Interior redesign and project management of the New Art Exchange’s (NAE) Corner Cafe. The design was developed from a series of participatory workshops held with multiple stakeholder groups who visit the café. They were all invited to share their responses to the past, present and future vision for this space.
We spoke with all staff, including front of house and back of house, member of NAE’s VOICE assembly, regulars who use the café, artists and passers by who had never ventured into NAE before. This wealth of input was then synthesised into common themes which we used as guiding principles to generate a design which reflected the desires and diversity of the NAE’s community both inside and outside the building.
FTGU then worked closely with local makers to realise design.
Project Team: Elin Keyser, Jacob Kelly, William Harvey
Joinery: FENN Woodwork & Jack Narewski
Textiles: Line Nielsen
Artworks: Farwa Moledina
Services: Chris Coulston & Andy Strudwick
Client: New Art Exchange
Location: Nottingham
(2024) - ongoing)
‘A Step in to the Garden’ is a project which aims to provide the clients with greater indoor-outdoor connection through extending the existing kitchen and providing internal and external dining space. The proposed design provides an enlarged kitchen with fully-openable glazed doors out onto a raised, partially covered patio. Exposed timber beams extend inside to out, further enhancing the connection between the two spaces. The patio edge doubles up as a planter, bringing the garden closer still before stepping down into the sunken garden.
The proposed extension utilises contemporary brickwork to tie into the existing, whilst bold coloured window frames and metal details provide a pop of colour. Bee bricks and swift boxes are integrated into the proposal, ensuring a home for nature alongside the new addition. The project will also tie retrofit works in, with loft and floor insulation added and internal wall insulation to the existing outrigger.
Project Team: Jacob Kelly & William Harvey
Client: Private Client
Location: Nottingham
‘Sponge City Planters’ (2024 - 2025)
Over the last year we have been engaging with residents in The Meadows area of Nottingham around the topic of ‘climate resilience’, with the goal of co-creating tools to tackle shifts as a result of climate change. Commissioned by Green Meadows and MOZES, the project aspires to citizen-led change. FTGU facilitated a democratic process to first identify the most appropriate tools and then design, test and implement one.
In collaboration with The Meadows community, the development of water-retaining planters was elected as the tool to develop. Not only was the idea of community planters a popular idea amongst residents, it also provides resilience in a number of ways; water resilience - both conserving water for times of scarcity and storing excess rainwater, urban cooling through planting, potential for local food production, and increasing biodiversity.
The wider campaign highlights the benefits of reducing water run-off and encourages the residents of The Meadows to remove hardstanding in favour of permeable surfaces, and to install rainwater collection systems to their roofs.
Project Team: Jacob Kelly, Will Harvey, Elin Keyser, Hannah Burrough, Alice Grant
Client: Green Meadows & MOZES
Location: Nottingham
The Garden Room for a private client in a suburb of Nottingham. It is an addition to the rear of a Victorian terraced house, replacing a UPVC conservatory with a considered piece of architecture.
It provides a more fluid connection to the garden, the space and structure offer new visual, haptic and creative relationships in the garden, activating an otherwise neglected corner of it. The connection will also deepen environmentally as rainwater will be directed off the roof, cascading into a raised trough with an overflow irrigating the adjacent plant life.
It will not only provide shade in summer, but also warmth in winter allowing the inhabitants to enjoy their garden in all seasons.
Project Team: William Harvey & Jacob Kelly
Client: Private
Location: Nottingham
These vision drawings are the result of a workshop held by FTGU with HIMMAH and their partner organisations regarding the [re]use of the former Hyson Green Girls Club into a much-needed community centre. The drawings demonstrate there is ample for space for these organisations to share this building, expressing the varying demands of use each organisation has.
This is an ongoing project with HIMMAH to eventually make a vibrant space for a diverse range of cultures, backgrounds and heritage to thrive in Nottingham.
Project Team: Jacob Kelly, William Harvey
Client: HIMMAH
Location: Nottingham
Making and mending sessions open to the public with some debate and discussion around materials, culture and beyond!
If you love making, chatting and thinking, about how we can develop a better understanding of the materials around us, what they are and how to put them together, then come and join us :-)
Who: Elin Keyser, William Harvey, Jacob Kelly
When: Every 3rd Saturday of the month
Where: Primary
Design and fit out of the New Art Exchange’s (NAE) studio space for resident artists. The design was developed from a workshop held with past artist residents of NAE.
While a range of functional requirements came out of the discussion a key shared desire was a warm environment with the ability to transform from it from a working space to a more meditative and relaxing space. This has been achieved by functional movable furniture and storage which can be hidden away behind curtains and soft furnishings pulled out. Multiple configurations can be made allowing for multiple forms of practice.
FTGU then worked closely with local makers to realise design.
Project Team: William Harvey, Jacob Kelly
Joinery: FENN Woodwork
Textiles: Kashif Nadim Chaudry
Services: Chris Coulston Electrical & Pawel Pruchniak / Precision Plumbing
Artist Participants: Sofia Yala, Khaya Job, Ismail Khokon, Mita Solanky
Client: New Art Exchange
Location: Nottingham
A new build timber frame designed to Passiv Haus standards in the Derbyshire Dales. Designed with the clients, one of whom, a builder, has constructed the home himself with the final touches being completed this year.
The house is oriented to the South to maximise solar gain in the winter with overhanging eaves and a veranda to prevent overheating from the high summer sun. The traditional vertical arrangement is flipped with the shared living space on the first floor to take advantage of views down the valley and the spaces vaulted ceiling. Bedrooms are located on the cooler ground floor.
Positioned towards the back of the site to allow views of the garden from the house the ground floor has been pulled out to meet the boundary line on the West side. Its flat roof wraps around the back to join the large attached double garage/workshop and will be finished with Sedum. Parking and turning spaces are at the back.
Super insulated, the house is heated with just a small electric heater and towel radiators in the bathrooms supplied by a large solar photovoltaic array on the roof. A solar themal collector is for hot water production is also due to be added. The house is air tight to reduce heat loss a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery system provides fresh air. The house is clad in profiled metal and Western red cedar.
Project Team: Jacob Kelly
Client: Private
Location: Derbyshire Dales
The Materials Store is a space for facilitating material reuse. Situated at Primary in Nottingham, this new facility aims to tackle the material culture around art production and exhibition making. This structure employs circular economic thinking as a model that is restorative and regenerative by design, through shifting perspectives on waste, thus reducing pollution by keeping products and materials in use out of landfill or incineration.
Designed and built by FTGU, the structure is split into three bays. The first bay is for storing Primary’s equipment and materials. The other two bays are used for residents to store, process and remake materials.
The store has been constructed in keeping with its aims, using reclaimed materials where possible and screwed and bolted together so that it can be reassembled elsewhere at the end of its life at Primary, or the materials repurposed.
Project Team: William Harvey & Jacob Kelly
Structural Design: Lois Plaistow Structural Engineers
Build team: Will, Jake, Rob, Danny & Pat
Volunteers: Nick, Connie & Primary residents
Client: Primary
Location: Nottingham
FTGU were invited to help generate concept drawings for Dizzy Ink to reorganise and rethink their mezzanine space in one of the listed Sneinton Market units. The challenge was to provide cunning storage solutions which are appropriate for different paper sizes and printers. There was also a need for co-working space for four studio members whilst creating a shading strategy to achieve a cooler environment during the summer months.
Project Team: William Harvey & Jacob Kelly
Client: Dizzy Ink
Location: Nottingham