The Exhibition

What is the relationship between the place of a design’s conception and its eventual implementation? How do we gain proximity to the communities we design for when embedded practices are not available? What new opportunities are created when they are?

Proximity refers to the condition of closeness, most often measured in space or time, but not exclusively. Many of the projects in this year’s Fifteen Show wrestle with these very questions. Whether they be sites and communities within the city of the designer’s practice, an intervention imagined for a distant home, an innovation for an industry with global reach, or an intimate digital encounter, the issue of proximity remains an enduring question.

This year, for the first time, the Fifteen Show is being presented as a multi-site exhibition, spanning Here East, Stratford; 22 Gordon Street, Bloomsbury; and the online platform. Reflecting the diverse spatial ecology of The Bartlett School of Architecture, the exhibition engages with the distinct proximities each physical site offers. In Here East, different programmes work side by side, and directly adjacent to facilities of making and testing. Gordon Street offers different proximities – a close engagement with the public realm, an institution, and an urban fabric. The theme of this year’s show asks its exhibitors to think about the multiple kinds of proximities at play between where they design and the sites and communities they design for.

Programmes Exhibiting:

Design for Manufacture MArch
Programme Director: Professor Peter Scully

Design for Performance & Interaction MArch
Programme Directors: Dr Fiona Zisch and Jessica In

Situated Practice MA
Programme Directors: Dr Polly Gould

Find out more about our range of programmes and how to apply to study with us on our website.