Showcase 2024 Student Spotlight: Hannah Thompson
Student Spotlight featuring BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design, Hannah Thompson, and her project, 'The Enlightenment'.
By Antonio Cuyas | Published on 20 May 2024
Categories: Student Showcase; School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment;
The Project
In 2084, society has become heavily reliant on AI for all forms of communication leading to increased sociality and a lack of authenticity. As the reliance on AI communication increased, the inability to form deep and meaningful connections has led to a widespread sense of loneliness and disconnection, a breakdown of relationships, and unachievable, suffocating lifestyles.
As an escape, one morning an individual walking through the Roche Abbey ruins found the dial of an old rotary phone which sparked curiosity and inspired the ‘Enlightenment’ counter-culture as an attempt to bring society back to a state of communication used in past generations. The counter-culture will use the practice of making books to inspire new creativity and written communication skills in order to enable individuals to engage socially with each other once again. The Enlightenment design will be a site to host this counter-culture movement.
The inspiration about the project
As the project is based on the Roche Abbey site, Hannah has taken a lot of inspiration from the process of scribing and painting medieval books as the monks would have. She has also taken inspiration from designers such as Amelia Tavella Architectes, Gartnerfuglen and Mariana De Delas. Some of their projects inspired concepts of transparency and illumination which became a pivotal point in the designing process.
Being part of NTU
Throughout the four years Hannah has spent at NTU, she can see how much she has improved from first year. Taking part in a placement year in industry massively helped her gain confidence and improve her skillset when going back into her final year.
Closing Remarks
Studying Interior Architecture and Design has been challenging, but extremely rewarding. When your able to see the research and development of a project all come together into the final design it's an encouraging moment. I look forward to the next step and the future projects that I will work on.
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