Cardiff School of Art & Design: New Building 2014

Beginning life in the oak paneled rooms above the Royaland Morgan Arcades, it is understood to be the oldestpart of Cardiff Metropolitan University. Since its earlydays in the Arcades, it has also been housed in The Friarybuilding, near Cardiff’s New Theatre, and in the purposebuilt Howard Gardens Campus, opened by the Earl ofSnowdon on 13 May 1970.

“Each location has marked a step forward and a turningpoint. No less a turning point is Cardiff MetropolitanUniversity’s decision to consolidate the School on onesite, the Llandaff Campus, through an investment of£14m in the provision of a new building and therefurbishment of existing accommodation,” says Dean ofCardiff School of Art and Design, Professor GaynorKavanagh. “The planned development means atremendous amount to the School. Above all else, itrepresents to us the faith and confidence placed in CSADby the University’s Governors, who recognize the Schoolas a centre of excellence and high performance in bothresearch and teaching. We are hugely grateful to themfor this and for their continued interest and engagementwith the School.”

In 2014, the School will move to the new campus. It hasbeen designed by award winning architects Austin-Smith:Lord, who also designed the Riverfront Theatre,Newport as well as the Cardiff School of Management -one of the most pleasing and useful spaces in Cardiff.Consolidating the all its programmes on one campusfacilitiates a far better experience for staff, students andindustrial partners.

“The development has been designed around theresearch and teaching requirements of CSAD. As a result,it is sensitive to the ways we work which arecharacterized by making processes, driven by criticalthinking,” Kavanagh explains, “The design fullyrecognizes that CSAD represents higher education at itsmost unconventional, intellectually challenging andcreatively dynamic. The design allows for the fact that weare messy, noisy, technology-driven, talkative, hugelyhard-working, and resource-intensive: not to mention,inventive, pragmatic, constantly developing and generallymaverick.”

But the move doesn’t just mark the physical

progression of the School of Art & Design’s history. It

also indicates a renewed commitment to progression in

research, teaching and innovation.

A lead partner in the Wales Institute of Research in Artand Design, the School will deliver a strong submission tothe Research Excellence Framework in late 2013, tofollow the success of its ranking of 11th in ResearchPower in art and design in the UK in the REF’spredecessor, the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008.On this last point, Kavanagh says, “The allocation of spacein the new accommodation will enable the continuation ofour varied and groundbreaking research work, especiallythat where we are in partnership with other universitiesincluding Lancaster, Birmingham, and Cardiff, inparticular Cardiff Medical School. Our commitment toscience in the context of our disciplines remains strong.”

OUR NEW HOME

CSAD TO OPEN WALES’ FIRSTOFFICIAL MIT FAB LABThe much-anticipated new £14 million Cardiff School ofArt and Design building (CSAD) will house Wales’ firstMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) accreditedFab Lab. When the new building launches at the end ofSeptember 2014, CSAD will be full members of theglobal Fab Lab network and will be the first official UK FabLab attached to a university. The UK’s other MIT Fab Labsare in Belfast, Derry, Glasgow, and Manchester.

The term ‘Fab Lab’ is shorthand for pre- fabricationlaboratory. MIT has established a global network of locallabs, each linked through video conferencing technology,operating to an ethos and specification established andmaintained by MIT. Fab labs encourage the exchange ofideas between inventors in different countries byproviding the space, equipment and help to rapidly turnideas into working prototypes.

MIT Fab Labs have been designed to connect industry,inventors, business, schools, communities and researchfacilities across the globe and the network promotesinvention and innovation through easy access tospecialised tools for digital fabrication, prototyping andmanufacture, stimulated by discussion and cross-globalinitiatives.

Projects in development at the 150 existing Fab Labs allover the world include solar and wind-powered turbines,thin-client computers and wireless data networks,analytical instrumentation for agriculture and healthcare,custom housing, and rapid-prototyping of rapid-prototyping machines. In a Fab Lab in Afghanistan,people are fashioning customised prosthetic limbs, whileshepherds in Norway have used their Fab Lab to create asystem for tracking sheep using their mobile phones.

Professor Gaynor Kavanagh, Dean of CSAD said: “The FabLab at Cardiff Metropolitan University will be adigital fabrication workshop which allows anyone to makepractically anything. Developed by MIT in Boston, almostany concept which can be designed on 2D or 3Dsoftware can be manufactured quickly and costeffectively within the labs and skills developed around IT,Design and Fabrication. Through the Cardiff Fab Lab,users will have an unprecedented opportunity to accessstate of the art digital tools within a setting that can call ona global community.

