Ark Idea

um… i’m not sure i explained the idea i’d had for the Ark that well at Aardvark this eve… oh well!

i think some similar ideas for the space have been floating around anyway but i thought i’d post the email then you can understand what i actually meant (plus i added pictures! well a picture). have a read and see what you think i guess?!

“I was thinking about the building stuff the other day (specifically the ark) and had a bit of an idea. It’s probably got lots wrong with it but I said I’d email if I had any ideas so this is what I’m doing. take it or leave it I guess.

THE IDEA

To turn the ark into a creative space where the community and church cross and relationships are built and creative stuff is made. To make the Ark into a dynamic, buzzy and interesting place that reflects something of the who God is to the community (local and wider).

UPSTAIRS

keep the music studio and turn the bit where we have aardvark into a shared studio for designers and artists.

 

(something like this?)

DOWNSTAIRS

turn the space into an adaptable space for the church and community.
café & gallery in the day / early evening and other stuff later in the evening (like Aardvark, Chinese church, tae kwon do, gig / live music venue, workshops etc)
(I saw a video of a band’s studio that was similar to the ark where they’d set up a timelapse camera and filmed the space morph from a lounge type place to a studio to a gig venue and I thought ‘that’d be cool to do’)

(not exactly like this but you get the idea!)

STRENGTHS / OPPOTUNITIES

of having creative people (musicians, artists, designers, photographers, etc) using in the same space as each other.

• varied disciplines working together produce interesting / unique work
• shared space and resources keeps costs low

of having creative studios and community centre together (upstairs and downstairs)

• the creativity feeds into the life of the church/community
  • through work produced… ie gallery & general church/community life?!
  • through workshops / lessons run for community
• forces people within the church to be outward looking
• witness
  
  • through personal relationships
  • through creatives work. If some / majority of their work was focused that way (whether explicitly or not) i.e. film making rob bell style, music delirious style or websites re:jesus style?!

of the location

• central Bristol location near a small row of shops so people already pass/ meet there already.
• near Bristol Uni and several UWE Halls (students from Art, Media & Design mainly live in the centre)

WEAKNESSES / THREATS

of the general idea

• if people didn’t get on board (esp the creatives – if didn’t want to work in a shared space or just wanted a normal job?)
• if people didn’t pick up the over arching vision of the place
• if it had too many small visions that didn’t meet (everyone wanted something different from it that conflicted)
• that people don’t need another coffee shop / cafe (ie Jesus didn’t say go forth and make coffee shops in all nations!) so it just distracts people from whats actually important.
• it’s badly run / set up (amaturish)

of the building

• the down stairs is too big?
• it costs too much to set up and run (the building and then people need some form of income too!)
• its hard to make that downstairs space easily adaptable

I guess the main risk is that the building dictates what happens in side it and what happens inside of it doesn’t really meet any particular need. It just drains time/ money and effort that could be better used elsewhere?!

anyway they where my thoughts.”

Also Ros if you wanted to add your thoughts feel free to leave a comment…?

POST SCRIPT Generally i think it’s funny sharing ideas like this because you just think that it’s probably just random idea that’s probably too big to do and just a bit stupid… but then you start to think that most things were once daft ideas that probably seemed a bit silly once aswell. i guess that doesn’t mean that all daft ideas are actually good ideas but perhaps some of them are?!