Last week I had a conversation with the MA landscape architecture course leader, Fleure Gething, about my idea of doing a personal design option as my elective. After a long think I had decided to not go ahead with it. But during our conversation she told me about Queen Square. Queen Square is an old Victorian Square near Hepworth Point, the building where the landscape department currently is situated. She told about its run down condition and lack of interest of the council and Leeds Met. This sparked my enthusiasm. By the end of our conversation I was quite keen to let my lines loose on this space. But this time I controlled myself, instead of just going in and doing something based on my instincts and observations as I normally do, I wanted to do some research and really give my work some more depth and rootedness. The key questions within this project would be what is Queen square, how well people know it and how can I activate it and raise its profile. The space exists, but how can I turn it into a place, a destination?
With those three core questions in my mind I started thinking. First of all what is Queen Square? On a first glance I would not classify it as a square but as a park, as it is mainly green space and not hard surfaced. I would also not call it a public space as it is hardly used and how can you classify a space as public as the public is hardly there to use it. These are just first observations no definite judgements, but no the less important to note down. For me to get a full understanding of the site I need to look at the history, the present and the future potential. Within the present situation my second question, how well do people know Queen Square, becomes quite important. The knowledge and view of the wider public on Queen Square will help to expand my view of the place beyond my own research. With this research question I would focus on the surroundings of Queen Square as this will be the main location of (possible) users of the square. The next question I asked myself was, how do you find out how well people know a place and how do you do this in a visual interesting way? First I thought about going round asking people the question and filming it, but as I am not good with camera and do not know how to edit film, I quickly dropped this idea. Then I thought about this book
'Lines, A brief history' by Tim Ingold, that I just read, in one of the chapters he talks about mapping and more interestingly how people draw a map for some one else to use to find their way to a certain location. These kinds of maps are simple line drawings showing the route and key recognizable point/landmarks. I would like to use this technique to see whether Queen Square is seen as a landmark and/or if it is even known at all. The idea I conceived is to go around the surrounding Leeds met buildings and private houses and ask the people there to draw me a map from Central Station to Hepworth Point, then I would ask them to do the same but this time the end location would be Queen Square, the third question would be what is Queen Square and the last would be how old are you, how long have you been living in Leeds and what is your occupation? The first question would show me whether Queen Square is used as a recognizable point to guide people from. The second would reveal if people know it at all and the third would provide me with their definition. The last questions would give me an idea of how much which type of people knows about Queen Square. The first two questions would provide me with a visual, while the others with a written text. This part of the project would require the help of Leeds Met students, visitors and staff and the inhabitants of the surrounding houses.
The last question how can I activate Queen Square and raise its profile? The answer of this question would be answered by the above research and also by doing research into wider Leeds cultural life. Cultural life here, does not only cover the arts, but also sports, performance, family days out,... I will look at what Leeds and more importantly what the users of the square lack in this field and how I could provide that within the context of Queen Square. First action would be to raise the profile of Queen Square by using my lines/art installation, which would be based on how people use and experience the square, the boundaries of the square and its history. After that I would again consult the people I consulted before and ask them what they would like to see in the Square and how they would like to see it to be used. After the consultation I will aim to host some cultural events and try to re-design Queen Square so it becomes more suitable to its new active functions. This design would not be an end point but a starting point for a new active and evolving life. If Queen Square's function would change, so would the infrastructure... The viability of our public spaces lies in their ability to adapt to our ever changing needs. They form the platform on which public life takes place.
I would like to undertake this design exercise as part of my 2nd Nature elective as it would provide a new way of looking and thinking about public places. It would see public space more as a verb then as an inert static object.
