babies… My rooms were once filled with the sounds of laughing and

chatting, the occasional clanking of a mother’s utensils against pots containing thick, flavoursome soups of potato and carrots, the happy shrieks of babies as their fathers bounced them and tickled under their chins. The shrieks still echo, but they are no longer shrieks of joy.

The thick, oppressing, mixed smell of dust, death and desperation hangs in the air. Lost in my thoughts, day slips into night and all around me is dark. Osmaniye does not sleep however. The citizens shuffle back and forth between piles of debris and there is the occasional exclamation of news whilst searching, more often unwelcome than gratifying.

Then, as I am growing tired and my walls begin to droop further, I hear a stream of soft but steady whispers. I turn to see a homeless old man crouching under my doorframe. He whispers prayers, his fingers silently brushing against each other. I hear him bless all of the lives taken by the earthquake and plead for more citizens to be found alive rather than dead. As he prays, a woman shouts in positive disbelief at finding her baby daughter alive. The old man continues to pray.

I look down at the people from a long distance above their heads, and as I continue to listen to the whispered prayers, there’s something I want to tell the people of Osmaniye.

“Don’t give up yet. There’s still hope.”

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

GHINWA GREENWOOD

Eltham Hill School

If this building could talk, it would talk about its famous name, about the way that if you even mention its door number, a hushed whisper spreads across the room that you are sat in. It would talk about the fact that it is known in many different countries, and how many different people would have sat in it, and would have laughed, chatted, and cried in it. It would boast about all the famous people who have lived in it, and it would laugh at other buildings because it would know its importance in this world and especially its importance in this country.

If this building could talk, it would talk about its large, black, unwelcoming door. It would talk about how every time you push the door even slightly open a loud creek quickly escapes from it and reaches your ears. It would talk about the dainty yet dominating lion head that is placed perfectly in the middle of the door. It would talk about the elegant yet intimidating metal archway that dooms over the door way, and that wards away any unwanted people. It would talk about the grand rooms that fill up the building, and how every room has a deeply rich coloured sofa sat in it. It would talk about the many photographs of so-called important people that decorate the otherwise plain walls. It would talk about the light yellow colour that is painted on every single wall and how when the florescent lights are turned on, they somehow make a perfectly good colour look ugly. It would talk about a place which is supposed to be called home, a place where people eat, sleep and wake up in, a place where families gather in the evening and depart in the morning but everyone who has lived in this building would say that this place is the furthest thing from a home.

If this building could talk, it would talk about a story. A story about a young girl, a girl who had hopes and dreams in a world full of hardship. It would talk about a girl who struggled to find true connections and hoped to find true friendships.

This is the story the building would say...

I heard the door unlock, a heavy bang forced my building to shake, then loud irritated footsteps proceeded to follow through to the kitchen. My heart light up, I knew she was home, my one true friend. She always sat on the big, dark green, velvety sofa, she always snuggled up with a fluffy blanket and a book, and before she would read, she would tell me about her day; of course, I could never answer because I am just a building, a building who has no eyes, ears or heart, but she always believed I was there peacefully listening. As always that day was no different. She came and sat down on the beautiful sofa, and she said the same as she usually did. She told me about her day, she loved to read. For her and for many readings is an escape from the harsh reality of this cruel world, reading is an opportunity to fall into a different universe and fall in love with the

characters, romance and a story of a different life. Maybe a happier life. So, she sat down and she told me how she rushed to the library at lunch to read her favorite book. She told me about how she did well on the test she had that day, but not once did she tell me about her friend who rushed to the library after her so they could read together neither did she tell me about the friend who hugged her and said well done for doing good on that test, and the reason why was because she had no friends. It was sad really. How lonely she was. I understood though, I always made sure I understood. For 6 months she came home and she said almost the same exact thing every time; but of course, the book changed (many times in fact) and so did the test or activity she did at school. I didn’t find anything peculiar as she had been doing this exact same routine since she was 5.

Until, one day she came home and she didn’t just tell me about the book she read she told me about the new friend she had made.

If this building could talk it would talk about a girl, a girl who had a lot bigger smile on her face and a lot more laughter in her throat. It would talk about a girl who had another girl to play with and fill up some miserable walls with laughter. The miserable walls of 10 downing street.

Eltham Hill School

We are a diverse and vibrant community and visitors say they can feel the creativity and warmth in our school simply from stepping inside the building. Creativity is at the heart of our innovative KS3 curriculum and we provide many varied opportunities for our students to discover and develop their talents.

MICHAEL GRZEGORCZYK

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

IF A CABIN`S WALLS COULD TALK

Acabin in the woods, old and rustic if the walls could talk what would they say. They’d talk of the murders that happened there since the eighteen hundredths to modern day. There is a old decayed taxidermy deer head on a wall. This deer was the property of Walter Davis was Taxidermist born and raised in London by a rich family. On 1815 at the age of 19 the graduated from university whit a degree in taxidermy on the day of graduation he ask one of his friends come to the cabin

In the woods when the fiend got to the cabin Walter snuck up behind him and knocked him out and processed to taxidermy him the police arrested him but one day later his dad bailed him out and Walter Davis never answered for his crimes.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

ZUEHB HUSSAIN

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys

TO MYSELF, FROM MYSELF

If this building could talk, what stories would it tell? It’s a question I often ask myself as I walk by the seaside front. There, my childhood home still stands. I hear the building speak to me; however, I seldom listen to what it has to say. Today, I made a conscious decision to confront the memories that have been haunting me for so long. The house was where I last left it, containing lessons from childhood to my future. Sometimes I stop and listen. When I do, it is often narrated in my own voice and yet in these moments I close my mind. However, despite that, on this day, I made my way forward, creeping onwards with tentative trepidation.

Walking by the beach, the gentle lapping of water against the shore filled me with a sense of nostalgia. The tell-tale smells of life reminded me of a time that once was, and I couldn’t help but feel a wave of nausea overcome me. My mind tracked back in doubt. I ignored it. I stood and continued to walk to the house feeling like a stranger in the sand.

The weather-stained wood door greeted me, presiding in its place ever so faithfully, as a boundary between ignorant boyhood and the disillusioned actuality of life. The brass knob, once towering over me, now seems small in my grasp, the metal distorted by the nippy cold. The door whispers sweet words of seduction, coaxing me in. I deliberate for a moment before stepping across the wood-scratched floor. Soon I found myself pacing through the building that had become the bleeding breathing memory of a boy not so far in the distant past. Its four walls muttering at my return. I can’t help but feel like I am intruding on a memory.

In the lounge, a grandfather clock lay forgotten - an empty carcass of what it once was. It used to stand in the centre of the house beaming in its golden light, a trophy of opulence; basking in its haughty magnificence. Now, it stands as a warning to others, a reminder of fleeting time, and that nothing lasts forever.

Ignoring caution, I brushed past the wooden clock, making my way to the stairs. Each floorboard groaned as I cautiously tiptoed up the steps, as if they were protesting my return, denying me entry.

Arriving, at the top, I clung to the banister and leapt across the floor bounding from carpet to tile, the floor giving way to moss. It was an infestation, a thrombus of shaggy blue and green all converging on the entrance of my old room. I edge closer to the doorway. Rainwater, tapping me, urging me not to enter. I lifted my head, and sure enough, there was a hole, reaching further into the ceiling than I could see. I ignored the warning signs and jerked open the unhinged door as it fell clunkily onto the ground. A resonating thud echoed across the walls before the oncoming flood of memories washed me away into a place where I could no longer hold back exasperated cries and the soft pitter-patter of tears.

If these walls could speak, whose stories would they reveal?

I shrug off the thought, fixated I had spent the last hour daydreaming. Indulged in fantasies of people who did not exist, whose stories play only in my mind, whose sufferings and trivial jubilances belonged solely to me.

I trek further into the heart of the home. Every step, a visible grievance, upon my face. I reach the room where restless anticipation had led me. My hand distraught, my mind drunk- high on the feeling of everything and yet unable to do anything. Progressively, I begin to peer into an unsuspecting dingy room. Then, silence. A sudden wrenching in my gut causes my legs to give way, and I crumble to the ground. My stomach somersaulted between feelings of repugnance and desperation. As my body betrayed me, my eyes fogged with the forthcomings of my mind and through the haze, I made clear, the room of my once father, dishevelled but still bearing the marks of his semblance.

To this day I hear his voice “I’m dying Tommy, I’ve got cancer” he said. It was so casual I suppose it’s the reason I remember it so clearly. He had said it through smoky puffs of his cigarette as the wind wafted the smoke into his face. It was just me and him and the beach. Miserable clouds hung overhead, and I remember standing there deathly quiet.

Suddenly, I am jolted back to reality, snapping out of my daze for the second time that day. Cursing myself, I questioned why I even bothered. Barrelling out the front door, I left just as I came- as a stranger in the sand.

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys

AGSB is a selective grammar school providing an outstanding academic education for boys between the ages of 11 and 18. Expectations and aspirations are high and our exam results at GCSE and A level consistently place us amongst the top performing schools in the country.

AIDEN JAGDEO

Chestnut Grove Academy

If this building could talk, any human comprehension could collapse as attention would be magnetised to what anyone would call madness. At this moment, we think of such a possibility to be preposterous, yet if it could, there would be a planet-wide pause: the birth of new enlightenment. Chaotic conversation would erupt as our nature would drive us to try and seek fresh enlightenment, new understanding as to what this phenomenon could mean. Why was a building, an inanimate history holder, suddenly able to speak from a conscious, able to commune with us?

If this building could talk, livelihoods could be shattered. Professional historians could discover information they never would have otherwise, trivial matters could be resolved, the perfect scandal could potentially be unravelled. It would be as if truth was the reward for cheating, for unfairness. The act of speech would be how this building would be remembered, how it spoke out the truth. On the contrary, it could feed us lies and we would probably be none the wiser, still starstruck by the building speaking at all. Lives would be destroyed either way, whether the building says something that ruins people, or the movements it makes when speaking crushes those left clinging onto life in the depths of its jaws. Who could make it out unscathed as words attempt to scar them?

If this building could talk, humanity could go extinct. The very proposition that a building talking is possible offers the question of what else it can do. There are many ways it could talk: in whispers, in bellows, in shrieks as this reality would be inescapable. While there is the possibility that it doesn’t intend to destroy, it would still be an insurmountable shrike, decimating life itself. Of course, the only reason we would find this to be an unwelcome development is the whiplash from the introduction of the new dominant species. As humans, while we can imagine it to be a possibility, how much of us would expect it to materialise in our lifetime, let alone act rationally about it?

If this building could talk, would that mean they also feel emotion? A house could discuss how they felt when they waved goodbye to a family as a new one entered. Supermarkets and warehouses, fattened by their tendency to store various items, could feel exhausted from those who are shaming them for what we built them to be, how their reputation could be tainted by the corporation that owns them. Medical centres could be traumatised by the burden of their purpose, to either save lives or watch them wither away into a world beyond our own. When would this major development be diminished?

If this building could talk, each and every other building would come under scrutiny from the now heightened caution from the public. Anytime someone sets foot into a building, they fear for their lives, wondering if delving into the jaws of the behemoth would mean diving to their doom. A macabre chill would strike their souls as they always looked over their shoulder, wondering if they had any sense of privacy at their workplace, on a supposedly relaxing trip, even in their own home. The whispers and creaks they

hear at night could actually be the building’s internal contemplation as it grinds its jaws. Where would ever be safe for certain following this revelation?

If this building could talk, what else could it do to us that we’d be oblivious to? If humanity’s fabrications evolved in some indescribable way, what would they say? For now our theories remain fragments of our imaginations, yet the fantastical nature of our planet could always find a new way to flabbergast us.

Chestnut Grove Academy

When students join Chestnut Grove Academy, they are welcomed into a high achieving, forward thinking, caring community. A tradition of academic rigour combined with creativity characterises our ethos and we feel passionately that this is a winning combination.

IBRAHIM JALLOH

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

The house was very old. It grew from the ground, like a primitive seed of the hills born to protrude. The old house was golden brick, circulated with golden light; it was as mesmerising as a sonorous voice describing heaven. Each brick for as far back as time goes, had a texture that welcomed strong summers and weak winters with such dignity.

However, the house’s days were long gone. It was broken down with despair, the antique clock said the time to a house that was no longer living. The light bulbs stared miserably down form where it was tragically hung. Upon the damp musky walls were the photographs of children, which were clearly much loved. The children gave true love and joy to the house like no other; they were the heart and soul which brought the house alive.

A long time ago, the house had breathed and lived. Joyful children had run through the lushes green grass in the garden. Delicious feasts took place in the elegant kitchen; with sunlight dazzling through the crystal clear windows. The wind used to come over to the house and play tag with the silky green velvet curtains, and colourful flowers. Numerous decades past, the pulsation of heart weaker and weaker until there were no beats left.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

ROSIE JARDINE

Theale Green School

Just imagine you wake up to find yourself lost in the woods, it’s foggy so you stumble and all that is to be seen from miles away is this old, abandoned, creepy building. You get the shivers as you walk towards it and wonder why you were bought here and when? If you went inside you would hear the creaking of the floorboard, screams that seem to just get louder as you get further inside this building. You can feel the gusts of wind coming in from the cold and gloomy night sky.

Deciding to spend a night here could be a bad idea, you can hear voices, which you may think was your own. The screams – you can’t tell if they’re real or not it is almost like coming straight from a horror movie. But who could’ve lived here? A actor, kidnapper, author, photographer etc maybe even a royal family, whatever the case it is like a maze and you could get lost so easily infact you may never get out, you cold try but most rooms look similar. Therefore, you won’t know if you are actually going the right way or not.

Constantly there is flickering lights, blood dripping, bugs, taps going. It is like the building has almost come to life but with a twist as it is filled with all these tragic events that have taken place for example flickering and flashing lights, blood dripping from your face, taps running, screaming and random chatting and giggles, a broken mirror all of this in just a night.

The giggling sounds like a little girl, almost like a little sibling, but why are they here? Is this a trap or some sick joke? No it’s really them and this is all real. Is it just them by themselves or are there more people trapped here too or is this just to scare us.

You never know so it would be best to stay cautious in case any supernatural activities take place. I wouldn’t want to stay here another second incase something bad happens.

Eventually, many weeks had passed by and all the noises had finally dimmed down, well that was until one late night all the power went out and it was raining heavily, lights flickering with lots of whispering after ten seconds the power turns on and your family pops out to surprise you, and everyone is having fun, joking around and messing about, suddenly there is a knock at the door so thinking nothing of it mum opens the door to see her youngest daughter or at least what looked like her. She leads mum into another room and attacks her until she’s unconscious while doing an evil laugh but then locks the door to ensure no one finds the mum unconscious so they won’t be suspicious.

