Publication production

Over the last couple of days, we've been working on producing our publication.

After we met on Tuesday evening to organise a plan of action, we got together on Thursday to start collecting content and transcribing the discussions we had held before Easter. With much of that done, yesterday we were able to start organising the layout and putting people's content in the appropriate sections of the magazine. It's really starting to come together. 



Today we are in the library and starting to organise the transcripts, editing them down (we practically have a dissertation) before putting them into the document. 

This is it. . . . now to build the exhibition

Monday was the digital submission deadline and today is the printed one. Can't believe its nearly over. 

Nearly.

Now that portfolio is effectively out of the way, attention now turns to the exhibition and publication. The publication team met up last night to discuss what needs to get done and when it needs to get done by. The aim is to get the content gathered tomorrow so that we can start arranging it Friday and then start to but it together. We also have to transcribe the discussions held in studio which sounded like a lot to do but we are able to split it up into 30 minute chunks.

I expect we'll be meeting with the 5th years at the end of the week as well.

Alongside this, I started to work on my individual contributions yesterday by starting to fill in my sketchbook. I'm really pleased with it so far. I have also started to plan my drawings. The plan is to do one for the housing and one for the building. This is probably going to be the most time consuming part - the other ones took about 3 weeks to do. At least I already have the drawings.

Breaking the Rules . . . .

 . . . but with good reason.

One of our requirements is to produce a 1:1250 location. Which I did. But really struggled when trying to make it Wright-ish. I poured through all the books I had borrowed from the library trying to find an example of his site plans. There are lots of them but they are all very small sites so don't really help me. From what I can find, he didn't actually produce large scale site plans. The closest I got was his model of Broadacre City.

One image did keep appearing though.

Wright's Plan for Greater Baghdad is a large perspective drawing showing all of the projects in the area at the time. It's so detailed and shows his design for the university campus in the context of the surrounding city.

Which sounds like what the location plan on my brief should aim to do: show my designs in the context of Cheetham Hill. Bearing this in mind, that the drawing is more about what it is showing rather than my tutors knowing that I can draw at 1:1250, I have chosen to break the rules slightly.

So using a very similar scale (obviously, an aerial perspective can't really have a scale) to my original plan, I am in the process of creating my own Plan for Cheetham Hill.

Nearly there . . .

Can't believe the year is nearly over. 5 days until portfolio hand in which means that it's the final final crit tomorrow. 

Having been working on my portfolio all week (obviously) I've now reached my inevitable point of feeling like I have finished. It's something that I have gone through every single submission, usually about 24 hours before the work is due. Which would be fine, if it weren't for my fellow third years probably working well into the night and beyond while I am actually able to get my 8 hours. A different kind of stress.

So, I currently feel like I am ready for tomorrow's crit although I know I will be getting more work to do before Monday. Therefore, I am going to spend the evening and try to critically assess my work, anything that doesn't completely make sense or convey my thought process will be altered. (If only I could momentarily forget my project so that I could really review it properly)

My IDR is also more or less done now although I still need to add a page or two about the exhibitions and my drawings before that is done. Something for tomorrow evening I think. After submission, it's a case of getting my exhibition pieces ready and getting the whole exhibition ready for the show. I've decided on what I'm going to be doing and it should be fairly straight forward, just time consuming I think.

The first of my three items is the playing cards that everyone in my atelier are going to be producing. At the moment, this is just a case of getting them onto the computer - I've already listed what each card is going to be - and to write the 'Rules of Engagement', something that I'm still working on. The second piece is going to be an image. Originally, it was going to be a bird's eye perspective of my scheme but after producing my Frank Lloyd Wright-esque drawings, it makes more sense to do one (or two) of them. The last piece is like a cross between my playing cards and my portfolio, a small sketchbook that will summarise my project with about 30 images/quotes/photos/drawings/sketches/diagrams/whatever.

Last Leg

So, one week off, one week not as much work as I was hoping and then back at uni. Tech is done, essay is done and my IDR first draft is done. It's slowly coming together.

This week has mainly been focused on my drawings and their presentation. As I mentioned previously, I was told to find a style to replicate and although I've decided to ditch the Wainwright idea (it just wasn't really going to work) I have been working on my Frank Lloyd Wright styled images. The downside is that they are taking a very long time - having to trace the drawings in photoshop and then colour and add texture. I've almost finished them now but still have some context to add to the elevations and some finishing touches to add to the long section. After that it's just arranging them on the pages, again in the style of Wright. 

