Title: The All Things Nice Emporium
Author: Emma Warbrick
Year: 2018
Abstract: The project was undertaken within Carolyn Butterworth’s Studio In-Residence, which bridges art and architecture, encouraging community embedded design informed by pre-occupation with theatre as a tool for enhancement of the city.
Influenced by Speculative Everything, the All Things Nice Emporium was conceived as an imagined narrative where a Bassett family descendant of the eponymous Sheffield sweet company, establishes a women’s co-op that re-invents the traditional Sheffield sweet, Yorkshire Mixture. The reinvented sweet reflects the diverse population of modern Sheffield, investing profits back into the business to train and empower more local women. Concerned by the systematic subtraction of the city’s post-war architectural legacy under the aspirations of retail renaissance, the resultant severing of place and character from the street and the pervasive New Mall style of modern urban re-generation, the All Things Nice Co-Operative campaigned to buy, manage and develop units at the Moorfoot. The Emporium is the result of these endeavours.
Inspired by immersive theatre, I embodied the character of the architect in this fiction, and all related documents, submissions and reviews were completed in character to playfully detail the project. To this end, I created a Manifesto; the ConfACTIONers’ Cook Book – Recipes for retail revolution, The Architectural Benefactors Handbook, a guide detailing the process of site acquisition, funding and costing and A Buildable Feast, exploring sustainability. The exam presentation was completed in costume as a member of the Co- Operative presenting their success after opening to Sheffield City Council members.