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Testing Ground 2 Three Rural Landscapes Graham Farmer

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Project Details

Project Coordinator Principal Investigator

Graham Farmer

Title

Testing Ground 2: Three Rural Landscapes

Output type

Design / Build Artefacts

Function

Community events

Clients

Kielder Water and Forest Park Trust, The Calvert Trust, Forestry Commission England

Location

Kielder / Northumberland

Collaborators

Peter Sharpe - Kielder Art and Architecture

Dates

2016-2019

Funding

The Heritage Lottery Fund, Kielder Water and Forest Park Trust, Northumbrian Water, The Calvert Trust, Northumberland County Council, Arts Council England, Forestry Commission England, Northumberland Wildlife Trust.

Budget

ÂŁ123 876 (includes ÂŁ22 300 of in-kind support)

Student Design and Construction Team

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

Alex Baldwin-Cole, Katie Fisher, Sophie Cobley, Matthew Westgate, Robbie Evans, Sam Halliday, Ulwin Beetham, Lawrence Ashley, Kathleen Jenkins, Robert Douglas, Dan Sprawson, Abigail Murphy, Lorna Clements, Henry Brook, Thomas Sharlott, Dominic Davies, Reshma Upadyaya, Harry Thompson, Lewis Lovedale, Rachel Earnshaw, Joseph English

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Statement Description: Testing Ground is an ongoing constructive design research project established in 2013 in partnership with Kielder Art & Architecture. The programme is working within and across rural communities and landscapes in Northumberland to explore small-scale, locally-generated variants of built environment sustainability. It is aiming to ground design-build research and pedagogy within a concern for the broader ecology of the building process. Testing Ground explores environmental and social sustainability, by working directly with rural organisations and communities in collaborative and participatory ways whilst also seeking to provide direct social and economic benefits to those communities.

Research Questions: What are the most appropriate approaches to sustainable design in the remote landscapes of Northumberland. How might design respond to the contrasting contexts of Kielder’s industrial landscapes and those of The National Park. How might site specificity be enhanced through site-based practices?

How might the common distinctions in architecture between design and construction be challenged through design-build practices and how might the designer’s direct engagement in the processes of production inform and alter intentions?

How can design-build practices be deployed as a means to engage local communities and visitors to better understand, conserve and enhance the local landscape and natural environment and to celebrate the unique character of the landscape in Northumberland How can the design and construction process and the building itself be used as tools for teaching, learning and community building and how might design-build practices underpinned by the methods of ‘research through design’ help to develop students understanding of sustainability whilst preparing them for the demands of reflective, research-informed and research-active practice?

Methods: Working directly and collaboratively with various organisations in Northumberland to design and construct four structures in three different landscape contexts; The Bakethin Conservation Area Wildlife Hide and Welcome Point, The Calvert Shelter and The Nick.

Design-build activities with the aim of generating an intensely local and creative response to sustainable design within a different landscape contexts.

The deployment of experimental and responsible design methods and processes including designbuild, prototyping, design workshops, digital fabrication, accessible design.

Significance and Impact: Testing Ground has developed into a substantial ‘live’ constructive design research programme and is unique in HE in the UK. It has secured funding and support from numerous sources including The Heritage Lottery Fund, EPSRC and DEFRA. It is working with several public, private and third sector organisations. Testing Ground projects have been recognised in numerous awards including the Architects Journal Small Projects award, The North East Culture Awards and the RIBA Journal MacEwen Award.

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Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Top: The Nick. Middle: The Calvert Shelter. Bottom: Bakethin Wildlife Hide Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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Bakethin Wildlife Hide Clockwise from top left: A design team meeting. Partners included te Kielder Trust and the Northumberland Wildlife Trust Installing the bird hide substructure. The hide is raised to maximise views but is fully accessible The Wildlife Hide is positioned to provide extensive views of the resevoir and the forest The view of the reservoir. Kielder is home to several rare species including Ospreys and Red Squirrells 6

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Introduction As a programme of constructive design research Testing Ground is exploring an environmentally sensitive and socially-engaged approach to built environment research, pedagogy and practice that seeks to encourage an integrative understanding of the design, realisation and use of sustainable buildings. Testing Ground seeks to develop innovative synergies between architectural practice and community engagement, academic research and teaching. It encourages future architects to recognise their social responsibilities through engaging them directly with the process of building construction and through co-design and co-construction activities.