“Cardiff’s Fab Lab will be linked with people doingremarkable things in other labs from Boston to Lima, fromOslo to Ahmedabad, and from Jalalabad to Montreal. Itwill be run to meet the needs of designers andmanufacturers in the development and prototyping ofproducts and design solutions.

"As well as deployment for industry, the Fab Lab will beavailable for use by schools and, through this, will inspirethe next generation of designers and problem solvers.They will be able to join with schools across the networkon design and manufacturing projects, fully enabled bythe kind of equipment to which access may not bepossible in any other way.”

The Fab Lab will also ensure CSAD students have theopportunity to access world-class facilities and functionswill include the study of robotics and musical instrumentdesign, research at research degree level and computer-embedded product prototyping. CSAD will be runningshort courses for designers, deploying Fab Lab facilities,through its new development, Cardiff Open DesignSchool.

Professor Kavanagh said: “The Cardiff Fab Lab representsyet another opportunity for CSAD to fuse its commitmentto research, enterprise and learning. Like the newbuilding on the Llandaff Campus, in which it will behoused, it marks yet another turning point in the life ofthe School and promises much for the future.”

OUR NEW HOME

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN

The move will come in the third year of delivering theSchool’s new undergraduate curriculum, designed toenable students to work across the disciplines, whilstincreasing their depth of engagement with their own.

“Our students will be able to choose a period studyingabroad with partners in India, Zambia, Venice, America orKorea, the Dean says. “They will also be able to choose toundertake a management module or experience a workplacement or work with one of our research professors orprincipals. We will also have a much larger masters andresearch degree community, with many more studentsstudying for MFA, MDes and Professional Doctorates inArt or Design.”

Moving to a new location also allows the School to takenew steps towards providing the energy and momentumfor innovation in teaching with a host of exciting plansbeing made to provide facilities that will mark it as a trulymodern faculty. Most notably, a partnership with theSamsung Art and Design Institute in Seoul will allowstudents to transcend international borders and still cyclehome from the campus in the evening.

“We plan to develop video-linked teaching facilities withSamsung Art and Design Institute, enhancing our jointdelivery of our MDes, with particular emphasis onproduct design,” Kavanagh says. “We’re also lookingforward to being able to integrate high-end prefabricationfacilities into our workshops, linked to the global MITFabLab network, to meet the proven needs of industry.This will also be deployed to enable local school childrenwith an interest in design and technology to connect withclasses as far flung as Boston, Barcelona and Tehran.”

The cross-disciplinary aspect of the new curriculum is

very much enabled with the open, cross-disciplinary

shared studios that are being designed. These will be

able to accommodate the School’s growing interest in

the way that science, art and design relate to one

another, through debates experimentation and

engagement.

“Our students love Cardiff. Once graduated, manychoose to stay to set-up businesses, set up studies anddevelop their own practices here. Our staff contribute tothe vibrancy of the creative environments of both Cardiffand Wales as a whole. Collectively, we will remain part ofthe very fabric of what makes this city and this countryspecial,” she says, as if to sum up. “We are ready foranything the future throws at us, and we’ll be addressingit from a wonderfully designed and created new base inLlandaff. We can’t wait.”

In 2015, the Cardiff School of Art and Design will be celebrating its 150th anniversary. Its history is a noble and

interesting one, as the School has been delivering courses in sciences, commercial practices and the arts to the city

for the greater part of its existence. Opened in 1865, it is one of the oldest art schools in the UK, all of which shared

the imperative to train the artisan in commercially relevant practices, which sprang from the energy of the Great

Exhibition in 1851 and all that came in its wake.

TEXTILES

Our facilities in this area employ traditional techniquesalongside up-to-date digital printing and laser cuttingequipment. Professional sewing machines, over-lockersand digital embroiders are employed by a wide range ofCSAD courses.

PRINTING WORKSHOP

Students have access to a range of printing techniquesincluding screen-printing, intaglio, etching, engravingand stone litho facilities. The workshop will continue tohave a complete high pressure screen cleaning washingarea with adjacent equipment for drying and developingthe largest of screens.

PHOTO-MEDIA

This area will house a darkroom with production of RCand fibre based silver gelatin prints; Photograms;Cyanotypes and Liquid Light. In the film developing room,you can process black and white film 35mm 120 or 5X4.Colour is handled via our Colour Machine for productionof colour RA4 Prints from negatives. Digital Printing iscarried out on Epson 9500 large format and Canon 950A3 printers.

