LAB Student Festival
The LAB Student Festival involves students from architecture and urban environment and higher education courses across the UK working with children from schools in the Biennale boroughs of Camden, Islington, The City of London and Southwark. Together they have designed and built major ‘interventions’ along the 2006 London Architecture Biennale 5km walking and cycling route.
The impressive interventions – permanent and temporary structures - may add light, sound and colour and provide seating and shelter in public spaces along the Biennale route during the day and the night. They may be landmarks that surprise, delight and attract passers-by, as well as signposting the route. Students have been asked to create designs that refer to the spatial qualities, the history of each chosen site, or the way that it is used, abused or misused currently by people. They may also consider themes such as environmental impact and future of the place.
The idea of ‘live projects’ in architectural education is important, as it gives students experience of working through real architecture-related issues such as planning and health and safety procedures and liaising with a number of different partners, local authorities etc. It also gives local people, schoolchildren in this case, the opportunity be involved directly in the Biennale. In the lead up to the creation of the interventions, each group of students has been mentored by professional architects including Featherstone Associates, Penoyre & Prasad, Squire & Partners and TP Bennett.
EVENT The Big Crit : Wednesday 21 June, 11am-1pm, at the Guardian Newsroom, Archive and Visitor Centre, Farringdon Road, London
Students will present their interventions for discussion and with a panel of architects and the public.
Sites include: The British Library, Argyle Square, St Johns Square, Paternoster Square, Millennium Bridge Landing, The Golden Hinde, Montague Close and Borough Market.
The following schools of architecture and design are taking part: Architectural Association, Bartlett School of Architecture, Brighton School of Architecture, Canterbury School of Architecture, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London Metropolitan University, Ravensbourne College, Robert Gordon University. Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, University of East London, Westminster University.
Examples of a few of the projects that have emerged so far:
Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (MA Narrative Environments):
U Shape the Square
A public silhouette project at Argyle Square formed from sheets of aluminium wrapped around several lamp columns. The shapes of the sheets are the silhouettes of local children from Argyle School, whose shadows will then spiral around the base of the lampposts. 
Bobby Smith (aka Story Bubble)
A wayfinding project, touched with fantasy: an oversized bubblegum machine in Smithfield Market contains messages on the gumball papers, written by school children, which will suggest little events and tell little stories (or little fantastical lies) about the places history. 
London Metropolitan University
140 Boomerangs (aka Double helix)
A local children's clay sculpture exhibition is held in the bumpy interior of the helix timber tower structure which wraps the 'peace' fountain at the centre.
Library
Students have been collaborating with Edith Neville Primary School in the design of the pavilion that seeks to address the context and conditions of the British Library's by mediating between the library and the street and the visitors to the forecourt and the Biennale.
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, Scott Sutherland School of Architecture
HOUSES IN THE SQUARE
30 toy houses that are laid out in a grid pattern in Paternoster Square. The form of the ‘house’, is based on the the archetypal Scottish ‘Bothy’ but at a scale small enough for playing in.
The University of Sheffield
Sand Scape
A playful interactive canopy at Montague Close, linking the Cathedral to the water is representative of growth and decay and the flowing river and will display the approximate water level on the site if the river were to flood.
The Research Centre for Experimental Practice , Dept. of Architecture, University of Westminster
The Invisible University at Jack's Newsagent, 35 Clerkenwell Road, EC1. 
Architectural Association
Social Cinema
The Social Cinema project consists of a series of travelling cinemas, each installed for one night along the designated route of the London Architecture Biennale. Films about, set in, or commenting on London and its architecture will be projected upon the city itself.
Watch this space for more projects coming soon...
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