Advocating a Co-Design Methodology Across Academy and Community

Architecture live projects have been undertaken at this institution since 2009. The completion of New Wortley Community Centre (NWCC), a £759,497 building is the most complex. Using the definition of co-design put forward by Sanders and Stappers referring “to the creativity of designers and people not trained in design working together in the design development process”, stakeholders including students and tutors of architecture, graphic art and design, landscape architecture, product design and creative writing, community association, service users, contractors and design consultants, collaborated to design the building as an example of co-design. Co-design is presented as a situated learning environment and co-existing in both the academy and community it is further differentiated. This paper describes and evaluates an emergent model of co-design adopted by the writers, considering the positive and negative outcomes, with the aim of evolving the methodology for forthcoming live projects involving students and external communities. Extending the fora of co-design workshops used throughout the design of the building, the reflections, perceptions and personal learning experiences of the participants are collected using face-to-face dialogue and critical discussion. Evaluation takes the form of summative qualitative analysis and involves the co-design group in forming conclusions for final consideration of the writers. The results suggest that: a, co-design fosters situated learning environments where learning is deep and the experience is rewarding for all co-designers. b, situated learning environments of formal learners from the academy (students) and informal learners from the community working together has a positive and reciprocal effect on their learning. c, academy and community collaborations have a beneficial social, cultural and economic effect. d, the co-design process to deliver the NWCC has established a co-design methodology. By reflecting on aspects which were successful alongside those which were problematic the co-design method is further informed for new live projects being undertaken. This model of co-design, where the academy and the community work together on a design project has generated meaningful, diverse and rich learning experiences for all co-designers that also contributes to economic, social and cultural regeneration in the community. This experience has identified key characteristics of academy and community co-design that can be activated in a co-design methodology for future co-design projects

The Making of a Liveable Community at New Wortley, Leeds

Since 2009 a collaborative process between New Wortley Community Association and Leeds Beckett University has sought to establish a more cohesive and livable community environment in Leeds’ most deprived area. With the project still on-going, this piece of research establishes the social, cultural and economic impact to date. The enthusiastic collaboration empowered this previously marginalised community to establish a diverse collective of stakeholders including students and tutors of six disciplines, client, local people, centre users, contractors and design consultants in a groundswell of mutual action referred to by the writers as ‘Emergent Community Governance’. Significant outputs include Our Place initiative grants, an NHS pilot scheme to create a Health & Wellbeing Centre, and £759,497 BIG Lottery funding to construct a new Community Centre. To determine the positive and negative impact upon the community of the collective endeavour, evidence is gathered through interviewing numerous stakeholders. The conclusions are considered alongside the pre and post quantitative data available, with the findings presented visually enabling a holistic evaluation of the urban environment to be observed and helping define the continued future regeneration of New Wortley. The results suggest, and therefore this paper advocates, that the successes observed in New Wortley confirm one strand of creating Livable Urban Futures is through a co-production model where university students use their academic learning environments and productive endeavour to support a network of social participants to achieve meaningful and positive contributions to society

The BEAM Project - Real Life Complexity in a Design Studio Context

The cumulative forces in the architecture live project make for a complex environment for the student to negotiate and inhabit. This paper advocates that the architecture live project is more demanding for students than is normally acknowledged in architecturaleducation and proposes that careful calibration of the multifaceted and potentially contradictory factors is required for appropriate and successful student experience, assessment and client satisfaction. The factors for consideration are well known, the most prominent amongst them being; client requirements and interface, procurement methodology, site specificity, group and collaborative working and cost. Taken singularly each can be responded to effectively by the student, taken accumulatively the live project becomes a greater synthesis and challenge generating both virtues and pitfalls. This is demonstrated through a Leeds Metropolitan University postgraduate architecture live project; the design of a pavilion providing additional flexible space for an arts organisation in Wakefield, England undertaken by 9 students in October 2013. To facilitate deeper understanding and exploration of the stated aims and acknowledge the contribution of students in the making of the live project this paper embraces student reflection of the experience

