Projects and work

Devonport Resident Curator

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Home to Britain's most famous and historic Naval Dockyard, Devonport is the recipient of a large UK central Government New Deal for Communities regeneration grant. I'm creating a multi-level Arts Strategy, which includes a Resident Curators Scheme, for the NDC recipient, Devonport Regeneration Community Partnership and Plymouth City Council.

Admiralty House was until recently owned by the Ministry of Defense but was sold to Firmac Developments who have generously granted me residence in Admiralty House while they apply for planning permission to turn it into a hotel.

As Devonport Resident Curator, I will be dividing my time between London and a two bedroom cottage in the east wing of 18th century Admiralty House.

Author & Editor

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My interest in culture in its widest definition allows me to write for a variety of media on society, architecture, design, technology and science. Recently I contributed entries to the book 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die, edited by Mark Irving.

As Deputy Editor of Art & Architecture Journal, I contribute articles on UK public art and the public realm.

Wakefield College

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DLA Architecture created the Stage C designs for Wakefield College City Centre (Margaret Street) Campus Redevelopment. I was invited by DLA to be the Urban Artist on the scheme (2007). The DLA response included urban analysis. site options, consultation, emerging design concepts including our preferred option "The College in the Park in the City".

Wakefield College is split across several campuses, one of which is Thornes Park, a mile or so from the centre. Our workshops with staff and students revealed they did not want to leave Thornes Park, and valued the park, greenery, wildlife, quiet etc. My design analysis and development focused on how we could translate these loved features from the park into the design and build.

DLA and I were fortunate to work with a great group of senior management, in particular Sue Griffiths, Wakefield College’s Vice-Principal, Planning and Development, who was a great design champion for proposed plans.

Thornes Park is a bit of an undiscovered gem. The college buildings sit amongst the ruins of the Georgian Thorne House which mysteriously burned down in 1951. Nearby is a walled garden maintained by the Council that contains a brilliant glasshouse with cactus garden. It was deserted when I photographed it which made the stage set fantasy aspect of the painted landscape and real cactus more magical. The tiny pet cemetery is hidden under trees and together with scorched bricks, a few stone steps and half-buried fountains, is all that remains of the original house.

Bradford College Redesign

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Bradford College in West Yorkshire, is embarking on an ambitious redevelopment which includes the aspiration to be "the most creative college in Britain". I worked as the Urban Artist with the DLA Architecture masterplanning team (2006) on stage one plans.

I translated the College's aspiration in relationship to the existing built environment; focusing on narrative patterns with an emphasis on changing existing negative and unclear signage. I looked for patterns that could move the College into an empowering lean design environment.

Tauheedul Islam Girls High School

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Part of the Blackburn Education Authority, Tauheedul Islam Girls High School is one of the highest performing secondary schools in the authority and concentrates on preparing young women for College.

As Creative Consultant for a staff workshop day (2007), I helped staff forecast ideas for the development of a new major school building. The workshop focused on forecasting how the new building would reflect lifelong learning, spirituality, a female environment and a green and sustainable future.

Tauheedul staff are committed, innovative, forward looking and friendly, and I look forward to learning how their plans evolve.

Zurich Customer First Site Awards 2006

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Volume and local builders in England, Wales and Scotland are eligible for the UK Zurich Insurance Building Guarantee "Customer First Awards". The scheme recognises UK house builders who best achieve: 1) construction, planning, design, engineering, health & safety and environmental issues - within cost; and 2) meet homebuyers' aspirations for good design and customer service.

I was a judge in 2006 (and 2008). Judges are independent experts working in the built environment. Experts at Zurich create a shortlist from all entries, and Judges view the final shortlist. The 2006 National Award winner was Mariners Way built by family-owned company High Grange.

Marking categories include everything from site planning and organisation, materials storage, welfare facilities for site workers to the final purchaser experience.

