Keynote Lecture: City Energy - Solarsense and Max Fordham

On the 16 November the Architecture Centre held a keynote lecture to support the launch of its most recent City Ideas Studio residency: Energy. With contributions from renewables consultants, Solarsense, and engineers specialising in sustainability, Max Fordham, the talk addressed the subject of renewables and how Bristol might increase investment in solar across the city.

First to talk was David Snape from Solarsense. He gave an overview of the history of the company and offered examples of the broad range of solar installations they’ve completed over the years. A particular example, which is featured in the City Ideas Studio: Energy exhibition, is a solar power installation fitted on to the roof the science centre, At-Bristol, which was completed in just four weeks. He explained how solar technology has gradually become a more viable option, for both businesses and home owners, for reasons relating to innovations in the technology used, which makes it both cheaper and more efficient.

Next up was Richard Lowe, Investment Programme Manager at Bristol City Council. He outlined the aims and achievements so far of some of their current programmes. These include ‘Warm Up Bristol’, a scheme designed to ensure that Bristol’s homes are as energy efficient as they can be, by  maximising the performance of the building fabric itself. He also spoke about the Heat Network that the council is developing in the city. A network of underground pipes supply heat to a number of buildings from a local energy centre, which ultimately provide more efficient and lower-cost heat to the surrounding area.

The third speaker was David Saunders from Bristol Energy Network. He spoke about the role of the community in shaping and developing sustainable resources. The Bristol Energy Network has recently launched Energy Champions, which aims to offer every person in Bristol someone to turn to for energy advice and who will champion energy saving in the local community.

The final talk was from the keynote speaker Hareth Pochee, physicist and engineer at Max Fordham. He explained that a significant percentage of the total of the United Kingdom’s energy demand and CO2 emissions comes from heating buildings. He outlined the technical, economic and social details of government proposals to reduce this percentage which include CHP (combined heat and power), district heating, heat pumps and insulation and presented a number of alternatives to these proposals. These included hydrogen infrastructure and radical retrofit. In both instances deep energy saving methods are incorporated with other architectural design features to yield additional benefits. Keynsham Civic Centre, a case study featured in the current City Ideas Studio exhibition, offers an example of where these measures have had an immensely positive effect on the building's energy performance and the surrounding area. Haresh ended by outlining the huge potential for these measures to drastically reduce the energy demands of the UK’s buildings, as well as drastically change the appearance of our streets.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative evening – a great way to kickstart the City Ideas Studio: Energy exhibition.

A video of the evenings talks will be available to view on the Architecture Centre’s website in the new year.

The City Ideas Studio: Energy residency is on until 24 January, open 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday. Please note the Architecture Centre gallery is closed for the festive period from 21 December, reopening on Wed 6 January 2016.

Visit our website to find out more about events happening soon.

Images courtesy Angelica Catton

City Ideas Studio: Energy - The Private View

Wednesday 9 December saw the official launch and private view of our Energy residency at the City Ideas Studio. Opened and introduced by Assistant Mayor for Place, Councillor Simon Cook, guests gathered to discuss and find out about how we can produce better, cleaner energy and use less of it.

The exhibition showcases work and projects from our studio partner Solarsense, with local energy projects by Bristol City Council, Bristol Energy Network, Centre for Sustainable Energy, The GreenRegister, Max Fordham and others, as well as provocations by staff and students from the UWE Department of Architecture and the Built Environment.

There was also the opportunity to find out more about the Bristol Child Friendly City initiative in our pop-up foyer display. The Bristol Child Friendly City Network,  comprising the Architecture Centre, Playing Out, Room 13 Hareclive and the University of Bristol, hosted Bristol’s first Child Friendly City Symposium as part of the Thinking Futures Festival in November. The symposium brought together people from different backgrounds to share thoughts and experiences contributing to the beginnings of a vision for Bristol’s future as a more child friendly city. Adults and children worked  together to agree further calls to make Bristol more child friendly. Some of these outcomes are on display in an illustration by Laurie Stansfield, until the 24 January.

City Ideas Studio: Energy is on display until 24 January, open 11-5 Wednesday-Friday and 12-5 Saturday-Sunday. Please note the Architecture Centre gallery is closed for the festive period from 21 December, reopening on Wed 6 January 2016.

Visit our website to find out more.

Images © Frances Gard

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

How can we make the most of our resources? City Ideas Studio continues with third theme

The Architecture Centre's City Ideas Studio - a year exploring the five Green Capital themes and the built environment - continues with Resources, opening today. 

Working with thematic partner, BuroHappold Engineering, Resources explores how cities can become more resourceful - through use of materials and energy, but also people power, motivation and intent

Projects from Bristol Green Doors, Ecomotive, Bristol ReUse Network and Bower Ashton Woodyard will be on display


WISE building, Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales.
Low energy building materials were used for this large scale educational building.
Image © Timothy Soar

In May 2015, the Architecture Centre launched its City Ideas Studio, a year-long programme of exhibitions and events exploring the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital themes of Food, Nature, Transport, Resources and Energy and how they relate to the built environment.

After hugely successful programmes looking at Food and Nature in the city, the focus now is Resources, with a range of projects and organisations taking residence in the gallery to answer the question, How can we make the most of our resources?

