Yitao Zhu Y4
Collaging Euston. The preliminary project ‘Re-drawing the Blitz’ is built on researches of the devastating aerial bombardment of London during WWII and its huge influences on the city’s urban development. The project studies and questions the way this important episode of London’s history is remembered in the city, and proposes a set of installations that ‘complete’ the story of ‘incompletion’ brought by the Blitz. Inheriting this interest in the drastic changes to London’s urbanscapes, ‘Collaging Euston’ looks at a more contemporary issue.
The HS2 project, not due to be completed until 2030s, makes Euston the biggest construction site in Europe, with a vast urban area completely bulldozed and overwritten. It not only generates considerate amount of building wastes, but also erases collective urban memories of the area. The project aims to address both issues by introducing various ways of material reuse and adaptation in the design of a building crafts college. The site, once the St. James Gardens, is turned into a sort of material museum and memorial to the destroyed and the disturbed of Euston.
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