End of Year Show 2021: PROJECTION

Kent School of Architecture and Planning (KSAP) and Kent Architectural Student Association (KASA) are excited to share the news of this year’s End of Year Show 2021: PROJECTION. The event will form a trail of vacant spaces and shop windows through Canterbury city centre from Sun Street and Burgate, through to Whitefriars, taking the audience on a journey of discovery.

The event is a celebration of all students’ work, from the BA (Hons) Architecture and MArch students, to the postgraduate taught course and PhD students. The premise of this year’s show is to provide students with the opportunity to have their work seen by large and diverse audiences beyond the University, and to gain experience engaging with a public audience. This will also be an opportunity for the School to demonstrate how architectural intervention can help in addressing the current economic situation, to a public that may not normally have contact with contemporary architectural design.

A primary theme of the trail is to acknowledge that young people studying now are a part of the socio-economic debate about the future of high streets and city centres after the impact of the pandemic, and how the repurposing of disused and empty spaces is an important part of current debate to which young people can contribute.

Head of School, Professor Gerald Adler says, “By temporarily reactivating disused shops, we hope to change the perception of the spaces as abandoned, unwanted units, offering hope of a possible new future for the city centre.

This is a really exciting end of year enterprise, and on a much larger scale than ever before. At this critical stage, the trail places architecture and design at the centre of the conversation of the reinvention of urban settings, wherein players such as the Kent School of Architecture and Planning, and our students, demonstrate our value and passion to its future. Canterbury is an ancient city deserving of great consideration for its design as we emerge from lockdown. We believe that the enthusiasm and skill displayed by our students will inspire further discourse on how Canterbury city centre matters to us all.’

The trail will be officially opened at St Augustine’s Abbey on 25 June by architect Ptolemy Dean OBE, President of the Canterbury Society and Surveyor to the Fabric in Westminster Abbey and will will be open to the public until Friday 23 July, from 4pm – 9pm, seven days a week. The opening at St Augustine’s Abbey will be live streamed from the School’s Instagram account (@kent_arch) from 8pm on Friday 25 June.

The event is a collaborative project between the University of Kent, Whitefriars Canterbury, Clague LLP, the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries (ICCI), the local business community, Canterbury BID (Business Improvement District), Canterbury Cathedral and Canterbury City Council.

Our collection of student work will also be available online at www.kentarchshow.online for those unable to visit Canterbury in-person.