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

BeeBristol and At-Bristol's live beehive

BeeBristol are currently being featured in our Nature residency here at the City Ideas Studio. BeeBristol communicate the value of pollinators and their protection, importantly, creating food and nesting sites across the city. BeeBristol have kindly lent us the hexagonal planters that you can see outside our gallery, later to be donated to community growing groups.

We were pleased to hear that At-Bristol have welcomed some new residents to their green roof - in the form of a hive of European Honey bees or ‘Apis mellifera'.

Supported by a grant-making trust, At-Bristol have been working closely with BeeBristol, to get things ready for the bees, who moved in to their new penthouse hive recently.

The bees will be able to gather pollen from At-Bristol’s wildflower rooftop garden, as well as neighbouring green spaces such as Brandon Hill and At-Bristol’s own community gardens out on Millennium Square, and will hopefully be able to produce their first honey this year.

The hive will be tended by BeeBristol beekeepers in the first 12 months, as well as 2 newly appointed in-house beekeepers from At-Bristol, who will be trained by BeeBristol and will eventually take over looking after the hive themselves. The new urban bee hive will be used both as a learning tool for both school and general visitors, as well possibly providing honey for At-Bristol’s café and shop.

A webcam will be installed by the hive to broadcast images of the bees live to the Greenhouse in the At-Bristol Food! exhibition, as well as on the Big Screen on Millennium Square. 

We are very pleased to hear the bees are settling in nicely and think they may be what are pollinating our wildflowers in our hexagonal planters.

Visit our Nature residency before the 13th September to learn more about BeeBristol and other great projects helping Bristol become a nature-rich landscape.

We will be launching our third City Ideas Studio residency, Resources, on the 23rd of September.

City Ideas Studio: Nature

Knitted hedgehogs by Knitiffi

We are now over half way through our second City Ideas Studio residency, Nature. We've had many visitors enjoy our exhibition so far, learning all about projects helping Bristol and the surrounding area become a nature-rich landscape and how we can all get involved. It's been a busy time so far in the gallery, with it being the summer holidays, on one Wednesday we welcomed 70 families and 150 children into our gallery!

There are plenty of things to explore and get involved with at our Nature residency including:

• Explore our touch screen, organised into the five European Green Capital themes. 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.
• Share what’s happening in your local area on our map, or share your ideas on what we can do to support a nature-rich landscape on a comment disc.
• Learn about Avon Wildlife Trust’s #MyWildCity project, view the Parkhive app on our tablet and see Tom Poulsom, professional LEGO artist's nature creations that are on display.
• Look closely at our Insect Hotel and see what insects you can see living in the cracks and crevices.
• Join in on our family activity and design your own wild pavilion, with the chance to be entered into our competition to win two green poetry books by Martin Kiszko, illustrated by Nick Park.
• Read Andrew Grant’s keynote provocation Human:Nature and learn more about ecological and sustainable landscape design.

Some comments we’ve received on our Nature residency so far include:

• Fantastic making table! Grandchildren (five and three) loved it. Inspirational, quality displays with so much to learn and do. Helping older generation inspire children. Thank you so much!
• This was very informative!
• Loving it! I love all this stuff and the knitted animals!
• This is amazing! Inspiring and educational. I'm going to make a nature hotel in Glagow now!

Get involved with our upcoming nature events:

• My Wild City: Meet a wildlife expert – Saturday 5 September 13:00-16:00 (read our blog post on the first session here)
• Meet Bristol Parkhive – Saturday 12 September 13:00-16:00

Visit our Nature residency before the 13th September. We will be launching our third City Ideas Studio residency, Resources, on the 23rd of September.

For information about other Architecture Centre events, please visit:
www.architecturecentre.co.uk/events

Parkhive app

Insect Hotel by Avon Wildlife Trust

My Wild Pavilion: Family Activity

Our gallery is filling up with great nature-related models and drawings that visitors have created on our family activity table, visit our Nature residency to get involved with our Wild Pavilion fun.

Taking inspiration from the drawings and ideas on display by Andrew Grant and the A3 image montage sheets on our activity table, your challenge is to design your own nature inspired pavilion. Think about how your pavilion can include nature, how it can be 'wild', the size, shape and use of your pavilion. Create some design drawings of your pavilion or a model with the materials provided.

There's also an opportunity to enter our My Wild Pavilion competition here at the gallery by Sunday 13 September to be in with a chance of winning two fantastic green poetry books - Green Poems for a Blue Planet and Verse of the Earth, written by Martin Kiszko and illustrated by Aardman Animation's Nick Park. One copy is signed by the author and the illustrator. The competition is open to under 16s. Please give your entry to a member of staff and provide contact details to be entered into the competition.

