SHEFFIELD SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE - LIVE PROJECT 2011

Live Projects 2011 co-ordinated by Carolyn Butterworth

Project Mentor: Russell Light

Overseen and supported by  Satwinder Samra and Simon Chadwick

The Live Projects are a pioneering educational initiative introduced by the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield.

Architecture students work in groups on Live Projects with a range of clients including local community groups, charities, health organisations and regional authorities. In some cases the projects involve actual building, in others design of urban masterplans, in others consultation exercises. In every case, the project is real, happening in real time with real people.

The Live Projects set real constraints, responding to budget, brief and time. In each project there is regular contact with the client and a defined end result, normally a presentation, report and sometimes physical building work. The projects place a large responsibility on the groups to deliver; as opposed to most student projects these are public and accountable.

Now in its 12th year, the initiative is responsible for over 100 completed projects.

We see the Live Projects as important in educating architects of the future. Too often architectural education establishes a set of remote values which then go to define the profession; these centre on the myth of the architect as individual, male, hero-genius clinging to a set of ideals that are often removed from the concerns of the everyday world. In contrast, the Live Projects develop collaborative techniques and skills in communication and participatory practice – all approaches that are essential and absolutely relevant to the future practitioner.

The Live Projects also get the students out of the ivory tower of academia and into the real world (in our case this is a real tower with the studios on the 17th floor of the tallest building in Sheffield); in this the projects establish an awareness of the social responsibility of the architect. If this all sounds desperately worthy, then so be it – but worthiness is not the aim. The aim is to produce work of exceptional quality that empowers client and student alike.

The benefits however are not solely of educational value. As pieces of work in their own right the Live Projects provide valuable tools, ideas and realised designs to clients that would otherwise be unable to obtain them. These products often continue to have a life and be of use long after the end of the Live Project.