Universities in the UK are unsurprisingly obsessed with their applicants reading. Reading is great (evidently), but I truly had absolutely NO idea what to read for an architecture application. So, I did what any UK university applicant thinking about embelishing their personal statement would (probably) do; I went onto the Cambridge architecture course website and searched for recommended reads. Amongst the list, 'Body, Memory and Architecture' by Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore. My dear mother purchased a second hand edition in perfect conditions on Amazon (Yale Univesity Press). I had read the first chapter twice, but it was only today chilling at the beach that I actually grasped the essence of the book; the way in which space interacts with not only the person, but the human body, how the home is the extension of man, and every part of a home represents something human. Beautiful, no? Next is the definition of beauty. The chapter seemingly has little to do with aarchitecture, but soon goes into arguing the fact that architecture used to be considered a mere science, not an art, and only later was pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose considered beautiful. And only after THIS was the pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose combined with basic aesthetics to create an alteration of space which can be considered art in the eyes of everyone who encounters it. It's really well written, no joke, especially for those who think about studying the art of altring space...

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