Dezeen School Shows: a project that addresses an ageing population, wealth disparity and access to care services is included as part of Dezeen's latest school show by students at Sheffield Hallam University.

Also featured is a nursery located in a forest that acts as a home for dementia patients and the Museum of Water in Rotterdam, which was designed as a place to discuss sustainability and cultural issues related to water.

Sheffield Hallam University

Institution: Sheffield Hallam University
School: Sheffield Hallam School of Architecture
Course: BSc Architecture, MArch Architecture and MArch Architecture (Degree Apprenticeship)
Tutors: Dr Karam Al-Obaidi, Neil Allen, professor Cristina Cerulli, Oli Cunningham, Steve Helmore, dr Mohataz Hossain, Paul King, James Kirkman, Sarah May, Laurence McKnight, Geoff Olner, Bryan Parkin, dr Laura Pedata, Lucy Plumridge, dr Frances Robertson, dr Helen Stratford, Alasdair Struthers, dr Gabriel Tang, dr Julia Udall, Kaeren van Vliet, dr Goran Vodicka, dr Anna Wakeford Holder, Jacob Ware, Liz Whitehead and Andrew Wilson

School statement:

"Established over twenty years ago as an environmental school of architecture, Sheffield Hallam is a pioneer in social, environmental and technical architectural design.

"We champion widening participation and access to the profession from year one undergraduate through postgraduate to PhD.

"Our school is a progressive and creative environment for both understanding and challenging the conventions of architectural practice.

"We explore alternative models of practice, the architect as an agent of social and environmental improvement, the politics of development, landownership, funding and stakeholder inclusion.

"The work shown here highlights undergraduate and postgraduate projects from across the school this year."

Fluid Lives by Chris Jenkins

"Set within Sheffield's former Effingham Street gasworks, Fluid Lives represents an exploration of the possibilities of an unmaintained world, an eventuality circa 2050.

"Here botany, design and architecture meet outside of the technical frame of sustainability and the comfortable setting of the bucolic.

"Delving into concepts of spontaneous nature, the thesis aims to capture the unexpected and unplanned manifestations of nature that emerge within urban settings.

"The design encompasses a brownfield site and transforms the contaminated land into a biodiverse wetland habitat.

"It offers lodge retreats, event and education spaces, and laboratories that aid extensions of the existing ecosystems and ecologies along the River Don and canal."

Student: Chris Jenkins
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2 (Degree Apprenticeship), Year 6
Tutors: Paul King, Anna Wakeford Holder, Goran Vodicka, Oli Cunnigham, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

A Community-led Neighbourhood by Anna Dawson

"This project explores the role of a Community Land Trust (CLT) as an organisation to facilitate housing for climate refugees fleeing the UK's coastal towns in 2050 due to the impacts of flooding.

"An alternative governance structure is proposed to promote community ownership in a self-sufficient, safe and resilient neighbourhood for new residents coming to Sheffield as a city of sanctuary.

"The onsite workshop will promote a distributed network of accessible and inclusive homes across the city region, acting as a catalyst for the CLT to adopt sites in the future.

"This site will be the first test for a new ownership model in the city. The prefabricated housing embeds flexible and adaptable construction technologies where residents have agency over their homes as well as their neighbourhood."

Student: Anna Dawson
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2 (Degree Apprenticeship), Year 6
Tutors: Paul King, Anna Wakeford Holder, Goran Vodicka, Oli Cunnigham, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

Care (in) Common by Tom Stovold

"Set in 2050 following successive years of austerity and the systematic underfunding of public services, the formation of a community-initiated care-collective aims to address challenges presented by an ageing population, widening wealth disparity and access to care services through a range of interventions, including the occupation and expansion of an existing social club central to City Road, Sheffield.

"The project develops over three key phases, across two adjacent sites, delivering alterations to the existing services of care, additions of new amenity and social provisions for the City Road Community.

"The holistic understanding of 'care infrastructure' is addressed through the creation of cohesive and interconnected care environments that otherwise were separate, promoting the opportunity for community interactions and challenging the role of the community centre typology."

Student: Tom Stovold
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2 (Degree Apprenticeship), Year 6
Tutors: Oli Cunnigham, Anna Wakeford Holder, Goran Vodicka, Paul King, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

Intergenerational Forest Nursery by Kayleigh Derry

"Prefiguring a child-friendly, age-friendly Sheffield, the Intergenerational Forest Nursery creates a strong social infrastructure. The scheme, set to be completed by 2050, situates a forest nursery – a retrofit of an existing industrial building – within a memory care community.

"By providing residents experiencing dementia with regular access to physical exercise, intellectual stimulation and social interaction, memory care communities use non-pharmaceutical interventions to improve brain health and slow the effects of dementia.

"Allowing inner city children to experience the benefits of a forest nursery, the scheme provides the children with natural materials for play as well as regular interactions with the elderly residents that live on site."