To help me, I got a couple (well, more like a small pile) of books out of the library. These are just filled with his drawings. I could easily just look at them all day. The drawings are so intricate and its even more amazing when you consider that he didn't have a computer to help him, let alone Google SketchUp or AutoCAD.

While my housing drawings are practically finished (until Thursday anyway), I can't really complete the presentation sheets for the centre until I have my 3D perspectives. So that's next on the agenda. The plan is to get these more or less done for Thursday - my penultimate studio day.

Easter Holidays Part I

It's amazing what a week away from uni can do. I've been doing long days of work every day but it's been more relaxed and I've managed to get so much done. My final plans have been updates. All that's left to do on the technical drawings front is the 1:5 sections and updating my site section. Once these are done, I can get them printed and work on their aesthetics. 
I decided to put Revit on hold as I started to see it as a time waster - I was spending hours working it out but I still don't have a model that I can use. It's much more worth my time to get my sections done through AutoCAD.

As well as finishing the first daft of my essay, I have also finished Part A of the IDR and made a good start on Part B. This section consists mainly on images and diagrams so I have had to work on them before anything else. From reading the brief, I can see many similarities between this part and the tech case study so I'm going to approach it the same way - similar diagrams and images. I plan on having this section finished, at least in draft form, by tomorrow.

Next week I am going away so I won't be able to do any work at all. Except for maybe a little bit of reading (although I tried that last year and it even that didn't happen). With this being the case, I want to make sure I get enough done this week while I am still in Manchester with very few distractions.

At this stage, I think the visuals and IDR are the most important things for me to be concentrating on but I also need to start thinking about what to exhibit. This is something for the week after next though.

I have a tutorial this afternoon but for now, I'm going to get my section details done.

Revit Funtimes

Started playing around on Revit last night and re-familiarising myself with the programme by trying to build my design. I'm really please with what I have so far but it's made me realise that I need to know exactly what is going on with my building in order to build it. It's the kind of programme that I'm going to be obsessive about - making sure I know every measurement and wall construction so that I can translate it onto the programme. Which can't be a bad thing. So first thing first is knowing exactly what is used and how it is used to construct it.

Back to the Tech Stuff

Having now more or less finalised my roof designs. I've needed to go back to thinking about the construction of my building. This involved looking back at the tech case studies and my understanding of the Ritblat Building. Essentially, my building can stand up without the aid of the existing facade. I really wanted to continue to use timber, mainly for the creche, and I think I came to the conclusion that I could use timber for the structure of my previous design so I am going to carry on with this idea. I have then been able to use a similar construction as the Ritblat Building. Having worked through this, I should be able to finally start CADding them up!
I need to finish working out how to join the existing facade to the new structure but I took a couple of books out of the library a dew weeks ago so these will hopefully help me to resolve this problem. 

I have a lot to do over Easter. One of the main things is my visuals. I've been told to find a style I love and essentially copy that style. There are a couple of styles that I really like and hopefully I can incorporate both of them. The first is Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings. Obviously, they were done by hand but I'm better at sketching than at photoshop anyway so this will be better for me. The other one isn't architecture related but not too unlike Wright's style. Being a hiker, I love looking at Wainwright's sketches of the Lake District and have tried to imitate them in my own sketches. While he very rarely, if ever, even includes a building in his sketches, the pen and ink style is definitely something I'd like to do.

Another thing that I'm going to have a go at is Revit. Now that I know the construction and form of my design, I think I can have another go at Revit. I did basic tutorials over the summer to get an idea of the program but not used it since, so if nothing else, I need to re-familiarise myself with it. 

Outside my Comfort Zone

After my tutorial yesterday, I have taken my tutors advice to go a little bit crazy with my roof. Last week I had been using physical models but Sketch up has been more useful this time around as I can easily and quickly manipulate the shapes.

I usually go for the more subtle (and I guess, fairly boring - which is where my problem was) design but this has really pushed me away from that and I've started playing around with forms that I would normally keep away from. But I kinda like where it's taking me and it really makes sense to have this disordered roof line which is in complete contrast to the formal style of the existing facade.

