Dressing Nottingham's New Contemporary Arts Centre

Louise West, a current Textile Design student and John Angus, Programme Leader of Textile Design have been involved in an exciting project with the architects of Nottingham's new ?14m arts centre which is due to open Autumn 2009.

Nottingham Centre for Contemporary Arts is being dressed with a lace pattern embossed into the external concrete panels. The design is based on a sample of Victorian lace found in a time capsule from 1847, unearthed when a new supermarket was being built in Nottingham. The pattern was given to John and Louise, who then used digital imaging and laser technology to capture and replicate the exact pattern in 3 dimensional form. This technical approach was used to produce a master mould. The mould was then sent to Germany, where leading rubber mould supplier Reckli was able to transfer the design onto a durable rubber mat. The mat was then used by Trent Concrete in Nottingham during the casting process.

Louise made sure that the replication of the original lace construction was accurate. John's involvement in the project was the complex digital process of creating the casts for the form liners. Louise is an undergraduate on the BA (Hons) Textile Design course and is a long-standing and expert member of The Lace Guild and the Nottinghamshire Bobbin Lace Society.