Morley Newlands Playscape, Leeds (United Kingdom) 2014
The Playscape is a live project collaboration between Morley Newlands Primary School and Leeds Beckett University.
The project was designed and built by Leeds School of Architecture students, led by academic staff from in-house architecture consultancy, Project Office.
Primary school pupils and architecture students worked together in the classroom to create the Design Guide for a ‘playscape’ of imaginative play and learning. This was used as the brief for an ideas competition, open to the school of architecture’s alumni.
Two winning entries were selected by the school and imaginatively combined, developed, detailed and hand-crafted on site by a team of architecture students. The playscape has three discrete elements; a ‘theatre space’, ‘secret garden’, and bell tower, all predominantly constructed from European oak, pine decking and marine plywood.
In total 58 students participated; gaining real life experience of brief writing, design of concept, construction detailing, and ‘on-site’ assembly. The live project exposed students to a design methodology that puts team working and collaboration at the heart of the creative experience.
Client: Morley Newlands Primary School
Tutors: Simon Warren, Craig Stott, Andrew Pye and Paul Hansell
Other Facilitators: Adrian Appleyard (Leeds Beckett), Alan Stoyles (Leeds Beckett), Wates Construction, Guy Harnett and Michael Wadsworth.
Students: Adebanke Adesina, Nushoor Al-Mahooz, Graham Davey, Jack Hartley, Tony Kangah, Vavara Politi, Matthew Shepherd, Arpeeta Thakur, Ashley Ball, Tom Eddison, Bradley Spencer, Andrew Thompson, Paul Unett, Beatriz Arbex, Carolina De Bastiani Grubert, Luiza De Melo, Petrus Fernandes, Maria Herminia Ziemann Wendt, Larissa Monteiro, Rod Neto, Ana Paula Kouzak, Paula Rodrigues, Julia Temponi, Vinicius Wolff Suda, Spencer Alex, Ben Alexander, Nushoor Al-Mahoozi, Vanessa Baer, Heaven Belay, Sam Bedford, Scott Bingham, Jacob Bojcun, Rebecca Brett, Junayd Chaudhary, Lauren Di Pietro, Malaika Donkor, Patricia Escano, Amy Featherstone, Chris Foster, Zahra Haghajat, Jack Hartley, Robyn Holden, Lana Ismail, Matteo Lattanzio, Agnesa Osmani, Abdulla Rehman, Matt Riley, Nils Schmidt-Hansen, Matt Shepherd, Bradley Spencer, Victoria Tainty, Max Timms, Becky Turner, Rebecca Turner and Anastasia Whitehead
Research Question: Conversations and interactions between the live project educators and participating students during the construction are utilised as an instrument for engagement with pedagogical theory.
Link: cagd.co.uk/projectoffice
United Kingdom, Client-funded, Permanent, Architecture, Months, Postgraduate, 51-100, Analytical, Propositional, Collaboration, Curricular, Students with tutor, Leeds Beckett Univ.
