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.

Hand in 1: Urban Landscape Studies

CATCH UP

Well…as you can probably gage from the lapse in time from the last post to this post – the work has stepped up a notch. So, because its stepped up I am going to run through this all very quickly – because although I have now handed in two modules + a study trip sketch book and there should perhaps be some sort of relief, there isn’t and – I have no time! LUCKILY, I am a workaholic and don’t really mind not having that much time, doing 8.30am to 8pm days and the like.

Ok ok, so not EVERY day is like that, but it was last Wednesday after not being able to do anything due for the hand in for the Art, Plants and Environment module on Friday, because I had a module hand in on that Wednesday morning for my Urban Landscapes module and the week before that we had been in Bordeaux on a study trip.  Well I had done something, but after a tutorial on the Wednesday afternoon I had to have a rethink. You get the idea.

The week before Bordeaux – it wasn’t pretty. I was in tears pretty much everyday. It’s hard learning new things but when you only have 2 days to do something and need a whole day to actually learn whatever computer programme your supposed to be working on…it’s pretty frustrating. Bordeaux however provided a well needed break, some clarity and a chance to talk to my peers, who for the most part, where feeling pretty much the same. Just to clarify - I feel a lot better now.

BORDEAUX

Beautiful. Grand. Outrageous. Elegant. Fun. Just wonderful. A separate blog post on that later.

URBAN LANDSCAPE STUDIES

The second stage of this module (see here for the first stage) was about developing a vision for the study area with my group, 'Amite'.

We produced a vision entitled ‘Reconnecting Armley’ on an A0 sheet with multiple layered maps. Each layer of the map represented a thematic design solution for the issues we had mentioned in our previous presentation…(Green Space, Connections and Access etc). The main part of the sheet however was the multiple layers combined so make a one singular vision map. We also provided examples of small detailing and interventions that would form the basis of our vision i.e a new bridge across one part of the valley to the mills area thus better connecting Armley with the neighboring area of Kirkstall.

Reconnecting Armley by Alex Clarke, Jamie Common, James Davison, Sonia Jackett, Agata Kryjak and Simon Vive

We developed a vision matrix (top right), which shows the key design themes we picked up on in stage one. It also indicated what results could be gained through physical interventions and working with the community to produce social interactions.  Our vision “Reconnecting Armley” is a vision that’s not just about material and physical changes…. it’s one that suggests positive outcomes for the local community too…. so through good design there will be a reduction in crime, people will feel safer and also a stronger local identity and community ethos will be achieved.