RIBA community architecture exhibition opens at Peckham Levels

Pea Soup House, a design by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, will be built at RIBA headquarters on a 1:1 scale

Peckham Levels, an underused municipal car park that is now a cultural hub, is hosting an exhibition during the London Festival of Architecture 2016.

The Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA) ran a competition asking architects how architecture can help build communities.

The 16 long listed entrants are on show at Peckham Levels until 30 June. The long list included works by De Rosee Sa, DH Liberty, Weston Williamson + Partners and Tate Harmer. 

The three winners, who have been awarded £5,000 each, were a group from Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Erect Architecture and MARGIN, a group of former students from Liverpool. Their designs are to be built as 1:1 installations at RIBA’s headquarters at 66 Portland Place between 21 June and 4 August.

Hannah Berry, founder of Bold Tendencies, will join a panel debate a London Festival of Architecture event being on 5 June. She will discuss how Peckham Levels has evolved into a home for artists, community events and orchestra.

Due to open this autumn, the Peckhams Levels project will see seven levels of the car park being transformed to provide 90,000sq ft of artists’ studios, workshops, creative facilities, gardens, public venues and event space.

The seminar, which takes place at Blackheath Halls, is called Connecting the Cultural Community. It will focus on providing spaces where communities can participate, appreciate and develop in the creative arts.

The panel will also feature the Multi-Storey Orchestra’s artistic director Kate Whitely and conductor Christopher Stark. The Multi-Story Orchestra won a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for its community work at Peckham Levels.

Other panellists are Nicholas Lobo Brennan of Gruppe, Robert Mull, a former director and dean of the CASS School of Arts and Architecture, and Rose Ballantyne, community engagement officer at Blackheath Halls.

To book tickets click here