West 8's Goals & Intentions. "Living in new Jenfeld"

Q: Have another wander around the internet or the library looking at the work of West 8. Charles Waldheim notes on p.46 of his essay "Landscape as Urbanism" that "Taken together, the range of West 8's recent production illustrates the potential for landscape architecture to supplant architecture, urban design, and urban planning as design disciplines responsible for recording post-industrial urban sites." Is there a project in particular that you think illustrates the point well? How does it work? What are West 8's goals and intentions with the project?

Living in New Jenfeld, 2005, Hamburg, Germany.

"In close cooperation with the City of Hamburg and the district Wansbeck West 8 is developing an urban structure for the former casern of Lettow Vorbeck. On 29 hectares, a complete new quarter for living and working will be developed over the next few years.

Row houses with individual brick facades together with typical white detached houses will be arranged around four romantic public spaces. Together the new public spaces will serve as a district park comprising lawns with trees, pavilions, ponds and a water cascade. All storm water will be collected in small trenches along the streets to feed the water cascade and then flow into the central pond, which will act as a water retention basin.
Water is an important feature in New Jenfeld. Besides its sustainable and visually strong impact on the new area it also has an educational function for young children; they learn about the function and flow of the water whilst playing with it.
Other eco-friendly measures are the use of solar cells on top of the roofs of the buildings and high energy building standards that will help create a vital and responsible new quarter."

Info taken from: http://www.west8.nl/projects/sustainable_planning/living_in_new_jenfeld/

I found this project in Germany on West 8's webpage. I love it! To me it links with the question because it has all of the points involed, I think looking through the website a lot of West 8's prjoects relate to the question. But this was one of my favourites! And it relates to my pervious case study on sustainable planning. More places like this need to be considered for the future.
 
Another interest was the only West 8 project in England - the Stratford City. Will definatly keep watch to see how it develops. :)

Hot Houses?? Is This really the answer??

I Found this image in a book on my book shelve ‘Britain from above’ and it made me think of our recent discussions in class. This image was in the a section titled ‘the future’ with this quote beside it ‘As Britons become more conscious of their impact on the environment, the issue of ‘food miles’ - the amount of energy used up in transporting non-seasonal foods from hot climates to our supermarket shelves - is having an increasing effect on our agriculture. Consumers expect out-of-season produce but they want it home-grown, which means that farmers are increasingly looking at ways to extend the season of native crops, and grow non-native crops, using poly tunnels, greenhouses and hothouses. Blue fields of hothouses, like this one in North Kent, are likely to become an increasingly common sight.’ I personally think this is wrong. Ok yes they’ve got the idea that we need to cut down on the air miles but with greenhouses?? NO!! From this quote it made me think hang on all this time I was thinking so if we get people producing the there own food... ‘Closing the loop as such we would be on the right lines for improvement. But no the problem is actually the fact that people want out of season foods?? Bizarre to me, surely in the modern world we live in people should understand that it’s just something that isn’t meant to happen and is just human greed.

Ian Harrison: foreword by Andrew Marr, Britain from above, 2008, Mondadori, Italy.

Site for APD.. Tollesbury?

New Assignment for Academic and professional development module. To find a site for our CDP project in the 3rd year and to start researching it.
I think I have chosen my site to be Tollesbury Marina & Woodrolfe Park in Essex set of the East coast surrounded by rural countryside and marshland.
Below the images I have from when visiting the site and looking at it against the water also a plan view.

London for the Day.

17th February 2010.

Took a trip up to London to see a Sunny Golden Lane! Went up as one of the members in my group hadnt visited as of yet. Was completely different from when we visited before. There was such a warm feel about the place, completely the opposite to before and it wasn't just down to the weather. There were children and families using the space and people stopping to chat and catch up on the days activities!
Very interesting contrast from before!

Sunny Great Arthur's House, Photo by Alex Strudwick.

Also poped down to the RHS design show! Was very dissappointed. Was nothing there that you haven't seen before, felt this was a bit of a shame. I have felt this way a lot recently about the RHS. They seem to be very old fashioned and not even wanting to leap into the modern world. One good point I noticed was however there plants! I would love to have that amount of knowledge of plants! Another of my aims in life.

After the design shows we walked down to the Tate Britain which I've never been to before so was quite excited, brought me back to my A Level Art classes, I love the options you can take in Art and where the Art itslef can take you. The Tate Britain was different and in some places was hard to make sense of however there was quite a few pieces i enjoyed looking into!

In an arty mind walking back to the station past the houses of parliament we came across some excellent photo oppitunities!!

Attempted 1.

Attempt 2.

Attempt 3. Very cool Photo!

Photos again by Alex Strudwick.

Pets in the City.

Q: It is inevitable the Anne Whiston Sprin's discussion of pets in the city will arouse strong feelings in you. Where do you stand? Should there be legal limits on animals in a urban setting? Should there be culls?

Reading: Two chapters from Anna Whiston Sprin's The Granite Garden

Where do I stand? Good question. Before we had this lecture this would have never of crossed my mind. My opinion would have been... Why would'nt people want pets in a city? and I'm not even a animal lover. I've had a dog as a pet since a young age and we live in the country but I've never really took much of an interest. However going back to the question another question I would put forward would be... Is it fair on the pet to live in urban city? Is it fair to have a dog thats kept in a flat all day while the owner works a 9 to 5 job? I think not.
Another point would be animals (pets) do; like green spaces improve peoples wellbeing the same way its therapy for people to garden. Others will have life long pets that keep them sane.
Therefore my final answer would be animals should not be banded for cities I personally feel that its totally unreasonable unless of cause the environment is completely unsuiable for the animal itself.

