The Creative Process

Design competitions provide the opportunity to test new possibilities, challenge established ideas and paint a picture of the future of designed space. The process of assembling a comprehensive design proposal and crafting a compelling narrative demands creativity and fresh thinking, exchanged across and between a team in a condensed timescale. The energy during the design process is invigorating and engaging and clear communication and teamwork is essential.

We recently participated in a design competition for a new public square at the London Metropolitan University on Holloway Road in London. LMU’s future square will form the core of the university, establishing a new precedent for the role public space will play in higher education. Our proposal majored on the understanding that flexibility is a fundamental part of campus life and that the square needed to be a place for makers to make, performers to perform and creators to create. It should be a place where students of the creative industries can test their ideas, challenge the status quo and be projective about what the future of the arts and design will be.

Flexibility came in the form of the ‘dish’, a central space created by gently lifting the edges of the amorphous central space, to reveal a bold splash of colour and signal the entrance to the site. The dish provided a formal seating typology and contributed to the strong edge condition of the design. The form of the dish responds to the pedestrian desire lines through and across the square and playful ‘peel’ articulations in the paving gives the dish a contemporary appearance. We posited that to a student, often the best seat is the one that doesn’t look like a seat at all; embracing that period of self-discovering and counterculture rebellion that comes with this chapter of life. This was also inspired by the way that people use Piazza Del Campo in Sienna or other well-established public spaces where the ground plane becomes a place to come together in an informal way.

The proposed edge offering of the design responded directly to the use of the adjacent buildings; study areas with views across the garden to connect with nature, the ‘petal’ umbrellas to provide shade and a place to sit outside of the café and the maker plinth as an exhibition platform for the arts and design school. The lounger lawn was a response to the way that the sun moves across the square. Late afternoon sun lands with a welcoming warmth in this portion of the square, so the lawn would be a place to gather and take in the last few hours of sunlight.

The component parts of the design included:

 The Study Garden, which created a quiet intimate part of the design where students could connect to wifi and plug in, and find inspiration in the changing nature of the garden.

The Petal Umbrellas provided an interactive, energy generating sculpture for the square. Students could ‘unfurl’ the petals when the wanted some shade, at which point integrated photovoltaics could capture solar energy. The petal umbrellas conceptually linked the café area with the adjacent garden and would act as an ‘eye-catcher’ from the adjacent streets.

The Dish performance, exhibition and flexible space anchors the square and acts as the platform for change for the square.

The Lounger Lawn, soaks up the afternoon sun and would be a place for students to linger at the end of each day.    

The Shade Garden nestles in the shadow of the Daniel Libeskind building, providing a lush and inviting entrance off of the bustling Holloway Road. It would provide a spectrum of green throughout the year.

The Maker Plinth is inspired by the Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and would be a dedicated platform for design students to test ideas and learn fabrication skills as well as acting as a visual draw into the square from Holloway Road.

Whilst this proposal wasn’t selected from the competitive shortlist of four of the leading contemporary design firms, it did achieve what we set out to do: create a place that would serve as the centre of the life of the campus, provide a diversity of possibilities to reflect the culture of the campus and the development of new ideas for the design of flexible space.