Focus.Week.Four... St.Georges Sq. Luton.

The Square will be transformed into a vibrant and safe public space funded by Liveability from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, European Regional Development Fund and Luton Borough Council.

Under the new plans the space will be transformed from an under-used and under-valued area into a major public urban square of the highest quality that will set the design benchmark for further regeneration in the town.

The project involves extending the current square to include two of the surrounding roads which have largely been pedestrianised. This has the effect of increasing the accessible area of the square from 4,800 to 9,900 square metres and will provide a high quality, flexible space which can be used for a wide variety of activities ranging from large scale public events such as Luton’s annual carnival celebration to more intimate activities such as sitting and socialising in a safe and comfortable environment.

A Walk along The South Bank.

As the title says really. Went for a field trip with Ed Wall (tutor) looking at a variety of surface materials used within the public realm. An interesting day out and makes a change from being in the studio all the time and also learnt a lot, just hope I managed to remember what all the materials were.

Here's the slideshow..............

One more thing.........from the UNDERGROUND

Saw a really nice, abstract way to create trees using wire and clear coloured plastic. Here we go. Quick, simple and works really well..............

UNDERGROUND.......models

Once again Great models! These ones were so detailed and included section models showing cross-sections of stations and streetscapes. i have never seen anything like them and something that I have never though to produce in my own projects.

Anyway here are some of the best, hope you enjoy.

UNDERGROUND- London's hidden infrastructure.

Yet another very interesting exhibition from the NLA examining the vital underground infrastructure that is vital for the cities survival. From the sewers of the victorian age to the vast tube network used everyday under the city streets to forthcoming utilities such as the Crossrail network.

The exhibition was small but contained some very detailed technical information which to be honest went a little over my head but was still quite interesting although I found the the visual displays much more appealing. 

I HATE BLOGGER!!!!

For some reason my page elements eg archive, labels, about me etc won't stay on the right side of my blog and now appear under my posts! its driving me crazy! So now they have to go at the top, above my posts as its the only way around stopping them from being at the bottom. If anyone can help, please let me know.

Waterfronts@NLA cont.......

Another aspect of the waterfront exhibit which I enjoyed was the models. I am a massive fan of great models and these were amazing. The scale and detail of some of these was incredible. My personal favorite was the model of Wood Wharf which is a massive new development just east of Canary Wharf on the Isle Of Dogs in the borough of Tower Hamlets.

I particularly like the use of perspex to represent the glass in the building and is also used to so that the whole model can be viewed clearly without being obscured by the large tower blocks.

Waterfront projects in the pipeline

Focus.Week.Three

LONDON WATERWAYS @ NLA



Once again finding myself at the NLA! Its only a small place but there always seems to be something interesting here and this time was no exception.

London waterways is the exhibition and funnily enough my current studio project is a London waterfront project near Wapping so I found this extremely useful and thought provoking.
The exhibit focused on the waterside development in London showing current and forthcoming projects starting off by giving a brief history of the Thames and its tributaries and identifying that up until recently London has turned its back on these canals and river systems.

RIBA>Models.Of.Yemen

Focus.Week> The Architecture.Of.Yemen.

RIBA had a show exhibiting the architecture of Yemen showing the styles and materials used in funtional working buildings. The exhition displays the these highly skilled master planners and how they manage to produce these impressive structures and how they manage to stand the test of time.

New.London.Architecture.Cont..........

There was also another project there that i liked which was a proposal for th Regents Park Pavillion. It was a project with a number of different proposals from a variety of architects and landscape architects. Below explains the purpose of the new development and the desgn and function requirements.

NLA cont.....

Another really interesting project was work for the new velodrome in Stratford for the Olympics. This was a really usefull project as it showed the same project but with proposals from a number of respected architects, somethigng which I don't think I have seen before. I gives you a chance to see each practices different style and shows the different ways that they tackle a brief

Educational.Architecture@NLA

Here is some some architecture for educational buildings with some really nice model making skills. This is The Bridge City Academy in Hackney, created by the Building Design Partnership.

Focus.Week.Two.

On the second focus week of the year I was really up for for inspiration as my passion for landscape was slipping away a bit. It was time for me to visit one of my favourite places "New London Architecture" in the Building Centre on Store Street. Last time I went I arrived late and they were taking an exhibition down so this time I managed to get down there earlier. There was an exhibition on educational architecture focuseding on new buildings for teaching including schools and colleges which produced some very exciting work.