Testing Ground aims to move the mainstream debates about sustainability away from a narrow focus on predefined and universal codes to embrace contextual pluralism, hands-on experience and practice alongside collaborative engagements with communities and building users. Testing Ground deploys design-build practices as a means to introduce ‘designed’ artefacts into the everyday lives of people and communities in rural Northumberland to explore how these imaginative acts might also have transformative impact for those involved in the process. The aim of research is to follow what happens to design and designed artefacts as they are embedded within specific social and landscape contexts are then to explore how participants in the process understand those interventions, make sense of them, talk about them and live with them. This approach recognises that within the field of sustainable design, there are growing demands for expanded methods for producing environmental knowledge, for implementing environmentally responsive technological strategies as well as engaging with the public and building users. Testing Ground projects aim to explore the opportunities afforded to design-based disciplines should they relinquish models of practice defined by an autonomy and ‘critical’ distance from everyday life, in favour of a ‘radical proximity’ to context and community.

Each of the three modestly scaled self-build architectural projects constructed as part of Testing Ground 2 have been constructed in particular rural landscapes with the specific aim of encouraging engagement with architecture and user participation in design and build activities. Each project project adopts an intensely local approach to design and has sought social sustainability by working directly with organisations to identify relevant issues and to support local needs. Each of the projects have been designed and constructed by a staff and student team constructed working closely with a local groups, using sustainably sourced materials and available local resources, expertise and craft skills whilst also adding direct social and economic benefits to the region. Overall Testing Ground offers very direct and practical new opportunities for small communities, organisations and groups to engage with design, architecture and the construction process. The completed design-build projects confirm the potential of architectural design to contribute to organisations through mutual endeavour, skills exchange, and also through the related socio-economic benefits that completed projects provide.

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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Bakethin Wildlife Hide Clockwise from top left: The completed Wildlife Hide. The Forest Hide is to the left and the Bird Hide to the right The entrance to the Forest Hide. The Hide is clad in charred Larch One of the sliding sash windows which were fabricated by the student team 8

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Bakethin Wildlife Hide Interior of the Bird Hide. The Hide is designed to be fully accessible. The design of the external wall and the sash windows has been optimised for visitors in wheelchairs.

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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The Calvert Shelter Clockwise from top left: A client meeting with the Calvert Trust. The Trust seeks to engage visitors of all abilities with the Northumberland landscape.

The Shelter was designed to be be digitally prefabricated The Shelter provides a seating area for younger visitors using the Trust’s zip line. It is designed around wheelchair movement and access.

A prototype model being used to explore the fabrication system and construction sequence 10

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Aims, Objectives and Context Overall, as a piece of engaged and productive research Testing Ground 2 is aiming to: •

Contribute directly to local initiatives that are addressing the threats to Northumberland’s increasingly fragile natural, historic and cultural heritage, which have been heightened by a declining resident population and economic decline.

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Provide physical infrastructure and buildings that support the understanding and protection of Northumberland’s unique ecology while seeking to build the future resilience of its identity.

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Engage local communities to better understand, conserve and enhance the local landscape and natural environment and to celebrate the unique character of the landscape.

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Ensure the local ownership and direct public involvement in the built projects promoted and developed by various organisations and partnerships in the Kielder Forest and Water Park and the Northumberland National Park.

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Provide practical support to rural groups and organisations through the development of permanent built projects that would otherwise not be possible with conventional development and construction processes.

