Project Aims

To transform the visual envelope of the A13 and to improve the environment for residents whilst making Barking and Dagenham more visible on the route from the Essex into Central London. The A13 is one of the busiest trunk roads in Europe and is a blight on communities close to the road.

Objectives

• To develop an art based approach to a hostile highway environment
• To create easier, firmer connections between communities either side of the A13.
• To harness the skills and creativity of artists to enhance amenity areas such as urban parks, shopping parades, walking routes, public squares and open spaces.
• To give people something to be proud of and combat perception of LBBD as the bottom of the heap in London.
• To refocus the attention of officers to be more ambitious and visionary
• To encourage elected members to explore new possibilities and look at outside comparators for what could be achieved in LBBD.

Outcomes

• A Commissioning Plan for the investment of £11m in art based projects.
• Agreement for partnership with SRB programme and transport for London, securing PFI invest- ment in the programme.
• Renegotiating the landscape statement to secure a major input for artists.
• Major commissioned artworks at key sites by Tom de Paor, Thomas Heatherwick, Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone, Anu Patel, Pat Kaufman, Clare Brew, Alberto Duman, Shelagh Wakely, Andrew Darke, muf, Rayna Nadeem, Lynn Kinnear, Jacqui Poncelet, Phil Power and Jason Cornish, Rob Kesseler. The programme also involved bolstering the local arts infrastruc- ture by commissioning 3 arts organisations to each develop 3 year engagement programmes involving artists working with dancers, actors and musicians and local communities.

Project Overview

When they first approached Geoff Wood about this project, the client was only thinking of a £400K boundary treatment. He developed a bigger vision and showed them how to achieve it. He under- took an advocacy process with elected members and partners and showed how PFI funding could be harnessed to lever other funds including almost £4M from Lottery. The new strategy lead to a new attitude towards the highest standards of commissioning and a long term public art programme that is still running now. The A13 Artscape has influenced policy throughout the borough and else- where in the Thames Gateway.

The projects include:

Holding Pattern, a large light installation creating a landmark at the junction of Lodge Avenue, using 76 stainless steel needles all tipped with blue luminaires. Organised according to the geometry of the roads, the needles sit on a grid of granite strips which takes on a different form depending on the direction from which it is approached. ‘Holding Pattern’ contains multiple references to flight, take off and landing, reflecting its position beneath a flyover and flight path, as well as to interacting elements containing or ‘holding’ a pattern.

A series of earthworks with interlocking geometric forms repeated at different sizes and numbers along the route.

Pump House, a pumping station incorporating programmable LEDs built into a polished reconsti- tuted stone form.

2 artist designed subways by Pat Kaufman and Anu Patel enabling people to move freely and comfortably between the communities either side of the road.

A 3 year programme of engagement projects including dance, light and sculptural projects that gave people a real role in animating their own community whilst strengthening the local arts infrastruc- ture and giving people strong positive experiences in their neighbourhoods.

Artists’ park and landscape projects at Scrattons Farm, Newlands Park, Castle Green and Gores- brook Park to improve local amenities for residents and to involve them in the process of design and renewal. There were a grat many more projects over the 9 years of our involvement.

Project Aims

The Convention Centre and Centenary Square programme focussed on creating a new quarter for the city and linking this to the Library and Chamberlain Square so that that pedestrian movement around the city became fluent and straightforward. Art became a valuable tool in creating a civilised and legible environment. This project was Birmingham’s first step towards transforming itself from a manufacturing only city to one equipped and welcoming for business, conference and leisure visitors.

Objectives

• To create a distinctive pedestrian plaza that welcomes residents and visitors
• To engender images of Birmingham that make people re-evaluate their perceptions of the place
• To collaborate with all the City Departments to see art infused into all areas of the new pedestrian environment
• To liaise with officers and members and support the development of a programme of art-works and artist interventions of the highest design quality and relevance
• To appoint and manage artists to deliver to a very tight and unmoveable programme
• To develop and manage a programme of temporary events to support the launch of the revised public realm.

