Own Work: Making Blocks December 2013

Based on results from the tile, I decided that is was better to allow natural entropy to take place on samples with a much wider scope for spontaneous results. I choose to experiment in concrete (due to its use in brutalism and modernist Utopian visions) and categorised 7 different entropy methods: Heat, Force, Water, Plants, Pioneer Plants, Soil, and Wind.

Force

 Pioneer

Heat

 Plant

 Soil

 Wind

Water

Own Work - Site Visit: Dungeness November 2013

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in the Europe, and is classified as Britain's only desert by the Met office; Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of acuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh and has a nuclear power station, 2 lighthouses and seemingly endless of amounts of deserted crumbling fisherman shacks. There are however still a few holiday homes nearby the road that have been well maintained, a small pub and gift shop/cafe by a light railway station.

Dungeness lies on the south east peninsula of kent

It really does feel like one of the UK's only wildernesses and despite receiving a few visitors each day it really does give an intense feeling of isolation. I attended on a cloudy autumn day and one can't help but be reminded from a scene of Hitchcock's 'The Birds' and a sense of otherworldliness.

A fishing boat marker, used to line up boats when going ashore, is begging to degrade with coils of steel rope unravelling at its base.

 

The shacks, mostly deserted have almost all lost their doors and protection from the elements. In some tools are laid out seemingly carefully on workbenches as if they were about to be used, but are now covered in dirt and rust. I couldn't help picturing some sort of horror movie where the town's people disappear over night leaving only traces of the tasks they were doing at the time. 

Whilst moving through the shacks you could see distant solitary shadows moving along the horizon now and then. I was warned that some people may still live within these spaces.

The site is littered with rusting pieces of machinery which alone seem out of place to what this place has become

The decaying fisherman equipment has started to foster life allowing moss and grass a surface to adhere to

 

 

A decaying boat, pulled in from a catch and never used again, the rotting machinery are still attached to its stern that pulled it in

Train tracks, no longer going anywhere. Rotten carriages with there wheels collapsed inside of them are not far away

The power station and nearby string of houses, cafe, garden and pub are the only source activity in the area

Sunset on the nearby beach

Own Work: Ordered Form Versus Chaos November 2013

 

Experiment to create a juxtaposition between a pure form; in this case a ceramic glazed white tile, with that of a chaotic deterioration. Pioneer species and dirt were intoruduced into a artificailly produced fissue in the moulding process. It was decided in the end that their was an issue with the creation of the crack that ran against the natural decay aim of the project.

 

Own Work - Site Visit: Sydenham Woods Oct 2013

Sunday walk through Sydenham Woods in South East London, to explore an old folly and disused railway line. Objective was to monitor the decay of man made structures and also to take a look at the concept of the folly.

A Folly is constructed primarily for decoration and is purposely made to look like something that is not its intended purpose. An example would be building a castle ruin within a large garden to suggest there once one being there, but it's purpose is now as an attraction or perhaps an area for afternoon tea.

The above example is a folly of a church ruin, its history and presence within the woods suggests that the land may have once formed part of a large estate or garden. Due to lack of upkeep the folly is beginning to crumble at it's edges, showing modern red bricks hidden beneath the concrete made to look like stone.

The above is further evidence of this lost estate or perhaps of previous landscaping within the woods for the public that has been forgotten about, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

Above is the remenants of the old railway line running through the woods. The track is now gone, but the bridges and tunnels remain. Slowly the growth has taken over and clouded the old track paths. Moss growing out of the brick work and timber beams creating a juxtaposition between industrial heritage and natural decay through new life.

Own Work - Site Visit: Barbican Oct 2013

 The Barbican is a vast estate built during the 1960s and the 1970s designed by Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon; in the centre of London. Before this the area was devastated by world war 2 bombings making it a target site of regeneration. It consists of an art centre, library, school, museum, public gardens and many housing blocks. It also once contained a medical facility, fire station, and a YMCA.

Site of the Barbican as construction begins in the 1960's

Example of a floor plan in part of the housing blocks

Another prototype of an apartment in the estate

Publicity poster cross-section of the Barbican Arts Centre

The Barbican is a prime example of brutalist architecture in the UK and is now grade II listed. Originally some elements were proposed to be white and clad in marble (which is why some of the walls are textured, see photos below), the Barbican vision was gradually scaled back due to costs.

Due to the utopian ideas involved in the vision of this estate,  I went to investigate to see how nature had begun to effect this estate with age and to see if any juxtapositions had begun to form.

Interestingly I found there was a battle for control, between the organised planting plinths (some of which were empty fostering no life, and the cracks in the brick work where there was an abundance. It's funny how we seek to control nature and choose where it should develop and how, yet it is uncontrollable, making a never ending battle.