beginnings of sketching out ideas for planting at 1:50..

I will have 4 areas of planting: a raised bed (quite exposed, close proximity to seating), wooded area (structural, viewed from all sides, exposed to climate), pavilion planting (very protected from elements by glass and concrete wall, close to eating area) and now I have introduced (or extended) my arbour to stretch over the pavilion (but sunk so as to be more protected from the wind) and therefore I will have climbers (hopefully) here. 

two quick models showing shadows - inc of my arbour "seaweed" structure/gateway

okay one more pic of my study buddy - me reading war memorial books for dissertation, him digging the beds

made a very quick sketch model of my 1:50 - so useful..

...for seeing quickly which views may be obstructed, where shadows are falling, the relationship of the height of walls and structures to people (look out for my wire man complete with smiley face, he's in there), raised beds to seating, how the space works as a whole and how the different parts interact. I can't recommend doing this enough - just take half an hour to do one and you will resolve stuff much faster...I think anyway...

somebody that always inspires me :-) my dog

some things that have been inspiring me this week...

including another 2 examples of cut out doorways in outdoor walls that I am adapting for my picnic pavilion design - One of my fav things (and repeated themes of mine the past 3 years it seems) is viewpoints, especially the use of restricted views to glimpse beyond or frame a view.

Also a fantastic use of lighting to cast shadows, an example of a living wall that I think is visually effective and a great use of coloured paint outside.

section at 1:200 taking shape...

lighting inspiration from More London - London Bridge area

my business card - an adapted fav photo of mine of bicycle lent against a bench overlooking the city from a park

just blogging some of the pics of things I have been doing/been inspired by recently

resolving sections 1:200 quick sketches

"We were given two ends - one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use most.

One of the quotes I have on my desk to make me smile, thought I would share.

Interim crit 1:200

Had the interim crit yesterday and as expected they were tough on everyone. I had gone in with the aim of continuing with my sections once I had presented, but the day is distracting and we are never sure what is expected of us - whether we need to stay around in case some important info is given etc. I did gain something from listening to the other presentations, but really, I couldn't afford to lose a day with so much left to do and should have just taken the risk and gone off to draw....ah well...
I knew I had done my best, so took the criticism on the chin, I had felt good that I had learnt a lot the past week in terms of drawing and photoshop (still lots to learn of course) so knew I was moving forward. A main criticism was that my plan was too dark or "UGLY" as Jamie had put on the feedback form...well, I didn't like it either but to have done what I had done was a huge step forward for me, so I see it as just part of the process. Just need to keep working hard to get where I need to be.
However, it was good to hear Julia say that my previous style had been "fresh and clean" which I hadn't seen, but helped to give me focus on how I can ensure my drawings tie together.
Also very happy to note that in my feedback they had said I had developed a lot since my 1:500 plan, as I feel that I have, so its nice that its noticed and spurs me on to keep progressing.
Now I need to finish my dissertation!
Then, after Shelley's very helpful class last night targeted on Sketch up (how to make it more personal) and AUTOCAD, giving me confidence (having never used sketchup), I will get back to drawing some perspectives....
have a good day all!

sorry am doing badly at putting on images but will do asap

Monday 27 Feb model and plant palette

Today was a good day…

Started with taking my model at 1:500 into class in bits – not great, but I figured it was better to be there on time and not miss anything important then I could add the bits into place as the day went on. Added my walls and buildings and felt pleased that I was making progress – this task really made me feel like I should be doing a model every time I design – for me it just shows exactly what works and what doesn’t and seeing the shadows from my walls really helped to give my design the depth that I struggled to capture on my plan (having added no shadows as I just didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing) Julia said my model was extremely neat – I decided to take this as a compliment! Haha. Nothing in my life has ever been described as neat before that’s for sure!

So note to self – start with a model pretty early on! The next week I began a quick 1:200 model to help me make some decisions. Which it really did in terms of sight lines around buildings and towards structures etc.

