STUDIO SPACE + WORKSHOPS

‘The museum and gallery on the one hand and the studio on the other are linked to form the foundation of the same edifice and the same system’ – Daniel Buren.

Our organisation is located within the Birmingham School of Architecture + Design at BCU’s Eastside campus. As one of the departments in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, we share a vast range of resources and facilities that are available to our students and staff. However, we embrace a devolved post-studio space, integrating our practice as part of the city we live and work in.  From Daniel Buren and Robert Smithson’s ideas in post-studio methods, the studio today is not the only place where art can be made. 

Artists/designers/architects use ‘site’ to inform their thinking, and constructed exploration. As a result, negotiation is an important aspect of the making of ideas, whether it be about pragmatic or artistic issues; all add parameters for the medium to respond to.

In practical terms, this means we are not restricted to a particular office or room but we often meet and produce work where and when is necessary – both on campus or in and around the city.

Having the freedom to work anywhere encourages students that work on projects to reflect the ‘live’ aspect of our projects; the fact that they are very real and respond directly to places and people. This is important when fostering a design education so not to affirm design is done in isolation – but in collaboration.

Staff and students have access to general University facilities as well as our excellent technical facilities including:

• wood workshop,
• metal workshop,
• print & reprographics,
• photography studio,
• audio/visual equipment
• ceramics & glass workshop
• plaster workshop
• waterjet cutter
• digital lab
• theatre performance space

Many of our projects use these facilities to develop the final proposals and we continually look to invest in new software and hardware, made available to students, to keep experimenting with what they can achieve.