Studio Adapt

Studio lead: Anna Bardos

Studio Collaborators
Ben McGarry, KINCA
Chris McKinney, KINNF
Andy Cook, Yellow Arch Studios
John Clephan, CITU
Kemba Mitchell, SYHA
Jon Walker, SYHA
Tim Hubbard, 93ft
Walter Unterrainer, Chalmers University of Technology

Guest Tutors
Ali Shaw, Max Fordham
Will Arnold, Arup & IstructE
Lucy Thomas, Tim Ronalds Architects
Elina Grigoriou, Grigoriou Interiors

Our studio explored adaptation of, and to, our surroundings. We’re sited just north of central Sheffield in Neepsend, floodplain of the Don,formerly densely-populated centre of industry. In remaining industrial buildings small-scale manufacturing, repair and creative industries grow, pockets of gentrification appear, and large-scale developer-led housing prepares to land. Sheffield City Council deliberates whether its immense housing needs can be accommodated within the city - or must Green Belt be sacrificed - alongside their ambitious declaration to be zero carbon by 2030.

This context demands creative exploration, and a culture shift in construction practice. We explored ways to regrow a diverse, denser, mixed community, integrated with the life enduring or emerged so far in Neepsend, compatible with the city’s environmental aims. Viewing extant construction as a resource - of materials, physical experience, bygone craft skills, social history, local memory, embodied carbon – we explored adaptive and regenerative design strategies, learnt from ways other times and cultures have adapted their environment, and challenged current standard development typologies to test ideas of what to build, and how.

We also explored the reintegration and revealing of natural processes in the city, as fundamental to regenerative design and to our understanding of the natural world we inhabit.

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