For the first two months of my final year our curriculum is dominated by a competition group design project, with architect and engineering students, known as Basil Spence after Sir Basil Spence (1907 -1976) who was a firm believer that architects and civil engineers should collaborate from the start of construction projects. This is also the ethos of our Architecture and Civil Engineering Department largely founded by Sir Edmund Happold who held similar beliefs. The project is a whopping 9.926% of my entire degree, and even more for the architects. It is an ambitious task to complete and historically stressful for most involved. But will we engineers and architects work well? I reckon the group I am in will be just fine: I am with fellow number cruncher Julian Staden, and sketch-book-colouring-in-ers Tom Down, Tom Ibbitson and John Ng.

This year’s project is based on the competition the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ran over the summer for the British Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, with our brief being identical to the first five sections of the actual project. Namely we do not have to concern ourselves with costing.

I could go into depth with details, such as the master plan’s concept is “City of Harmony,” but suffice to say this is an exciting opportunity to learn about the extraordinary World Fair. This Basil Spence is far better than last year’s scissor/paper/stone diatribe.

As you may of noticed from the first paragraph this year is the centenary of the birth of Sir Basil Spence. The Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture constructed the following amusing manipulation showing Sir Basil Spence lecturing on Coventry Cathedral:

Updates to follow.