Written by:
Elly Mead
On 23 February The Glass-House Team delivered a digital workshop in collaboration with Union Chapel, a heritage building, active church, home of charity organisations and performance space located in Highbury, North London. We worked with a group of Year 5 and 6 students from Canonbury Primary School, who were based in their classrooms in Islington, whilst each member of our facilitation team joined from their respective home working spaces. This project is part of a larger Union Chapel project funded by Historic England, which aims to expand the accessibility of heritage buildings, encouraging a diverse range of people to get excited about built history. Having connected with Union Chapel through our Empowering Design Practices research project, The Glass-House was keen to work with the Union Chapel team to develop and deliver this interactive design workshop.
Planning a hybrid in-person and remote workshop
This workshop model, combining in-person and remote facilitation, was a new experience for The Glass-House. When building the programme for the day, it was crucial that we gauged the delivery level appropriately so that the information we were conveying remained accessible for the children, as well as delivering a mix of activities (interactive, listening, reflective) to keep everyone engaged. We gave consideration to the mixed digital and physical space that we were creating through the workshop – the children were together with their teachers in Islington, but all of our interactions with them would be through online platforms.
Using a mix of physical resource packs, which were sent out to the school prior to the workshop, and digital tools such as Miro and Zoom, we designed an engaging set of activities for the children that facilitated their exploration and connection to Union Chapel.
The technical fluidity of this workshop relied heavily on our programme being designed so that it could be delivered through the school’s digital resources. Thankfully we could be broadcast into the classroom through their electronic white boards, and the children were provided with tablets to engage with the digital elements of the day. However, there were soft issues relating to safety firewalls within the schools network, which is an interesting consideration for further iterations of this workshop format and something that is always useful to bear in mind when bringing online activities and software into schools.
Bringing together an interdisciplinary team
Through our previous experiences with digital engagement and workshops, such as Broadwater Farm Estate Design Training and the RSA Student Design Awards Workshop, we were aware of the nuances of facilitating a digital space versus a physical one. With that in mind we recruited two of our Glass-House Enablers to help us on the day. Stephen Smith, from Wright and Wright Architects, is a long-time collaborator, bringing a calm demeanour and an experienced hand to proceedings. Jake Stephenson-Bartley, our previous Winter Intern, whose amazing blog about his time at The Glass-House can be found here, is a current post-graduate student at Central St Martins, and was a wonderful, energetic addition to our facilitation team.
We also worked with the Union Chapel team, who included Barbara Basini, Head of Conservation and Building Projects at Union Chapel and Priyanka Chauhan, Union Chapel’s Community Coordinator, as well as their Music Director, Claire Singer. Assisting us physically within the classrooms were the amazing Canonbury Primary School teaching team, spearheaded by Headmaster Patrick Mildren, whose assistance and cooperation ensured the smooth running of the day. This multi-disciplinary facilitation team brought a richness to the workshop process, and brought a plethora of experiences to feed into the planning, as well as for the children to learn from.
Enabling a sense of discovery
Through this workshop we engaged the children within digital spaces, whilst providing them with physical elements to interact with in their classrooms. It was also important to us, and the Union Chapel team, that this workshop served as a first iteration of a larger framework that could be repeated with other schools and buildings across the UK.
One of the main aims of this workshop was to excite and engage the children with heritage buildings and architecture. As we could not take the children to visit and experience the Union Chapel building in person, as originally planned, embedding a sense of exploration and discovery into this workshop was essential. We were keen to impart that heritage buildings contain layers of history and stories that are waiting to be unravelled.
The challenge of a hybrid workshop
Through this workshop we engaged the children within digital spaces, whilst providing them with physical elements to interact with in their classrooms. The workshop resources we developed would also need to combine physical and digital elements. It was also important to us, and the Union Chapel team, that this workshop served as a first iteration of a larger framework that could be repeated with other schools and buildings across the UK.
Digital Resources – Miro Treasure Map
As the children could not explore the building in person, we used the idea of a treasure hunt and the website Miro to build a treasure map. This map focused on four key elements of Union Chapel (the pulpit, the clock, the organ and the stained glass windows), and displayed stories for the children to explore through interacting with their smart boards in the classroom. These included sound bites of the Church bells, educational videos showcasing the mechanics of hydraulic organs, graphics depicting sound and sight tricks utilised within the building, alongside photographs and other imagery from Union Chapel.
This resource can be grown by the Union Chapel team, with stories and other elements being woven in over time as their workshop narrative develops, but we will also explore how it could be adapted to fit and showcase other heritage buildings. We are really excited about the future possibilities of this resource.
