(Dummy book made in Spring 2019, project still ongoing)
Over the last decade, UK Higher Education has expanded recruitment targets and a rapidly increasing number of students given residence in the towns and cities that host these institutions is proving critical. Campus expansion and an abundance of modern, purpose-built student accommodation towers continue to emerge as seemingly innocuous responses catering to this growing in-migration.
Expanding on this mechanistic proliferation and the market incentives of Higher Education, Manifesto for a Studentopia positions the commoditised student lifestyle, priority-induction and resulting social partitions within a financially lucrative and cyclical initiative. Picturing the structures which might underwrite, profit from and ensure a continued tension between town-and-gown, this ongoing project looks to invite reflection on specific talking points and speculate towards their consequences.