Shoe-box Hackney

In August the building Exploratory has been working with photographers and artists Laura Braun and Jane Maxwell-Hyslop to deliver workshops at summer play-schemes in and around Hackney. 

During the workshops participants created their own Hackney shoe-boxes using photos of local buildings and landmarks and pictures of themselves to collage onto and into shoe-boxes transforming them into buildings with windows and doors to look into.

 

Exploring Adventure: Kilburn Grange Adventure Playground

To help realise the best possible design for Kilburn Grange Park Adventure Playground in Camden, the Building Exploratory has worked with erect architecture to devise an ambitious engagement and learning programme to involve the local community. 

Following the completion of this pioneering project in Kilburn Grange Park, work has begun on developing a learning resource for local play workers. Over the summer the design and engagement processes followed will be reproduced in a digital resource to be hosted on our website. The legacy will present the creative processes that informed the final design of this unique play space and aims to celebrate and promote the engagement of communities in the redevelopment of public spaces. The resource will consist of a series of creative adventures for play workers and teachers to use with young people and a “Manifesto for Adventure”.

Please see the photo stream on the right hand side for pictures of the new playground.

The Senior Building Explorers at Cubitt

With the support of Arts Council England’s Arts and Older People Development Fund, the Senior Bees have been taking part in a project designed to develop their creative skills. The project takes the form of a collaboration between the Building Exploratory and Cubitt, a gallery and studios based at the Angel in Islington. 

Inspired by Cubitt’s approach to encouraging older people to take part in participatory arts we have worked together to develop sessions that nurture the creative skills and confidence of the Senior Bees. The Senior Bees have visited Cubitt and taken part in a session which introduced them to the idea of using creative media such as photography, sketching, poetry and so on, as a way of expressing and capturing thoughts, feelings, perceptions and observations of the world around them.

The project has been designed as a skills exchange, so the next phase will see Cubitt’s older people’s art group, Inside Art, taking part in Senior Bee inspired explorations of the built environment. We plan to go on a walking tour around Finsbury to inspire them to open their eyes to the significant buildings and architecture of the area.

  

If you would like to learn more about the Building Exploratory's work with older people, keep and eye out for our new publication which will be launched in September to celebrate and promote our work with the Senior Bee's.