UWE architecture students design stand for Graduate Fashion Week
University of the West of England, Bristol A team of architecture students from the University of the West of England have designed and built an exhibition stand for the University’s Fashion department to display their work during Graduate Fashion Week at Earl’s Court London from 8 -12 June 2008. The design has been entered for the prestigious Dalziel and Pow Design Award that will be judged on 10 June 2008. The competition has presented a great opportunity for the students to work to brief on a real project and enter their design for a national competition.
The UWE exhibition stand design is based on a series of three illuminated white boxes and designed by the student team comprising Peter Spall, Giuditta Martello and Melissa Patterson who are all in their second year.
Anthony Wilkins, Lecturer in Fashion, who initiated this collaboration with Architecture, said, “The event at Graduate Fashion Week presented an excellent opportunity to collaborate with architecture students and staff. After initial consultations with Architecture and Planning we went ahead with a project for the students to design make and build our stand for the Graduate Fashion Week event at Earls Court.
“This was a fantastic opportunity for the Architecture and Planning students to work to a live project. Staff from the fashion and fashion/textiles courses chose the design which we felt best represented the course and its philosophy. The final stand will showcase not only the fashion and fashion/textiles students’ work; it will also showcase this exciting piece of Architecture, and highlight collaboration as an important feature of both of our courses.”
Giuditta Martello describes the design, “We wanted to keep the design as simple and minimalist as possible so that the stand enhanced rather than dominated the fashion designs on display. We included three boxes and played with light effects and looked at architects who have done this successfully like Peter Zumthor.We wanted the forms to have an organic appearance and the exterior faces have different designs of perforation, allowing light patterns to be created on the otherwise smooth white surface.
“It’s very exciting that we have the opportunity to see our design in place at Earls Court. We will build the display stand at UWE and then dismantle, transport and rebuild at Earls Court.”
Elena Marco, Senior Lecturer in Architecture has coordinated the collaboration between the two groups of students. She explains, “The fashion textile programme asked the architecture and planning students to design a visually stimulating exhibition space which has the potential to be reused to showcase students’ work.
“We set up a competition between teams of Architecture students in years1, 2 and 3 to develop a set of ideas in response to a brief. These were presented to a jury of staff from Architecture and Fashion departments who selected a winner from 20 teams. The selection was made based on the creativity of the scheme and the practicality of being able to construct it within the timeframe and budget. The six finalist teams will now work flat out to build the winning design.”
Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) is seen nationally and internationally as a chance for students to showcase their work and for the past three years it has been sponsored by the high-street brand River Island. The prize will be judged this year by Marc Jacobs (US designer), Claudia Schiffer, Glenda Bailey (Harpers Bazaar) and Richard Bradbury (River Island).