Project Office; Unleashing a ‘Force for Good’

In 2013 The Leeds School of Architecture (LSA) at Leeds Beckett University (LBU) launched Project Office (PO), defined as ‘a design and research collaboration of staff and students. It is an architecture consultancy concerned with ethical, social and resilient architecture and design. We work with like-minded communities, organisations and individuals’ (Warren and Stott, 2014). PO has 12 ‘Rules of Agency’, which are expounded in this paper to demonstrate its ethical principles and how to occupy a space concurrently within the academic institution and architecture practice. These are: • To be ethical • To be environmentally resilient and informed • To advocate participatory design methodologies for staff, students and collaborators • To working only with clients who lack financial means to realise their projects • To generate research impact through practice related research output • To create opportunities for student engagement with a range of educational and formative experiences • To comply with established ARB and RIBA validation criteria and EU directives for architectural education • To develop architectural pedagogies • To cause the production of architectural live projects as defined by Anderson and Priest (2016) • To express the contribution of students as a force for good. • To have fun • To cultivate a space for an inclusive and virtuous practice that is inspiring for all participants The paper asserts that the Practice-Related Research at the core of PO’s work has a significantly positive social impact. It argues that educators of prospective architects have a societal responsibility not only to expose students to the social impact of their practice but also to make it the heart of pedagogic purpose. PO achieve this despite the changes witnessed in universities, where neo-liberalism defines their trajectory, having found a way to exist that puts a value, ‘a sense of care’ (Mountz, et al., 2015) on all people collaborating with students, work colleagues, stakeholders, clients and also ourselves

Experimenting with Alumni Pedagogy

Project Office, Leeds Beckett University’s in-house staff and student led architectural practice launched an alumni ideas competition for the Sustainable Technologies and Landscape Research Centre (STaLRC). The winning entry established the design and the winning team were engaged in a design consultancy role for further development of the work. This case study describes an exploration of the architectural competition format through experimenting with alumni pedagogy. The institution’s association with its students is almost severed once they become alumni. By extending pedagogy, through a competition, new possibilities have arisen between this School of Architecture and its recent former students, and for academia and practice. The case study explains a procedural exploration through the STaLRC competition, starting with defining the competition through a Design Guide ‘brief’ produced by second year undergraduate students of architecture. The role of Project Office as the educational and practice choreographer sets the distinctive anchoring of the project. The competition process, managed by the writers, deals with the duality of providing a ‘winning’ design that meets client’s complex requirements e.g. affordability, and the setting of an equally important educational purpose. This paper considers how an architectural competition, used as a pedagogic tool, is harnessed in a post formal educational setting. An output for example is that alumni competitions can be legitimately situated in the (Continuing Professional Development) CPD framework, viably enabling UK schools of architecture to participate, fulfilling a professional developmental remit. In conclusion, as the STaLRC competition is framed in an educational setting, the learning outcomes of participants are of equal importance to the quality of entries. This methodology ensures continued pedagogical value in the transition between education and profession. Recent alumni are vital and unencumbered, fledgling professionals and through the setting of this competition have been provided with their space to fledge

Emergent Community Governance; A model of socially sustainable transformation in New Wortley

