The work of the NDSA: An 18 month review
Architect Michael Hall from Faulkner Browns Architects presents their Derby Arena project at the NDSA’s inaugural 2020 Derby Architecture Celebration at the Derby Museum & Art Gallery. Photo by Ayesha Batool.
When standing at the 2019 AGM, then candidates Joshua von Fragstein, Ayesha Batool, Michael Hodgson, Rory Wood and Paul MacMahon stood together on an inclusive, outward looking & progressive campaign. The intention was to bring to the local architectural community a platform of quality and engaging content, drawing upon local, regional & national experience and expertise. We hoped that by directly involving our membership with key stakeholders throughout our industry, we could stimulate critical and constructive debate to ultimately make meaningful contributions towards the betterment of the places we all live.
The Committee is now comprised of a group of 10, including Treasurer Mark Jeremy, Eleni Tracada, CInzia Russo, Graham Markwell and Kasia Jakus-Lechowska. Officers from the committee have worked hard over the past 18months to deliver upon the promises of their election campaign. We have reviewed, replaced and reinvented some established NDSA traditions along the way. Below is a summary of what we have achieved together so far.
Urban Room
This is a critically useful facility regularly utilised by the NDSA for a range of functions throughout the year. Through a local partnership (involving Nottingham City Council, English Heritage, Historic England, University of Nottingham & Nottingham Trent University) we helped to develop and make use of Nottingham’s Urban Room, an initiative derived from The Farrell Review (http://www.farrellreview.co.uk), a blueprint for a successful civic space, the goals of which are to help further progressive surrounding urbanism through community engagement. As a committee we occupy this shared space to hold events where we can openly question, challenge and reflect on the consequences of our role in the development of cities.
For the Website of the Urban Room please visit https://www.38carringtonstreet.org.uk
Climax City book launch at the Urban Room, organised by Dr Laura Alvarez. David Rudlin (pictured) and Professor Shruti Hemani, gave us an insight into the extensive research contained within their new book, Climax City. David is a director of URBED, Honorary Professor at Manchester University, Chair of the Academy of Urbanism and winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize in 2014.
Events programme
In addition to supporting and promoting local initiatives that share common ground and interests with the objectives of the NDSA, we have organised and hosted our own events for our membership and broader community. With support from core committee members, NDSA Chair Joshua von Fragstein ran a season of events throughout the Autumn. Michael Hodgson, Rory Wood, Ayesha Batool and Paul MacMahon supported the development and hosting of these and other events throughout the course of the past 18 months, bringing rich and engaging content to our membership. Making good use of the Urban Room, we had a dedicated space in the centre of Nottingham with great transport links to both Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Unfortunately some of our events were impacted by Covid19, but will be rescheduled as soon as circumstances permit.
Since the sudden and unexpected halt the pandemic has brought, some of the committee have utilised these circumstances as as opportunity to expedite our intention to bring more content online. Chair Josh von Fragstein maintained operational continuity of the society by moving all Committee meetings online. The opportunity to hold seminars and lectures is still here, just not in person for the time being. Hon. Secretary Paul MacMahon has been furthering the development of online content across the different platforms and expanding the NDSAs websites capabilities.
Some of our event posters are captured below.
Exhibits
NDSA Chair Joshua von Fragstein hosted the inaugural Derby Architecture Celebration. The event was well attended with many guests bracing the terrible weather and traffic chaos from the sudden closure of Clifton Bridge in Nottingham. Hosted at the Derby Museums and with guest speakers travelling nationally to deliver presentations on their exceptional Derby & Derbyshire based projects, the evening set a new standard for the NDSA.
The event featured pretensions by four leading architects, all of whom talked us through the project, from brief to completion. Each project was completed in Derbyshire in the last five years. Presenting were Simon Gedye from Studio Gedye, Michael Hall from Faulkner Browns, Robert Evans from Evans Vetorri and Paul Hutt from Glancy Nichols.
We aim to build upon the success of this exhibition to host more like it in the future.
A snapshot article of the event can be seen in this clip below:
Digital presence
We are currently expanding our outreach capabilities by working with proven online platforms in an effort to deliver quality content. Our social media presence has expanded and we work to transition more of our content online. Please like, share, connect, subscribe or follow our profiles and content wherever possible, it directly helps us to grow our audience and fulfil our mission to promote local talent. While we have our committee working hard to maintain the website whenever possible, we also welcome contributions from our membership and broader readership, so if you would like to write an article, present a project digitally on the website, or something else, please get in touch as we would like to hear from you.
We are currently active on the following platforms:
Student Awards Symposium
The NDSA Committee agreed to discontinue the £300 one off cash prize traditionally handed out annually to a student at UoN & NTU each year, replacing it instead with an annual event centred around winning students, chosen from a Values & Principles based selection criteria. A bid for RIBA Local Initiative Funding was written and submitted by Paul MacMahon, providing the Work Group with the necessary resources to take forward and deliver a pilot programme and turn it into a key annual event.
The event took the format of a set of presentations of winning projects by successful students, accompanied by local, regional or national intra-industry professionals whose expertise and areas of research interests have clear cross overs with the themes within the winning projects. The presentations were followed by a period of networking, affording the students the opportunity to meet with and speak to the industry wide professionals invited to the event.
The event was successful in bringing together the students at the conclusion of their studies, together with professionals from complementing disciplines who provided positive, progressive feedback on the proposals. The students obtained an extended avenue of professional advice and support with digital records of their presentation being hosted online by the NDSA. Some of the students were offered jobs on the night, a goal set our by the committee when initially developing the symposium concept.
Education Officers Michael Hodgson & Ayesha Batool worked tirelessly with the supporting Work Group members Joshua, Rory and Paul to shortlist the end of year projects from multiple courses across both Nottingham Based Universities and coordinate the subsequent event. Our articles page captures the progress of this new scheme, charting its core intent through to the outcomes.
A brief clip capturing reflections from our Guest Panelists can be seen below.
History
Work is under way to digitally archive the full history of the NDSA. Chinzia Russo, Mark Jermy & Josh von Fragstein began an long effort to catalogue and make freely available the history of the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Society of Architects. This archiving exercise has doubled as a research project, with Michael Hodgson unearthing notable NDSA officers and the respective roles they had in society. It is hoped that eventually this work will be dissemenated and thoroughly researched, then hosted and maintained on the NDSA website.
Solvency
Committee member Rory Wood has worked hard to reconnect the NDSA with construction industry partners, enabling us to obtain the necessary finances to maintain operations. A Summer BBQ was held, acting as a kick starter for the new committee. Many society members and industry partners met to offer suggestions and pledge their support. Sponsorship’s for forthcoming events were a key indicator of the successes from this event. Having started out this tenure with no capital surpluses and only minimal reserves, the work of Rory has been instrumental in securing the functionality of the NDSA. We offer sponsorship opportunities for our events, publications and online platforms in order to secure the short, medium and long term future of the NDSA. While the NDSA is run on the goodwill of volunteers, who give up their free time, away from their families and friends, to be part of something bigger than themselves. There are resource costs that need to be met annually. Please get in touch with us if you would like to sponsor the NDSA.
Photo by Lamar Francois
We encourage you to reach out, get involved and become empowered to positively influence the development of our environment. If you have ideas for events, seminars, lectures or articles then we are here to work together to help take them forward. To stay up to date with the NDSA please subscribe to our mailing list here https://www.ndsa.org.uk/join-us