By playing around with the roof and, as my tutor described it, being more playful, it's started to influence the way my building interacts with the existing facade and how much of it I actually keep. Very slowly, I am loosing more and more of it, which is something I definitely didn't want to be doing a couple of months ago, but it actually seems to be the right thing to be doing, especially if I am going to keep down this route. 

I'm really curious to see where it's going to go next.

 

Roofs

Now that my tech case studies are out of the way, I've been able to resume project work. After scribbling ideas for the a last couple of weeks, I began by finally arranging the community space of my building. This has changed size since I created my programme and now has a number of spaces that can change - making larger areas or smaller ones as required. 

Resolving these spaces have let me start to resolve the roof. As I am using the site axes to design my building, I want to continue this to the roof. Tuesday saw me modelling my new design which then allowed me to start playing around with the roof yesterday. By starting with a straight forward single pitch in the roof, I could then move on and develop to get my designs modelled in paper. This was going well until I realised that my roof was South facing - meaning that there would be direct sunlight at different times of the day which I really didn't want. This meant back to the drawing board this morning and I've now taken this into consideration and as a deciding factor in the design. 

Despite being told to try and move away from a pitched roof, I have kept coming back to it. But I think I like the way it still reflects the original building and my design is beginning to do what I want it to - especially in terms of letting light into the building. I think it could still be developed further though but the paper models are definitely helping to resolve it. I need to get on with taking photos!

PDP and Beyond

While most of this week has been spent on the case studies, I had an intensive brainstorming evening last Thursday after my PDP meetings. I took a (not so quick) trip to the library and picked up a couple of books. One of which being a survey of adventure playgrounds in London. This has actually been a very happy accident and lead on to me going back to the start of my project, remembering that a key theme was street life. I was then able to come up with a statement that I can use to guide my project.

The circulation as 'street'
The creche as 'playground'
The cafe as 'street side cafe'
The community space as 'public square'

This has given me something to follow and means I can make my spaces more interesting than just being rectangular rooms - one of my problems. The idea of creating an indoors adventure playground is really appealing and I know its something that I can get really absorbed in. With it also being a space for children, I can be really informal and break the rules a bit, getting rid of the solid perimeter around each area. 

I also want to play around with the roof more. Last week it was commented on that my extension looked just that - an extension - and not part of the building. The idea was to bring the roof down to the creche. After modeling this, I saw it created additional space which allowed me to play around a bit more with the first floor spaces.

Today in my tutorial however, it was suggested that I completely ditch the idea of the pitched roof - something I planned in order to reflect the original roof. So this afternoon I'm going to have a go at modelling different roof shapes to help inform my design.

I am also going to look at public spaces in Manchester to help me develop my community space. I want to take aspects from them and use them within my design. 

Basically, this week, I just need to go a bit crazy and ignore boundaries etc to really get stuck into my design.

Tech/Studio Cross Over

So hand in number two has been and gone and this last couple of weeks has seen me trying to get on with my case studies and my IDR. After looking through the part B brief, I realised that I didn't actually have the work to talk about so in order to do that, I needed to work out exactly how my building is constructed. This is where my case study work came in.

The Ritblat building is my case study as well as a precedent. The timber construction is exactly what I want to achieve with mine. Therefore in order to help me construct my own building, I started to deconstruct that one. I'll admit the plans weren't easy to read at the beginning but I think I've picked it up now and have been able to work out the construction techniques involved. This in turn has really helped me with my project as I have used a similar work method.

The drawings produced by Hawkins\Brown are awesome and I am hoping to achieve something in a similar style with my own drawings. There is so much detail on them though and I'm not entirely sure I have all the time that would be required! Worth a shot though.

The biggest issue with my construction at the moment is the existing brick work of the library. While I don't want to interfere too much with it, I know very little of the actual make up of the wall, especially whether there is insulation in there already. This potentially could change the entire construction of the vertical elements of my building - and the interior finish - and this is something that I am hoping to discuss with my tutors on Thursday. Once that problem is solved, I can then resolve the roof and work on getting the formal drawings done. I am also hoping to start work on Revit at the end of the week: I think I have more or less resolved my house construction so I figured it would be a good place to start. 

