The Building Exploratory works in partnership to deliver a wide range of innovative education and creative engagement projects. Click on the pictures below to find out more about current and recent projects.
| Engagement Projects | |
 Panorama Highstreet 2012 |
 The People's Archive |
 Arundel Square |
 Exploring Adventure |
| Education Projects | |
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Panorama Highstreet 2012
Click here for the Panorama Highstreet 2012 Blog
Click here to vote for the People's Favourite Building
Panorama High Street 2012 is an ambitious project to create a community heritage resource recording and documenting the six-kilometre stretch from Aldgate to Stratford in East London. The project will celebrate the High Street at an historic point in its development acting as arecord of the route from central London to the 2012 Olympic Park. The heritage resource will be created by a team of 30 local volunteers recruited from the diverse communities of Tower 
Hamlets. Volunteers will take part in a development programme providing them with the skills to be fully involved across the project. Volunteers will begin by researching the 600 buildings along the High Street with the support of Tower Hamlet’s Borough Archivist and move on to supportthe delivery of three learning and engagement programmes for schools, older people and local adults. These programmes will engage local communities with the heritage of the High Streetand provide project volunteers with opportunities to develop their teaching, lifelong learning and reminiscence skills. They will record the memories of programme participants in order to bring the buildings to life.
The resulting website will be a wonderful multi layeredresource featuring: a photographic 
panorama of every building on the street, information on the history of the buildings, current and historical images, local people’s views and memories. It will celebrate a unique part of East London and which can be used as a basis for learning by Tower Hamlet’s 20,000 school children. A final exhibition will showcase the project’s rich visual material to 30,000 local people and thank the community for their involvement in this special project.
The People's Archive
Click here to vote for your favourite building on High Street 2012
The People’s Archive project aims to create a resource for the people who live, work and play around Bow Road. We are gathering the reminiscences, stories and opinions of local people in
order to create an archive of this remarkable part of east London. Bow Road forms part of ‘High Street 2012’, the 6km route from the City of London to the Olympic Park.
The Peoples Archive is being created through a series of workshops with groups of young andolder people in Bow. As part of the young peoples programme, we have worked with Year 10 GCSE Art and Design students at Langdon Park Secondary School to explore and document experiences of Bow Road in creative ways. Students have had the opportunity to 
developportraiture photography skills by working with Will Robson-Scott, a professional photographer, and have used these to take profile photos which provide a snapshot of the people who live near Bow Road. Students have also worked with professional designer Sam Baum of Studio Baum,to explore design features along Bow Road and create pieces of workthat celebrate this historic high street.
Our older peoples programme has worked with groups associated with the Bromley-by-Bow centre including ‘Young @ Art’ and the Bengali Grandparents Group, as well as Poplar Day Centre. In a series of sessions we have explored Bow Road with these groups via virtual and
non-virtual walking tours, through using archive photographs and through creating collageresponses to experiences and memories of Bow Road.
The outcomes of this project will be included in a celebration event, scheduled to take place in Summer 2012.
For more information on this project please click here to visit the Peoples Favourite Blog.
EXPLORING ADVENTURE 2009-2010
Kilburn Grange Park Adventure Playground, Camden
To help realise the best possible design for Kilburn Grange Park Adventure Playground in Camden, the Building Exploratory worked with erect architecture to devise an ambitious engagement and learning programme to involve the local community.
A wide range of participants explored the meaning of adventure, addressing the natural environment, structural principles and the constraints of the site. They responded by making models, signs, temporary structures, pinhole cameras, animations and a series of artworks that are embedded in the playground.
The engagement process culminated in a “Manifesto for Adventure”, presented 
in the playground and online, that prompts people to be adventurous. A toolkit outlining the creative activities is available here. We hope it will inspire you to invent your own ways of exploring place and play in your local area.
Kilburn Grange Park Adventure Playground
WHAT MAKES A SQUARE WONDERFUL 2008-2010
Arundel Square, Islington
The Building Exploratory is supporting Greenspace’s Engagement Strategy for the redevelopment of Arundel Square, a treasured public garden in Islington, in partnership with remapp landscape architects and plattformer. We are delivering a programme of public engagement and learning for local 
people, providing opportunities for them to explore, document and inform the process of improving Arundel Square.
Local residents and school students have created a temporary artwork from plaster casts of found objects to adorn hoardings on the site in advance of the construction phase. Students have produced models, panoramic photos, pinhole cameras and photograms. They will also design and make ceramic 
chess pieces and table tennis paddles, using materials salvaged from the site, to gift to local residents.
The engagement and learning methodologies used in the project will be collated in a community learning pack that will provide a toolkit for those wishing to explore this urban green space and others like it.
Going For Green 2010
Globe Primary School, Tower Hamlets
The Building Exploratory has been commissioned by A New Direction to design and deliver a creative partnerships project, with an Olympic focus, in collaboration with Globe Primary School in Tower Hamlets. Students and teachers have been working with a wide range of artists including: sculptors, performers and storytellers to learn about the 2012 stadium, the impact of the 2012 Games on their local area, its wildlife, and sustainability.
Using information and ideas collected through meetings with architects andmembers of the Olympic Development Agency, and during visits to the 2012 site and the Emirates stadium, the students have created their own models of a sustainable stadium for 2012.
Their proposals include suggestions for how the legacy can accommodate wildlife and mini beasts and be as green as possible. The end of term will seea final celebration where students will present their designs to their fellows and families.
If you would like information about how to get involved with the Building Exploratory’s school projects please contact Janet Clark education@buildingexploratory.org.uk 020 7729 2023
Dalton Time Capsule
Year 4
To capture an important moment in the development of Dalston Junction, the Building Exploratory worked with students at Holy Trinity Primary School and Colvestone Primary School to fill a Time Capsule with a record of their area. In a project organised by Hackney Council Cultural Development, the students 
first learnt about the history and development of Dalston Junction through a mapping workshop and by meeting a historic character at the Hackney Museum.
The students then had the opportunity to work with two artists from Plattformer, to create plaster cast cubes made up of impressions of surfaces and found objects. Photos of the students holding their cubes will be placed in the Time Capsule which will be buried in the Dalston Junction development 
ata ceremony in May 2011.
