ABSTRACT
The Project at Hoxton is a live, responsive experiment in student living that aims to tackle the insularity problem. Containing 270 rooms for undergraduate students, most of whom are living away from home for the first time, the abiding motif is ‘connections’: connection between resident students, connections with all senses, connection with new life experiences, and connection with the local community in east London. One of the most radical interventions was less to do with design and more to do with human resources: the designers advocated for a member of staff dedicated to the pastoral care of students, especially as many are living far from the family home and do not have English as a first language. Feedback from students, gathered through an ongoing programme of group meetings and supervised by the student ‘pilot’, is then acted on and shared, where appropriate, to improve the quality of student accommodation throughout the sector.
