My Green City outreach workshops at Bristol Family Arts Festival

As part of the 2015 Bristol Family Arts Festival the Architecture Centre, Watershed and Children's Scrapstore  hosted two creative family outreach workshops at Junction 3 Library, Easton and Lawrence Weston Community Farm. Families were asked to help populate a green city full of eco-friendly buildings, green transport and sustainable energy solutions. Some great creations were made!

Learn more about projects around Bristol that are helping the city be more green at our City Ideas Studio

Visit our website for information on upcoming events

Shoe boxes and shipping containers! Make your own snug home

The City Ideas Studio was taken over for our Snug Homes family workshop last Friday (30 October), as part of the Bristol Family Arts Festival and Art Weekender.

Families were asked to model their own eco-friendly snug home. A really small house, still containing all the essentials that a house should have. It was a busy and creative afternoon of designing and making, take a look at some of the great creations that were made...

Learn more about Ecomotive SNUG homes here and at our Resources residency.

Visit the Architecture Centre's website for more events and information.

City Ideas Studio: Resources

We are a few weeks into our third City Ideas Studio residency, Resources, where we are addressing the question: How can we make more of the things we have? Visit the gallery 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday to explore all aspects of resourcefulness.

Seat made by Round Wood Design, based at Bower
Ashton Woodyard

The exhibition explores not only how best to use finite resources such as building
materials, land and money, but also how cities should harness the powerful resource
of human inventiveness and action.

There is a lot to find out about and explore:

• BuroHappold Engineering's range of global and local resourceful initiatives
• Our touch screen where you can learn about our previous exhibitions, projects and organisations that are exploring solutions for a sustainable future, we’re gradually adding all our City Ideas Studio content onto the touch screen so have a read up on our previous residencies.
• Watch videos and read up on local resourceful projects including: Bristol Green Doors, Bristol ReUse Network and Ecomotive SNUG Homes
• Take part in our SNUG Homes family activity - can you design a 'snug' home (a compact and environmentally friendly house)
• Add your comments and ideas to our map on resourceful projects in Bristol
• View UWE Department of Architecture and the Built Environment's installation, that offers a thought-provoking response to the exhibition theme
• Learn about Bower Ashton Woodyard and Round Wood Design and try out the wood furniture
• Visit our foyer to learn about the Architecture Centre's Shape My City #livebuild sustainable building project

Visit the Architecture Centre website for information on events and exhibitions coming soon.

Visit the City Ideas Studio resources exhibition after hours in our special twilight opening on 30 October, part of Art Weekender: Bristol & Bath

Bristol Green Doors: The Route to Retrofit

Add your comments to our map

City of Ideas touch screen

Early prototype design of a SNUG Home by Ecomotive

UWE Department of Architecture and the Built Environment display

Shape My City #livebuild foyer exhibition

Snug Homes: Family Activity

Visit our City Ideas Studio Resources residency to get involved in our family activity. Our gallery is open 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday.

 Your challenge is to design a 'snug' home, a compact, environmentally friendly house that is small in size but still has everything you need. Learn about Ecomotive SNUG homes in our exhibition, take inspiration from the sheets on our activity table and get designing.

A snug home is important because the UK needs more affordable homes (smaller houses are usually cheaper), space in the cities is limited and expensive (future homes need to take up less space), small homes generally have a smaller carbon footprint and due to climate change rising sea levels we may have less land to build houses on.

When designing and making think about:

• The layout inside - how can you squeeze everything you need into the space and what don't we need
• Whether your home could be stackable and fit together
• What environmentally friendly materials your snug home could be made from
• If your snug home generate its own electricity

Share your creations on our gallery wall and ask a member of staff to photograph your design and share via our Twitter: @archcentre #snughomes

Learn more about Ecomotive SNUG homes here and at our Resources residency.

As part of Bristol Family Arts Festival there's also a chance to join in at our Shoe boxes and shipping containers: make your own snug home workshop on Friday 30 October.

Visit the Architecture Centre's website for more events and information.

City Ideas Studio: Resources - the private view

Wednesday 30 October saw the official launch and private view of our Resources residency at the City Ideas Studio. A great turn out gathered to learn all about how we can be more resourceful, showcasing projects and ideas from our thematic partner BuroHappold Engineering and local resource projects such as Bristol ReUse Network, Ecomotive SNUG Homes, Bristol Green Doors, Bower Ashton Woodyard and responses by staff and students from the UWE Department of Architecture and the Built Environment.

