Life Project

Live projects are a leading educational initiative at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. Architecture students work in groups on a 6 week Live Project with a range of clients including local community groups, charities, health organisations and regional authorities. In some cases the projects involve actual building, in others design of urban master plans, in others consultation exercises. In every case, the project is real, happening in real time with real people.

Project Brief

A project for Ecclesall Woods from locally sourced/recycled timber

Ecclesall Woods is ancient woodland within the city boundary. It has an old Sawmill site in the middle of it and there are exciting plans for developing a centre for the innovative use of timber in Sheffield.

The Sawmill site already has a number of small businesses and enterprises on the site. Over the past few years we have been building structures there that explore the use of both new local timber and recycled timber.

Last year the Forest School invited students to develop a classroom and the composting toilet and canopy from before that are still going strong. The project is about consultation with the communities that will use the new facility and designing and building an appropriate response to the need on the site.

This year the client Ted Talbot is very keen to encourage cyclists to the site and look at what facilities are needed for this. Students will chop down the trees they may use and there is skilled help on hand with working the timber.

Monday, 19 October 2009

Feedback from meeting with Sarah and Helen 15.10.2009

We feel the site should be left as ‘natural’ as possible – ie. If
everything was moved off the site it would look like it did to begin with (apart maybe from some essential landscaping).

The yurts and pods would be seen as individual structures in their own space within the site. We’d like to offer our guests their own privacy with a sense of retreat and quiet. That said, if the need arose, we could erect a marquee/gazebo type structure to create a ‘common’ space for example a wedding party/large family gathering etc. The space needs to be flexible to accommodate the needs of different guest types.

We would also like to provide some seating that guests could use to their advantage whilst on the site. We envisage picnic tables with benches attached (or something similar) that could be positioned wherever guests felt they were of most use.

When describing the quality of the site, we would employ words such as rustic,
rugged, unaffected, genuine, open, relaxed, wild, organic and natural. These words try to convey the essence of how we would like the site to feel –we want to keep the materials we use organic and unpolished yet at the same time allow them to communicate a feeling of high quality and value.

We would also like the eco pods to be constructed from (local) timber and would be interested in investigating some of the designs you brought today. A nice addition which encompasses the ideas about growing veg etc, is the idea of a living roof, or solar/photo voltaic panel on each of the pods. We also thought that the sauna was a great idea but it would need to be kept quite small and perhaps be designed to look like another eco pod.

Finally as we want to offer accommodation all year round, the pods would need to be heated, perhaps by a stove or something similar that could perhaps be removed in the summer months, so something portable maybe like a small stove?
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1 comment:

  1. Roger Ashman19 October 2009 at 10:21

    Hello all,
    This is just a reminder that the talk at the Energy Centre on Tuesday is at 5pm and will finish at 7pm, there will be some sandwiches and fruit available to nibble on, we do have places left for both Tuesday and Thursday so please let your friends know about them and send me an e-mail if there are any more takers.

    Many thanks

    Vicky Moore
    SYEC Centre Coordinator

    South Yorkshire Energy Centre
    Heeley City Farm
    Richards Road
    Sheffield
    S2 3DT
    Tel: 0114 303 9981
    Fax: 0114 255 1400

    ReplyDelete

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