While all of my tech is in sketches at the moment, they have really helped me to develop this and on Thursday, I'm hoping that I can get some help with the last details like DPMs etc and make sure everything is in it's place before I start to draw them up for real - and put it in Revit.

Currently feeling confident although this could all change on Thursday! Here's hoping

Final Crit 2

Today was the second of the cross atelier reviews. 

I felt that I was actually relaxed and really prepared for it although - as per - the nerves and quaky voice still set in when presenting.

Overall, I think it went well but I think the major thing - picked up by everybody - was that the colours need to be toned down. It was something that I also noticed as soon as I had finished publishing the presentation. I tried to emphasise the colourful environment in the creche but I think I tried to hard. As a whole I need to work on my illustrations but this is something I have been very aware of since last year. 

Apart from this, it's just a case of making sure it all reads well and I can explain my scheme in a way that doesn't require me to be there. My little sketches/diagrams went down well and over the weekend, I plan on just diagramming and sketching my scheme to death! The images themselves were useful for me and my design process and additionally are useful for communicating it. 

One last key point that was made was the lack of connectivity between my two sites which seems crazy especially as part of my argument for using the sites was the connectivity. Therefore I am, as was suggested, going to produce a (hopefully awesome) section throughout the whole scheme, showing the connection and interaction between the sites as well as the journey taken by different characters around the sites.  

Resolutions

This week has been spent on developing and refining the last details of my building ready for the crit. 

My housing was the main thing to be resolved but once I got onto Sketch Up, sorted out my house design and just started playing around with the orientation on site, it all fell into place fairly quickly. I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't achieve a scheme that both had vehicular access and was pedestrian only so I just had to work around this, creating pedestrian only spaces and designated vehicle spaces. The views and the access across and around the site were important things to consider as the scheme is very family and children orientated.

I also spent time resolving the final details of my building, the creche and community space in particular. After exploring the spatial possibilities in each of these spaces, I started remodelling just the creche on Sketch Up and as per ususal, I got completely carried away with the model and ended up also modelling the community space on the first floor. 
I went almost completely against my original approximation for the floor area of the space. Rather than having one large hall, I inserted an atrium-like space that then created a connection between the circulation downstairs and the space itself. Despite loosing a large amount of the floor space to this atrium, I feel that this actually works better as it breaks the space into smaller community areas and also fits into my programme in terms of connectivity.

Once I had resolved these issues, it was simply a case of getting back on to CAD to update my drawings. Over Easter, I plan on getting reacquainted with Revit and producing models and all my drawings in one programme - the plan is to make my life easier!

Catch up and CAD

I feel like my journal (along with everything else) has been slightly abandoned recently due to the sheer volume of work. This week was spent mainly on AutoCAD and Sketch up, getting my building finalised and drawn up ready for today. I'm all CADed out!

Having printed out my plans etc for studio today, I was ready for them to be scribbled over. And that definitely happened! Which was good. When I was drawing them out, I didn't actually see them but during my tutorial things were pointed out that will definitely improve my design along with other things that I need to look at over the next couple of days. While many of these are in order to refine my centre, there are a couple of things to work on with my housing as well. Especially the site layout. I'm closer than I was but it's still not there yet.

After talking with my tutor, I had the chance to talk with a practising architect to get some help with my technical drawings and structural details. Unfortunately I ran out of time this week so I couldn't develop my detailed drawings but this is something that is going to happen this week. My precedent actually comes from my tech case study so this kills two birds with one stone. I am also going to look at the arrangement for the building (the Ritblat Building) as it is part of a primary school, therefore designed for children. I am hoping to develop my creche and create an environment suitable for children. I am also going to look at other precedents to help me with this. 

I also seem to have actually forgotten how to draw plans. Like marking the door openings and hatching the walls and dotting upstairs floors and stairs and adding furniture (although I think the time constraint had some play in that one). This are all things that need to be (and will be) sorted out for the reviews . . . . next week.

Design Development

I feel like I am really close to a design now. I began to model my designs in a more permanent form. Using greyboard allowed me to see past the boxes and where the space could be manipulated and changed to create more interesting arrangements. I was also able to look at how the spaces would (or wouldn't) work. I immediately saw where the flaws in my arrangements were and used the next models to correct them. Playing around with light was also quite insightful and I have been able to start considering how this works and the experiences involved with the designs.
In Matrix's book, I found a reference to the Introduction to Housing Layout and after acquiring it from the library, I have managed to put it to good use. One chapter talks about public movement and although my building isn't housing, I want it to become an extension of the street so the ideas were insightful.

