IHBC Yearboox 2018

R E V I E W A N D A N A L Y S I S 27 THE ENGINE SHED A HUB WITH MANY SPOKES COLIN TENNANT and GORDON URQUHART T HE ENGINE Shed, Scotland’s Building Conservation Centre in Stirling, opened to the public in July 2017. Run by Historic Environment Scotland (HES), our vision is to create a world-class conservation hub, raising conservation standards in skills and training and inspiring a new generation of young people to get involved. We have constructed a creative, inspiring space filled with activities, exhibitions and events, where people can experience conservation in action; a melting pot for exchanging ideas and fostering collaboration. The Engine Shed exists to support the heritage sector by inspiring and educating people about the importance of our built heritage, the multiple roles it plays in our lives, and the need to properly understand and maintain it. At the heart of this message is a recognition that we require the knowledge, skills and materials to conserve not only the scheduled and designated but also the ‘ordinary’ traditional buildings that provide the backdrop to our lives: our homes, our businesses, our infrastructure and our sense of place. Everyone in the sector is aware of the loss of knowledge and skills at professional, technical and craft levels which we have seen over the past 50 years. Most will also have experienced the difficulty of explaining the importance, or even relevance, of conservation to a general public that is inundated with information and demands for its attention. The Engine Shed represents a concerted effort to reverse those trends and ensure that young people today can see the opportunities that are present in our sector, as well as understanding the threats, such as climate change, that it faces. UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE An important part of the learning journey with the Engine Shed project has been the need to gain a better understanding of who we were trying to communicate with and how we were proposing to do it. Because we initially found these elements of the project challenging, we sought some external help to develop our understanding of audience segmentation and how to use ‘tone of voice’ to convey key messages to different audiences. The Engine Shed needed to be accessible, but not ‘dumbed down’. It needed to enthuse and excite, but not trivialise the important concepts that we needed to get across. Answering these needs led us to an audience structure divided into ‘paddlers’, ‘swimmers’ and ‘divers’. • Paddlers Limited knowledge and experience of the historic built environment sector. Includes the general public, community groups and school children. Activities: family activities, evening lectures, taster sessions, craft skills demonstrations. Language: exploration, discovery, fun. • Swimmers Some contact with sector, want to learn more. Includes building owners, managers and those working in the wider construction and maintenance sector. Activities: weekend seminars, summer school, module highlights, advice service. Language: training, education, expertise. • Divers People already working in the conservation sector. Includes specialist craftspeople and consultants. Activities: postgraduate modules, CPD days, specialist seminars and workshops. Language: developing knowledge, research innovation. Using this model has revolutionised how we develop our education and outreach programmes. Driven by the outputs of our ongoing research strategy and project work, every idea for an event or activity is tested against the paddlers, swimmers and divers framework so that we ensure that each audience is being addressed, Historic Environment Scotland’s properties in care provide the setting for the majority of postgraduate site visits, such as this masonry inspection at Linlithgow Palace. (All photos: HES)