Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 Spatial Practices Prizes for their innovative and inspiring Narrative Environments projects! Cultural Equity Award – Sixto Juan Zavala The Cultural Equity Award goes to MA Narrative Environments graduating student Sixto Juan Zavala for his project Queer Botany, a tour with a series of outdoor interpretive displays that tell …
Congratulations to graduating MA Narrative Environments student Tara Corovic on winning the Steve Lumby Drawing Prize, sponsored by Event Communications ltd. Her winning project, Borderless Museums, reconceives exhibition design by encouraging local museums to take the stories held within their walls out into the surrounding area. Rather than the local community having to come to …
MA Narrative Environments students produced a series of six fascinating proposals for Numberfit, a social enterprise that helps teachers and parents deliver novel mathematics activities with movement and mindfulness, to benefit every child. Numberfit invited inspirational individuals working in STEM professions to act as ‘role models’ in order to challenge dominant white, male stereotypes of mathematicians. …
MA Narrative Environments recently held its’ first global ‘In Practice’ Alumni Sharing Event, bringing together our amazing graduate community on zoom. The event was an opportunity for alumni to connect with each-other across the world and share the work they have been doing since graduating with current students. Building on our popular ‘In Practice’ interview blog …
The home of William Morris is now a gallery, nestled in parkland in Walthamstow, East London. Morris was the iconic leader of the nineteenth-century British Arts and Crafts movement. The Gallery tells the story of his life as designer, poet and activist. Like museums across the world COVID-19 has restricted access to the William Morris Gallery because …
MA Narrative Environments students have created a design proposal for a Great Ormond Street Hospital Parklet. The design aims to integrate and unify the hospital with its local community by creating a more permeable threshold between the hospital and the street, generating a healthier street environment, and enhancing the opportunity for connections within the community. In researching …
We are excited to share the outcome of a collaboration between MA Narrative Environments 1st Year students with exhibition designers Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA) and Disrupt Space Gallery (DSG) to create a multi-layered design strategy to support under-represented black artists in Brixton. Creating meaningful connections within the diverse community of Brixton in South London, the “Disrupt Space” …
MA Narrative Environments graduating student Eunbi Kim has won the Spatial Practices Climate Care Award with her final project ‘Dystopian Flight Experience’. This award is given to projects that advance the climate agenda within the field of spatial practices, tackle climate change in our communities and take a proactive role in embedding sustainability practices. Dystopian …
The project takes the form of an interactive installation challenging dominant understandings of failure through an immersive and contemplative route prompting participants to interact with one another by entangling threads, enabling the audience to explore the emotions related to the conditions of failing in different aspects of life in order to share renewed perspectives. The overall …
MA Narrative Environments 1st year students worked with Arup Foresight to explore the Future of Factories, using foresight tools and methodologies to imagine different future scenarios. This projects transports us to 2040, where extreme climate changes have forced mankind to be more resourceful. To aid existence in an increasingly polluted, over-populated world short on natural …
ARUP Foresight teamed up with MANE 1st year students to explore the manufacturing opportunities and challenges facing the classic British bicycle company ‘Brompton’, as part of the forecasting series ‘ The Future of the Factory’. The resulting scenario saw the Brompton Bicycles company benefit from unexpected exponential growth, becoming a powerful influence due to bicycles …
Following on from the Work in Progress Show Private View, here are some images focusing on the displays created by the MA Narrative Environments 2nd year students to showcase their major projects. The juxtaposition of the displays in the show highlighted the breadth of themes and stories being developed by the students in their work. …
This time last week we welcomed our friends, affiliates and industry partners to the Private View of the MA Narrative Environments Work in Progress Show 2020, designed and built by our amazing second year students to present their work to date. Congratulations to the students on producing such an inspiring and vibrant event! Here it …
