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The New Wave: The Creative Studio

Marc, Becca and Dele of Pidgin Perfect posing under the umbrella of the ‘Community Dining Table’ designed in collaboration with Kennyhill Community Allotments for Glasgow Harvest Festival 2011 © Pidgin Perfect

The Creative Studio

In times of hardship it is human nature to reflect on better days. So it would be all too easy to become nostalgic for the boom of the Noughties when employment was high. Yes, there was more financial certainty, but were we truly happy? If those architects working at the time were honest with themselves they would probably recall the levels of dissatisfaction and frustration at the increasingly limited scope of their jobs.

The prevailing developer led projects had squeezed budgets so tight that it was becoming increasingly difficult to display any real creativity, causing many architects to ask, “Did I really need to study five years in University to do this?”. For many, the architect’s role had become little more than that of a glorified technician.

Even those architectural heroes, from the dawn of modernity that later became hollow myths, were far more multidisciplinary in reality. Le Corbusier, perhaps the greatest architectural legend of them all, famously rose early to paint, sketch, write poetry, work on key texts and conceptualise all morning. It was only in the afternoon that he would focus his attentions onto architecture.

Le Corbusier in his painting studio. Courtesy of www.modernissta.com

Architecture has always provided a far more diverse education and career than perhaps the system allowed for. Now at a moment when the ‘traditional’ role of the architect is being challenged and the current construction industry remains stalled should we not be celebrating our diversity of abilities and, asking ourselves what other areas our skills could be applied in?

In Scotland, perhaps the most diverse practice of modern times, has been NORD Architecture. When starting out, they built a reputation by creating imaginative interior fit-outs to bars and clubs using industrial materials in contemporary ways. As well as collaborating with artists and designers to create innovative exhibitions, designing furniture and domestic architectural projects.

Rear Garden of Govanhill Centre for Wellbeing. © NORD Architecture

The practice has always been entrepreneurial in spirit seizing all opportunities to design with projects such as proposing a temporary structure for East End Sawmills, when a port-a-cabin would have sufficed and, their design for a new outdoor ashtray in anticipation of the possible effects of the smoking ban in Scotland. Their largest self initiated project to date is Govanhill Baths. Nord worked with the community to first try and save the swimming pool from closure before creating a design strategy for a re-imagined building to suit the current needs of the area.

Founder of NORD Architecture Alan Pert explains:

“Govanhill is an example of how our cities and our neighbourhoods are changing. Govanhill Pool has evolved beyond the obsession with what the building should be and instead about how we incrementally reshape space. We have become obsessed by objects or the image of the building rather than the process of making places. The Govanhill project demonstrates a new type of architecture but more importantly a new civic economy. The civic economy is being built by protagonists who are led by passion, purpose, and personal commitment – and whose key asset is their social networks and trust they hold.”

A year ago Alan gave a presentation to students in which he showed diagrams describing his practice’s research into the processes, activities and services that would form the strategy for how a newly reopened Govanhill Baths would function. After over 10 years of campaigning, research, design development and fundraising, the Govanhill Baths Community Trust have finally started work on Phase 1 of the proposed Wellbeing Centre.

This example demonstrates that, the kind of research good architects can undertake is a type of design thinking that should be valued in itself. Other sectors within the creative industries have been far more successful in being remunerated for this type of service. Though a relatively new course in design schools, service design, and in particular socially aware service design, is one of the fastest growing creative sectors in the marketplace.

Timeline of development strategy for Govanhill Baths. © NORD Architecture

Designing a building, organising its programme, defining how it functions, and how it will be used are examples of service design in the medium of architecture. With our training, architects should really be at the forefront of this trend, and yet it is almost completely absent from our vocabulary both in school and in the workplace. Opportunities in Service Design; Public Art Projects; Marketing; Event Production; Exhibition Design and Community Engagement can be created just by thinking differently about the context in which the architecture profession applies its skills. Our greatest advantage over the competition is that, as architects, we understand how the service could be applied in a spatial context.

All this begs the question whether or not the title, Architect, is useful when pursuing alternative opportunities. Alan Pert is of the opinion that we need to educate the public and our potential clients much better about the services and added value we can provide.

There certainly seems to be a perception of architects by the public that seems to makes them reluctant to invest in our design services. Clients are only prepared to shell out once they see a final product, and the profession hasn’t helped itself by heaping praise on ‘architectural objects’ as seen across the architectural press. The recent report from the RIBA’s Think Tank, Building Futures, highlights the challenges which the profession faces. Architecture has been under threat from other fields for a long time, the recession and subsequent economic downturn has only hastened the demise. Alan Pert, however, combats this by saying that “we should be proud to call ourselves architects”. But is it perhaps more accurate to say that we should be proud of our unique skills and way of thinking?

