The urban miners digging in car parks

Coventry University architecture students join forces with local sculptors

Coventry University students took discarded timber from Coventry city centre demolition sites and turned them into a public art sculpture piece.

Working alongside the Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre, an artist-led not-for-profit supporting the advancement of sculpture in the UK, the postgraduate Art, Design and Architecture students helped bring the urban mining project to life.

The Urban Mining Test Lab Project used the salvaged door frames, which were plucked from the New Union Street car park demolition to create the piece which is now on display at IDP Architects’ Coventry office.

Dr Tulika Gadakari, associate professor and curriculum lead in architecture at Coventry University, said: “Urban mining isn’t just a part of the course for our students, it is a positive response to achieving net zero carbon emissions and sustainable development goals. It involves going out into the urban environments such as building sites, looking at the material that is being discarded and thinking of ways it could be reused and repurposed.

“This particular project was created using mined pieces of built environment that were part of the city centre redevelopment that were discarded.”

Before the sculptural door walkway took residency in IDP Architects’ entrance gallery space, the art installation was designed, created and on display at Coventry University’s Urban Mining Test Lab Showcase, held in the Delia Derbyshire building, home to the university’s creative arts and society courses.

The showcase welcomed speakers from the city council and Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre, as well as speakers from other departments in the university to discuss waste materials, urban mining and environmental values. Other student projects – proposing other sculptures and installations for the City Centre South redevelopment made of mined materials – were also on display in the hyper studio.

Dr Tulika Gadakari said: “It is an important opportunity for students to work with external organisations and to be made aware of issues around sustainability and adaptive reuse. These kind of extracurricular collaborative projects boost the portfolios and CVs of architecture students that will help to get them jobs after university. Their engagement with the city and external collaborators, shows their initiative and also their understanding of the agendas which are larger than just an educational involvement.

“This is the first time we have collaborated with Pangaea and done this kind of project but it was really successful and beneficial to our students so there will be more opportunities for collaboration in the future.”