Millennium Galleries, Sheffield

Michael Brennand-Wood

The Millenium galleries are located adjacent to the Winter Gardens, in the heart of Sheffield city centre. There is a permanent metalwork collection on view as well as a series of temporary exhibitions.

The Field of Centres by Michael Brennand-Wood, one of the UK's leading textile artists. This consisted of wall panels constructed from machine embroidered flowers, built up in layers to create patterns found in early historic textiles. I really liked these from a distance, the bold dramatic colours merge into strong optical effects.

Abstraction: Extracting from the World presented new forms of abstraction in a variety of media, including digital technology, video projection, sound and smell, alongside painting, sculpture and installation. "The exhibition examines the theme of creating art through abstracting from the real world and challenges the idea that abstract art is confusing and only concerns modern painting. Abstraction demonstrates how space, line and interval have formed the most basic elements of art and how, with digital imagery and installation, it is extended into contemporary life."

Winter Gardens, Sheffield

The Winter Gardens are situated in one of the largest temperate glass houses in Western Europe, designed by Architects Pringle Richards Sharratt. The enourmous Cathedral-like structure contains over 2000 plants, mainly from the southern hemisphere. The horticultural concept was created by Weddle Landscape Design. There are five bed areas: The Desert Survivors, Bamboo, The Founding Stone Bed, The Cyads and Banana Relatives and Tree Ferns and Dinasaur Food, all accompanied with an information board for the public. This was a really refreshing idea for a commercial space and very well used.

Millennium Square, Sheffield

For a name so grand it was a real disappointment. This space forms the central part of the 'gold route', a walk leading visitors through the city centre past the new developments. This area links the Peace Gardens with the Winter Gardens. It provides an area for public art displays with nine stainless steel spheres dotted through the site.

The Peace Gardens, Sheffield

The new Peace Gardens were were opened in 1998 to celebrate the Millennium. They have been described as 'a milestone in Sheffield's redevelopment' and are part of the £120m Heart of the City Regeneration Scheme.

The gardens were designed by the City Council's design team aswell as various contemporary artists. They are situated just off of busy Pinstone Street set 2m below street level to insulate from the noise of the city.



The garden has the theme of stone, water and metal working, reflecting Sheffield's industry in steel and cutlery. Falling water from giant bronze water vessels form the Holberry cascades, 'illustrating the significance of Sheffield's seven rivers in supplying water-power for the original metal manufacturing process'. The fish and plant life carved on the stone plinths celebrate the regeneration of Sheffield's eight main rivers.

Wide natural stone paths lead down from the street to the focal point, the Goodwin Fountain which has a fun mixture of spray patterns. There are large planting and grassed areas, with over 150 plant species creating 'constantly changing succession of pictures throughout the seasons'. The gardens combine traditional and contemporary, inspired by the Arts and Craft Movement as well as contemporary gardeners such as Beth Chatto.

Green Roofs & Living Walls Lecture

Chicargo City Hall Green Roof

The Green Roofs and Living Walls Lecture was given by Dr Nigel Dunnett, Senior lecturer at Sheffield university, the leading green roof research institution in Europe.

"Green roofs help keep buildings cool in Summer, filter pollution, reduce rainwater run off and provide wildlife habitats.They can also extend the life of a roof compared to traditional design and can help to create beautiful and inspirational buildings," Nigel Dunnett.

The Green Roof Infrastructure Development Project (GRID) was launched by Sheffield University and Groundwork Sheffield and is the first green roof development programme in the UK. The city of Sheffield now has a green roof policy where all buildings with a flat roof, existing or to be built, are required to accomodate a green roof. A really fun project of greening bus shelters throughout the city centre took place, for promotion and to highlight the potential for greening smaller scale roofs, such as kennels, garages and sheds.

Greening Bus Shelters

"Houses become part of landscape, use roofs to return to nature what we unlawfully took from her," Friedensriech Hundertwasser.

SLIC Meeting - Sheffield University

The meeting was held in Sheffield University Arts Tower, the tallest tower in Sheffield, with a paternoster lift! It was really good to hear everybodies progress with the various projects.

* We had feedback from the Landscape Institute's membership review meeting after requesting the student price be lowered. Student membership of the Landscape Institute will be reduced to £24 from. Student E-Network will be introduced which entitles students to free emails of Vista.

* We planned a Summer event to encourage landscape architecture students from all universities throughout the country to meet. This year it will be London based and we are hoping to have a tour of the Olympic site.

* Final plans were made for Cityscape. I volunteered to help build the central Streetscene at Cityscape on the 26th February.

* The student section in Vista magazine has been accepted. I will be writing an article for the August addition which has the themes education and play. I'm thinking about writing something about the Summer Sozosha design course or London School Environment Awards.

LSEA Volunteer Training Day

The London School Environment Awards LSEA were set up in 2003 by Ken Livingstone to help children develop a sense of responsibility for their environment.

This March is LSEA volunteering month and I decided to become a volunteer, to go into a London school to help with environmental projects, such as giving talks in assembly and lending a hand with projects in the school grounds. I attended a volunteer training day at London's Living Room, on the top floor of London City Hall where we learned more about the project.

The schools are given the compulsory theme, 'Litter and Local Environment Quality' to work on aswell as picking one of the five themes shown below:

* Waste and Recycling

* Water

* Energy and Climate Change

* Transport to School

* Biodiversity

To gain the awards they have to fulfill criterai such as pupil and community involvement, effectiveness, sustainability and communication.

Our role is to aid the progress of the schools in their chosen themes. I attended three seminars throughout the afternoon which demonstrated ideas for activities and assemblies etc. The first activity was recylced papermaking, then a talk on water conservation by Thames Water, followed by a talk on habitats and planting by Chelsea Physics Garden. This will be a really fun project to undertake and I'm looking forward to finding out which school I have been assigned!

Visit www.recycleforlondon.com for some fascinating London recycling statistics!