Detailed Design

Concept words...creating this has really helped get this part of the project really focused I now have a great plan for the most exciting part of Eastern Quarry.

Plan view of ex. Clinker tanks re-moulded as Leisure hotel and community buildings with green roof and glass walkways which overhang the cliffs. White stemmed Betulas and invisible glass barriers. I need to add glass seating to the edges. Just click on the images for better resolution.

This has been hard works..and I still need to do the detailed construction drawings for this hard landscaping area at Eastern Quarry, (Along with planting plan area and water/landform). I don't expect much sleep this weekend. It bugs me that we get shown the best tool for waterflow and suds systems in GIS today....just so we can present on Monday. Creativity vs engineering? We have to do it all as discussed this morning in GIS session.

On working for the concept for the whole site, the word has always been 'Thrilling'. I picked this up on day one of the course back in mid-January, since the documentation from the original masterplanners suggested that Eastern Quarry was going to be a 'Thrilling' place to live..but their masterplan does not replicate this ideal.

For the Hardworks detail area, I have chosen the original concrete works. I have been thinking about the concept words for a couple of months. It all has to be about making this area of the site edgy, uncomfortable but exciting and unconventional. Somewhere that people might like to visit but might feel a bit apprehensive about doing so. It's all about heights, feeling a little unsafe and in danger and willing youself to push into a more uncomfortable but exciting zone, but then really enjoying it and wanting more.

I have added walkways at height, a mad luge ride along the cliffs, (Not ice, but New Zealand Queenstown style go carts), and re-used the existing conveyors to be controlled via water weighting engineering. Parts of the conveyor routes travel over huge voids in the landscape.

The children's play areas will be all about balance and falling, albeit safely. I have also added a cliff hanging restaurant with a walk on roof. You can only reach it by passing under the luge rideway. This underpass will have a glass roof so the riders can be seen whizzing overhead. This is the transient space. It's all very well having this in my head, but it all has to be drawn at least in draft by Monday am! I am so happy that we have free reign at Uni. It is better than the real world of boring PV panels, (But here, mine are fully glass and transparent), and the biomass plant! Of course I have included these, but it's a good thing we don't have to work to a budget.

Again... the image resolution is useless in order to get these adobe linked visuals posted. They are clear as a bell in real life!

Going Mad and Talking in my Sleep!

Original masterplan
Lamb Chop...Organic shapes and images

My lamb chop! However my mitigated plan is more akin to this but won't upload. My plan has a central axis and node, just like the chop! Also, the Welsh trip made me think that adding sheep pasture here is very important. Sheeps milk is also an asset. I have been working on trees too. White stemmed Betulas are so important here and reflect the character of the chalk cliff site. Populus nigra creates a contrast with Salix alba plantings adjacent to the lakes

It's a shame that every time my own images go through Adobe systems, I can't seem to upload them. Grant....can you help?

Anyway, I am so obsessed with my project that I found it in my Lamb Chop last night. My Husband thinks I have completely lost it. Apparently I was talking quite coherently about specifications in my sleep on Friday night! Talking in my sleep? I must be very careful?

A Contrast- Greenwich Peninsula

Thames waterfront play area. They only need the most simple equipment and no vandalism at all. It feels like the community really take ownership of this space.

Betula trees on a roof garden above the carpark. How much concrete base is required? The tree pits are small and the trees will remain as smaller elegant specimens...which is good, but no good for wine making!

All this, just so we know where to walk and step.
Chain drainage system. Effective and attractive.

Roof gardens, varied building heights and reflection in the stainless steel pipes. Would like more green here though.

Layered green walls. Although it would be good to fill the whole wall. Maybe it's an experiment?

Actually having a huge blog update since I have done so much lately and am avoiding more work in the law essay until the second hand bible book arrives from Amazon tomorrow. £16 second hand or £10 petrol and parking + time to get it from the Greenwich library. It is better for me to update blogg, be creative and wait til tomorrow.

More images from Wales

Birch Sap Wine? To be extracted in the first 2 weeks of March, when the sap is rising. To extract 1 gallon of birch tree sap it is best to tap 3-4 trees. Firstly, select a point on the tree a few feet from the ground. Using a knife or small hand drill bore a small hole into the tree large enough to insert a plastic tube. Penetrate just through the bark (normally a few centimetres) slanting slightly upwards as you go.Tree sap will often start to flow straight away; if not then perhaps it is the wrong time of year. The birch sap should also be clear, as a particularly cloudy liquid is not good for wine making. When I have nothing better to do or for when oil runs out and we can no longer import foreign gyfergwin?

The natural rockery

Bryophates and Lichens, Post Industrial Quarry Landscapes and CAT, Wales

The bigger picture....seams at CAT quarry
and the detail..sedums amongst the slate

Then we climbed up further to the reservoir - some swam later at night! I refrained but only to maintain some kind of decorum.

Reflections and inspirations

Aberllefenni Mine and Quarry

If Oak trees could talk? Welcome, or leave me in peace, I'm smothered already?

Remnants of workers cottages and a conveyor base at Aberllefenni Slate Quarry or mine....closed in 2003

The air is so clean and moist at the Centre of Alternative Technology , that these tree mosses thrive. Sometimes they throw up spore capsules just like these, that I think may have already exploded. This moss was everywhere amongst the Betula trees, but this is the only one I saw with a form like this and only about 3cm diameter in real life.

I first fell in love with moss in 1990 while living in a dank basement flat in Chislehurst Kent. It always smelt earthy and I loved it!

I have generated so much inspiration for the Eastern Quarry Project, although water, especially with the news today will be a challenge. It has to be all about re-creating forms within the climatic limits and allowing ruderal ecology to predominate.