After hours of fun, everyone notices the building starting to shake and giving out secret messages like help. Shortly after this everybody starts to look for mum however she is nowhere to be seen and most of the doors are locked or needed a certain key, but how could we be sure the keys were when we barely knew the place.

Once again, the whole building began to shake but this time we were given two messages one being a little girl and evil, this showed us that the little girl could not be

trusted and we would need to be careful incase she was watching our every move and plotting just what she should do next to stop us or even just to slow us down and get in the way like a distraction of some sort.

All these clues led us to this other room, lights were flashing and once again you could hear the giggles that were quiet at one moment then, loud the next. We saw the words ‘get out’ all over the walls but knew we couldn’t leave mum, the little girl pops up again but this time leads us inside this room alone begging us to help… We refused so she screamed loud enough for glass to shatter, the lights came on again and like before the girl disappeared into thin air. Is she a ghost here to haunt us? Is she a spirit left here from her family who’s feeling lonely? I guess we will never know however all that matter is getting out safely, just then as we approach the door of that room we hear the sound of windows locking and doors slamming. Well that’s it we have been trapped here like the girl must have been exploring more the talking building tells clues to help escape this scary and weird place forever or does it trap us again like before.

Theale Green School

We are very proud to be part of the Activate Learning Education Trust group of schools (ALET) and colleges, and on our journey to achieve the ALET vision of “transforming lives through learning”.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, perhaps it would first choose not to. Perhaps it would prefer to stay silent and reminisce, on the youthful memories built in this home, within these walls, that made me who I am. The peaceful yet rousing events that offered me a sense of purpose. The beautiful events that shaped me, both the happy and the sad. My childhood. When the world of my imagination was boundless. When i was just a mind, and not a body. When I would roam these hallways of light and invitation, with dreams I once thought I could pursue, like becoming an ice-cream van driver. Or when I turned 6 years old and thought I knew everything that there was to life. When in fact, I knew nothing. Because I was only 6 years old, who had just learned how to ride a bike in the driveway and believed from that, that I could do anything.

This building, it remembers it all.

If this building could talk, perhaps it would choose to sing instead.

To sing the gentle melodies it hears every day. In the springtime, where the flutter of butterflies, the lightness of the clouds, and the sweet sound of birdsong can be heard from outside my window, causing me to wake from my slumber in the early hours. And I wake with a pleasant sentiment as the birds sing to me in sweet meanings, in perfect harmony. A soft delicate tune- so mellifluous, so pure. And I’m drawn in, in awe.

Or perhaps it would choose to sing the songs it heard me sing as a child, when the only song I only really knew how to sing was twinkle twinkle little star, and I would get shy when people asked me to sing it. And when I was alone, I would pretend I was some sort of Disney princess. And I would twirl around my little bedroom, in my little puffy dress, with my little hopes and dreams. And my only worry would be to make sure my pigtails would stay in their place.

Or maybe this building would choose to sing the little lullabies it hears, the ones I use to lull myself to sleep in restlessness. At 4am, when my head cannot stop speaking to me or telling me off, and my voice is the only thing that can be heard at that hour. And my sister hears me from the other room and tells to stop, because she’s tired. But I carry on.

This building, it has heard it all.

If this building could talk, perhaps it would slightly struggle, because it wouldn’t know what to say. How much to say, and how to say it, because it’s seen too much. It would struggle, like how I do sometimes, when I sob in silence in the walls of this very building. Times where I have been saddened by the slightest, that I cannot help but fall to the floor, in hopelessness. When I am told how to feel, yet told I’m allowed to feel. And I cry in these walls, by these windows, on these floors. And this building feels it. I

cry so hard that my mascara stains my rug, and no matter what I do, it doesn’t seem to come off.

And if this building could talk, perhaps it finally would.

Perhaps it would comfort me, Because I miss the girl who grew up in this building, and childhood is ephemeral, which is displeasing to me yet not in my control. And I feel as if I have lost who I once was, and this loss feels similar to the loss I once felt, after an infant dream, where I cared for a baby and woke up in its absence.

“I don’t know who I am anymore”. I cry, in the hopes of being heard.

“Isn’t loss such a beautiful thing?”, it says. Yet I am so upset that I walk out of this building, because I cannot bear to stay any longer.

This building has felt it all.

Perhaps it would finally have the strength to speak up and share its feelings, like I was once afraid to. Perhaps it would tell me come back because I struggle entirely in its absence. That it’s proud of me, and that the girl I’ve blossomed into is the girl I was meant to become. It would tell me that to be hurt by what is small, to wet my eyes at life itself, is a gift. And that if I were to leave, I would never hear the sweet sound of birdsong outside it’s window every again. And that I am still the same little girl who, once upon a time, roamed its hallways and sang within it.

There is beauty within this building. And if there is beauty within this building, there is beauty in me. This building is my home. For I am it, and it is me.

And one day this building will belong to someone else. And when my time comes to leave and enter a new one It would not talk, but instead whisper

A gentle, final farewell.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, its windows would sing, a harmonious sound of joy. Allowing the sunlight to leak down its windowsills; warming up the ambience of the building. Allowing the sunlight to lay against the faces of downhearted students, successfully rejuvenating their smiles. The windows slight creak left open, summoning the breeze to enter. The calling breeze that escapes into the atmosphere, running down the endless stairwell, circulating its rooms. Each and every room uniquely designed for each class of students. Snug and welcoming. Like a second home for its inhabitants. Rooms with enough room for friendly debates and talking pens that fill the air with the scratching yet calming sound of productivity. Space with enough space for thinking out loud and air waiting to be filled with laughter. From the first moment you walk into the building and the homely warmth engulfs you. Thawing your stiffened body from the unforgiving cold outside. Sheathing you in that mellow, calm feeling that compels you to feel grateful that you are there in that moment. Away from the bitter cold. And for some this building is a means to escape the difficulty at home and complexity of life. A second home.

If this building could talk, I would have very long conversations with it. Sometimes pointless, sometimes tireless or perhaps the deep, daunting type of conversations. The ones where you accidentally drench your words in emotion, and they spill everywhere. Uncontrollably. Me and this building have things in common. We both seem fairly plain and cold on the exterior. I know what people think when they see those yellow, green, blue streaks that run along the geometric ribbon windows of this school. I most definitely know what people think when they look at me. A hollow interior. Hence why I feel so compelled to prove them wrong. Within those cold walls of glass is an inviting community radiating warmth. This warmth flows through every corner and under every slight creak. Swirling around every student casting spells of glee upon them. Enchanting their day with happiness. But do you see that from the outside? You see the small entrance but are blind to the inviting space within. You see this building as any other building. Only built to serve the purpose of filling that empty space down the high street. For me you think the same, that I am another random addition to the crowd. I am far more than just that. And so, like the building I have a small opening because beyond that is an endless interior. I am cautious in choosing those who I reveal myself to. Like this building I refuse to let just anyone in, and I will continue to protect the warmth within. So, if this building could talk, we would connect most instantaneously. We would go on rambling about how tiring it is to conserve and protect the precious that we hold within. We would find comfort in sharing all that we have in common. How we both experience judgment because of our seemingly boring façade. I know if this building could talk, it would sound like a nurturing mother. Giving its inhabitants the self-esteem to become their own building, their own fortress. Protecting its troubled students that suffer in

silence and giving them a safe space to grow away from their exasperating, suffocating homes; away from those buildings that fail to shield them. In response I would lean against its cold walls letting out a sigh of relief and spout on about how similar we are. “We have so much in common don’t we” It’s tough protecting that which is dear to us. It’s extremely arduous protecting my feelings. But I still do it. I must do it. In a similar way, this building must protect its students. If we failed to do so, it would demean our purpose. Then this school would become any old building. A random tedious-looking construction, true to its cold-looking exterior. And I? If I failed to safeguard my feelings, I would simply lose myself.

And so, if this building could talk, I would have very long conversations with it.

The building would tell me that I am so much more than a mere ‘anybody’. In response, I would tell this school that it is far more than just ‘any old building’.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

JESSICA LEE

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden

If this building could talk, one thing’s for certain: it would not have pleasant things to say. Instead it would scold us. Rebuke us. It would moan, groan, complain. Partially under its own weight, but also under the stress of knowing what the humans are doing to it. To the planet. To themselves. Why? That is a simple answer.

If this building could talk, one thing’s for certain: it would not be happy. Each morning it would wake up feeling as miserable as the last; each morning it would wake up wishing it hadn’t at all, and it could just sleep through it all. Maye it would have been better if it didn’t have to see anything at all, if it was put into an eternal coma. The pain of knowing what lies ahead is too much to contain. Like a fire burning in the pit of its stomach, a storm brewing in the furnace inside of it, desperate to escape the brick walls imprisoning it. The building had kept quiet all this time. Still don’t get why? I’ll give you some hints.

In the UK, the average person emits 10 tonnes of CO2 per year. The average person drives 10,000 - 15,000 miles per year. 42 million trees are cut down per day. That’s 15 billion per year. It is predicted that the amount of plastic in the ocean will double in 15 years, and plastic will out-number fish. 30,000 species are extinct due to poaching, and despite having this knowledge, what happens? In many countries thousands of endangered animals are killed every day. That’s not to mention overfishing, paper waster, food waste overpopulation, meat consumption and various other problems we are facing.

Do you get it now? Has it taken you this long? The building knows what we’ve done. It has witnessed it all. It has given up telling us - there’s no use. What will we do about it? It’s laughing at us now. It laughs and laughs and laughs, a ringing in my ears. It mocks us, and points fingers at us. And the most embarrassing part, it rightly laughs. It’s been sitting back this whole time, a menacing smile growing on its face. It towers over everyone who walks by, knowing what lies ahead. It knows our future. It knows. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps it is best if we learn on our own, and face the consequences. Perhaps we are already doing as much as we can to help. Perhaps it’s not too late. Is there any hope at all?

But the building thinks otherwise.

It would reach inside of us, and shake us. Shake us until we wake up. We brought this upon ourselves, and despite having the knowledge about it, what do we do? Nothing. The building would shout, roar, howl, longing for someone to hear, but to no avail. The burning itch for someone to listen grows ever stronger. It aches and throbs, a constant internal pain, but nothing would happen. We deserve this. It’s our fault.

‘What will it take for them to do something?’ It would cry. But its voice would be lost in the crowds. A distant memory. More like an echo. ‘They need to change. Change to energy efficient appliances. Use smart thermostats. Use eco friendly cleaning products and biodegradable household supplies’ It would scream, more desperate this time. But what is the point? No one will listen. It’s just a building.

With each day, month, year that goes by, the humans grow older and more frail, but not the building, except maybe the occasional spot of rust or dirt. But either way, it continues to watch the humans. Watch us. Watch us make our stupid mistakes that will cost us our lives. With each step someone takes up the towering staircase of the building, it is just a constant reminder that there is nothing the building can do about it. After all, humans are the bosses. What they say goes. They can trample all over the building. Mess up the freshly vacuumed carpet, just for it to be hoovered again, and again and again.

If this building could talk, it wouldn’t say much. Perhaps mutter a few words that would get blown away by the wind. Lost in the labyrinth of towers and skyscrapers. Maybe someone would notice, but it’s unlikely. Even if they did, the words would flow in one ear and out of the other, they would be meaningless, pointless, ineffectual. Even if everyone heard, what would they change? They would carry on with their lives, as if they had heard nothing.

If this building could talk, it would refuse. Not utter a word. It wouldn’t dare. It’s too late now. There’s no turning back.

Roundwood Park School, Harpenden

Roundwood Park is a school with a strong reputation as an innovative and exciting place in which to learn and to teach. It is a place where traditional values of smart appearance, excellent behaviour and acting with integrity mingle with modern learning and high academic standards.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk it might make flowery speeches, recite indulgent poems about its self-worth, or perhaps say nothing at all – but who really cares. Because it doesn’t matter what this building would say, if there was nobody there to listen. As humans, we are set apart from other species by the gift of speech, the capacity to communicate, the glowing promise of progress. But in a world dominated by humans, the thing that is missing is conversation. We stand next to each other on a crowded train, avoiding eye contact at all costs; queue behind one another in the supermarket, eager to be done with the awkward small talk, and we look at our phone in a desperate attempt to avoid that person walking towards us in the street that used to be called ‘friend’. So, why bother wondering if this building could talk, when we don’t even bother to listen to what we can already hear?

If this building could talk, it might tell you about my Uncle Pat. I don’t see him much anymore – I haven’t for a long time. My aunt says that’s a good thing, that its good for him to be closed off in his own little world, that its good for him to stay lost. He signed my birthday card last year, and for a second I thought maybe he was reaching out, that one word a cry into the darkness hoping for an answer. But I didn’t say anything, my aunt said it was pointless. She’d given up a long time ago, so it really wasn’t worth me trying. “Besides,” she’d say, “He’ll be gone soon anyway.” Sometimes I wonder, if I saw him in the street tomorrow, would I even recognise him?

I’m not sure this building would mention Alfie. He’s been gone for a while now. Its my own fault really, but I don’t like thinking that – I mean, who wants to remember that they’re the reason that their best friend doesn’t pick up the phone. I saw it coming from a mile off, the empty lulls in conversation, eyes darting towards the clock, the hiss of a held breath escaping as my dad pulled up in the driveway. Oh, and obviously the Thing. I say I miss him, but I still remember how my face would light up at the prospect of leaving his tired house, the relief of seeing his tattered curtains waving me off as I sped away. Maybe if we’d spoken about it, the Thing that happened, then it wouldn’t have been so goddamn awkward. Now we can’t even say hi. I mutter to myself “some bonds just aren’t built to last.” Alfie’s a stranger, just a hazy memory from a different time.

Last week, my dad told me my cats had moved on to a better place – apparently, he’d given them to charity. I didn’t think much of them when they were here, but as soon as they were gone, I found my hands tracing the dent in the sofa that used to be theirs. I can see my sister misses them too, but something stops me reaching out to her. A word would be great, a hug would be enough. This building probably doesn’t know enough about me to tell you that though.

I wonder how many people have stood where I stand now, racing down these flights of stairs. I wonder how many lives this building has heard. Rows upon rows of faces,

unknowingly narrating their story to the one thing that can’t move and can’t turn away and can’t help but hear. Their conversations are lost to these four walls, when really, they could’ve been given to you or me. If only we’d listen, instead of waiting for our turn to talk, maybe we’d all know just a little more. Maybe we’d know enough to relate to one another, to stop bearing our lives alone. Maybe we’d be able to have the hard conversations, without judgement or fear. Maybe our leaders would finally understand that indifference isn’t enough. Maybe we’d be able to grow, together, instead of settling apart. So, if this building could talk, I hope it would tell you to stop, to hear the world, to live in it as it is right now, just for a moment.

To breathe.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

HAMZAH MALJI

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, she would be screaming to be saved, quaking in fear by her pilotis.

