MSA Live 21

Jobey Keene

Atelier: &rchitecture
BArch: MSA
Experience: 5Plus, AndArchitects
Skills: Adobe, Rhino and Modelmaking
Interested in: Sustainability and socially driven architecture.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 17:32

Darshan Varsani

Atelier: Advanced Practice
BArch: MSA
Skills: Adobe, Lumion, Sketchup, Rhino and Modelmaking
Interested in: How sustainable design can be integrated into architecture without a hindrance to the experience of space. I am also interested in how communities can be integrated into schemes that have long-lasting positive changes.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 17:54

Max Frost

Atelier: &rchitecture
BArch: MSA
Experience: Gagarin Studio
Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, Hand Drawing
Interested in: Social housing and community focussed projects. I’m really keen on looking at the future of public housing, and architecture’s role in addressing social issues.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 18:30

Yoanna Barzeva

Atelier: &rchitecture
BArch: University of Huddersfield
Experience: LP Design
Skills: Adobe, ArchiCAD, Lumion and Collage Art
Interested in: addressing socio-economic issues through spatial and abstract thinking in architecture & design

Posted 1 Mar 2021 18:41

Kamila B

Kamila Bochenska

Atelier: &rchitecture
BArch: Wroclaw University of Science and Technology
Experience: Interniship at RYSY Architekci
Skills: ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, Adobe, Lumion
Interested in: The community-focused approach to architecture and the relationship between the urban environment and wellbeing.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 18:43

Angel Maria C

Angel Cunningham

Atelier: USE
BArch: MSA
Skills: Photoshop, InDesign, Sketchup, AutoCAD
Interested in: Approaching design from a user-focussed perspective, to find more exciting solutions to social issues in architecture

Posted 1 Mar 2021 18:57

Meet the Collaborator

The Tetley is an art gallery and social hub on the south bank of the river Aire in Leeds, providing a platform for local artists and workshops for both the local community and visitors to Leeds since 2013. The gallery is based in the 1930s Tetley’s Brewery, hosting a range of free exhibitions, as well as workshop spaces, powering the thriving creative scene in Leeds and West Yorkshire.

The Tetley supports both emerging artists with mentoring, investment, and space to exhibit work. It is also a key creative hub for the local community with arts workshops for kids and adults, a programme of free exhibitions, talks and events, plus a brilliant bar and kitchen!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_tetley/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Tetley
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheTetleyLeeds

Website: https://www.thetetley.org/

Contact: Bryony Bond - Director

Posted 1 Mar 2021 19:03

Social Value

The new extension of the Tetley will act as a hub for a new community and will offer opportunities to develop new skills and support mental health and employability. The park, which it extends to, will provide a space for volunteer gardening and will feature sculptures, artist-designed play areas, unusual benches and facilities, creative planting workshops, which will attract the wider city.

The new extension will reflect the Tetley’s long heritage by bringing back brewing and food production on site on a small scale, enabling brewing tours for the community. The new enhanced Bar&Kitchen area will develop a new expertise in food, beverage & hospitality and provide educational programmes for young people and trainees.

By incorporating the social history of the Tetley and the wider South Bank story, the new unique community hub with integrated talent development, learning & training will bring more closely together people from different generations and attract the wider community to more than just contemporary art.

Posted 2 Mar 2021 11:01

Skills

Model Making & Sketching

Model making in both physical and digital form and sketching will be a key part of the project to initially understand concepts that really benefit the community.

Research & Srategies

Concepts will be informed from the initial site analysis but also through implementing design strategies that have a positive impact on the environment. There will also be the scope of developing a landscape strategy for the exterior space that connects coherently to the extension.

Presentation

The presentation will be a major factor in communicating the scheme as this is something that will be used to raise funding for the project. The use of diagrams will be a visual communication device used alongside sketches to help the collaborator understand the direction behind the concept.

Software

There will be an opportunity to develop skills within the Adobe Suite package as well as learning visualisation techniques with Lumion. 3D modelling software such as Sketchup will be used as a way of working with rendering software.

