Focus 3 - Graffik Warfare

Some buddies of mine with a graffiti store in Portobello, conveniently had an exhibition in the last Focus week of the year. The theme was yellow and black, and the weekend was sponsored by cutty sark. All so well coordinated.

And this my present to me.

Pics from the show below......

+ pics courtesy of graffik

Focus 1 - Teach-In: 2012 Imperative - Day 2 Workshops

Day 2 of the Teach-in was an organised day of workshops at the participating universities and colleges. All of the students were to work together on various schemes and initiatives suggested by their tutors or themselves which will create awareness or change for their local community/ies in adapting to climate change.

The group I worked in looked at creating a community supported vertical urban farm. We had a lot of good input from various Kingston tutors who joined the workshop, as well as sustainability rep's and also local residents who are involved in various schemes in and around Kingston.

Below is a flow chart I created with the help of a group member, which using the context of the a south facing building of our campus - Knight's Park - describes the processes involved in creatinf this vertical farm, supported by students and supplying produce to the canteen.

Radical Nature

Went to Radical Nature at the Barbican on Sunday....I'd been seeing the posters up when I take the tube every now and then and thought it time I go and have a look before it finishes. I have to say it was such a let down, a real shame.

I remembers going to this exhibition space at the Barbican a few years ago to see the Future Cities exhibition and that was unbelievable. Some really exciting projects and models and a sense of real organisation. That was not the case with Radical Nature. First of all taking photographs was not allowed which I thought to be unquestionably stupid, especially considering there was nothing really original or amazing being exhibited.

While to some it may be considered art, and with all due respect to the artist, I thought Henrik Håkansson's Fallen Forest was a waste of space and good plants. They have been on display since June and seemingly struggling to stay alive. I don't think this could be a realistic template for vertical planting, it may make more sense to keep to planting that will gravitationally survive.

The hydroponic system in the centre of the room of Tomas Saraceno, entitled Flying Garden, I found interesting, nonetheless that the plants here too were pretty much on their last legs. It did remind me of a project I posted months back of the Parisian hydroponic Living Green house of R&Sie Architects for the white which (found here). I understand that this is an exhibition but I think in order to keep it a successful piece, it needs to be properly maintained since it is situated indoors. Just my opinion.

Aside from that, the others were really forgettable, some vegetable patches, a mirrored room for the inhabitat with a tiny garden. Upstairs there were some interesting projects from designers of yesteryear.

I loved the handdrawn images of Newton Fallis' Autopia (1978) and also Wolf Hilbertz's Autopia: Internalised Oceanic (1985). (A beautiful image can be found here)

Agnes Denes' Wheatfield and Tree Mountain were the most inspirational for me. In 1982, she carried out what has become one of the best-known environmental art projects when she planted a two-acre field of wheat in a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan. Titled, Wheatfield - A Confrontation, the artwork yielded 1,000 lbs. of wheat in the middle of New York City to comment on "human values and misplaced priorities". The harvested grain then traveled to 28 cities worldwide in "The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger" and was symbolically planted around the globe.

As part of Agnes Denes' Wheatfield exhibition, Paris-based experimental architects EXYZT re-created the Wheatfield on a smaller site with a very different backdrop, in part of an abandoned railway line at The Dalston Junction Eastern Curve. The Dalston Mill was also designed by the Parisian architects, as a temporary structure created in 2008 with Sara Muzio for the Architecture Foundation which was based around the idea of "a community of users actively creating and inhabiting their urban environment [as] key to generating a vibrant city". Both pieces in fact form a temporary functional ensemble and eventually the mill will be processing grains from the field when the wheat is ready to be harvested. More inforamtion about the Dalston Wheatfield and Mill can be found at http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/07/the-dalston-mill-wheatfield.php

+ The Barbican

+ EXYZT

High Line is open!

Ten years in the making, New York city's High Line is finally open and providing New Yorkers with yet another green space, ready for summer!

The City of New York is full of parks - in fact, there are 1700! There are the enormous parks (Central, Prospect, Flushing) with medium-sized offerings (Bryant, Madison Square), and not forgetting little pocket parks everywhere like Stuyvesant and Washington Market. People such as Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl would be the first to advocate green spaces for great cities.

On a newly renovated stretch of an elevated promenade that was once a railway line for delivering cattle — surrounded by the community activists, elected officials and architects who made the transformation happen — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut a red ribbon on Monday morning to signify that the first phase of the High Line is finished and ready for strolling.

As you can imagine with such an eagerly anticipated event such as this, there are plenty of online reports dedicated to its opening:

The New York Times has posted a great panoramic here.

Treehugger and the Daily Green have put up slideshows here and here.

The Huffington Post added some great aerial shots here.


+ main image courtesy of inhabitat.

ecobuild @ earls court

**** INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!! ****

5 amazing seminars over the last two days at ecobuild. I didn't expect to come back as inspired as I am.....I didn't know where to start so thought a hot bath would be best.

