Beyond the Cutlery Drawer

The project initially developed from my personal interpretation of Rome’s success as a tourist destination by taking influence from the immortalisation of fragmented ruins and the spatial sequences experienced whilst exploring the city, which creates curiosity and anticipation for both tourist and resident alike. As a resident and tourist of Sheffield, I decided to pursue the project locally to explore these themes.

The chosen site for this exploration is the St. Vincent’s area, which provides a link between the city centre and Kelham Island Museum.  Historically known as the Hollis Croft district, the St. Vincent’s area was the first area of expansion away from the medieval boundary of the city centre. During the nineteenth century, the area also accommodated the greatest number of workshops, which were primarily based around the tools and cutlery manufacturing industry. The area now hosts a variety of manufacturing workshops from surgical instruments to non-destructive testing facilities.

The aim of the project is to promote the past, present and future of Sheffield’s manufacturing heritage in the form of a cutlery museum that interweaves within existing domestic scale industrial workshops in the St. Vincent’s area, providing a link between the city centre and Kelham Island Museum. 

The School of Life (project introduction)

This Project explores how the recently abandoned Sheffield City Airport may be reinvented into a holiday destination (of sorts), and why we should expect more than cheap flights to Spain from a strangely beautiful expanse of tarmac lying hidden among the City’s seven hills. Inspiration for the project comes from Des Esseintes and Baudelaire , two of literatures least intrepid but most thought provoking travelers. The Villa of Des Esseintes (from J.K. Huysmans 1884 novel A rebours provides the ideological standpoint for reconsidering the notion of tourism.
‘For a proud but small minority open to poetry of a different sort, there’s at last an ideal travel agency to hand.’ 1
My Client is the ‘School of Life’, a unusual travel agency who dispute the notion that our holidays ought to be about escaping reality, and instead propose that they should serve to enable us to understand the world in which we live. They offer holidays to the neglected corners of the everyday life, such as Holidays up the M1, a Holiday at Heathrow and weekends dedicated to looking at the sky.
Therefore my project proposes the co-existance of two of these types of non-place, the abandoned Sheffield City Airport (reinvigorated by the presence of Sheffield Aero Club), and a new (wind powered, electric car) Service Station on the site. These programs are then enriched by the holiday facilities such as the artificial beach and the cloud room, as well as conference and hotel facilities.

The School of Life (Project Update)

This project is about traveling less but seeing more, it is about how economic and environmental factors appear certain to change our travel habits, and how we ought to respond; It is about holidaying at home.
It explores how the recently abandoned Sheffield City Airport may be reinvented into a holiday destination (of sorts), and why we should expect more than cheap flights to Spain from a strangely beautiful expanse of tarmac lying hidden among the City’s seven hills. Inspiration from the project comes from Des Esseintes and Baudelaire , two of literatures least intrepid but most thought provoking travelers. The Villa of Des Esseintes (from J.K. Huysmans 1884 novel A rebours. (See Chapter2) provides the ideological standpoint for reconsidering the notion of tourism.
‘For a proud but small minority open to poetry of a different sort, there’s at last an ideal travel agency to hand.’ 1
My Client is the School of Life’, a unusual travel agency who dispute the notion that our holidays ought to be about escaping reality, and instead propose that they should serve to enable us to understand the world in which we live. They offer holidays to the neglected corners of the everyday life, such as Holidays up the M1, a Holiday at Heathrow and weekends dedicated to looking at the sky.
My research has involved membership of the Sheffield Aero Club, thanks to John Dawson (who has both literally and metaphorically taken me into the clouds); and long days spent writing this report at Woodhall Services on the M1 watching the world go by.