James Corner - Field Operations

I've decided to use my blog more as a directory.
I seem to come across all these exciting sources and websites to doing with the landscape and design. and then forget them. So from now on if I find an exciting source then I'm going to try and upload it to my blog!
Starting with James Corners - Field Operations.

The High Line - New York.

"James Corner Field Operations led the winning design team for the 2004 international competition in collaboration with other expert specialists for the High Line, an unusal 1.45-mile long, abandoned elevated railway that spans 22 city blocks in between and through builings along the west side of Manhattan. As the lead designer of the High Line, James Corner Field Operations has led all aspects of the project, including design, project management and coordination and construction administration."

http://www.fieldoperations.net/

Q: Think about your own relationship with food? Chances are you make explicit links between food and the body as a matter of course, but how often do you think about food as product of the landscape and as a shaper of landscape systems? How about as it shapes our social and cultural lives?

This subject has become increasingly brought up and spoke about in my life recently. With our new design project Golden Lane Estate and trying to think about a sustainable lifestyle, food production and landscape systems being a big part of this. After last weeks lecture (4th February) titled urban territory I’ve really started thinking about the effect us as human beings have on the landscape.


It’s amazing the effect that just knowing a little more about this subject has had on me as a person, and it makes me wonder if children were taught about the subject throughout education maybe they would have more of an impact in the future.

I'm a big lover of food and good food at that - and i do believe that good quality food tastes better meaning i believe in 'good food'. Since I've been young we’ve always had a vegetable patch and I've never took much interest but I beginning to realise that I should have. I and my sisters think its crazy when dad will come in with an armful of leeks and we’ve been in onions that came out of the garden since August and there is still plenty hanging up in the barn. It almost makes me proud to eat home grown vegetables’ now. :)

Looking at the wider picture however I begin to wonder is it really possible help the situation, food is vital to everyday life and people do take it for granted but its because they don’t know any different, people don’t think about it and I think if they the country would be in major panic! It’s scary to think how far our dinner has travelled just to get on out plates for dinner time.

Golden Lane Estate.

Great Arthur’s House

Our new group project for our design module. We visited the site on the 2/02/2010. Very exciting, a very miserable day mind. The end project is to produce a master plan for the entire site of Golden Lane Estate in London. Unlike a lot of people in our class I loved the site I thought it was very cool and an exciting place to be. In context it’s next to the barbican in London and is almost over shadowed by it. People tend to walk through most of the spaces instead of spending time within the space and there’s a big lack of GREEN! However it has so much potential.

Other issues considered on site:

Access, Maintenance, How people use the space, Cultural, Architectural, Views, Lighting, Plants and tress, water, transport, car parks and boundaries.

Needs to be uplifted in so many ways and GREEN!! Seriously lacking green! We walked into one area of the estate that did have a green lawn and it was so lovely it really made you feel there was hope amongst all the concrete.

Sonneveld House Critique!

This was the project we were given in Rotterdam, I really enjoyed this and was really pleased with the out come and preasentation!
Below shows some of the work I completed.

Final Presentational Plan

Front Section

Side Section

Sustainable Design: Case Study

Sustainable Design: This is something that I feel I really need to look at more and research into. Sustainability is something that is used so much around me and in lectures. And in our design projects I hear other students mention the word 'Sustainable' over and over again. And I sit and think... yeah I know what it means but I don’t feel I know quite enough about it to be comfortable with the subject.

So my in this case study I would like to research and learn about a designer and spaces that have been sustainable and find out why and how they are!
I started my research with CABE and there section on 'sustainability' and they started with this quote... "We embed sustainable design in all our work and encourage sustainable living by helping to create buildings and spaces that fulfil environmental, social and economic needs." http://www.cabe.org.uk/sustainability The main phrase which popped out to me being "the fulfil environment, social and economic needs" Fulfil being the all important word to me! To fulfil something is pretty special and exciting. Something to do, carry out it’s almost a promise. The next quote also summed the meaning of sustainability up pretty well too “Sustainable design and good design are mutually reinforcing. Good design is not just defined by how a building, space or place looks. It is also about whether it is responsive to context, adaptable, uses resources efficiently and delivers value over its whole life.”
Researching some of the Case Studies on Sustainable design, I looked at projects all over the world and one of the first ones to jump out at me was a project in Portland, USA, called green streets. http://www.cabe.org.uk/case-studies/green-streets This city has on average 98 centimetres of rain a year.

They have come up with a solution that uses curb side planters that absorb flash flood water run off, a simple design really but what a great idea! And with these planter full of shrubs and trees they have also 'provide shade, air-cooling and colour to the street. "The street’s pavements were retrofitted with a series of specially designed planters that collect storm water, filter it, divert it away from the usual storm water drain – which runs directly into the Willamette River and instead allow it to be absorbed gradually back into the water table."

Sustainable design has so many different ways to take. It’s the fact that every site as its own needs and individual points that it need to became sustainable yet even with all of that it’s still possible for everywhere to be sustainable.