Live Project Reviews and Exhibition

Today marked the official end of the Live Projects, and we concluded the 6 weeks with a presentation/review and exhibition for the whole Masters in Architecture course and members of the public.

The Empty Shops Live Project had managed to borrow an empty department store in the heart of the city for a couple of days for the presentations and exhibitions. We managed to get the exhibition boards printed in time and mounted them alongside our models in the morning in the space we were allocated.

The boxes generated some interest - although some people tried to lift off the lids first!

Richard Hawson came to see the exhibition with a colleage from housing over lunchtime and we showed them a draft of the document and talked them through the exhibition. We suggested arranging a time to handover all of the information formally to Sheffield Homes in a couple of weeks, and Richard suggested we could also present the work to a Tenants and Residents Association (TARA).

The final few days

Becky and Emma carefully cut out all of the components of the miniPODs and began to organise people and furniture inside the boxes to create the designs. We took turns in peaking inside as they were completed one by one.

Hannah focussed on the panels and exhibition with Av, capturing the process of the live project from research to consultation to final proposals and Aditi and I processed all of the information for a document to handover to Sheffield Homes.

Installation vs. models

As a group we thought about how we could effectively present our ideas at the exhibition. Initially we thought about recreating one of our proposals 1:1 so that members of the public to enter the space and take part in one of the activities. However the logistics of this, in order to make it effective were challenging and we were conscious that we didn’t have that much time or resources to play with. Instead we decided to capture each of our proposals in a small model that members of the public could peep into.

How would this work?

Some visuals in the making

We decided to summarise the stage that we are at to Sheffield Homes at our final meeting with them before our exhibition and document handover next week. We wanted to give a flavour of the range of activities that we have undertaken over the past 5 weeks, the process of research and consultation and how our ideas are developing into final proposals.

Developing ideas

We've been busy developing the 7 pod proposals that we had chosen to focus on; drafting initial plans and sections and creating 3d visuals to explain the concepts.

As a group we decided to all work off a common base model to show our pod ideas in occupation.

Inside a garage

Today we got a chance to finally look inside some garages. We'd been given a set of keys from Sheffield Homes and returned to Derby Street and Daresbury Drive to explore the vacant garages.

We started at Derby Street where we had been given one key to a double garage. Interestingly the garages and railings were being painted as we arrived. The door was a bit sticky, but we managed to get it open and all filed in to see what the space was like. It was as deep as we had hoped/guessed, but a bit narrower than we had expected. Interestingly 2 out of the three blocks offered the potential for openings to let light in at the rear of the space, as it turned out only one of the blocks was earth sheltered.

From Derby Street we walked onto Daresbury Drive to look in a selection of garages there. We had several keys for the vacant garages in the block, and had a look in a couple. We found a beehive in one and some rubbish in an other but came to the conclusion that were on the whole pretty much the same space inside.

Inspiration? Detail/Constrution

With regards to facade design/construction, a cheap yet effective solution would suit the nature of 'garage renovation' best.

In designing a facade for studioPOD a repetitive solutions/elements were inevitable.

A viable economical and efficient method would be a prefabricated facade solution. This would reduce site labour to a bare minimum, ensuring a high quality finish on the facade which would be quick and easy to install.
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