People's Museum

For six weeks the People’s Museum Live Project team sought to transform the derelict gatehouse in Sheffield’s Hillsborough Park, into a People’s Museum and event space for the local community. RivelinCo, an arts centre in Sheffield and the clients for this project, are currently without a building and have been working with Sheffield City Council to take on the lease for the grade 2 listed gatehouse. The People’s Museum will become a place where local history and community stories will be exhibited as well as acting as a base for RivelinCo with an office and event space. The small scale of the building presented an excellent opportunity to creatively design flexible, accessible, and inclusive spaces to accommodate all of the clients desired functions.

RivelinCo wanted to challenge the traditional notion of a museum. Therefore, the team designed the People’s Museum to be playful, fun, and engaging for all demographics. We organised a public engagement day to take surveys and notes of the Hillsborough people’s thoughts and ideas. By listening carefully to our client and the community needs, we hope our vision for the People’s Museum will have a lasting legacy within the park and wider community.

Our live project group produced a forward-thinking proposal to be carried out in three phases for future funding applications. The first phase is a temporary, adaptable, and low-cost structure that will be situated beside the gatehouse building before the retrofit work begins. This will serve as both a stage for the community’s artwork and an outdoor extension of the People’s Museum. The second phase will retrofit the existing gatehouse building into the People’s Museum which will include a variety of community exhibitions, a small shop and offices on the first floor. Phase three envisions an extension to the retrofitted museum which provides a multi-purpose space for hosting public events and classes as well as a public garden. Accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement were the overarching themes of the brief that we interlaced into every aspect of the design.

To ensure continuous community impact with this project we have provided the client with a fun ‘zine’ document to hand out to the public and we have handed over the People’s Museum Instagram account. Furthermore, our final vision document will provide RivelinCo with an attainable and credible concept to show future funders and stakeholders.

Instagram: @ssoa_peoplesmuseum

Credits

Student Team: 

Joseph M Bass, Anna Wiliwinska, Noor Al Asadi, Kallum Lightfoot, Antonia Quashie, Zhina Ghazali, Tejas Mahesh, Chongrui Tian, Yang He, Jiaming Chang, Michelle Wong, Lydia Owen

Mentor:

Satwinder Sam