Family how-to: redesign your street
By Lily McGuire and Tiffany Greenoak
Published on 15 June 2020
Experiment with architectural collage and have a go at redesigning your street for future generations.
Stepping into the shoes of an Architect Architects work in teams to create buildings and cities; making drawings, collage, and models to come up with their designs. They keep many important questions in mind, such as: who is the architecture for? What is its purpose? How might it improve people’s lives? This activity takes inspiration from techniques used by architects such as Peter Cook RA. Cook was a part of the group Archigram, founded in the 1960’s, who produced bright and bold collage. Although many of Archigram’s ideas were never built, they used collage to imagine how cities could be wildly different. If you were an architect, what would you include in your dream city?
What you need
• A4 or A3 drawing paper
• Coloured paper
• Patterned paper
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Pencil
• Pen
• Scissors
• Glue stick
Take a walk around your neighbourhood and pick an area that you would like to redesign.
Do a simple line drawing of your chosen spot. Trace the buildings, roads, and any other features you can see (but don't worry about adding too much detail as you will collage over it later!)
Think about what you would like to change about the place, and write your ideas down on some paper. Use your imagination! What might it look like in your wildest dreams?
Add these new features into your drawing.
Look through your coloured paper, magazines and newspapers. Find colours, textures and images that work with your design.
Cut your collaged paper and images from magazines, and arrange them on the page to bring it to life! Try layering and overlapping the images to cover the whole page. When you are happy with your design - stick all of the pieces down.
Admire your work!
Families at the RA
Whether it's a free drop-in workshop or one of our fun and engaging Art Detective trails, the RA is brimming with colourful paintings and sculptures that are waiting to be explored. Everyone is welcome at the RA – and kids under 16 go free to all our exhibitions.
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