The Polytechnic

I attended the end of year show for the fashion and textile students at the University of Brighton on Saturday evening. Seeing the show provoked the usual nagging questions about architectural education. These fashion students appeared to have achieved considerable mastery of the material of their chosen craft in relation to their real world markets - in a way that it is perhaps (??) necessarily difficult for architecture students to match (for the simple reason that architecture is a much broader discipline, they cannot afford to build etc etc..). Interestingly though, Wayne Hemingway - the co-founder of Red or Dead who launched the show - started by telling the assembled graduates not to describe themselves as textile or fashion designers, but rather simply as designers or creative consultants, and to immediately start to broaden both their areas of design mastery, and potential client base. The example Hemmingway next gave was his own expansion from fashion into housing. I was not particularly familiar with this work for Wimpey and others, commissions which seem to have followed on from critical comments that he made regarding mass housing in this country…! I have not visited any of these developments and would be interested to know if there are any interesting innovations in the designs coming from a non architect…?

Anyway, there is an interesting interview with him here, with some clear comments re sustainability…