Urbanest
An ever-evolving vision of modern student living - soulful, sustainable, and full of potential in Vauxhall and Victoria.
- Location
- London, UK
Overview
Unmistakably Urbanest
Through the four key pillars of the project echoed across their buildings in Battersea and City - Sustainability, Act Positively, London as a Green City, and Community Spirit - Urbanest continue to enhance the student living experience in London. Now, as our partnership evolves to encompass their buildings in Vauxhall and Victoria, the challenge was to allow each location to speak with its own distinct voice while remaining unmistakably Urbanest, embedding the pillars into the DNA of their spaces.
The Brief
Comfort and Community
The creative brief required us to transform these two buildings in the heart of London, to feel like home for students navigating a new city. Beyond comfort, we wanted to encourage curiosity, exploration, and connections to offer a strong sense of community, using visual cues to shape how students inhabit and interact with their environment.
Our scope spanned bespoke painted illustrations and murals throughout both buildings, alongside curated artworks by three student artists who brought their lived experience and authenticity to the project.
Stories of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens come to life
Vinyl wraps add colour to the roof terrace
Our Approach
Vauxhall
At Vauxhall, creative inspiration is drawn from the area's history as the site of London's Pleasure Gardens, a pioneering space opened in 1661 for music, entertainment and eccentric performance.
Through abstract visual language in the reception and window glazing, we captured Vauxhall’s legacy - the Urbanest Character appears throughout, lifted by hot air balloons, balancing on tightropes, playing music.
Highlights of artwork and creative interventions across Vauxhall
On the roof terrace, arching forms and ceramic vessels reference the bronze sculptures adorning Vauxhall Bridge, honouring the area's ties to craft and pottery. They tell the story of the locale, helping students understand the place they now call home.
“Through our ongoing collaboration with Acrylicize, we continue to strengthen the connection between our student residents and the place they call home.”
Anthony Mellalieu, COO at Urbanest
Tiled placemaking artwork at Victoria
Our Approach
Victoria
In Victoria, the narrative emerges from Victorian architectural patterns embedded in the building itself. We created a bespoke typeface from decorative tile grids, using it to celebrate the SW1 postcode and illustrate nearby landmarks - Westminster Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, the pelicans that have inhabited St James's Park since 1664.
Recycled window panelling at Victoria
Locally-inspired prints at Victoria
In the games room, those same geometric patterns tilt at 45-degree angles to mimic playing card suits. An original building window was repurposed as a recycling message, its framework dictating the design, reinforcing the "Act Positively" pillar with poetic circularity.
Murals by Theo Chaudoir at Vauxhall
Our Approach
Curating Student Voices
Three emerging, student artists, brought personal perspectives that grounded the project, adding authenticity and relatability. Theo Chaudoir, whose work we'd commissioned for previously for Urbanest Battersea, embedded at our studio for a 6 week residency to test and develop his works installed at Vauxhall.
Mentored by long-time Acrylicize collaborator Will Vibes on technique, and Acrylicize designer Emma Wild on digital tools, Theo's murals - a blend of human form and brutalist architecture - now occupy communal spaces as "facades" that breathe life into the environment.
Izabela Radwanska Zhang's prints capture her love of running throughout London parks, which offered her respite from the stresses and strains of student life. The works advocate for movement, encouraging residents to seek their own rhythms in the city's green spaces.
For Ffion Annwen, a Welsh printmaker studying at UAL, this marks her first permanent collection. Her reimagining of the Blodeuwedd folk tale transforms an owl from symbol of punishment into emblem of liberation, threads of Welsh text embedded in woodcut relief prints that speak to transformation and autonomy.
Izabela Radwanska Zhang's prints cascade across the walls at Vauxhall
Ffion Annwen's 'Blodeuwedd's Burden: Freedom' at Vauxhall
Credits
Videography
Lapse Film
Photography
Nikhilesh Haval
More to explore
Brookfield Properties
Life all around us
The Edwardian Manchester
Reimagining an icon
