Design Crafts Facilities
Introduction
The Design Crafts department boasts a broad range of specialist making and processing facilities for glass, ceramics and jewellery, supported by a comprehensive array of general workshops.
Facilities include:
- Glass kilns for fusing, slumping, casting, enamelling and painting
- Acid bay - hydrofluoric acid for polishing and etching
- Plaster room for mould-making and prototyping
- Wax working
- Gelflex / rubber moulding facilities
- Screen-printing facilities - dedicated workshop for screen-printing on glass
- Sand-blasting - two dedicated sandblasters for glass (one pot-blaster)
- Cold-working facilities - a range of cold-working facilities including lathes, linishers/edge finishers, hand-grinders, diamond flat-bed grinders, hand engravers, diamond saws and glass drills.
- Glass cutting room
- Leading room
- Glass painting room
- Glass studios
- Ceramic kilns
- Fully equipped glaze room
- Throwing wheels
- Slip casting facilities
- Jewellery benches and specialist hand tools
- Fully fitted jewellery workshop for soldering, finishing & polishing
Design Studios
Our Design Crafts studios are at the very core of our programme. A personalised desk space in every year group ensures you are well rooted in our vibrant studio community and have an essential place to keep all of your project work. We also have large tables and collaborative spaces where we undertake group sessions or where students can spread out when work needs to be up scaled.
Ceramic Workshop
The dedicated ceramic workshop holds several key areas allowing students to practice a range of ceramic based process. In the main workshop there are several throwing wheels, slab building areas and large work areas for group classes. Off this there are purpose-built plaster room for mould making and slip casting, a resin casting area, a kiln room with several varied kilns and a specialist glaze room packed with ingredients to make exciting glaze surfaces. Recent additions are a quiet work area where our final year students can request a dedicated work space to spread out and store ceramic work as it develops. Students will work alongside MA and fine art ceramic specialists.
Glass Painting Studio
Our bespoke glass painting area features several purpose-built workstations and light boxes essential for working closely with glass painting, restoration, and preparation of glass designs in stained glass and other kiln-based processes such as frit and stringers. There is a store here of various stained-glass panels and off-cuts for students to experiment with.
Jewellery Workshop
A full classroom area of dedicated jewellery benches kitted with hand tools, rolling mill, drills, polishers, pickle and forming area. Students are able to experiment with cutting, soldering, and shaping small-scale metal ready for metal-based wearable objects, often combined with other materials such as glass and found objects. Other metalworking such as spot welding and steel forming are used in this area.
Plaster, Mould Making & Slip Casting Workshop
This specialist workshop is dedicated to plaster mould making and slip casting, allowing students to produce accurate forms and explore a range of casting techniques. Equipped for both one-off and repeat mould production, the workshop supports experimentation alongside professional studio practice.
Resin Casting Area
Our resin casting area enables students to explore alternative casting processes using a variety of mould-making techniques. Working with materials such as resin, students can also experiment with new materials and develop prototypes for a broad range of creative applications.
Ceramic Kiln Room
Our dedicated kiln room houses a range of kilns supporting bisque firing, glaze firing and specialist ceramic processes. Students learn how firing schedules, temperature and atmosphere influence ceramic outcomes while gaining practical experience of safe kiln operation.
Glaze Laboratory
Our specialist glaze laboratory is stocked with a wide range of raw materials, allowing students to develop and test their own glaze recipes and surface finishes. Through practical experimentation, students explore colour, texture and surface qualities while developing an understanding of ceramic glaze formulation.
Ceramic Project Studios
Our dedicated project studios provide final-year students with their own working space to develop larger and more ambitious ceramic projects. These quieter studio areas allow work to remain safely in progress while giving students the flexibility to refine ideas, experiment and prepare work for exhibition.
Glass Lampworking Workshop
A new area which is proving to be very popular is our lampworking equipment. This allows students to use specialist hot torches to hand-manipulate and melt small-scale rods of glass or blown tubes into 3d form. Bespoke marbles are a recent favourite, as are glass jewellery components and special jewels that can then be coldworked and bonded for unique details.
Glass Kiln Room
We have 6 specialist glass kilns with a range of purposes from forming, slumping, casting, enamel, frit glass surfaces. Students learn how the use of heat, time and position in the kiln can transform the work created.
Glass Casting Plaster Room
This workshop is solely for the purpose of creating complex moulds for glass casting purposes. We have wax, rubber, and plaster mould-making equipment.
Cold Working Glass Workshop
Several glass-cutting, sanding, polishing, and grinding machines are in situ here, where students can cold-form their glass artefacts and highly polish surfaces with accuracy. It is all about a refined finish and attention to detail.
Glass Leading Workshop
Once a design in glass has been drawn, planned, cut, and placed, it comes into this area to be leaded, cleaned, and framed. This is where the magic happens, and you can visualise your final stained-glass panels.
Sandblasting Workshop
We have two large sandblasting machines which give a beautiful frosted effect on glass that allow layer and depth through the material. Once inducted, students can have open access to this and other equipment.
Screen Print and Enamel Workshop
A special space dedicated just to the creation of screens for imagery to be printed onto both glass and steel enamel. We host a wide range of enamel processes on a range of metal bases, including 3d steel and copper. You can expose your own design and photographic imagery in there.
Acid Bay and Electroforming Area
We are the only department in the UK with a specialist glass acid bay, this is a process to highly polish and etch glass in both 3d and 2d form. Students can also experiment with electroforming copper over a range of objects from nature, found materials, glass, metal and ceramic. This is particularly useful for jewellery scale projects.
Cutting Technologies
The scope of our laser cutting and engraving facilities accommodates the potential for a wide variety of differing projects, materials, and scales. Once inducted, you will be able to work independently, supported by technicians.
3D Print and CNC Area
It is important to have a range of making skills in both digital and analogue processes. It is all about a range of tools at your disposal. These 2 spaces allow students to take what they have learnt in CAD software to create cut and carved materials or 3D prints. These objects might also be for mould making or tool-based processes as a means to obtain an object in other materials. Students can realise their designs through experimentation with 3D scanning and 3D VR drawing.
Wood Workshop
A large-scale shared workshop with all the means to cut, carve, drill, lathe and sand pieces in wood, plastic and metals. This space is also essential for making means to display artwork in the form of frames, furniture, lighting components, plinth, shelves etc A wide selection of hand and electric tools live here and a team of amazing technicians ready to problem solve any request
Shared Workshops & Cross-Disciplinary Access
You’ll benefit from shared access to workshops across the art school encouraging interdisciplinary experimentation and a balance between traditional craft and contemporary design practice. Students in the past have collaborated with the environment department, surface pattern and traditional print. Several times a year we also join forces with the photography department and shoot in their professional studio setting with their undergraduates.
PC and Mac Suite
Our IT suites are equipped with both PC and Apple computers, equipped with Adobe Creative Cloud and other relevant professional software such as Fusion 360 compatible with a broad design craft context. You will be taught by academic staff within this space and benefit from generous open-access to self-study.
Exhibition Spaces
At show time every year the department is transformed into a beautiful gallery space inside the listed building. Our areas are filled with light and show our students work to its absolute best. Carefully curated students learn how to design and present their work in a professional setting. Inviting audiences in whether friends and family, or live project partners is a really important part of our creative community experience. This is enhanced by the magic of the Design Crafts corridor filled with artwork from 1st 2nd and 3rd year students and archive pieces from our stained-glass heritage.
Gallery
