End-of-Term Reflection

Seeing as the last post was all too brief, I'm actually going to go through the project, and reflect properly. The phrase 'if I had more time' may get somewhat repetitive here, but here we go.

I thought the project started on pretty firm ground. The process of de-industrialisation and subsequent decline of suburban areas is well known and probably exists to some extent in every city in the UK. I don't think there's any issue with that or the preliminary research I was doing into urban theory. I have developed a fairly solid knowledge of what makes a good city work and know all about the dangers of attempting to impose a masterplan. If I have a criticism of the research it would be that it should have started earlier and attempted to find a precedent/good example of a redevelopment in a suburb, rather than a city centre, which may well have contributed to my final scheme as I was, at that point, basically sailing without a compass.

It's easy for me to sit back now and say I never should have attempted the masterplan. I didn't want to do it and I had a long conversation with Benachir (who, by the way, I haven't heard from since 2nd May, almost a month ago. A small point I know but I thought I'd mention it. What happened to supervision?) about the merits/pitfalls and in the end I have to take responsibility for letting him win me over. Looking back now through the blog that attempt stretched from March 4th to May 3rd. Over 8 weeks/2 months, from which I took very little in the way of usable work forward. Of course that is going to have a significant impact on the project. It was an incredibly harsh lesson to learn and a far from ideal environment to learn it in, but I suppose the lesson there is to trust myself and be more assertive with my ideas. I won't be making that mistake again.

As a consequence the design, although I believe it is based on (again) fairly solid principles and groundwork, is/was inevitably not developed to its full potential. Time makes fools of us all. It was unusual for me as well in terms of my conceptual work because it was quite disjointed. There were too many different ideas. I don't know if that was because the scheme was still actually quite big and there was a lot going on, so I was trying to come up with lots of ideas to supplement that, or what. In the end, of course, when you have more than one conceptual idea it is difficult (more so than usual, I mean) to pull it through and articulate it in the design properly. And you need time to be able to do that. I probably contributed to digging myself into a bit more of a hole than I needed to at this point by not pushing enough for more design tutorials. There were some that were arranged and fell through because of tutors/my other time commitments that definitely would have helped. 

Looking back, I can't help but be disappointed with the final outcome. There's no dodging that. But I have to look at what I can take forward into practice/whatever I end up doing, and there are points there. The urban research was good and will stay with me. There have been lessons in life, more than in architecture, that will too be useful. I am a confident kind of chap, and I think at this stage I should have realised that I'm at a point where my arguments can be strong enough to tell a tutor that he's wrong and to do it my way. 

What I'm looking forward to now is finishing (eventually) and having a break. Climbing a few hills, taking the dog a few walks, having a few games of cricket and looking forward to my sisters wedding and starting life as an educated member of society with Rach. I am physically and mentally exhausted. The last 5 years have ranged from being some of the best times of my life to some of the most demanding, and none more demanding than now. If I can look back in a month/2months time and say that those years were definitely worth it, I'll be happy. 

Thesis Document: Industrial Reassessment

Available for download and perusal here:

Industrial Reassessment
Drawings and final reflection to come tomorrow. Enjoy. 

Final update

So, the final presentation didn't go as smoothly as it could have done. Understandable, considering that this was the first time I've been able to pin up anything resembling a building. A building(s) which, incidentally, thinking about it, I've had a grand total of 2 tutorials on. Odd. Most important project of my student career and I've had the fewest (by far) tutorials. You do also tend to get panned for things that you know but haven't got in the drawing because there simply wasn't time, which I suppose is understandable if not particularly helpful.

I now have until 3pm Tuesday (that's when the printing's booked) to try and get some presentation standard drawings for this thing and get them on a board. Am I downhearted? Er...

There are some interesting spaces and relationships in there (such as the relationships between the exhibition spaces and the elevated public space) but, (and I'm at risk of labouring a point here, but this is a reflective journal...) given the time I've had and tutors restricted input, it cant be helped. I just have to make sure the drawings are spot on, and that plans and visuals agree with each other (because the design was still developing when I put the last presentation together there were some small discrepancies...).

I did say I'd be putting up some stuff, so here. Not much, but some:

New Basford Area Strategy

 

Site Strategy

Initial (and since altered) render for public space adjoining refectory and exhibition areas

Site plan - with buildings!

