Studios of the Future

BATH ARTISTS’ STUDIOS
‘A STUDIO FOR THE FUTURE’
UNIVERSITY OF BATH, DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING
5 TH YEAR PROJECT, FEBRUARY – MAY 2017

In 2017, Bath Artists’ Studios worked with 5 th Year students from the University of Bath, Department of
Architecture and Civil Engineering on a project to produce visions for how an artists’ workspace complex of
the future might look. Made in consultation with our studio holders, the students’ innovative ideas and
solutions provoke discussion and debate on the shape of an organisation such as ours – and its place
within the city.
The students were briefed to choose from one of three neighbouring sites. Bath Artists’ Studios current
premises and two neighbouring locations along the River Avon. The following document is an archive of
their many beautiful and inspiring ideas for a cultural centre ‘where learning and practice meet’.

Adam Lewis - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
“architecture is just art we live in”
Throughout this project I have used artistic techniques to help me design fluid and dynamic spaces, which are still functional and rational. The
project can be seen as a piece of art itself, and the process of design has come full circle, starting and ending with paintings.
The squared-off building can be seen to ‘plug in’ to the site. The public realm continues across the roof as a garden, blending with the parks on
either side, while the artists’ spaces lie underneath. A green bridge makes connections to the opposite bank and a stepped ramp connects to
the river towpath.
At lower ground level there is a central exhibition space, bounded on two edges by an inhabited wall which buffers the artists’ private spaces
from this more public space. This wall contains built in kitchenettes, lockers and seating on the side facing the studio corridor making this a
space to gather and socialise in. Sunken courtyards towards the outer edge of the plan, planted with trees, and roof lights provide natural light
and ventilation to the studios.

Adam Sparrow - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
This scheme uses planar arched walls perpendicular to the river to form the building, while the level of road approach is extended as a roof
terrace over the river. The more transient public programme such as the cafe and gallery is on the lower level of the riverside towpath,
beneath this roof, while the artist studios and workshops occupy more fixed zones on upper levels between the planar walls of arches.
Relationships of solid and void are explored as dynamic, shifting qualities between the frameworks of the walls.

Alice Mellor - Site B
Revealing the Creative Process
The process spaces where you may see the artists working lead to the final product; the gallery, where artwork is displayed. Some workspaces
are for groups and collaboration while solo studios on the north side of the corridor, with a display space outside their front door, offer
seclusion with a view out over a pool to a private garden. The building increases in scale and dynamically opens up towards its public front
edge.

Andy Lee Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
A Park within a Park
For people to create and perform in nature where the building holds an inner park, within the surrounding park. A piece of architecture where
people can feel the energy of how the building frames nature while nature frames it, providing a special environment for artists to create and
work, with an intimacy generated where corridors and pocket spaces link across and around the building. A poetic representation of dynamic
spaces; its beauty unfolding as an aesthetic experience that invites a fluid interaction between the people that inhabit the space and the
building itself.
Slight grandiosity but still modest, balancing on the edge between the two.

Angelika Mazzolitaic Site A
The scheme explores the relationship of the studio with the ground. The sunken level has a precedent in the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
in Denmark, where I experienced the journey through a corridor with vegetation at elbow height. The connection that a simple change in level
made was unforgettable. The intention for the studio spaces is to reproduce the simplicity of that gesture and the connection with nature. The
studios are arranged along two arms of an open courtyard which faces the river. The gallery wing floats above like a pier cantilevering over the
river, this balanced and anchored by a short tower containing offices, meeting rooms and classroom. The landscape is designed as a sloping
irregular wetland allowing floodwater to come in and be part of the scene, aiding mitigation of flood risks, and forming a continuous landscape
flowing within and around Bath Artists’ Studio, connecting Victoria Park and the River.

Anna Holmes - Site A
‘the folding line of tension and retention’
The concept that the building is a retaining element between the road, an ordered infrastructure, and the river, which if not bound would flow
naturally, seeks a solution that connects the two tensions. I developed a folded wall that created pockets of space between the circulation
areas and the studios. I have experimented with offsetting spaces above and below. Sinks, stairs and services become part of the wall, which is
also a directional element that guides users through the building. Thresholds to the studios are punctured through the wall signifying a change
in space.

