I am James Timmins, an MArch Architecture Part II student. My thesis project is a living archive of craftsmanship inspired by Birmingham’s heritage as the ‘City of a Thousand Trades’. The proposal takes the form of a building, populating the vacant segment of Chancellor’s Court at the University of Birmingham.
Within the building proposal are a variety of spaces dedicated to craftsmanship. These include a series of workshops and studios for local craftspeople to gather and collaborate, a public gallery of craftsmanship to celebrate the work produced within the building and across the city, and a library of craftsmanship where details of crafting processes can be recorded and passed onto future generations.
Additionally, due to the University of Birmingham’s Victorian origins, I drew influence from the traditional glasshouses of the Victorian era by encasing the building with a large-scale glasshouse dedicated to the growing of orchids. Both orchids and mastering a craft require patience and dedication and so these two parts of the scheme share an interesting parallel. The glasshouse is inspired by the Victorian greenhouse but distorts it into a joyful and unique form with a new identity within the very traditional setting of Chancellor’s Court.
