GIDE09 - TEAM A6 - Workshop

This blog is to launch the GIDE09 Project Theme:

'Sustainable Multi-Local Communities - A Vision for the Future'

- and is for all those in Team A6 -
joining Graham Savage / Tine De Wilde / Isabella Sassi, in the Workshop on Wednesday 18th Feb at 13.30 in Room G47 (in the Blenheim Walk Building).

Graham is from the European Office at Leeds College of Art and Design in UK and the former course leader of Interior Design at Leeds

Tine is from Department of Design and Interior Architecture at Katholieke Hogeschool in Belgium

Isabella is from the Interior Architecure course at SUPSI, the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland


The Workshop Group of staff and students is called 'TeamA6'

The students are:

Angela Siroli (IT)
Sara Sozzoni (IT)
Enrico Salis (IT)
Katie Lawrence (UK)
Catherine Chialton (UK)
Cameron White (UK)
Margaret Kaye (UK)
Daniella Fischli (CH)
Elia Giavanoli (CH)
Maxime Rupus (B)
Désirée Staes (B)
Adriana van Kempen (B)

To begin, you need to sign in at www.blogger.com and create your own password. You can then create a post with your own thoughts and insert pictures, or website references that you think might be useful for the rest of the team to look at. Don't worry about your level of English - the team will be interested in your contribution.

Make a concerted effort to do this - we want you to COMMUNICATE! The blog will be a useful platform for you to continue to make contact with each other, even after the Event is over. This way you could keep each other informed about how your project develops and the research you are doing towards it.

Part of your brief is to 'get to know each other' and this, we recognise, is best done socially. This means you must organise yourselves to meet up after the classes are finished at 4.00pm - and into the evening. This is where those of you from Leeds College of Art and Design are HOSTING your guests - take them somewhere to give a flavour of British hospitality - maybe at your lodgings, or maybe somewhere in town.

The topic of study touches on the concept of ‘disconnections’ as postulated in the book (‘How to be a Happy Architect’ by BaumanLyons Architects) – considering ‘local communities’ and their social needs, through the intervention of changes to the built environment.

In the case of this architectural practice (which we will visit on Thursday), we are particularly interested in the Chapeltown Corridor Scheme – its street design features, new-builds and conversions – and how these have impacted on the local residents.

The title of the umbrella theme is: ‘multi-local communities – a vision for the future’. In this case study (Chapeltown Corridor) – the area characteristics include multi-ethnicity (multi-local communities) and [built] provision for their individual and collective needs.

The phrase: ‘a vision for the future’ – relates to trends over the next twenty years (local versus global), based on [recent] past research, learning and development in the light of experience and new knowledge. Chapeltown is an example of a local community in Leeds but it is only one example; there are many others in cities throughout Europe with similar problems and potentially, similar development objectives.

What are the local needs? What provision has been made? What are the likely directions for future development? These are questions you need to be thinking about before, during and after the GIDE Event.

Don't wait for someone else to take the lead - so get blogging!