I also began to really work on the housing aspect of my project. I decided that it would make most sense to develop a design before I arranged the site as I needed to take the orientation into account when designing. The idea is to create housing that has some sort of shared space in which the residents can interact with one another and form a community. This feeds back into my original idea of blurred boundaries: blurring the line between what is private and what is shared. 

Charrettes

This week I have been developing my designs. I gave myself a 30 minute session in which to come up with each design. I began by using my model and then photograph it and annotate it on Photoshop. Each design brought out an idea for the next one although not all of them were as successful as I hoped.
I became quite attached to my first design, it seemed to convey everything I wanted but once I had begun playing about with the site axes, it mixed up the arrangement and I felt that it grounded the design to the site and wider area.

I had no luck finding any of the original plans so I guess this project will just be façade retention but there was no guarantee that the building as it stands would be suitable for my  building anyway. I'm not exactly sure how to go about navigating this problem.

I still need to start work on my designs for the housing aspect of my programme. After considering that 'cohousing' might not be the way forward, I started looking at Byker again, especially at the enclosed spaces shared by a small group of housing. I think something like this would work as having shared spaces would encourage small communities to form, much like as was discussed in Matrix's book.

Studio 2014

Just had my first tutorial of 2014. Over the holidays I felt that my work had progressed and I was feeling better about it but to have it confirmed by my tutors has really helped. I think I was beginning to loose momentum a little bit but after talking through my progress, I think I can pick up again and I have some thinks to think through and work on and generally continue with what I'm doing. 

My programme layout needs to continue to develop and more importantly (?) I need to show the development so my task this afternoon is to annotate the photos of my model to death. Explain why it works/why it doesn't/how it could/should be improved and then show where I went from there. 

I also really want/need to start looking at the library. As I am using the existing building as part of my design, I don't want to go too far without taking it into account although we've been told that we only need to be considering façade retention - and I can see why. I spent some of this morning scouring the web/library catalogues for the plans or at least a clue as to where I can get them from. Zip. Nope. Not. A. Thing. There are a handful of photos of the interior - enough to give a general idea of the inside but not enough to put together a full plan. It feels almost like cheating to completely disregard the interior, especially when I potentially have the opportunity to focus on an aspect of architecture that really interests me. I'll just have to see what I can find. At the very least, I want to be conscious of the building and what I know of it's interior.

Something that was also brought up in my tutorial was the housing aspect of my project. It was something that had crossed my mind but I didn't really think about it too much. It was suggested that 'cohousing' might not be the exact solution to my design. Rather, something similar that achieves the same thing and functions the same way. Cohousing is something that grows rather than is built then occupied and everything's hunky dory. This probably wouldn't work in for my project. There aren't any of those connections required to create this cohousing. In essence, cohousing is a group of friends who decided to live very close together. You can't just throw a group of strangers together and expect to get the same results. So in this sense, back to the drawing board, but I think that this is something that will also develop when I begin to make the appropriate marks on the site. 

Models!: Part 2

I've continued to use my model in order to help develop my design ideas. Today I added to it by making representations of the surrounding buildings and the 'walls' of the library. The more I use it the pickier I get about my design. At the moment it seems to be just a long list of things I want to incorporate into my building such as double height spaces etc. After looking back at photos of some of the layouts I tried, I found that a lot of them didn't actually work although I've begun to expand on a couple of ideas.

Something that has really helped is turning the boxes upside down so that I'm looking inside rooms rather than at blocks. This way, I've been able to design with the height of the rooms in mind.

Creating different shaped spaces has also helped to develop my design as it gives me more options. I started to combine some spaces as well, for example, the cafe, kitchen, staff room and storage. These would be adjacent in the building anyway so I thought about creating a combined area and then splitting it up internally. This creates a simpler layout within the building. 
 

Models!

Yesterday I built my sketch model to help me plan out my building. I used the spatial values and made small boxes to represent each space - based on the capacities and therefore the area of each space.

