Worlds within Worlds

This year Unit 5 will be considering spaces of music and performance in secondary schools. With changing attitudes to arts education and the government committed to the largest ever schools investment programme, there has never been a better time to explore this subject.

Architecture can be understood as layers upon layers of contexts that extend from the body out into the world and back again. Each context has its own specific rules, requirements, pleasures, contradictions and each layer has a relationship to all of the others. In his 1949 essay, ‘Heavenly Mansions’, the architectural historian, John Summerson, made a case for understanding Gothic architecture as an agglomeration of little houses, of aedicules that, piled one upon another, created vast social spaces, the cathedrals of the day.

We will begin the year by making our own aedicules and then speculating as to the kinds of architectures that might be created if we follow Summerson’s lead. This process will then be shared with children at six schools in Croydon and become the contexts for childhood play, little houses for music, performance and progressive cross-disciplinary teaching.

We are working with Croydon Council on this project to develop exemplar music and performance spaces in parallel with their Building Schools for the Future programme. Within each of the schools will be a client group of children who we will be working with to establish briefs. This will involve organising performance events that test spatial propositions that can then be developed further in the studio. Croydon will be providing funding to then realise one of the projects later in the year.

The unit is interested in bridging the divide between the imagination and the city, to discover delightful architectures able to situate children in the world and provide memorable backgrounds to education. As in previous years the unit encourages playful exploration of form and programme. The year’s process is intended to be speculative and the outcome unexpected.