Building Exploratory Proposals: Dec 08

The Building Exploratory Project

What are the aims of this project?
The aim of this project is to physically ‘map’ and test the findings of the Distinctive Sharrow Project into Sharrow, including creating a ‘building exploratory’ as a temporary part of the social infrastructure.

This Distinctive Sharrow Project, which is run by Sharrow Community Forum, aims to enhance Sharrow’s social, cultural, economic and tourism contribution to Sheffield. The lasting ambition of the project is to produce a strategy that can be acted on within the council; by creating the building exploratory we can make this truly transformative by creating a way for local people to lead action in Sharrow.

What am I proposing and why?
I am proposing the creation of a 6 month ‘Building Exploratory’, within a shop unit, as a point of access for local people into developments in the built environment within Sharrow. The role of the exploratory is to provide a shared space for the on-going negotiation of the neighbourhood; in terms of its built environment, spaces, identity and social and physical connections. Speaking about socially engaged and site specific art practice, art theorist Miwon Kwon suggests that there is not a fixed notion of ‘community’ in need of outreach, but one which must be created for each issue, each ‘thing’ and matter of concern. This is our aim through creating the exploratory in Sharrow.

How would we use the Building Exploratory?
I propose that through using this space as a base for creating small-scale interventions and events in public space based on mappings produced as part of the Distinctive Sharrow project, those choosing to participate can actively test the reports’ findings rather than being merely ‘consulted’ on them. The occupation and curation of space as a collective process reveals desires and tensions within a group; an event could be characterised as an opportunity to take off on a new path, responding to the dynamic nature of the area.

In contrast to office based consultation, I have found that this performative methodology is often seen by participants as unreal or fantastical and therefore an escape from pragmatic concerns, generating a sense of freedom and play and ultimately more creative responses. The manner in which an event will go on to inform the architectural process is often oblique and so people are less inclined to feel that there are expected to respond in a certain ‘correct’ way. It has been clear in the first exploratory I have run that through using these more ‘active’ techniques the boundaries between the professional or specialist and the user or client can be broken down, as each is an actor within an event; roles and hierarchies can be blurred, undermined or inverted.
The McAslan Bursary would allow us to take over a prominent shop unit, adjacent to the Lansdowne Estate, for a number of months. The shop front itself would allow us to have a street presence where activity is visible from outside and also a base for operations that go out to other places in Sharrow to create workshops and events. The benefit of this is that the continuity of reusing a venue that has been used by a relational art practice, ‘‘encounters1’, would allow us to contact the people who worked with them and living on the economically deprived and often socially isolated Lansdowne Estate. Occupying the shop over a period of months allows the exploratory to become part of the landscape of Sharrow and those who may not initially, to become comfortable with entering.

I carried out a week long trial of the building exploratory format, held in January of this year. This was very sucessful and included a 3-D building kit, displays and mapping projects and invited residents, businesses, councillors, developers, local people, activists and others to draw, write, discuss, design and build, either on to maps, proposals, or on a blank piece of wall or floor. The manner in which it was collected allowed each type of knowledge to be added directly to either the urban design or identity aspects of the Distinctive Sharrow proposals. There is now a great opportunity to take this a step further by placing these design proposals into Sharrow.
1. http://www.wearencounters.org.uk/shops.htm
Encounters took over a shop unit for their relational art practice and collected stories from local residents of the Lansdowne Estate.

Examples of proposed projects
The Distinctive Sharrow mappings have suggested the following interventions could be made in public space in Sharrow:

Locations for signage: tested through a temporary, playful (and perhaps humorous!) signage project to mark important routes and encourage greater footfall around the area.

Opportunity sites for temporary occupation: tested through a week long series of events such as an art market, free-cycle type market exchange, or temporary cinema with some physical temporary infrastructure. This can create shared spaces without thresholds that are informal and not commercially driven.

