建筑系学生自己动手
A one-of-a-kind project is seeing the University's architecture students design and build infrastructure that is bringing benefits to the Kielder community.
A unique collaboration between 大发体育下载’s 建筑学院 and the Kielder Art & 建筑项目 is serving to better prepare students for employment.
它还帮助运送Kielder Water & 森林公园的长远抱负 develop tourism as a key way of 促进本地经济发展.
Testing Ground, 已经持续了7年了, teams architecture students with local communities or organisations seeking temporary or permanent structures that will 支持社区需求. This is while also enabling the wider public to enjoy the local landscape.
Students take on the entire process of delivering the structures, from working with clients to develop their brief right through to carrying out the physical build.
Testing Ground has developed into a substantial ‘live’ pedagogical and design research programme and is 在英国的建筑教育中是独一无二的.
Professor of Architecture Graham Farmer says Testing Ground has 改善学生的就业前景.
“Students who have contributed to these projects tend to do pretty well when it comes to employment,” says Graham.
“That’s because practices actually enjoy and respect the fact that students have been involved in projects where they’re responsible for the whole design and construction process. This includes having to manage the projects and taking them through planning permission or building regulations approval.
“Employers are also coming back and saying, we really 重视这类毕业生你能多寄一些给大发体育在线吗.”
“自下而上”的方法
试验场是 格雷厄姆和彼得·夏普, an independent art and architecture curator who is 负责凯尔德艺术 & Architecture.
It's a programme that commissions structures and delivers other creative activities within the Kielder environment for the public to visit and interact with.
Practices actually enjoy and respect the fact that students have been involved in projects where they're responsible for the whole design and construction process.
To date, 试验场已完成13个项目, six of which are temporary structures – including exhibition spaces and a pop-up café – that have given students the chance to practise their design and build skills.
在7座永久建筑中，有3座已经被拆除 与当地村庄合作建造 基尔德水域 & 森林公园，由Kielder Water管理 & 森林公园发展信托基金.
Taken together with the adjoining Northumberland National Park, this combined landscape is also the biggest International Dark Sky Park in Europe.
Testing Ground’s first project, in 2014, was to build a 看星星馆 对于当地的一个村庄.
The second project, for the community campsite in Kielder, was a ‘warm room’. 这个结构为观星露营者提供了温暖, 可以避风的干燥地方, 和其他露营者交谈, cook and charge their laptops while waiting for the weather to clear.
Away from dark sky tourism, Testing Ground has also built a wildlife hide from where visitors can spot red squirrels and also watch ospreys nesting.
它最近的项目是一个 雕塑避难所 for visitors situated within a remote upland nature reserve.
How it works
一组七到九名学生 一起工作在每个项目和 most of them don’t have any construction experience.
To start with, they need to set up a series of meetings with their client group to 整理并为客户写一份摘要 to agree on.
Peter says: “It can be a bit alarming for students to start a project with such a blank sheet of paper, as they’re much more used to being given a brief and told what they are going to do for the next eight to 10 months.”
刚开始工作的时候, new graduates would normally be given more guidance at this stage, 但这不会发生在试验场项目中.
That’s to encourage them to build their listening and communication skills.
“These are really 商业实践的关键,” says Peter. “It’s very easy to come out of university speaking a language that most of the population doesn’t really understand.
"But then you’ve got to get something through a planning committee and you’ve got five minutes to explain to a group of local councillors, using 清晰易懂的语言，为什么你的项目应该获得规划许可.”
Other skills students learn include how to work with colleagues and clients, how to negotiate and resolve conflict, budgeting and project management.
The first four to five weeks of a project can be a worrying time for students as they try to understand the motivations of the client and construct the brief.
“It’s really interesting to watch people go from ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing’ to starting to get a handle on it, to realising they’ve got ideas coming together and then, eventually, discovering that they are capable of making a building. 这是一个伟大的旅程，”彼得说.
Measuring impact
试验场一直是 Kielder Art的成功合作 & Architecture, helping it to fulfil its remit as an educational programme and to deliver physical infrastructure for the public to enjoy.
Now, Peter is conducting a study on behalf of 大发体育下载 into the impact the initiative has on students’ careers and on the communities where the projects have been built.
“The idea of impact – what difference our research and teaching might make beyond the school – is becoming more and more important in universities,” says Graham.
“The most important motivation for us is probably that 试验场正在发挥作用 somewhere.”