As her scaffolding is pierced into and her cladding violently ripped from her frail, worn-out and weathered body, her screams wailed into the dead surroundings.

“No don’t tear me apart, I’ve got so much left to live for,” the building thought in her mind, wanting to speak but was muted by her inability to do so.

You see, she and her sisters were born as triplets to be create an estate inspired by the work of Le Corbusier, who aimed to house millions in his 20th century view of a contemporary town. Left on their own, abandoned by her parents at a young age, they became untidy and unmaintained. Without any money, they were not able to stop their estate from falling into deprivation, leaving them with a strong sense of heartbreak, despair and feeling out of place throughout their entire lives. Being called an ‘eye sore,’ to being compared to a ‘dump’ and worst of all, a ‘ghetto.’ Daily, their hearts broke even more seeing crime and anti-social behaviour rampant in the streets below. Witnessing every single piece of litter thrown on the floor cracked their concrete beams even more. They prayed desperately for a new beginning, and all they needed to make that happen is support from their community.

Why should developers be allowed to demolish entire residential buildings and homes just to place a new one on top if it? We need to acknowledge the unsustainability of this, both in terms of the need for housing in an area, and our carbon footprint. Every ton of carbon that goes into producing the buildings concrete, laying its foundations, and creating its walls is forever stored in that material. When we break this down, it creates a waste of perfect material, energy and carbon, leaving behind useless rubble taking up space in landfill. We should instead break the cycle of demolishing buildings and instead refurbish and redevelop buildings when they become old and outdated, and crafting them to serve a longer purpose, extending its life. Another reason we should focus on redeveloping buildings, is to ensure we meet the local housing needs in areas of need. In the past decade, London has been experiencing a double effect. The city has become increasingly overcrowded whilst private renting has rapidly been increasing; creating a ticking time bomb, threatening to create an even larger housing crisis.

We can start to tackle this by beginning to see the beauty in old and forgotten buildings. From large residential blocks to smaller terraced houses. It is not wrong in any way to make something better from a building on its last knees, all we need is a spark of vision. Councils and communities must come together to collaborate a modern and creative take on run-down buildings. Where it could create larger housing capacity, more jobs, greater local economic growth and overall creating a stronger community. This is all part of being economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable, which are all

key building blocks for increasing social mobility in less affluent areas and generating affordable housing.

It would be foolish to ignore the potential of a deprived building and its area, lets instead start focusing on what we can do with and invest into what we already have instead of producing more, which will reduce urban sprawl and ensure London keeps its unique feel and not just a high concentration of empty, unused and expensive buildings.

Back to the story of the old, she indeed does have a lot to live for, instead lets rewind time and think of an alternate timeline where the developers chose to act much differently.

The construction worker was still removing parts of the building like her cladding, and her windows, even breaking down her walls. But, she slowly started to be fitted with new windows, and new outer ceramics. The smell of paint and adhesive filled the building, however after all the saw dust settled down, she was reborn. This era will be filled with the laughter of new families and even more memories imprinted on its inner concrete walls. The feeling of tranquillity and warmth spread all around. The tower block emanated a sense of safety and hope for everyone in the area, uplifting the estate out of their long lasting rut.

Buildings will experience pain too, we should lead with optimism and with a higher regard for what a building could be and not simply pointing out what its not.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

REBECCA MANSFORD

Presdales School,Ware, Herts

If the walls of the Ten Bells Pub could talk they would speak of six women taken too soon, of the dark shadow that stalked its dimly lit smokey rooms, hunting for his victims.

I watched from the walls, through the layers of smoke and grime as the woman drank glass after glass of mother’s ruin, utterly unaware of the malicious figure who watched her from the corner, a dark cloak and hat obscured his features, even I couldn’t tell who he was. I watched his close observation of the woman, her every movement, laugh and jest, the way the candle light caught her high, gaunt cheekbones; the shimmer of grey in her deep brown hair, earned from a life of toil and hardships, working the corners of whitechapel. His eyes never left her, like a hawk with a mouse, blissfully unaware of its own entrapment. I didn’t recognise the man, he wasn’t a regular within my walls - however I feared he soon could be one, hunting for his prey - I know not why this man drew my attention out of all the patriots within my establishment. But there was something distasteful about him. Something off and upsetting, like the very hounds of hell resided behind his cool grey eyes. He made my very walls pulse with feelings of distress and uneasiness.

I knew what he wanted. His deep primitive need for blood. And pain. And suffering. I knew this girl was his target, and she stood no chance of escaping him. But while she was here, she was safe, my people would keep her from harm - from him, my very walls would ensure her survival if only for the next few minutes. I wanted to wrap her up in my bricks and mortar and keep her from this devil. But I couldn’t. I could only watch, trapped within these walls. Watch as she laughed about earning some more dosh. Watch as the black dog slinked after her, his cloven hooves barely hidden under his frock coat. I wanted to bar my doors and hold her here, enclosed within my safe walls. To save her from this devil.

She left, threadbare shoes hitting the pavement and slowly getting fainter.

The newspapers lying, forgotten on the sicky tables, read of a grizzly murder, that poor girl, mutilated and violated, on the cold London pavement. Alone. Save for that Monster. The room seemed colder and emptier, everyone shaken by the tragedy that had occurred mere metres away from my swinging doors. A chill sat in the seat she took just hours before, I hated myself for not being able to save her - To wrap her up and protect her - from him. The man no person knew, but my walls knew. I watched him. I saw him. His dark eyes and even darker soul.

Nine days passed, patrons were shaken and afraid. Yet a sense of safety and calm came from within my walls, another young girl sat in her chair drinking more gin, that

liquid of femininity and vulnerability, the ruin of so many of my visitors. But he was worse. He was so much worse, the sulking darkness in the corner, the watching shadow. He watched her. As he watched the girl just nine days ago, I knew what he would do. I knew the pain he would cause her, and the people outside my walls. The panic and fear. There was nothing I could do, only watch, silently within my prison of stone and bricks, silently screaming. I screamed and cried for those women to stay, stay within my safe walls, only until sunrise, until they would be safe once again to walk the streets of whitechapel. I screamed as my walls heard of the end of these poor women, over and over again. Until the creature had satisfied his thirst for blood and violence, until he had put my guests through enough torment. They only wanted to laugh and drink and live. To find peace and love. To keep on living for just one day. He took that away from them, he robbed them of their lives. That dark shadow who still remains a mystery, to all but me. My walls saw him, my walls know him, my walls know of the justice these women will never have, and his infamy. But most importantly I know these women.

Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

I know how they laughed and loved and hoped and dreamed within my walls, my walls know how they are more important than the cruel demon who took them from the world. I will scream for their remembrance and justice until they tear me down and I become nothing more than a forgotten pile of rubble. But until then.

I will speak.

Presdales School, Ware, Herts

We are a 11-18 non-selective girls school, with boys welcomed in to the Sixth Form. Presdales School is one of nine designated Lead Language Hub schools in England. We work with the National Centre for Excellence at York University, and with other Hertfordshire schools to enhance and improve opportunities for students in Modern Foreign Languages.

Eltham Hill School

NEWSHAM PARK HOSPITAL - ‘IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK.’

If this building could talk, it would ask why the visitors come and they don’t fix it. Why do they leave it crumbling and about to fall? Why not repurpose it? Yet this hospital believes that if it is fixed it would forget all its past and its ghosts would forget it. So it would like to keep its peeling walls and its old beds, thank you very much.

If this building could talk, it would whisper to the ghosts, after all, only they have witnessed what this abandoned orphanage has. It would gossip with the little girls who died in World War One. Look at those shoes. What has this world evolved into? What has happened?

It would want to retell all its stories, the good and the bad. Tell the people who come and stare at its rooms that not everyone who was in them was insane. There were orphans who came before the patients. Kind and sweet orphans, who were fun to watch. They followed rules most of the time but like kids always do, they acted out and those times were some of the best Newsham Park Hospital had seen. If this building could talk, it would cheer on the children running away from the nurses and nuns. It would tell the hundreds of children about the first……the first kid that ever stepped a foot into the building. The kid would run fingers over the building’s walls and help repair it. He would welcome visitors and show the second child in with open arms.

During the world wars, there were hundreds of children on these grounds, all without either a mother or a father lost at sea or with a father dead on the decks and a mother who stayed in the orphanage with their child. The kids were scared and had every right to be. The building itself was scared too, scared of getting bombed and never being rebuilt, scared of being bombed and being so far in ruins that it would be impossible for its ghosts to recognise it, scared of getting bombed because then where would the children go? What if they got injured too?

After World War Two all the children left and were replaced by patients with mental illnesses. They were just as interesting as the children but not as kind.

Not all of the patients were mad either, just misunderstood. And the ones that came after, the ones that came from the mental asylum, sure they might have been mentally disturbed but that made them even more interesting. What did the building have to complain about? Those years gave it tales to entertain the newer ghosts with. And, it got one point six million pounds to accommodate the patients.

If this building could talk, it would whisper to the ghosts, after all only they have witnessed what this abandoned orphanage has. It would gossip once again with the little girls who died in World War One. Look at those shoes. What has this world evolved into? What has happened?

If this building could talk it would help the grey, opaque ghosts scare the visitors, or fresh meat as the ghosts call them, who had come to capture the spirits in photos.

Go on, give those humans a fright, go on quick before they leave! If this building could talk, it would encourage the ghosts to scare its visitors. Pop up in one of their photos, yes that’s right, brush past them. Make them shiver! I can make the noises.

If this building could talk, it would chatter in voices quiet enough that the visitors could not figure out what it was saying but loud enough that they could hear that the voices were not coming from anyone with a red beating heart. Scare them just enough to hurry their footsteps so that they can get out faster. Look at them go! So easily spooked.

If this building could talk, it would tell the stories of those who stayed there, under its roof, but it would also keep the secrets they whispered to its walls.

Eltham Hill School

We are a diverse and vibrant community and visitors say they can feel the creativity and warmth in our school simply from stepping inside the building. Creativity is at the heart of our innovative KS3 curriculum and we provide many varied opportunities for our students to discover and develop their talents.

ARLYSSA-MARIE MCKENZIE

The Charter School North Dulwich

If this building could talk, it would tell you about the thousands of people that pass through it every year. Each different in their own way, and each changing dramatically throughout their time there. Entering scared of the possible future, and leaving ready to face the wider world with anything it decides to throw at them. People from all walks of life, joining together, creating memories to keep forever in this building that gives promises of success. This building would talk about all the progress and good grades, all the highest ranks and accomplishments, all those that have successful careers and education continuing beyond this building.

If this building could talk it would tell you about the specific time of the day that laughter erupts throughout the building, when the latest gossip is being shared over food and when the best friendships are being built that last a lifetime. This building would talk about the unanimous groans and anxiety that take place when a test is mentioned followed by the rigid silence of concentration as everyone tries their best. It would tell you about the praise that others receive when they’ve done something that appeases the crowd despite the high probability of being chastised.

But if this building could talk it would also tell you how even when you’re having a bad day, there’s always someone or something to make you smile.

If this building could talk it really wouldn’t tell you that nothing is exactly as it seems.

If this building could talk it wouldn’t tell you about all the prejudice and hate and evil that seeps from within this building. This building wouldn’t talk about how some get treated without basic human decency and are then told there’s nothing that can be done. It wouldn’t talk about how there’s one rule for some and another for others, because no one dares to say anything about it, and even if they did it would be labeled as “inappropriate”. If this building could talk it wouldn’t tell you about how even if you try your best, your best may never be enough. It wouldn’t tell you how this building that’s supposed to help and build really breaks and cracks a handful of those that go through it.

If this building could talk, it wouldn’t tell you about the struggle and how those same promises of success are soon empty and become threats that haunt you in all parts of this building.

If this building could talk it would tell you about how everyone has a say in the decisions being made, or at least that’s how they want it to look.

If this building could talk it wouldn’t tell you how all the people in this building have a weight on them, a deadly deathly weight ready to drop from the growing pressure at any second. A pressure that’ll surely shatter them whether they show it or not. It

wouldn’t tell you that the people who claim to have power really have none. While the ones who claim to have none really have more than they think. It wouldn’t tell you that this same power has the ability to change this building for both good and bad, it just depends how they would use it.

If this building could talk it would tell you about how it desires serendipity, in this life-altering building that claims control over all who enter it.

If this building could talk it would tell you that it wishes and hopes for a time where everyone is treated equally and that this building soon becomes a place not of fear but instead one where people are happy and have hope of success for all instead of just for some. A place where people have the freedom and ability to achieve that success and the joys that come with it. Instead of being neglected by others in this building who act faultless to the failures within.

If this building could talk it would happily tell you about the magical musical mementoes that flood the halls and the floors, the echoes of joy that dissipate around the building and fill it to the brim with light.

If this building could talk it would repent for the wrong doings of others and make new promises that value each individual that passes through the building with the aspiration of a better future.

If only this building could talk.

The Charter School North Dulwich

The Charter School North Dulwich has been congratulated for being one of the top 100 non-selective state-funded schools in England. We have also won a ‘Pupil Premium Award’ for being one of the most improved schools in the country for our disadvantaged pupils’ attainments and value-added progress.

NAJIB MOHAMED

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

Since its completion in 2010 is a building as toll as like a qudhac tree in the tower the bank is like auditing firms have headquarters here inside this building in addition to that describe 1 is also a very tourist area this building is often frequented by many locals and tourists around the building it is better to go the weekends essentially it is a shopping mall that house a Bach of high end stores you can buy a shoos there and the price is less £50 higher Also at night it looks like a Christmas tree it has a big window square like a eyes The building even has a courtyard too big like airport The surrounding vegetation is very beautiful and perfect for lounging or taking pictures or selfies with the trees You can also easily order a drink by calling the 52nd It has a long and safe place where you can see the city from above as if you were on a plane.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

SAMIRA MUMINOVA

Denefield School, Reading

If this building could talk it would tell about the horrible things it’s been through. The agony of standing here,tall and looming, being stared upon in discomfort. It would ramble on and on about its dream to be live on stage singing with its mesmerising voice.

If this building could talk it would vent about the awful things people have said

“It’s so tall I’m scared it’s going to fall!”

“That’s so scary! It just looms over you!”

