Shenley Academy Opening Event

On the evening of Tuesday 30^th October, the team from our office, (and my family), attended the official opening of our newly completed Shenley Academy, Birmingham.

With specialisms in Science and the Performing Arts and catering for 1100 pupils it had opened for the start of term in September, after an eighteen month construction period.

The building looked resplendent as we crossed the grounds to the main entrance, the oranges and yellows on the façade picked out by the external lights. We made our way into the main entrance foyer where a host of guests, staff and pupils were gathered. Almost immediately the Academy Choir began singing from the first floor gallery, as we looked up and enjoyed the show.

A number of speeches were then made, starting with Ruth Harker, Principal who personally thanked Edward Cullinan Architects for their all their hard work on the project and stressed how overjoyed they are with the new building.

Chris York, Chair of Governors at Shenley Academy followed by Sir Bruce Liddington, Director General of E-ACT then made short speeches that reinforced this message and also impressed upon those gathered how the excellent Shenley Academy staff team will now use this building to sustain and build upon their already impressive teaching record. The building was then officially opened by Councillor John Lines, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

All guests were then taken on a guided tour of the building that showcased in particular the Performing Arts. We saw street dance in the Dance Studio performed by Antics, former pupils, and workshops with Birmingham Rep theatre in the Performing Arts Studio. The highlight for me was a specially commissioned piece in the main theatre and involving a group of students from Key Stage 4 and the Sixth Form. They had worked with ‘Upswing’ on an acrobatic dance piece called ‘Spark’, inspired by their logo, which involved some of the dancers suspended on wires from the theatre soffit.

The evening finished in the dining room where the builders, Lend Lease, staff, sponsors and us all enjoyed a buffet dinner.

The original school is currently being demolished, to be replaced with a new landscape. This will be completed next summer when we will make a return visit for the full opening of the site.

Photos © Simon Warren

Visualising carbon emission

This is a great video of New York's daily emissions by Carbon Visuals

http://www.carbonvisuals.com/ 

Beyond Zero Carbon Housing

Yesterday the Nottingham Sustainable Building Research team held their second lively symposium moving from 'Towards Zero Carbon' in 2007 to Beyond Zero Carbon in 2012.  It should be no surprise that we know a lot more now than we did in those giddy days and it is not all good news.  Almost every speaker had tales of woe ranging from serious peformance gaps to profoundly depressing bodging and yet all were keen to build on this knowledge and press forward with designing good-live-in low energy housing even if much of it is nearer Code 4 than Zero Carbon.  Mentioning just some highlights of the day:

Richard Partington kicked us off with the development of ZC regulation and his heroic efforts to get that better, so that it is achievable and achieved.  He insisted we all read the excellent  report on the Leeds Met research into 2 pilot houses in his Temple Avenue Project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which is  available on their website http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/temple-avenue-project-energy-efficient-homes

Alan Shingler described Shepherd Robson's journey from their £60k Prescott challenge house, through the Code 6 Lighthouse at BRE to their huge scheme, the first phase now built, at Barking Riverside - we must go all and see it. Alan made the essential case for the higher market value of these low energy homes although the valuers have yet to get it!

Former Cullinan year-out student Ben Hopkins and his two collagues described their heroic efforts to design and make the award-winning UK entry for the 2010 Solar Decathlon in Madrid; pre-assembling it in Nottingham, then moving it to Eco-build in London, then erecting it in Madrid in the wettest June in the pouring rain. And now it is nearly finished as the 6th house in the University's brilliant creative energy homes displaywww.nottinghamhouse.co.uk.

