Not Just Hard Hats @ Brookes: Visit to Guildhall and the City of London

Friday 24 February 2012

The first year undergraduates on both the Real Estate Management programme and the programmes in Construction Management visited London Guildhall and the City of London on Friday 24 February. The field trip is part of the first year Integrative Project which provides a background to the subjects that they study in the first year. The module encourages students to question the value of the heritage of the built environment and how they think about space, place and design and links this overview with the economic, legal and social systems that produced or revived the different types of architecture and town planning which helped shape the built environment.

First stop was Guildhall. This impressive building has been the City of London powerhouse since the twelth century and is now home to the City of London Corporation and is also used as a setting for very impressive dinner parties. Have a look at the Guildhall website for more information. The students were given a presentation on the City of London property market by GVA, one of the UK's leading property advisers. The presentation focused on commercial buildings and the modern redevelopment of the City.

The students then took part in a walking tour of the area including the modern redevelopments at 40 Gracechurch Street, the City and Bankside. The students had been asked to complete an urban trail and were all given a particular development site or corridor to appraise. They were asked to look at the developments in terms of: architecture; construction; heritage; urban design; sustainability and ability to meet market trends. The students will then give oral presentations about their urban trail back at Oxford Brookes.

There is lots of information and some beautiful images on the web of the areas that the students visited - have a look at the following websites:

40 Gracechurch Street
Visit Bankside
Better Bankside
City of London

The following photos were taken by two of the students, Rob Garratt and Ham Yildirim. Some of the students hired bikes at one of the Transport for London cycle hire docking stations - these are spreading all over London and provide an excellent way to see London.