Ulster Architectural Heritage regularly delivers stand-alone projects, subject to availability of funding, opportunity and/or partnerships. These include educational projects, public engagement projects, conferences, summer schools, and targetted initiatives, for instance, for European Heritage Open Days and Maintenance Week NI. If you have an idea for a project and think that UAH is a potential partner, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Homes through the Ages
In 2014, Ulster Architectural Heritage and Hearth Historic Buildings Trust developed an educational resource for Key Stage 2, ‘Homes through the Ages’.
The site demonstrates the evolution of homes through the ages, and underlines the important role of historic buildings in a sustainable future. The focus is on Georgian and Victorian properties, as they constitute the vast majority of historic homes still in use and uniquely features examples restored by Hearth. With engaging illustrations, photographs, quizzes and other useful links the user will be entertained whilst learning about historic buildings, construction, materials, architectural details, eco ideas and sustainability in relation to how people used to live.
We hope you find it interesting and useful. Please feel free to forward and share: www.homesthroughtheages.com
Funded by NGO Challenge Fund, Department of the Environment NI, (now Department for Communities, Historic Environment Division).
Looking Back, Moving Forward
In the 1990s, Ulster Architectural Heritage developed a 3 year education programme and a teaching resource for Key Stage 2. This resource was developed in recognition of the need to engage young people with the historic built environment and that the study of Ulster’s buildings contributes to:
• Art and Design by heightening sensory experiences
• English through written descriptions of buildings and places
• Geography by creating environmental awareness
• History by developing a sense of the past and its physical legacy
• Mathematics by the use of shapes and the relationship of shapes
• RE by looking at the form and function of church buildings
• Science by studying the physical elements of buildings
Download a copy of the Looking Back Moving Forward, teaching resource.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Mournes & Me
In 2016, Ulster Architectural Heritage, built on aforementioned resources when commissioned by the Mourne Heritage Trust, as part of the Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership to deliver a built heritage education programme and associated teaching resource. UAH led over 400 children, from over 20 local schools through workshops focused on the unique built heritage of the area, studying and building models of local landmarks, for example Silent Valley, Annalong Cornmill and Hanna’s Close, to name but a few. A detailed teacher’s resource was produced by UAH for the project to provide schools with the information they need to continue and use local buildings/structures in their curricular activities. Linking built heritage themes through the curriculum to local heritage landscapes.
Find out more. Download a copy of the Mournes & Me: Built Heritage Education Pack.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Open Heritage: Belfast
Ulster Architectural Heritage provides an annual, Belfast based programme of activity specifically for European Heritage Open Days. Over 3 years this has included ‘See Your Square’ at College Square and the Old Museum Building, in partnership with Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (BNHPS) (2017), ‘Brick Built Belfast’ at Riddel’s Warehouse, in partnership with Hearth (2018), and ‘Architecture & Archaeology of Castle Place’ (2019).
These events have been led by UAH and have included the development of co-branded material with Belfast City Council, bespoke events and associated exclusive openings, walking tours, exhibitions, and booklet guides.
Conservation Without Frontiers: Biannual Cross Border Summer School
The ‘Conservation Without Frontiers’, biannual summer school is an event run in partnership with the Irish Georgian Society. In 2015, 2017 and 2019 the school has brought together students, experts, professionals and enthusiasts to explore, discuss & debate issues facing our shared Irish heritage. In 2015 Armagh-Monaghan, 2017 Donegal-Derry~Londonderry, and in 2019 Cavan-Fermanagh, the Summer School has provided 60 scholarships to students of subjects relating to architectural heritage. It has provided over 300 attendees in total with opportunities to visit and engage with the history & heritage of local cross-border areas. The aim of the school is to inform on the subject of conservation, and to promote best practice through the direct engagement with experts and practitioners. For information on future summer schools and/or similar events, visit the UAH events page here.
Cathedral Quarter Tour
In 2014, Ulster Architectural Heritage developed the Cathedral Quarter Tour App. Look up and discover the rich architecture of Belfast’s former commercial heart. The Cathedral Quarter Tour app provides a guided tour of the architectural heritage of the Cathedral Quarter, an area of cultural and historical importance focussed around St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast. Despite this areas designation as a conservation area, plans have been repeatedly proposed for development affecting this, the cultural centre of Belfast. This tour aims to highlight the beauty and importance of the built heritage of the Cathedral Quarter, to local people and visitors, in a new and interactive way.
The app is currently being transferred between platforms and is not currently available.
Funded by NGO Challenge Fund, Department of the Environment NI , (now Department for Communities, Historic Environment Division).
Quality Streets: Retrofitting Traditional Terraces
In 2013 Ulster Architectural Heritage and Hearth developed a short video to encourage heritage–led regeneration and the creative retrofitting of Belfast’s distinctive red brick terraces – protecting established communities and the homes of local residents.
Working closely with Hearth Historic Buildings Trust and Big Lolly, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society created a short film which demonstrates how our undervalued stock of traditional terraced houses can be retrofitted using energy–efficient measures.
Using the retrofit scheme carried out by Hearth on the 19th century terraces on McMaster Street, Belfast as an example, the film highlights the importance of harnessing the embodied energy in existing buildings and aims to unmask the concept of retrofitting.
Click here to watch the video on YouTube.
Funded by NGO Challenge Fund, Department of the Environment NI, (now Department fro Communities, Historic Environment Division).