Testing Ground 2 has worked within three distinctive landscape contexts. The Wildlife Hide is located in the Bakethin Conservation Area at Kielder, an area that is characterised by a range of habitats and provides opportunities to encounter a variety of diverse wildlife. It is one of the few areas in England to see Ospreys and Red Squirrels. The Hide was designed and built to minimise impact on the senstive site as well as providing fully accessible facilities that allow members of the public to engage with and learn about the unique ecology of the context.

The Calvert Shelter was designed and built for the Calvert Trust, an organisation that seeks to engage people of all abilities with the Northumberland landscape. The project is an exploration in ‘design for all’ in a landscape setting.

The Nick is a landscape shelter and viewing platform built at Blakehope Nick which the highest point on the Forest Drive and the high point of the watershed for the Kielder and Rede Valleys. The site is a landscape threshold between the Kielder National Nature Reserve characterised upland heather moorland and the industrial and intensively managed landscape of the Kielder Forest. The Nick mediates between these two landscape contexts whilst providing specatcular views of the Kielder Valley.

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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The Calvert Shelter and Bakethin Welcome Point Clockwise from top left: The Welcome Point provides an orientation and information point for vsitors to the Conservation Area The Welcome Point structure is designed around the existing trees on the site The complteted Calvert Shelter The shelter was designed and fabricated using digital technologies 12

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

The Calvert Shelter The shelter provides a viewpoint and seating area for disabled vistors using the Trust’s zip line.

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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The Nick Clockwise from top left: The Blakehope Nick site is the highest point on the Forest Point and provides spectatacular views of the landscape.

The Nick under construction. The structure was prefabricated off-site to minimise construction timescales Design and fabrication drawing of The Nick The Nick nearing completion 14

Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Approach and Methods Testing Ground was established as an open-ended programme of design research that is aiming to extend previously published research into sustainability and earlier experiences of design-build projects (Farmer 2013). The design research method draws on the work of Koskinen et. al. (2011) who utilise the term “constructive design research” to refer to design research where the process of constructing a physical artefact is the focal point to the research process and which becomes the key means of constructing new knowledge. Each Testing Ground project adopts a pragmatic approach, often commencing without a clear brief, site or defined programmes but open to the developing and shifting contextual possibilities. This allows the research to utilise the strength of design as a reflective practice of continually reinterpreting and reframing a problematic situation through a process of making and critiquing artefacts that function as proposed solutions. This contextual and grounded approach focusses on the new knowledge generated by addressing real-world problems and by making artefacts that are situated within their context of use.

Bibliography The Testing Ground project builds on earlier design-build work and on previously published academic research into the theoretical dimensions of built environment sustainability.

Farmer G, Guy S. Contested Constructions: The competing logics of green buildings and ethics. In: Fox, W, ed. Ethics and the Built Environment. London: Routledge, 2000, pp.73-87.

Guy S, Farmer G. Reinterpreting sustainable architecture: The place of technology. Journal of Architectural Education 2001, 54(3), 140-148.

Farmer G. From Differentiation to Concretisation: Integrative Experiments in Sustainable Architecture. Societies 2017, 7(35), 1-23.

Farmer G, Guy S. Making Morality: Sustainable Architecture and the Pragmatic Imagination. Building Research and Information 2010, 38(4), 368-378.

Farmer G. Re-contextualising design: Three ways of practising sustainable architecture. arq: Architectural Research Quarterly2013, 17(2), 107-119.

Bridgens B, Powell M, Farmer G, Walsh CL, Reed E, Royapoor M, Gosling P, Hall J, Heidrich O. Creative upcycling: reconnecting people, materials and place through making. Journal of Cleaner Production 2018, 189, 145-154.

Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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The Nick under the clear dark skies that are a feature of the Kielder landscape

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Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

The Nick Top: The Nick provides a shelter and viewing platform. The pentagonal portals are desined to frame the view towards the Kielder and Rede Valleys Bottom right: The Nick is sited on a key landscape threshold between the upland heather moorlands and the industrial landscape of the managed forest Bottom left: View of the Nick from the adjacent (disused) quarry Testing Ground 2 Graham Farmer

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Design and Creative Practice Research Folios School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape