Tour of The New Art School

On Monday I had a great opportunity to see the progress of our new school. To begin with we were shown the plans for the building which really helped us to picture how it would look, it was interesting to compare the structure on paper to the real life building.  We were each kitted out with steel capped boots, hard hat, yellow vest, gloves and goggles.  I loved the structure of the overall building; it seemed to be made up of many smaller spaces on different levels linked by bridges and stairs.  I think it will be very open plan and this will give a community feel a bit like we have at Hotspur at the moment.  The top floor will be divided into studio and lecture theatre with huge doors that open out so the whole level can be used as a gallery for final exhibitions. I also really like that many of the internal columns will be left totally natural and uncovered. There are going to be many large windows so from the street you will be able to see past the café at the front right into the studio spaces.

There are lots of things in the new building that will enable us to display work more easily, for example most of the walls in the studios are now lined with plywood so it will be much easier to hammer in nails or pins.  There are also long bars running across the ceilings so we can easily suspend pieces and holes in some of the pillars for built in projectors.  Also many of the toilets have a blank untiled wall intended for displaying work, here’s a picture of a new one in Chatham tower.

I think the building is going to feel very light and airy, there are two huge ‘lanterns’ build into the roof to let lots of daylight into the upper studios.

A small 3D model of the new build is on display on the ground floor of Chatham next to the reception.

There are now several colourful showers installed on the ground floor of Chatham building, this is to comply with regulations that there has to be a certain ratio of showers to bicycle racks.

Here are a couple of snaps taken from the top of Chatham tower with the new business school in view.

Here are some of the designs to help visualise the building http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/newspaces/newbuilding.php

We will get to move into the new school after Christmas, I can’t wait!