Probably easiest just to post the flyer for this one. Click for more details.
Architecture
The Natural House project comes to Birmingham this week demonstrating the Clay Build Technique as part of Architecture Week. “CBT is modern, sustainable and carbon neutral technique of building houses / buildings using primary materials such as, clay, straw and water.” In other words mud huts, and you get a chance to make them at the Festival of Xtreme Building site on Moor St Queensway this week.
The dates and times for workshops are as follows:
20,21,23,24 June
Each session runs for 1 3/4 hrs.
Session one 10am – 11.45am
Session two 12pm – 1.45pm
Session three 2.15pm – 4pm.
I say again, this workshop involves actually building stuff out of mud.
Yesterday I popped along to St Chad’s Cathedral, which is a very interesting building so I’d recommend you follow that link. I was there to meet Sian Hindle, a jewellery designer who was taking part in the Architectural Jewellery and Conceptual Design strand of New Generation Arts and Architecture Week. This project, curated by Susan McNally, gets four designer-makers to work with a building of architectural interest in Birmingham. As well as St Chads there’ll be work in the Central Library, Big Peg in the Jewellery Quarter and Moor St Station.
Sian has produced six birds from a sheet of metal which has been acid etched with a dream story about flight. The birds are then suspended in the air at St Chads – you’ll find them in the far right corner.
Sian graduated from BIAD a couple of years ago and now works in the Jewellery Quarter as a jewellery designer. She can be contacted here.
The show officially starts on Monday 18th and runs to the 29th but if you’re passing you can obviously see Sian’s work right now during cathedral opening hours (8am – 5pm). The other installations are going in over the next few days.
And it goes without saying the cathedral is well worth a visit on its own. Be sure and check out the 15th Century Christ.
Here comes another festival, hot on the heals of the last one. Keeping track of all this stuff is getting to be a full time job!
Architecture Week starts on Friday 15th and runs until the 25th. There’s a load of stuff going on all over the city on the theme of How Green Is Our Space. As I’m finding with these events it’s easier to get a feel of what’s going on from the paper catalogue than a website so I’d highly recommend downloading the West Mids Architecture Week booklet and having a browse. It’s a 2.4mb PDF and is refreshingly readable off the screen.
Like a damn fool I put the launch night of the Festival of Xtreme Building in my diary as happening tonight. It happened last night. I missed it.
By all accounts it went really well.
The banner was revealed. Here’s a photo of it from Nunovo:
And the BBC gave it loads of coverage across all national outlets. A reach of 20 million apparently, thanks to them tying it into their How We Build Britain series.
So yeah, it’s all open now. Go check it out. And do try and catch Dave Pollard, the mastermind of it all, for a chat. He’s a most inspiring person.
Concreation is an overdue but still timely “celebration of the unloved architecture of an unromantic city – Birmingham’s post war buildings”
Concreation is a loose group of visual artists inspired by the post war architectural landscape of the city in which we live. Some people think it’s a bit grotty, some people think it should all be pulled down. But even if it’s not beautiful, it can still be useful.
And if it’s neither beautiful nor useful it’s bound to be waterproof.
They’re putting together an Art Trail for Artsfest and have issued a call for contributors.
We are looking for enthused individuals interested in artistically responding to the architecture of post-war Birmingham. This includes buildings and spaces of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The artworks will provide an opportunity for public engagement and act as a springboard for discussion on post-war architecture and spaces of Birmingham.
Responses can be in any medium, but need to take into account the location in which work will be exhibited: Paradise Forum and exterior areas of Birmingham Central Library. Mediums include, but are not exclusive to: Photography, Computer Generated/ Graphic Design, Illustration, Textiles, Sculpture, Installation, Audio/visual/ Film and Performance.
The deadline for submissions is 4pm on Friday 22nd June. Full details are here.
From what I hear “an opening event that you will never forget” is not an overstatement.
I’m saying nothing. ;)
Floating Cities, Hidden Architecture is one of the events that forms Architecture Week. The email I got said “Call for Participants” but the attached Doc is rather vague as to whether this means they’re still looking for artists to work this. If you’re interested I’d assume Yes and get in touch.
Taking the structures and buildings of the canal side from Coventry to Birmingham Basins as inspiration, to create individual structures which can be floated out onto the canal. Canal architecture is often hidden and overlooked when once it was an important part of a cities industry and transport network. In both urban and rural settings we will be looking at beautiful and interesting modern and historic buildings lining the sides of the water, aqueducts, tunnels and bridges making up the fabric of the Canal.
This project hopes to use the canal to inspire creativity, reinvestigate these buildings and look at contemporary uses of the canal.
Aimed at young people from 7 different areas of the canal aged between 12-18 to encourage planning and building skills. Young people invited from local groups, including home education and excluded children’s groups, to work with Artists to take part in a walk looking at the architecture in the area, making sketches and taking photographs of inspiring buildings to use later to create their own models using paper. The models will be colourful and ethereal being lit from the inside with tea lights and then later floated on the water at Coventry Canal basin Sunday 24th June at 7.30 pm
Anyone interested contact Shiam Wilcox on 07733 206 641 or email shiam@junkart.biz
One of the (many) categories on this blog’s sidebar that I think should have a higher number next to it is Architecture so I’m chuffed that there seems to be a flood of building related info coming my way.