Annaluisa Wimberger - Site C
‘creative labyrinth’
Waterfall as the flow of creativity, community, discussion.
Cave as a space of refuge, retreat, bubble, intimacy, magic.
Mist as the consequence of interaction, meditative inspiration, knowledge sharing.
Ambiguity has become an essential part of the development of the project to elaborate the ‘mist‘, providing expected and unexpected
situations, visible and less visible views. It became a sort of labyrinth, considering it a ‘project of walls‘. Every space is unique; relating the
artist as an individual in their collective community.

Anouck Jacquet Logiaco - Site A
‘Spaces linked together with ramps causing more dynamism in the body.’
The project is divided in two parts: one entrance leads to the public block, which includes the public gallery, shop and classroom, while the
other entrance leads to the private artist studios. The circulation is a gentle outdoor ramp leading down to the garden and to the river bank.
The massive walls are part of the ground. The light roof floats overhead.

Aoife O'Donoghue - Site A
‘Physis: to bring forth, produce, make to grow’
The shape of the building’s plan is influenced by the idea of ‘physis’ and an image, from a photo taken on site, of a tree puncturing a wall. I
wanted to show the concept of emergence and the effect of growth through the form of the building. The building emerges from the lower
ground to the level of the street. The curved shape of the plan allows a courtyard to form. The lower ground part of the building would be
constructed using concrete while the upper part of the building is timber. The upper part cantilevers over the edge of river.

Ashley Gopee Site A
Overlapping shadows
The artist studios can be described as pods clustered into varying forms on a podium, where there is interaction between the public and artists
through the use of silhouettes. Each studio is accessed from the private podium level with its own personal door and outdoor space which can
be used for working. The material of these suspended structures will be polycarbonate or sandblasted glass, which allows the public to get a
glimpse of the artist working in ‘shadow’.

Barney Curtis - Site B
‘curiosity, exploration, inspiration, imagination, progress’
The artists’ studios are nestled in a labyrinthine building, inspired by the existing BAS studios, evoking our natural sense of curiosity.
Interviewing the artists each had their own ideas for the perfect studio, but consistently: affordable, adaptable, with sufficient daylight and a
relationship with nature. The grid layout presents multiple routes and, while the idea of getting lost is encouraged, so is the idea of re-finding
oneself. The drums: are places of communality where the public meets art.

Berenice Prevot - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘strength and protection contrasted with lightness and flexibility’
The building is hidden from the public gaze behind a landscaped mound facing the park. The plan uses the idea of strata or layers, from dense
and buried along the road edge to light and open towards the river. These layers are cut through by a tunnel which forms both the main
entrance to the building and the entrance to the landscaped sculpture garden on the riverside.

Charlotte Frete - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘the lantern and the chasm’
My aim is to create a discreet building where private and public are clearly distinguished. Each studio is designed as a lantern, or a composition
of several lanterns. This shape is the representative image or logo of the project. The lanterns open to the sky for light and enable each artist
to keep their privacy. The chasm formed by the space between studios provides exhibition space and common areas. The roofline shows the
collection of the many lantern-like shapes of the studios and gives the identity of the building.

Chen-Yong Tan - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘composition and erosion’
The scheme is to be read first a collective whole, that is then fragmented into individual spaces. The composition is of a family of tree columns
that form the superstructure. The studios are granted flexibility to expand and contract as required by the needs of the artist. The scheme
celebrates the presence of water, the river and the rain, with a floodable landscape. The ritual of water and washing, inherent in the work of
an artist, is also celebrated with distributed communal hand-wash basins, bringing together the studio community through the element of
water.

Conor Blakeman - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘The artists’ tribe’
The project is based a strong line formed by a wall with accommodation attaching to it, one side representing product, collective, public and
exhibition, and the other side process and the individual artist. The ‘S’ shape created by the wall flowing through the site creates a yin-yang
form which opens up to welcome the public. The wall and landscaping are completed first. The artists’ studios are then added as the project
develops over time.

Cyrus (Jung Hin) Lee - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘The nest’
The building provides a rhythm of pockets of spaces which provide the ground floor yard, the main entrance and a landscaped pocket park. In
addition there is a pier for the display of sculpture which acts to draw pedestrians into the site.
Timber louvres and shutters allow the windows to blend with the building façade. The façade will become animated as these are opened or
closed, creating variety and interest for the pedestrian as they walk past catching glimpses into the studio.
The floor material gives a grain underfoot. Corridors and areas of moment use a directional cross grain timber similar to the walls. Bays,
studios and areas of congregation use an end grain that does not have a direction of movement. Externally this is reproduced in precast
concrete using matching timber formwork to continue the grain texture of the timber materiality externally.