Wednesdays attended lectures were:

Lecture 1 - The Future of Urban Trees with Martin Kelly of CapitaLovejoy as the chair, and introducing an interesting history of London's trees. The second speaker was Martin Ennos, Faculty of Life Sciences at Manchester Uni, presenting The Physical Importance of Trees. Thereafter, Rachel Hine of Essex Uni speaking about Health, Wellbeing and the social importance of Nature, and closing, Jim Smith of The Trees and Design Action Group, talking about What are we doing to protect our trees. Many many interesting facts....flood preventions, iTrees project, ASCCUE project in Manchester, cooling potential and potential air pollution reductions.

The Trees and Design Action Group have a website: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7KDEHU and are trying to get as many completed surveys in by 30 April 09 with regards to the loss and protection of London's trees.

Lecture 2 - Outdoors Insight: sustainable public spaces, chaired by Liz Lake, of LiZLake Chartered Landscape Architects + Urban Design. First speaker was Dr Bill Addis, Sustainability Strategic Consultant of Buro Happold, Materials Division. (what a mouthful) who presented information about Sustainability and Landscape Design. A good presentation to remind us landscape students to specify environmentally friendly materials over those that arent. Mentioned the Waste Resources Action Plan - a government initiative: http://wrap.org.uk/construction and gave a lot of very interesting examples of recycled materials used in landscape design. Liz Lake was up next speaking about her hottest personal topic - Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, and thanks to her I now know exactly what it's all about, and from her presentation have walked away thinking of creative SUDS in current projects. Very informative, definitely not dull and some fantastic examples. Next up, Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City, How food Shapes our lives.

Sadly she ran out of time as she was getting to the juicy bit but she presented some great images of historical agricultural paintings and maps of london representing the major food transport and market areas, still around today. Mentions of Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Thomas More's Utopia, Cuba's Organic Urban Farming and Arup's Dontang project of Vertical Farming. Final speaker was Roseanne Law, Director of Urban Design at Arup, presenting their SUDS project at Upton, Northampton. Again, enlightening the urban drainage issue, with very interesting examples which are so so easily incorporated into urban landscape practice and are long-term money saving, habitat creating and environmentally excellent!

Lecture 3 - Floods 'n SUDS. Admittedly this was the first seminar on my list to attend and was the most dull. I had heard far more interesting speakers and seen great examples so inbetween speakers slipped out quietly. The first speaker was from Hydro International, with some good examples of his company's SUDS products. Second up was Jill Thatcher of DEFRA, speaking about Water Quality and the need for SUDS.

Thursday's seminar:

Lecture 4 - Practical Biodiversity: Making it Happen, chaired by Dr Carol Williams of the Bat Conservation Trust, Project Officer. Matt Shardlow of Buglife - Invertebrate Conservation Trust gave a great presentation about the importance of Brownfield sites, what they are, their ecological importance, what's living in them and some positive examples of brownfields and SSSi's. Next up was Tom Webster of the Campaign for Dark Skies. Not really a topic a young landscape architect would consider but I now realise what an important issue this is. There is too much badly used, intrusive lighting in our cities, creating skyglow, glare and a general nuisance ans those are just the effects on humans. Fauna such as bats and seagulls were mentioned to be affected, they dont know the health effects but their behaviour at least is enough to notice. An example of affected flora was a picture of a London Plane tree with a lamppost set amongst it's branches. During winter, the leaves nearest the light were still attached which meant there was still moisture within the leaves and branches which would freeze and kill it during the coldest months. Slovenia is the first country in the world to pass legislation against light pollution.

Next speaker, Graeme Duckworth of the London Wildlife Trust speaking about the Barking Riverside Project. Very interesting what they are planning to do with this brownfield site along the Thames. Dutch Company Max Wang are the masterplanners. Plenty plenty of SUDS in this site with proposed 40% of all roofs to be living roofs. Positive. http://www.barkingriverside.co.uk/ Last speaker was Kate Vincent, Senior Ecologist of Baker Shepherd Gillespie, talking about Provisions for Birds in [urban] Buildings. This again, not a topic I would have considered but so so glad I am now informed. Because of modern urban buildings and redevelopments, the species of urban birds has been on a massive decline. House sparrows, starlings, house martins, swallows, swifts & black redstarts. Each of these birds use houses for either breeding or nesting and her presentation put forward how we can retrofit existing buildings to include bird friendly designs. This in turn creates biodiversity, internal nesting opportunities for the birds we sadly don't see anymore. Some inspirational examples were the Nottinghill Housing Trust, Islington Borough Council offices, London Zoo and a custom made example at Oxford University Tower. Also see http://swift-conservation.org/.

If there are 5 things I have taken away from these lectures to keep in mind for any future designs:

Professionals need to work together to make good things happen - those of the natural environment disciplines & of the built environment.

The use of lighting in any site: is it neccessary and is it correct.

The use trees, current or proposed: right tree, right place, in NATURAL ground with enough space to grow.

Provision for birds and invertebrate habitat creation [falls into the next category]

Creative SUDS systems.......ensuring people and all other species we share our spaces with have a pleasant, safe and sustainable environment to exist in.

That's me....over and out.