Sally Taylor
Oxford Brookes University
Architecture

A London show is now de rigueur for schools outside the capital. Most are restrained affairs, but the mass of work on show from Oxford Brookes almost split the seams of Clerkenwell Gallery. Brookes has this year added three new units to the degree school. One of these is Margaret Bursa and Johan Hybschmann's Unit E.

Here Taylor's convention centre for Lanzarote builds on the unit's penchant for models by drawing into photographs of them. Her section carves into the ash and rock of the island, creating a hollowed-out, shell-like space at odds with the layered 2D proposals of her peers. And through deft use of space frame and fire brick Taylor shows how she has constructed her own architecture around a programme-less space. HM

Scott Wilson
Bournemouth University
Industrial Design

Even if your room is not as supercompact as the one below, the space-saving attributes of this Tuva sofa are easy to admire.

It's got IKEA product written all over it and was designed by Wilson specifically for the cash-strapped, space-poor, first-time-buyer's housing market.

It is wall-mounted and can fold virtually flat when not in use. When open, according to Wilson, 'Tuva allows as much light as possible, and therefore the impression of space, to flow around a small living area.' JT

Edmund Harrison-Gray
University of Sheffield
Architecture

'Upcycling', 'micro-hydro', 'harvesting', 'open source' and 'governance', were just some of the words on the wall at the exhibition this year, not a single 'pod' or 'hub'. If schools were assessed on worthiness, Sheffield would proudly wear its socially conscious sackcloth with the best of them.

I enjoyed Harrison-Gray's institution for a digital age, a civic building that challenges retail on the high street, gorgeously rendered in the rain at night. I couldn't work out what people might use it for, but I know I would come if you built it. Steve Parnell