Student Design Workshop

Over a four week period in January & February 2020, ECD Associate Director Lizzy Westmacott and Architectural Technologist Niall O'Cleirigh ran a workshop for Construction and Built Environment students at the London South East Colleges - Bexley Campus at which the students developed designs for a series of balconies on our Park East project and got to see one of their designs actualised at the Sapphire balcony factory in Thetford, a town just outside Cambridge.

The workshop was split over three sessions held in collaboration with Wates Construction and Orbit Housing Association – our client and ultimate client for Park East, a new development of 320 homes at Arthur Street in Erith. It was a great event in which to be involved; the students were incredibly excited to be working on a real project. Many of the students were from Erith and the surrounding areas, and knew and/or had friends who lived on the Arthur Street estate.

The workshops commenced with an introduction to Park East, and a discussion of methods for developing patterns in design. The students then broke into groups to explore narratives and the social and cultural context of the local area. Each group prepared a three slide PowerPoint illustrating their design premise, inspiration images and sketch outcomes for further development. These sketches were then developed in a collaborative process to create patterns for the building balconies. The students were taken on a tour of the balcony factory so they could get an understanding of the manufacturing process. And, whilst they were there, a prototype of the panel design was cut out which was subsequently painted and sent to college!