Plant palette – I had done this but didn’t pin up as it felt a bit blah. Spent ages googling images to go with my list of supposed coastal plants gathered from Julia’s emails, RHS and books I have. Slow process and it was only after about 15 images I finally felt I was getting somewhere in terms of finding things I may want to use.

Had a eureka moment Saturday morning and suddenly decided on a planting theme (or narrative as Julia said today) for my ‘woodland” area – had been reading a girly trashy fashion mag and somebody or other had just done “enchanted” on the catwalk and I thought – that’s what I need: a whimsical, enchanted forest feel, to go with the playful concept. So nice upright trees (populous tremula) with cloud form shapes of phillyrea. So at least I felt I was getting the planting scheme cemented.

Ended the day on Monday with a tired presentation of my exhibition for our marketing module – such a shame we have this on Monday after a long day on masterplanning as none of us feel we are giving it the attention it deserves, but we are making the best of it I think.

Lille and finally...

Every night I wondered if I really wanted to carry on with this degree. It just didn’t seem worth it. I have friends who have degrees, some from Cambridge, some of them First Class and they say it was never this punishing for so little reward (I.e we still don’t get good grades). I felt that it just didn’t need to be this hard, although I don’t mind challenging work if I come out of it learning a lot. I felt that the things I learnt, I could have learned and had a hot meal every night (too late by the time you get back at 10pm, too tired to eat and we didn’t know where you could get anything and there was no time/energy to find out) and proper sleep for most of the week.

But thankfully! I came back to the UK better off, not because it was hellish, but because this group work showed me that I can design! All the way through this course, my worry has been my lack of experience in drawing and designing. it’s the opposite of the career I’ve had and I was rubbish at art at school and never even doodled in my notebook, preferring to natter (some things don’t change) so this has given me confidence. Seeing some of the things I had in my head created by Danny in sketchup/photoshop on the wall felt amazing (also made me wish I had those skills!)

The other thing was that I saw how long it took people to do stuff - a week long project was a good idea (although we could have done it in England, but its good to have on the CV) as it showed what you could achieve under pressure. I have always had limited time due to work commitments, having only left full time work in January 2012 and now I saw that when other people only have a short amount of time they do sketches like mine, may sound stupid but I always assumed all the beautiful pics I saw people produce had been whipped up in moments, but I guess they take time! So it gave me more confidence and made me want to practice and improve my drawing as it seems more possible now.

Anyway, enough waffle, I wrote this in Lille, but worried it was too emotive so didn’t post - but I guess that’s what blogs are for…so here goes…

Lille day four...(five if you count Sunday)

The final night and Julia and I were done, and Russell and I got cracking with the model - which resulted in a big row with aforementioned bossy French girl who disagreed with everything Paula had just told us to do (in fluent French I should add - the students were open-mouthed) so I said that if her and the French boy (I forget his name!) wanted to do the model, they needed to make quick decisions, she got stuck in and I have to say they did a great job with Russell having already done the levels and him and I making some additions in the morning. It looked good and they did well, credit to them.

It was at this stage (midnight) that I realised that Simon was still talking about rendering the plan with Bertrand still, I walked away for an hour (a friend called from the UK in need of a chat - perfect timing!) and when I came back they were still discussing psitachio or olive greens??!!! Argh. So I took a green pen and started colouring, much to their horror. I then sat down with Simon until 330am and we rendered it together. I left after that as there was not much more I could do (or take!).

Danny did a great job of the sequentials and was up the whole night. The French stayed almost the whole night on the model and Russ and Julia left early and came in first to sort printing and do anything that was left. Simon and Bertrand stayed and finished the sections, but unfort they didn’t sleep and they had chosen to present. Oh well! Can you sense my frustration?! It was a very hard week, so I know I was much less patient than usual.

Lille day three I think...

