A group of Year 9 students attended Newcastle University last Monday as part of the first day of the Farrell project. This was a fantastic day! Students spent time in the library looking at the archives, including bibles from 1481, items found from World War One, Queen Victoria’s signature and murderous socks! They then started to look at the archive produced for Sir Terry Farrell who is a famous architect from Newcastle who has designed buildings all over the world and for movies, including buildings in Hong Kong and Australia. They saw work from when he was a student at University, including a possible design of Blackpool tower.

Students had a tour of the university including the engineering lecture theatres and workshops for the architects. They had a seminar about sustainable materials, and how they can be used to reinforce mud to make environmentally friendly bricks. We then ventured to the Farrel Centre to look at the most inspiring exhibitions, including a huge sculpture made from fungus, and a chair made from insulating material. It is this venue that our own work will be displayed in July.

In the Farrell Centre we received a lecture from an architect who has been involved in designing the new Stephenson building at the university. We looked at drawings and learnt about how they have been trying to reduce underwater drainage in the area by placing a tank on the roof which is being used to grow plants.

We are back this week to start making models of sustainable homes of the future.