Hot Cross Pub – Museum of Architecture Gingerbread City

The team in our London studio have been putting their baking skills to the test after taking part in the 2018 Museum of Architecture Gingerbread City exhibition.

The Gingerbread City is an annual exhibition where architects, designers and engineers create an entire city made of gingerbread. Created by the Museum of Architecture, the aim of the exhibition is to connect the public with architecture through an innovative display designed for the holiday season. Now in its third year, this edition of the Gingerbread City is hosted by the V&A museum in the Creative Studio space and focuses on the theme ‘Imagining the Future City’.

The Gingerbread City comes complete with a masterplan and planning policy. Entrants were encouraged to think about design approaches that could be used to ensure our city is forward thinking, inclusive, sociable and sustainable whilst encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle amongst the residents.

LSI’s plot was ‘The Hot Cross Pub’, and we’ve described the process from concept to completion below. The Museum of Architecture are running a fan’s favourite competition, and if you’d like to vote for Hot Cross Pub as your favourite then you can by liking the photo of Hot Cross Pub on the Museum of Architecture Gingerbread City competition Instagram page.

The Concept

Here was the concept for our Hot Cross Pub creation, the winning entrant into our internally held design competition.

Materials

A solid evening’s baking gave us the building blocks we needed to bring the Hot Cross Pub concept to life.

Laser Cutting

What better way to test the integrity of the gingerbread building blocks than for our resident model maker James Parkinson to put the gingerbread through the model making laser cutter.

The Build

Rosie carefully constructing the pubs archway frontage out of tic tac’s!

Rosie, Megha and Joe mid-build.

The complete gingerbread creation

The newly refurbished Hot Cross Pub houses its very own micro-brewery. The Green walls enable an urban agriculture to support the ‘grow your own hops’ sustainable brewing process. A new contemporary extension provides the destination venue for residents. This includes the ice bar with a roof top terrace overlooking the river. Residents are able to enjoy the G&T express and the lazy beer river creating an inclusive and sociable environment.

The Gingerbread City exhibition at the V&A Museum in South Kensington is now open to the public until the 6 January 2019, where you can see all of the fantastic gingerbread creations. You can also vote for your favourite gingerbread creation at the exhibition, or by liking your favourite on the Museum of Architecture Gingerbread City competition Instagram page.