Daniel Copitch - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘light and process - the metaphorical prism’
The building works with the dichotomy between the need for light and views versus the need for enclosure and privacy. The façade becomes
an interface resolved as pivoting screens to create versatility. These allow for light or shade, openness to the view or privacy, as well as
animating the façade as a piece of theatre. At each level the scale of the pivoting elements varies, increasing from the lower storey to the top,
in a similar manner to the changing scale of inscription on a roman triumphal arch. The building becomes a series of differing layers, somewhat
like geological strata.

Danny Higham - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘cultural attack - a complex program concealed in simple form’
My intention was to initiate a rhetoric that focused on volume, mass, solid, void and the use of negative space as positive inhabited space. A
strong intimidating mass with a biophilic self-cleaning façade allowing graffiti to fade over time, permeability revealed in proximity, social
gathering space concealed within the heart of the mass, ascent from there to studio spaces.

Daria-Dubois-Illina - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘introducing water, celebrating the rain’
The building appears as disparate elements from the outside, linked galleries on the inside. The project being thought of as a living mountain,
it was important to include the water as a special entity in the architecture. When it rains streams create water and light effects though glass
joints in the external envelope. Another flow is also the people’s movement through the project, exploring its porosity and coming down to
the river.

Edward Yeo - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Bath artists’ metabolic studio tower - a visual remedy’
For this hidden site to become a part of the urban fabric of Bath it must address its invisibleness. The building is conceived of as a visual
beacon, one which can grow over time. A tall lightweight wooden grid structure holds plug in customised modular studios. Beneath these are a
landscaped wild flower meadow, a gallery, a café and an outdoor performance space helping this site to become a potent part of the future of

Bath.

Eilish Barry - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘The Hidden Jewel of Bath’
The building: a solid whole, split open to expose the centre revealing the artists’ workspaces. The landscape: a journey from the park, through
the ideas garden with its display of sculpture, passing between the split halves of the building viewing the process of the artists in their
studios, before arriving at the river

Elena Pardo - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘tolerance is the best remedy to flooding’ (Dutch proverb)
The project grew from considering the potential that the proximity to the river offers. I considered the water as the device to create a natural
barrier that would define private and public spaces. Public spaces would be grouped on land. Excavating the site creates a bay to be filled with
private floating studios. A strategy in contrast to the current hostile flood defences.

Emily Johnson - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘ma’
Ma is a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as “gap”, “space” or “pause”, described as ‘the consciousness of space’. Working with
this idea I decided that the building should form an experiential sequence with the emphasis on intervals, balancing large and small spaces.
Landscaped pools of water come between the elements, and the land falls down to the water’s edge. Two paths thread though, one by the
water and one within the building. The building pushes out over the water’s edge. The building is in two zones: public and artists. The artist
space conforms to the urban grain, whilst the public space stands out and is rotated to face the road junction and the park across the river.

Gloria Vidal Amain - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘the knot’
To create a physical connection between green spaces in Bath: Victoria park, a roof garden and the terraced riverside. To create a flow of
people around the inhabited artist spaces to allow them to discover the art within. The building shape is composed of two overlapping
isosceles triangles organised with central concrete cores. The geometry of the triangles is used to disrupt the surrounding context, pulling the
road and the river into new alignments and into a dynamic relationship with the building.

Harjeet Matharu - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘a hive of activity’
The artists’ studios consists of a cluster of individual cells; private inward looking spaces that are cut off from their surroundings. The cell-like
structures can produce organic and free-flowing forms. The journey through the scheme allows the user to meander in the voids between the
individual cells in a maze like configuration, getting lost amidst the artwork being created. The landscape borrows the same cellular hexagonal
forms, extending into the river like another giants causeway, and forming a series of green roof terraces.

Hon Yen Chong - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Bath: crescent, circus, now ellipse!’
The elliptical form aims to foster a strong sense of community. The public access from street level through a grove of trees leads to a café.
Access to the rest of the building is towards the west end, where on the upper level the gallery faces the street, whereas access for artists is
mainly to the east, where at the upper level most studios can be accessed through a continuous ramp which links all levels. Studios on the
lower ground floor are designed to accommodate functions which require a darker and more secluded environment such as photography, dark
room, music room and small film studio while the public garden and amphitheatre at the centre river opens out to a riverside terrace at this
lower level.

