StreetSpace studio 2023-24

 

StreetSpace studio is now in its sixth year, working as a collaborative yearlong live project. Similar to the work carried out in 2022-2023, this year’s chapter builds up on work done since 2020 in the Open Botanic and Open Shaftesbury Projects. Open Botanic was focused on understanding the complexity of movement on Botanic Avenue and perceptions of the public about the street, concluding with a proposal to pedestrianise the avenue. Open Shaftesbury built up on this work to engage more closely with the communities surrounding the area leading to a community festival held on Botanic Avenue on November 20th. The data collected in those projects led to engage further with members of the community to provide a plan for potential housing and mixed use to improve the area. This year MArch students worked on the area of Sandy Row and the Village in Belfast focusing on housing and mobility. They investigated its streets and people, and dealt with the problems and potentials of vacancy, dereliction and density, especially focusing on future housing and mixeduse potential of the neighbourhood. We collaborated with the Department for Communities, Belfast City Council and Forward South Partnership in association with Sandy Row and the Village community groups, to highlight the priorities for this area and deal with real possibilities of regeneration and transformation while respecting the existing social and physical fabric of the streets studied. This studio also builds up on years of StreetSpace previous research projects: The Gentle Densities Project (for DfC Housing Division) investigated medium density, mixed use and public participation as vehicles to deliver appropriate housing in Belfast; and the Build Back Better Mapping Project (for Participation and the Practice of Rights and Oak Foundation) identifies public land for social housing for vulnerable communities. The students in this studio spent a significant amount of time investigating Sandy Row and Village areas and the community that lives in it, to be able to formulate informed and professional proposals for programs and good quality buildings in the area. In this studio, students experienced becoming an architect in the complex reality of everyday life and the role they can have as designers in driving and delivering good quality, inclusive, mixed-use housing and adequate mobility to communities that sorely need it.