Pen pal
INCREDIBLE NOTTINGHAM Words and images Dorsa Ghaemi, Francien Fons, Jolt Wiersma and Sun Ah Hwang
Last year, The University of Nottingham invited a group of students from our faculty to participate in the celebration and acknowledgement the 100th anniversary of the Addison Act by planning a week-long symposium and design charrette in association with Nottingham City Homes.
The Addison Act was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Named after Minister of Health and Housing at the time, Dr Christopher Addison. The Act was a response to the shocking lack of fitness amongst many recruits during World War One, attributed to poor living conditions; it provided subsidies to local authorities and aimed to help finance the construction of 500,000 houses within three years. It also marked the start of a long twentieth-century tradition of state-owned housing in planned council estates. The city of Nottingham has a rich legacy in this area and is now working on its conservation and further development1. We were invited to participate in the symposium concerning these developments, this took the form of lecture series, presentations and discussions, site visits, and as above mentioned, a design charrette. Under the supervision of Esther Gramsbergen nine students from Bouwkunde, some in their 3rd year of the bachelor program and some in the beginning of their master studies joined and were hosted by fellow architecture students in Nottingham. Monday the 4th of November 2019 marked the launch of the symposium, with a welcome and introduction followed by various lectures giving historical and contemporary perspectives, both the tenants’ perspectives as well as the vision of the coming 100 years. The tenants were intensively involved in the housing symposium and the design 1. For more information see the book, Homes and Places by Chris Matthews
process. During the introduction event we saw videos of interviews with them and heard their opinions about their houses and living area. We met them again during the site visit and they guided us through the location. They were also present at the final design presentations and gave feedback on the designs. In the afternoon we started the design charrette followed by visits to the sites of the three study cases, namely Sherwood, Balloon Wood, and The Meadows. We spread out in different workgroups. Each group had a combination of second and third year students and design teachers and experts. In each group we worked on one of the afore mentioned case studies together with our peers from the university of Nottingham. What was really remarkable was that immediately at the excursion we could feel the friendly atmosphere between the teachers, the students, and the tenants. This continued during the whole design week and we could experience a new (to us) way of design teaching and learning from the teachers in a related and personal way. We felt connected with them as if we had known each other already for a long time. Whether it was caused by the low number of students or due to the fact that the teachers knew the students from the first year of their study and were guiding them through their whole course of study, it made for an incredible experience.
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