Following the 2009 Community Plan’s (Graham et al, 2015) lack of impact in Leeds’ most deprived area New Wortley, community leaders rethought their approach to achieving change. The Community Plan had been guided by a physical masterplan, a conventional approach that could not deliver the necessary social transformation. A new method subsequently developed, termed here as emergent community governance. A bottom up process evolved through a ground swell of mutual action. Empowerment of a diverse collective formed a series of relationships informing a cohesive, fluid and inclusive community strategy, embedding a feeling of mutuality throughout the community stakeholders. The paper reflects on a transformation within this community as a result of shifting change processes. Project Office, Leeds Beckett University’s (LBU) ‘design and research collaboration of staff and students’ (Warren & Stott, 2014) is embedded in the collective, using skills across a range of disciplines to design the physical environment in tune with the community’s strategy. Part of the refocusing is the construction of New Wortley Community Centre, a 7-year co-design live project completed May 2016. As John Thackara (cited in Hyde, R. 2012) asserts ‘Critic and environmentalist similarly calls for designers to evolve from being the individual authors of objects or buildings, to being the facilitators of change among large groups of people’, thus this paper demonstrates how developing mutual relationships amongst the community and the so called ‘professional team’ can have a significant impact on the creation of socially and economically sustainable environments. The evidence in support of this model is multifaceted; £759,497 BIG Lottery funding to construct the building, Our Place grants to support the new strategy through an Our Place plan, an NHS pilot scheme to create a Health & Wellbeing Centre with Project Office as co-design coordinator. This paper demonstrates that there is a shift from masterplan led models to models such as emergent community governance as an appropriate means to deliver desired transformations in deprived communities

Learning Through Imaginative Play; A Collaboration of Primary School Pupils and Architecture Students

In 2013 the Leeds School of Architecture’s Project Office [a design and research collaboration of staff and students] was approached by Morley Newlands Primary School to design and construct a play area through which their 550 pupils aged 3 – 11 would learn and develop skills through imaginative play. An innovative process of social engagement between the school pupils and architecture students evolved, creating a playful learning environment which empowered the pupils as patron whilst simultaneously facilitating an academic learning exercise for the students. As Lave & Wenger (1991) assert “Learning is fundamentally a social process”, hence working collaboratively addresses the stereotypical isolated student in architectural education. In total 52 students participated; gaining real life experience of teamwork, brief writing, design of concept, exposure to risk, construction detailing, and ‘on-site’ assembly. This paper sets out the transformational virtues of conscience stimulated in the students and the resultant effect on the pupils including the creation of role models and instilling aspiration. This form of Architectural learning uses the ‘Live Project’, see Sara’s definition (2006), to introduce a third participant in the teacher/student relationship – the client. This move is purposeful, as it “comprises the negotiation of a brief, timescale, budget and product between an educational organisation and an external collaborator for their mutual benefit.” (Anderson & Priest, 2014). In electing to work only with clients in desperate need of architectural consultancy but without the means to pay for it, Project Office ensures that through its production students make a meaningful contribution to society whilst undertaking their degree. In this instance, the live project exposed students to a design methodology that puts team working and collaboration at the heart of the creative experience. The value of a learning exercise being an imaginatively playful venture is demonstrated in this paper as it charts the Morley Newlands ‘Playscape’ and reflects upon this approach to practice based research through the outcomes and learning for school pupils, university students, client team, and Project Office staff

Teaching NeuroImages: Nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia: A distinctive clinico-anatomical syndrome

A 66-year-old woman presented with 4 years of progressive speech difficulty. She had nonfluent speech with phonemic errors but intact single-word comprehension and object knowledge. Her grammar was impaired in both speech and writing, and she exhibited orofacial apraxia. A clinico-radiologic (see figure) diagnosis of nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia was made

Teaching Neuro Images: Nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia: A distinctive clinico-Anatomical syndrome

A 66-year-old woman presented with 4 years of progressive speech difficulty. She had nonfluent speech with phonemic errors but intact single-word comprehension and object knowledge. Her grammar was impaired in both speech and writing, and she exhibited orofacial apraxia. A clinico-radiologic (see figure) diagnosis of nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia was made

Project Office Volume 3

Project Office is a design and research collaboration of staff and students based within the Leeds School of Architecture at Leeds Beckett University. It is an architecture consultancy concerned with ethical, social and resilient architecture and design. We work with like-minded communities, organisations and individuals. This book covers our work from January October 2015 to September 2017