Focus Week 2: Managing Landscapes

The news of our upcoming report of a management plan had me puzzled!

So I decided to visit a well known landscaped park where management aspects could be apparent in the design. I decided to visit Thames Barrier Park.

Thames Barrier Park was created to help regenerate the area. Hence the attractive public space alongside residential and commercial areas was created. Thames Barrier Park was designed by Allain Provost.

It was apparent at first of all the small details in the landscape and how complex a management plan for this site can be. The well trimmed hedges, well cut grass and well pruned trees were obviously managed in a strict routine.

However after scouting around the park, I was pleased to spot a few things that could have possibly been missed out in the design process or management plan of the park.

These stone seating areas/sculptures seem to be the ideal height shape for skateboarders to use, which in my opinion is a great idea. HOWEVER! was the materials well thought of by the designer to allow this? Should the management team have decided NOT to have skaters use these seating areas?

These questions came to my mind after spotting damage made to the seating area. It became very clear to me how even the smallest things should be taken into consideration while designing.

I also feel that the management team should intervene in a situation as such, despite the ideas behind the designers thoughts.

Despite the trees seemingly being well managed I also spotted the strimming damage made on trees. A very 'amateur' mistake (both from design and management). Strimming damage injure trees, which can have an impact on its water intake. In some cases trees can even die.

There are many simple ways in conquering this issue.

Strimmer guards are often used to protect against damage. This can be deemed as being unappealing in a park as such by the designer and many other. However a more appealing idea would be to use gravel around the tree base!

This trip proved to be very inspiring and revealing to me! Great ideas have come across for my Management Plan!

The next few days was spent on reading about landscape management. An interesting book I came across that related to both management and design was ''Sustainable Landscape Management: Putting Principles Into Practice -Ann Marie VanDer Zanden and Thomas W. Cook''

A book I will definitely refer back to while doing research for my management plan.

The combination of research and visiting sites has proved to be great way of unblocking my mind.

Focus Week 2 - Anish Kapoor, Sky Mirror sculptures Kensington Gardens

Anish Kapoor's first London installation came after he spent a long time contemplating where to put his work. The giant curved mirror structures have a found a new home in Kensington Gardens, until march 2011. An innovative idea, attracting many people to the park.

Anish Kapoor's reflects on the geometries of the Kensington Gardens, and explains why he decided to incorporate his sculptures here. See Video

This installation is a perfect example of how simple a design can be. However if it has a meaningful function/purpose and if set in the right place it could be a very good piece of work!

The Serpentine Gallery is currently presenting large scale major exhibitions. The exhibition is running from 28th September 2010 - 13th March 2011.

The placing of the sculpture was thought of to contrast and reflect changing colours, greenery and the British weather in Kensington gardens.

This diagram shows the placement of the objects of the park. It is obvious that Anish Kapoor chose different conditions across the park for his installations to encapsulate the factors such as greenery and changing colours from summer - autumn - winter - spring (a great idea to have the exhibition running across this time span)

In my opinion the beauty of these sculptures is that it can be dismantled and brought elsewhere across the world to portray changing weather across changing seasons.

To be honest I didn't appreciate this exhibition on my first visit, however after researching the reasoning and ideology behind it, I appreciated it much more when I visited it again 2 days later.

Focus Week 2 - Tate Modern- The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei

This exhibition called 'Sunflower Seeds' is made of millions of small 'works' each almost identical. These porcelain seeds were each hand crafted in small scale workshop in China, (hence being almost identical) they were also painted by hand. The 100 million seeds that were seen during the exhibition formed a seemingly infinite landscape.

The artist, Ai Weiwei, used traditional methods to make these porcelain seeds, a method that has seen China excel in porcelain exports over many years. The exhibition was sealed off on the 22nd of October, so the public could not access the porcelain seeds as the dust from the seeds were causing visitors health issues.

The process of making these porcelain seeds could have been much cheaper and also much quicker if it was made by a mechanic process. But as mentioned above Ai Weiwei was adamant to have every single sunflower seed 'almost identical'. The idea of having each one hand made will undoubtedly ensure that they will be unidentical but at the same time look the same.

This is a great example showing how far designers/artists will go to ensure that their intended specifications are met. In my opinion this exhibition would not have been as impressive if the sunflower seeds were made by a mechanic process.