Extract from the Building Futures Report Summary. Courtesy of www.buildingfutures.org.uk

The Creative Studio is one model that allows those trained in architecture to diversify. It was one of the few typologies which Building Futures identified as an area for growth for architects in the future.

When we formed Pidgin Perfect we consciously set up our company as a creative studio due to the diverse range of activities we were involved in. Each of the three Pidgins feels privileged to have had an architectural education, although we don’t feel the need to explicitly state ‘architecture’ in our name, we don’t want to constrict ourselves to a narrow perspective of what we can do.

Wheelers and Dealers Tea Party at Merchant City Festival in collaboration with Icecream Architecture. © Pidgin Perfect

Our goal has instead been to create a new typology for architects working within the urban realm. Creating a model for a business that we can be proud of, a studio that is focused on innovative community led solutions because we believe that the public is entitled to greater dialogues between architects and the other professionals that shape the urban environment we all live in.

When Pidgin Perfect began, we instinctively understood that this could not be done in the same old ways, which drove our desire to collaborate and engage in multi-disciplinary dialogues across art, design, film, architecture and so much more.

This desire to work creatively across disciplines inspired us to work from Ironbbratz artists’ studios. This move exposed our practice to a wide range of creatives from a variety of artistic and design backgrounds. Through connections made at Ironbbratz we have gained new collaborators and new opportunities to put our architectural skills to work in exciting varied projects including: exhibition curation for Trongate 103, Vault Art Fair and Ironbbratz.Ironbbratz installation for Vault Art Fair at the Briggait Glasgow, curated by Pidgin Perfect © Helen Shaddock

At Pidgin Perfect we think it is important to involve ourselves in broader debates through writing articles, creating documentary film, blogging within the architectural and artistic press and encouraging student activism, particularly through founding the Scottish Architecture Students Assembly (SASA).

Our wide range of activities has allowed us to work with a diverse set of clients: from artist groups, like NVA, to Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government. Yet, at the heart of what we do is the creation of experiences that bring communities together.

Pop Up Cinéma Matinée, our first, self-initiated project, created as part of the inaugural SASA, embodied all of these principles. The temporary structure, built in the heart of Barras Market in Glasgow was used to screen films by local artists as a means of bringing together the local community with students of architecture to discuss how the changing landscape of the area was affecting real lives.

Popup Cinema Matinée at the Barras Centre. © Pidgin Perfect

Subsequently, we have created other meaningful community experiences as part of an engagement process. Our work with NVA on Glasgow Harvest 2011 involved a variety of workshops and points of contact, such as the Jam Making Session, Summer Exhibition and Community Design Charettes; to co-create, design and build the ‘Community Dining Table’ with the gardening community at Kennyhill Community Allotments, Riddrie.

Jam making session at Kennyhill Community Allotments. © Pidgin Perfect

The skills of consultation Pidgin Perfect have developed combined with our original training in architecture make us uniquely placed to provide our combination of services in engagement, design and implementation. We believe that this process of working is the future for many architects.

As financial uncertainty continues and public budgets tighten, the next few years will see a real shift towards delivering grass roots community focused work. Young start ups, like those mentioned in the New Wave series - Icecream Architecture; Roots Design Workshop; Desire to Build; Dress for the Weather and, ourselves, Pidgin Perfect – really care about communities and, as practices, we are small, agile and eager enough to respond to their changing needs.

Gathered umbrella of the ‘Community Dining Table’ at Kennyhill Community Allotments. © Pidgin Perfect

If our ‘New Wave’ of architects are to succeed through this downturn we will need to stay true to our principles whilst continuing to be innovative. Local authorities will have to learn to place trust in young practices, allowing them greater access to the procurement process. And developers and business will need to recognise the added value in collaborating with smaller, and more diverse, creative studios.

This climate of slow growth may be painful, it has already claimed many casualties, however, it is an opportunity to be brave and lay the groundwork for a better, more community focused way of working. If we can succeed in this, we might just be able to build an urban landscape that we can all be proud of and re-establish a profession that is truly fulfilling.

Pidgin Perfect is a creative studio who build, produce, make and create as a means of bringing different ideas and different people together, putting the community at the heart of urban projects.

Pidgin Perfect are Dele Adeyemo, Marc Cairns and Becca Thomas.