You can also enter your pavilion design to the national Build Your Own Pavilion competition by uploading to: www.buildyourownpavilion.serpentinegalleries.org if you are aged 8-14.

Visit our Nature residency before the 13th September. We will be launching our third City Ideas Studio residency, Resources, on the 23rd of September.

Visit the Architecture Centre website for more information about us and upcoming exhibitions and events: www.architecturecentre.co.uk

Event Reminder: Urban Wanderings - Wildlife Friendly: Horfield Common

Guided walk: Wednesday 19 August, 18:00, £6/£4
Places limited - book now: 0117 922 1540

Don't miss our next Urban Wandering walk, find out how people are supporting a nature-rich landscape at the community-driven green space Horfield Common. This circular guided walk will be led by Matt Collis from Avon Wildlife Trust and Sam Thomson from Bristol Parkhive, UWE, Bristol Parks Forum and Friends of Horfield Common.

These groups are all working to improve Horfield Common. From encouraging wildlife, growing food, improving sports facilities to opening a café, come and hear stories about the variety of initiatives planned and in place to look after and encourage use of this green space.

The walk will last up to 90 minutes. The walk passes over some uneven ground. Please wear suitable footwear and clothing.

The walk will start from the Café on the Common, by the Ardagh pavilion, please check you know how to get there before travelling.

Getting there

A variety of buses travel from Bristol city centre to Horfield Common including the 70, 72, 73, 75, 76. Depending on which bus you catch (check before you travel), it may be best to get off at either Nevil Road or Ashley Down stops on Gloucester Road. Walk up Gloucester Road and turn left onto Church Road, left onto Maple Road, then first right onto Ash Road up to the park; once in the park, walk straight up alongside trees with tennis courts on your left. At the top there is a car park which follows round to the café area where we will meet before the start of the walk.

More information about using public transport to reach Horfield Common can be found at Traveline Southwest. Please consult a map before travelling to ensure you know where the meeting place is on the Common.

There are also limited car parking spaces at the Ardagh, by the Café on the Common; access via Kellaway Avenue.


This event is part of the City Ideas Studio programme focussing on Nature, which features projects including Bristol Parkhive and Avon Wildlife Trust's #MyWildCity project.

Visit our website for details of other events happening at the Architecture Centre.

My Wild City: Meet a wildlife expert

On Saturday 1 August we had our first 'Meet a wildlife expert' drop-in session, Avon Wildlife Trust expert Matt offered his expertise on how we can all support wildlife in our area. He offered top tips on how to make your own insect hotel and encourage wildlife to flourish. In our own insect hotel we spotted zebra spiders, aphids and some snail trails, Matt also helped us harvest some seeds and water the meadow. Visitors also got their hands dirty and made free seed bombs to take home!

Come to our next 'meet a wildlife expert' session on 5 September 1-4pm to find out more ways we can do something amazing for nature. More information here

For information about other Architecture Centre events, please visit:
http://architecturecentre.co.uk/events

Visit City Ideas Studio: Nature - 15 July to 13 September

Feeding the Future City family event

On Saturday 23 May the Architecture Centre held a fun and creative drop-in workshop where families were asked to ponder how cities of the future will feed themselves, as part of the Architecture Centre’s City Ideas Studio food season. Models of possible designs for a future city were built; demonstrating various ways cities of the future could feed themselves sustainably, using buildings and spaces to maximise the amount of food it grows. This is important because as the population of the world increases and more people in cities (some in Megacities of 10 million+ people), transport and space will be limited and expensive, we will need to grow more food and more in our cities to decrease transport costs.

Families were asked to think of ways we can utilise any public space to grow food locally, growing food on and in houses/flats, urban food farms and reducing food waste, transport and energy costs. The models were added to our future model city and there were many innovative and creative ideas including:

• Bananas grown from lampposts
• Vertical farming in the form of a ‘tower of carrots’
• Open top buses that will grow food on the roof
• A ferry that transports and grows plums, utilising water space

Families who took part were given edible seedlings to take home and grow into tasty beans. Children that were inspired by the drop-in workshop were encouraged to enter the Architecture Centre’s My Green City Design Challenge for schools. #mygreencity

You can download a copy of the Feeding the Future City Family Activity here and the Image Montage sheet here.

This event was part of the Architecture Centre’s My Green City 2015 Learning and Participation programme and took place during our City Ideas Studio food residency.