Today was news of Architecture Week 2007 which is being organised in the West Mids by Kevin Isaacs and Anna Cook of Fierce Earth, the same people who are running the current Fierce Festival. Running from June 15th – 24th the theme is “How Green Is Your Space?” and while there are a number of events already confirmed they’re still open to submissions from artists.
Here in the West Midlands we are focusing on themes of children and young people, and diversity, although if you have a project outside of these themes, that’s fine – we’d love to hear about it!
Can you envisage a children’s event which shows the relevance of architecture to every-day life? Could you perhaps screen a film that explores an architectural theme or organise a ‘talk and tour’ of a significant building? Are you an architect who is interested in opening your practice to the public or taking part in the RIBA Architect in the House initiative? Are you a gallery with a relevant exhibition, or a musician with an interest in sound and space? Or could you organise a cycle or boat tour to visit buildings? You could even be a photographer, designer, chef or actor who would like to join in and celebrate our built environment. We are looking for all these kinds of events and many more……
Contact details are here and it’s probably worth emphasizing this is not just open to architects and their ilk but to artists in all mediums.
By golly it’s nearly June which means the Festival of Xtreme Building is about to start in Birmingham.
Running from June through to September this is an “experiment in design and experimental structures where Birmingham’s citizens, private sector developers and Local Authorities can create structures and explore architectural ideas that will reflect their visions of what gives a city its unique magic.”
I confess to being a bit dazzled by some of the terminology but it boils down to some interesting things being built on the patch of grass on the corner of Moor St and Priory St.
The first building on the site is T House which might look like this:
Or it might not. It opens on May 23rd with the official opening at 4.00pm. Here’s the barely legible invite which is dong the email rounds.
Part-architecture, part-sculpture, the design for T-House is a deconstruction of the built form – in this case, of the Japanese tea house and the English garden pavilion. T-House unfolds a series of environments through its intersecting planes, opening out dynamically like a giant piece of origami, which can be put to a wider range of different uses. T-House is intended for location in a modern public park where it is hoped it would act as both container and shelter for a wide range of social, aesthetic and artistic interactions to be determined by the general public. T-House is a developing concept which during the festival will be put to further research undertaken with different groups of people from Eastside.
There’s a lot more going on over the months but what really caught my eye was the promise of the Micro Compact Home arriving on June 2nd. This 2.6 sq metre cube apparently has all the space and facilities for humans to live in and is completely recyclable. There’s much more on the Micro Compact website about the design process and a quick Google brings up a number of articles (though oddly nothing on BLDGBLOG). It looks like this:
I think this festival is going to be one that’s best (perhaps only) understood by experiencing it. While some aspects might be a bit high level (though it’s worth noting they’re making interaction with Birmingham’s residents a priority) the city has always had a relationship with architecture, from the initial rapid growth of the industrial revolution through the post-war Brutalist years and continuing into today’s regeneration. Yet most of us know so very little about architecture. Buildings just appear like magic and we judge them in retrospect. If this festival can help us understand the process a bit better that can only be a good thing. We shall see.
Wolverhampton Art Gallery is celebrating the completion of artist Claudio Hils’ recent photographic commission to document the Art Gallery’s building works with the launch of his new book.
Friday 11 May, (4.30 – 6.30pm) is the book launch while Saturday 12 May (11am – 12pm) is the artist talk where Hills “reveals how building work, something that is often hidden from the public gaze, can be transformed into art.”
Both events are free.
A regeneration event that doesn’t take place in Eastside. This one’s based around Five Ways.
The next Designed Environment West Midlands (DEWM) Network event will take place at the Attwood Green Regeneration Initiative in Birmingham, on the 10th May at 9.30am to 1.30pm.
The DEWM Network is made up of design-related professionals from across the region and sectors, working on architecture, urban design, housing, planning and other design-related initiatives.
The event, which is free to attend, will allow delegates with an interest in design and the built environment to explore this award winning regeneration initiative, network with peers and learn from the project’s success.
To book or for more information please download the DEWM Itinerary (PDF) or contact Matthew Poole on 0121 202 3260 or e-mail matthew.poole@regenwm.org.
The location of the event is the Optima Community Association, St Thomas House, 80 Bell Barn Road, Lee Bank, Birmingham, B15 2AA. Here’s a map.
I picked up a flyer for the New Art Birmingham art market on March 15-18th because it was very pretty and noticed that the venue is Curzon Street Station. If you’re not familiar with the name it’s this building in Digbeth:
While the building has a fascinating history as the first railway station linking Birmingham to London and is a striking part of the Digbeth landscape it has laid dormant for years now and access to the public has been fleeting. Occasionally it is used for events, notably the 7 Inch Cinema / Capsule shindig at Artsfest last year, but any chance to get inside has to be leapt at.
So, while the art market is bound to be well worth a visit there’s now another incentive. You’ll also get to see the petrified cat.
New Art Birmingham previously blogged here.