Addressing issues of social injustice present in our society today as they were in Charles Dickens’ time, first year MA Narrative Environments developed an Augmented Reality journey for the Dickens Museum. In collaboration with Holborn Media Arts club, the students imagined five short stories, each one linked to five different locations chosen from the Dickens topography; …
Smyle is a well-established creative agency with offices in Islington. Passionate about fusing technology with creativity, they partnered with first year MA NE students to imagine a socially engaged holiday installation in the Smyle windows and lobby. The students created an interactive “Wave Chain” installation to counter loneliness in Islington, which is nationally ranked as the borough …
Living Space is an interactive exhibition and immersive tour of the European Space Agency’s core explorations, past, present and future, designed by MA Narrative Environments 2nd Year Students, in collaboration with from Southbank University and The Erasmus Centre at the European Space Agency. The refreshed tour moves away from a microgravity-centred narrative in favour of …
ARUP and MA Narrative Environment 1st year students put their heads together to imagine a Healthcare Ecosystem in 2040 through a dispersed and reactive lens, that would function within an environment where automation has changed the world and once complex problems could easily be solved by AI and robots. In order to avoid an economic …
First Year MA NE students returned from their field trip to Sarajevo last week with compelling research and concepts targeting seven areas of unique physical, economic, cultural and social assets of the city. They were tasked with developing new narratives or identities for the Sarajevo, enabling it to carve a more significant place on the world …
How can the future healthcare system tackle issues such as pollution, mental health and stress, from a centralised and reactive viewpoint? In collaboration with ARUP, first year MA Narrative Environments students used research and foresight techniques to imagine a healthcare system in 2040 functioning in a monitored co-living and working facility such as their proposed prototype “Flora”, forecasting …
MA Narrative Environments students collaborated with ARUP to imagine a healthcare ecosystem, after the NHS has been privatised, that is preventative and dispersed. In this scenario, the privatisation of the NHS has caused people to become increasingly aware of preventative healthcare as a way to reduce their healthcare costs. In large cities like London, investment …
How could London’s healthcare system function in a preventative and centralised way in 2040? In collaboration with ARUP, MA Narrative Environments first year students extrapolated out current health concerns including loneliness and depression, anxiety, stress, antibiotic resistance and an ageing population to imagine a Future Healthcare Ecosystem for London in 2040 inspired by the health …
The exhibition ‘Food as a Weapon: the Hunger for Power’ at the British Museum in London explores how food production and distribution are related to power, exploitation and control of natural resources. Today, hunger and malnutrition are still major health risks in some parts of the world, with social inequalities acting as a major barrier to …
Re-imagining what a market can offer, MA NE Year 1 students, supported by Hemingway Design, created a design proposal for Inverness Street Market in Camden that revives the market place through a narrative led experience that inspires visitors to be creative and fulfil their dreams. The design proposal responds to research showing that the market …
Tackling social issues partly caused by the isolated location of the Maiden Lane Estate, Year 1 Narrative Environments students worked with local residents to create a proposal that activates empty public spaces around the estate to encourage interaction, promote cultural exchange and create platform for creative expression. The students staged an interview on the rooftop …
The University College Hospital London Childrens and Young Adults A+E department is seeking to make their services truly patient-focused and to create an age-appropriate environment that provides a welcoming, uplifting atmosphere that alleviates the anxieties of patients and their carers when visiting the A+E. In response, the MA Narrative Environments students developed a proposal to …
Find Oliver! Is a 30 minute trail using street lamp posts to disseminate visual and audio clues that incrementally share Oliver Twist’s story, imagined by first year MA Narrative Environment students for the Dickens Museum. The trail covers commercial and residential hotspots, engaging residents, students, workers and local shoppers. The lamp post installations bring awareness …
A focus of MA NE Student Mateusz Gidaszewski’s work at Medics.Academy as a Head of Design and User Experience is the progression of the role of design in healthcare. He recently delivered a successful lecture and workshop about Design Thinking, Experience Design, and Human Centered Design in the context of medicine, for the Healthcare Leadership Academy. 26 …