The pain it feels when people yell how scary it is when it just wants to be held and loved like the people down below. It wants to feel warmth and feel safe not cold and scared. It wants to feel pride and joy not shame and sadness. It wants to feel new and fresh again, not old and shattered. It longs for new windows and a fresh coat of paint, it dreams of having people look upon it and gaze,in awe at its marvelling beauty .It’s windows were broken and its paint was peeling,there was nothing new about it .If this building could talk it would say how long it’s been stood as still as a statue for,the dirt beneath it slowly disintegrating,the bugs slowly rotting. The animals that wander down the street glancing at it,making its mark. The birds that glide down and make a cosy home. How it wishes it could also be snuggled up like that in a cosy little nest curled up in a tight ball and drifting off to sleep dreaming sweet dreams. If this building could talk it would drivel about how much it wants to escape the city and move to the countryside. Live in a nice little cottage where nobody would be able to find it. Where it wouldn’t have to worry about large,beady-eyed men marching towards buildings next to it and crumbling them down to the ground

“TIMBER”

They would shout unknowingly. They had no clue what they had done,how many lives they had took. Its fallen brothers and sisters now crushed into dust. If it ran far away it wouldn’t have to be so anxious anymore .If this building could talk it would say

“Help me please I want to go away”

But would the people help it? It was not so sure. However it knew someone out there somewhere would be willing to give a hand,maybe even pay for a ticket to France or Spain,its life would never be the same. If this building could talk it wouldn’t, it would

prefer to sing instead. To drown out all the screams and voices in its head, to blow away petals on a flower and make the animals go away. Its voice would bellow down below to say hi or hello and people would say it back and maybe even give a quick wave. If this building could talk all the things it could say. The things it experienced and everything it wants to do. It wants to make the city better with more buildings as tall as the sky! The scary men would also be sent far far away from arm’s reach where no more buildings would ever have to see what it saw, nobody would have to relive it and no-one would have to be traumatised. If this building could talk, the people would hear how much trouble and damage they’ve caused it. The amount of bricks that have tumbled down alongside the wrecked glass. If this building could talk it would say how wonderful life used to be. How people danced among its now desolate corridors,how they were served with the finest delicacy instead of dust,how instead of rats elegantly dressed men and women walked across the deep red velvet carpet drinking the finest wine underneath the glowing chandelier and if they were ever told what this building looked like now they would answer with a scoff and a laugh while admiring the polished white walls with their satin arm length gloves.

If this building could talk it would laugh about how good people used to treat it, how they would scold people whoever tormented the building even if it was just accidentally spilling something across the walls.

If this building could talk, people would fall to their knees and cry begging for its forgiveness,knowing they were wrong,knowing the consequences of their actions would leave them with a lifetime of guilt. If this building could talk it would tell you how it was so excited to be put up,to no longer be a pile of rubble lying uselessly on the floor,to actually be something to do something with its materials.

If this building could talk would you listen?

Denefield School, Reading

Denefield school aims to ensure that all young people develop the knowledge and values to thrive in modern life. We call this ‘success for life’ – where students use their hard work and character values to achieve academic success and develop economic independence.

SIMONA MUSA

Newham sixth form college

That moment when the daylight fades and the sun is no longer visible, the orangegold stretches far and wide and the scent of freshly baked cookies filled my rooms with love. Far beyond the adjective of yesterday, in a time so eerily free in a land so fond in borrowed time; the sky split open to a storm as raindrops began to fall in rivulets down my windowpane.

The carpet was soaked, no one cared, dances opened the mornings and voices disturbed the neighbours.

Life flowed in my living rooms, like the first rays of timid sunlight and those three silhouettes were always the first to open my curtains.

The tea was always green, always cold but at every glance, my walls were always different. They changed at every movement, the fingers were smeared with paint and they moved quickly, fast. New drawings were on their way.

Three names were signed below the masterpieces, the blue cheeks affirmed the hard work and while they were scolded by their parents, the cat had finished the green tea waiting from the previous morning.

It was always these three who bought joy into the building, each one on their floor. I was lucky to have them.

While numerous sunrises revealed new days, the seasons changed slowly ruining the bricks that enveloped my soul. The air blew through my teeth gaps, electricity ran through heating coils and warmth was generated every day and night. Christmas songs were overplayed and chocolate was stolen by naughty hands from my cupboards.

Strange were the families that I kept within my walls and while they were frightening each other with horror stories on Christmas Eve as their tradition, I had to play my part and flick my lights to create the perfect atmosphere.

The memory of those panicked eyes running through my lanterns always made my old soul laugh. More wind was entering the house.

That night, snow was laying generously on my ceiling, something in the air had changed. Time had the habit of growing quickly, and so did the three musketeers.

Like all the stories I’ve heard from that immense library in that old lady’s house, all fairy tales have an ending and my ending came when my kitchens were no longer the heart of the families, my rooms were no longer fashion shows, my living rooms were no longer the magical fairy forest and my attic the secret hideout of the three troublemakers.

When everything transformed, the world was running, I stood at a distance immortal.

Suddenly the sentences on the walls were all in the past tense, drawings became calculations and three became one.

The families were distant, the air frozen, love had been stifled and the heat fogged. How much rain I have seen and how many times I have not been able to warm the third floor.

High above the forgotten below, the wind was still and cold, A hundred years went by since I last saw the three families, yet no matter how far they go, I was and always be their home.

I catch a glimpse of bittersweet nostalgia when new families come to watch me but I am scared to scream, surrounded by nosy unfamiliar eyes.

In one of the houses, the television volume is on low, on another, the coffee table is slightly off-centred and the Crayola markers are littered about.

The boxes were hatched, I have things I’m afraid of losing, absence occupies spaces. Everything is perfectly imperfect like a secret wrapped in translucent ribbons of smoke travelling through my stairs radiating unheard memories in the form of an incomprehensible song.

Souvenirs were stolen by the highest shelves, the fog advanced and the days were short and dreary.

I can still hear noises inside, the dusty floorboards crumbling with age and cracking an eerie tune beneath cautious footsteps while the dead branches were welcomed by the windows.

The feeling of the past bled into the present. There is no one else besides me.

On Christmas night while the snow was still layering on my roof, the howling wind danced in a crazed frenzy, I shivered.

Trying to ignore the minutes, that bland to hours at each glance, darkness was engulfing me.

I dreamt of being held but I knew I lost my grip.

The ground started moving, the branches were ripped out of the soil.

Birds were escaping and humans were screaming.

I fell on my knees, losing all I held so dear. Time is unfair.

My walls screamed in hope of being acknowledged but the wind whispers to me that I have disappeared. The smoke has dissipated and the people that have trusted me are gone, I became dust so I levelled myself with the horizon.

Maybe one day I will be built again, but for now, I no longer exist.

Newham Sixth Form College

NewVIc is a longstanding part of the Newham community. Situated in Plaistow, it is one of the largest sixth form colleges in London. We are committed to playing an active and vital role in the area’s enhancement and economy by promoting social mobility and preparing students for life in modern Britain.

REINHARD NYARKO-SAKYI

Trinity Catholic High School

FRIDAY 11TH SEPTEMBER 2065

In the world, we lived in phases. Throughout these so-called ‘phases’, were unexpected occurrences of natural disasters. No one knows the cause of these disasters and how long they will continue to last, but all we know is that they are deadly and dangerous to the population. Ever since the first disaster had struck, the world had slowly continued to crumble into dust. Everyone had continued to lose hope but I thought to myself this was the work of us humans. Anything we touched was destroyed and it was like we were furniture placed in a tiny room the more furniture we loaded the likelier that the room would collapse.

As I woke up to the screeching sound of my alarm and the soft subtle whimper of my baby brother, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers and feet stretch out seeking the warmth of the duvet but all I find is the rough canvas cover of the mattress. I prop myself up on one elbow and find my little brother Nasin curled up into a foetal ball. His face is as fresh as a raindrop and skin as soft as margarine and his hazel green eyes spark like a fearsome firework. My father was also once very handsome, but there was no spark in his eye.

Sitting at Nasin’s knees, guarding him is the world’s ugliest puppy. It has mousy skin and a wrinkled face and its dark grey eyes are the colour of a dead corpse. Nasin named him Smol because of his tiny, frail, figure. He despised me and even though the incident was years ago, I think he still remembers the time when I locked him in the wardrobe when he wouldn’t stop barking. When Nasin got home he recognised his small, beloved dog locked in the wardrobe, and he was furious. Ever since then, Mum had insisted, I take Smol on a walk every week to show that I was sorry.

It was a Saturday morning, I slid into my boots, put on a pair of trousers and fitted on a grey hoodie, and prepared myself for a short walk with Smol. As I made my way outside; the stale cold air surrounded me like an endless brick wall. I noticed the sunken faces of the coal miners returning back from their morning shifts. But today the black, grey streets were emptier than usual and the shutters of many broken-down houses were closed. Out of nowhere the leash which held Smol began to tug on my arm persistently, followed by groans and whimpers which became increasingly louder.

Suddenly, A weird tremble quivered beneath my feet. I recognized a faint growl in the distance. The trees which towered above me began to sway fiercely while the grass grazing my feet began to stir in an unusual pattern. Then came the silence, the repulsive, deadly silence which particularly stood out to me, this could mean only one thing –destruction. BOO-OOO-MM.

Covered in dust, I scrambled shaking over all the excess rubble. Everything was a blur and it was like I had seen a ghost. Pain surged through me with every movement that I had attempted to make and every house, tree, and object that was intact was turned to ruins. I had no strength to position myself on my feet and I slowly craned my neck to my left side. In the distance, I noticed a pool of blood beneath the rubble and the remnants of a dog’s paw which was brutally scattered across the floor. A sharp shock of realisation smacked me in the face and a tear threatened to spill down my eye.

“Smol” I cried out

There was no response.

After lying limp on the ground for some time, I regained my strength. I returned towards my house and the sight I saw silenced me. My house was just a pile of rubble and dust. It was like the earth was crying tears of sorrow and suffering. It loathed the humankind. Then I see her, a young girl near the remnants of a house but in front of her is a garden which is surprisingly untouched from the destruction of the earthquake.

I made my way slowly toward the garden and it was truly beautiful. It was filled with multi-coloured flowers which blossomed gloriously, roses, daffodils, daisies, and tulips. It brought a strong smile to my face knowing there was once again life on this earth.

“Is

this your garden?” I asked

She nodded her head and turned towards me. Her eyes were a hazel green and her soft smile enlightened me. A bluebird then perched itself on her shoulder singing a sweet, short lullaby that sounded like the voice of an angel. It graciously took off.

Freedom.

Trinity Catholic High School

We are an outstanding and well established 11-18 Catholic school which is blessed with a reputation for academic excellence, pastoral care, high standards, outstanding students, exceptional staff and the warmest of welcomes.

RAHUL PALANINATHAN

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys

There was once a beautiful garden. It had wise trees towering protectively over the dancing flowers, a trickling stream of water that gifted nourishment to all and delightful black birds that performed their grand orchestra of chirping and tweeting every morning. It was an oddly idyllic place where the burden of civilisation was eased and one could simply exist without the hammering of responsibility. The garden was the final preserve of timeless innocence and it was in humanity’s best interests to protect it.

But in typical fashion, they squandered it in the pursuit of ambition. The trees were flayed and tossed into trucks, the flowers were plucked and sold, the stream was buried under the destruction and the birds were hounded out of their home. And just like that, the dream was brutally ended by the slimy grasp of greed.

Where there was once a garden, there was now only rubble. A blank slate. A crossroads. And so, the endless hordes of humanity set out to construct a Building. Over the years, they placed brick upon monotonous brick, cemented with the blood of unwilling sacrifice, and slowly forged the growing skeleton of the Building. Humanity, forever squabbling, was now united in the quest for greatness, whatever the gory cost. Eventually, they succeeded and the Building was built. It was named Legacy.

The tip of Legacy touched the outskirts of heaven itself; his spectral frame possessed a brutal elegance that was both feared and worshipped. He was the tallest and the greatest. He was immortal. The humans showered Legacy with lavish ceremonies where all of the world’s opulence gathered in a materialistic ritual for the ages. It was undying devotion bordering on madness.

Legacy, still new to the world, was moulded by the chaos. He began to become arrogant. The Building believed that he wasn’t just great. He was a god. These humans were made to grovel before him and the world was carved for him to conquer. Legacy didn’t sway from this outrageous belief purely because he had the capacity to observe the truth. The other buildings were so pitiful in their cracked shells and puny stature; it was clear that the Building was superior and to disagree would be illogical. And so, Legacy spent months drunk on the ecstasy of hubris.

The ceremonies soon ended and the world returned to stasis. Over time, Legacy began to settle into a routine of ingesting a steady flow of pilgrims who wished to worship his perfection. This predictability wasn’t unpleasant but boredom seeped into Legacy. He longed for the unhinged exuberance of the ceremonies but all good things must end. And besides, this was still good. Legacy was still superior and that is what mattered.

The world heightened in dreariness and the Building grew ever melancholy. He feared that the ceremonies would never come again and he was abandoned. Despite his self-assurance, Legacy began to question the purpose for his existence. Was there a grand mission he must complete?

As the Legacy wrestled for an answer, he saw a dark group flying towards him in the mist. They were a family of black birds. Legacy did not know this. He was merely delighted by the presence of beings other than the humans. He excitedly beckoned the birds and they came closer. But all their eyes beheld an accusing glare of fury. They swooped with purpose and released a collective hail of white substances upon the building. The attack splattered upon it’s intended target and the birds cackled and screeched and flew away.

Legacy longed to cry. He felt dirtied by the stickiness upon his skin. He was now imperfect and that is the punishment he deserved. In a crashing cascade of logic, Legacy realised his existence was meaningless. He was useless. He was only worthy to be humiliated. Legacy was merely vanity’s parody of greatness. True greatness is practicality. Legacy was now hopelessly envious of the little buildings he had once ridiculed. They did something while he stood prettily. Doing nothing.

The Humans. They were the craftsmen of his miserable existence. Every day, the damnable pests crawled underneath his skin, nibbling away at his sanity and absorbing his essence. The niggling pain was unbearable! How could they be so cruel? How could they consign him to this decrepit existence? A bubbling fury took Legacy. He yearned for vengeance.

Biding his time, Legacy chose his time to strike. He did not simply speak. He screamed an unintelligible chant of mindless fury that shook the very foundations of the earth. Legacy forged an alliance with the primordial forces and danced a dance of destruction. The other buildings were razed. The birds died. Legacy himself toppled to his death. But it was all worth it. His tormentors were punished. Justice was met.

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys

AGSB is a selective grammar school providing an outstanding academic education for boys between the ages of 11 and 18. Expectations and aspirations are high and our exam results at GCSE and A level consistently place us amongst the top performing schools in the country.

CHARLIE PARKER

Presdales School,Ware, Herts

If this building could talk it would tell a story of injustice and unrest, of anguish and trepidation, of confusion and fear. It would tell the story of a trans person. This building is my house, my school, every building I’ve ever been in; each one has seen a tiny part of my life.

