St Edward's Rhubarb Issue 5

4 ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

Building the Future James Binning (C, 2000-2005) in conversation with Nicola Hunter, Assistant Head Academic and History of Art Teacher.

What was the path you took as part of your decision to become an architect? It evolved from conversations about the Art Foundation course which I took at Falmouth after leaving St Edward’s. I wanted to study Architecture to accommodate the different interests I developed at A Level and the Foundation course felt like an introduction to a way of working that felt both inclusive and open-ended. I studied Architecture at Cambridge, and there was a lot of history and theory as part of the course. I played a lot of golf then, which in retrospect was not hugely useful when I should have been studying! How did Assemble develop? Assemble formed in 2010, and is an architectural collective comprised of 18 individuals who share workshops and studios to collaborate on different projects. Whilst studying at university I was close with people on the same course, and a group of us lived together, moving accommodation quite a lot which became quite a formative process learning about new environments. One of our tutors commented that we didn’t work well as a group during our university years, but it is that same group that went on to form Assemble. We graduated in 2009 and the jobs we entered weren’t fulfilling our original expectations and it became quite a struggle. After having being immersed in a very intensive learning environment at university, we felt like things had slowed down and the projects became a new form of education. We saw others working on building developments, and decided to create an opportunity for ourselves. We found a derelict petrol station as the location of our first project, at which time we didn’t have a name for the group, and were still working our day jobs, and coming to the studio to work late into the evening. When things became increasingly busy, there were a few nights spent sleeping in the workshop.

the social purpose of art, and came to see us about our projects. At this time we were working on a project in Granby, Liverpool, which was nominated for the Prize. We didn’t know at this point that he was a judge for the Turner Prize, and a little while later we found out that we had been nominated; it was a huge surprise. Although we had won architectural awards before, this was an award that is known to everyone both inside and outside the art world. We didn’t want the people who lived in Liverpool as part of the Granby project to be overlooked, as the project is one part of a longstanding process and we were there to realise the ambitions of the residents and make these ambitions visible in the community. We were nominated, but it wasn’t our story to tell.

F E A T U R E S

How did the project in Liverpool develop? After the 1981 Toxteth Riots in the Granby area, people were moved to other areas of the city, and the government planned and carried out the destruction of high-density housing to replace them with low-density buildings. There was a resistance from the remaining

residents to the development plans, as they didn’t want to see some of the oldest buildings of the most diverse

Congratulations for winning theTurner Prize. How did the nomination come about?

Alistair Hudson, Director of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, has an interest in

The Granby Workshop