Delivered by Mooradian Studio
In 2022, the Foundation for Future London has awarded a grant to Mooradian Studio for its project “’Hackney House’: How to build locally” for people in Hackney through our Small Grant Scheme. The project meets two of our scheme’s key themes, Young People and Learning Opportunities.
A workshop series and exhibition will link sixth-formers with built environment professionals, architecture students and designers, framed around the design of a fictional house out of materials sourced within Hackney’s borders.
The Small Grant Scheme is part of our new Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, funded by Westfield Stratford City.
‘Hackney House’ is a project centred around the design of a hypothetical house in the London Borough of Hackney using only materials sourced within the borough, in partnership with six Hackney residents, aged 16-18.
Mooradian Studio will host fortnightly 2-hour-long after school workshops over 2022, facilitating mutually beneficial collaboration and the exchange of ideas across different generations and community stakeholders. Participants will develop a valuable technical and creative skillset, walking away with software skills , an industry network and an impressive portfolio to aid university applications.
Practicing architects, researchers and architecture students will guide local sixth form students to source sustainable and waste materials that will form the basis for a series of speculative designs for a house. Commencing at a theoretical building site in Hackney – our studio on Bodney Road – the search will expand outwards street by street to the borders of the borough.
Participants will be instructed in design-research methodology: surveying, mapping, interviewing stakeholders, as well as drawing, making and other iterative design processes. The various outputs – sketches, models, oral histories and a map of local resources, suppliers and fabricators – will be showcased in an exhibition hosted by the Polytechnic gallery space neighbouring our studio.
According to a 2015 study by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, ‘more advantaged’ groups occupy 97.5% of architecture jobs; people from ‘less advantaged’ groups make up only 2.3%. For this reason, ‘Hackney House’ is aimed at furnishing young people from Hackney state schools with the skills and grounding to critically, technically and creatively explore their built environment.
By treating architecture as materially and socially embedded within communities, ‘Hackney House’ naturally engages young people with placemaking. Only by sharing spaces and exchanging ideas can we truly understand and appreciate the parts we play in creating and using our built environment.
To take part, please email research@moooradian.co.uk or contact 02072491238.
Transforming lives and careers of people in East London
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