Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI)

CCI Invests

Latest news: Our newest edition newsletter – March 2013, Issue 2 – is out now.

New £21.5 million project creates additional 4,600 square metres dedicated to student teaching, learning and exhibition facilities.

The University has demonstrated a major commitment to the creative and cultural industries over the last five years including the formation of a dedicated faculty in this area which has brought together the four schools related to the industry:

• Portsmouth School of Architecture 
• Portsmouth School of Art, Design and Media
• School of Creative Arts, Film and Media
• School of Creative Technologies

In this next exciting stage, more than £21.5 million is to be invested in creating a major extension on the existing Eldon site to provide a new inter-disciplinary home to all creative and cultural teaching, learning and research, alongside a redevelopment of the New Theatre Royal for purpose-built facilities to cater to students within the Faculty.

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Why we are investing

The new building is part of long term strategic plan to foster arts and creativity in the region in conjunction with regional local authorities, businesses and employers, creating a central hub which has our talented students at its core.

The recent regional award of £1.2 million for a specific enterprise space for new and inspiring artists and innovators (Cell –Block) within the historic dockyard is further testament to the national faith that Portsmouth is the perfect incubation space for the future of the creative and cultural industries.

Currently 12,300 businesses employ just under 100,000 people within the creative and cultural industries in the region. A workforce, of which 53% are graduates, and brings 4 billion into the UK economy (Sector skills council -Creative Choices 08/09)

Facilities and technology

The new building, opening in September 2013, will complete a major investment in teaching and learning facilities for our students, with a particular focus on the public staging, exhibition and performance of student and external artists work.

The new building will create a fourth side to the existing Eldon complex, incorporating:

• a large lecture theatre
• new seminar spaces
• outstanding exhibition and event facilities
• extensive social learning facilities
• upgraded workshops and equipment
• enhanced open access IT facilities

The development will allow us to bring together all staff and students engaged within the creative and cultural industries into one physical space, creating a central hub where interdisciplinary creative practise, development and potential can thrive and inspire.

The extension will create an additional 3000sqm of space dedicated to student work, teaching and learning. The main exhibition space will increase by 60sqm and a new additional exhibition gallery of 46sqm will add to the University’s facilities for its students.

Upgrades and additional workshop equipment including digital fabric printing, additional laser cutters, green screen and camera studios and sound recording studios’ will continue to enhance our offering to current and potential students. The physical space, integrated facilities and interdisciplinary teaching and learning philosophy will place our course offerings and our graduates, within this field, at the cutting edge of innovative practise and potential employment.

London based architects Penoyre and Prasad, already responsible for the award-winning University library extension, are leading the project.  Their 20 years of practice has been at the forefront of developing the design of low energy, low environmental impact buildings which help save running costs and which create sustainable, internationally distinguished architecture.

Who is moving?

The new building will bring together on one site the four schools that comprise the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries. These are:

• Portsmouth School of Architecture
• School of Art Design and Media
• School of Creative Technologies
• School of Creative Arts, Film and Media.

The new building is designed to act as a catalyst for multidisciplinary exchange and interdisciplinary development in the fields of study within the Faculty of Cultural and Creative Industries. The overall design aesthetic has conceived of the buildings as free-flowing, flexible and responsive providing a spatial configuration that will support the Faculty's commitment to the provision of excellence in learning and teaching within the domains of the creative and cultural industries.

The new building will also provide a central focus for the public staging, exhibition and performance of student work as well as external clients: the conception of the building as a dynamic social space with appropriate facilities to support extra-curricular discourse is key to a vision in which opportunities for movement between fields of knowledge production, collaborative creativity and the incubation of areas of creative application are secured.