The show ‘New Graduates – new ideas’, which was held in Vestry Hall on the Saint Mary’s Road campus, not only included projects by graduating students, but also work from second year and Masters students studying interiors courses at the London School of Media Film and Design (LSFMD). A special evening event on Thursday 13 June was attended by students, their friends and family, along with academics, partner businesses and even some prospective students.
The final year Interior Architecture students’ projects centred around the theme of fashion, as Course Leader Sotirios Varsamis explains. “They looked into the tradition of textiles and garment making in East London and considered how new technologies, models of commerce and sustainable materials could be used to revive this for the future of the vibrant fashion community of London.”
Interiors students have also been working with Barons Court Theatre in West London as it looks to upgrade the accessibility of its facilities to be able to welcome schools and elderly people.
“Barons Court Theatre works with underrepresented communities and groups including neurodivergent actors and directors,” Sotirios says. “Their theatre space is essentially a basement under a pub however, so that restricts what they can do.”
Students were asked to come up with layout ideas on how to improve the space, in support of grant applications the Theatre is looking to submit. These were on display as part of the show.
Also on display was the work that MA Interior Environment Design students, the first cohort of the new course, had undertaken while researching the district of Clerkenwell.
“In collaboration with a local architecture practice, each student developed their own project looking at a different aspect,” Course Leader Doina Carter explains.
The students’ work revolved around aspects of the area, from the origins of its name to the crafts and trades that once defined it, such as watch makers. They also explored the folklore associated with the neighbourhood, such as wife selling to end unsatisfactory marriages in Smithfield’s market, the pub where Stalin and Lenin are believed to have first met or Clerkenwell Green, which was novelist Charles Dicken’s Fagin and the artful dodger’s ‘classroom’ for fresh delinquents.
Other projects included site analysis findings, such as the existence of a historic underground river – called the New River – which was directed to Clerkenwell in the 17th century to bring water to the neighbourhood.
“The students’ interest in the coherent urban fabric, perceived as monotonous, revealed that this is the physical expression of a monoculture, now surprisingly dominated by solicitors rather than creatives,” Doina adds. “Of interest to our collaborators was how the students’ projects made visible some of the lost histories of Clerkenwell, bringing it to life for a diverse group of people.”
