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Faculty of Arts & Society

Architecture, Landscape & Design

Welcome to the School of Architecture, Landscape & Design

A for Architecture
The people of Leeds have voted the home of the Faculty of Arts & Society, Broadcasting Place, 3rd in the Leeds' Favourite Building shortlist at the 2009 Leeds Architecture Awards. The ceromony took place on Thursday 28 January 2010, at the Broad Gate building located on the Headrow, Leeds.

Leeds Town Hall was the overall winner of the award, organised by the Yorkshire Evening Post and voted for by its readers, with Temple Works in 2nd.

Broadcasting Place was also crowned the winner in the New Building category, with the judges describing the design as 'architecture with a capital  A'. The developer of the estate, Downing, received the award with the architect Feilden Clegg Bradley.

Design & Community Exhibition

Final year undergraduate and postgraduate students in Landscape Architecture and Garden Art & Design presented their design portfolios and showcased the design process to their community clients and other invited guests this week.

You can watch a video and listen to a podcast with students, staff and clients talking about the various projects.

The students have worked with community clients to produce designs for gardens, outdoor learning spaces and therapeutic gardens. This year the students are working with Eureka and the Hollybank Trust, both of which are Leeds Metropolitan University partnership organisations. In addition the students have designed areas at Grimesdyke School, Skelton Grange Environment Centre, Shine and an urban project in Castleford.

Shine, Harehills Leeds: Shine is a state-of-the-art, spacious and stylish business and social hub in Harehills, Leeds. It offers fantastic shared and serviced office space; boutique-style conference, meetings and events facilities; and the added opportunity to meet-up and socialise. Students have worked with staff and local people to re-envisage the space around this centre.

Castleford: A small urban space outside Bridge Arts In Castleford is to be designed as part of a much larger Regeneration Project which captured the imagination of Kevin McCloud when he presented a series of Channel 4 television programmes following the progress of a number of design projects. Students have worked with staff and local people to help them to re-envisage this external space.

Grimesdyke School in Seacroft, Leeds: This is the second year we have worked with this school. Students have engaged Key stage 1 and 2 children in design workshops to help design outdoor natural play areas at this Seacroft Primary School.

Eureka, Halifax: Taking healthy eating as their inspiration, students have worked with staff and children to consider outdoor space and a new indoor exhibition space in this exciting partnership with Eureka.

Hollybank Trust: Dale House in Halifax: This is the 3rd year we have had students working in this centre. This is a demanding project where our students must understand the needs of severely disabled children and adults and work with their helpers to design a therapeutic sensory garden.

Skelton Grange Environment Centre in Stourton, Leeds: Working with staff and children, understanding issues in relation to our future environmental needs students are creating an imaginative outdoor trail where landscape management techniques have featured heavily in design processes.

In addition to this work there is also a group of postgraduate students who are working in consultation with schools in Doncaster to re-envisage school playgrounds.

In the case of all of the projects students have engaged in participative design processes with their clients and their users to help to understand the specific needs of their user group. Clients have been involved in shaping the design brief and have participated in scrutinizing sketch design proposals. A number of these designs will be implemented by independent contractors and others will be used to contribute to applications for financial aid.

The study and practice of Landscape Architecture within a community context has been part of the academic programme at Leeds Met since the 1970s. The Design and Community projects have ensured that final year students experience the theory and practice of landscape design in a live context.

Design: Inside Out Lecture Forums 2010
The Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape and Design are holding a series of lecture forums with key notes speakers from the world of architecture, landscape architecture and design. 

The lecture forum began with 'New Victorians' on Thursday 14 January in the Rose Bowl and the speakers were Rod Heyes of Caruso St John Architects and Prisca Thielmann of Maccreanor Lavington Architects.  Two projects from each of the practices recent portfolio were presented, with focus on themes of continuity and physical context.

The Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape Design's, annual critical lecture forums will offer historical, theoretical and critical analyses of the arts, architecture and design.  The programme is intended to address pertinent issues concerning new media art, architecture and design thorough critical and open discourse, including artists, architects, designers, critics, curators, theorists, alongside students and public in open discussion.

Further details of all the lectures can be found here.

Landscape Architecture Alumni Event

Leeds Met welcomed former Landscape Architecture students back on to campus at the weekend to share their memories at a reunion event.