My house has taken the brunt of it and so it will tell most of my story. It has seen me grow, seen me through my oblivious, untainted childhood, ignorant of the very existence of transgender people, let alone the knowledge that I myself was one. This is the fault of everyone and no one. This building saw me grow up, without realising my life was being shaped by unspoken words and unbreached topics. Trans people were unintentionally and unmaliciously omitted from my life wherever I went. My parents never spoke about it and neither did my wider family, my primary school never thought to teach it to me, leaving me completely unable to understand myself, grasping at anything to explain why I felt different. This omission of trans people, this cisnormativity, its rife within our lives, ingrained within our society; no one is to blame but everyone is to blame, for we continue this narrative unthinkingly. I didn’t even know binary trans people existed until my early teens, let alone understand the wider gender spectrum and the concept of gender nonconformity.

Some people will claim being transgender is ‘attention-seeking’ or ‘dangerous’, but this building would tell a different story. It has seen my private, unwitnessed experiences of my life as a trans person- from my confused google searches of genders I might be, to dysphoria-induced breakdowns- and they know it isn’t for show. Dysphoria is an enigmatic feeling, difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it, akin to trying to explain what a broken bone feels like to someone who has never broken one. Dysphoria is an assault on the senses, and inescapable, it attacks visually, socially, auditorily and tactilely. It is constant in the most cloying way, it fluctuates and eases temporarily, but never fully leaves, unless action is taken.

However, the journey to take action is hard, and this building has seen that- has seen me discover just how cruel and inaccessible the government is in regards to trans healthcare and identification. This building has seen me through the tough moments, when I decided to research trans healthcare in the UK. In some ways we are lucky, as most trans healthcare is covered by the NHS- in the USA, where healthcare is chargable, the total cost of transition can top $100,000- however this building has seen the downsides too of what I discovered. There are only 7 adult gender clinics in the entirety of England, causing them to have astronomical waiting lists, of up to 4 years long for a first appointment, for example one Gender Clinic in Exeter had an average waiting time of 74 months, more than 6 years- that’s longer than a person’s entire time at secondary school. The government also doesn’t seem to be in any rush to rectify this

injustice, and in some ways appear to be on the exact opposite trajectory. For example, in October of 2022, the Scottish Parliament made a breakthrough announcement that they would be implementing a new Gender Recognition Act, which would make the process to legally change your gender much less intrusive and complicated, however this Act has been overturned by the British Parliament’s intervention through the use of Section 35, which allows the British Parliament to overturn Scottish legislation if it appears to be ‘incompatible’ with the British Government. This is the only time Section 35 has ever been used.

The government not only seems to be blocking new rights but also seizing existing ones.

Most worryingly, is the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak’s, statement regarding the 2010 Equality Act, stating that he would remove the legal protection of trans people. This would mean that trans people are no longer legally protected from discrimination in the workplace or education, it would also revoke trans people’s access to single-sex spaces as it would legally classify gender as a person’s sex assigned at birth. This building saw all of this, my discovery of these plans and my fear they would be enacted. This building saw my hope dwindle, with the knowledge that the UK Equality Minister, Kemi Badenoch, doesn’t seem to be the beacon of change we need, instead further delaying the ban on Conversion Therapy, which trans people have already been cut out of. This building has seen me through a tough wave of politics surrounding people like me, discussed in ‘debates’ we seem to get no say in.

If this building could talk it would have a lot to say, about society and injustice, about prejudice and discrimination, about how politicians use trans rights as a bargaining tool for right-wing votes, dangling them before our eyes before snatching them away to appeal to the masses. This building would say that our identities are not up for debate, but the quickest way to end our suffering should be.

Presdales School, Ware, Herts

We are a 11-18 non-selective girls school, with boys welcomed in to the Sixth Form. Presdales School is one of nine designated Lead Language Hub schools in England. We work with the National Centre for Excellence at York University, and with other Hertfordshire schools to enhance and improve opportunities for students in Modern Foreign Languages.

DARIUS PARRY

Theale Green School

What could we do if buildings could talk and what could we do what lessons would they teach us and how and what would they tell us about society and its evolution as a result of events such as destruction or disrepair like many buildings during the dark age and also about the tales of people how went there an example may be the roman baths they are very unique and interesting covering over 1000 years of history from the Romans how lived and worked and leisure here what exactly can you learn from this ancient building.

The first people who came here were the celts they came and started building and worshiping the river and worshiping local gods eventually the Romans came and started to build a massive structure as it was the only place in England that had warm water spring as a result of a lot of Romans quickly settled and made a massive settlement Aqui Sulis now the modern city of bath a lot of valuable and interesting discoveries and inventions would be made here e.g. telescopes just down the road. So maybe we could learn about cities need a good foundation and something similar happened in Brazil with Brasilia where if you want to make a lot of people come with you need to make a worthy community like Aqui Sulis where they made tons and tons of culture why should you move to a foreign place when there is no connection and the baths where a selling point as much as they are today for tourism, as a result, we can sum it up as. Cities require cultural groundwork to take off and for you to come to them.

So how then could we possibly learn anything from these baths the answer is most definitely yes, especially today. Climate change is a problem, and the Romans used a different method as the hot spring in Aqui Sulis is renewable this is useful as today we build cities where ever but we struggle to grasp the amount of energy we have poo could potentially be biofuel discarded waste is also biofuel all the gallons of water that we waste is potentially salvageable like I know some toilets use discarded water we use to wash our hands. It is remarkable how much energy is right in front of us like laughter is a potential one.

Anything can be considered energy if you use it properly.

Theale Green School

We are very proud to be part of the Activate Learning Education Trust group of schools (ALET) and colleges, and on our journey to achieve the ALET vision of “transforming lives through learning”.

DENNIS PORTILLO

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

The Parkside building really seems that it makes barriers so that we fall from one of a place with an end, it says ‘’this is as for as the road ends, you won’t be able to go through this barrier’’, it seems the same with the light, all the areas of Parkside building are illuminated, as if to say ‘’in case there is a lack of visibility, I give it to you, so that you can appreciate each place well’’, there are many things in it, it seems as if it tries to keep any living being distracted that is on its sites and when speaking of sites has a great variety, it has an area full of computers, another area where you can sport, exercise and more, but his main objective is that the people who are in it learn at least one thing every day, to be full of knowledge, he always says ‘’I want people to have fun, but also to learn’’.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

Dennis Portillo

HADI RANA

Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School

HOSPITALS

If this building could talk, would it cry in horror or cry tears of joy? Hospitals have seen it all. They are the backbone of our healthcare system, a source of hope, a place where the sick and injured come to find healing. They have stood witness to the miracles of life, the birth of countless pure souls which warmly glow in the centre of families. But they have also seen the pain, agony and grief that comes with illness, loss and death. This building has seen the best and worst of humanity, but despite it all, it remains steadfast in its service to the community.

Hospitals have come a long way since the days of their inception. Modern-day hospitals are highly specialized institutions that provide an expansive array of medical services, from emergency care to blood tests to more complex procedures such as heart transplants to rekindle a humans life. Hospitals today are provided with sophisticated technology, highly skilled medical professionals that form multi-disciplinary teams with the aim to deliver the best healthcare has to offer and gift quality care to patients.

Despite this, hospitals have not always been the monuments of hope that they are today. In fact, hospitals can be traced back to ancient times when they were more like wards for the terminally ill than places of healing. Back then, hospitals were often affiliated with churches and the primary purpose was to provide care for the poor and the sick, not necessarily to cure them. There was little understanding of hygiene, and patients often shared beds and blankets, leading to the spread of diseases. For these people, hope was scarce.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that hospitals began to metamorphosize into contemporary institutions. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War, played a pivotal role in this transformation. She recognized the importance of hygiene in the prevention of disease and implemented measures to improve sanitation, ventilation and cleanliness in hospitals. Her work laid the foundation for modern nursing practices and paved the road for hospitals to become the centres of healing and hope.

Today, hospitals are vital to our healthcare system, providing essential services to those in need. They are equipped with numerous lifesaving technologies such as MRI machines, CT scanners, and robotic surgery equipment that enable doctors to diagnose, prognose and treat diseases more precisely and effectively than ever. The development of new drugs and therapies means that more illnesses can be cured or managed, and patients can lead healthier and longer lives.

Hospitals are also a hub of research and innovation. Medical professionals in hospitals are continuously conducting research, studying diseases and developing new treatments with this research being critical to advancing our understanding of health

and medicine and improving patient outcomes. Genetic engineering is just one of a multitude of exciting ventures with the potential to revolutionise healthcare. Inherited diseases that once defined an individual’s life and shackled them to a predestined fate now no longer can deny people the right of freedom. The shackles can be overcome.

However, despite all the advancements in medicine, there are still several issues that hospitals face today. One of the most significant concerns is the high cost of healthcare. Hospital stays, procedures and medications can be expensive for the NHS and cannot always be covered. This was particularly accentuated during the pandemic where hospital stays dramatically increased and the stress of the noble health professionals also rose.

Another issue hospitals face is staff shortages. With an aging population and increased demand for healthcare services, hospitals are struggling to find enough qualified professionals to meet the growing demand. As a result, nurses and doctors are overworked and overstressed, leading to burnout and decreased job satisfaction. It takes approximately £500000 to train a doctor but many leave the country once qualified in search for a better work life balance.

Lastly, hospitals must deal with many ethical and moral dilemmas in their daily practice. They must balance providing the best possible care for their patients while also respecting their rights and wishes. Palliative care, organ donation, and issues surrounding treatment refusal are just some of the challenging ethical issues that hospitals face every day.

Hospitals have come a long way since their inception, and they continue to play a vital role in our healthcare system. They are places of hope, healing and innovation, providing essential services to patients in need. While they face several challenges, such as rising costs, staff shortages and ethical dilemmas, hospitals and their employees remain steadfast in their commitment to delivering the best care possible to their patients. If this building could talk, it would tell stories of hope and despair, of triumphs and tragedies, but most of all, it would remind us of the sacrifices healthcare staff make every day and the impact they have had on our lives.

Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School

Founded in 1527, Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School has the mission to provide inspiration and excellence to able boys and girls from Birmingham and across the Midlands. We are one of the leading state schools nationally.

ANUSHA RUJ

The Tiffin Girls School

If this building could talk, it would not do so with coherence. It would not do so with the salt and tears that shaped its intricate walls; nor with the town council’s beliefs that if brick could be clamped upon the ashes of a traumatized town, new beginnings could too be made. There has seemingly been little to do, in fact, since that morning between ‘45 and ‘49. Gum-ridden tarmac has cracked above dead bodies; proof was the wary groans of teachers, who love passively gaping at peeled plaster. The truth is, if this place could have a mental breakdown, it would. The definition is a period of intense mental and emotional distress - and it has seen enough students undergoing this rather laborious but effective process at garnering attention. At succumbing to vulnerability, at…well, didn’t that mean only the stone foundation was stopping it?

The truth is nobody cares.

It started with the snip of ribbon and years of pride well-worn as exam season. You may hear a door sigh with nostalgia, listen to the judgemental groan of a door in return: the milling of students has only been normalized since the 80s, compulsion muffling everything which once burned. It was the 90s when doors started to forget where to lead and the ‘10s that frequent eyerolls became part of a five-period routine.

These people haven’t been through war. They haven’t dealt with the type of panic which knocks people down like hastily layered steps. Every gate tries to suppress its groans for students as GCSE specs adjust; but what good does change do for their dim minds? Seventy years and no one seems to understand how it came to be- quadratic graphs, recessions and the human mind- but can they be blamed?

Colonialism is never mentioned.

Buildings have always held more passions than people. Most of these are too tangible for anyone to notice as something which isn’t their own; because feeling is curling fists, internal palpitations, but mostly sympathy for other feeling things. Feeling is what stone can attempt at capturing - like: a) nostalgia on last days of term, b) trepidation before exams, c) boredom otherwise. It all reverberates from the walls. Reverberates into sunlit dimples or patches of mold or a squiggle of pen: all feelings of course. A lack of it explains the chewing gum. It explains the stains worn reluctantly on walls like school uniform. It explains each rumor sliding painfully through cracks; which are received unbeknownst to the carrier, by whoever happens to be crying in a bathroom.

But sometimes students stare into the building, the ramblings of their teachers merely a hum in the distance. They fix upon it like some soap opera, staring in deeper

and deeper like some meme, and perhaps in between they regret it all: the treatment they inflict. Perhaps they wonder if the peeling plaster has been hurt by everyone’s negligence- but they’re never usually up to any good.

You see, this generation has such oddities: the rumble of floorboards during a fight. The quiver of windows as couples break up, and the sigh of creaking doors as everyone updates on their stories. But other things are taken completely off-guard.

“Why is the gender pay gap still 7%?”

“Why is sex education so stigmatized?”

“What would Great Britain have been like if it never walked all over the world… you know like it owned it?”

This is always followed by a momentary pause: the hanging notion that these are a smart bunch. The teachers then install a repertoire of attention-diverting which the windows wish to steal: the call of a name, the slight cough or the full-on rant about this generation’s ingratitude (its favorite). The droning then goes on. Notes are then passed and friends are made and smiles are passed along tables, making this conceited place think it isn’t so bad after all.

It grins when insulation is cussed at.

It stares from above at students holding hands.

It shakes with whoops of joy on results day

But its face falls again at the Truth.

Nobody cares for anyone outside their friend group having scars on their arms; or the kids whose names get mispronounced crying in the bathroom; or the 80,000 young people suffering from depression. Nobody cares for the teachers who abandoned them on strike, because everyone needs to pay bills.

Everyone can be loved and left alone.

So if this building could talk, it would not choose to be silent. If this building could talk, it would neither praise what it sees; nor go down in flames- even though it sometimes feels like committing suicide. If this building could talk, it would be as stubborn as the very teenagers held within it. Because, and be honest to yourself, wouldn’t that be an asset?

The Tiffin Girls School

As the school has grown and evolved, so have its aims. In a global climate, the focus is on ensuring the students develop into individuals who are fully prepared, both personally and academically, for the challenges of modern day life.

SHAHANA SENTHILNATHAN

Trinity Catholic High School

Time travel. My mind swirling and my eyes were blurred and blinded by the darkness of the black night; impairing my vision. Travelling to London was unpredictable. Deeply yearned to unite with the loved ones I have lost. Entering the machine took me back to the time of World War One. The place looked quite dismal and it created a negative atmosphere, the grenade shielded the air with smoke. The place looked isolated, but all I could see was an overbearingly transparent sky. The claustrophobic city eagerly mended the deeply fragmented desires that I wished for. I saw lifeless people laying on the ground. The dried ruby-red scars on their faces and armour consumed by coloured sashes represented the army. My mind got distracted, and my lungs were lethally consumed with rage, anger and revenge. My erratic emotions kept changing back and forth. But, the elongated building stared through my soul with its confused grin. It invited me in…

Walked. I ambered through the city of London. The neglected pavement screamed in agony, which jolted the building as it looked on with a ghoulish appearance. The mouldy rain smirked whilst it tainted the beloved city. The mystery of this building began to taunt me, the covers shielded by the sign ‘LIFE SAVER’. The intentions behind the construction replayed in my mind profusely. The untouched building was situated away from civilization, however, the rooms were methodologically locked. It hoped that individuals would graciously unlock its doors but those moments never came true. The dirt and grey opaque smoke masked away the once-sought beauty of him.

