Beth Gavine
The Palatial Commons, BA Architecture, Runner Up, 2025
The project suggests a marriage of disorderly forms and emergent architecture designed in correspondence with local networks to establish relationships of mutual aid and exchange. Giving grandeur and ‘regality’ back to the ordinary and everyday, The Palatial Commons imagines a community-owned, community-led epicentre for collective spatial stewardship and active participation in urban governance.
London’s social and cultural infrastructure is at risk and has been disappearing rapidly in recent years. The decisions around what architecture deserves value and should be protected don’t often lie with the people who actually need and use these spaces.
Witnessing the urban issues in Lewisham of glossy, ridged new skyscrapers that create a closed and exclusive public realm alongside derelict, abandoned buildings that have been left to rot, feels like the people who lived there didn’t have much of a say as to how their neighbourhoods developed around them. This was in the hands of investors and developers who are often disconnected from individuals’ genuine needs.
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