Site plan
Royal mail sorting offices From left: Paddington Station; Rathbone Place; New Oxford Street; Mt Pleasant
The proposal provides houses for 1400 students within the vacant buildings of the Royal Mail. A public institution that has succumb to privatisation – leaving in its wake a network of well-placed, but highly specific, derelict sorting offices. Obsolete infrastructures, built to accommodate the unpredictable nature of production that paradoxically have proven inadequate to meet the needs of a post-industrial society.
The project is a manifestation against the blurring of boundaries between public and private, production and reproduction. Against a condition where ideas of flexibility has replaced reflection only to instigate consumption.
As means to a different way of living, architectural form constitutes the boundaries to challenge the social organisation of life.To explore the possibility of a form of life that goes beyond living together simply for the sake being productive.
The Cell
The individual cell provide seclusion while establishing the necessary boundaries between production and reproduction. A space for work on the body and space for work on the mind.
Designed deliberately small and inflexible, based on a belief that it is the physical constraint imposed by architectural form that can allow for going beyond the prescribed and eventually give rise to the unexpected. As the cell accommodates only the basic needs of the individual all other forms of life takes place outside the cell in the collective space. By keeping the individual cell at a minimum and sharing the rest it allows for the collective of individuals to make a little go a long way.
Work on the body
View of interior ground floor
Work on the mind
View of interior first floor
New Oxford Street
Typical plan
Rathbone Place
Typical plan
Together and Apart
View of communal space
Rathbone Place
Section
New Oxford Street
Section
