Procraspiration

Procrastination and the search for inspiration...
This is Superkilen, a kilometre-long park in an "ethnically diverse and socially challenged" area of Copenhagen, that I (virtually) stumbled across while trawling for inspiration. Getting a bit ahead of myself probably, as I'm still fumbling round with sketch designs! It is both transformative and playful though...

 
Designed by BIG, Topotek1 and Superflex, the park is divided into three zones of different function and form (Red Square, Black Market and Green Park) and features objects from the 60 nations represented by the area's residents. Local residents were extensively consulted during the design process; the park was conceived as being 'for the people, by the people', a hub to bring a diverse neighbourhood together.

It includes playgrounds, spaces for sport, cultural activities, picnics, socialising and relaxing - and fully integrated bike lanes (sensible Danes!)

More here: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/10/24/superkilen-park-by-big-topotek1-and-superflex/

In practice, some bits work better than others aesthetically-speaking (in my humble opinion). I'd be interested to know how it actually feels and is used on the ground by the people it was built for - the real marker of success I suppose.

MUST DO ACTUAL WORK NOW ! Oh dear.

Scrapbooks and fog

What my brain feels like! This is described in a book as a 'fog garden' - is that really a thing? (Google doesn't think so, but it can't know everything...)

But back to the project in hand...I've made scrapbook pages for each of the themes to be used in making sketch designs for the site: Playful, Restorative and Transformative. They don't look like much, but I really thought hard about their meanings and the site while doing them, and none of the images are chosen at random. It was a good way of kicking the imagination out of hibernation.

Playful: the obvious thing that springs to mind is children, imaginative play etc. I also thought about things playing on other things e.g. light/shadow, water, movement, sound. Playful appeals to me for Dickens Sq and Newington Gardens as they are both have a decidedly un-fun atmosphere at the moment (except the adventure playground in Dickens).

Restorative: the main ideas to come out of this exploration were calmness, balance, reflection and (shudder) wellbeing, which could be achieved with form, texture, colour and scent. It would be beneficial to have parks which feel like a haven (activity and sociability can act as a tonic too, so wouldn't all need to be meditation and gentleness), particularly as there's a health centre adjacent to Dickens Square Park.

 

Transformative: the area currently feels a bit forgotten about, and the parks are rough around the edges. It's a real contrast to other parts of north Southwark; even Trinity Square at the edge of the site has a completely different and coherent identity. A transformative theme would give the opportunity to change the parks completely and create a place which feels special, a place residents could feel some attachment to and enjoy living with. Hopefully people's perception of the area and their relationship with it could be positively transformed too.

Where is everyone?

360 degree pics of Newington Gardens and Dickens Square. Borough High Street was packed, but the survey area was almost completely empty thoroughout both of my visits. In London! How to get people to use the parks? Hmmm. To be continued...

Métis, or the Hairy Caterpillar Conundrum

My finished Metis sheets (at last!) above. I was happy with the idea, and thought for about 5 minutes that it might actually turn out alright - but I'm not particularly pleased with the way the project looks. I find it childish and old fashioned, especially after seeing some of the Photoshop work other people produced. The process threw up a few issues:

"Drawing the same hairy caterpillar over and over again and expecting different results" - a new definition of insanity. I tried so hard to draw lovely light wavy planting, using inks, paints, graphite powder, pens etc, and wasted hours on sheets and sheets of the same hairy caterpillars where I was hoping to produce beautiful flowing planting beds. Rendering them in caterpillar green probably didn't help either...

Perspectives and elevations - perspective drawing is difficult. I'm not sure if my elevation is in fact a section, or elevation, or just an abomination! 

Photoshop montaging and Sketchup - I didn't know I was wary of these and did make a basic Sketchup model, but seem to have stuck mainly with hand drawing, despite my limited skills there too. Will force myself to join the modern world next time. Which brings me to...

3D modelling - I wish I'd made some better sketch models which I could have photographed properly and perhaps used in Photoshop. I made models for the first two incarnations, which did help, but the second one was literally made from balls of newspaper and wasn't much good photo-wise. It's also really hard to demonstrate soft, partially transparent planting in sketch model form! I'm only going to design very solid hedging from now on...

Technology - irritating, boring, nitty gritty things take too much time and make life miserable. For example...making multi-page pdfs (or rather, accessing the technology which allows this); difficulties accessing scanners A3 and above; shrinking pdfs to an appropriate size - still not sure I did this right, and the caterpillars really don't need to be more blurry! Also discovered the colour on my computer seems to be different to all other computers; my images look really washed out on other screens and printed much paler too - but how can I ever know what colour things are going to be if my screen is wrong? Argh!

Plus the actual design process of course...oh dear.

Splatter patterns

Bleurgh!! Paint splatters transformed into a pattern applied with the bucket tool in Photoshop. I had no idea about this useful technique before the task, and will probably use it again...with different colours.

Garden bridge

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/uk-garden-bridge-150m-thames-south-bank-soho
An interesting idea (even if the comments are as sour as ever...). Have to say, "the only sounds will be birdsong" is definitely on the optimistic side though! I wonder if it'll ever actually get built?

Dynamic composition: the return

Here's the new version, after being given 10 minutes to improve it - I tried to simplify the layout to decrease the mess factor and hopefully add/retain some kind of visual hierarchy. Glad the original was judged to have some dynamism at least though!