We then merged groups and we were with a group whose main theme was ecology and a wider strategy  in terms of infrastructure. Perfect match for our scheme. After several discussions going in different directions all day (another 13 hours) and I felt we were drifting, my patience ran out so I spoke to a few of the other team about how I saw the fabric concept being taken further and they were on board. It worked well with their ideas  and then we all went home. The next day I didn’t go in (health stuff) and the funny thing was, by not being there it felt like my idea was considered more than if I had been there shouting the toss. So it was developed further (and well I should add) in my absence.

The team got on with allocating tasks etc, when I came in the next day Julia and I had been given the A3 book and precedents, (probably we felt as we had been awol the day before - Julia only for some of the time though) however, we just got on with it - no time to argue now. Julia can now do an A3 book in record time! It made me wish once again that we had learned such useful packages as Indesign in earlier years at Uni rather than Bryce (far less relevant to us) and repeating basic CAD we had already done twice.

Anyway! Julia and I ploughed on - her with the book and I wrote a mission statement and did a precedents A1 sheet. I tried to stand back from the group discussions in the studio aside from going in every couple of hours and then push to get the next decision made. Simon and I locked horns a few times as his style is more relaxed whereas I just want to get on with stuff - all very amicable though! We can laugh now (although I have to say there were tears from me at the pure exhaustion, frustration of getting nowhere fast and lack of food.)

Lille - Day two cont... got a bit confused!

So, its funny as I approached group work totally differently this time, not necessarily deliberately and so got a very different experience from it. I am usually always team leader, with there only being one time since I started this course when I wasn’t and all that happened was that the person leading turned to me after a couple of days panicked and said they wanted me to help them, with ultimately me sticking my oar in and pulling things together on the final two days (yes it was a nightmare).  I hope its not because I’m bossy (!) but because in my family we are just “take charge” sort of people. We don’t like fuss or faff. My parents always just taught us to get on with things and to try to see everybody’s point of view.

This time, we had a Masters student in our group who had come with the aim of improving leadership skills and a very strong willed French girl in our smaller group of 5, so I stepped back and let them take charge. With interesting results. it’s the first time I have had real design input into a team task. Often friends on the course say that I will end up doing project management or policy or presentations and things like that as that is what my background is in my current career in finance, but that I shouldn’t worry that my drawing isn’t as good as others as I probably wont be so involved in the design side (yeh thanks friends, its not that bad!) haha. Anyway, I actually always have a zillion ideas and so it was great this time to be able to step back from organising people and resolving group issues and to put my ideas on the table. First thing I did was suggest we look back to the textile history of Lille and use this as a theme or concept to base our new design on - so basically there are layers or threads in a city such as roads, canals, promenades etc and we should try and make a grid to connect up both sides of the canal on our site as at the moment it was too separate. Now I actually thought that idea was a bit naff and basic, but Simon our Masters student thought it was a great idea and said we should run with it. I thought it was an obvious one that everyone would choose yet after the first round of presentations, I was chuffed that several people said that our team had the strongest concept. Very surprised. I’m going to get confused on which day was which so bear with me.

We slept on it after 13 hours…and no dinner again and in the morning I took in a doodle I did, which I will add here (now covered in glue etc) where I took our team ideas of an ecological aspect, long term view and self sustaining living and pulled them together. So houses right on perpendicular smaller stretches of canal which alternated between being used for leisure such as swimming (Simon suggested natural pools - great idea) and boating and my favourite - as I want to live there - living overlooking a piece of natural wetlands replete with birds swirling around. I felt this connect to a wider ecological area on the other side of the river. A new way of living. Anyway, Russell loved this, Vero was coming round, but Simon took charge and sadly it was decided not to follow through. I found it very difficult to get my voice heard that day and tried to explain that we needed to move forward. Several times. Simons leadership style is different from mine and he said he just wanted to see how things naturally went. Of course this meant when it came to our first presentation  we were told it started strongly and then petered out - which is how our discussions had gone to be honest!