A video of the making process was also being played repeatedly throughout the day, this made the experience so much more excited. I felt more appreciation for the work, after watching this video.

Fantastic exhibition! 9/10

Focus Week 1 - Way Finding

Over the past few years of studying Landscape Architecture, my knowledge in this field has greatly improved/increased. Hence after visiting South Bank again a few days ago (after a good couple of months) it was fascinating to see how my 'design improving' mind was picking up on things and relating it back to what I had previously read or worked on.

One thing in particular was the way finding around the south bank area.

Way Finding is an important part of landscape architecture. It will help visitors/users of a certain landscape or park to be directed to certain landmarks or sites of interest across the landscape.

As I identified that his can be an important part of my upcoming projects, I spent time reading a book on the topic.

The Wayfinding Handbook: information design for public places - David Gibson

Although this book is intended for Graphic designers, it gave me a great insight and many ideas on way finding. This book describes the history of way finding to the planning and strategy of where they can go.

The author goes into great detail about topography, symbols and layout. This book is a very easy read, the detailing of images and interesting texts keeps you very interested!

Highly recommended!

Focus Week 1 - Views on John Pawson's Minimalism Ideology

After attending the John Pawson exhibition I was keen look further into his work.

His design work is associated with the 'minimalistic aesthetic', a term used to describe an art movement where designs are taken apart to show basic features.

In my opinion this is a 'safe' way of designing - as less constraints are encountered during the design process, however I feel that it could hold back your design thoughts hence reducing creativity.

After looking at the work of John Pawson, it is quite apparent that he is very talented at designing with minimal aesthetics.

Tilty Barn Essex 1995

Tilty Barn is a series of residential spaces which was made from a complex of agricultural barns.

Using this as an example, a 'minimal aesthetic' approach can be seen in this image.The walls have been stripped down to expose beams and other supporting structures. Its refinement of modern elements such as modern furnishing/fire place and flooring are all simple but bring out the beauty of the design.

Although I still strongly believe that this kind of design approach can limit your creativity - John Pawson is very talented at doing what he does!

Focus Week 1 - Week John Pawson Exhibition

John Pawson - Plain Space - Design Museum
"The father of modern architectural minimalism"

-The New York Times

The Design Museum presents an interestingexhibition of the works of John Pawson.

John Pawson in conversation with Alain de Botton from Design Museum on Vimeo.

John Pawson, is often described as a 'minimalist' as he is known for his deep reduction process, which leads to remarkable designs of simplicity. Some of John Pawson's major projects include : the Cistercian Monastery in Czech Republic, the Sackler Crossing (Royal Botanic Gardens) and the Calvin Klein store in New York Madison

The quality and detail in the models that were on show was very refreshing and inspiring. (see slide show)

John Pawson's project - 'Casa delle Bottere' was also included in the exhibition. This particular work caught my eye as it had an ecological dimension incorporated in the project, which at the time came in very handy for me as i was researching the topic surrounding sustainable materials for my dissertation.

http://www.johnpawson.com/home

Focus Week 1 - BFI

The BFI has a number of resources, and has a collection of the world's most significant collection of film and television. The BFI has over a million tites, from the earliest silent films to the new advanced 3D techonology movies.

My visit to the BFI was brief, in which time i spent in the mediatheques, watching short clips and documentaries in the British film culture. Interesting films and clips that were watched included, Designing a Nightmare, The African Trade and Another Case of Poisoning.

Going to Southbank was great, the way-finding element to the surround buildings, proved to be inspiring, as this was an area being studied in studio at the time. Pictures shown below.

Studio - Precedent - LED Sheep

Whilst looking for precedents for my final project design, i came across a very interesting video.
Funny enough this proved to be a good source of inspirations.

Enjoy!

Focus Week - Commencing 16 November 2009

16/11/09

Year 2 Landscape Architecture started off with a bang, after hearing the great news of the field trip to Barcelona!

Hoping for better weather, and the prospect of seeing great landscape landmarks was the main agenda for everyone.

View from our hotel room.

Favourite places Visited:
Barceloneta Beach
Gaudi : Sagrada Familia, Park Guell
Gothic Cathedral
Placa Reial

Who was Antoni Gaudi?
Gaudi was a Spanish architect who operated in the same time period as the Art Nouveau movement. He was famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs.