Wondering. The structurally rigid building glared through its perplexed vision. It blinked twice to comprehend the figment before him. His smirk slowly shaped into a frown, as the temperature of the building intensified the cold smoke within the ancient walls. Goosebumps appeared on my skin as my jumper rubbed against the droplets of eroded plaster. The computer systems rang ferociously across the room, his presence astounded me. But, I was the new owner, but he was yet to be aware of my position.

First, I allowed the building to scan me and it said, “State your name?” I was terrified, and in my trembling voice, I said, “Nicole”. We had an ongoing conversation; I found it very therapeutic. While we were talking, I asked if the building could find my parents. The building asked, “What are your parent’s names?” I replied, “ My mother’s name is Mary Louise Smith and my father’s name is John Hooke.” The building took a while to process the information and it answered, “ Your parents made me, I don’t understand how you don’t know. The building told me that my parents were in a couple of rooms behind. He told me, “You should run!” My jaw was wide open, shocked and frozen in time. Bolted as fast as I could, sweat dripping down my cheeks, and my heart beating rapidly, I was held captive, wished to be free and was left there to be torn.

Ran. Escaped from his torturous questioning. Sought shelter, in a half-bombed hospital. My mother and father prioritised scientific development over me. I lost my love for them at the building, yet instead of dwelling, I made my way through the streets of London. However, the machine was already there. He tried to prevent me from going back to the present day in Croatia. I said, “Please, I want to leave this place, my parents do not care about me.” The machine replied, “They do. They told me to ensure you are safe until they return.” I believed what the machine told me and yet I decided that I could go back in time, to see what I had been missing. I took a deep sigh and agreed to stay. After waiting for a few months, a treaty was signed and people started to construct all the damaged roads and buildings. I was relieved and have now recounted my life from 20 years ago. Currently, sitting across the building, on the same street I walked past, searching for my non-biological parents.

Trinity Catholic High School

We are an outstanding and well established 11-18 Catholic school which is blessed with a reputation for academic excellence, pastoral care, high standards, outstanding students, exceptional staff and the warmest of welcomes.

PURBITA SHAMS

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, Then the cars could go on a walk, With people waving near and far, The building’s response would be bizarre.

There it smiled upon the busy road, As the people gathered where it bestowed, Looking upwards as the building shifted, With all the presents the building could be gifted.

The building looked down with all it’s glory, Amongst the people who wanted to hear it’s story, The building thanked the people and graced it’s presence across the globe: The airplanes danced, the streets chattered, the cars blinked like a strobe.

The people, the plants, the objects all around the world, Were now connected as the buildings speech swirled. All together, all in one, everything and everyone were all at peace since the building’s voice turned into a blur.

After a moment, they stood in silence once the world had returned to it’s natural condition. All because this building could talk, each and every being was now filled with ambition.

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

ABDULAAHI SHATTAR

The Charter School North Dulwich

During his very first week of work at the Shard, Edward imagined what it would be like if it could talk. Maybe it would be quite full of itself. Who wouldn’t when lauded as the tallest building in all of Europe? He supposed the name would fit for a building completely made out of glass. Not to mention the hordes of people— tourists and citizens alike—stopping to gawk at it. Or at least, that’s the impression he got. It looked like it simply loved the attention. It was one of those buildings that you could see from as far out as Herne Hill and, when the weather was just perfect, the peak of it would glisten— as brightly as a crown jewel greedily capturing all the rays of sunlight whilst casting all the others in its shadow.

On a particularly misty day, it would hide from sight — now that made sense to him. All that attention would get to anyone eventually.

As he boarded the Southern Service train from North Dulwich, he suppressed a heavy yawn, his shoulders heaving from the effort. Rubbing his watering eyes, he stumbled into an open seat, carefully placing down his briefcase beside him. Edward knew that he shouldn’t have — the responsible citizen in him urged him to pick it up. But today just wasn’t one of those days where he was up for a chat with a stranger. The whine of the train’s doors and their mechanical whir as they slammed shut was all the confirmation he needed to nestle into the back of the plush train seat, forgetting all about his bag. Every so often, the doors would shoot open, ushering in fresh swarms of commuters — most just as tired as him.

Eventually, the train grew full enough that his briefcase was attracting all sorts of weird looks by the standing passengers. It took him all of the time between Peckham Rye and Queen’s Road Peckham to decide that keeping his case on the empty seat wasn’t worth the embarrassment and slight moral discomfort. And lo and beyond, not even a minute after he’d lifted the briefcase, someone slumped into it. Wild curly black hair framed his youthful face and his brown eyes were bright and alert —surprisingly too alert for a Monday morning. But then Edward spotted the coffee in his hands just as his nose registered its strong scent, giving him all he needed to understand why.

“Good morning,” the man grinned.

Edward gave a small nod of his head and a more subdued greeting. Enough to hopefully show that he wasn’t interested in conversation whilst staying polite. Surprisingly, the younger man got the message and started to busy himself with his laptop, tapping away at the keys. As the train looped around to enter London Bridge, Edward stared at the Shard, even as it followed the track. He wondered what he would find there.

He quickly shuffled out of the station, briefcase in hand, doing his best to ignore how hard his heart hammered against his ribs. Edward looked up to the towering skyscraper in front of him and wondered what he’d find. If it could talk to him right where he stood,

what would it sound like? Maybe it would sound like the architect who designed it, or the construction workers who built it, perhaps it sounded like all the people who worked inside of it day in and day out.

As he drew closer to the entrance and into the lobby, his thoughts grew in all sorts of directions — how many scandals and betrayals did the see-through glass hide? How many people’s lives had been changed forever simply because of its existence? The weight of that realisation settled in the pit of his stomach. It both grounded him and terrified him. The chandeliers and elegant furnishing only made it worse. Edward understood, then, that if the building could talk, it would tell stories of triumph and tragedy. Stories of all the lives impacted by its gargantuan presence with a kind of magnanimity afforded to it by its prestige. Maybe it would sound a little arrogant— but then again, it deserved to.

After all, the Shard was one of those buildings Edward would like to call a testament to the pinnacle of human creativity.

The Charter School North Dulwich

The Charter School North Dulwich has been congratulated for being one of the top 100 non-selective state-funded schools in England. We have also won a ‘Pupil Premium Award’ for being one of the most improved schools in the country for our disadvantaged pupils’ attainments and value-added progress.

MUHAMMED SIAM

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

IF MY SCHOOL COULD TALK

If my school was alive, most of the classroom would be broken. In the classroom, some of the lights would not work. It would seem like the lights were the school’s eyes. The lights are watching the kids.

10 years ago, the school was too old. One of the walls was destroyed beyond repair. One day, there was no teacher on duty. It was launch and a kid was thinking to go outside in his lunch and come back. Unfortunately, when he was coming back, a gang kidnapped him, asking for money from his parents. Fear flooded his eyes and he never came back… Because of that, so many kids left the school staff was more responsible. They were dedicated to the safety of students. After one year, kids started coming to the school again. This was in the past.

Now, the school walls are repaired, teachers are on duty and it is as if the school is looking through the lights-his-eyes so the kids are safe. In the school there was one room called NP5 and in the room there was one more small room. One day, a bully locked a kid in the small room known as NP5 room. There was no light. Darkness overcame the cold, scary room. The kid was knocking on the door and begging for help. However, as it was lunch, no one was allowed upstairs. The school was trying to send a message to the principal through the lights (his-eyes). The principal turned on her PC and looked at the cameras to see what was happening. The principal received a message from the NP5 room camera when she looked at it. Outraged, she helped the kids.

Principal punished the bullies and the punished was he was no allowed to play football for 2 weak. More than that Principal called his parents and give him a last chance. If he did something again, he is going to get kicked out of school.

After all of that the principle was a bit shocked; she wondered how she got the message. As she received no answer, she tried to forget about what happened. The school was overjoyed that the kid was out of the room.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

ANMOLDEEP SINGH

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

St. Steven’s Secondary School is so bad there is so much damp. You can see the bricks are splinted with cracks from the outside walls, there are halls in the roof so you can see the tube lines, also the things inside the school are so old and they are not changing it.

If this building could talk, she would talk about the events that happened in the past. She would tell us how she was made; in which year it was made so she will tell us she was made in 1890, if she had listened children listening the news about the first world war and seen the second world war what was her job like being a safe place to protect the kids, if she was a magazine for store the food, for maybe store the army’s things like bomb, guns, bulletproof things. If she could talk, I would ask her some things because I was born in 2007 and I have always wanted to know how the world was in my mom and dad’s time and they did not see the first or the second world war.

My family’s origins are in India so I am not sure if my parent can tell me what the situation in England was, if it was like India or if it was different, they can’t tell me because they were born in India, they study there and live there for 25 years, so they can talk about how India was and not about how was England was.

I would ask the building if there had been fights or murders inside there; nobody can tell if there have been made murders in the past because humans live almost 100 years and then die but the buildings do not die, but they have been destroyed by the natural disaster or destroyed from the humans for restructure them or for creating new buildings that mean the building would see if there has been made a murder inside here and it cannot lie like a human so she could tell me about children bulling a kid or tell me about the kid bullied and then killed there.

I would ask another thing but is the last one what was there before the school has been made there was a cemetery before the school because there have been a lot of paranormal cases we students can’t know that because we came to school in the day time and not at night time and usually the ghosts, demons and other monsters come at night time so we can’t say that but maybe if there has been as student trapped in the school he can say it or maybe the teacher but I do not think the teacher will tell us of a paranormal apparition in the school so only the person in the past can tell us what happened in the past or maybe the teachers but when I ask this to the building she does not respond me she was terrified/scared for the idea to remember it so for that I can say it was a bad thing and she does not want to remember.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

TAJBEER SINGH

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

IF A HOSPITAL WAS CONSCIOUS

If the Hospital were conscious, it would have many stories, about what it has seen over the years. The hospital would have seen people recovering from diseases or broken bones seeing the joy of the patients and the friends and family would make the Hospital feel proud of it-self.

The hospital has a big entrance in front of it there are tyres marks, the hospital remember a patient being rushed from the ambulance to the hospital the patient was shot in the heart, it was raining they unloaded the patient inside quickly the doctors rushed running into the surgery room, Hundreds of people praying for the patient outside , The hospital never seen that many people praying for 1 single man

The Hospital saw many deaths of patients from accidents and diseases. Making the hospital guilty cause it could not save them. The hallways most of people crying knowing there family or friends will die, the hospital would of experienced that emotion and seen a lot of despising emotion over the years.

The Hospital would have witnessed multiple babies borne; the joy of the parents would be unmeasurable making the Hospital proud and glad to be there cause of the Happiness. The desire in the eyes of people to see their loved once alive again while seeing their dead body would break the family and friends into tears seeing the depressed environment will turn the hospital.

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

Tajbeer Singh

ILIANA SULMINA

Outwood Grange Academy

The ballerina studio was where we met, confiding in each other to break the pliant spines of our ballet shoes and sharing swift, sideway glances when our teacher dragged out her words for a long enough time for us to pick at and find amusement in her comical language. Though we were punished and taught together, I had never been on her platform of performance. Our teacher called her blackberry for the sour purse she held between her brows when concentrating. I called her blackberry for the raven tone that flowed through her hair. They called her blackberry for the mockery of her faults. She didn’t care. We knew why when she danced. All docile grace and laser intensity that tranced your eyes into the mesmerising shapes her body moulded into, there was never an equal.

She would tell me in the raw twilight how she worshipped stars for a lead. We’d sit on the sylvan windowsill while her susurration defiled the wintry air streaming through the open windows. I listened, loaded in her wishes as my own because I didn’t want her as an equal. I wanted to be sanctimonious.

On a solemn Thursday afternoon the roles of our grand performance were announced by our disparaging, ballet teacher. She walked up to the blackberry and lapped her spindly fingers on the fruit’s shoulder. “Today is your day.”

The blackberrys lips mirthlessly curled with pleasantry satisfaction.

“You have far to go, blackberry.”

I observed as the blackberry became sour as she was renamed Thursday’s child, overripe with ravenous intentions as our teacher stepped to oppose me. She spoke the words echoed from her wishes but I only saw the mouthed words. Everyone watched the blackberrys blood vessels pop like the beads from a berry, the veins in her neck bulge out in cobalt blue and as she shouldered past. She took a look back at me and I saw it, the venom she worshipped would pop the veins underlining my skin.

That night, i seeked her out, i couldn’t find her. The next morning, they seeked her out. They never found her.

I spent the next weeks moulding into my lead role while babel surrounded me on her disappearance. I took over the privacy of the dance studio she used to occupy and overstretched my limbs until they felt like fragments of elastic sealed to my torso. I cracked my own shoe’s spines with haste before breaking them while violent vibrance blossomed in the soles of my feet. It took weeks to pressure my body into becoming a malleable organism.

THE FIRST WEEK

I had washed out the scent of her traditional perfume in the studio and retitled it to resemble no significance of her being. But she was always there. Like pareidolia in the walls, ‘this is my studio.’ I’d feel the thrush of prickly breath rush down my spine, the air tracing each bone that my spine produced. I began to feel more. I could feel the sound my shoes made when I split them for flexibility and used her technique to maintain my turns. I’d turn to look in the mirror, expectant of the building to whisper to me through blows of chilled air. All I got was the visionary of the role she worshipped. I will be sanctimonious.

THE SECOND WEEK

I caught glimpses of her from the corner of my eye. I’d see the bioluminescence in her fair skin only to hurry to where the light splintered to find it was only a spontaneous shirt, a random curtain, a stray object, an odd ray of intrusive sunshine that was rare to get in the studio. I sat at our spot and pushed only my side window open, letting the air run through me like a shock of electricity. I could feel the vibrations of the music downstairs through my bones, chattering between tendons. I felt her inside the building, inside me and began to panic.

THE THIRD WEEK

I had searched every room, every shadowed corner and every open space that had light sculpting a figure but she was nowhere but everywhere. I felt her trailing after me into the auditorium as we went through rehearsals, the walls narrowing around me as my windpipe did. I felt her when I was replacing my belongings along our shared room. She knew I was here.

THE FOURTH WEEK

I focused on practising. I outstretched, outlined steps and felt her body pushing into the steps with me, like an absentminded reflex. That’s when I reached out to the mirror and felt warmth against my palm. I pulled before being dragged in. I stared at my fallen friend, imprisoned in the mirror, me along with her. If this building could talk, she’d tell me: ‘You stole my wishes.’

Outwood Grange Academy

We are a welcoming and supportive academy, with a relentless determination to provide the very best education for every student. We place students at the centre of everything we do, with a focus on creating a culture of success and a positive climate for learning.

