Homage to Hockney Part 1 Project 2010 Michael Langley Sheffield Hallam University | UK a small art community - 'Reviving the seaside town of Bridlington'The project was situated in the East Riding of Yorkshire at the seaside town of Bridlington. In the brief we were asked to imagine a scenario where the association of David Hockney and the seaside resort of Bridlington is celebrated in the commissioning of two new amenities for the display and making of art in the town. There were five sites to consider each belonging simultaneously to an immediate townscape and the seaside realm of strollers along the promenades and harbour side. The site chosen for this new art amenity was previously a busy node which is now neglected and in much need of revival. Situated on a key threshold between town and sea the site gives the perfect opportunity for a new public attraction, with a large pier breaching out the site offers the best panoramic views out to sea and back to town. With a stimulating context for the new gallery and painting school and a brief which is intentionally receptive to creative, personalised and idealized interpretation, the project began to evoke a rich response with the integration of environmental and urban design. My response was to create a piece of architecture which creates the best opportunity for a bustling art community to flourish. With a hybrid solution in mind the idea of flexibility within the gallery became a recurrent concept and the architecture began to form around this idea.The building sits on carved landscape reconnecting pier and street level. The aesthetic takes an industrial stance where artist studios sit on top of the structural frame allowing light to penetrate between voids deep into the flexible gallery spaces at ground floor level. The organisation of the internal space breaks the traditional ideology of a clean concise gallery forming a hybrid solution where artists, painters and the public are free to come together. The building therefore acts a high performing flexible machine giving an environment where a bustling art community can thrive. Michael Langley This project explores the idea of creating an indeterminate relationship between the gallery spaces on the public concourse level and the painting studios suspended at mezzanine level above. An interactive, flexible and neo-industrial art shed emerged as the formal project response, evolving into an elegantly proportioned and appropriately scaled public and cultural intervention. The work is extremely well considered across the wide range of studio frameworks, from intelligent and inventive social and urban readings through to precise environmental and technical integration. Tutor(s)Mr Andrew Wilson