Outcomes

• Full Council support for the Strategy
• Collaborations with City Architects, commissioned architects, highway engineers, landscape architects, lighting designers and signage specialists throughout the programme of work
• An agreed programme of artists’ designs for what remains a landmark programme in the recent development of public art
• Recognition of Birmingham as a pioneer in using art as an instrument of change
• Substantial private sector investment in a programme of public works

Project Overview

Birmingham was going through great change and was attempting to find a new role for itself as well as contend with the practical issues thrown up bt past engineering and planning decisions. In particular the city wanted to break the concrete collar of the ring road and reconnect the relatively small city centre to all its immediate districts and neighbourhoods. This would allow the centre, and thus the city, to grow and prosper.

The aim of the art programme has been to pioneer the change in perception of districts and the centre and to introduce a set of new images of Birmingham that act as signals of intent and signs of change. The overwhelming success of the programme gave the city the confidence to press on with projects like Victoria Square and the pedestrianisation of New Street, all of which Geoff Wood worked on, and the development of Brindleyplace.

Additional commissions and project work with the city continued into the late 90s.

Project Aim

To improve people’s understanding, appreciation and navigation of the city through a programme of identity, information and transport projects integrated with artists’ work.

Objectives

• To scope out the role that art could play in the process
• To assemble artistic strategy and explain how it would work
• Bring the right players to the table
• Establish what resources would be needed to implement
• Develop and deliver pilot projects
• Explore the need to for Lead Artists and appoint

Outcomes

• Endorsement of the strategy by elected members and officers
• A clear financial plan and partnership in place
• Resource strategy and the funds to recruit 2 arts officers
• Lead Artist in place with funds to commission projects
• A series of art commissions built around the concept of legibility, including some splendidly quirky bird boxes
• Temporary Programme commissioned for an artist and poet collaboration introducing text into the pavements and on transport modes such as buses, stops, ferries etc.

Project Overview

Bristol is a city that is not easily pictured or understood by either residents or visitors.  The concept of Legible City emerged from determination to enable people to develop a confident perception of the city and to encourage ‘free, easy and open’ movement for residents, businesses and visitors alike.

Working pArts was part of the thinking process behind the overall concept and was invited to suggest what role art could play and to develop a strategy.  The principles that we developed are built around generating navigation strategies for people whatever travel mode they are utilising.  Picturing where you are, where you are going and understanding the journey that you are about to take are part of making a city feel manageable. Being able to develop a remote sense of familiarity is part of the success stories of great cities and something Bristol aspired to.

Bristol has now become a model for the development of legibility strategies and art is now a recognisably vital component of making them effective.

Project Aim

To scope out the potential for public art within one of the largest development sites in the South West, and for this to become a component of the Planning Consent, followed by implementation and delivery.

Objectives

• To consult with stakeholders and key interest groups for each subject
• To explore with developers and landowners the scope for integrated and freestanding projects and build expectations into the regulatory masterplan
• To enhance the public realm and help the developers achieve the aims of the regulatory masterplan and discharge planning conditions
• To deliver projects of the highest artistic standards

Outcomes

• Council and developers endorsement for the public art strategy
• Adoption of the strategy as part of the regulatory masterplan
• Allocation of significant funds to achieve commissions of the highest standards
• Appointment of John Aiken and completion and completion of his series of sculptures marking the line of the old Port Wall and the Rivergate Sculpture protecting and revealing the historic archaeological remains of the Rivergate linking the medieval city to the marshes
• Commissioning of Shelagh Wakely to design and deliver a series of glass entrance pieces and a CorTen steel pergola
• Designs commissioned and funds allocated for a major art/water piece by Vito Acconci on the Floating Harbour.  The design shows a clear acrylic form supporting a water work right at the harbourís edge.

Project Overview

Temple Quay is a large development adjacent to Bristol Temple Meads Station and forms a prestigious new business district for Bristol.  Our role was to built art proposals into the masterplan and then advise each developer on how to meet the planning conditions.

Project Aims

To explore the scope for harnessing art as a regeneration tool in the National Coalfields Programme.  To promote to partners and to agree an outline mechanism for staff and partners to use.  To support the setting up of pilot / sample projects.