Judging took place over two sets of days in September 2006. Four judges and two Zurich representatives travelled together around the country by Land Rover. A truly cross-disciplinary group, we each brought a distinct set of skills and knowledge to the judging. Camraderie was instant. Richard (Home Inspections Services Director from Cunningham & Lindsey) has the best sense of humour - actually everyone brought humour to the mix! We had a brilliant time. I learned an immense amount about quality builds and sustainability from them as well as from each new homes site. Although each home builder knew in advance when the Zurich Judging Team would visit, that did not prevent us observing day-to-day site operations, employee welfare, the build process as well as the showhome finale.

St Peter's, Darwen

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St Peter's is designated conservation area within Blackburn-with-Darwen Council. The terrace facades (not the alley entrances) are protected by English Heritage and were undergoing a rolling programme of surface improvements. I worked with Bill Mercer, Council Planning Officer for St Peter's, and the community to identify ways to incorporate new design (in particular lighting) without compromising English Heritage building designations. Initial lighting ideas followed a Dark Skies philosophy.

I designed a pattern book of house numbers that would allow individual choice but design cohesiveness. The idea for the house numbers followed consultation with local residents who told me they often used the alley entrances to houses, but because these entrances were unmarked, they couldn't tell one entry from another. The pattern book was designed so each resident's ceramic number plaque would be completely unique but still within an unified design scheme. Concentrating on the alleys (which included OLED pavement lights) meant there were no problems allying the scheme with English Heritage restrictions.

Blackburn Housing Market Renewal

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The Arts Services Division of Blackburn-with-Darwen Council was awarded a PROJECT Visionary Award for Creating Inspiring Neighbourhoods.

I was appointed as the Artist Masterplanner under the PROJECT grant in Spring 2005. The award was linked to the Council and Elevate East Lancashire Central Government monies for Housing Market Renewal - a controversial central government initiative to identify inner city terraces for compulsory purchase and resident relocation.

PROJECT is funded by Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and Arts & Business.

Retail Design

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Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design short course programme attracts students from across the globe. I taught Retail Design with a focus on trends and forecasting using global examples of large and small, known and unknown, permanent and temporary and virtual and bricks & mortar retail (2005-2006). Typically my course would have students from UK, Brazil, Korea, China, Germany, Portugal, Spain etc.

One of the assignments I would give students was to visit Paul Smith, Maison Martin Margiela and Dover Street Market and compare and contrast their retail operations. Students looked at approach, location, architecture, interior and exterior design, interior flow, product display and customer service.

Customer service was an interesting area to compare. When the students identified themselves as students rather than "real" shoppers, Paul Smith and Martin Margiela were helpful and welcoming. Dover Street Market on the other hand was not. I was told face-to-face by one of their managers not to encourage the students to visit, and if they did so and staff realised they were students, they would be asked to leave. She went further and suggested students were akin to shoplifters. Really, I kid you not.

Paul Smith is the exemplar for retail narrative. His shops, his products, the buildings and the locations are carefully chosen. These elements combine to create a carefully constructed and unique narrative for each shop. He borrows key elements from each location (e.g. Tokyo, Borough Market, Los Angeles) and mixes them up with his own style to create the Paul Smith brand.

City Centre Retail 2025

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Two day Retail Forecasting workshop. A joint creation of Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute and Arup Foresight, Innovation & Incubation for a small invited group to forecast the direction of retail in twenty years time.

We stayed at a hotel within walking distance of GDI, so we were able to meet everyone in the group and exchange ideas both formally and informally. I found the input from the representative from Globus department store particularly insightful, but I benefited from a wide variety of input from architects to retail design specialists.

4th Orangery Summer School

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Public Art Wakefield (now called Beam) Architecture, Art and Built Environment summer school (2006) was supported by CABE (The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment).

I was one of four tutors (Marcus Romer, Pilot Theatre, Ian McMillan, writer & broadcaster and Tom Lonsdale, urbanist).

One of the workshops I created used the ubiquitous American brown paper supermarket bag as the catalyst for designing a sustainable, reusable bag as part of an imaginary campaign to convince UK supermarkets to ban plastic bags. The results were outstanding, especially considering students made these in under two hours. Arguments about the embodied energy of a paper bag notwithstanding, an unbleached brown paper bag is superior to plastic, and can be ripped up and used in wormeries. You can't do that with plastic!