The charming Mario Cucinella talked about creative empathy (his train to Nottingham had caught fire and everyone had to climb out!) before discussing among other projects his delightful school in Gaza, about to start to site having been marked on GPS as 'not to be bombed'! Thisis onthe frontof his webste http://www.mcarchitects.it

Then Code 4 Green Street in the Meadows in Nottingham built after an invited competition, which we didnt win.  The local developer Blueprint (Igloo +) described the scheme by local architect Marsh Grochowski before PhD student David Bailey (sic) went on to describe his emerging findings having fallen on his feet; here was a scheme with one phase in timber frame and one masonry with wet plaster built next door to one another to the same spec with the same contractor - how rare is that!  Julian Marsh later described his really delicious 'holistic' house, office and vegetable garden nearby.

Bill Gething encouraged us to read his TSB Design for Future Climate report on adaptation and get ready to buy his new book but its not out till after Christmas.  CIBSE are shortly to launch UKCIP-made easy Pro-clip graphs; dont use current weather data as it is already out of date!  In answer to a question he reminded us that 'Team' GB put 25% of the CO2 up there so we had better get cracking and do something about it......

Fionn Stevenson reminded us of Gibson's theory of 'affordance (I was embarrassed that it was new to me but as in a chair affords sitting) and drew on her POE experience to insist we architects (and engineers) 'design for users'; we have loadsd of unhappy occupants of 'dumb' housing that oveheats, has poor cross-ventilation and very poor air quailty - DO BETTER fast!

As it turned out my slight anxiety about our not having built any ZC Housing didnt matter and a brief description of our carbon neutral garden city for 60,000 at Shahat in an area of high housing need in Libya coupled with a plea to direct our (and the students') attention to the existing stock seemed to strike a chord (forget HS2 and sort out out existing hsouing etc).

But that was not all as, after the symposium, we were whisked off to Brian Ford and Michael Stacey's new Energy Technologies Building to see their astonishing inaugural Prototyping Architecture Exhibition www.nottingham.ac.uk/abe. But us Londoners can see the exhibition, well it can only part of it, when it comes to the Building Centre in the New year - 11 Jan to 15 March. 

And then it was off to the centre of Nottingham to put the world to rights over a glass of red wine or two - we need to stay close to Nottingham.

Setting the Conditions For Innovation

On Monday night myself and Robin attended the Edge debate at the Dept. of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). The Debate was entitled "Setting the Conditions For Innovation"

Richard Miller, Head of Sustainaiblity at the TSB chaired the debate. Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture kicked off the evening with the need to debunk the myth of the lone genius  During the industrial revolution we were resource abundant and population scare. Now we are resource scare yet population abundant, so future products should be made with less materials but employ more people in their manufacture.

Peter Head, chairman of IfS and Founder of the Ecological Sequestration Trust pointed out the need to change to a procurement system based on performance targets for buildings; cost should come second. It worked on the "Severn Crossing" project and it drove innovation.

Robert Webb of Quiet Revolution indicated that globally we need to spend £1trillion per annum to de carbonise the planet. We are resource rich if we turn our back on fossil fuels and look to renewables. The government need to be more focused.

Here are some snippets from the debate that followed:

• people need to be given ownership of the problem, otherwise they feel powerless/don't bother to affect change
• innovation needs the over turning of the present moral-lacking, consumer-driven, out-for-oneself society
• Behaviour change is close to impossible (questionable?)
• Intellectual Property Rights are sometimes bought to bury ideas, we need to be more open with our ideas.
• Stronger links between academe and industry
• R&D isn't on the minds of construction company board members unlike other industries (the construction client gets the benefit of innovation while in other industries it is the innovator who benefits)
• Olympics was a great example of British Innovation
• It has been said that the fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate, take more risks!
• Government and industry should not be afraid to publish failures
• Why are there so few young people in the room?
• Innovation often comes through fine tuning over a long time, not new concepts out of the ether.
• Make building performance transparent. DECs for all

The wave snake by Pelamis

Downland Gridshell - 10 years

The Downland Gridshell at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum is 10 years old this year. 'Cluster' an exhibition at Fabrica and a special report edition of Unstructured, celebrate the anniversary of the Gridshell.