Posted 2 Mar 2021 15:09

We had a great morning session to kick off the project, getting to know each other as well as getting to grips with the project brief. We got stuck into understanding the gallery typology, using sketches and precedents to work out what the gallery could offer architecturally, but also socially. We used these sketches to start a discussion on the direction the project should go, and how we can incorporate the local community in Leeds into the scheme.

Posted 10 May 2021 15:03

We finished up todays work by trying to put together an image of the communities that we want this extension to properly serve. We split up and each developed a character that would use the site, whether a tourist, member of staff, volunteer, student or local visitor. From these user profiles we put together routes of how they would approach the site, and from where, and what the project could offer them individually.

Posted 10 May 2021 23:13

After everyone in the group had a go at putting together these user profiles, and trying to understand what the extension could do for them, we used sketching exercises to try turn these needs into ideas for spaces, landscaping and facilities that would all be wrapped up in the project. We looked at people who may not be that interested in Art, and what the extension could do to interest them, and involve them better into the project.

Posted 10 May 2021 23:14

Angel Maria C

Key Drivers
Following on from day 1 of the project, some key drivers for the design were established from the students' precedent and site analysis. These were accessibility, green buffers, social features, lighting strategies, thermal comfort, inclusive appeal, permeability and heritage. These key drivers will act as a guide for the concept development of the gallery extension.

Posted 11 May 2021 15:11

After establishing the key drivers of the design, we started the early concept development by sketching different aspects of the proposed extension for the Tetley, which will be at the heart of Central Park. The 4 main outputs of this process were:
1. Facade development, driven by lighting strategies and materiality.
2. Landscaping, focusing on sculptures and seating areas.
3. Entrances and permeability between the park and the extension.
4. Circulation; how the old connects with the new.
This process will be followed by combining the initial concepts and creating 2 more defined design proposals.

Posted 11 May 2021 16:31

Team 1

Following on from the morning activities, group members were put into two groups whereby individual ideas were combined. Team 1 focused on the programmes of the gallery extension looking at the relationships between each space. In addition to this, the exploration of form was carried out alongside the idea of incorporating a roof terrace.

Posted 11 May 2021 18:58

Team A

Using the landscape and circulation as a key driver for the concept team A explored this through a series of sketches. The key part of the concept is addressing the threshold between the existing gallery and the proposed gallery extension. The way this has been addressed is through the use of a glass link that acts as a buffer but also the circulation space. All this whilst considering the social value it adds to the community using the user profiles.

Posted 11 May 2021 19:04

GUEST SPEAKER

Today at 10:00 am, we will be joined by Derek Horton, who is is an artist, writer, teacher and curator and is a regular visitor to exhibitions at the Tetley since it opened. He will be talking about his background in &Model gallery in Leeds and his views on the Tetley at the beginning of the meeting, which will be followed by a more casual discussion about where our project is heading along with some Q&A. We will be sharing with him our points of view on the extension and some initial design ideas in order to receive some feedback. Derek also founded and co-edits an online art magazine called “Soanyway”, where he tells stories using any combination of words, images and sounds. We are trying to incorporate a similar idea of telling the stories of different characters visiting the site and how they can influence the design of the extension.

Posted 12 May 2021 09:20

Kamila B

Derek Horton joined the Smart Community team today to provide us with a professional perspective on the art galleries in Leeds.

First, Derek told us about his experience of running the &Model art gallery housed in the reused three-storey 19th-century building in the center of the city. He shared a presentation that introduced the building and its potential as a small art gallery space. Second, Derek talked about the past of the Tetley, the progress made over the years, and suggested opportunities for improvements.

Then, he highlighted the importance of the flexibility and scale of gallery spaces, the type and amount of light, the dialog with the context of the building, the inviting entrance zone, the consideration for the building's heritage, and accessibility. All those aspects contribute to space as a successful gallery.

Finally, the discussion started within the group on the various aspects of the project, its constraints and opportunities, and the reflection on concepts developed so far.

The meeting with Derek was very informative, and our group is grateful for his time and knowledge he shared with us.

Posted 12 May 2021 19:45

MAKING ATMOSPHERES

Today’s activities began with a presentation from the fifth years understanding how to present interim process and being able to identify and showcase core concepts mid-way through a project. Following this, the groups were split again into their break-out rooms to further develop their designs through mixed-media approaches. Towards the end of the day the focus transitioned into developing presentations for tomorrow’s guest speaker.