I know there's no context, but stuff it, here it is:

Industrial precedents

Just looking at a few precedents of what people have done with factories, set up a new pinterest board:

http://pinterest.com/jcoops39/industrial-precedents/

Update

Incidentally, speaking of emotional roller coasters and before I get into the architecture, did anyone see the season finale of New Girl? Top stuff. I can see how many people have been reading this over the pond, so well done you lot. Excellent to have a US sitcom that A) is actually funny and B) doesn't have a ridiculous laughter track of dubious integrity cutting in every 3 seconds. 

And speaking of people reading this beyond Blighty, there are hits recently from Russia, Serbia (know that one, I reckon) Kenya and Australia, of all places. So I'd just like to say: I like the occasional Vodka, cheers for your help, I've never been but I'm sure it's lovely and warm (unlike the wall-to-wall downpours we've been subjected to in the UK recently) and that I have tickets for the 3rd Ashes test at Old Trafford in the summer which you are definitely going to lose.

Sorry. Couldn't resist. I love Australia. Shall I ramble about something useful? Better had.

So the final presentation is on Tuesday. We then have a week to make any design tweaks and get the final boards printed, which will be marked sans me standing up and taking a verbal buggering having existed on 2 hours sleep a night and Relentless for a week. Which is nice. I would just crawl into a pub and hide at that point, but the Technical portfolio (access statements, fire strategies, building regs, details etc) is due two days after that so I'll be on no sleep and Relentless till the 31st. I don't know why I'm telling a lot of people I don't know that I drink Relentless: it's a total lie, a disgusting fabrication of the first order. I basically only drink two things: tea (lots of it) and beer (lots of it). Anyway, there's the schedule, and it is my fond hope that when this project is over someone somewhere will read this and decide that, actually, maybe architecture isn't worth the stress and do fine art instead. That would feel like a good deed. Or something. 

The design is coming on, as are other things (like the research document we have to produce. I may well make a pdf available of that when it's done, should be before Tuesday). Here's a semi firmed-up brief of key elements:

Goods tracks

·   Takes good directly from trains into factories

·   Mini tracks - echoes train. Like a small mine-cart

·   Requires winches to move up/down

·   Determines voids in buildings

·   Requires loading platforms and flyovers to main rails

Heavy factory

·   Big machinery - most mass produced items

·   Fewest people - mainly automated

·   Heaviest/darkest part of building

·   Making cloth - not individual items

·   Can produce for people off-site

Light Factory

·   Individual workers at individual machines

·   Working in 'batches' - items are not one-offs but not mass produced either

·   Able to take designs from elsewhere and produce small batches of items

·   Basically a factory for hire, piggybacking on Nottingham based designers like Pretty Green and Paul Smith

Craft workshops

·   Hand-crafting items that can't be done easily be machine or are bespoke one-offs

·   Requires skilled workers in materials such as leather as well as textiles

·   Most light and lightest part of building (materiality)

Assembly/Distribution

·   Office spaces needed to sort out orders

·   Access for vehicles

·   End of tracks

Educational workshops

·   Series of smaller workshops for a variety of activities, including tanning and spinning

·   Relationship with college black and workshops proper

·   Designate spaces for hand crafts/machinery

Design offices

·   Series of studio spaces

·   Need for repository/swatches/material samples? Could have a smaller tracks system/way of calling up samples/library type thing.

And some sketchy explorations footprints:

And a quick sectional exploration of how the goods carts might interact with the building(s):

And a basic collage describing the textile production process (specifically cotton) that will be housed in the 'Heavy factory' section:

I realise, for those of you who are studying architecture somewhere, that very few of the drawings being posted on here have been great in terms of presentation quality. Those drawings are being done, but it's difficult for me to choose what to include when I sit down to do a quick update on here and I look round and it's taken me an hour. It is also a sad fact of this project that I don't really have plans yet. But I'll have to for Tuesday. So whatever I produce for then, I'll put on here and re-produce the presentation, kind of thing, including feedback given and how I plan to move forward. More model photos as well.

'Til then...

End of week update: There might be a building here...

So, as regards the re-jiggled scheme, I have to (obviously) pick a building to focus on and design in detail. The choice here is the production 'edge' previously discussed, in part because of all the prior research, the opportunity for a creative design, and the fact it was one of the few buildings I had any semblance of design for.

For concepts/inspiration, I started looking at old lace machinery and sketching from my previous models. Drawings/collages below:

These were then translated into a concept model:

And finally a sketch model of a building:

And after a tutorial, further sketches related to the scheme:

SO, the building program, in essence, is still based around the manufacture of clothes and associated functions such as production of materials to work with, design of pieces, testing/photography, office spaces etc. The building will have relationships with: to the west, the  railway, to the south the new east-west pedestrian route, and to the east the proposed college buildings (there will be an indicative design for these, probably just a rough suggested footprint). The linear elements to the south will be straight factory spaces, with heavy machinery operating at ground level and lighter elements, such as finishing or intricate hand-sewing/craft work above. This gives rise to the staggered form you can see in one of the sketch sections.

