3rd Year Through the Eyes of a 3rd Year: Urban Ghosts, London

By Issy Spence

With only the instructions to bring a powerful torch for our site visit to London, we feared for the worst: a sewer. Thankfully, our worst nightmare didn’t come true, and to our delight were told the group project would be set in an abandoned tube station, Aldwych on The Strand. The project entitled ‘Urban Ghosts’ required us to re-inhabit the station (Which closed in 1994 and is currently used for tours by Transport for London and film set) with Fringe theatre spaces and performance areas as well as an exhibition space for the London Underground’s poster collection. Groups were made up of 3 architects and 2 Civil Engineers, and this was the first time working with civil engineers since the beginning of first year, which seemed an absolute age ago. (You can see what 1st years have been up to this year, with Equilibria on the previous pages) It was exciting to break the stereotypes of architects dreaming and engineers doing calculations, and all work together on the project, as a happy family.

I’m pleased to announce that models are back. And I am so happy. 0 Models were made in 2nd year which seemed a bit of a shame, because there have been some incredible ones this year! I have to say a particular favourite was Group 9 who dared to use modrock for a 1:20 elevation which caused some critics to curse in surprise. I love how suddenly everyone is feeling more experimental and stepping away from the immediate scramble towards SketchUp. With only 4 weeks, this project was rapid, but there was a huge volume, variety and different media of work produced and have to say after seeing the year collectively tired, it was such an interesting project. With ‘Urban Ghosts’ completed, it was now onto our individual project, set in Dublin...