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 - 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.

Architecture - Witherford Waston Mann: Astley Castle c.2013

The Astley family had the castle built in Nuneaton, North Warwickshire in the 12th Century. The development is seated sensitively within the ruins allowing visitors to experience the history in a living context. Communal spaces have been placed upstairs to allow for better visibility with the ruins on a longer time span in the day.

The idea creates a palimpsestic living arrangement where the history can be read in the environment and lost stories imagined.

Source: http://ribastirlingprize.architecture.com/riba-stirling-shortlist-2013-astley-castle-warwickshire/

Photography/Installation - Noemie Goudal: Haven Her Body Was c.2012

Noemie Goudal's photography in 'Haven Her Body Was' creates narrative and story-telling by juxtaposing the artificial, with that of the natural. When we encounter oppositional meanings within a space, it creates a thought process where we are forced to exam the context behind each, awakening our senses and memories. In the urban environment we rarely stop to think, and dwell upon the reasons and history behind each action we take and what we consider to be the accepted. The stories creep through like a patchwork of broken and blurred memories that seems to take hold of us all and completely for these seconds that we let it, and we become apart of that space. Before it is dismissed, we move on, and the feeling fades.

I find this motion captivating, moments where we consider what is real, and what we choose to dream.

Combat

Iceberg

Reservoir

Stereo-plates

Trail

Warren

Well

Source: http://www.noemiegoudal.com