In our studios you can expect to find continuous lightingand portable flash equipment, our copystand can be usedto document all types of artwork using a digital camera.

WOOD AREA

New and traditional machines are supported by highlyskilled and motivated practitioners. The workshop willprovide students from all courses with the opportunity towork with one of the most elemental of all materials ineither self-directed or guided sessions.

METALS

The centre of our metals workshop is our new foundryand hot metal space, run by our RCA trained TechnicianDemonstrator. Pieces, both large and small, will be castand used by a variety of different artists and makers. Theworkshop will also house a range of Mig & Tig welders,plus plasma cutters along with drilling, bending andmilling facilities.

CERAMICS

The ceramics workshops will house well equipped kiln,plaster, clay and glaze areas. The workshop will alsohouse glass slumping kilns, clay and plaster preparationfacilities. Externally, students will have access to sodakilns and Raku firing facilities. This forward-looking facilityreinforces CSAD’s commitment to this, the largestceramics centre in Europe.

FACILITIES IN THE NEW BUILDING

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN

TAUGHT POSTGRADUATE• Postgraduate Certificate in Professional &

Research Skills: Art & Design• Master of Fine Art (MFA)• Master of Design (MDes)• Master of Design (MDes) SADI• MA (Cardiff School of Art & Design)

• Fine Art• Communication• Illustration• Artist Designer Maker• Product Design• Textiles• Photographic Practice• Art & Science• Philosophy• Ecologies

• MA Ceramics• MSc Advanced Product Design• MSc Environmental Change and Practice

UNDERGRADUATE• HNC Building Technology and

Management (Ystrad Mynach)

• HND Architectural Design & Technology

• BSc (Hons) Architectural Design &Technology

• BA (Hons) Artist Designer: Maker• BA (Hons) Fine Art• BA (Hons) Ceramics• BA (Hons) Textiles• BA (Hons) Graphic Communication• BA (Hons) Illustration• BA (Hons) Product Design• BSc (Hons) Product Design• BA (Hons) Photographic Practice

(Bridgend)

RESEARCH DEGREES• MPhil• PhD• Professional Doctorate in Art• Professional Doctorate in Design• Professional Doctorate in Ecological

Building Practices

www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/csadwww.cardiffmet.ac.uk/studywithus

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN, HOWARD GARDENS CAMPUS, CARDIFF, CF24 0SP

Tel: +44 (0)29 2041 6154 Fax: +44 (0)29 2041 6944 email: csad@cardiffmet.ac.uk

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN, LLANDAFF CAMPUS, WESTERN AVENUE, CARDIFF, CF5 2YB

Tel: +44 (0)29 2041 6070 Fax: +44 (0)29 2041 6640 email: csad@cardiffmet.ac.uk

FOUNDATION• Cardiff Diploma in Foundation Studies

(Art & Design) (Bridgend) - allied programme only

• Foundation Degree in Applied Art &Design (Bridgend)

• Foundation Degree in Ceramics (Cardiffand The Vale College)

• Foundation Degree in ContemporaryTextiles Practice (Cardiff and The Vale College)

• Foundation Degree in GraphicCommunication (Cardiff and The Vale College)

• Foundation Degree in SustainableBuilding Practice (Bridgend, Pembrokeshire, LlandrilloCollege, & Coleg Powys)

Also available is an infinity background for documentingsmall to medium sized objects plus a large flash unit forstudio photographs.

Our stores contain a large selection of 35mm film camerasand compact digital cameras for student loan, including5X4 Film cameras, 120 film camera, DV tape videocameras and HD video camera equipment.

AUDIO AND VIDEO

For video work we have camcorders, lighting,microphones and audio recorders available for use. Thereis bookable studio space, where we also do basic greenscreen work. We currently have four Mac based VideoEdit Suites running Final Cut Pro Studio. In our Audiosuite we have a Mac based recording studio utilising Pro-Tools. We have a selection of instruments, amplifiers,microphones and outboard gear.

Our Macs run Pro-tools, Logic and Reason, 3Dworkshops and Fablab. This facility will continue todevelop, in line with technology. Here you will find a suiteof CNC milling machines, laser cutters, routers, and 3Dprinters. Add to this our area for developing electroniccontrol systems and you have an area where conceptscan become reality in a short time.

The new facilities will house a suite of modern, well-designed and safety-conscious workshop areas.

These will be provided on one whole floor of the new build and a remodelled floor of our existing accommodation.