Yasmin Ali

In advance of the A+DS event Design Skills Symposium, The Scottish Government ran a primer workshop based on drawing skills called Drawing Places, in conjunction with A+DS. The workshop was aimed at built environment professionals from non-design backgrounds and particularly relevant to planners. The lessons and techniques learned from Drawing Places are designed to be transposable to the masterplanning session at the forthcoming Skills Symposium.

The workshop also served to remind professionals of how design skills, and spatial awareness, are important to the town planning profession. Many of the attendees started the day professing not being able to draw yet produced well considered, high quality drawn responses, as shown in this selection of images. Attendees praised many aspects of the day's lessons, including discovering the joy of sketching and the ability of sketches to bring ideas to life.

Delegates were also keen to take the knowledge gained back to their offices. One local authority  attendee is thinking of rolling out a similar programme as lunchtime CPD sessions for Development Standards and Development Planning Officers.

// With thanks to Susie Stirling who led the workshop with contributions from JMArchitects and Anderson Bell Christie.

Glasgow’s creative scene has been on the rise for many years now, and is starting to be celebrated in the mainstream, with innovations like the MAKlab facility recently featured on Glasgow City Council’s ‘People Make Glasgow’ tourism campaign. A new community creative hub DNA, led by Darren Kavanagh, is revitalising an empty central retail unit in Glasgow’s Style Quarter that has been vacant since the late 90’s. Just off George Square, 12-16 Frederick Street is the home for pop-up shop and arts venue DNA. DNA will offer affordable display, retail and studio space for creative start-ups to exhibit and sell their work and run events. An artisan café is also planned as a welcoming frontage for the community.

DNA is engaging with the architectural community, and has hosted an exhibition by architectural research and design collective Lateral North. During the exhibition the collective held well-attended free design consultations for prospective clients and tutorials for Masters students. Next month, entries from the recent Glasgow Institute of Architects’ design competition will be displayed at an exhibition at the venue, with shortlisted entrants invited to present at the opening night on the 13^th November.

Though yet completely renovated, in its first few months so far DNA has hosted over 200 events including art exhibitions, charity projects, fashion shows and pop-up events. The response from the creative community and the general public has been strong, with over 9000 visitors and a growing crowd-funding campaign currently online. The campaign aims to raise £10,000 to help finance the growth plans, and there are incentives including free shop and exhibition space, discounts, and marketing plans. A party is planned for the 30^th November for all contributors. Kavanagh says “Contributing to this campaign will mean the world to not just us at DNA but the many people who use our spaces on a daily basis”.

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Online campaign - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dna-glasgow-multi-use-community-hub

Connect with DNA on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DNAGLASGOW

// DNA Hub, 12-16 South Frederick Street, Glasgow G1 1HJ

// Glasgow Institute of Architects exhibition “Connecting The Seven Lochs”, opens Wednesday 13^th November at DNA, and runs until 20^th November.

This year The Glasgow School of Art hosted their first Research Excellence Showcase, which comprised a morning of two parallel sessions of talks from various departments; a networking and Q & A lunch, and organised transport in the afternoon for talks and demonstrations at the Digital Design Studio, currently sited at Pacific Quay.

The backdrop for this open day for interested collaborators is the upcoming Research Excellence Framework audit submission (REF), which supercedes previous RAE assessments, to rate the quality of research provision in higher education facilities every five years.

Under the theme of Architecture, Urbanism and The Public Sphere, there were three talks, from researchers each presenting for around 20 minutes. The session began with Dr. Johnny Rodger outlining some of his research under the title 'Argonautical Serendipity', used as a paradigm to analogise the indeterminate and often fortunate findings of his research. Rodger has an interest in how literary, artistic and creative writings are involved in social, political and spatial formations. He is co-author of the book 'Tartan Pimps' (2009), which first published the 1979 plans for The Scottish Parliament after a 30 year embargo.

Public participation in art was then discussed by Shauna McMullan of the Sculpture & Environmental Art Department, who introduced her recent community engagement project in association with Tramway, 'The Albert Drive Colour Chart'. Albert Drive is a 3 mile residential street in the Southside of Glasgow, named the most culturally diverse street in Scotland. 72 residents and community members, including Nicola Sturgeon MSP were invited to choose a colour of personal significance to add to a chart which was displayed in large scale in Tramway. They were also each given a limited edition print of the chart, numbered with a key denoting colours to individuals. This played with the idea of artwork as a gift with the potential to create connections between the participants.

Urban Design was introduced by Edinburgh-based architect Graeme Massie, winner of the RIBA Open International Design Project 2005 to redesign Bonn Square in Oxford (completed 2009). Massie's practice-based architectural research raised the quality of urban space by working along themes borrowed from Scandinavian influences, such as connecting people to place; the value of craft over industrialised modern architecture and the power of singularity in materials to lend character. The architects worked with an artist to generate a digital abstraction of magnified stone and translate this into a tiled surface combining split-faced and smooth surfaces of different shades to give different tonal qualities. The space was unified through its use of one material which was folded seamlessly over the site topography and adapted to be accessible via a shallow gradient ramp. Subtle patterns in the arrangement of stone demarcate different ownerships of the site. The project was awarded Commendations from the Architectural Review and The Oxford Preservation Trust Environmental Awards (2009).

Weblinks

Glasgow School of Art - here

GSA Research Repository (RADAR) - here

Graeme Massie Architects - here

Research Excellence Framework - here

Erstwhile housed slightly east of town at The Modern Institute as a pop-up, the store became an instant success with orders continuing online while between residences. Having a store in the Merchant City is a good acid test for a shop - if it can survive just shy of the main shopping area, it must be on to a winner. There are also plenty of creative shops and start-ups in the Merchant City/Trongate area worth seeking out.

On the shelves...

GmbH stocks a range of titles - both glossies and zines- some familiar, others more niche. A personal favourite of mine introduced to me via GmbH is UAE-based contemporary design and lifestyle magazine BROWNBOOK. Subtitled 'An urban guide to the Middle East', with clean graphics and sharp commentary, it resembles in many ways, an Arab version of MONOCLE (also stocked here!).

I'm also a fan of film magazine Little White Lies (LWL); a recent addition to the stocklist. Self-published by London creative agency The Church of London, it's film journalism...but not as you know it. Sharp, insightful commentary is matched by creative graphics. Their screenprinted covers, also available as posters, are fast-becoming cult classics in themselves.

PIN-UP is another favourite of mine, billing itself as 'The magazine for architectural entertainment'. The bi-annual New York-based publication is nicely laid-out and and doesn't take itself too seriously. I've only ever seen it in American Apparel, of all places, so it's good to know there's another place that stocks this on its shelves.

Also stocked is grafik, the International magazine for graphic design. The long-running design title recently bounced back from its publishers' having gone bust in mid-2010, and is now back in print, independently produced and with a slick new i-Pad-ready website.

Read on for selected titles

// Interview with shops' founders to follow...

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