Change, often driven by powerful economic forces is a pre-condition of urbanism. When change is rapid and wholesale, many of the finer grain functions of a city can be overlooked and the long-term history and future of an area can be obscured by short-term targets.

At 130 hectares, Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone is one of the UK's largest regeneration projects. Starting at the Regional Transport hub of Bristol Temple Meads and moving East through the light industrial areas of St Phillip’s Marsh, it will change beyond recognition over the next 20 years.

The checks and balances required to ensure civic health is developed alongside economic health are incumbent upon those whose views extend beyond the next shareholder meeting. Unit ten have explored how an architectural proposal can be born into this context. How can it orientate the visitor and make sense of the dizzying scene around it and how can it protect, nurture, and develop the communities that will inhabit it.

We have looked with curiosity rather than judgement, cataloguing what exists and what has been proposed before identifying what could be added to foster a productive community. Students initially produced small-scale urban interventions, proposing an architectural thesis for the area and defining key themes to be taken forward into a single building or small complex with a public function. Students worked iteratively between scales, constantly referring to the first-person experience of their proposals and developing a reserve of architectural phrases through the detailed study of precedents.