Museum of Architecture Gingerbread City on 2018 New Year’s Eve
Museum of Architecture is a charity that helps the public engage with architecture and architects. It also supports architects to be more entrepreneurial, collaborative and informed on design for places and people through cultural projects like The Gingerbread City Masterplan – Imagining Cities of the Future.
Cities should be inclusive, sustainable, healthy and easy to navigate via 3 principles:
1/ high-density living with diverse lifestyles included under one roof,
2/ well-connected in terms of infrastructure, transportation and safety issues,
3/ have green spaces via urban farms, roof terraces, parks etc.
There were so many participants, most of them top firms, that sadly I could only select a few images to include. An impressive 54 page free booklet was included in the exhibition in full colour, with masterplan, and full descriptions of the design theme and ethos of each of the 71 entries. Those which stood out for me included: No. 54 UberRaum’s Flying Fire Station because of the iridescent blue Icing Lake,
No. 32 AHMM’s Sili-cone Stadium because of the super cute Tic Tac spectators
No. 26 Seven Architecture’s sawtooth roofed lived word units Live/Work/Sleep Sugar
No. 16 Zaha Hadid’s Opera House (of course)
No. 3 Foster and Partner’s Exploration pavilion which had a surprising flambe style dragon’s tail light display
No. 69 Nick Baker Architects and TZG Partnership’s Confection Connection with its engineering challenge of a baked barrel roof cum truss tunnel bridge structure and candy cane streetlights.
No. 19 Atkins of SNC Lavalins Sugar Highline – a cable car alpine jewel-lit extravaganza with lollipop trees. Lots of super cute gummy bears are skiing away on the icing sugar slopes, and adorable snowmen serving… Brasserie du Mont Blanc la Verte beer, I think.
PS may have photobombed myself.
Ivy Ngeow is a London architect with her own boutique small practice and specialises in innovative, sustainable, cultural and diverse design, upcycling, repurposing, reusing and recycling materials, industrial residential and luxury residental. She is an award-winning author of two crime novels, Cry of the Flying Rhino (2016) and Heart of Glass (2017).
