The Bloomsbury Festival

Store Street's South Crescent - home to NLA and The Building Centre - will be transformed this weekend into a hive of creative activity as part of the Bloomsbury Festival.

On offer will be family-friendly, free workshops in which visitors can draw, build, sculpt and photograph Bloomsbury. They can help build a giant 3D masterplan and capture views of the area with a super-sized pinhole camera pod, while listening to vinyl classics from a mobile 'disco trike' built from recycled scrap materials.

WORKSHOPS AND ACTIVITIES TAKE PLACE SAT 22 AND SUN 23 OCTOBER, 12NOON - 5.00PM

Re-Drawing Bloomsbury (Saturday only)
 Participate in an interactive drawing workshop which re-interprets Bloomsbury from a bird's eye perspective, forming part of a collaborative and temporary installation on the windows of The Building Centre on Store Street, run by Mobile Studio (Art + Architecture) and students from The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

Making Masterplans (Saturday only)
Collaborate with Mobile Studio (Art + Architecture) and students from The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL on a giant 3D model which will re-build Bloomsbury as an alternative and temporary masterplan in the centre of the South Crescent.

Pinhole Picture Pod (Sunday only)
Make like Vermeer and Canaletto and use the Pinhole Picture Pod - a 21st Century camera obscura designed by students from the Architectural Association - to view a live 'photograph' of Bloomsbury and perfect your own sketching skills. Climb inside the pod to sketch your own view of Bloomsbury and then work up your drawing with the help of architectural students, or help use the device to take a giant permanent photograph of the scene unfolding outside.

Other workshops include ‘Faces of Bloomsbury’ in which guests can create a photographic installation with images of locals, a ‘Lower Carbon Drive Talk’ from Andrew Scoones, Director at The Building Centre and the ‘Contemporary Architecture Walk’ led by Peter Murray, Chairman of NLA.  There is also ‘Make your own Jewellery and Storage Solutions’ where artists Isabelle Bricknall, Stacy Darling and Lydia Smith-Aouane will be hosting a workshop creating fun storage solutions from discarded cardboard boxes donated by The Co-Operative Food.

The Bloomsbury Festival is an entirely free cultural Festival, taking place across the whole of this wonderful part of central London. There are over one hundred local organizations involved in making the Festival happen.

For more information visit www.bloomsburyfestival.org.uk or to read more about the festival and the NLA visit www.newlondonarchitecture.org