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.
Yesterday was the final crit for this first part of the project. As it was cross atelier, we were split up and grouped with one of the other ateliers, Altering Architecture for Climate Change. It was interesting to see what the other groups were doing (if only to remember that there were other projects outside of ours!)
Overall, (despite technology messing around as per usual) I think it went as I expected. I felt that I had done a lot in the past week and actually sorted my ideas out into some form of programme ready to take to the next level. I did feel that I had one gap in my argument which was about my target audience and who exactly I was designing for and what exactly they needed and why. This was pointed out and is something that I am going to be addressing in the next couple of weeks. I need to start talking to the community and the actual people that would be using my building. At the moment this sounds like a lot of work to do and really quite daunting but I know there are a couple of other people in my atelier focusing on women so maybe we can organise something together and help each other out.
Once I know who and what and why, I can then begin to start designing and arranging my design spatially. I feel like it my project is beginning to come together but once I work on those three questions, it really will come together. Looking forward to it.
I also need to start to look at housing. I keep forgetting about it!
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.
After looking at Kevin Lynch and the elements of the [community], began looking at stats for employment. It was interesting (but not that surprising) to see the difference in gender for employment. One thing that did stand out to me was the percentage of 'Look after home/family'. For women, this was over 17% but for men in Cheetham Hill, it was less than 2%. I expanded my study and looked at the same stats for the whole of Manchester and while the male figure as slightly smaller (1.2%) the female figure halved. The rest of Manchester had similar figures to the rest of the North-West area and the UK.
I started asking questions: who/what/why/when/how? and trying to answer them to give me my programme however, some of them were vague so I need to start to look into these further to develop my programme.
When working through these, I remembered going past the West End Women and Girl's Centre in Newcastle every morning/evening on my way to and from the city. It's slightly frustrating now that I don't even have a photo of the place as I only walked past it twice, on my first day and my last. I managed to find their website though and it has a very similar programme and serves a very similar community that my project would. I've now begun to look into this as a precedent.
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.
Buckling down to work this evening, one of the things I really needed to work out was how to tie Lynch's 5 elements theory into my work. I have already made the connection between his 5 elements making up the city and our 5 elements making up the community but I felt that I needed to go deeper than then to enable me to use it in my project.
While Lynch uses them to critique the city and its imageability, as I am in the process of doing with Newcastle, I've realised that I can reverse engineer his method and use it to create a space that allows a community to either begin or grow.
I can turn the theory into a formula:
Paths + Landmarks + Nodes + Edges + Districts = City
People + Employment + Markets + Street + Housing = Community
With the quality of each of these elements making up the quality of the total (City or Community). In Lynch's text, he works out the quality of each of them to find the quality of the city. In my project, I know what I want the end result to be and can work backwards by looking at what the current state of each of the elements is to then create what is lacking or improve what is in poor condition in my project.
In order to do this, another trip up north (that is, to Cheetham Hill, not Newcastle) may be needed and a closer look at the other groups' findings is definitely needed. However, just from looking at the area and listening to presentations etc, I can already make a start piecing together what is required:
People: Cheetham Hill has such a diverse population that I would be willing to say that the richness of the community in this sense doesn't need to be altered.
Employment: As with much of the country in the current climate, the state of employment in Cheetham Hill is not good, although I think it was suggested that this area is one of the worst. Something that needs looking into.
Markets: I've looked at markets in Cheetham Hill enough to know that this isn't an issue within the community and doesn't need faffing with by architecture students.
Street: This varies throughout the area but while the sites are in the centre, there is a good sense of street life although the street is something that is the main focus of my work anyway.
Housing: I already know there is a lot of housing around Cheetham Hill, much of it off the main high street through the sites though. Housing does however form part of our brief.
After quickly listing what the state of each of the elements is, I can see that my project will mainly be focusing on Employment, Street and Housing although I will still keep People and Markets in mind throughout the project.
Now to choose my site!
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 . . . .
