Leeds School of Arts

Leeds Beckett Architecture Student helps win RIBA Northern Soul Design Charrette

A team of students from different universities, including a Leeds Beckett Architecture student, have been named as the winning entrant in this year’s RIBA Northern Soul Design Charrette.

Visitors at the exhibition

The RIBA’s Northern Soul Design Charrette took place on 25 October 2019 located at Kelham Island museum, Sheffield. The annual event is a collaboration between the schools of architecture in Yorkshire, North East and North West with over 80 student participants.

This year’s brief challenged students, comprised of group members who have never met before, to propose a long-term urban vision for Kelham Island based upon five currently derelict sites by suggesting a series of temporary uses for these spaces. In groups of six the students developed ideas, made models and crafted drawings to explain their proposals – all within one day!

Ten Leeds Beckett undergraduate Architecture students travelled to Sheffield and participated. After a hard day’s work for everyone involved, the competition heated up with presentations from each group. The judges were very impressed by the amount of effort displayed and clarity of ideas communicated by all teams. Ultimately second year Leeds Beckett student Christina Christodoulou’s group was named the winning team, scooping the prize based upon their idea of creating a sense of the great outdoors within the tight urban environment. Using a series of ‘waves’ the group proposed to activate ‘dead’ spaces with a flowing organic ribbon which could be moved and manipulated by users to create ‘alive’ areas of seating, inhabitation and greenery.

Students with their exhibited designs

Christodoulou reflected on her achievement, “Personally I am very happy we won this competition, but I believe that was not all about the win, it was about the experience of meeting and working with new people, exchanging ideas and developing our skills. It was a great experience and winning the competition was just a welcome bonus.”

More can be seen on the following video:

Craig Stott

Senior Lecturer / Leeds School Of Arts

Craig Stott (MEng, BArch, MA, ARB) is a Project Office co-director, Architect and Senior Architecture Lecturer at the Leeds School of Architecture, Leeds Beckett University.

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