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.
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.
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.
After creating an outline of my programme, I began to look at the different spaces in relation to each other and to the community. While some of the spaces would be outward facing and accessible to users within Cheetham Hill, there would also be spaces only for the demographic of my building.
I also looked closer at how a room would be used at different times of the day for different activities. I created plans using muf as an example from their book, This Is What We Do. I ended up focusing on the layouts of a coffee group in the morning, an after school club in the afternoon and a handicraft group in the evening. It was interesting when I overlapped them and was able to see how much of the room is used and which areas are used more than others. However, I feel that I will benefit more from the study when I develop my programme further and have a clear idea of exactly what goes on in each room. I think that using these plans (and sections) will be able to help me design the spaces within my buildings.
