Architecture student’s designs for social inclusion
Architecture student’s designs for social inclusion
Architecture student wins award for his designs to tackle anti-social behaviour in inner-city areas.
15 Aug 2013
Our student from the MArch Architecture, RIBA Part 2 course at Brighton, Jack Champ, won a ‘Future Visions Award 2011’ with his work investigating the relationship between criminal and state control methods in Brixton.
Staying in the area, he observed that the perpetrators of crime, often vulnerable individuals, were re-offending when they were being forced to re-enter certain territories to access support services. In his Re-Coding the Vice Labyrinth, he proposes tackling these behaviors within the territories.
The spaces created in Jack’s work encourage community participation, including public workshop and growing areas where individuals can interact positively with the local community.
Jack’s specific interest is in the revitalisation of neglected buildings and areas of the city, which can be achieved through integrating with existing social networks and connections. This is an approach that he has developed during his architectural education, and one that he hope to continues with throughout his career.
Jack said: “I wanted to test my role as a designer and explore architecture’s potential to provide integrated spatial responses to complex social conditions. This resulted in architecture that aimed to benefit the local and wider community, while tackling an entrenched network of criminal activity.
“Winning this award has raised my confidence in my design methodology – the knowledge that I am developing concepts that are being judged as having potential in improving public spaces and communities.”
The award judges said that Jack’s ideas “Scored very highly in the way that the ideas could be implemented. It displayed excellent consideration of social inclusion.”
Launched in 2007, the Future Vision Awards which are run by the Landscape Institute, encourage students from all disciplines to submit inspirational ideas that have the potential to improve communities across the country.