PGDip over

Finally finished my PGDip in landscape architecture, what a trip it has been! I have learned to be patient and not to rush things.

My project, Rolling Design, encapsulates my thinking about landscape architecture and to a certain extent about public art. As set out earlier in this blog, Rolling design, uses events to activate a place. This process of activation will engage the community. The positive momentum created by the activation and engagement will lead to the start-up of an engaging and creative design process involving the designer but also the community and site, which will never end. Rolling Design will provide for gradual design interventions and a continuous process of activation.

Irrepressible Movement

New Work from Sarah Foque & James Johnson-Perkins
Cecil Sharp House
Camden
London
10th Jul - 31st Aug
Preview, 9th July, 6pm


This exhibition showcases colourful new work from Sarah Foque & James Johnson-Perkins. Both artists' work is site specific and utilises intense colours in its execution. Sarah Foque creates installations with straight bands of colour, responding to a site's history and people's movement through it. James Johnson-Perkins uses references to popular culture of the 1980s to create works of play and nostalgia. His installation at Cecil Sharp House will span all four storeys of the building through the centre of the staircase, whilst Sarah Foque's multi-coloured lines will be immediately viewable from the main entrance.

http://www.johnson-perkins.co.uk/
http://www.efdss.org/

About wandering and places

I really enjoy site visits as they mean endless hours of wandering. It is one of the rare occasion where wandering seems the best thing to do. To me it seems the best way to really take in a place. There is no rush, it is just you and the landscape. It does not matter whether it is urban or rural. It is also at those moments that I regret taking photographs as it breaks that magical moment of the now and the context. I rather draw and sketch then to take a photograph. I find by drawing the landscape it reveals its story. It suits the wandering spirit as it takes time and a full devotion to the landscape just like the wandering itself.
While wandering it is sometimes hard to imagine that this is a place someone or something calls home. While wandering I find myself becoming the first discoverer of this long forgotten place, but I am not. Day to day, especially in citys, people wake up in this place and live there daily lives in here, but do they really see it?

Coffee Chat Upside Down - Completed!

Last night or better said early this morning I finished the ceiling installation at the Forest Cafe. I am absolutely nackered. Photos will follow shortly.

Coffee chat upside down - installation 1

Last night I started taping the Forest Cafe's ceiling. I was up and down the ladder from 12.00 till 4.00 in the morning. Lucky for me the ladder is quite steady and I had Martin holding on to it as health and safety precaution. It is a very slow process, but I will get there in the end. It will probably take 2 more nights of taping to get it finished. So tonight I will be back on the ladder. I have definately overcome my fear of heights!

Rolling Design

As earlier mentioned on my blog, I am interested in hosting events as part of the design process. For sustainable design there has to be a link between place and the surrounding community, as they will be the ones maintaining and should be using the park. By hosting events open to all and aimed at all, you would create a sense of a place. This sense of place is an emotional link within people’s minds to a place. It is what turns a site into a place. Once this link is established durable and sustainable design can start. Sustainable to me is more than an environmental aspect; it is also about the community involvement and timing. Within rolling design, there is a stepped design process. Instead of complete (re)development in one go, the stepped process will be drawn out over time and really feed of the needs of community. This design approach would be most suitable for Council owned land, as costs would be spread over time and by community involvement there might be a reduction in cost of maintenance.

Process:

Events

First part designed or improvement of infrastructure.

More events

Second part designed

More events

Third Part

…

Events

First part designed or improvement of infrastructure.

More events

Second part designed

More events

Third Part

In rolling design the design process never stops as our landscape never stops evolving. This approach would make sure no park or public space ever gets run down and means small gradual costs instead of one great big expense, which isn’t even half as sustainable.

Contemporary Wayfarers

I was reading Tim Ingold’s book ‘Lines’ yesterday. It has this section on wayfaring and transport. Wayfaring to him, as I understood it, is a way of life. The wayfarer is his line of movement. Within wayfaring, there are no endpoints. In transport, the journey has no importance. It is merely the means to get to the needed location. Every journey, within transport, has an ending.

This section was to me extremely important as I could really see myself as a contemporary wayfarer. I have no home, and although I tend to linger in one spot for quite some time, there is this constant craving to move on. I am not so much influenced by my physical environment, but by the opportunities that lie beyond. I will go where the best opportunities are. When I leave a place I leave with an open network in place, human connections. My traces are left hopefully in people’s minds and emotions, not so much physical.

It is that kind inter-human and also spatial connections I try to map. I try to visualize my fellow contemporary wayfarers’ movements/traces as they tend not to have a physicality themselves.