JESSICA TAYLOR

St Albans Girls School

Light shone from curious glass eyes as I approached, the tendrils scanning my face like a ray from a flashlight. Smiling, I adjusted my grip on the equipment at my side and stepped closer.

‘Hello.’ The voice was a low vibration.

I locked gazes with the unblinking eyes. The structure welcomed me with a sigh of smoke that puffed from its chimney, and I nodded in greeting.

A HOUSE.

Mahogany teeth lined a beaming door frame, and squat flower boxes protruded from beneath the glimmering windows. I checked the notes on the clipboard I clutched to my chest; it was time to do my job…

‘Speak to me.’ I commanded.

A cascade of images submerged my mind. The house murmured of warm logs roasting in winter, of-

‘Thank you,’ I interrupted, ‘But what do you see on the outside?’

The rumbling voice dropped an octave and I strained to hear. My heartbeat thumped as I listened, an animal caught in a snare, and I battled to swallow the ocean of words gushing towards me like a tsunami. War. Another war. The house had seen mutilated innocents. Screaming parents. Lost children. I saw all of these now. I choked on its sorrow as it drowned me. And yet… the house had witnessed small miracles too. Friends reuniting after years apart. Snowflakes twirling through the sky before coming to rest at its feet. My pen scribbled furiously across the page as I recorded this snippet of human history.

‘Thank you.’ I whispered, fumbling with the box strapped over my shoulder. A button protruded from the centre and it clicked softly as I pressed it.

‘I’ll be right back.’ I promised, and the house’s confusion enveloped me as the world blurred. A swirling mass of colours swam before my eyes as I was posted to the future.

A letter emerging from an envelope: I peeled my eyelids open. A row of squat houses hugged the ground, swaying as they crumbled. I frowned, turning towards the looming shadow behind me. A towering skyscraper. It grazed the clouds, disassociating from the world below. I wondered- did it have any thoughts? It was only when I was looking from the skyscraper to the squalid housing when I was struck by a distinct lack of presence.

THE HOUSE.

I spun, raking the area for its gentle smile, but to no avail. The house was gone. I shuddered, squinting at a forest green building nearby, its chimney billowing particles into the evening sky. Misty fog floated upwards, drifting in the wind. A flag of surrender.

Beside the dilapidated housing that cowered before it, dusty remains lay in a scattered, neglected pile. I advanced towards the shattered pieces, inhaling sharply as I spied a piece of mahogany sleeping amongst the rubble.

‘No.’ I mouthed, sinking onto my knees. A quiet grumble crawled across the remains.

‘Have you come to help me?’

I lay a hand in the dust.

‘I won’t let you end up like this.’ I promised, and was smothered by a familiar blanket of confusion. My shaky hand slammed into the round button, and I faded. The future forgot me almost as fast as it had forgotten the house.

I stumbled as the present embraced my return, as if I was the gift. The house stood, intrigue painted over its surface. I turned to leave; I couldn’t face it. Neither of us spoke as I traipsed along the street, my back to the building. A tear rolled down the curve of my cheek and splattered to the pavement with a muffled shriek. I went to bed early that night.

In the privacy of the darkness, I hauled my equipment onto my bed. After adjusting several dials, I made a short voyage.

Only rubble remained. Stretching towards the horizon, houses lay dormant in their deathbeds. I cupped the shell of my ear, listening, and was greeted with silence. Complete, utter silence. A sob wracked my body and I slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle it. I didn’t stay long.

Wrapped in my duvet, I shuddered. I dreamed that night. Mankind built structures that grew until they blocked out the sunlight. I couldn’t move as the buildings inflated and stretched up to the skyline. The sky became stained with grey and grass withered in the shadows.

I awoke with a start.

As dawn poked slithers of sunshine through my curtains, teasing me with its playful brightness, I had a thought that drained all light from my room.

If the greed of the human race remained on the destructive path it had landed on, then one day there would be nothing good left in the world. There would be nothing left in the world.

I was determined not to let that happen. I quit my job that morning.

St Albans Girls School

We are proud of our school and rightly so. Not only do we achieve excellent public examination results at all levels, but we have a thriving community with a superb extracurricular programme and a wealth of activities to engage all age groups.

ABIMBOLA TAYO

Haberdashers Boys School

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK, I WOULDN’T LET IT.

When it would try to speak, I’d let it know that its existence “and [its] construction together account for 36 percent of global energy use and 39 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions annually.”1 I would inform the building that “CO2 emissions from buildings operations have reached an alltime high of around 10 GtCO22… 2 per cent higher than the previous peak in 2019.”3 As the building would try to rebuttal, I would cut it off and slander it for its gluttony, how it consumes so much of our planet’s energy and resources and yet it is still not satisfied. Despite the, soon, irreversible damage it’s doing to the Earth “there were an estimated 175,390 new build dwellings completed in… 2021, an increase of 19 per cent compared to… 2020,”4 the building industry is growing at an alarming rate and the effects of climate change worsen by the day. In the last 100 years sea levels have risen by over 20 centimetres, “longer, more intense droughts threaten crops, wildlife and freshwater supplies”5, wildfires continue to burn frequently and more intensely across the globe, “the ice in the Arctic is melting fast… it is already 65% thinner than it was in 1975.”6 I would tell the building it is selfish; I would chastise it because despite the adverse impact its empire has on the planet, it refuses to be satisfied. It would watch the disgust on my face as I mention how every year there seems to be a new record for the hottest day recorded, how last summer there were over 3,000 excess deaths due to heat stroke as a result of the extreme weather conditions.

As I continue to criticise the building it would interject and begin to speak.

1 Budds, D. (2019). How do buildings contribute to climate change? Curbed. (Accessed 3rd March 2023). Available at: https://archive.curbed.com/2019/9/19/20874234/buildings-carbon-emissions-climate-change

2 Gigatonnes – 1 billion tonnes of CO2

3 UN Environment Programme. (2022). 2022 Global Status Report For Buildings and Construction. United Nations. (Accessed 3rd March 2023). Available at: https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/2022-global-status-report-buildings-and-construction

4 Housing supply; indicators of new supply, England: October to December 2021. Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities. (2022).

5 Threats: Effects of Climate Change. WWF. (2022). (Accessed 9th March 2023). Available at: https://www. worldwildlife.org/threats/effects-of-climate-change

6 Effects of Climate Change. Met Office. (2023). (Accessed 9th March 2023). Available at: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/effects-of-climate-change

The building would tell me that at a national level it generates up to 20% of GDP, it would explain how it provides billions worldwide with housing, heating, means of sanitation, clean water. It would tell me how its construction and maintenance provides employment for millions, and would remind me of the importance of its existence. It would invite me to think about where I spent the majority of my day, the location of some of my favourite memories, where most of the greatest inventions of the modern world were thought up and brought to fruition. It would ask me to picture a world in which it did not exist and where I would go during a storm, it would tell me that if not for its existence the entire world would be homeless; many of those, too, would be jobless.

I would interrupt the building again, telling it that its presence won’t matter if it continues to contribute to climate change. What good is shelter if we cease to exist?

The building would tell me to, instead, ask the humans who continue to build more buildings, who continue to enable the environmental destruction I speak of. It would tell me it did not choose to be built or to hurt the planet, that I’m blaming the wrong person.

I would recognise how harsh I had been and, defeated, would ask what we can do to slow down the rate at which buildings contribute to climate change.

The building’s demeanour would then change, it would smile as it tells me the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched the Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative in 2006 with the primary goal of reducing building emissions and improving their energy efficiency. It would inform me that one of its most successful (research) projects came in the form of the Sustainable Social Housing Initiative, or SUSHI, which examined social housing in Bangkok and São Paulo determining the barriers to sustainable building practices. Additionally, it would speak of UNEP’s Sustainable Buildings Policies in Developing Countries (or SPOD) which was created in order to assist local and national governments in assessing and improving upon sustainable construction policy. Additionally, the building would notify me about the fact that “in 2021, investments in building energy efficiency increased by 16% to USD 237 billion”7 showing me how much progress has been made in regards to making buildings more sustainable and reversing the centuries of damage that have been done to the Earth. However, the building would concede that despite the efforts of the UN there

7 United Nations Environment Programme. (2022). CO2 emissions from buildings and construction hit new high, leaving sector off track to decarbonize by 2050: UN. United Nations. (Accessed 4th March). Available at: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/co2-emissions-buildings-and-construction-hitnew-high-leaving-sector

was a substantial increase in global gross floor area by approximately 25,000 square kilometres in the last 8 years. It would acknowledge the fact that the building sector is very far from decarbonising by 2050 – as projected in 20198 – but would ultimately conclude that as long as we continue to progress: building more sustainable housing, cutting back on emissions, using energy more efficiently, we can reverse the effects of climate change.

Haberdashers Boys School

We are Habs, a strong, happy and supportive community, committed to the pursuit of excellence in education. We trace our roots back to the 17th Century. We give talented and ambitious young people the opportunities they need to succeed in life.

8 New report: the building and construction sector can reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. World Green Building Council. (2019). (Accessed 10th March 2023). Available at: https://worldgbc.org/article/ new-report-the-building-and-construction-sector-can-reach-net-zero-carbon-emissions-by-2050/

BETHIA TURNER

Chestnut Grove Academy

If this building could talk ….

It could tell us who we are The fullest image of ourselves, Without the filters we adopt to try and hide.

It could tell us truths that we are just too afraid to find, And it could speak for those whom history has silenced and denied

Without the manipulation that our own storytelling has, This building could show how the narrative changes to always suit ourselves.

It could provide a warning for the future From the mistakes that have gone before, And show that the most powerful solution is to simply listen more.

Despite the differences we see when we are not behind its doors, This building shows our understanding of difference, Fundamentally is flawed. Because we are all just simply human, And we all just have a heart, Which can burn and ache and smile, Or grow or long to stay a child.

We’ve built inequality into the fabric of our nations, But this building’s seen that hope is strong So we should not feel dejected.

Because if this building knows anything, It’s that there’s possibility of change. As these four walls can mean anything, Whether a home or more estranged .

And so, in truth, this building’s story simply is not finished yet, therefore for this world we know There’s hope for a future not yet met.

Chestnut Grove Academy

When students join Chestnut Grove Academy, they are welcomed into a high achieving, forward thinking, caring community. A tradition of academic rigour combined with creativity characterises our ethos and we feel passionately that this is a winning combination.

CHEYENNE WALKER

Trinity School Newbury

If this building could talk, It would tell me of its history, And all the things it has seen. All of the secret conversations, And hidden memories.

If this building could talk, It would shake and rumble, Trying to survive, Off of its fallen rubble. Making new life live, While trying not to crumble.

If this building could talk, It would tell me my letters and numbers; Of my fallen ancestors, And my departed family members.

If this building could talk... It would tell me; Of all the life that came before me.

Trinity School Newbury

At Trinity School we are proud of our students’ achievements and proud of all our school has to offer. Our school is a place where ambitious and successful students thrive. Our dedicated and ambitious teaching staff are committed to ensuring our students leave with excellent examination results and the skills they need for the modern world.

JEVIN BENTHOTAGE WIJENAYAKE

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

If this building could talk, would it? Would it fight for the right to life, or would it be silenced, witness to decades of suffering, agony and pain drawn upon its friends and family?

If this building could talk, I think it would not bear witness to the destruction of its planet and its home. This building would join in with the rest of us, calling for the protection of the environment. Sure, the destruction of nature and the birth of new buildings may be tempting thoughts, but if this building could talk, I don’t think it would be selfish. It would join us, protesting for a better, greener earth. If this building could talk, I don’t think it would be selfish like we are; I think it would think of the future and put others before it. If this building could talk, it would exhibit humane traits that we lack. It would perpetuate sympathy, compassion, and rage – qualities we have yet to develop. If this building could talk, it would set an example for us to follow, a standard so high the building would most likely be a skyscraper.

But let’s be realistic, if this building could talk, we would not understand it. It wouldn’t speak English; rather, it would speak its own language. It is a selfish and western view to think that if a building could talk, it would speak English. What basis do we have to go off of that? Is it the animated animals we see in movies that magically speak English? Or is it a colonised perspective of the world, one in which we see other things how we want to, whether in terms of culture, design, or even language? If this building could talk, it would attempt to share its beautiful culture with us, describing all the details of historic buildings, how they’re formed, what different styles mean and why they’re formed, and we would immediately stop it.

“Speak English, you’re in my country.”

The building would be confused – it doesn’t understand English.

“Oi, did you not hear what I said!?”

It gets scared; our confrontational nature is something it’s never experienced – it comes from a culture of cultivation, peace and innovation, not anger.

Soon enough, this building would be hate-crimed: spat on, vandalised, degraded. It would experience the wrath of the colonisers that other cultures have felt, other communities have experienced. Soon enough, it would feel small, hidden, unseen.

Just like that, this building would stop speaking. It would wish it had never said a thing. It would hate its native tongue, its defining, different features, its uniqueness, and its culture. It would forget its roots. It would be human-washed. It would end up

colonised. It would grow to hate itself. Soon enough, this building would cease to stand for justice, for equality, for itself. It would wish to go back in time and stay silent.

Fighting for the environment and equal rights: seems familiar, right? If this building could talk, it would tell you it is a martyr for minorities. A symbol of light and hope, dimmed by the arrogant, the insecure, and the weak. This building would crumble without saying a word, too scared to face humankind’s confrontation. Or perhaps it would go down with a fight, only losing because violence and war are concepts never experienced in its culture. It is treated as a means to an end rather than an end itself. It may have rationality, but the human mind is limited and naïve in opening the barrier towards other species having rationality. We would try to excuse the injustice it faces because we have “dominion over the earth”.

Are we blinded by the privilege of power, or are we so ignorant that we refuse to see others for their worth, even if it means adapting our train of thought?

But, if this building spoke English, it would be treated differently. This building would be well respected, taken care of, and renovated time and time again, so its legacy stayed forever. We would learn about the building in education, we would write essays, do projects, conduct trips to this building, and behold its glory. If this building spoke English, we would respect it on a level unfathomably different to if it spoke its own language. If it knew what would happen if it spoke, would it say anything at all?

I think it’d be good if this building couldn’t talk because it wouldn’t understand us referring to it as ‘it’ as an inanimate object, not worthy of anything, not even our respect. We give them a so-called human trait and fail to acknowledge that they are now one of us.

So I ask again, if this building could talk, would it?

London Academy of Excellence, Stratford

London Academy of Excellence is the academic sixth form for independent thinkers. We are committed to our sixth formers developing the knowledge, skills and interests that will give them broad and rich life choices in a complex and changing future.

MOHAMED YUSSUF

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

CHAPTER 1

Cold shivers running down your spine as you take first step into the haunted KRACKING HIGH school corridor. Silence screamed through the air the damp, freezing smell lingered through the school, branches invaded each room through the windows. Temperature drops as you explore the school, the sticky muddy floor making your exploration an exhausting nightmare.

