Sheffield Hallam University 'Heart of the Campus'.

The images show a single artwork expressed in contrasting materials and methods created for the ‘Heart of the Campus’ building. The west elevation functions as a façade rain screen of grey colour-coated 10mm thick panels, manufactured by Rockpanel. The artwork is created via cnc routing of the colour surface surface, which will expose the base material to a depth of 2mm. When routed, the exposed base material is a greenish yellow, which eventually weathers to a rich brown colour over several weeks. I worked in collaboration with the project team, but more particularly with The Cutting Room, a company specializing in cnc routing, based in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. The cnc process is used here on a very large scale to create a dynamic façade as a backdrop along Broomgrove Road. The bespoke glazing manifestations were developed in collaboration with VGL Ltd following the completion of the rain screen work. These artworks are digitally printed in white inks overlain in opaque and transparent layers onto optically clear vinyl. This work is an extension of the west elevation theme created using the same base visual language & influences. This proposal expands upon this concept to explore a softer more fluid application concerned with lightness, detail, transparency & opacity to create a balancing contrast to the dynamic geometry & scale of the building. ‘The designs are abstract & cloud-like, suggesting ephemeral objects, floating within the architectural space from the ground floor to the very top of the atrium roof. The interactions of the various patterns and forms, overlaying and meeting to create new shapes, details and transparencies suggest a coalescing of conversations, interactions, disciplines and dialogue. The exhalations & energy of everyone who may use this new building are manifest here’. The themes explored in both works are conveyed through dynamic mark making and linear drawing evoking the history of manufacture in the city and techniques associated with printmaking, engraving, chasing and the evidence of the individual maker. These methodologies have found their way into every nook of the industrial manufactory in Sheffield. The narrative artworks form an abstract landscape with no point of perspective, which can be read either as a vertical landscape or in plan, rather like a map, with forms and shapes redolent of topography, maps, rivers, trees & clouds.