BIM Academy goes global

An innovative collaboration between Northumbria University and Ryder Architecture, known as BIM Academy, has been taking its expertise around the world on iconic projects in Hong Kong and Australia.

Business Information Modelling (BIM) has taken the construction industry by storm in recent years and BIM Academy, which is based on Northumbria’s Newcastle campus, has helped the UK become a world leader in this innovative field.

School pupils test their crime stories on Northumbria experts

In celebration of the Crime Story festival, Northumbria academics also shared their expertise with younger audiences. Media Studies students from Newcastle’s Heaton Manor School met with the University’s experts during an afternoon on campus.

Christine Bell, Subject Leader for Media Studies at Heaton Manor, said: “Our GCSE and A Level students have spent many months investigating crime fiction, studying programmes such as Vera and CSI to identify how suspense is built, and how stylistic approaches to crime fiction vary.

“Having direct access to criminologists and forensics experts has been invaluable for our students. It has added another dimension to their work, while also allowing them to gain a glimpse into the type of research that is available to students within higher education.”

Students in the running for £4,000 artist commission

As the country gears up to see the one millionth runner finish the world’s greatest half marathon, a new generation of artists are celebrating the cultural aspects of the Great North Run through film and media.

In September 2013, Great North Run Culture launched its latest programme of events at Northumbria’s Sport Central arena. The event also marked the start of the two organisations coming together to create exciting opportunities for students to showcase their work, which, in turn, can be enjoyed by cultural audiences far and wide.

Great North Run Culture is an annual series of arts projects, events and exhibitions that celebrate and explore sport and art. The organisation was established in 2005 to mark the silver anniversary of the Run, and has since been responsible for the creation of a vibrant programme of work featuring film, drama, dance, writing and more.

BIM Academy, in collaboration with the client’s Building and BIM Engineering team, defined and developed a facilities management specification to meet the building stakeholder needs for the existing and future refurbishment.

During their time at Northumbria, the students had the opportunity to ask questions of the panel, madeup of Criminology, Forensics, Digital Forensics and Creative Writing lecturers.

They also went behind the scenes for a glimpse into the TV world, thanks to a talk from Northumbria Performing Arts graduate, Riley Jones, who played DC Mark Edwards in crime drama, Vera

The students then enjoyed a tour of Northumbria’s media facilities, giving them a taste of what’s to come if they were to continue their media studies into higher education.

Northumbria students directly benefit from being at the forefront of this emerging sector, with teaching informed by the latest technology and industry developments.

BIM Academy’s portfolio of work is continuing to expand across the globe with major project and competition wins involving several iconic international buildings.

The centre for excellence recently beat off international competition to win a major project providing specialist facilities management and technical expertise for Sydney Opera House, a UNESCO world heritage site since 2007, which has started to undergo a long-term renewal program.

BIM Academy is also working on the ambitious £450m M+ Museum in Hong Kong, which aims to attain international status comparable to MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Tate Modern in London.

Peter Barker, BIM Academy’s managing director said: “Our influence is growing across the globe thanks to our great technical team, our knowledge and expertise, and also the nature of the iconic projects we’ve been brought in to work on.”

Great North Run Culture annually commissions artists to create new work, such as the recent film, Tracer by artist Melanie Manchot. The film premiered at Sport Central and featured ten parkour runners, or traceurs, tracing the route of the run through jumps, vaults and urban gymnastics.

The partnership with Northumbria has now created a Graduate Commission, which will award £4,000 to a final-year undergraduate or recent graduate from any of Northumbria’s creative arts courses, to create a new work that responds to and captures the spirit of one of the world’s top sporting events.

The successful student or graduate will be announced in November of this year, and will deliver their final artwork in July 2015 to form part of the 2015 Great North Run Culture programme.

Beth Bate, Director of Great North Run Culture, said: “We’re really excited to be able to offer this opportunity to a student or recent graduate as part of our partnership with Northumbria University. In the same way that our annual Moving Image Commission works, students or recent graduates will go through a rigorous application process, including presenting their work to a selection panel. We hope this will be a valuable experience for anyone who applies, and we look forward to working with the next generation of artists and filmmakers from Northumbria University.”