Physical Resources
Whilst this workshop was planned and delivered predominately through digital spaces, we felt it was important that the students had something tangible to produce in order to impact a sense of productivity and accomplishment to their day.
We developed a set of resource kits, one for the morning session and one for the afternoon, which were tailored to coordinate with the day’s programme. Made up of a variety of collage materials, worksheets, prompt cards and templates, these kits offered the children a set of resources to engage with, cut up and make their own throughout the day’s tasks. These resources also form a template for Union Chapel, who can tweak and edit them within further workshop iterations.
We also designed and produced a series of ‘Sensory Prompt Cards’, building upon learning points within the workshop, which we hoped would serve as a reminder for the children to consider how their senses, and their sensory journey through a building, affects their memories and emotional response. A four pack of A6 cards, these can be used to explore Union Chapel, or any other heritage building, in person when circumstances allow.
Workshop Activities
Morning Session
We began the day exploring the children’s memories of Union Chapel, as well as their feelings and thoughts on the space. As the school is located very near Union Chapel and regularly holds concerts and celebration events there, most of the children already had some familiarity with it, but had never looked at it through a design or heritage lens.
Throughout the morning, we aimed to build on the children’s pre-existing knowledge and memories of Union Chapel through a series of learning activities. These touched on basic design principles as well as diving deeper into some of the unique characteristics and stories embedded with Union Chapel, from its iterative beginnings to its passive ventilation system. Barbara, from the Union Chapel team, utilised their digital tour of the interior of Union Chapel to engage with the children, taking them through the building in real time.
Moving from our early listening and learning activities, we then used the digital treasure hunt, built on Miro, to allow the children to explore a chosen element of Union Chapel. The treasure map was broadcast through smart boards into the classroom, which allowed the children to interact with the map, pulling across to zoom in and out of the embedded stories. This gave the children agency over how and what they wanted to engage with on the treasure map, ensuring that the workshop remained an interactive process rather than just being delivered to the children. The varied and rich facilitation team meant that the children got to speak to Union Chapel team members who live and breathe the building and its stories, whilst having architectural and heritage expertise to hand.
As our morning arts and design task, we asked the children in their groups to produce a collage poster using the resource kits provided, showcasing what they found interesting about their element and what they would want other children to know about it.
The children quickly out-paced the A3 template we had provided within the resource kits, instead moving to large blue sugar paper to display their ideas. Through this creative task, we got a wonderful insight into what information the children valued about Union Chapel, which stories resonated with them as well as gauging their understanding of the information we presented.
After an intense morning of absorbing information and digital exploration, the majority of the afternoon was dedicated to a design activity. Using their afternoon resource packs, we asked the children to create their own version of either the clock, the pulpit, the organ or the stained glass windows, thinking about what they liked most and thought was most important about their element, as well as adding their own twist on the design.
Afternoon Session
After an intense morning of absorbing information and digital exploration, the majority of the afternoon was dedicated to a design activity. Using their afternoon resource packs, we asked the children to create their own version of either the clock, the pulpit, the organ or the stained glass windows, thinking about what they liked most and thought was most important about their element, as well as adding their own twist on the design.
The results were fantastic! The facilitators remained in the ‘room’ to answer queries and give feedback, and by the end of the afternoon session we had an array of beautiful stained glass windows showcasing messages of hope and thanks to the NHS and their local community, a full model of the clock and adjacent buildings, individual drawings and models of pulpits which included animals and bright colours, and iterations of the organ made of clay and card! Everyone was so impressed with the creativity and inspiration the children showcased.
Looking Forward
This experimental workshop, which pushed the boundaries of our digital workshop engagement processes, proved to be an immense learning experience for us all. We are so thankful to Union Chapel for spearheading this project and seeing the opportunity in doing the workshop digitally, as well as to Canonbury Primary School for allowing us to engage with their students and try new methods of engagement, and their amazing teaching team whose physical facilitation on the day was essential. A huge thank you also goes out to our Glass-House Enablers Stephen Smith and Jake Stephenson-Bartley.
Our hope is that this experimental digital workshop will pave the way for the creation of replicable workshop processes, which Union Chapel can use to engage digitally with children and schools from across the UK, as well as in their building once lockdown restrictions are lifted. We are also interested in the potential to further develop these resources to support any heritage building interested in sharing their heritage through creative design workshops. We are really passionate about this project, and excited to see how it continues to develop into the next phase.
If you are interested in exploring Union Chapel and their amazing range of events, more information can be found here.
Read Barbara’s Basini’s blog about the workshop here, or drive into our Innovating practice resource here. Our celebratory report documenting the process and outcomes of the workshop can be found here.
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