UNIT B
THE LIVES OF ARTISTS
Stephen Baty, Alex Scott-Whitby
The artist, their work, their legacy The UK has an internationally recognised art market. The work of artists is now less of a singular activity but one that revolves around a collective effort of makers, gallerists, and publicist’s. This year Unit B has been investigating this world and looking in depth at the lives of some of the UK’s artists that are living and working in London. The units sites were placed within the Hatton Garden Conservation Area, and the students were asked to study Camden Councils Conservation Area appraisal and management strategy within which there were a serious of sites that had been deemed as contributing negatively to it, or being sites that were still vacant having been bombed out during the war. In the first half of the year we asked the students to investigate how their chosen artist makes their work, a series of sites within the conservation area and importantly to study an important precedent building with a particular emphasis on the precedents structure. Students were then asked to respond to theses studies by making a series of thematic models that asked each student to translate their understanding in three dimensional form. Each student has then developed their own brief independently responding to the Site, The Artist, and the Structural Precedent to create their own individual brief. Unit B is interested in the design of buildings and space. We have worked almost exclusively at large scale challenging the students to work at scales of 1:100 or less. We have asked them to look closely at buildings and spaces that have inspired them, not just by image but importantly in plan, section, elevation and detail.
CLERKENWELL, LONDON
Throughout this challenging year we have developed a weekly diet of lectures and online talks/exhibitions for the student to watch, listen and learn from. We expected the students to be fully immersed within the subject area and they have responded appropriately. It has been a challenging, unprecedented year, and we have huge admiration and respect for our students who have despite all that has been swirling around us, responded, engaged and cared for us and importantly each other. They are our professions future and if our sample is anything to go by our professions future could not be in better hands.
