The story so far
The idea for the timber school has been influenced by research into self-build. Construction skills was an element of the early Lewisham Self-Build cooperative schemes and following further research into current construction skills shortages it feels an appropriate proposal to enable local employement and provide empowering skills training to enable further community envolvment.
Between my placement with RUSS and the start of the 2019 autumn term I took the chance to get involved with the RUSS Self-build hub project on their site at Church grove. Volunteering to build has the same major hurdle that stands in the way of builders, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive). Habitat for Humanity helped enable this project by acting as contractor and providing on site guidance and inductions. Volunteering was open to anyone who was aware of the event-bright invite ticketing and anyone who wanted to experience a hard days work of the love of labour.
The diagram to the left shows an early stage in my design process. After deciding on the school of timber as my intervention I asked myself, how do you put a timber yard together anyway? My first port of call is a handy book called Neufert Architects' Data. Its a great book to get you off the starting blocks when considering the spatial arrangement of litterally any building.
The rectangular block represent different quantities of space and their relationship to each other, while accomadating enough room to move around the furniture contained. The 17th space on the first floor has a number of workbenches and accommodate approximately 12 persons, the idea is to create a space for teaching or the finer detail craft-work of finishing.
Another more primary source of research when considering the feasibility of a building that see's the production of timber from woodland to finished product was Bruce Saunders of Saunders Seasonings, Bruce was super helpful and really helped me to understand the complexities of running such a workshop. The idea to take round, freshly felled urban timber for primary conversion is a bit naive and would require a great deal of space and is a discipline all in it's self.
Bruce tells me that this part of his practice is located offsite with Ashwells Timber. Another great organisation working towards a more sustainable model of building material supply. The gif above shows the flier for community centred flexible workspace Blackhorse Workshop Blackhorse Workshop and Sauders Seasonings are awesome, its great to see things like this happening and as a budding practitioner they offer a great deal of inspiration. Operations like this should be located everywhere and especially in places like Part2Project and other council estates that could do with places of production.
