Genius Loci Brief: Victoria Station

Here is one of the first books I ever made, hurrah! Towards the end of our second year, we were all asked to choose a place or area that we found inspiring, and then respond to it in any way we felt appropriate. I selected Victoria Station in London, I loved the buzz and busyness of the station, especially in the Underground where hundreds of wires and electrics run and tie together only a few metres above your head.

My response to this brief related to the volume of people passing through the main floor of the station, and how this varied depending on the time. I took 10 seconds of footage at the start of every hour in the main floor of the station, to record how many people passed through it, the exact paths they took, and how they interweaved and moved around each other.

I used this information and published it in the form of a book, where you can slide the pages to choose which particular hour/hours you wish to see. The dots represent the commuters who were stationary during the time of recording, and I provided a key on the top page to illustrate where the exits, toilets and gates to trains were. This gives a clearer idea where the commuters might be going.

You can clearly see trends on every page, there are two or three areas in particular that have a very high volume of people travelling through it each hour, and others that are commonly reserved for people standing or waiting. Other areas you can see stay relatively unpopulated and stay almost completely empty. You can see in the image above (1pm and 6pm pages) where these busy paths are.