Showcase 2026 Student Spotlight: Ethan Couldridge
Student Spotlight featuring BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design student Ethan Couldridge and his project 'Anti-Frequency'.
By Jon Duckworth | Published on 8 May 2026
Categories: Student Showcase; School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment;
The Project
The architecture of Ethan Couldridge's 'Anti-Frequency' imagines a dystopian Britain in the year 2086, diseased by an Orwellian government under extreme dictatorial control. In a digital, post-work society where futility is imposed on everyone from birth, all forms of recreational music and entertainment have been outlawed and criminalised. By 2086, an entire cohort of 40-year-olds have lived without ever hearing a song before.
The BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design student explains:
"This major shift in daily life has given way to a band of rebels – The Refusers – whose goal is to take back of control of happiness, recreation, and reintroduce the arts of sound and music back into the country. From the beginning, I set out to design a museum-adjacent civic building containing an educational, experiential journey – one that ends in both the individual self-actualisation of connecting with music, and symbolic release of the culture surrounding it.
"An adaptive re-use project speculatively set in the former Lace Market Multi-Storey Car Park, I transformed the space into an open and informed building, characterised by a vast, ominous structure called 'The Void': a growing and angular intervention that at the bottom of which music swells and booms upwards, only to be fully unleashed at the exhibition’s pinnacle."
A vision of the future, the building is speculatively set at the site of a former Nottingham city multi-storey car park. Image by Ethan Couldridge.
The inspiration behind the project
Though his project envisages the future, Ethan took inspiration from the past.
"My love of the analogue production of music and the culture that carried it. From collecting vinyl to playing live music, grounding a project in the mid-20th Century 'golden age' of architecture and interior design was always a goal of mine for this course, and 'Anti-Frequency' was the perfect opportunity to do so. I watched a lot of 1960s films and documentaries, listened to a lot of records and cassettes, and begun to understand what a future would look like without any of that rich music-borne culture.
"I researched many case studies of museums, opera houses and concert halls – all spaces where 'coming together' was integral, and started to draft ideas of what I envisaged the journey and function of the former multi-storey car park to be.
"Conceptually, I always wanted the architecture to feel curious and incite movement from the user to get around it. I looked at the different behaviours, theories, and appearances of sound and translated them in the form of musical exhibitions that increase in awe as you travel up the building."
Ethan sought inspiration from mid-20th Century architecture and interior design. Image by Ethan Couldridge.
The project experience
Ethan says that he really relished the "storytelling, narrative side of architecture".
"Spending more time in the workshop has been a huge part of this project too – experimenting in more depth with concrete casting and 3D printing has given me some physical models I am very proud of."
Being part of NTU
Asked to sum up the most memorable moments of his time at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Ethan admits there have been many, but finding and securing his industry placement stands out as the big achievement.
"The placement experience grew my confidence, aspirations and skills as a designer," he says. "It's something I wouldn't have had the chance to do outside of my course."
Ethan relishes the storytelling side of architecture. Image by Ethan Couldridge.
Closing remarks
For anyone looking to follow in Ethan's footsteps, he offers some words of encouragement:
"If you're willing to work hard and produce passionate design projects, this course is for you. Interior Architecture and Design touches on far more than just interior design – during my time studying I’ve learned skills and knowledge in graphic design, 3D art, technical design, cartography, history, construction and many more. It’s such a unique course, so have fun and get stuck in!"
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