Jack Whetton - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘studio dynamism’
Using existing site topography to ground the project, to allow the slope to tell a story of the hierarchy of functions and use the ground mass to
provide appropriate conditions to buffer sound, which might otherwise cause conflict amongst the artists. The building adopts the geometry of
the surroundings in a compact form that is eroded away to guide the public in and create a public square at the entrance. A separate mixed
use building forms a broken chip, pulled away from the rest towards the river. The ground floor façade is made of reused stone from the
existing studios while the upper levels are clad in darker vertical timber except, away from the perimeter, where the cuts which erode the
block are expressed by lighter coloured cladding.

Jonathan Barlow - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘A playground of art’
The poetic intent is to create spaces that embody performance and to create a dramatic reflection of the cities landscape; to bring back the
theatrical and playful aspects of a sloped site, to encourage the public to interact with and populate the site again. The buildings contrast with
the landscape and are more orthogonal in form. Three buildings each house different functions: a traditional art studio, a modern art studio
and a gallery for exhibition.

Joshua Hobson - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Adaptation and Release’
A proposals to re-connect Bath Artists’ Studios to the wider community using the River Avon as a new “creative highway”. In plan the river is
allowed to come into the site, allowing boats to dock. Parts of the building cantilever allowing the landscape or, in times of flood, water to flow
beneath. The building form responds to the idea and the importance of the moment when artist and public meet, the moment when art work
is ‘released’. This is visible in plan and section where the building greets the water and a part of the building mass is projected into the river.

Karan Patel - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Catalyst’
The strongest edge on the site is the riverbank, this line provides the orientation of the building and a perpendicular line gives the main axis
for circulation. The building creates a barrier between the public urban spaces and the quiet riverside landscape. The facade of the building is
composed of bricks, either dark grey or glass, forming a gradient from solid base to transparent top as it reaches to the sky.

Katie Andrews - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Synchronicity’
Finding a synchronicity between the natural sphere and built interventions; the development of a hybrid environment. Challenging the sense
of stability given by each through the application of contrasting qualities to create a new environment to evoke sensations of comfort and
discomfort. Folding the horizontal plane to create a tessellating structure, symbolising growth and indeterminate movement.

Katie Shaylor - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Reaching out from the walled city’
The organisation of the building into two zones reflects my initial aim to separate the artists from the public to achieve privacy. Where these
zones meet is in the exhibition of art and in education. The concept of positive and negative gave rise to voids as spaces of interaction;
between the artists within their central courtyard and between the public and art within the open external gallery. Inspired by the gas holders
the facade is an expressed external frame. Three cores provide stability. A second inner layer of timber accommodates different functions such
as storage and screening for privacy in studios spaces. This layer is omitted in the public spaces where the building is more open.

Katrina Huges - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘openly private’
To create a private, secure and enchanting building that allows the artist community to thrive as well as allowing an artist to escape into a
protective individual space to produce their work. The studios are a series of raised elements inspired by tree houses while the shared facilities
are on a lower ground level arranged around open courtyards. The street level landscape, on the level between these two, is an ‘art park’ for
the public to enjoy as a garden while viewing displayed art, allowing people to cross through the site and wander among the ‘treehouses’.

Kristen Tan - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘a new garden of art and water’
The agenda of the buildings is to become, like the bollard, a ‘barrier of interaction’ that also allows physical movement through. The studios
are dug into the ground with copious natural light from sculptural roof-lights. In continuity with the green spaces to the north, the building
forms a landscape reaching to the river. The slope of the land from street to river allows the studio complex to gradually emerge, intertwined
with the public route which meanders down to the riverside.

Lang Jin - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Temple by the Street’
To design a temple for the artists on the boundary of order and chaos. The strong geometry strengthens the solemn sense of the building. On
the street level the building is totally flat, a landscaped space with views to the river, while on the riverside level the building is more open
with groups of columns indicating the chaos on the south of the site. Lighting filtered through the canopy provides the artist a focus for their
work.

