Hand in 2: Art, Plants and Environment

TAH-DAH!

A1 Sheet illustrating my concept for a natural intervention in the city

This was my first, individual submission – and I do not care things are missing, I do not care that it frustrated me beyond all belief, and I do not care if some wizkid on photoshop is looking at it and laughing. I am so so so proud of this. Blood, sweat and tears. LOTS of tears.

The brief was to bring nature into the city – and to only use organic and natural materials (quite, hard).

Three views of the site as it exists today

My concept is The Nature Chamber.

In my concept this underused and wasted site in the middle of Leeds City Centre, next to the Merrion Centre, would be turned into a reflective, tranquil spot. The intervention works on two levels

1)   I wanted to continue my development from my Nature Obscura intervention in the woods…so I wanted to create a place where people could literally see different perspectives and reflections AND I wanted it to be a space of perspective and reflection. Double entendre!

2)   When visiting the site I was struck by how confined a lot of the nature is in our cities, and how there was really not a great deal of green about. With current issues as the Ash Dieback and bloody Nick Boles as the new planning minister, this is something that will only stagnate – or potentially worsen – inside AND outside our cities. Thus I struck upon the idea of an Eternity Chamber (here I was influenced by the artist Charles Avery)

If I had had more time, I would have liked to have developed the idea – as I don’t believe nature should be confined, I believe that we need to develop a more holistic way of combining the urban and the natural…but alas, time was of the essence and my main idea was that an ‘Eternity Mirror or Chamber” could act as some sort of ironical comment on the attitude we have towards nature. Basically if we are not careful, soon all we could be left with are Eternity Chambers attempting to show future generations what a forest or woodland was.

Now. How to represent this organically….

- The layout  + pools of black slate would be placed so that whichever tree you sat by, the reflection would actually be of another tree

Concept sketch representing the above idea

- Layout giving a sense of perspective 

- Black slate would be set by each tree and the water on it would produce a reflection

- Birch trees – aesthetically ephemeral, elegant and tranquil. Cloud Grass - aesthetically dreamlike and calm

- Train the trees so that they act as benches for those wishing to sit (here I was influenced by West 8)

So for lack of time and lack of boring you – that’s it in a nutshell! Hard work. Exhausting. Exhilarating. Exciting. Until next time.