School of Art facilities
Floating mezzanine levels, glass lifts and cutting-edge specialist workspaces sit comfortably beside the original stained glass windows and mosaic floors of this glorious purpose-built art school. The School of Art is right in the city centre, perfectly placed next to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Library
The School of Art Library based at the historic Margaret Street campus, supports the art courses taught at the Birmingham School of Art.
Wood Workshop
The Wood workshop provides you with a wide variety of hand tools, portable tools and machinery required to undertake a broad range of timber construction processes. Equipment and tools include the mitre cutter, mortiser, band saws, wood lathe, pillar drill and disk sanders, as well as portable tools such as drills and hand sanders.
Print Workshop
The print workshop gives you access to traditional fine art printmaking equipment such as etching presses, relief presses, direct litho press, litho easel, hand pull flat-bed screen beds, aquatint boxes, wash out booth, stone litho graining sink, acid etching area and polishing and plate prep area. You'll also get access to printing inks, both water based & oil based . The Mezzanine level is for use of hand tools for intaglio and relief plate/block making. There is access to light boxes, clean paper and a cutting area, guillotines, paper/drawing films and a materials store.
Casting Workshop
The Casting workshop is a space where students can explore modelling and casting processes. This workshop allows hands-on experience and experimentation in mold-making, life casting, and sculpture, and using materials like plaster, silicones, resins, vinamold, wax and clay.
Textiles Workshop
This workshop offers a range of processes for print, embellishment and construction of textiles, and is equipped with a heat transfer press, domestic sewing machines, digital embroidery machines, industrial sewing machine and industrial overlockers, plus irons, tailors dummies and head blocks. as well as two large format Epson sublimation and Epson direct to garment printers.
Metal Workshop
The Metal workshop is equipped with essential machinery such as a guillotine, rollers, band saws, pillar drill, vac former and polishing wheels. The hot metal workshop provides welding and plasma cutting opportunities. Additionally, this space houses a laser cutter for woods and plastics and 3D printers.
Art and Design
The Art and Design/Art and Design with Creative Technologies course is housed within a laboratory studio environment that has been specifically designed to meaningfully support interdisciplinary learning. The layout is flexible and open plan and is an incubator space with making at its heart. The studio is divided into the ‘Labs’. The Thought Lab brings students together to share, discuss and critique. The Materials Lab is a messier space for making, and the Digital Lab is a cleaner space for working with a range of creative technologies and has a black-out structure to control light.
Fine Art
This studio is at the centre of fine art practice. The studio plays a pivotal role in student development, working as a flexible, fluid and evolving site for art making, sharing and thinking. It is a space to produce, test and build communities, allowing creative working relationships to form. You are able to work fluidly within the purpose-designed specialist studio spaces to support the development of skills with like-minded makers and thinkers in the formation of communities of practice.
Digital Suite
The Digital Edit Suite is an area designated to post production video and sound editing, where you can work with high end Mac desktops. Attached to this room is our lens based media studio, which is used for photographic, filming and stop frame animation work. The media studio works hand in hand with the AV resource, where students can book out a range of photography, videography, sound and display equipment including projectors, cameras tripods and lighting equipment.