A balancing act

The summer term at Sheffield is over, so by my reckoning that’s one year down, two to go. Well, not quite. Although we had our last teaching session in July (with none pencilled in until October) there was no quick end in sight when it came to studying.

For a start there is the small matter of a paper to finish – for the social and economic sustainability module. And then there’s the huge backlog of reading that’s been building up in the corner of my living room. The latter is now organised and carefully bound in one place, and subject to Ryanair baggage restrictions, I shall be taking it with me to peruse on holiday in France next week.

So, one year into my Foundation Degree in Sustainable Communities, what’s the verdict? The course is going very well and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. A great deal of my enjoyment has stemmed from the people I’ve met, whether it’s my peers or the course tutors. Each is coming at it from a different angle but all are driven by a desire to achieve something both personally and professionally.

I have to confess it’s been a lot harder than I imagined but not for obvious reasons. It’s not that the course is too difficult. It’s just that it’s all too damn interesting. Which means once you begin studying one thing, it leads you to something else, then something else…

Combined with a general desire to do well and a little competitive streak in me, this means I’m perhaps trying to do too much. I’ve never had to study and work at the same time before – it’s always been one or the other – and it’s a difficult balancing act.

The writing side of things hasn’t come easily to me. As a designer I’m used to dealing with images and ideas, not words. However, the support and guidance from the course tutors has been fantastic and I’m confident I will improve. They’re always there for you – whether it’s in person, through email or on the telephone.

The subject matter is fascinating and I’m getting to grips with ideas and concepts that I may have neglected in my current role with the Strategic Design Alliance, Leeds City Council’s professional design services team. Recent work on poverty and deprivation has been a real eye opener (did we really only begin to start talking about ‘deprivation’ in the 1960s and 1970s?).

And already, what I am learning is having a positive impact on my 9-5(ish!) job. I’m currently involved in putting together a £4m lottery bid to build a youth hub in Leeds. Crucially, I feel like I’m not approaching this just as an architect. I feel I’m better equipped to ask the right questions of a community to find out what it is they want – a small but practical example being that we’ve included less car parking space in the design and more storage for prams and cycles.

And when recently I was asked at work to put together a masterplan for an area of Leeds I noticed something strange had happened. I didn’t automatically assume knocking it down and starting again was the only way to regenerate an area. Instead I found myself thinking of all the other things that would go to making this place a sustainable community – better health and education, tackling crime, boosting its economic viability. As an architect it’s tempting to assume renewal can only come through iconic buildings. It’s sobering to realise that isn’t always the case.

As my architectural hero Irena Bauman said recently in BD magazine: “We need to wean ourselves of our addiction to self-congratulation and the make-believe glamour of awards ceremonies. Good design, after all, is always rewarded in the best possible way: with the appreciation of the user”.

Here, here!

This is the third blog from Richard Oliver in a series about ASC’s foundation degree.