Day one of the urban pioneers project had a great start with rain and a frozen canal, but aside from that, it was overall a great day. Due to the fact that boat trip was cancelled, we decided to walk along the canal instead, from City Road Lock to Kings Cross. Along the way we visited the Victoria Miro Gallery, walked through Chapel Market and eventually arrived at the Guardian building for lunch. Of course we dicussed the buildings, their context, design, structure etc amongst ourselves and with Ruby, Tom Keeley and Juliet the architect (sorry about the vague-ness of the descriptions). Now personally I thought talking about buildings all day would have been too formal and too exhausting but the conversations turned out to be quite relaxed and engaging, which surprised me alot.
Tom and Juliet also shed light on studying architecture at university and university in general. Perhaps Benas and I went a bit overboard on probing Juliet extensivly on studying architecture, but we got excellent advice.
For me the second half of the day, visiting Camley Street Park in Kings Cross, was the highlight of the day. Since the focus on the day was looking at green spaces in the urban envirionment and the public realm, it seemed appropriate the we visited the site because it was the only natural reserve in a heavily urbanized space. It was refreshing and a pleasent surprise to see such a change from concrete and steel, especially since I live local. The atomsphere was friendly and welcoming, Oliver who toured us around the site and Phil the site manager hepled us alot to understand the site, the history and the surprising politics the site was involved in.
Overall quite an impressive day and not what I expected at all, I'm definately looking forward to the rest of the project.
Antony