Want to learn about the future of sustainable transport? This part of The Gingerbread City is where you’d find the answers – at a number of research institutions and the main University campus.

One of the main attractions in the area is the recently-completed Transport Museum (much like London’s own Transport Museum) which gives a comprehensive overview of how travel around The Gingerbread City has changed over the past 200 years.

To experience a full-size version, hop on trains to major university cities like Oxford, Cambridge or Zurich.

This area of The Gingerbread City’s masterplan is split up into several individual plots. Teams from architecture and design companies were asked to pick one of these plots – and then supply a bespoke gingerbread building appropriate for it. Over the past few months, the wonderful buildings below have been conceived, designed, crafted, and baked by them to fit.

The buildings of the Research and University District

The Biscuit University
Burwell Architects

The Biscuit University, is a campus that responds to the changing nature of teaching and learning structures in response to Generation Z. Cloud-based learning, interactive features, with a main campus that focuses on sustainable travel and low energy consumption.

About the designers: Burwell Architects is an RIBA Award-winning design practice engaged in a range of architectural, interior design and master planning projects. They have a track record of designing outstanding educational environments that explore the changing nature of contemporary learning and teaching.

Gingerbread Air
Foster+Partners

This project sets out to create a sustainably powered air-based urban mobility solution for Father Christmas to deliver presents across the Gingerbread City. The site will feature a designated take-off and landing area, as well as a number of electric vehicle charging stations to offer a sustainable vision for this year’s city. A railway train will deliver old toys to the recycling centre which will then be upcycled to create new toys for Father Christmas to give out. A Christmas market, elf town and Christmas tree will also be incorporated.

About the designers: Foster+Partners is a global studio for architecture, urbanism and design, rooted in sustainability. Founded in 1967 by Norman Foster, it has a worldwide reputation for integrating architecture with engineering and other allied disciplines to establish an innovative approach to the design of buildings, spaces and cities.

 

The Sugar Spun Stadium
HKS Architects

 

This Stadium is the ‘living room’ of the city, a venue for the citizens to participate in the sugar-fueled sporting activities the city provides. The stadium can bring much more to community than sport. Consumption of the stadium can create a short-term spark of energy, which is just what our athletes require when competing at the stadium. Due to the addictive nature of the stadium, long-term health effects like extreme happiness and wellbeing are a risk of overindulgence. Sugar Spun Stadium addiction is a guaranteed cure for people with low moods, anxiety and stress.

About the designers: HKS is an interdisciplinary, research-based design firm, consistently ranked among top global design firms. The practice believes that design should build trust between collaborators, clients and those who inhabit the places we design.

 

Cook for Good
Holland Harvey

This project proposes a hybrid farmers’ market and community kitchen – all contained under a floating roof composed of multicoloured sugary tiles. A farmers’ market would provide access to fresh, locally sourced produce, whilst a community kitchen offers social purpose bringing people together to cook while creating hearty meals for homeless and vulnerable people – much like social enterprise Cook for Good, for whom Holland Harvey is currently designing a dedicated premises on a housing estate in north London. A true community beacon and oasis of healthy eating in an otherwise sugar-laden environment

About the designers: Holland Harvey is a RIBA Chartered Practice and design studio based in east London. Established by Richard Holland and Jonathan Harvey, their approach is design-led and they focus on strategy and narrative to deliver innovative projects as solutions to their client’s specific needs.

The Liquorice Library
InsideOut

The Liquorice Library, nestled high on Castle Hill, makes for a prominent backdrop in the Research and University District. The location is highly accessible, due to its proximity to the terminus of both the Funicular de Pancake and the Sugar Loaf Mountain Cable Car. The design presents a contemporary version of the grand libraries of old; a cathedral of knowledge providing a place of interaction between the rising batch of graduates and the wider community of Gingerbread City. An open public space at ground floor encourages this social interaction and draws people into the liquorice heart of the Library.

About the designers: InsideOut are an established and growing RIBA chartered practice, specialising in luxury residential, hospitality and multi-unit residential. As a practice, they aim to balance functionality and playfulness in spaces, ensuring their architecture is enduring, sustainable and valuable for future generations.

