Green Room

Year | 2024

Location | Glossop, Chesterfield, Bolsover, Cromford, Heanor and Swadlincote - Derbyshire, UK

Client | Local

Green Room is a blueprint concept, formulated as a collaboration between Local, Derbyshire Makes and students of the University of Sheffield. With permaculture and natural design underpinning the concepts, Green Room aims to question “How do you connect with nature?”

As a placemaking based practice, Local, in partnership with other collaborators have created the festival of arts and creation, entitled ‘Derbyshire Makes’. The festival will promote arts based engagement to tell the stories and share knowledge that has built up over the years within six key hubs in Derbyshire; Glossop, Bolsover, Heanor, Swadlincote, Cromford and Chesterfield.

As part of the works, Local has been working with postgraduate students at the University of Sheffield during their six week Live Project programme, to co - design Green Room, a blueprint principle, adapted from the Urban Room theory, with nature and permaculture at the heart of the concept. Green Room questions how arts based engagement can provide environmental justice in a safe setting, enabling users to feel comfortable to discuss what nature means to them.

The concept challenges the predetermined media and Government narratives and empowers users to feel their voices are being heard. In order to manifest these ideals, Seed Pods were co - designed, through a collaborative process with various stakeholders and community groups to physically represent the initial stages of natural growth patterns found in nature. Seed Pods are ‘spaces’, simultaneously of an enclosed and open nature, which can adopt many forms dependent on the intended programme of use. The pods can utilise existing urban or rural spaces, enhancing engagement with the area, or they can become a setting or event within their own right, all the while adapting a temporary or permanent nature.

Whilst the pods share the principles of Green Room, they will all be different and unique to their locations, adapting theories of local distinctiveness. The Seed Pods narrate a new journey within the current contextual climate crises. From here, the pods sprout out to formulate the wider Green Room network. Extracted from a series of in person and virtual engagement sessions, workshops and collaborator meetings, the Green Room also developed the concept of a totem. Delivered to site prior to the Seed Pods, the totem provides a provoking wayfinder and advertisement for the Green room, which remains in situ following the eventual removal of the Seed Pods.

Due to this temporality of the Seed Pods (lasting just for the weekend within one particular hub), the totem therefore becomes a critical process in the festival. Following the removal of the Seed Pods, the totem remains on the site of the festival as a landmark of local identity, a meeting point for future stories to be shared, all the while giving back to the natural environment through the inclusion of bird and bat boxes, insect hotels and other habitats. Green Room aspires to build strong connections with future collaborators and communities, bringing people together.

Local, in collaboration with artists from around Derbyshire will be utilising Green Room principles within the six hubs of the Derbyshire Makes Festival, launching in 2025.

“Building on our commitment to innovative cultural initiatives, Local is truly grateful to have the support of Sheffield School of Architecture students on this ambitious project. Their dedication to researching and prototyping a new concept for the Green Room has been invaluable, bringing tremendous value to the early stages of this initiative. This collaborative effort will evolve further under the expert guidance of Glassball, a local art collective, as we work together to transform this concept into a community driven environmental hub for the Derbyshire Makes programme. Together, we’re making strides in co-creating a space that brings people closer to nature and sustainability through creative placemaking.’”

Claire Tymon, Director, Local

Credits

Student Team: 

Connie Astin-O’Hara, Jaimie Neal, Jacob Downey, Zainab Yusuf, Pinyan Liu, Ploy Wanaphas Kriangkriwakin, Crystal Ching Sui Yeung, Patrick Gurmin, Zixin Dai, Louis Swift, Thomas Parker

Mentor:

Carolyn Butterworth