SOCIAL VALUE:

One in three architecture students admit to suffering mental health issues of some degree according to a recent study (Kirkpatrick, 2018).

The regeneration of the Benzie roof terrace aims to provide students who may need a space to breathe or simply get outside of the studio a refreshing and open place to visit. We will aim to add social value which will not just benefit the architecture students but all art students and staff within the Benzie and Chatham buildings. The space will also encourage social interaction between people from different subjects, enabling cross subject support and promote potential future collaboration between them, bringing the whole school together as one.

WHITWORTH PARK- GROW:

Grow: Art, Park & Wellbeing is a project within the Art Garden at Whitworth Park. The project aims to promote the benefits of engaging in horticultural (the art or practice of garden cultivation and management) activities to improve mental wellbeing of an individual. The project provides opportunities such as learning horticulture, building confidence and social engagement.

We will be collaborating with Grow with specific contact and talks with Sarah Price, a landscape gardener who designed the Art Garden within Whitworth Park. Francine Heyron, the cultural park keeper will also be providing us with a tour and talk.

We will gain informed knowledge on landscape gardening, planter design and links between horticulture and mental health, enabling us to have a positive social change impact on those within the Benzie and Chatham buildings.

SKILLS:

Our curation of the planters must be sustainable, from recycled or up-cycled materials. Our collaborator Lynn Setterington currently has a surplus of material mesh and she will be providing us, and the undergraduate students a masterclass on how this unique material can be reused to manufacture planters from it. This is a rare opportunity to learn and develop textiles skills with collaboration with the textiles students.

Ourselves, as year five students with practice experience will be providing short tutorials to the undergraduate students. This will develop throughout the week from hand drawing techniques to graphic representation using the adobe suite to a range of 3D modelling and rendering software. In the second week we will be focused on model making which we are all proficient in.

This will be an exciting two weeks where we will all learn, reinvent and develop ourselves.