Fabrica is Brighton's leading contemporary Art Gallery and 'Cluster' is an exhibition of woven forms by artist and basket maker, Annemarie O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan's organic forms take inspiration from the Downland Gridshell and are made from the engineered Sweet Chestnut material pioneered by the Flimwell Woodland Enterprise Centre, also celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Unstructured, the web-magazine portal of Fourth Door, features articles making the connection between the woven forms of the two gridshells, traditional basketry and the emerging field of art-related basket makers, and a number of land artists, whose work focuses on woven, basket-like 'wild' structures made in and on the land. Highlights include:

The Downland Gridshell ten years on - Project Architect Steve Johnson has written an extensive overview of the building's genesis

Cluster overview and Annemarie O'Sullivan feature - these complementary pieces outline the connections and overlaps between the projects different elements

Cullinan's timber path after the Downland Gridshell - how Edward Cullinan Architects have continued with timber architecture since the Downland Gridshell, culminating (so far) in the recent John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.

Learning from schools

Last Tuesday As part of our Sustainability Series, Carol Costello (Cullinans), Andrew Cripps (AECOM) and Roderic Bunn (BSRIA) gave 3 excellent short presentations. During the subsequent discussion 11 headline messages emerged:

• Clients need to consider the energy consumption of their appliances and computers as part of their building's performance
• Schools are rightly used for many different activities and lie at the heart of many communities, Mr Gove!
• Isnt it time our energy modelling was realistic not predective?
• There is an art to energy calculations as well as a science
• Legibility is key to a school's success
• We need to recognise the importance of the caretaker
• Most existing schools have value to their community beyond their mere fabric
• Controls must be simply designed for pupils and staff and located so they are encouraged to use them
• Busy people though they are Headteachers must know more about energy
• Choosing the right procurement is essential - D&B can easily undermine an integrated design
• We know orientation is key so why don't we pay it sufficient attention?

For a slightly fuller write up see today's AJ Footprint: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/footprint/footprint-blog/edward-cullinan-architects-top-ten-tips-for-sustainable-school-design/8633095.article


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Mirrors of Awareness

Myself and two friends - Rebecca Gregory (Metropolitan Workshop) & Eddie Blake (Studio Weave) were given the unique opportunity of filling an exhibition space in 14-16 Cowcross Street, with no particular brief.  It was exactly the opportunity we were looking for to explore our common areas of interest and have a bit of fun! 

We were interested in exploring the interaction between the individual and their urban environment.  One’s everyday life can cause their physical surroundings to be assumed and then invisible due to the repetitive nature of social practice.  We developed a scheme to transform 14-16 Cowcross Street, aiming to facilitate a moment of self-realisation for the many daily inhabitants of Farringdon; not by interrupting a social practice per se but by holding up a ‘mirror’.  The architecture would be re-instated and used as a tool to reflect & comprehend one's position in the urban environment.

'We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things & ourselves … Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen.  The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world'

(Taken from ‘Ways of Seeing’, by John Berger)

Inspired by Berger, our installation encourages visual & physical connections in order to playfully animate one’s social & spatial awareness in the city context.  The art of perspective projection was utilised, the geometries of which become perfectly legible from one vantage point only.  Move from this point, and the message will distort into abstract forms, dissolving the individual back into their everyday experience.

interaction with the installation on the opening night

image projected on the facade: highlighting the window composition and the plan of the individual's interaction on the street

The installation started as the first line was drawn (22/06/12) and endured until the last line was removed (11/07/12).  The creation of the installation itself was deemed to be an event, as significant as the completed piece itself. 

creation of the installation

Throughout the creation of the installation, we engaged with many passers-by, developing relationships with some of the inhabitants that form Farringdon - from the local 'hoodies', Network Rail construction workers, the local drug dealer, commuters, the ABA caretaker, tourists - the list goes on.  It was a privilege to engage in a community who all actively appreciated and engaged with the installation we were creating.

interaction of the passer-by

write up: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/8632054.article