Luke Gordon - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘a simple shed’
Bath Western Riverside has historically been a site of industry, now much of the areas industrial vernacular has been demolished for new
housing. With aspirations to re-establish a creative hub the building makes reference to the industrial shed. The structure is of glulam posts
and beams with an over-sailing saw-tooth roof on deep timber trusses. A steel gantry hoist sits runs within the central gallery. The translucent
facade glows at night indicating activity within. The central gallery and ground floor studios can be opened up via large sliding doors and the
building converts from an artists’ refuge to a public spectacle.

Manon Decoster - Site B
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘a gradient from public to private’
Since the work created by the artists in the solo studios is so hidden and private, the studios are placed as singular units by the water, the most
private part of the site. The main building takes the form of the public part facing the street, as a screen and filter to the rest of the site. The
relationship to the water is extended by carving away the site to a gentle gradient and allowing water to occupy more of it. The colour palette
for building was taken from the colours observed in our initial exploration of the site context.

Molly McGrath - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘gathering’
Following my investigations into connections between recycling and art, and the proximity of the site to the existing Bath recycling depot, I
propose the building will be made using up-cycled material. For example: stacked and compressed reclaimed carpet for external walls and
stacked and compressed books for internal walls. Principal walls are aligned east to west, parallel to the material flow across the site and the
linear nature of the wider context. However the flow of people is north to south along a meandering route between the parts of the building.
Allowing movement against the obvious directionality of the building fabric reinforces the theme of going against the grain; doing the unusual,
the unexpected and the innovative.

Natasha Ho - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘breadcrumbs’
What is an artist’s studio: a cave, a mystery, a shelter, a refuge, veiled, but also, in contradiction: an ecosystem, a network, a community,
support, interdependence. While the interior may be hidden, a building partially submerged, a secret, there should be metaphorical
‘breadcrumbs’ to guide the visitor to discovery. The building establishes a solid presence on the riverfront and wraps a public route into, under
and over the studio spaces, offering glimpses through the solid into a series of voids, ending in exhibition galleries. A secret discovered yet
kept hidden.

Pablo Fuster - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘courtyard’
The studios as individual fragments come together to form one whole, arranged around a courtyard bound by a heavy stone wall, with a lower
storey gallery looking towards the river walk. Each studio is a more temporary lightweight timber element supported by a steel frame, in
contrast with the heavy stone wall.

Peter Cross - Site A
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Bringing the city to the river’
This scheme takes an overlooked site and a relatively humble programme and uses them to propose a new civic space for Bath, a creative hub
at the intersection of city and river. Inspired by the typology of the dock or harbour as a place of interaction and exchange, the proposal offers
the radical reconfiguration of bringing water into the site and connecting road and river. The studios themselves are designed to be robust,
flexible and practical for the artists but also have a unique identity and a sense of architectural delight, not least through the use of fabric
formed cast concrete roof-lights.

Rhiona Williams - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Generosity by Subtraction’
In order to allow the studios to express their presence in the culture of the city I believe they need to be more visible, the boundaries of the
building more permeable, and the studios themselves adaptable to suit changing needs. I created an adaptable studio module and a
supporting framework that the studio modules can slot into. I imagined the artists as birds and the studios as their nests. I grouped the
accommodation into two ‘zones’; a public zone of café, gallery, education and public studios to the south east on the riverside and private
zone of artists’ studios and common rooms to the north west. Between these two zones there is a diagonal route through the middle of the
site which forms a link between the Upper Bristol Road and the riverside walk, providing a view into the scheme from outside allowing its
permeability to be seen.

Saira Akram - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘Art and Nature versus Control’
There are two main things that cannot be controlled: Nature and Art. I took this as basis for my design concept and tried to break the strict
grid by using Nature and Art. The building is a labyrinth, a grid of walls forming rooms, animated by courtyards which set as vibrant natural
landscapes inside the building. The courtyards are the communal spaces where visitors and artists can interact, in contrast to their private
studios. Each studio is directly connected to a courtyard. The courtyards have different themes: Green Courtyard, Water Courtyard,
Community Courtyard and the Exhibition Void.

Sean Payne - Site C
Bath Artists’ Studios
‘The Bath Malthouse’
The artist studio is reminiscent of Bath’s forgotten riverside Malthouse which used to occupy the site. To animate the site I chose to use the
riverside level as public or semi-public space, creating a place to stay. To do this I raised the studios up, with public areas beneath. The building
makes reference to the industrial vernacular in its form and materials. The existing steel columns of the Malthouse and many of the brick walls
on site are retained and re-used in-situ.