Areas for shop front renovation: tested through businesses and artists working together to creatively paint shop fronts. This should also respond to the identity of shops in the area.
Routes that need improvement: tested through temporary art trail linking places together.
Important meeting points: tested through the placement of temporary seating or canopies.
Which of these projects are selected and who facilitates them will require detailed development to ensure their maximum impact and feasibility.

The theoretical approach to the Building Exploratory

The theoretical background of the project stems from my dissertation research completed in 2006 and titled Architecture by Other Means, Instances of Representation and Participation, which received a High Commendation at the RIBA Presidents Medals in 2007. This bursary would enable me to develop this research and I would hope to write an article on the processes and outcomes of this project. This is something which I have already started in the Urban Act/ PEPRAV2, which details the earlier stages of Distinctive Sharrow and the thinking behind it.
A series of tools devised to promote action and interaction were developed during research into alternative architectural practice in my final year in the Live Project named IYO3. These methodologies, of which the exploratory is one, have been deemed critical because of the power they have to address particular representative concerns and aspects of space and place that may not be contained within conventional forms, locations or processes. The architect, who often occupies a privileged position, should use each form of representation with awareness of its particular potential; where it locates the discussion, who is invited to participate and under what terms.

What is Distinctive Sharrow and how is it structured?
Distinctive Sharrow is the strategic design and mapping of small and large-scale interventions and opportunities in a manner that unites the many projects, initiatives and understandings of the area. This can then be used to:
i. Liaise with the council, developers and stakeholders to push for longer-term larger-scale changes such as the development of ground floor retail units as workshop space, shared space along the main road of the district centre and physical improvements to connections between Sharrow and the City Centre.
ii. Work with the Sharrow Community Artists Network, Public Art Officer Andrew Skelton and local people to create a series of small briefs for permanent public art projects and streetscene improvements. The funding would be sourced through initiatives such as % for art, section 106 open space allocation, Neighbourhood Management funding and working with local businesses.
Over the past two years, research for this project has been gathered from conversations with local people, a Joseph Rowntree report, the Encounters’ Lansdowne Report, The Bond Bryan vision study, ‘Hello Sharrow’ community events, Civic Regeneration research into Culture, Leisure and Tourism and work with the Distinctive Sharrow Steering Group comprising of local stakeholders, agencies and the council.
2. PEPRAV Urban Act, Montrouge, France 2007.
3. This Project, which was funded by the European Union’s Commision Culture Programnme as part of the PEPRAV Platform for alternative Urban Action is documented in PEPRAV Urban Act, Montrouge, France 2007. Image: The publication

4. www.liveprojects.org

Who are Sharrow Community Forum and why are we engaged with this organisation?
"Sharrow Community Forum helps groups and individuals in Sharrow to make Sharrow a better place to live and work. We support local people to be part of decisions that affect their lives and work to promote equality for all sectors of the community. We are a team of Workers supported by a Board of Trustees, many of whom are Sharrow residents with experience in Community Development"

My involvement with the project began during a Sheffield University ‘Live Project’ which ran during the first year of my M Arch course in which a group of ten year 5 and year 6 students worked on a ‘real’ brief from Sharrow Community Forum. This fed into a document that concluded that small-scale interventions in the area, led by local people exploring their desires could be a catalyst for change. Since then I have become part of the Distinctive Sharrow Steering group and am currently employed for fourteen hours a week by the forum. I am also employed by Birkett Cole Lowe Architects.

Why do I think that it is achievable?
Sharrow Community Forum is an umbrella organisation and through the Distinctive Sharrow project we have been working with and have the support and expertise of a broad range of agencies and organisations, including Sheffield City Council, Sharrow Artists Network, Little Sheffield Development Trusts, The Sharrow Partnership and the Civic Trust. There is a strong desire and support to see a physical manifestation of the ideas and knowledge that has been gathered over the past two years. The building exploratory is an opportunity to link these agenices, local people and activists to achieve transformative change in Sharrow.