Dates: 19 March – 21 May 2026
Location: TheGallery, AUB Campus
Moves On from the Beach to City and Landscape traces the career of Professor Sir Peter Cook RA, highlighting the intersections of imagination, experimentation, and architectural making across more than seven decades and passing through the years of the Drawing Studio and Innovation Studio built at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB).
The story begins at the “beach kiosk corner” in 1954, where Cook worked from a small mobile cabin at Durley Chine, Bournemouth, selling fruit. This modest early project functioned as a capsule, foreshadowing his lifelong interest in modularity and adaptability concepts that would underpin his visionary “Plug-in City”, inform the radical ethos of Archigram, and influence architects across Japan and Europe.
In 2010, the Crab by the Sea exhibition coincided with Bournemouth’s bicentenary, celebrating connections between experimental architecture and the seaside. Curated as a launch event for the opening of the new gallery extension at AUB, it highlighted Cook’s ongoing work through his CRAB (Cook Robotham Architectural Bureau) studio. The exhibition emphasised the vital link between thinking and making, reflecting on the city’s heritage through the lens of Cook’s career.
2026 marks the 10th anniversary of the Drawing Studio, a landmark building designed and completed by Cook and CRAB. As the first purpose-built drawing studio at an art school in over a century and Cook’s first completed building in the UK, the Drawing Studio secured a place in architectural and design history, exemplifying innovation in both form and function.
From the seaside kiosk to speculative cities, and from Crab by the Sea to the Drawing Studio and innovation, Moves On from the Beach to City and Landscape celebrates Peter Cook’s enduring creativity, his transformative contributions to architecture, and his continuing relationship with AUB.
Find out more about Peter Cook and the Drawing Studio on his website.
Meet the artist
Professor Sir Peter Cook
Professor Sir Peter Cook is an AUB alumnus, Honorary Fellow, and one of the most influential figures in contemporary architectural...
Meet the exhibition design team
Cong Ding
Cong Ding is an architectural designer, with a practice that spans architecture, cultural programming, and exhibition design.
Cheng-Ju Liu
Cheng-Ju Liu is currently an architectural intern at Peter Cook's CRAB Studio in London, and a registered architect in Taiwan.
Professor Sir Peter Cook on campus
Discover more about the spaces designed by Sir Peter on AUB Campus.
Drawing Studio
Our iconic blue Drawing Studio is used by student from all courses and was designed by alumnus Sir Peter Cook...
Innovation Studio
The Innovation Studio operates as a lab for creative technologies, a nucleus for start-ups and enterprises and an industry engagement hub.
About AUB Alumni
We're proud of our alumni and rightfully so. Many of them have gone on to do incredible things!
AUB’s alumni community, AUB&, is a continuation of our campus – a home and a network for all of our wonderful graduates, a place to find out what everyone’s been up to and generally stay a part of our creative community.
It’s open to all students who graduated from the University, whether under AUB or any of its previous titles (Arts University College Bournemouth, Arts Institute at Bournemouth, and Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design).
About Honorary Fellows
AUB Honorary Fellowship is a highly prestigious award that is bestowed upon persons who have connected with Art University Bournemouth and made a significant contribution to the field of arts, design, media or performance in a professional capacity or an educational role
Peter Cook: Moves On from the Beach to City and Landscape – formal opening and private view
Join us for the formal opening of our exhibition Peter Cook: Moves On from the Beach to City and Landscape.
In conversation with Professor Sir Peter Cook RA: Architecture, Creativity and New Insights
Join us for an exclusive evening with Professor Sir Peter Cook as he reflects on his remarkable career and creative philosophy.