I began to have a play around with the layout and started to notice the axes of the site. This caused some small problems as it was something I hadn't noticed or looked into before and I was questioning whether a particular space should line up with this axis or the other. I then went back to the plan and Photoshop and started to look at these closely. Obviously, these conflicting axes need to be taken into consideration in my design. 

Another "problem" I came across was the multi storey aspect of my design. While I am using the old library as part of my building, I need to take into account the fact that it has a first floor, something I had to keep reminding myself of when playing around with my model. There are pros and cons for the different 'zones' of my building to be on either floor and now I need to decided which should go where.

The creche would be suitable to be on the first floor as it removes it from the street, therefore creating a safer and more private environment for children, however, I want to create an outdoor space as part of the creche, which would be better off on the ground floor although there is no reason why I can't create a roof space (but that comes with it's own health and safety issues!)

The cafe needs to connect with the street as this is the most public part of my building although by being on the first floor, it can over look the other areas of the building, therefore creating connections through the building that way.

The community part of my building, like the cafe, should connect the community to the building but by being on the first floor, it can make the most of using a whole floor and can also be kept apart from the creche. 

I think I need to make more boxes to represent different shapes of the rooms, and maybe split the spaces up in order to split the spaces over both floors.

Library Day

Being back in Manchester now, I spent Sunday and Monday reading. Monday was spent in the library and while some of the books I was reading didn't exactly seem relevant to my project, I was reminded about the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was something that I remember reading but I've got a feeling it was from the book that my old Geography teacher lent me once briefly. 
The idea behind Wright's housing was to open up the living space, bringing the kitchen into the main part of the house rather than hiding it away. For the time, I can imagine this being quite a radical idea. Part of it was to allow women to continue to cook and prepare dinner while still being able to entertain guests etc. 

This idea can be carried into my own project and I've started to look at his Usonian Houses in an analytical way. Having one large living space makes a more manageable house for women (or men) who stay at home and also makes child care easier as most of the day time activities happen in this central space.

Spatial Values

After thinking about the diurnal programme of the building and the key connections between the spaces, I started thinking about how exactly the spaces would be used. Just having a room labelled 'creche' doesn't necessarily make it suitable to be one. The same was for the 'event space'. By breaking by building into zones - Cafe, Crèche and Community - I was able to think in more detail of each space. 

I though about what kind of spaces would make up a creche; what do small children need. I was reminded of the nursery at my old primary school and how there were spaces to paint and other spaces to play in the sandpit and another again to play with toys or read. In the same way a building has different rooms for different purposes, a creche should have different spaces for different activities. By breaking up this part of my building, it becomes more than just a large room.

I did a similar exercise with the community space. Rather than having one large space, having a large space and some smaller rooms mean that a variety of community events can take place. As a bit of an after thought, I also decided to incorporate a prayer room into my design. Cheetham Hill is an area with a diverse population and in order to engage with the whole community, I felt that it was necessary, particularly if the building is to be used at all times of the day and most, if not all, days of the year. 

Before I can start working on the model, I needed to decide how big each space would be. This of course determined by the activities in the room and the capacity.

My next step is to start designing and formally arranging my building using a model.
 

Precedents and development

My primary programme is to allow stay at home women to become integrated in the community to remove the isolation felt by many of them.

I began to look at precedents of communal housing, the idea that while there are individual homes, there are also spaces within the site that are shared between the households. This would allow for interaction and a community to be formed.

The example I looked at was the first cohousing project in the UK. It comprises of 34 residences and a central 'common house' where communal meal take place a few times a week. There is also a large common room and communal garden.

I also started looking at precedents for the community building. I remembered the New Arts Exchange from a lecture I went to by Habinder Birdi from Hawkins\Brown Architects. The gallery, in Nottingham, has a similar programme to mine in that it is a building for the community and aims to create a stronger sense of community through the arts. I started to look at how this was achieved through the use of light and space.

From here, and after reading MATRIX, I began to redevelop my programme. While it was still quite vague and I hadn't even started to think about the housing, now it seems to all be coming together.

My next step it to look at the spatial values of my programme and give dimensions to this. Once this is done, I am going to start making marks on site. I want to make a site model and smaller models to represent the different spaces. This will let me play around with my programme on the sites and help me to start generating a design for my buildings.