Helping new businesses to get off the ground

The Business & IP Centre is a partnership between the British Library, Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Science City and Northumbria University, supported by ERDF funding.

The Centre provides support to entrepreneurs, inventors and small businesses with the partner organisations each helping firms to successfully launch and develop a new business, product or service.

The Art Deco cinema’s longstanding relationship with Northumbria University moved up a level this year with the launch of an exciting partnership borne out of a shared enthusiasm for culture, developing new talent and the possibilities that are opened up through collaborative working.

One of the first projects will be a graduate residency supporting the artistic development and practice of recent Northumbria graduates from various disciplines including fine art, animation, design and film. This is just the beginning, with many more projects currently being developed to build on the activities of both the cinema and the University.

“We’re working on a number of possibilities with Northumbria, but we’re particularly excited about the coordinated role we can play in supporting aspiring artists and filmmakers from the region and helping develop talented students and graduates,” Mark said.

Mark, who has been Chief Executive at Tyneside Cinema since 2000, explained why he is a strong believer in partnership working.

“As a cultural organisation and a charity, with a remit to be of public benefit, partnership working is an excellent and very sensible way to achieve our goals.

professionalism of those involved,” he added.

“We already had a whole raft of informal relationships with Northumbria academics. We wanted to celebrate this and continue to encourage it, but we also wanted to think about how we could really enrich things for mutual benefit.

“A lot of partnerships start out with exciting ‘wouldn’t it be great if…?’ ideas, but at Northumbria this enthusiasm is also backed up by a very professional approach.

“I really give the University a lot of credit for the energy, time and effort it put into leading on faceto-face meetings and forging relationships to explore where there were real opportunities for enriching our work.”

The cinema is currently helping the University’s Media and Communications Design department to look at expanding its exhibition offer for the public, whilst also exploring how it can provide professional feedback and space to meet for students working in disciplines such as film, moving image and design.

Tyneside Cinema works with a number of partners including the Arts Council, British Film Institute, Newcastle City Council, Northern Film and Media, Creative England, and several other bodies, including the region’s other universities.

Mark added: “When it comes to successful partnerships, think both sides need to be continually asking ‘what could we do better by being together?’ and that’s one of the great things about working with Northumbria. We’re continually asking this question together throughout.”

Cinema offers graduate residency

The new graduate residency opportunity, funded by the Arts Council, has been created to support the development and practice of recent arts graduates working with screen-based media.

their businesses to grow.

Concepts for products and prototypes are then tested at Northumbria University before the team at Newcastle Science City provides in-depth support to commercialise the viable product or service.

opportunity for the University to form relationships with businesses at the early stages of their development.

To find out more about BIM Academy go to bimacademy.ac.uk

Newcastle City Council, through the City Library, helps businesses to assess and fully exploit their Intellectual Property (IP) needs in order to protect their ideas and help

Since launching as a pilot centre in 2011, the Business & IP Centre has supported 1,300 individuals, helping to create 66 businesses and 204 additional jobs in the region.

Hugh Rhodes, Enterprise Manager at Northumbria University, said: “The Centre provides an excellent

“We hope that this will leverage further work with these SMEs over time which will lead to long-term relationships and bigger projects, such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships or collaborative research.”

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For more information about visit bipcnewcastle.co.uk

“The North East also has a strong tradition of partnership working and we’re proud to carry this on. Mark went on to explain: “As a region, we could quite easily become isolated, but thankfully this hasn’t happened and, if organisations such as ourselves and Northumbria continue to work together, it never will.

“Tyneside Cinema works proudly with all the universities in the North East, but when it came to Northumbria we were particularly impressed by the energy and

It will provide emerging artists with a £2,500 bursary and mentorship, as well as studio space and technical support to develop new work in a professional working environment.

The selected resident will play a key role in the development and delivery of a new monthly ‘show and tell’ programme aimed at students in the region and will present their completed work at the Tyneside Cinema.