BAAD Space: Project Profile

TITLE: BAAD Space Structure
LOCATION: School of Art, Margaret St
COLLABORATORS: BA (Hons) Art & Design, Nathan Hansen
PROJECT TYPE: Design, Fabrication

Co.LAB worked with the BA (Hons) Art & Design course (BAAD) to enhance the studio provision for students in the School of Art. The course differs from a Fine Art programme where students focus on inter-disciplinary design and working in-situ rather than a traditional art studio. Such practices challenged the existing room layout and usage. The collaboration brought architecture and art & design students to intervene in the room to encourage more studio activity throughout the year.

Students investigated studio usage in both architecture and art & design departments, mapping influences and patterns alongside the physical structures that promote best practices. There were five consultation sessions between both student groups where an open dialogue enabled the research to be translated into an effective proposal.

The final design consists of a timber framed structure, centred in the middle of the large studio room. Protruding features divide the room into smaller, more definable spaces, allowing students to occupy them more intimately as they work individually and in groups. A laptop bar, stairs, and benches surround the raised platform, offering the capacity for students to work on, in, around the structure. It can also transform into a ludicrously large seminar table.

Fabrication was completed before the BAAD Graduate Show with Nathan Hansen, a local fabricator. The art & design students used the structure as a reference point to inform their final display work, creating ingenious and playful works that work with the raw timber construction. The structure will alter every year according to the students needs and changing working patterns.

The work generated an interest in the relationship between studio usage, post-studio practice and its potential application in architectural pedagogy. Research on the subject was presented at the 2014 AAE Living & Learning Conference in Sheffield.