Objectives

• To consult with partners, 7 RDAs, host local authorities and key stakeholders over the scope and potential impact of public art projects and a creative approach to regeneration
• To agree the areas of focus for the programme
• To develop a programme of potential coalfield sites around the country where action can be fruitful
• To agree what actions are appropriate in each sample case
• To promote the programme to partners

Outcomes

• A national strategy endorsed by EP and its partners.
• A promotional publication distributed to key partners and  programmes and outline budgets
• Piloting advice to a number of potential pilot projects
• Artists appointed and Designs Commissioned for pilot project at Agecroft

Project Overview

The strategy focuses on 4 strands of creative impact:

• Achieving Design Excellence, via the use of integrated multi disciplinary design teams
• Cultural Connections, linking sites to their communities’ aspirations
• Regional Distinctiveness, achieving a marketing edge within the region
• Repositioning Areas of Change, by the potential use of major art interventions to signal transformation

Project Aims

To commission a contemporary artwork to animate the space adjacent to TSB’s new head office.

Objectives

• To explore how to realise a stand alone sculpture that can contribute to and dignify a new public square
• To secure funding from a new development
• To agree a brief and location with client and the planners
• To agree a shortlist of artists to develop proposals
• To arrange an exhibition of all the artists’ proposals at the City Art Gallery, alongside a review of all the working drawings of newly installed commissions for the new Convention Centre and Centenary Square to enable the public to give feedback on the proposals

Outcomes

• Antony Gormley’s dramatic and beautiful Iron:Man sculpture
• An exhibition of the photos of all the manufacture, taken by the foundry workers themselves
• A new piece of sculpture juxtaposed with a historic memorial to Queen Vistoria
• Six education projects creating artists’ gardens in schools around Birmingham
• A major public launch

Project Aims

Landmark Wales aims to develop contemporary images of Wales to impact on its international reputation and reception.  The intent is to encourage a greater sense of place and a greater sense of cultural difference for those crossing boundaries into and out of Wales where the key attributes of Wales are less evident.  The aim was to put across very clear messages about the many facets of Welshness at the very point of entering and leaving the country.

Objectives

To develop a strategy and to commission designs for a programme of major art gateways to Wales at the major entry points by sea, air and land.  Phase 1 Sites include the Second Severn Crossing, Holyhead Harbour and the A550/A494 on the Flintshire border.  Phase 2 sites include the A40 at Monmouth, the A5 at Chirk, the M4 at Newport, the Heads of the Valleys Road at Dowlais, Cardiff Airport and Fishguard Harbour.  Programme included

• Consultation and advocacy to partners and host organisations to build belief in the idea
• Site research and agreement to ensure appropriate and viable locations
• Stakeholder consultation and brief development to secure local buy in and inform the design process
• Artist recruitment via national/international design competitions
• Design proposal management, assessment and selection
• Technical and budget appraisal of proposals at interim and final presentation stages
• Fundraising and funding management
• Overall project management and Client reporting.

Outcomes

• An overarching strategy for a coherent programme of commissioning at a national level
• Co-operation between key strategic partners including 8 LAs, Arts Council Wales, Welsh Assembly Government, Countryside Commission for Wales, Visit Wales, CADW.
• A programme of deliverable design proposals for key sites
• A determination to progress the first site at Second Severn Crossing

Project Overview

Landmark Wales is a hugely ambitious project that is born from Wales’ emergence as a nation and its increasing desire and capacity to express itself as more than as a sub region of its larger neighbour.

The programme of major artworks at entry and crossing points has the capacity to focus people’s attention on what it means to be Welsh in the 21st C and how does Welshness express itself in built and artistic form.  With strong support from all the partner authorities and a remarkable public reaction, this project offers the opportunity to bring contemporary and dramatic visual symbols to Wales to augment the rich historical and natural imagery.

The aim has been to integrate ancillary uses into projects so that they bring added value and provide amenities and services that are needed or valuable to the locality.

