Making Meersbrook

Meersbrook Hall is a Grade II listed building in Meersbrook Park in the south of Sheffield, and was the home of the John Ruskin Museum between 1890-1954. This project was inspired by the Ruskinian ideals of connecting everyday people to nature through the arts and informal education. Meersbrook Hall is to be once again a building open to the community, whilst celebrating the building’s rich heritage and becoming a place for the public through providing space for the artisans; crafters, filmmakers, musicians, performing arts and languages.

Our multi-headed client dreams of designing a rich vision, to present a case to the Council in order to be granted a 5 year lease on the building. Subsequently, we identified three keys ideas that our project could successfully engage with to ensure a lasting legacy continues; to ‘Raise Awareness’ – to showcase existing community activities of the hall and build public support, to ‘Demonstrate Demand’– to collect evidence of need and wants from the community and to ‘Create a Vision for the Future’– to design and preserve the Hall whilst activating and re-organising the building to become a sustainable community asset. We will achieve this through the creation of a phased programme of works to balance creative activity and insure a consistent turn-over of revenue for Meersbrook Hall to become self-sustaining.

Our Live Project has produced a project journal, building proposal, models, engagement material and a 9 minute film covering our site wide strategies and building interventions for Meersbrook Hall. Our clients are able to use these tools to plan a viable future for Meersbrook Hall as a open and loved public building at the heart of the community. This is our legacy.

Instagram/Twitter @meersbrooklive

Website https://makingmeersbrook.wordpress.com