Main Work: Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo
Projects: Parc Guell, Colonia Guell

During our time in spain, many landmarks were visited. We also attended a few exhibitions of the design of the 'New Barcelona', and how the designs were thought of.

Focus Week - Commencing 15 May 2010

With all my major deadlines dealt with, the last week of our second year was a focus week.
During this week I decided to visit Kingston Museum, which was hosting an art exhibition funded by Artgym.

The aim of this exhibition was to, bring together the residents of Kingston from different cultures and generations.

I found this exhibition interesting, as different forms of art pieces was produced to represents the relationship from the past present and future.

Different forms of art pieces varied from paintings, collages, billboards, a form of wind chimes to simple boxes with diagrams and information.

It was interesting to see art pieces from different age groups, and how the specific age groups think about the 'past, present and the future'.

An interesting feature at this exhibition was the 'response wall' which seemed to be very busy. It was a way for visitors to leave feedback, which is a feature lacking in many of todays exhibitions.

During this week, i also visited Fairfield park to improve skills on measuring trees and tree canopies (MAINLY without a measuring tape)

As i often found it hard to measure these features with a tape measure (especially when alone) I spent time thinking of a way to measure it by the amount of steps I took to cover the required ground.

This proved to be very helpful, and I definitely feel it was time well spent.

My most interesting finding: 10 steps measures out roughly 5m60.

This could make it easy to measure canopies if i was to walk from one end of the tree covering to the end of the tree covering.

Focus Week - Commencing 1 March 2010

Kingston Market : Returning to a Focus week in 1st year.

In 1st year, we went to Kingston market place, looking at the surrounding landscape etc...
however while on our visit I briefly read about the interesting history of the market which was rich in culture.

This focus week commencing on the 1st of March gave me the opportunity to research into it.
For this i visited Kingston Museum which had quite a bit of info on the history of Kingston as a whole.

From the 13th Century, weekly markets and annual fairs were held at the Kingston Market Place. In 1628 Charles I gave the town a monopoly of markets within a seven mile radius.

The striking feature of this market was the Guild Town Hall was used by the corporation from 1840 till 1935.

Focus Week - Commencing 25 January 2010

Design Museum

During this week of focus week I visited the Design Museum. The Design Museum is by the River Thames close to Tower Bridge. The museum displays products - from graphics to fashion, and more importantly architecture. It claims to be the first museum of modern design.

There were models and prototypes made by big architects, namely Zaha Hadid.
Models of new buildings based in Dubai, Singapore and China were on display.

The details involved in these models were very fascinating, it urged me to pay more attention to my detail when model making for my Studio module.

Dubai being a leading country in investments, created the Opus Office Tower - with the help of Zaha Hadid. Costing over 235 Million pounds, investors are still in waiting before the tower is completed.

Furthermore........
As a part of our Studio work, we were given a task to look into details of landscapes. James and myself decided to work together and look at Jubilee Park in Canary Wharf, a site we have visited and are very familiar with.
We examined and analysed details of the water features.

Focus Week - Commencing 12 October

During this week, I spent 3 days in Paris for my friends birthday - this was a good chance for me to look at buildings and landscapes in France.

Centre Pompidou: Constructed from 1971 to 1977. It houses a large museum and library, the largest in Europe. The architectural style of this stunning building is classified as Postmodern/High-Tech.

Structure: Steel superstructure with reinforced concrete floors.
Architects: Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers

Sacre Coeur: Huge religious history, and is the highest point in France.
a cathedral sitting a-top a steep hill attracts many visitors and is a truly remarkable place. Its a shame about its surrounding landscape, as it deserved better.

Architecture style: Romano Byzantine
Architect: Paul Abadie

Notre Dame: Gothic Roman cathedral, like sacre Coeur it is very popular and attracts many people.

Jubilee Park- Canary Wharf

Module: Streetlife
Semester: 2

The brief to this assignment was very identical to the one from the first semester. However, this was not group work, hence more pressure, more work, more stress. However, i visited the area a few times to gain a better understanding of the space i was studying.
Personally, I appreciate this landscape very much, as it provides an interesting break away from the towering buildings.

South-bank Revisited 02/10/09

For our Parklife module in semester 1, we were split into groups and given specific sites to research and make a presentation on. Our chosen site was south bank. We spent many days visiting the site as a group and on our own, concentrating on specific things such as, drainage, maintenance, security and construction.