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Knowle West Media Centre, South Bristol
Project summary
The RDA supported the community in Knowle West, South Bristol,
to demolish a rundown former health centre building and replace it
with a purpose-built sustainable media centre and community
hub.
The centre, which opened in 2008, provides a range of
media-related facilities, including production suites, edit suites,
screening room, and managed workspace for a deprived community
which is developing the creative, educational and social potential
within the surrounding area and Bristol as a whole.
Main messages
This project forms part of an overall strategy for regeneration
of South Bristol.
It offered an innovative approach to economic inclusion through
provision of media-focused training and skills development and
support for start up or local small local businesses in an area of
acute economic disadvantage.
The unique quality of the project was formation of the
community-led Archimedia Project to oversee the redevelopment of
the site. The group worked with harder to reach groups,
particularly young people, as a way of re-engaging them in either
the mainstream education or by using creative forms of learning to
build life skills and employability.
The building is exemplary in sustainable design and
development.
Facts and figures
Funding:
- RDA £1.383 m (includes £63k revenue funding to support
evaluation, business planning, VAT advice, RDA legal fees)
- South Bristol Urban 2 European Regional Development Fund
£0.6m
- Bristol City Council £0.5m
- Bristol Objective 2 European Regional Development Fund
£0.4m
- Leinster House Partnership 'Sponsor a Bale' programme
£0.2m
- Single Regeneration Budget 6 £0.1m
- Arts Council England £0.1m
Envisaged outputs over 5 years:
- Jobs 35
- Business creation 12
- Business supported 24
- Regeneration leverage £1.9m
- Skills assisted 500
- Workspace 202m2.
Case Study - in every way - a truly creative media centre
Knowle West is not the sort of glamorous location that you would
expect for a 21st century media centre. It is situated in one of
the most disadvantaged areas in England where families experience
low income and high unemployment, and levels of crime are well
above average.
At the time that the Knowle West Media Centre project was
started, GCSE attainment figures showed South Bristol schools as
the worst in the country and 58% of the population had no
qualifications at all.
It was against this background that the Media Centre started
life, based in a dilapidated former health centre. Its organisers
and users – many of them young people – went on to commission and
develop a purpose-build centre that is a model of sustainable
design and development.
The work that went into planning the new centre was called the
Archimedia project, and it involved a group of young people aged
11-16 from the local community. They worked with fundraisers,
designers, architects and engineers to get the project off the
ground with the aim of creating a building that was both
environmentally friendly and well-designed.
The original building was demolished and replaced with a new
two-storey building – the largest straw bale building in Europe.
Designed by White Design, it will be as hardwearing and strong as a
traditional brick building, with greatly improved insulation.
It has been designed to have lower emissions of carbon than most
buildings, other ecological features include an innovative woodchip
boiler and a system that collects rainwater for uses such as
flushing toilets.
Knowle West Media Centre developed a comprehensive eco-media
environmental programme based around One Planet Living principles
about making sustainable living easy attractive and affordable.
This programme applied to the construction and now the running of
the new centre.
The building is owned and managed by the community-led Leinster
House Partnership – a subsidiary of the Knowle West Media
Centre.
The centre itself provides a wide range of media-related
facilities. They include production suites, edit suites, a
screening room, and managed workspace for businesses.
It offers design services, experimental film-making
opportunities, photography and educational programmes, and
exhibitions.
A formerly rundown building in a deprived area is now developing
the creative,educational and social potential within the
surrounding area and Bristol as a whole.
Conclusion
The finished project not only raises the potential of local
people and businesses to better participate in the economy, but is
a flagship of environmental design, testing innovative methods of
straw bale construction
The centre provides workspace for creative businesses, one of
Bristol’s growing business sectors.
Further information
Date case study written: September 2009.
Contact: South West RDA press office by email
news.enquiries@southwestrda.org.uk or telephone 01392
229389