Chippindale Venture - TrustNews July 1991
Following the Urban Studies Committee's report in the Febru¬ary newsletter Haydn Bennett describes the Second Chippindale Venture which took place earlier this year.
The Chippindale Venture, as members of the Trust know, introduces school children to problems and challenges of the built environment via a design project under the direct guidance of architects, landscape architects and planners.
Named after Frank Chippindale who died in 1988, the Venture was set up by the Urban Studies Committee of the Winchester Preservation Trust to promote a greater awareness of landscape and the built environment. Frank Chippindale, who had been Chairman and the guiding light of the Committee, felt that children should be encouraged to a greater understanding and awareness of their urban environment.
The project takes its format from the planning application submission, that is from receiving a client's brief and requirements fora building to the consideration by an elected committee of the scheme submitted. The project involves site visits, site evaluation, research into various aspects of the problem, studies of existing buildings, structures and environments, feasibility studies, design development and recording of progress and presentation of the final schemes. The children work in school in teams of 5 or 6 over a period of weeks with their class teacher directly on the project as well as in peripheral exercises to cover the wide variety of topics applicable to the National Curriculum. The design professionals spend a number of sessions as team leaders and advisers to each group, working specifically on the project analysis and design development.
This year saw the Second Chippindale Venture involved in the design of an Environmental Centre on the North Walls Recreation Ground and Nature Reserve at Winnall Moors in Winchester. The project area, on the edge of the city centre, contains a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The special nature of the site led to the inclusion in each team of a landscape architect to compliment the architect team leaders who had provided the special input to the first Venture. The children were also briefed by an ecologist at an early stage of the project.
Two groups of children took part, a class of 8.5 to 9.5 year olds from St Bede's Junior School, Winchester and a group from the Southampton Explorers' Club (the local branch of the National Association of Gifted Children), aged 11.5 to 14 years. The St Bede's children spent most of their class time on the project over a period of about 6 weeks under the guidance of their school teacher. The architects and landscape architects spent in the region of 4 half day sessions with their teams. The Explorers had to undertake the project in their own time and consequently had less time to complete the task. The children produced a wide range of possibilities from bildings on stilts covered in natural materials to one almost completely underground with only a viewing dome visible. Perhaps the most original approach was not a building at all but a boat resembling a fish which cruised the river surrounding the site. All the schemes were well presented and the amount and depth of work involved was obvious. Equally noticeable was that the schemes in different ways were influenced by the setting and the children's response to the ecology of the area.
The culmination of the children's work was a full day's presentation to Planning Officers and to a "Planning Committee" of representatives of the Winchester City and Hampshire County Councils. Each team presented their schemes and the "Planning Committee" made comments as though the schemes were planning applications. This final session was well attended by the organisers and participants, the sponsors who covered the material costs of the project, interested members of local organisations and, especially welcome, many of the parents of the children involved. The special landscape aspect of the Second Chippindale Venture was marked by the presentation to each team of a specially selected tree by Hilliers Landscapes.
The children clearly enjoyed the project and all showed a considerable degree of commitment and involvement. There were inevitably areas of work that the children found "unexciting" but on closer questioning it appeared that much of this related to studies where the children were being substantially challenged or to the parts of the design and presentation processes where it was necessary to cover the same ground several times to test and refine the decisions and products. It is clear that this latter aspect was a process with which the children were not familiar. However, the children were unanimous in agreeing that they would like to do a similar project in the future.
It is obviously too early to judge the long term effect of the project but the class teachers report a considerable growth in confidence and ability of the children and the clear benefit to the children of working alongside the professional advisers and of the involvement of elected members of the Councils. The participating adults were favourable surprised by the depth of thought and fresh approach that the children brought to the work.
Whilst there are lessons to be learned regarding the fine tuning of the Venture, the two Chippindale Ventures so far are judged to be considerable successes and well worth the substantial effort put in by very many people. A third project to be held in 1992 is already proposed and many of the design professionals have volunteered to help again.