Well, now we come the end of the half term week and what I busy it has been so far. The past few days have been very engaging and tiring so I was looking forwad to seeing what Ruby had in store for us lot next. In my opinion, the things that we had been doing were very diverse like the sound trail and the visit to Camley Street park, which I never thought could relate to architecture.
On thursday, we had a tour of the BDP offices by Lee Wyles and Julie Hawkins and gave us an introduction on the work that goes on there and how they use CAD for all sorts of things like design to simulation, and from initial designs to mapping out the final buidling (piping, electricals) etc. The building itself is quite a mission to get to, Holly and Naomi got lost but I can't blame them. The building was in an extraordinary location though, around slick and modern buildings and the bridge that connects the path to BDP's building is a cool feature. But think the fact that we got to watch architects and designers at work and in their offices was quite refreshing and gave us a great insight into the business we could be stepping into. Since there was no walls in the offices, we could see almost everything that the people who worked there were doing, and we got a very open and free feeling when we were toured around. And the models and plans of buildings and landscapes were impressive too.
After the tour, we were given a room where we could do some CADs of our own. Lee gave us quite a comprehensive talk about the ins and outs of the various uses of CAD and gave us a quick demo on the program sketch up. For me the program was tricky at first, but I got the hang of it after a while and got hooked, and I have been using it ever since. Afterwards, we had lunch with Adam Khan who designed the Youth Centre in King's Cross, around the Somers Town area just off Euston road. I think the most intriguing thing about the day was to exprience a major interdisciplinary pratice like BDP in the morning and then talk to Adam Khan who did it himself in setting up his own pratice. The youth centre itself is very interesting and one could see that Adam had put alot of time into it. The roof is made of copper, whch was the most striking feature of the buidling and the light reflected off that roof made it all the more spectactular. But the best thing of the building for me was the practicality of it. The interior of it could be chopped and changed, used for all kinds of purposes, and there is alot of storage. So al in all, the day was great us prospective architecture student to get insight on the business and different ways to approach it.
And finally, Friday with Squire and partners. This is up there with one of the best days so far and possibly the best day so far. We got to redesign the tram shed in Kings Cross. But of course it wasn't for real but the competition made it worth while. But before that we got a tour of the office by Will and Clare, the offices were much like BDP's and it was great to step and work in that type of environment again. And the models were stunning and in abundence. We got seperated into two teams, one consisting of Namoi, Benas and Michael, and lead by Will. And the other made up of Holly, Kofi and I that was lead by Clare.
Kofi was definately the protagonist of our group and it was fun to watch arguements between him and Holly. The major one was about astro turf vs real grass, I wasn't paying attention much becuase I was on model making duty and just sat back and watched the arguement. I'm sure they'll shed light on the arguement. We ended up doing a day nursey/play centre by the day and in the night it would transform into a cinema showing independent/arthouse movies, it was a well-rounded idea and Clare was a big help in helping us with the needs of the Kings X area. The other group did an orginal night club/bar type of arrangement which they defended quite well I thought. The competition at that point got to the stage where we were trying to throw the other team off during the presentation. Surprisingly Michael Squire listened in on our presentations and he was impressed with what we did. Of course he was reluctant to pick a winner and was a wise choice in my opinion. But as I am currently going through the material that we produced that day, it is hard to pick a winner. Then afterwards, I spent the end of the day in the tram shed which was converted into a cafe/resturant/bar by Squire and Partners. It was a relaxing way to end a busy day and was a great experince for us to get to work with an existing building and going through sthe processes. We got quite passionate about the ideas at the end of the day. Also, we meet some people (very sorry about forgetting your names) from the hertiage lottery fund who visited in the afternoon, it was great to see their perspective on it as they represented the company who funded the project.
Yeah so you are now up to date with the project so far and looking forward to the upcoming days and things Ruby has planned.
Antony