Sewing up the Chelsea Design Quarter

KSA Students took second place in a design competition in London competing against teams from other UK schools of architecture!

A group of BA Architecture students represented KSA at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) design charrette in London on Saturday 7 November. The event took place in the Zaha Hadid-designed Roca showroom near Chelsea Harbour, and AIA members from London practices (Ecehan Esra Top from Foster and Partners, and Francis Hur) mentored the students during the day. They were working on ideas to improve the sense of place and identity in the area nearby, known as the Chelsea Design Quarter.

When asked about the day, third year student Ed Powe said ‘the Charrette, tasked the students to produce a master-planning strategy of art landmarks to increase the connectivity of the region. The design produced by the Kent School of Architecture was the only proposal which took a soft architectural approach, choosing to design a yearly festival rather than a series of buildings. The festival was named ‘The Chelsea Living room’ and annually challenged the local design community to collaborate in the creation of an external living room of over-sized furniture, at each ‘node’ on the main street (Kings Road). The concept, similar to that of the Chelsea flower show, is that this event would help to raise awareness of the area in order to encourage its future expansion. The jury chaired by Patrick Lynch Awarded the Kent School of Architecture second place for the one day design competition.’

Well done to Valentin Abend, Ed Sutcliff, Moho Shirazi, Prinka Anandawardhani, Ed Powe, Ben Nourse, Nicolas Mourot and Luisa Pereira Peres.