Studio 06 have been working in and around Valley Gardens, evocatively known as Brighton’s ‘green mile’, exploring issues relating to the design and use of public space and the architecture which frames this context.

We have responded to visionary architect and writer Bernard Tschumi’s sentiment in his seminal publication, The Manhattan Transcripts (1976-81) that “architecture is not simply about space and form, but also about event, action, and what happens in space.”

Our enquiry developed in response to an invitation to participate in an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project investigating aspects of common or common-like spaces, within or adjacent to urban areas. Running approximately north-south through the centre of Brighton, Valley Gardens may be one of the last remaining stretches of what was once the ‘common land’ over which the city was built.

In term 1, students were each involved in designing a mobile structure sited in Valley Gardens, from which interviews could take place and exhibitions and information about the commons could be shared. Working into their major design project in terms 2 and 3, students responded to Brighton and Hove City Council’s current £18M regeneration project underway for the ‘green mile’, exploring ways in which infrastructural changes can provide a catalyst for re-imagining the design of public realm architecture in sensitive locations.

We invited the studio to engage with wider concerns in relation to the nature and extent of the contemporary commons and its potential to exist as an expanded arena of community, operating beyond traditional, physical boundaries; the limitations of which have been aptly exposed through the current pandemic.

Throughout the year the studio have been fortunate to receive valued input from external reviewers alongside university staff, during both studio and review days. The contribution of these individuals has been invaluable and we are hugely appreciative of them giving their time to aid us in achieving the most possible from our projects. We’d like to thank Beth Bird and Misbah Mahmood, both Studio 06 alumni, Kyriakos Kasaros (Studio C102), Josh Mitchell (10 Tables), Stuart Devoil (James Latham PLC), and Alex Zambelli (University of Portsmouth and Wastes & Strays Management Board).

For the continual encouragement and support, special thanks also go to our Design Studio and Technology Tutors: Graham Perring, Cristian Olmos Herrera, Andrew Paine and Cat Rawcliffe.

The following is work produced by the studio in recent years.

Wastes and Strays

In term 1, Studio 06 developed proposals for a mobile pavilion sited in Brighton’s Valley Gardens in readiness for the start of the wider Wastes and Strays project’s community engagement commencing in 2021.

The AHRC-funded Wastes and Strays research project is an interdisciplinary project investigating aspects of common or common-like spaces within or adjacent to urban areas and is bringing together expertise from the Universities of Newcastle, Sheffield and Brighton.

We were pleased to welcome Wastes and Strays co-investigator Alex Zambelli (University of Portsmouth), Stuart Devoil (Group Head of Marketing at James Latham) and Josh Mitchell (furniture maker and director at 10 Tables) to judge stage 1 of the project.

Projects from studio 06’s 3rd year students Marinos Mavrogenis, Josh Wiseman and 2nd year student Arthur Siegel have been taken forward for consideration in the next stage of design development.

Studio Culture

Studio 6 work collaboratively in the studio through peer reviews, PASS sessions and group projects.