When Design Engine Architects redeveloped the new urban campus for Oxford Brookes University, the hoardings screening the construction site were cleverly branded by the marketing team with the words “Space to Think”; the positive message to the students and staff being that this may be terribly disruptive for you now, but we are creating incredible new teaching and learning space for your future. The fact that the project was so huge that it took almost the lifetime of a degree to construct was conveniently overlooked.
Space to Think is an evocative term and can be both literal and metaphorical. Physical surroundings need to be conducive to problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, and overall well-being, but how much mental space do we have in our busy lives to stop, clear our mind for cognitive processing and… well, think? In the UK, our recent internal preoccupations have been first the horribly divisive Brexit vote, then the alienating Covid pandemic, and now we watch with horror but from distance the man-made atrocities in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza on top of natural disasters and emergencies across the globe. How are we supposed to function with hopeless empathy?
During the Covid lock-downs many of us did find space to think. Some took to writing music or writing books – including those minor celebrities who have found some version of fame through social media (You’ve Never Heard of Me, Get Me Out of Here). Confinement took away our options and our spontaneity, such that focussing on one thing at a time was possible for a while. It seems that lock-down took creatives in one of two directions: inspiration or paralysis. I actually take my hat off to those who did manage to create, as it was such a disorientating time.