Old and depressed walls had a wrinkled skin, reminds you of a devil witch, like if the school could talk it will be a female with a witch like voice with witch like intentions. The school was haven’t had visitors for 30 years until now…

Two men John Bull and Owen Kruger who were in their thirties who were once students in this school have had a nights out at the pub down the road few drinks were brought and they had conversation about life before being adults. After the conversations they both felt the need to go back to their school for memory but John reminded Owen that after they had left the school the school had a change in things “witchcraft things” john slurred. This urged Owen to find out more, they walked down the road darkness filled the street as rain flushed down onto them.

They had reached the school… both of the drunk men looked at each other in uncertainty not knowing what to do they had felt a disturbing feeling, a substandard feeling, feeling that couldn’t be described. “What is that Owen whispered” John glanced over to what seemed to be a with like shadow entering one of the classrooms;

The witch had exited the class and floated towards the two they didn’t know whether to run or stand still but the urge to run had got the better of them of.

They both had split up..

Parkside Studio College, Hayes

At Parkside, a new approach to education has been developed to combine high quality classroom learning with practical work related activities both in and beyond the College. Students not only continue to gain qualifications in traditional core subjects, but also become experts in their chosen pathway.

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK…

Chief Executive, Frogmore

It would probably say… What do you want from me?

I have stood here, steadfast and firm, in all weathers, for many years. Centuries even.

I am made of steel, stone, and glass. Forged, chiselled and crafted by many hands. Architects, engineers, and builders worked for hours on my design and much energy was used in my construction. Neighbours frowned at the dust and noise as I rose out of the ground but were naturally curious.

I have seen a lot. Babies born; children growing and learning; people working, sleeping, eating, and playing. I am at the heart of your daily activities. I provide protection. Heat in the winter, shade, and cooling in the summer. Shelter from rain and sun.

Sometimes you just walk by, dropping litter and staining my fabric. Sometimes you photograph me. I have been repaired, extended, and cleaned. Cherished even. But there have been times when the cracks have been allowed to appear and the grass has grown from my gutters.

I know that when my purpose is obsolete and I can no longer be adapted to suit, I will be replaced. Possibly with a bigger shinier version. But my memory will live on in the record books and the hearts of those who visited me. The photographs and floor plans will be a reminder of the history that was made here. I touch the lives of all those passers-by. I provide sanctuary.

I may not have a beating heart of my own, but my lifts and stairs are like veins and arteries. The hustle and bustle of humanity within my walls and under my roof brings me to life.

STEVE ANDREWS

Hildreds Shopping Centre Manager

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK…

If this building could talk, would it speak of the 700 million shoes that have tapped over its shiny terrazzo surface during its short life time? Would it remember the familiar faces of the people who visited it every day. Would it silently wait with expectation to see Bill Brown shuffle by, head bowed swinging his white stick rhythmically from side to side like detecting for treasure as he navigates down the mall or Mrs Galone, once famed for barking to customers – “Teas, Coffee, ices, all served inside” but now quiet and reserved as she squeezes the fruit on the supermarket shelves.

Would it smile at the memory of customers past, who sat and rested a while before slowly picking up their shopping bags in readiness of the walk to the bus stop. This cathedral of commercialisation, this mecca of merchandise, this place of safety for many. To others a place to meet friends, a place for fun, a place to socialise and enjoy “All you can eat for just £5.99”.

A place for essentials, a place for luxury, a place to spoil yourself, well it is pay day after all! Where “The customer is King” with pockets jingling, looking for a bargain or hunting down a sale. Where seasons come and seasons go, like the ebb and flow of the tide in this small seaside town. Children who visited when they were young can now be seen pushing their own children along the mall in pushchairs or holding hands as they gaze at wonders through plate glass.

If this building could talk would it smile at the memories created by excited children meeting Santa for the first time surrounded by thousands of twinkling lights. Would it be saddened by the end of a business or excited by the birth of a new venture? Would it be proud to have played its part, to have done its job, to accomplish everything it was built to do and would it consider itself to have succeeded?

If this building could talk I think it would say, “Welcome.”

JOHN WOODMAN

Chairman at Hollis

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK… 160 EDINBURGH AVENUE, THE BUILDING THAT TALKS

It is not an unknown concept to us to humanise inanimate objects, popular childhood film series Toy Story and Night at the Museum spring to mind. Even in fairy tale books, as children we are left in wonderment from the giant beanstalk that grows out of magic beans and the pumpkins that turn into a carriage.

I’ve always looked back fondly on this and the childlike imagination that sits within us all. In fact, I’d quite like to imagine a world could exist where objects spring to life when we’re not looking – or even better, when we are looking! Where trees whisper in the wind and jukeboxes dance to their own tunes, or even yes, that car did just look at you strangely.

Whilst speaking from a potentially biased position, I would particularly like if buildings could come to life and talk. The history that buildings have seen would tell a story that all would want to listen to, and the buildings crying out for help may receive the attention they deserve. We always say how buildings have character and personality, but what if they truly had a voice too. And with that in mind, I’d like to welcome you to 160 Edinburgh Avenue; the building that talks.

THE BUILDING THAT TALKS

“I’ve been given a recent makeover, and one that makes me special, I’m told. ‘Landmark green refurbishment’, ‘one of its kind’, what a compliment, a transformation when I’m only 34 years old.

I’m 160 Edinburgh Avenue, a 21,284 sq ft warehouse in Slough, but that isn’t the most interesting thing about me. I delivered a reduced upfront embodied carbon of 130 tonnes Co2e, which I’ve heard is pretty key.

My makeover, or retrofit, was decided by my owner SEGRO to raise environmental sustainability. Together with Hollis and Pexhurst, they gave me a new life, with an exciting future to see.

Focusing on ESG, I’ve been given some nice new features. New energy efficient LEDs and animal habitats, home to lots of friendly creatures.

My favourite fact about myself is that I’m covered in solar PV. More energy efficient and cost saving, it’s pretty cool – do you agree?

I think if I was allowed a voice I would talk in rhymes all day, but if I must write something serious, I do have something I would like to say.”

‘I DON’T WANT TO STAND ALONE’

We know our planet is in danger and we must do something to help. And with the built environment making up 40% of carbon emissions, we hold the power to make tangible change.

As we’re on the topic of imagination, imagine the difference our industry could make on the planet if we all took our ESG responsibility seriously. If all industrial refurbishments could look like me; If all sectors took advantage of renewable energy; if all developers aimed to refurbish instead of demolish; if all contractors used recycled materials. It paints a picture to be proud of, doesn’t it?

I might be leading the way in green refurbishments, deemed one of the most sustainable warehouses there is. And whilst I’m proud my owners have prioritised the planet, I’d love if everyone in the industry did too. I don’t want to stand alone; let’s build a green real estate industry we can all be proud of and save our planet in need of care.

HOW CAN YOU JOIN ME?

It starts with a commitment to prioritising people and the planet, not just your bottom line; with this commitment made, the fun can begin!

Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, why don’t you think about refurbing or repurposing? That’s what happened to me! I underwent extensive refurbishment incorporating a variety of sustainability initiatives designed to vastly reduce my embodied carbon footprint over a comparative new build. I also look as pristine as a new build, if I do say so myself.

A distinctive feature about me, is my exterior living green wall; not only is this an aesthetically pleasing attribute, but has measurable sustainability impacts too. It increases air quality, producing 94kg of oxygen and extracting 71kg of carbon dioxide per year! Why not think about living features for your refurbishment?

Alongside EV charging points, cycle shelters and bike sheds, I also hold 136kWp of solar PV panels, designed to save 26 tonnes of Co2 annually – this is the same as planting over 1,200 trees per year!

With all these features, I am on track to hit BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and even potentially ‘Outstanding’, accounting for less than the top 1% of the UK’s refurbishment fit-out projects – fingers crossed!

These are just a few of my features, but there are lots of ways to be friendly to the planet and your bottom line. So, will you join me, SEGRO, Hollis and Pexhurst and make a commitment to ESG?

BEFORE I GO…

“I’d love to keep my voice all day, soon I imagine I’d be walking. But if not possible, I don’t mind, I think my ESG credentials do the talking.”

JIM GOTT AND MATT MURRAY

Mountstreet

IF THIS BUILDING COULD TALK

If this building could talk it would tell you about how it embraces change; the changes that it has been through and the changes that it expects to go through.

In its simplest form, a building is just a hollow shell that provides somewhere for people to live and work. The location and layout will determine its use, often times that use is the one deemed the most financially attractive. However, over time the uses of these buildings change meeting the equilibrium of supply and demand in market, driven by demographics, technology, and human requirements.

The scale of the changes that have occurred over the last 100 years are staggering; electricity only became a common feature in the 1920’s to 1930’s, telephones arrived at around the same time, the personal computer arrived in the late 1980’s followed by a very rudimentary internet in the 1990’s. These things all fundamentally changed the way that people live and thus the way that buildings are used.

This building hasn’t had much time to rest in the last 100 years, it’s familiar with change and is ready to change again as it faces a fresh set of imminent challenges, that include energy efficiency, transition to a smart building and less demand for office space. Luckily our talking building is used to be repurposed, it is after all just hollow shell.

WE ASKED OUR TALKING BUILDING WHAT CHANGES IT EXPECTED TO SEE…

‘The first change I expect to see is that I’ll get more energy efficient. When I was built, insulation was very basic, or often not present at all, so that made me cold, draughty and energy inefficient. Modern insulation and windows can dramatically improve how warm I feel and as energy prices have increased, more and more people are looking ways to lower their bills and I could definitely help them if I adapt. I could add solar panels and even solar vacuum tubes to my roof to generate electricity and hot water. Some homes are even so efficient at retaining heat that they can be built without any heating at all. I’m also getting used during the week has also changed during the week due to the rise of working from home, an outcome of the COVID pandemic. Other buildings are often converting bedrooms or using other spare space for offices –if they’re lucky enough to have a large garden sometimes they add rooms to work from.

Speaking of gardens, my outdoor space is increasingly being used to house air and ground source heat pumps which use the heat of the air or ground to replace traditional gas or oil boilers and are much more energy efficient. Combined with insulation this can be a great way of keeping me warm.

Finally, the amount and type of technology that’s kept inside me keeps growing.When I was built, a wireless radio was about all the technology I’d see, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen more advanced and smarter technology. I expect that will only accelerate over the next few years.

Sensors linked to heating, lights, doors, and ventilation systems can make me smarter and more secure and who knows what’s possible as Artificial Intelligence advances.

Longer term, the UK still has a structural shortage of good quality housing and a growing population, so I expect to be in demand for a long time to come!’

Most buildings evolve, they rarely stay in the same format that the architect designed. Although the reuse and repurposing of buildings has been common, it has also been common for them to be demolished and replaced with more valuable stock. This has obvious advantages, but also some less obvious disadvantages – 1) in demolishing buildings we lose some of our cultural heritage (even if we don’t appreciate it at the time) and 2) we also create a need for replacement, carbon intensive, redevelopment.

We are in an era where the use case of our buildings is continuously changing. Online retail sales currently stand at about 35% of total sales and are only set to increase, this has significantly impacted the demand for retail space. Working from home has also impacted the demand for office space and whilst central business districts may remain the focus for office real estate, buildings located in secondary locations are likely to see reduced demand.

Over the coming decade the investment values for redundant buildings will be under significant pressure; this will be coupled with the requirement for low-carbon buildings and will result in the repurposing of existing stock. This will have an interesting impact in certain areas that need to evolve to survive, this will involve turning previously commercial districts into dynamic mixed-use commercial, residential, retail and leisure districts.

Our talking building understands this, as it has been on a journey of change and it embraces change – it makes life much more interesting!

HESTER KING AND MATT GENT

Whitbread

SNOW HILL POLICE STATION, CITY OF LONDON

Working in the development industry and taking time to contemplate this question, I genuinely believe, we need to listen to what the planet needs to enable us and buildings to survive.

So, if this building could talk it would say “re-use me” “refurbish me” and “repurpose me”.

If we are going to develop in a sustainable manner moving forward, we need to replicate the trends of the garment sector who are rapidly dumping ‘fast fashion’ in favour of ‘pre-loved’ and ‘refurbished items’. Buildings must be adapted and upgraded not simply dumped.

Myself and my team at Whitbread have just taken on an unused and vacant police station that became too small for The Metropolitan Police and are in the process of adapting, upgrading, and repurposing it into a hotel. The building is grade II listed which put many other occupiers off development, but it cried out to us and said ‘please bring me back into use and celebrate my unique features’.

Technology has changed dramatically over the last decade. It allows buildings to be deconstructed as opposed to being demolished. Much like a recyclable plastic container or piece of wooden furniture, a building can now be repurposed in small sections.

These advances in technology are allowing us and many other developers to reuse, refurbish and repurpose, as now the bricks can be taken down sensitively and restored and reused on site or sold to be used on another building, steel can be taken out, restored and sold on for use. These two examples of reusing materials from a building can reduce the embodied carbon of a project and impact on the wider environment. I believe that if this building could talk it would say ‘keep striving for technological advances so more of me can be reused, refurbished and repurposed’.

As the ways in which we live and work evolve, unquestionably the buildings that we use are challenged to change to meet our new demands. If this building could talk, I believe it would say ‘I’m happy to change and I can change to meet your needs, but I need to be equipped with better protection’. As our climate becomes warmer and more volatile, we need to equip our buildings with better shading, greater levels of insulation and ways to reduce surface run off, but to name a few.

Once we have made these changes it is then and only then that we can repurpose our buildings to suit its users. Clearly, post Covid-19 the office will never look and function the same again as the dynamics of work and life have fundamentally changed. Mass open plan offices for most are alien and not fit for purpose but if that building could talk, I’m sure they’d say, ‘don’t give up on me, but please try and reuse, refurb and repurpose me’.

This agenda of ‘reuse, refurb and repurpose’ is going to require the fundamental re-writing of the rule book and I know if buildings could talk, they would be shouting ‘make sure the next generation know we need their help’.

And that is where the readers and contributors of this book come in. So please help!

“Congratulations to the Academy – its impact continues to expand and this book is a fascinating contribution to its work to engage the next generation.”

MELANIE LEECH CBE CEO, British Property Federation

“I really love this initiative and book….. huge congratulations to all the students”

JOHN RYLEY Head of Sky News

“What a range of ideas and thoughts and challenges…… thank you to the students for writing and The Academy for publishing”

MARTINA MALONE MD and Head of Capital raising Prologis

“

Anyone in any sort of leadership position in our business needs to read these thoughts of the next generation”

ERIC ADLER President and CEO PGIM Real Estate

“Well done to all the students and to The Academy, this collection is fascinating”

PHIL CLARK

Chairman of Academy of Real Assets