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.

Onwards

I am still in need of developing my programme and while I have been discussing events with others who are also focusing their projects on women, with the drawing having taken over the last couple of weeks, we haven't had the chance to get much further than discussions.

It was suggested that I look at Matrix's book Making Space: Women and the Man-made Environment. The introduction started talking about 'a woman's place' and comparing home and work. Essentially, there is a distinct boundary between home and work for employed men while, whether employed or unemployed, this boundary isn't there for women as work continues at home in the form of housework or child care. In a way this links back to my main theme of blurred boundaries although instead of the physical boundary between public and private, it is a mental one between leisure and work.

It also talked about women outside of the home and the potential dangers in the streets, especially after dark. This has made me look again at the sites and the accessibility to each other and to Cheetham Hill Road. Pedestrian access to the graveyard site is via a couple of short but quiet roads that could be quiet intimidating during the day, let alone at night. While there is only one entrance to the Library site, there is a potential for a second in the cut through from Cheetham Hill Road to the World Wide supermarket and this again isn't the most welcoming. Humphey Street, running perpendicular to Cheetham Hill Road and one of the links between the sites, is more of a major road that the others but it's tall brick walls with very few windows again make for an intimidating route.

If I am to design mainly for the women of Cheetham Hill, I am going to have to look at the accessibility between the sites and to improve these routes of transit. Site analysis to look at the light levels will be beneficial, if not necessary in order to develop this part of my design.

Curve ball

We were warned but it still crept up on us (well, me at least). Thursday's IDR seminar also came with a sub brief for our projects. A 1:1 isometric drawing at least 2m in one direction to explain our concept. I've never done a 1:1 drawing. Ever. I'm still struggling to get my head around the whole scale of it. I start to come up with an idea and then remember it has to be iso or 1:1 and then the idea's gone. When we were first handed the brief, I'm not going to lie, it was terrifying and just another thing to add to my list of things to get stressed about but now that I have sat down and broken it up into bits, annotating and labelling and linking each part to my project, it's not as daunting. I think it's something that just needs to sit in the back of my mind for a few days and it'll start to work itself out.

I began brainstorming yesterday, starting with the idea of domestic items on the street; looking at breaking down the inside/outside, public/private boundaries.This then led onto the idea of books and their link with learning and the old library as well as the domestic. I like the way that this is going although I may be in danger of starting to change my project and rather than focusing on women, designing a library. Which I'm not sure I necessarily want to do.

Sites

I have decided that I am going to use both the library site and the graveyard site. 

I began to look at the two sites in relation to each other and to the surrounding area, especially Cheetham Hill Road. I noticed that both sites, although not in direct view of the high street, were well connected to it and therefore to each other. I was able to trace routes between the sites, one of them being a straight path, perpendicular to Cheetham Hill Road. I found this really interesting and I want to use this in my programme as it fits in with my manifesto and re-connecting through using the streets and creating street life. 

The Sites

Today I decided to go and take a closer look at the sites and maybe start having a think about which one I would choose for my project. 

The first site include the old library, the shops adjacent to it and the car park behind it. One of the interesting features of the site was the cut through from the main road to the car park and the World Wide supermarket behind it. While creating a link between the two, there were very few people around to actually use it. 
In order to get to the remainder of the site, I had to rejoin the high street and walk up the side road adjacent to it; the fence barely let me see into the other car park, let alone let me though.
I found the variety of element on this site really interesting and my interest in historic buildings is drawing me to choose this site. The library is something that I would really like to include in my designs and something that I would look into is precedents of sensitive retrofits of listed buildings. 



The second site was the one of the old police station. This was much more connected to Cheetham Hill Road and in a way, acted as a barrier between the road and the housing behind it.

The third site lay in the midst of all the housing behind the second site. It was a cemetery that has now fallen into disrepair and has been consequently closed to the public. Having said this, while there was no entry through the main gates, someone had made a gap in the fence and left some of the large stones on the pavement as a step to provide access to the site. The height of the site above the rest of the area works as a vantage point but also separates it further from the surrounding area.