A Dilemma . . .

Today I was working though my personal manifesto and how I am going to approach this project.

I have made links between Lynch's 5 elements of the city and our manifesto's 5 elements of the community although I am yet to tie it into my project completely (it's too good a link not to use!).
I also spent some time looking at the sections from yesterday and making comparing the empty spaces within them: the demolition site, the car park and the park. With this being a strong idea that I want to carry forward. I am now left with a bit of a dilemma. 

The site that interested me the most, the one adjacent to the old library, wouldn't necessarily be the best site for my project, considering my manifesto. The third site, the cemetery seems to be a better fit as it is completely an empty space.
It was also commented on that I might be taking on too much if I wanted to have retrofit as part of my project alongside the brief.

Decisions, decisions . . . . 

Studio 5: Going Solo

Yesterday, we had our individual tutorials in studio. 
As well as discussing our study tours, we've also began to think about our personal manifestos for our individual projects. 

I haven't really given much though to my project since Newcastle but after re-reading though our manifesto (in an attempt to edit it) I began to make links between the manifesto and my trip.

The major link was the five aspects that we wanted to focus on and the five elements in Lynch's text. While the first makes up a community, the other makes up the city. I think that this is a strong idea that can be used in my manifesto and I want to look further into it.
I also want to look closer at my visit to Byker estate in an attempt to see what makes a community project work and what doesn't. When it was first proposed and built, the project was ground breaking but further down the line and it seems to have fallen into disrepair and I can't help but feel that it doesn't function as well as it did when first built.

As a group, we still have a little bit of editing to do on our manifesto and this is something that we were working on today. We identified what needed sorting and improving and after much discussion, we assigned ourself tasks and are aiming to finish it by Sunday (Monday at the very latest if rearranging is needed). This evening, as well as working on the group blog, I am going to look at market typology. The idea is that I will map out different markets and similar arrangements and we will then be able to compare them. This is something I am going to continue tomorrow when I go to the Arndale Market and Church Street Market. Tonight though, I am going to map out the Victoria Baths Craft Fair that I attended at the weekend as a slightly different type of market.

Studio 4: Manifestos

Today, we were presenting our manifestos to out tutors and studio group. After the last 3 or so weeks of gathering and analysing and reading, we finally seemed to have a good idea of which direction we wanted to go with the project and how we were going to approach it individually.

The poster I made to represent our approach and the manifesto also represented the approach I wanted to take. When tracing over the map, I realised how many empty spaces there were, including a large empty block. My approach would involve creating an intervention of some sort that would encourage people to visit and interact with, bringing them together and form the start of a community.

Out presentation overall went better than I expected. Time management was a major problem in the group although when we did get together and knuckle down to work, we functioned well and came up with some great ideas for discussion. Personally, I felt that I didn't put in as much as I should have; with 21st birthdays and hospital visits the previous week.

Some of the feedback we received included the idea of getting obsessed with the street life and making really intense studies of it rather just skimming the surface and remaining distant. If the street is something that we wanted to look at, and it is, we really needed to start to understand it on a new level. We also need to just tidy up our manifesto; replacing some of the text for diagrams and generally finalising it.

To finish the day (and almost this part of the project) we were introduced to our site. There is a choice of three:

1 (Green): is the old library and the adjacent building and car parks.

2 (Blue): is the old police station and possibly the adjacent building.

3 (Red): is an old church site which is now just open land.

Due to my interest in historic architecture, I am already drawn towards the first site. However, I think all three sites have the potential for a good project so at some point over the next couple of weeks, I am going to go up to the site to explore them thoroughly before making my decision.

For now though, I'm off to Newcastle for my study tour, with additional flying visits to Durham and York.

Reading

After studio this week, we were given some readings to have a look at within our groups. These were to get us thinking about how we would approach our manifesto and look at the areas within Cheetham Hill.

We agreed to spend the evening reading and then meet up on Friday to discuss and swap ideas. This didn't exactly go to plan but we also met up on Saturday to continue discussions and make a plan for the week ahead.

My reading was the introduction from Altering Practices, a collection of essays by female architects. One particular sentence caught my eye and led me to then go on to read the rest of that essay:

"Urban designers could act as 'curators', as creators of meaning through unusual and unexpected connections, rather than 'planners' who impose their patronising meaning on space"

I think that this is something that I am going to try and take forward in my project.