The Big Draw and The Story of London @ the Geffrye Museum

On Saturday the 2nd October children of all ages and their families celebrated The Big Draw and The Story of London with a series of workshops at the Geffrye Museum. Families flocked to the artist-led Fantastical Houses workshops, in which participants experimented with unusual drawing techniques to create futuristic eco-homes.

In a separate activity for teenagers, young people created 3D models of environmentally freindly buildings inspired by Hackney's unique built environment.

Open House 2010

On Saturday 18th September the Building Exploratory welcomed over 90 members of the public for Open City's Open House event. Besides exploring our beautiful bespoke space at 8 Orsman Road, created by Voluntary Design and build, visitors had the opportunity to meet the team and learn more about the history of market gardens in the local area through examining historic maps and creating their own cress gardens.

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.

TBE at the summer festivals

This summer we have been out and about delivering free activities at our local festivals. On the 10th July, we enjoyed the best of the summer sunshine at the De Beuavoir Party in the Park, where we helped party goers make paper trees for a miniature De Beauvoir Square.

At the Shoreditch Festival on the 17th July we spilled out of the Discover Hackney Marquee to help children (and enthusiastic adults) build an impressive trapezium based structure from rolled newspaper.

At both festivals we were delighted to meet lots of enthusiastic families and adults and look forward to seeing them again at future events. If you would like to hear more about forthcoming events or be added to our events mailing list please drop us a line via our website.

Lord Mayors Show 2009

The Building Exploratory, Sebright Primary School, Heatherwick Studios and City Bridge Trust, braved gales and rain storms to take part in the Lord Mayor’s Show this year. Our float, a scale model of a 100 metre long opening bridge designed by one of the UK’s leading designers, Thomas Heatherwick, was part of the parade that travelled through the City of London.  Made from a laser-cut aluminium and timber, the float consisted of 40 moving segments which rolled and unrolled dozens of times during the procession, and which celebrated the 800th anniversary of the first stone crossing over the Thames.  Wearing themed T-shirts, we performed a routine echoing the movement of the bridge choreographed by contemporary dance company Candoco.  A great time was had by all despite the drizzle!