Creative Spaces

Our wide range of practical courses are supported by dedicated studio, lab and workshop spaces, with the latest facilities and equipment to support you, whether you are studying Music, Computing, Fine Art or Civil Engineering.

Broadcasting Place studios & workshops

Subjects – Art, Architecture & Design

Based on the creative and practical nature of our courses, our light and airy studios emphasise personal exploration and development, and recognise the value of peer learning. The studios provide a flexible and vibrant working space where most of the teaching and learning takes place, as well as providing an impressive venue for exhibitions including our end of year show.

Students are encouraged to see the studios as a professional workplace. They can work on individual projects as well as using the space to meet and work collaboratively. Staff offices are located nearby, with offices just down the corridor.

Studio equipment includes tables, parallel motion drawing boards, flip-top drawing boards, ceiling projectors with full AV facilities, PC and Mac desktops with up-to-date specialist software, printers with the ability to print from sizes A4 to A0, sinks with hot and cold water for art work and screens and exhibition areas for displaying work.

Fine Art & Graphic Design students have access to letterpress and printmaking workshops, photographic darkrooms, a digital print unit, animation workspaces and 3D construction facilities, as well as a range of cameras, lighting, video and sound recording equipment. In addition all courses are supported by the virtual spaces of a dedicated e-portfolio web site that students use to upload work, gain feedback from their tutors and to interact with other students.

On the ground floor of Broadcasting Place Arts Building there is an impressive multi-functional workshop with a 3D Printer for the output of small scale digital models and a laser cutter. The workshop supports a wide range of processes and materials, including woodworking, metalworking, fabrication, plastic forming, vinyl moulding, glass reinforced plastics, welding, plasma cutting, model making, laser cutting, 3D printing and sculpture.

Students are provided with health and safety induction training prior to using the machinery. Staff offices are within the workshop area where they are available to provide support and supervision as necessary to students.

Building Materials Laboratory

Subjects – Built Environment & Engineering

The building materials laboratory is well equipped with modern testing equipment to enable all the standard tests pertinent to civil engineering materials compliance and strength behaviour to be undertaken. Substantial investment has been focused on this facility to benefit the student learning experience, with digital/electronic control and monitoring now being incorporated into the majority of the experimental systems within the laboratory. The range of experimentation includes:

• Full scale structural element testing (typically reinforced concrete beams) up to 250 tonnes loading capacity
• Model structures
• Concrete beam production - mixing, casting and associated material strength/consistency testing
• Comprehensive range of soil mechanics and highway engineering testing systems
• Hydraulics - open channel flow apparatus and pump rig

Computing Labs

Subjects – Computing & Creative Technology

We have specialist computing and IT facilities that include:

• Dedicated computing labs running Oracle and Oracle Apex
• Dual boot PC labs running Linux Red Hat and Windows
• Two cell phone towers connected to the Leeds Met mobile network
• Two isolated network labs featuring an imaging system to create and configure your own operating system; a range of networking systems; and forensic analysis software.
• A dedicated games lab for capturing Wii and PS3 game footage
• Four specialist i-Mac labs running Windows and Mac OS X
• A wide variety of software suites, including Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Studio, 3Ds Max, Unreal Tournament and the Unreal Engine, Logic Studio, Cubase and more.
• 24/7 lab-access, 365 days a year
• A vast array of free to loan equipment for students

Music Studios

Subjects – Creative Technology, Music

Our specialist music studios offer impressive production, performance, and recording facilities, including:

• Five recording studios, each with a control room, and live area with instruments and amps
• 5.1 mixing facilities
• Five fully equipped programming/offline editing suites, each with its own booth
• Audient ASP8024 consoles, Genelec, Dynaudio & Focal monitoring
• Foley studio for recording sound effects and multi-speaker performance space of electro-acoustic and diffusion compositions

Each studio is equipped with Apple Macs, running software that includes Protools 9, Logic 9, Cubase SX6, Native Instruments Kontakt 4 and Garritan Personal Orchestra.

Film studios, production offices & edit suites

Subjects – Film

The Electric Press is the established home of the Northern Film School, where students have access an impressive range of facilities. With Northern Film School students, academic staff from a variety of film disciplines, learning officers and support staff all in one building, the Electric Press provides a supportive environment and vibrant networking community for students.

The building houses production studios and offices, edit suites, an animation studio with line testing facilities and a dedicated model animation studio, a props store, film and script archive, screening room and teaching space.

Equipment available to students includes a variety of cameras from 16mm film through to digital HD, a range of lights affording creative flexibility, and an array of gripping equipment including dolly, track, stands, reflectors and gels. There are also animation specific 16mm bolex cameras, digital SLR cameras, light boxes and access to blue screen facilities and state of the art sound recording and mixing facilities.

"The facilities are excellent – everything you need is located in the building. All aspects of film production are catered for – from meeting spaces, to studios, to editing suites, to screening rooms."

Landscape Resource Centre

Subjects – Landscape Architecture

This amazing outdoor learning space houses both mature and freshly created gardens, as well as bio-diverse wildlife habitats. Here our students gain invaluable practical experience of working with plants, planting design, ecology, environmental art and construction.

As well as having the chance to leave their mark at the grounds, students have the opportunity to take part in renowned Royal Horticultural Society garden shows such as Chelsea. In 2009 Landscape Architecture students Alan Burns and Philip Dugdale won a gold medal and Best Visionary Garden for their modular garden design, which was constructed at the Landscape Resource Centre and then installed at the RHS Tatton show.

One of the strengths of our courses is the opportunity to work on live projects through our award-winning Design in the Community Scheme. This work is supported by the Landscape Resource Centre, strengthening links with schools and community groups by offering opportunities to learn about subjects ranging from ecology and nature to healthy lifestyles and art.

Performing Arts studios

Subjects – Performing Arts

Our Performing Arts programme is facilitated through a combination of specialist resources and the employment of unusual or site specific and 'found' spaces or equipment.

Performing Arts' main established base is House 14, located on the historic and leafy Queen Square in Leeds City Centre. In addition, we have a newly refurbished learning space, Perform 1, just a short walk away near to our City Campus library. Both spaces, used for teaching, rehearsal and performance, are black studios, equipped with theatre lighting and sound systems.

Our dance students are taught in Northern Ballet's newly built Centre for Dance at Quarry Hill, where they have access to impressive professional dance studios.

Our students have access to broadcast standard audio and visual equipment, theatre lighting and DJ and VJ portable decks.