‘Postcard to Wales’ for the A550/A494 in Flintshire, by Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin, is both a dramatic drive-through gateway but also provides a slender building with glorious views towards the Dee Estuary and the Hills of Moel Famau, a series of classrooms and small event spaces for parties, can host a small café, and with its stairs and lifts, it provides a fully accessible and practical landmark.  Sitting with its foundations in the River Dee, the project uses turbines to capture energy from the river flow and will also harness solar and wind power to provide its own energy.

‘Cwmwl Coch’ (Red Cloud in Welsh) for the Second Severn Crossing, by Marks Barfield, harnesses the sense of community in Wales and directly quotes the translation of ‘Cymru’ into ‘compatriots’.  Flying above the ground at heights of between 7 and 21metres are 300 red Welsh figures. Each is supported by a slender carbon fibre pole that sways gently in the wind.  The whole piece gives the impression of a flock of people moving together through the air.

At Holyhead Harbour, Ian Ritchie proposed three standing stones of between 45 and 82.5 metres height sitting in the harbour but accessible from a glass bridge. To achieve this great height the masts will be post-tensioned using multi-stranded high tensile steel cables.  This project uses contemporary technology to extend the principles of the ancient stone monoliths all over Anglesey, to create something extraordinary.  The stone masts are still slender enough to embrace and we proposed that a tradition of hugging them on arriving and leaving, much like kissing the Blarney Stone.

Project Aim

To establish the Scope for the Commissioning of Three Public Art Commissions related to the themes of

• The Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act
• Women’s Suffrage and Emmeline Pankhurst
• The Peterloo Massacre

Objectives

• To consult with stakeholders and key interest groups for each subject
• To explore with developers and landowners the scope for sites to be offered
• To explore the scope for co funding from potential partners
• To establish precedents and demonstrate the impact of similarly ambitious projects
• To propose a delivery strategy and outline the resources that the City Council would need to deliver each project

Outcomes

• Council endorsement for the strategy
• Partnership across a whole range of organisations
• Full support and involvement from key issue focussed organisations across the city and region
• Acknowledgement of the impact that other precedents have achieved
• Funds and site agreed for the first project at St Peter’s Square to commemorate the Peterloo massacre
• Recognition that Manchester’s radical history could become a part of its visual character and thereby contribute to its offer
• A clear determination to pursue all three projects and agree locations with authentic connections to each issue and to progress in close collaboration with the key interest groups.

Project Overview

This is a potentially sensitive project and has been handled carefully by Geoff Wood and his team in order to ensure that it is being progressed with the active involvement of the people whose heartfelt passions it is addressing.  The Pankhurts lived in Manchester but they were only part of the story of the suffrage movement and we have secured agreement that any future work should also address the role of mill girls from the surrounding towns.  We consulted with the Pankhurst Centre and with notable writers on women’s issues to ensure appropriate and relevant recommendations were the focus of the work.

Regarding Peterloo we worked closely with relatives of victims, the Peterloo Memorial Campaign and with the Historical Society to ensure accuracy and relevance.  We have co-written the brief for St Peter’s Square and an international design competition is about to be launched which will see the Peterloo issue memorialised as a key part of making the square internationally recognisable.  This will now become one of the signatures of Manchester.

A key part of the strategy has been promoting the idea that Manchester can be gradually transformed from a city to come and ‘do’ business, shopping and events into a city that you can also come and ‘see’, for its historical references, for its architecture and for what will become a striking public realm.

Project Aims

To set out a social, cultural and physical environment agenda for a new settlement of 25,000 people North of Cambridge.  To explore and make the case for art and creative process as a valuable tool in enabling a healthy and cohesive community to grow in Northstowe.

