Craig Stott

Project Office, Leeds Beckett University's in-house staff and student led architectural practice launched an alumni ideas competition for the Sustainable Technologies and Landscape Research Centre (STaLRC). The winning entry established the design and the winning team were engaged in a design consultancy role for further development of the work. This case study describes an exploration of the architectural competition format through experimenting with alumni pedagogy. The institution's association with its students is almost severed once they become alumni. By extending pedagogy, through a competition, new possibilities have arisen between this School of Architecture and its recent former students, and for academia and practice. The case study explains a procedural exploration through the STaLRC competition, starting with defining the competition through a Design Guide 'brief' produced by second year undergraduate students of architecture. The role of Project Office as the educational and practice choreographer sets the distinctive anchoring of the project. The competition process, managed by the writers, deals with the duality of providing a 'winning' design that meets client's complex requirements e.g. affordability, and the setting of an equally important educational purpose. This paper considers how an architectural competition, used as a pedagogic tool, is harnessed in a post formal educational setting. An output for example is that alumni competitions can be legitimately situated in the (Continuing Professional Development) CPD framework, viably enabling UK schools of architecture to participate, fulfilling a professional developmental remit. In conclusion, as the STaLRC competition is framed in an educational setting, the learning outcomes of participants are of equal importance to the quality of entries. This methodology ensures continued pedagogical value in the transition between education and profession. Recent alumni are vital and unencumbered, fledgling professionals and through the setting of this competition have been provided with their space to fledge.

Following the 2009 Community Plan's (Graham et al, 2015) lack of impact in Leeds' most deprived area New Wortley, community leaders rethought their approach to achieving change. The Community Plan had been guided by a physical masterplan, a conventional approach that could not deliver the necessary social transformation. A new method subsequently developed, termed here as emergent community governance. A bottom up process evolved through a ground swell of mutual action. Empowerment of a diverse collective formed a series of relationships informing a cohesive, fluid and inclusive community strategy, embedding a feeling of mutuality throughout the community stakeholders. Projects, physical or otherwise, are now being delivered. Project Office, Leeds Beckett University's (LBU) 'design and research collaboration of staff and students' (Warren & Stott, 2014) is embedded in the collective, using skills across a range of disciplines to design the physical environment in tune with the community's strategy. Part of the refocusing is the construction of New Wortley Community Centre, a 7-year co-design live project completed May 2016. As John Thackara (cited in Hyde, R. 2012) asserts 'Critic and environmentalist similarly calls for designers to evolve from being the individual authors of objects or buildings, to being the facilitators of change among large groups of people', thus this paper demonstrates how developing mutual relationships amongst the community and the so called 'professional team' can have a significant impact on the creation of socially and economically sustainable environments. The evidence in support of this model is multifaceted; £759,497 BIG Lottery funding to construct the building, Our Place grants to support the new strategy through an Our Place plan, an NHS pilot scheme to create a Health & Wellbeing Centre with Project Office as co-design coordinator. This paper demonstrates that there is a shift from masterplan led models to models such as emergent community governance as an appropriate means to deliver desired transformations in deprived communities.

In 2013 The Leeds School of Architecture (LSA) at Leeds Beckett University (LBU) launched Project Office (PO), defined as 'a design and research collaboration of staff and students. It is an architecture consultancy concerned with ethical, social and resilient architecture and design. We work with like-minded communities, organisations and individuals' (Warren and Stott, 2014). PO has 12 'Rules of Agency', which are expounded in this paper to demonstrate its ethical principles and how to occupy a space concurrently within the academic institution and architecture practice. These are: • To be ethical • To be environmentally resilient and informed • To advocate participatory design methodologies for staff, students and collaborators • To working only with clients who lack financial means to realise their projects • To generate research impact through practice related research output • To create opportunities for student engagement with a range of educational and formative experiences • To comply with established ARB and RIBA validation criteria and EU directives for architectural education • To develop architectural pedagogies • To cause the production of architectural live projects as defined by Anderson and Priest (2016) • To express the contribution of students as a force for good. • To have fun • To cultivate a space for an inclusive and virtuous practice that is inspiring for all participants The paper asserts that the Practice-Related Research at the core of PO's work has a significantly positive social impact. It argues that educators of prospective architects have a societal responsibility not only to expose students to the social impact of their practice but also to make it the heart of pedagogic purpose. PO achieve this despite the changes witnessed in universities, where neo-liberalism defines their trajectory, having found a way to exist that puts a value, 'a sense of care' (Mountz, et al., 2015) on all people collaborating with students, work colleagues, stakeholders, clients and also ourselves.

In 2013 the Leeds School of Architecture’s Project Office [a design and research collaboration of staff and students] was approached by Morley Newlands Primary School to design and construct a play area through which their 550 pupils aged 3 – 11 would learn and develop skills through imaginative play.
An innovative process of social engagement between the school pupils and architecture students evolved, creating a playful learning environment which empowered the pupils as patron whilst simultaneously facilitating an academic learning exercise for the students. As Lave & Wenger (1991) assert “Learning is fundamentally a social process”, hence working collaboratively addresses the stereotypical isolated student in architectural education. In total 52 students participated; gaining real life experience of teamwork, brief writing, design of
concept, exposure to risk, construction detailing, and ‘on-site’ assembly. This paper sets out the transformational virtues of conscience stimulated in the students and the resultant effect on the pupils including the creation of role models and instilling aspiration.
This form of Architectural learning uses the ‘Live Project’, see Sara’s definition (2006), to introduce a third participant in the teacher/student relationship – the client. This move is purposeful, as it “comprises the negotiation of a brief, timescale, budget and product between an educational organisation and an external collaborator for their mutual benefit.” (Anderson & Priest, 2014).
In electing to work only with clients in desperate need of architectural consultancy but without the means to pay for it, Project Office ensures that through its production students make a meaningful contribution to society whilst undertaking their degree. In this instance, the live project exposed students to a design methodology that puts team working and collaboration at the heart of the creative experience.
The value of a learning exercise being an imaginatively playful venture is demonstrated in this paper as it charts the Morley Newlands ‘Playscape’ and reflects upon this approach to practice based research through the outcomes and learning for school pupils, university students, client team, and Project Office staff.

The cumulative forces in the architecture live project make for a complex environment for the student to negotiate and inhabit. This paper advocates that the architecture live project is more demanding for students than is normally acknowledged in architectural education and proposes that careful calibration of the multifaceted and potentially contradictory factors is required for appropriate and successful student experience, assessment and client satisfaction.

The factors for consideration are well known, the most prominent amongst them being; client requirements and interface, procurement methodology, site specificity, group and collaborative working and cost. Taken singularly each can be responded to effectively by the student, taken accumulatively the live project becomes a greater synthesis and challenge generating both virtues and pitfalls.

This is demonstrated through a Leeds Metropolitan University postgraduate architecture live project; the design of a pavilion providing additional flexible space for an arts organisation in Wakefield, England undertaken by 9 students in October 2013.

To facilitate deeper understanding and exploration of the stated aims and acknowledge the contribution of students in the making of the live project this paper embraces student reflection of the experience.

Project Office is a design and research collaboration of staff and students based within the Leeds School of Architecture at Leeds Beckett University. It is an architecture consultancy concerned with ethical, social and resilient architecture and design. We work with like-minded communities, organisations and individuals. This book covers our work from January 2014 to September 2015.

Project Office is a design and research collaboration of staff and students based within the Leeds School of Architecture at Leeds Beckett University. It is an architecture consultancy concerned with ethical, social and resilient architecture and design. We work with like-minded communities, organisations and individuals.
This book covers our work prior to January 2014.