The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
About the Department of the Natural and Built Environment
Location Sheffield S1 | Courses BSc (Hons) Architecture, MArch, Architectural Assistant Apprenticeship Level 6 (RIBA validation pending), Architect Degree Apprenticeship Level 7 | Head of school Paul King | Full-time tutors 13 | Part-time tutors 3 | Students 250 | Staff to student ratio 1:16
Undergraduate
Tom Beckett
Course BSc (Hons) Architecture
Studio/unit brief Museum of Water (Studio 3B)
Project title Rotterdam Museum of Water
Project description The brief called for the design of a Museum of Water as part of the Unesco Water Museums Global Network. The proposal provides a key outdoor public space with views across the canal, creating a connection to the surrounding bodies of water as well as other nearby museums. Within the museum, visitors circulate between the towers via a large atrium containing suspended platforms and staircases. This lightweight atrium contrasts with the heavy masonry towers containing the exhibits. This provides visitors with two very different experiences as they navigate the museum.
Tutor citation Tom’s project is an assured piece of place making and spatial organisation in a complex context. It creates a visible landmark, appropriate to the building type, which is situated in relation to nearby museums also concerned with the relationship between city and water. Steve Helmore
Postgraduate
Chris Jenkins
Course Architect Degree Apprenticeship Level 7
Studio/unit brief Other Futures: Enabling Infrastructure (Studio 6)
Project title Fluid Lives
Project description This project explores the possibilities of future infrastructures delving into projected social, political and environmental contexts specific to Sheffield in 2050. A former gasworks site is transformed into a biodiverse wetland habitat. A series of floating pavilions house lodge retreats, event and education spaces and laboratories to aid the extension of existing ecosystems and ecologies along the River Don and the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal. The waterway today makes a valuable blue-green corridor bringing the countryside into the city centre and presents an opportunity for nature.
Tutor citation Chris’s project explores the interaction between humans and a biodiverse wetland habitat on the site of a former gasworks. It uses the climate crisis as a frame to predict the environmental, social and political context in 2050 Sheffield. Paul King, Alasdair Struthers, Karam Al-Obaidi