About

The Future Works studio is about energy and making. It is based in the factories of Sheffield and the Derwent Valley region. In the context of UK cross-party commitments to the reduction of carbon emissions by 2050 that promise to have huge impacts on industry and the built environment, the studio will explore changing relations with energy in the workplace and the role of architecture and design in these transformations. bringing together M.Arch 5th and 6th years and Masters in Architectural design students, it runs across two academic years- from November 2014- May 2016.

This region has a good claim to being the birthplace of both the industrial revolution and the modern factory system, but also carries a history of proto-industries tied to the physical geography of the region. The coincidence of natural resources (water power; coke; coal), entrepreneurship, capital and knowledge networks served to unlock energy to produce goods. The result was a massive expansion in the production and consumption of material goods globally. These changes in manufacturing resulted in, but also depended on, cities. Our interest is in how the region can continue to be a thriving hub of making in what promises to be a carbon limited and resource constrained future. Our work will document past and present ingenuity around energy use and making, but also provoke new ideas about future making, future factories and alternative energy futures.

Through mapping, storytelling, scenarios and documentary making we will develop an understanding of the complex set of interactions across a number of factory sites in the region, including the ‘first factory’- the Silk Mill in Derby, now hosting a Hack Space and a Fab Lab, a ‘present factory’ – John Smedley Ltd at Lea Mills, and the ‘future factories’ – Gripple and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing. Interventions in the different factory sites will range across temporal and spatial scales and will relate to international and regional contexts.

We will be working closely with communities of employers, employees, apprentices and volunteers at the different factory sites, focusing on those in the Sheffield area. The studio will also collaborate with researchers from other disciplines including geography, literature, landscape, history, digital media and computer sciences, partners from policy and industry, arts organisations, artists and performers.

Future Works is linked to the Stories of Change research project funded by the AHRC under the Connected Communities programme (April 2014- March 2017). Stories of Change is a multi-partner project based at the Open University, led by Dr Joe Smith and funded by the AHRC under their Connected Communities Programme.