UK Higher Education institutions have been rapidly expanding recruitment targets following infamous government reforms in 2012, but an inflated student presence in the towns and cities which host  universities is now proving critical. Responding to this increased intake, an innocuous but incredibly lucrative boom in the private purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) industry has brought changes to more than just the skyline. Picturing one affected city over 5 years of reconstruction, Manifesto for a Studentopia considers friction between students and newly disconnected traditional residents, the mutations of local social, economic and cultural ecologies, and entities which both perpetuate and profit from conflicts.

 

Questioning who exactly this regeneration serves best, the project offers an imaginative glimpse into an unsavoury circumstance in which social priorities make way for private profit. Images and text correspond with one another to imagine a series of deliberate efforts towards a Studentopia: an urban arrangement in which deregulation and privatisation has led to an increasing flow of loan-backed students who, sought after as a financial resource, are drawn to a city being repurposed for catering specifically to them. These spaces package aspiration, convenience and experience to be sold to the most industrious students. Growing colonies of sleek PBSA towers and constant construction impedes and even decants local residential areas, laundered by the social justification of making Higher Education available to more young people and providing the very best opportunity for success.