MArch Year Two

Croydon was proudly named London Borough of Culture 2023 — a recognition that celebrates the borough’s unique identity, diverse communities, rich heritage, culture, and creativity. The programme, titled This is Croydon, showcases the borough to a global audience. It includes major events featuring internationally acclaimed performers alongside emerging home-grown talent, as well as hundreds of community-led cultural activities. This is Croydon is part of the Mayor of London’s London Borough of Culture initiative and is a celebration created, directed, and presented by the people of the borough. During 2023, Croydon hosts various events to celebrate this award, highlighting everything the borough has to offer.

For me, this celebration holds personal significance. Croydon College is where I studied Art and Design, and while it was an amazing college with amazing teachers and a very supportive learning environment, the facilities were very limited. Our end-of-year show, for instance, was very small and not able to showcase our work properly. This experience became a main reason why I designed a gallery for Croydon College. My thesis therefore became personal, rooted in my own educational experience and in a desire to create something that benefits future students.

The proposed gallery is envisioned as a landmark cultural venue that supports the Borough of Culture celebrations while leaving a lasting legacy for both the college and the wider community. Croydon College has a massive and thriving art department but does not have large enough spaces to properly exhibit student work. The gallery will be big enough to host events during these celebrations and will serve Croydon College as an assigned location for students to showcase their work throughout the years. In addition, a café will be located on the ground floor and will be open to the public, welcoming the local community into the building. The aim is to foster a vibrant, inclusive social environment where people from all backgrounds can come together. The café is intended not only for creatives but also for local residents, encouraging interaction, collaboration, and conversation through art and culture. The highest level of the building will act as a viewpoint, high enough to oversee most of Croydon and beyond, and can be hired for meetings and events, offering a refined yet accessible space with panoramic views that elevate every occasion.

The project’s client is Croydon College, and the brief is to propose a gallery at the area of Reeve’s (Reeves) Corner in Croydon. This site was chosen in particular because it holds great history and meaning for the borough. The aim is to re-envision this area, as it is currently known for the fire that took place there and burnt down the furniture store that once stood on the site. During the London riots in 2011, many parts of the local area suffered destruction, and unfortunately at this time the 100-year-old family-owned furniture store was burnt down as a result of a malicious fire. Fast forward to 2023: in April, Croydon was named London’s Borough of Culture, and throughout the year it will host various events to celebrate this award. The gallery is intended to serve these events while also acting as a permanent asset for Croydon College and the local community.

The town is blossomed with many different races and cultures, and the Gallery is conceived as a symbol of unity among the people who live locally. The area is home to tens of thousands of people of all kinds of background, heritage, talent, and social status, which is a key reason this site has been selected. Reeve’s Corner is part of Croydon’s Old Town and has always been a special place for local people. In response, I am proposing a social condenser that presents gallery spaces alongside a range of other amenities: social and private spaces, private studios, cafés, and outdoor scenarios around the site. The building consists of four separate structures that are all connected by glass corridors, creating interlocking volumes that vary in height. Three of the four structures serve as gallery spaces, two sections of these incorporate cafés (including one on the ground floor and another on the third floor), and the remaining section contains studio spaces that are private and accessible only through locked doors. This organisation accentuates the vertical scale of the building, raising it above its local surroundings and providing visitors with a viewpoint.

The private and public arrangement works consistently throughout the entire building. The building is very large, but the different levels and volumes break up the mass so that it does not feel overwhelming; instead, it becomes inviting and welcoming. The scale and height of the volumes allow each section to feel separate while still being interconnected as a whole. This creates strong visual connections: from one gallery you can look across to someone working in a studio, or from above you can see someone relaxing on a café balcony. This spatial transparency makes the gallery feel like a unified environment where creativity and unity are always present, no matter where you are within the building.

Architecturally, the Gallery is inspired by its surroundings. Its curved form responds to the natural contours of the landscape and to the motion of its position on a roundabout. The surrounding characteristics have strongly influenced the design. Croydon’s Old Town is defined by brickwork, and many of the newer buildings around the site also use brick. In response, the gallery itself will be constructed from grey brick, giving it a more modern feel while still allowing it to feel part of the Old Town and rooted in the local context. The use of four interconnected volumes, glass corridors, transparency, and variation in height allows the building to balance heritage and contemporary identity.

In this project and report, I also address the technical and construction aspects of the design, including materials, light design, sustainability, and overall performance. The gallery is therefore not only a cultural and social proposal, but also a carefully considered architectural intervention that reclaims a historically significant site, transforms a place once associated with destruction into one of creativity and community, and provides Croydon College with the professional exhibition, studio, and social spaces that it has long lacked.

In this project i have addressed the technical and construction aspects of the design, including materials, light design, sustainability, and overall performance. The gallery is therefore not only a cultural and social proposal, but also a carefully considered architectural intervention that reclaims a historically significant site, transforms a place once associated with destruction into one of creativity and community, and provides Croydon College with the professional exhibition, studio, and social spaces that it has long lacked.