SHarc (Sheffield Hallam Architecture Society) was founded in June 2011, born out of a desire to empower the student body, provide new opportunities and activities relating to sustainable architecture and to bring together students across the years, courses and the broader academic and professional community. Since its creation the society has grown from a small core of motivated individuals to an elected core committee and 3 supporting committees, from an initial membership of 60 to 160 and winning the Union prizes for Best New Society 2012 and Outstanding Society of the Year 2013.

Since July 2011 the society has:

• Acted as a primary point of contact between staff and students across the years and related courses, and for other architectural societies and professional bodies.
• Seeded a new pro-active attitude within the course(s) and a far more engaged student body; this has resulted in a number of new student-lead endeavors (often by key SHarc members) such as: the Studio Synergy Collective, which promotes students taking ownership of their university studio; the Readings of the City book group, which encourages a broadening of the academic experience particularly between postgraduates, undergraduates and from courses outside of architecture; and Studio-Pot-Plant-A-Go-Go which brought plants and greenery into the permanent student work-space ‘the studio’.
• Created a mentoring scheme between first and final year undergraduate students for all the university’s architecture courses. This was conceived as a way to increase student interaction and peer-learning at the university.
• Worked towards increasing student employability, in a very competitive and weakened architectural job market; providing networking opportunities with local and national industry professionals, and relevant activities such as hands-on live build projects that can go on student CVs and hopefully make them stand out from the crowd.
• Designed a number of workshops that were taken to local schools to encourage participation in a design-based university education and provide something to put on students’ UCAS forms.
• Run the architectural guest lecture series at the university, bringing in acclaimed national and international speakers to a weekly audience of 50-200 people. This provides an opportunity to learn about the architectural world outside of the course. Since it is free and open to all it allows the student body to network with the local and guest professionals in attendance and has resulted in a number of graduate jobs.
• Invited many architecturally relevant charity organisations to come and speak to students about the work that they do and graduate gap-year opportunities in the developing world.
• Organised the first ever Sheffield Hallam Architecture Ball in February 2013; a sold out event attended by students from all years and staff.
• Set up peer learning workshops to provide additional help, support and tips in graphical skills including digital and hand drawn presentation, in the form of prepared talks, drop-in sessions and online guides.
• Hands on workshops that form a practical foundation to the theory that is taught at the university. This has included: workshops with acclaimed architects; log cabin building in the Lincolnshire woods; providing assistance to a local architect on their self-build eco-renovation with the added benefit of student exposure to the real-world administrative side of the industry.
• Coordinating fresher’s week events and activities in collaboration with the university’s architecture department, this has included: Creation of The SHarcitect’s Pocketbook guide to architecture at university and Sheffield; architecturally focused walking tours of Sheffield; Socials and much more besides.
• Actively seeking to broaden the Hallam student experience with first-time events such as: cross-university socials (with University of Sheffield’s architecture society); SHarc’s co-chairs sitting on the SSA (Royal Institute’s Sheffield Society of Architects) committee, working to increase interaction between university students and local industry. Most recently SHarc hosted the ever popular SSA pub quiz for students, university staff, local and guest professionals.
• Designed and built a secure mobile SHarc Shop, from reclaimed materials, to sell not-for-profit architectural supplies in university to students - since arranging sponsorship with one of the UK’s largest graphical supply companies, bulk discounted orders mean that large savings, on a traditionally resource expensive course, are passed on to students. Fresher’s equipment lists have also been created to make the transition easier for first years into the world of architecture. The shop was started with a £100 startup of society raised funds, now it responds weekly to student requests for stock and upcoming projects; the success of this service can be demonstrated by its monthly turnover of £600 and the broadening of student’s creative material palette.
• SHarc has taken a key and formative role in the architecture department’s end of year exhibition, raising money through sale of cupcakes at guest lectures, and creating the first ever course yearbook.
• Since its inception SHarc has hosted a weekly architectural film/documentary evening Screen 5306 with debate session afterwards, free and open to all. This provides an opportunity to relax after a hard day’s study and inspire future design project developments.
• Each year SHarc has made use of the resources available through the Student Union such as funds for educational trips and events, however most of SHarc’s activities are self-funded or subsided through SHarc initiatives such as sponsorship, negotiating free printing services from the architecture department and of course selling lots of homemade cupcakes!
• Soon to be going into its third year, SHarc has gone from strength to strength, with each successive committee building on the work of the previous one. There has been a conscious effort to create an enduring sustainable society which remains true to its core values of equity, education, inclusivity and a strong environmental focus. Each year the committee has engaged early on with first years, encouraging them to attend committee meetings and gain the confidence to contribute their own fresh ideas and concepts ensuring that the society continues to grow and evolve. SHarc’s legacy is one of a more integrated, pro-active, confident, engaged and vibrant architecture cohort at Sheffield Hallam University.