Team Away Day
Dave, Jess and Sam enjoy the courtyard at the Corten House.
Last week our Bristol and Totnes offices got together for our quarterly team away day. It's an opportunity for the whole team to meet, discuss, reflect, plan - and socialise! As our first away day of 2024, the focus of the day was setting goals.
The Barefoot Team gathered around the table at the Corten House to discuss our 2024 “Year Compasses”
We started the day at the Corten House, in Bristol; our RIBA South West award-winning project, designed by Project Architect Martina Goluchova. After an exciting tour of the building (we really loved the roof terrace) we sat around the dining table with coffee and pastries, and shared our hopes and aspirations for the year ahead. Julian wants to start a wormery; Adam wants to try his hand at spoon whittling; Sam wants to get back into lino printing. By sharing our ambitions with the team, we hope to support each other to achieve both our personal and professional goals in 2024.
Next, we headed to St Werburghs for a stroll around the City Farm (and some fun interactions with sheep and a very vocal cockerel!), before heading to The Yard. We reflected on the first decade of Barefoot Architects, and celebrated the recent growth and achievements of the team. We had an open discussion about the structure and direction of the practice, and identified our core value and driving focus for the year - ‘What does it mean to be an ethical practice?’
Fun at the Baaa-foot Away Day. Adam captured this photo of a friendly sheep living at St Werburghs City Farm!
Then we split into our smaller “circle” groups to develop specific goals on this theme in different areas of the practice. The Barefoot Circles are set up to share the decision making amongst the team, and empower everyone to contribute to the development and direction of the practice. Each circle has a particular focus, such as design, community or systems, and is responsible for defining and achieving a specific goal, as we constantly strive to be a better practice.
We ended the day at The Farm pub, where we celebrated the practice, and looked forward to the next 10 years!
Written by Kate Hutchinson
For more information on the Corten house (link to: https://www.barefootarchitects.co.uk/ecohomeprojects/cortenhouse page ), take a look at the following articles:
https://www.dezeen.com/2021/01/03/barefoot-architects-corten-house-bristol/