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...