X-Ray: The Embodied City, Car Parks

Project details

Programme

Year 1

This year, for the building project, the brief asked us to investigate how buildings can be designed to nurture health and wellbeing. Health and wellbeing should be considered something that incorporates both animate and inanimate, medical and non-medical elements and forms of architecture. This is explored through both conventional and alternative practices, encompassing the mystical, profane and spiritual elements of buildings, as both sick and healthy constructions. We can relate health to active and non-active practices of the body, including the foods we grow and eat, the quality of air and the particles we breathe and the flora and fauna surrounding us.

We stepped into the shoes of the architect-surgeon, as we learnt to diagnose the city, our sites and their surrounding environments, while we dreamed about alternative realities, envisioning what a site can host or become in order to help the occupants and the wider city. The project worked on three scales: one-to-one actions and occupations for the body; the building as body; and the building within the embodied city.

The projects below chose car park sites.

Students

Charles Warren (Charlie) Stone Year 1
Mai-Ling Kong Year 1
Alexandros Photiou Year 1
Hoi Li Muraco (Muraco) To Year 1
Dhruva Vijaya Kumar Menon Year 1
Alexander Peter (Alex) Harrison Year 1
Jacob Darcy Dumon Year 1
Marisa Pui Lam Lau Year 1
Sofia Barbosa Lima Year 1
Alastair Ang Year 1
Clara Varela Cuartero Year 1
Chae Won (Chae Won) Song Year 1
Trent Zachary Taylor Jack Year 1
Rosina Ashley (Rosie) Hooper Year 1 Materials and Making Prize
Hannah Kathleen Bailey Year 1
Tingyi (Tina) Xian Year 1
Milda Knabikaite Year 1

Alastair Ang, Cavell Mycelium Theatre

Cavell Mycelium Theatre is a public wellness park and performing arts venue. This proposal will address two key problems identified in Whitechapel: the lack of inclusivity and pollution.

Alexander Harrison, An Ode to Edith

An Alcoholics Anonymous Centre in Cavell Street, inspired by Edith Cavell's charitable acts and community support.

Rosina Hooper, An Architecture for Death

The design aims to occupy the void that liminal souls occupy after death: bridging the gap that exists between end of life and funeral.

Dhruva Menon, The Uncovering of Emotions

The project aims to provide a space for nurses from the Royal London Hospital to feel comfortable enough to express their hidden emotions. Located along the train tracks of East London Rail, the building filters the air from the tunnels.

Charlie Stone, A Performance-Based Trauma Therapy Centre

Muraco To, Xray Architecture

This project sets out to nurture four types of native UK medical herbs. Specifically, these herbs are for relieving asthmatic symptoms, the production of herbal ointments and dry herbal leaf tea.

Alexandros Photiou, Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Center

The project aims to create a hyper-accessible public space, catered towards cardiovascular rehabilitation, which stems from the site’s proximity to the Royal London Hospital.

Jacob Dumon, How to House a Turf War

This is a proposal for a graffiti sanctuary that provides shelter and agency to local graffiti artists.

Tina Xian, Secret Garden

In the car park of the Royal London Hospital lies a hidden corner, acting as a buffer between the Whitechapel Road and the hospital. The project provides nurses with a Secret Garden, giving them a space to relax away from the hospital.

Trent Jack, The Xrayed City

Situated above Royal Mail’s Post Office Railway, the proposal taps into the century-old forgotten system, rejuvenating it into a transport system for elderly patients, rethinking the narrative of a medical appointment for this neglected demographic.

Hannah Bailey, Bake House

A therapeutic baking centre for nurses of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. The design revolves around the process of baking bread, providing both bread and resting spaces for nurses.