Nice to Meet You, Unit 11.

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Matt Wood

I had a very enjoyable trip down to ‘the Smoke’ yesterday, courtesy of Unit 11 at the University of East London School of architecture. The Unit, run by Arthur Smart and Jamie Scott-Baxter, is in its second year looking at rural sites – Holderness last year (unit11-holderness), and this year in Cumbria. The brief for my talk was ’40 Minutes on the Community Right to Build’. I was a bit daunted; I wasn’t sure we yet know enough about the CRTB to fill 40 minutes…

….but I managed it somehow! It was mid-term ‘jury day’, so I thought U11 would all be at home sleeping-off the all-nighters, or in the bar, but I was wrong. A room-full listened attentively (thank you) to 48 minutes of rural-related ramblings, and the discussion continued after a pause to hear a talk from Peter Salter delivered to the whole school in the impressive double-height crit-space.

A number of delicate and atmospheric drawings and models were on display in Unit 11’s studio – and it was a shame that we didn’t really have time to discuss them. Hopefully I’ll get down to London again before the end of the year. Or maybe I could coax Unit 11 up to Norfolk for next year’s field-trip, to exploit the poetic potential of the Fen-edge on Norfolk’s western margin (Graham Swift’s ‘Waterland’), or the vulnerable and hermetic landscape of the Norfolk Broads (‘Swallows and Amazons’)…or the gently undulating clay plateau of Norfolk ‘proper’ (Er…’The Pink ‘Un’?). A field-trip in October would coincide with FANN-XI…

This entry was posted in Community Right to Build, Norfolk DNA and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to Nice to Meet You, Unit 11.

  1. Jurgita says:
    February 4, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    Thanks a lot for coming. It was a very clear, interesting and informative lecture :)

  2. Matt Wood says:
    February 4, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Oh good ; thanks Jurgita!

  3. George Charalambous says:
    February 18, 2011 at 10:13 pm

    Thanks again for coming to talk to us.
    Everything that you addressed in the lecture was of interest to me as for my final project I am proposing an affordable homes scheme for Calder Bridge in West Cumbria, so there was many points that were relevant!!

  4. Matt Wood says:
    February 20, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    Thankyou for having me; I really enjoyed it. I haven’t been in a school of architecture for anything other than an end-of-year-show in a very long time!
    Hope the project goes well.

  5. Luke Rowett says:
    April 14, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Hi Matt,
    Just to say thanks for coming, I am basing an essay on the community right to build and your lecture has given me a lot to go on. Hope things are well with you.

    (PS: Jamie’s surname is Scott-Baxter, not Wilding, sorry)

  6. Matt Wood says:
    April 14, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    You’re welcome Luke. Good luck with the essay. And thanks for pointing out my mistake; not sure how that happened!

Comments are closed.