Cities express the collective resourcefulness of humankind. Not only built to serve our practical needs, the buildings and places of each new generation express society’s changing ambitions and priorities. With finite economic and material reserves, City Ideas Studio explores how being European Green Capital could help influence what Bristol builds and how we build it, and how can the city harness the resourcefulness of all those who live and work here.

In putting together the Resources residency, the Architecture Centre is proud to host the internationally renowned engineering consultancy BuroHappold Engineering, who from their head office in Bath are able to consider resourcefulness in both a local and global context.

The season will begin with a keynote provocation from BuroHappold Engineering’s Gavin Thompson, who will set out how ‘the relationship between us and the resources we consume to live our lives grows ever more important. As urbanisation increases the density of our cities global resources are becoming increasingly stressed. Understanding that integration lies at the heart of low resource city living, we believe that creative approaches to how we moderate our dependence on resources can also enhance our quality of life.’


THE EXHIBITION

City Ideas Studio: Resources aims to answer the following three questions:

How can people make the most of their resources?

With examples from UWE, Building Schools for the Future programme and more, City Ideas Studio: Resources explores how people's use of buildings and cities, plus involving them in the design process, is key to appropriately managing resource use. This knowledge can prolong the life of a building, make it more fit for purpose, and improve productivity and wellbeing.

How can designers make the most of material resources in buildings?

There are many ways designers can make the most of material resources in buildings, including adaptive reuse of existing buildings, designing buildings that are modular, standardised, and prefabricated, and using low impact materials that are renewable, reusable, recyclable and that allow buildings to breathe naturally. Case studies featured in the exhibition include Lakeshore, Bristol; The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon; and the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales.

How can Bristol make the most of its resources?

Encouraging resourcefulness in Bristol involves minimising resource extraction, energy and water consumption, waste generation, and sustaining natural resources. In response to urban growth and climate change, Bristol needs to adapt and evolve rapidly. Research has been done to test and measure the city’s resilience in key areas to help future holistic planning.

To supplement this core thematic information, three anchor residents from the Green Capital 2015 strategic fund will be featured:

Bristol Green Doors
The Route to Retrofit project encourages and enables domestic/DIY retrofitting, Bristol Green Doors supports green refurbishment on a local level.
Ecomotive's SNUG Homes
Harnessing the creative energy of Bristol residents and businesses, Ecomotive's SNUG Homes is a project that aims to transform the way we use land and build homes across Bristol.
Bristol ReUse Network
Focussing on re-use and recycling to minimise waste, Bristol ReUse Network is group of organisations committed to reusing 'waste' materials in Bristol.


Members of Bristol ReUse Network
Image courtesy Bristol ReUse Network

UWE academics and architecture students also contribute to the debate by sharing research from their own projects, as well as illustrating data from each of the Green Capital themes across a series of five city maps throughout the year.



EVENTS

The season of City Ideas Studio events continue with a talk on Thursday 24 September from practitioners from BuroHappold Engineering, who share ideas around resourcefulness when designing and delivering projects, drawing upon a range of local and global initatives including the award-winning Wadi Hanifah waterway in Saudi Arabia. Adding to the discussion will be representatives from resourceful local projects including Jackson Moulding from Ecomotive and Jessica Hodge from Bristol ReUse Network.


Wadi Hanifah waterway, Saudi Arabia.
Image © Aga Khan Award for Architecture / Arriyadh Development Authority

CASE STUDIES

Exhibition visitors can access a range of case studies and information on all aspects of sustainable place-making thanks to a digital touchscreen (produced by Bristol-based app developers Calvium). The touchscreen features content from recent Architecture Centre exhibitions and will be added to throughout the year as the City Ideas Studio progresses, meaning content from the previous two exhibitions (Food and Nature) remain available to view during the course of the year's activities.


LEARNING

The Centre’s learning programme extends the City Ideas Studio outside of the Architecture Centre to include children and young people. The Shape My City youth programme for 15-19 year olds offers girls and young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds valuable insight into architecture and sustainability careers through monthly workshops with professionals. During the City Ideas Studio: Resourcesexhibition, the front of the gallery will highlight the activities of the Shape My City #livebuild project and blog.

Check our website and blog for updates, and follow @ArchCentre #CityIdeasStudio.

Funders and sponsors
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, with additional support for City Ideas Studio: Resources from Ferguson Mann Architects. The City Ideas Studio touchscreen is supported by Autodesk, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Max Fordham and Bristol City Council Design Group.

About Bristol 2015
Bristol 2015 Ltd is a company limited by guarantee which was established by Bristol City Council to lead the delivery of the European Green Capital year. Bristol 2015 Ltd has an independent Board that is responsible for the governance and direction of the company.

The European Green Capital Award was launched in 2010 by the European Commission to promote and reward the efforts of cities and their local authorities to improve the environment. All recipients of the award have a consistent record of achieving high environmental standards; are committed to on-going and ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and sustainable development; and can act as role models to inspire other cities and promote best practices to all other European cities. Past winners include Stockholm, Hamburg, Nantes and Copenhagen.

Bristol 2015 has attracted £7m of funding from central government and is also supported by the wider business community including First Group, KPMG and Skanska. Arts Council England is providing support to a wide range of arts and cultural projects during the year through their Exceptional Programme.  

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