Aims

What are our aims?

We want to establish a visual art gallery for the benefit of the community of the Marches region and beyond. The project will be guided by its rural environment and have as its central ethos a genuine respect for the culture of the countryside.

We want to offer artists, architects, builders, farmers and the community a real opportunity for manifesting their own public gallery at the cutting edge of ecological design. We will actively promote, where possible a grass-roots approach in combination with professional and experience workers. Through involvement in the building process, everyone will learn, develop and contribute.

Key aims for The Cloud Gallery Project will be to:

develop a gallery with indoor and outdoor exhibition space
establish studio space for use by visiting resident artists
create a low impact, affordable public building as an exemplar of good practice in environmental architecture and construction
promote rural arts on a national basis
advance education in the arts, sustainable construction and responsible use of resources
involve the community
protect and conserve the environment in the environs of the gallery

We want the gallery to provide a stunning visual experience. The sky is an ever-changing natural art display available to everyone. The Cloud Gallery is symbolic of this and by incorporating a cloud contemplation chamber in the design, we hope to encourage an appreciation of all our natural surroundings and changing of the seasons.

Indicative Plan

Some key features of The Cloud Gallery:

The Building	Gallery space with larger sculpture situated in a courtyard or within wider environs of the meadows Cloud comtemplation chamber Artist studios plus mobile studio(s) Provision for workshops/seminars Retail outlet Information resource
Activities	Workshops/seminars Artists in residence Green weddings
Sustainable Construction	Low impact building methods Aiming to minimise use of resources and energy Pioneering use of straw bale/timber construction for the scale of public building
Economy	Low cost construction materials Simple building methods will allow some artist/community opportunity for self-build and minimise cost of specialist skills and equipment Eco-design will optimise energy use and other operating and "whole life" costs Overall cost will be less than conventional build