In the foyer of the gallery there is also an exhibition about the Architecture Centre's Shape My City youth programme summer project #livebuild. This was a community, sustainable building project where a shelter was built for the Asylum Seekers Allotment Project in St George, East Bristol.

The City Ideas Studio Resources residency is on until 8 November, open 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday.

Visit our website to find out more about events happening soon

Images © Frances Gard

City Resources: BuroHappold Engineering

Last week saw the launch of our Resources residency at the City Ideas Studio. The Architecture Centre welcomed Gavin Thompson from BuroHappold Engineering to lead the City Resources talk. Sharing ideas around resourcefulness when designing and delivering projects, drawing upon a range of local and global initiatives and discussing how cities of the future can make the most of their resources.

Gavin discussed how:

• Cities will play a huge part in shaping the future well being of our planet
• We must close the hungry resource loop as much as possible
• Achieving standard of living at density will be key
• Managing demand is important
• Behaviours are as important as good systems and infrastructure
• Engagement is key and date provides a useful way in
• Cities that encourage resourceful innovation will prosper

Representatives from local resourceful projects then joined the discussion: Jackson Moulding from Ecomotive SNUG Homes, Jessica Hodge from Bristol ReUse Network and Dan Weisselberg from Bristol Green Doors.

A recording of the talk will be available soon.

Visit our City Ideas Studio Resources residency to learn more about BuroHappold's initiatives as well as Ecomotive SNUG Homes, Bristol ReUse Network, Bristol Green Doors and other resourceful projects happening in Bristol. Plus a response on the theme by staff and students from the UWE Department of Architecture and the Built Environment. 

The gallery is open 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday.

Visit our website for more events happening soon at our City Ideas Studio.

The City Ideas Studio is part-funded by a Bristol 2015 Strategic Grant and is sponsored by Alec French Architects, Amalgam, Barton Willmore, BDP, BuroHappold Engineering, RISE Structures, Solarsense and West of England Initiative.

The City Ideas Studio touchscreen is supported by Autodesk, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Max Fordham and Bristol City Council Design Group. 

With additional support for City Ideas Studio: Resources from Ferguson Mann Architects

The Architecture Centre launches the City Ideas Studio, part of the Bristol European Green Capital 2015 programme

City Ideas Studio 1 May 2015-10 April 2016, The Architecture Centre 

For Bristol European Green Capital 2015, the Architecture Centre is becoming a ‘City Ideas Studio’, its programme based around the key Green Capital themes – food, nature, transport, resources and energy – and presented through a series of 10-week residencies. Working with organisations across the city, including grassroots, charities and businesses, the centre’s Harbourside gallery will become a hub of sustainable place-making and a catalyst for green ideas and action. With exhibitions, events and activities showcasing national and international projects alongside the work of local innovators and special ‘pop-up’ guests, the City Ideas Studio will ask five key questions to demonstrate how the ‘architecture’ or ‘shape’ of a sustainable city is about much more than the buildings we build.

The programme and themes:
Food: 1 May to 5 July 2015;
Nature: 15 July to 13 September 2015;
Resources: 23 September to 8 November 2015;
Energy: 18 November 2015 to 31 January 2016;
Transport: 10 February to 10 April 2016

Continuing the centre’s partnership with the Faculty of Environment and Technology at UWE, academics and students will also respond to the five residency themes. The City Ideas Studio will extend outside of the Architecture Centre including children and young people through the My Green City schools’ programme and Shape My City youth project.

The City Ideas Studio is supported by Alec French Architects, BDP, FCB Studios, Ferguson Mann Architects, RISE Structures, Solarsense and West of England Initiative.

About the Bristol 2015 Strategic Grants Fund

A total budget of £1.5m was allocated for strategic grants. Applicants were invited to submit bids for strategic projects which:
• Empower organisations and communities across Bristol to celebrate Bristol’s year as European Green Capital
• Support organisations making tangible progress against Bristol 2015’s outcomes for environmental changes in the city
• Ensure a vibrant set of projects during 2015 which can be shared with other European cities and demonstrate how their work will contribute to the core Bristol 2015 themes: energy, food, nature, resources and transport.
See the Bristol 2015 website at www.bristol2015.co.uk for the full list of successful applicants.