Objectives

• To develop a public art strategy for the whole settlement
• For the strategy to become a component of the planning application for the overall development
• To ensure that the impact of art on all stages of the development are fully explored and justified
• That art’s intersection and integration with all other disciplines working on the development is fully rationalised, articulated and accepted
• To secure planning consent for the development and agree the terms under which the Public Art Programme is to be realised

Outcomes

• A comprehensive strategy addressing art integration throughout the development
• An outline document setting out the Partners’ proposals as part of a suite of planning submission documents
• Consensus among the partners and the Joint Planning Authorities
• Resource levels agreed in principle
• Match funding from A&B and the Client Partners for the appointment of a Lead Artist
• Appointment of the Lead Artist, Dan Dubowitz

Project Overview

Northstowe is one of the key growth areas around Cambridge and has been an important testing ground for an enlightened and responsible approach to building new communities.  Whilst not formally part of the Eco-Towns programme, Northstowe seeks to engage best practice principles in sustainability and the development of a cohesive community.

Working pArts were appointed to collaborate with a wide range of other professional disciplines, each of whom were charged with bringing best practice knowledge to bear on the development.

Working pArts collected the views of all the key players, including all those who form the arts infrastructure around Cambridge, and developed a progressive approach to art integration identifying all the areas that the Partners are responsible for delivering where artists will be given significant influence, broken down into 4 areas of focus:

• Infrastructure
• New Build Projects
• Involving People
• History and Social History

Each area was broken down into its key components and recommendations identified.  So the infrastructure includes addressing the highways, and the waterways.  New build includes the local centres that will be developed, the formal open spaces, the sports buildings and spaces, the play spaces and buildings and the leisure spaces.

Involving people includes developing a living archive, a Northstowe Sustainability Series of events and activities, and also walking routes.

History and Social History draws in the unique aspects of the Fenland landscape.

Working pArts also identified those areas where Third parties will be expected to contribute a major art input, by negotiation with the partners and the Joint Planning Authorities.  These included the Guided Busway, Education Spaces and the links between schools and community facilities, new build residential areas, retail streets, commercial spaces, hotel and other commercial spaces and buildings.

The strategy also made outline recommendations for the provision of studios and other creative and media industry spaces.

No actual designs have yet been commissioned and so no imagery has been included in this profile.

Project Aim

To bring greater focus to the Knowledge Corridor of Manchester’s Oxford Road and encourage a livelier and more diverse culture.  To bring people from the city centre out into the project area and spread the benefits of the city’s popularity.  To fertilise the city centre with the edge that the appetites and tastes of the cultural quarter.  To prepare the city for the influx of 3000 new consumers that will arrive with the relocation of the BBC.

Objectives

• To develop an overall framework to enable an ongoing programme of public art development in the knowledge corridor of Oxford Road.
• To consult with stakeholders including the 2 Universities and the key cultural institutions
• To consult with the enabling authorities such as Planning, Highways and the Transport Authority GMPTE
• To develop a strategy that enables the client team to understand what actions they should and why they would be beneficial
• To analyse the area and develop a site based strategic approach to art integration
• To explore the scope for introducing digital art programmes
• To propose a delivery strategy and outline the resources that the City Council would need to deliver each project
• To develop working methods that will enable the partners and the institutions to collaborate effectively and still maintain their independence

Outcomes

• A site by site analysis of opportunities accompanied by a rationale for justification of each decision
• A series of exemplars showing the types of project potentially applicable to each location
• An action plan for each location
• A curatorial model for overseeing the programme
• Resource options for delivery
• Applicable costs for project development and management

Project Overview

Oxford Road has been a hugely influential area both nationally and for Manchester but the visual corridor does not impart this through the quality of its public realm.  The first stored memory computer was developed on Oxford Road, and people of the stature of Engels, Wittgenstein, Marie Stopes, David Lloyd George, Emmeline Pankhurst and Alan Turing all have close associations with the road.  The intellectual output from the street is extraordinary yet there is no clue of this from the city centre.  Our strategy is aimed at developing a stronger relationship between the street and the city centre and harnessing art to create an intelligent environment capable of representing Manchester past, present and potential.

We have identified radical and far reaching approaches to a variety of issues including the overall visual corridor, to its night-time perception, the individual elements of the travel infrastructure, the spaces that people could and should be occupying, and the individual buildings and structures within the area.

This project is another example of our promotion of the idea of Manchester becoming a city to come and ‘see’, not just to come and ‘do’.