Reimagining Winchester: 2018 Mayor’s Choice Exhibition

We are honoured to display our work alongside objects from the Cultural Trust Archives selected by the Mayor of Winchester, Cllr David McLean. The Mayor’s interest in encouraging young people to develop and contribute to the cultural life of his City is inspirational. We aim to show not final projects, but how young and developing architects view the city and this collection and expose their way of designing architecture. All the schemes shown are speculative only and students have been encouraged to be experimental and challenging in their approaches.
As part of this process students were asked to produce a three-dimensional conceptual artefact, inspired by Cornell’s assemblage boxes, that summarised their thinking about culture, Winchester and their research: They mark the beginning of their design journey. All are displayed as part of the exhibition.
This Master of Architecture Studio, Cultural Capital, is investigating the future role of architecture in defining possible Futures for Cultural exchange within a heritage environment. This is an ambitious programme that seeks to envision and develop architectural projects, which are able to challenge architectural, social and cultural conventions. We are working within the context of Winchester and designing Architecture that aims to produce innovative spaces for knowledge and cultural exchange for the next 10, 25, 50 or even 100 years. Working in a city with an overarching presence of the past and aiming at envisioning future scenarios from a radical stance, we are looking for an architecture that could inspire a new view of Winchester and its future.