The Biscuit University of Sustainable Transport
IPT Architects

The Biscuit University of Sustainable Transport weaves through its site embracing external spaces for arts and outside learning. Inspired by the New York High Line, the building creates a green ascending communal roofscape meandering through Gingerbread City where gingerbread students can connect with nature. Its open form embraces the area and people around it including an extensive entrance that leads to an art piece that relates to transport of the future. The design tries to create a well-connected, healthy and social space for the university.

About the designers: IPT Architects is an award-winning RIBA Chartered practice founded in 2003 by Amira Idris and Lee Town to deliver projects that respond to social, economic and environmental issues. Their projects are informed by rigorous research into materials, construction techniques, sustainability and a sensitive approach to place.

The Hob Nob Hotel
PDP London

The Hob Nob Hotel defines a new concept of sustainable wellness, it’s a place where spiritual peace and physical health blend together. Guests can enjoy a restful stay in a stylish environment that is also an autonomous ecosystem. They can relax in the spa garden terrace, taking in the stunning views or for a workout, try the Allsorts Climbing Wall. Falling water from the rooftop Rotella Restaurant creates the energy needed for people to live and for plants to grow, with additional energy created from solar panels or from the recently installed, Ginger Sugar Fusion Reactor.

About the designers: PDP London is an award-winning, international practice with offices in Hong Kong and Madrid. The practice is well known for its skilful integration of new buildings within urban environments across residential, urban design, retail, hospitality, commercial, cultural and mixed-use projects.

The Waffle Iron Tower and Sugar Loaf Mountain Gondola Pass
PLP Architecture

 

The Tower takes a role in air traffic control and research, exploring past, present and future modes of transport. This intriguing tower form will be interspersed with viewing platforms, orbiting transporters and training pods. Residents pursuing an active lifestyle could spend days in the tower’s training programmes or experimental launches at the same time as helping shape the transport policies and vehicles of the future. Prototype transport models are tested in adjacent Mountain Gondola Pass for the best suitable shapes, comfortable speed, sustainability and safety of their users.

About the designers: PLP Architecture is a dynamic collective of architects, designers and researchers who value the transformative role of ideas and the capacity for architecture to inspire. The studio has the energy and culture of a young start-up. The practice is diverse and multicultural, with staff hailing from 43 different countries and speaking 45 different languages.

Sustain-edible Transport Muse-yum
tp bennett

 

The Muse-yum embodies 200 years of transport evolution. The building was baked in 1819 to supply wagon-wheels. In the 20th century, it evolved to a jelly-tyre factory, and its chimney became a symbol of the transportation industry. Today, the building has undergone sensitive conversion and adaptive re-use as a transport museum, exhibiting transport evolution along a ramping timeline, culminating in a viewing gallery and linkbridge to the re-imagined chimney, now providing a dynamic vertical connection to a revolving public observatory, offering a panorama of modern modes of sustainable transport.

About the designers: Inquisitive, imaginative, individual, tp bennett has been at the forefront of architecture and design for almost 100 years, offering cross-sector expertise from a world-class team. The practice value diversity in every sense: in their workforce, company culture, client-base and projects – and in freedom of thought.

Funicular de Pancake
Tyréns UK

This design integrates fun and diversity with an imaginative take on mobility and its possibilities – from jet packs to hovering and rotating pods. The productive landscape provides flexible environments that promote energy farms, urban orchards and a water narrative that promotes biodiversity and ecology as well as water resiliency. The landscape bleeds the boundaries between built form and structured terracing with natural slopes and vegetation, but ultimately providing a canvas of fun and imagination that is a delight for the eyes and captures your imagination and creativity.

About the designers: Tyréns UK is an interdisciplinary urbanism, placemaking, mobility and smart cities consultancy. They specialise in the delivery of high-quality solutions that promote sustainable development, urbanism and enhanced connectivity.

Tarte Tatin Tram Stop
urban mesh architects

In a confusing world of fake recipes and ingredient emergencies, the Tarte Tatin Tram Stop stands as a beacon of hope for the future. The pavilion is a data-infused energy-neutral transport hub that feeds on spirit of the truth and beauty of yesteryear’s Modernist baking movement. Serving the wider city and the local residential and University districts; the pavilion is the hub for the City’s cyclists and offers them unparalleled views from the terrace of the café/information hub and a chance to recharge their baking powder levels.

About the designers: urban mesh architects are an award-winning architecture studio based in London’s Barbican. With each new project, the practice embraces the future and celebrates the past.