Where the circular element is, the building begins to fragment. This is where ancillary workshops (such as yarn spinning spaces and a tannery for producing leather) form a relationship with the college buildings. These have an associated refectory and public space (the quarter-circle element in the model). Further north still there will be design offices. The building can be read as a series of insertions into an overall mechanism, with a 'production line' relationship running through the north-south axis and hierarchies of scale and method occupying spaces vertically. The mechanism for bringing goods off the train forms a unifying element.

Going forward, the plans obviously need to be worked up and the fragmentary elements explored in more detail. The trick here (which has always been my problem) is achieving a fragmented program within an elegant design. The main facades to the east and west also need to be considered: one has the relationship with the railway, while the other is a more static front and needs to work at a more human scale.

Time is short... 

Precedent for flexible community building:

'Open and Shut House' - Toh Shimazaki Architecture, Surrey.

I like the use of timber, bricks and water...

New Scheme...

So, at the last minute, here's the basis of the new scheme:

After assessing the interim from yesterday, I've stripped a lot back and essentially done away with the masterplan. New scheme will be far simpler and will focus on the following (see image):

1) New pedestrian/cycle route over the rails and river Leen, connecting the site to New Basford and the house along the ring road on an east-west axis. 

2) Where the new route meets the Radford Rd to west of site, a multi-function public building and associated public space. Small-scale, flexible. Been reading: http://www.pps.org/projects/appleseed-mixed-use-in-mckinney/ 

I can use the pavilion models (the balsa and lead maquettes) as starting points for this. The purpose is to start to give New Basford a 'centre', and this would only be the first step. The idea would be that subsequent interventions and projects can happen off the back of this (back to Collage City, and being a fox. Not a hedgehog.)

3) Keep the production edge, reassess the scale and work those buildings up.

4) Related to 3 above, make more of the University campus element. Include a building with at least one lecture theatre and classrooms, as well a cafes and reception. Think Newton (main building here at NTU by Hopkins, google it) but smaller. Orientate 3 and 4 around a second public space to south-west of site.

The weekend is for model making.

By the way, the stats thing google gives me with this blog lets me see where people have been reading from. With that in mind, I'd like to say hello to the (alleged) readers in: the USA, Italy, Russia, Vietnam, Ireland, China, France and Germany. You're all welcome, and I hope the last post wasn't too depressing.

Don't study architecture.

Post-Interim 3

Here is how the crit went:

You're always going to take a bit of stick in a crit, that's part and parcel of studying architecture and if you don't like it, you know where the door is. No project is perfect. There are crits and then there are bad crits - I've seen people reduced to tears before. Problem is, it takes up an awful lot of your time, does this subject, with an inevitable series of late nights leading up to the deadline making for tired, battered, but not yet quite defeated people having to stand up on the actual day and present their work. You submit the last months of your life for consideration, which proceeds either acceptance or rejection. And when I say 'acceptance', I do not mean 'praise'. 

The most you can reasonably hope for is for the 3 or 4 people dissecting your project to not say anything bad. If it goes the other way, however, then it's really quite unpleasant.

What was galling about yesterdays performance was not just how badly it went, though. I got that t-shirt years back. I'm not a 5-year-old, I can cope with it. What was difficult to take was the suggestion that I should NOT masterplan the site, but focus on one intervention, do that, take as much space as I need, and basically say 'other projects could happen around this one'.

The reason why it was difficult to take is because that is what I was originally going to do. I was told to masterplan the site by tutors. Plural. If you scroll down to the first Interim post, it's there. Foxes and hedgehogs. I was always planning on being a fox, and they turned me into a hedgehog before telling me that I should have been foxy after all. So for the last x weeks I have, in fact, been completely wasting my time. I could have been doing something useful. I could have been designing a building, instead of arsing around trying to conjure up city from thin air. Now what I have is no masterplan, no building, and 18 days during which to pull a project out of my arse, when I should have had 18 days to fine tune and detail a building which should be basically there already. 

I keep trying to take stock here; at the end of the day this is my project and I have to take some responsibility for the decisions that are made during it. But the tutors are meant to be there to help, and to A) persuade me into attempting the masterplan in the first place, and to B) let me get on with and not suggest this sooner, is not the best bit of teaching I've ever had.

Anyway, life goes on. I'm off to design a building.