Posted 13 May 2021 22:27

Kamila B

Today, students worked in groups to prepare for the presentation and meeting with Bryony Bond, Tetley’s Artistic Director.

In the morning, the students organized the work they produced during the week, and in the afternoon, Bryony joined the Smart Community team. Following the short introduction, each group presented their concept and design to our guest. Students explained the potential and opportunities of their projects, and Bryony provided groups with constructive professional feedback. Her suggestions and comments prompted reflection on current concepts and showed the potential for further improvements.

We are very grateful for the meeting with Bryony and for her time and knowledge. She helped us understand what is expected from the gallery space from the artist’s and artistic director's perspectives. Her comments will be a great starting point for the work next week.

Posted 14 May 2021 17:18

Week 1 Summary

Using the user profiles and thinking about how these characters may navigate the extension and the wider city has allowed for exploration of designs that really consider the journey and what they may see. By using this as a technique both groups have produced two proposals that consider the interaction between the existing building and the proposed extension. Using mediums such as sketching and understanding how the concept can be presented is a key learning from this week's work and was successful when presented to the collaborator mid-way through the project.

Posted 16 May 2021 16:29

We spent today taking our existing concepts, and pushing them into 3D, to see how they interacted with the wider site, as well as the park. This was a great opportunity to see how sunlight and key views could affect the massing of the extension as we established that daylight and framing views of the park were both key drivers of the project.

Understanding the extension in the wider context of the Leeds South Bank is really important for the social value of the project, as the scheme needs to act as a community hub for local residents, as well as a gallery for tourists.

We also spent time putting together the concepts developed last week with the feedback from our meetings with Bryony and Derek, as well as our narratives developed from the character studies at the start of last week. The designs are now really coming together to be well thought out and exciting strategies for the future of the South Bank.

Posted 17 May 2021 17:15

Today we had the chance to chat with local architects Gagarin Studio about their work in West Yorkshire, particularly community projects like the Orange Box Young People's Centre in Halifax. We discussed how a single project can be a catalyst for wider change, and how you can accomodate a wide variety of stakeholders, users and actors within a single project.

We also chatted about representation techniques, and how as architects we can successfully communicate a project to an audience without having to use plans and sections, which can often be quite exclusionary. We discussed who our audience was in this project, and how we can properly tailor the extension and the gallery spaces for a Leeds audience, using local heritage and arts culture as a jumping off point for the project and the visuals.

This was a great chance to have some last-minute feedback on how our projects were developing, and what we could do to really push them into being successful schemes that encapsulate what makes Leeds and it's art so special.

Posted 18 May 2021 18:32

Todays task was to continue developing both group's designs to the point of achieving a core selection of visualisations. The day began with the fifth years giving advice as to how concepts can be showcased beyond just using rendering software. The goal was to understand how other mediums of producing work can be utilised to achieve stylistic, impactful results. The day's task encouraged both an understanding in the value of establishing an individual style of work as well as pushing beyond our comfort zones.

Posted 19 May 2021 16:17

Thursday began with a photoshop tutorial from Angel who explained how adjustments can be made to images to provide depth and realism. She walked us through using brushes, masks and other render elements and how they can immediately add atmosphere. This was done with the intention of having the visualisations completed in time for the client presentation tomorrow.

Posted 21 May 2021 08:42

Team A had the opportunity to present their work to our MSA LIVE partner Bryony this afternoon. They presented through their development from the meeting last Friday, explaining their diagramatic exercises and ending with their engaging visuals that showcased their concept. Bryony was pleased with the outcome!

Posted 21 May 2021 15:19

Team 1 also had the opportunity to showcase their work to Bryony, our MSA live partner. Similar to the other group, they talked through their development work and how they got to their final concept. They then showcased their visualisations, explaining the core features of their concept. A similarly positive response from Bryony!

Posted 21 May 2021 15:20

At the end of week 2, both groups produced astounding visuals that reflected all of their design decisions during this two-week period. Both designs engaged with the immediate and wider context of Leeds and incorporated different façade, interior and landscape elements that celebrated the heritage of the site but gave it a modern twist.

Posted 21 May 2021 15:45