Student: Kayleigh Derry
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2, Year 6
Tutors: Anna Wakeford Holder, Goran Vodicka, Oli Cunnigham, Paul King, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

The Social Network by Elissa Harte

"The Social Network project emerges from the studio Decarbonising Neighbourhoods: Tactics and Strategies of Care, which investigates design for decarbonising housing and associated collective spaces and resources.

"The concept and design approach are both creative and pragmatic, investigating the impact of using excess heat from data centres with a fabric-first retrofit approach to achieve energy efficiency.

"The design proposal explores the retrofit of an estate of five mid-rise blocks of maisonettes, within a ward where fuel poverty is 10 per cent above the national average.

"A critical consideration is the involvement of residents in the design process during and after the renovation of the blocks. Their requirements create a framework for the design development of the project."

Student: Elissa Harte
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2 (Degree Apprenticeship), Year 5
Tutors: Anna Wakeford Holder, Goran Vodicka and Karam Al-Obaidi

Perch Laboratory by Talek Viant

"Perch Laboratory represents a community-led citizen science and construction initiative with the objective of initiating ecological regeneration along the River Don in Sheffield. Its overarching goal is to foster the health of the ecosystem through various innovative approaches.

"These approaches include cultivating ecologies in and around architectural structures, establishing interconnected water flutes to support individual pond ecosystems, constructing habitats within the buildings and reintroducing native plant species to promote enhanced biodiversity of wildlife.

"By employing these methods, the project aims to address critical issues such as vulnerability to flooding, growing community fragmentation, the disconnect between ecological concerns and political decision-making, and the integration of architectural solutions into the ecological framework."

Student: Talek Viant
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2, Year 4
Tutors: Julia Udall, Helen Stratford, Jon Orlek, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

Fat of the Land by Thom Goodwin

"Fat of the Land proposes a transformative community project that serves – and is led and operated by – the local community of Neepsend, Sheffield.

"Through direct participation, protest and performance the project aims to facilitate expression and create a platform to fight against the increasing pressures of food insecurity, as well as critiquing the ongoing processes of gentrification in the area.

"The project provides space for gathering, growing and sharing, with the aim of creating a focal point for the community that develops over time as their needs change."

Student: Thom Goodwin
Course: MArch Architecture RIBA Part 2 (Degree Apprenticeship), Year 4
Tutors: Helen Stratford, Julia Udall, Jon Orlek, Karam Al-Obaidi and Alasdair Struthers

Flotsam unto Architecture by Aaron Barrett

"Taking the dynamic relationship of the city with water as a starting point, this project situates the brief, for a Museum of Water, in the proposed masterplan context of the Rijnhaven harbour of Rotterdam.

"Infrastructural interventions, a large breakwater and a new public urban ‘beach’, create a temporal relationship between the museum and the changing tides as a direct experience of changing sea levels.

"This generates programmatic and material/tectonic strategies whereby parts of the museum become flooded each day. Temporary structures, anticipating future changes to the programme of the museum, recall flotsam washed up on the beach.

"Permanent structures organise the edges of the water and are driven by sustainable material strategies, natural daylight and ventilation."

Student: Aaron Barrett
Course: BSc Architecture RIBA Part 1, Year 3
Tutor: Oli Cunningham

Rotterdam Museum of Water by Ben Bramley

"Imagined as part of the Unesco Water Museums Global Network, the Museum of Water, Rotterdam continues the overarching theme of the year exploring the public promotion, communication and engagement with issues of sustainability and climate change.

"Connecting to the history and heritage of Rotterdam, this project locates the museum in the context of Oude Haven harbour, relating to existing maritime cultural institutions.

"Focusing on the sensory experience of water and light, the proposal creates a series of dynamic environments connected to current issues of sustainability. The form and organisation of the museum references the infrastructure of cranes, buoys, gantries, bridges and temporary structures."

Student: Ben Bramley
Course: BSc Architecture RIBA Part 1, Year 3
Tutors: Steve Helmore

We Need to Discuss Our Climate by Sam Rix

"The project brief required students to speculate on a Museum of Water in Rotterdam as a place to communicate and engage with the cultural and sustainability issues of water.

"Through analysis of the city context and research into local, regional and global issues of water, students developed their own agenda and specific programme through the exploration of exhibits and a variety of exhibition and learning spaces.

"This project introduces community spaces and a public lido with the museum programme to intertwine the routes and daily pattern of activities for visitors, local community and education groups.

"Reconfiguring the land edge reconnects the city with the water, providing access to tidal 'rock pools' as part of the museum and bathing experience.

"Naturally daylight exhibition spaces and prefabricated structure are explored as part of sustainable strategies."

Student: Sam Rix
Course: BSc Architecture RIBA Part 1, Year 3
Tutor: Neil Allen

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen  and Sheffield Hallam University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.