The event, which was  held at Headingley Campus on Saturday saw students from the classes of 1987 to 1991 get together to share their memories from their time at the University and regroup with old friends.

The day's festivities started with a drinks reception and buffet lunch at Broadcasting Place, the new home to the School of Architecture, Landscape & Design, which was followed with a tour of the building led by Principal Lecturer in Landscape Architecture, Edwin Knighton. As well as seeing faces from the past the group had the chance to meet with current landscape architecture students to see how things have changed over the years.

An exhibition of artwork from both current and former students was on display over the weekend, providing the visiting alumni with a blast from their own creative past and a vision of the future of the University.

Read more about the event and view photos here.


MA Urban Design graduate Mark Graham has won a Gillespies Fraser Teal Award.

Mark graduated with a degree in Town and Regional Planning in 2006 and joined Halcrow as a Graduate Planning Consultant. He was then given the opportunity to study part time for the MA in Urban Design graduating in 2009.

He was given the Gillespies Fraser Teal MA Urban Design Award by urban design consultants Gillespies for his dissertation on "Steps Towards a Walkable Manchester: Designing the Walkable City".

Since graduating Mark has been given the role of Urban Design and Planning Consultant within Halcrow, providing the northern region with expert urban design and planning advice. Mark has continued his work with key public sector clients such as the Highways Agency and Environment Agency, as well as developing private sector work. He is currently providing design advice to local authorities and transport agencies in the North of England, as well as developing a detailed design brief for large scale flood defences in Cumbria.


Designing in The Gambia

Jonathan Wilson one of our second year postgraduate architecture students went to The Gambia for his last project in the first year of the PG Dip Architecture.

Jonathan worked with a charitable company and went out to The Gambia to design a site for market buildings in a small village.  Jonathan lived and worked in the village for two weeks. Building on the market that Jonathan designed is due to start at the end of the year.

Architecture Students' visit to Frankfurt
Second and Third Year students on BA Hons Architecture have just returned from a study visit to Frankfurt. The academic intention of the trip was three fold, in part to contextualise the 20th Century History course by visiting key sites in the development and the current state of both the mainstream and organic strands of modernism; to look at the examples of contemporary architectural and landscape solutions when working in a historical context; and to look at the latest developments in energy efficient residential units.


Volunteering Field Trip to The Gambia

Following a successful fieldtrip based around the design and development of solar cookers for the charitable enterprise “Solar project Gambia” based in Serrekunda, Gambia, a second trip three week fieldtrip for undergraduate BA Design students is taking place in February/ March 2010.

A party of 12 undergraduates from all three years of the course lead by Design lecturer Rupert Bozeat and will be based at Sandele eco-retreat in the south of the country near The Gambia/Senegalese border. The level two and three students will be involved in developing personal projects around the themes of low energy domestic products and responsible tourism products.

The Design fieldtrip is followed by a University International Tourism trip to The Gambia later in 2010, again to be based at Sandele and which will focus on the design, construction and installation of a wind turbine to provide renewable energy for the village of Kartong.

Details of last year’s fieldtrip can be found at http://www.leedsmetgambia.co.uk/ and information on Sandele eco-retreat can be found at http://www.sandele.com/


Landscape students win Gold at Tatton Park

Landscape Architecture students Alan Burns and Philip Dugdale have won a gold medal and Best Visionary Garden at the RHS Tatton Park Show 2009.  The garden aims to bring a fresh approach to this new garden category. There's a modular theme which allows flexibility and continues development in the space itself. To achieve this, a network of gabions that build together creates an entirely usable garden. These structures can be used as the foundation, the build and the finish. They offer containment as well as the flexibility garden design needs today.

Loose, green, shade-tolerant planting has been used to frame and soften the structural elements of the garden. Entirely herbaceous, the planting dies back in winter revealing the ordered space. In spring the garden erupts, signifying new life. Larger feature gabions nestle among the planting, providing height and structure without entirely enclosing the space. This combination creates a special space supporting year-around diversity.      

 


Interior Students display their work at Free Range in London

 Graduating students from BA Hons Interior Architecture & Design displayed their work at the "Free Range" Exhibition in London last week.  Free Range is Europe's largest graduate art and design show. Over the eight week period thousands of graduates from the UK's top Art & Design Colleges will exhibit their work. Free Range showcases the works of budding designers and artists to both public and potential employers making it a destination point for thousands of Londoners and lovers of visual arts.