Howdah - seating?

It seems that the elephant & castle name came from the pub with the same name.  How that cameto be named is unknown but the image of the elephant & castle would have been fairly familiar, though exotic, at the time, appearing in various cultural & even architectural places.  the castle would probably have been derived from the Indian "howdah" seats.  Some examples here  got me thinking about possible inspiration for seating for our "auditorium".....
                                                
                                   

 

The latest news on plans to redevelop E&C/Heygate:http://www.building.co.uk/5032369.article?origin=bldgdailynewsletter
Should we be thinking about putting our plans forward as an alternative proposal for the area??
It would be really good if we could do someinformal community consultation...

Hester's Principles for community designed spaces

Hester argues that community participation in design and planning is paramount. It brings to the fore the social, economic, and ecological issues at stake, as well as the dreams and hopes embodied in the spaces to be redesigned. Hester describes a variety of low cost and effective tools for community participation. He emphasizes, however, that participation must be facilitated by “a view” of the desired future on the part of city officials, designers and planners. He warns that participation for its own sake can lead to a gridlock where nothing can be agreed upon, or resulting plans run against social and economic goals.

“Two irrepressible forces underlie my work: the human desire for participatory democracy and ecological limits. There are many more democracies in the world today and resource limits are more critical, complex, and misunderstood. More than any other factors, democracy and limits shape public landscape design.”

According to Hester, people seeking to design sociable neighborhoods must clarify the concept of “residents’ own” spaces, and then they must decide how to delineate those spaces. The word “own” refers to a collective, symbolic community ownership and can often apply to highly contested areas. Hester points out that spaces such as trash dumps, phone booths, secret niches, ponds and transportation corridors often emerge as “owned” in community analyses. He emphasizes that we need to understand the value of those spaces for different groups in the community, and find ways of increasing this value without losing the sense of community and identity the spaces provide. He, too, describes a process by which to delineate neighborhood spaces.

My thinking about the corridor design

Information on Design Codes

If you haven't yet found this for yourselves, here are links to some info on Design Codes:

Preparing Design Codes:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/regeneration/pdf/152675.pdf

Design Coding in Practice:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/regeneration/pdf/143795.pdf

A small checking list for using it in the process of design for individual work. This will assure we can follow a design line across the whole site - different from the design philosophy.

Our design as a SHOW

We have our stage and auditorium, our aims for our design  and beginningto get ideas on how to go about this.  Is it worth perhaps pooling some ideas on the following to inform our design?

1.      Script.  What is the story, the scenario? – What is it about?  The story could be fairly straightforward or intricate? Familiar eg. rags to riches, happy endings ( I guess we only want a happy ending… or unfamiliar.  A local story or a universal theme?

2.      Type of production : Play, musical, concert, dance.  ( A musical would combine many forms..)

3.      Style? : Wikipedia provided these:-

Naturalism : Portraying life on stage with a close attention to detail, based on observation of real life.

Realism: Portraying characters on stage that are close to real life, with realistic settings and staging.

Expressionism: Anti-realistic in seeing appearance as distorted and the truth lying within man. The outward appearance on stage can be distorted and unrealistic to portray an eternal truth.

Absurdism: Presents a perspective that all human attempts at significance are illogical. Ultimate truth is chaos with little certainty. There is no necessity that need drive us.

Modernism: A broad concept that sees art, including theatre, as detached from life in a pure way and able to reflect on life critically.

Postmodernism: There are multiple meanings, and meaning is what you create, not what is. This approach often uses other media and breaks accepted conventions and practices.

Classical: A type of theatre which relies upon imagination (and therefore limited props) to convey the setting and atmosphere of the play. Classical theatre usually contains lofty, grand prose or free verse dialogue. Good examples are the Elizabethan dramatists William Shakespeare

4.      a)  Set design,

b)      Costumes and make-up,

c)      Lighting

etc  appropriate to our show. 

The main focus of this is the stage - the Elephant – with the auditorium & aisles of course also giving the flavour and advertisement of the show in their through-ways and stopping points

Just seen this on BBC2's The Culture Show... Gary Card, set/costume designer and illustrator, in a shop for LNCC. This is made from cheap timber - the lesson is that it's the idea/feel that's important, not (necessarily) the materials. Lighting is also really important.



more at http://www.dezeen.com/2011/06/03/ln-cc-by-gary-card/

and another example of his work:

If you didn't see it the show is probably worth a look on iPlayer. There was also this intro sequence for 'The Kermode Awards' (these are screen shots) - idea for quick and easy sketch models?

Design Principles/Objectives

In no particular order, some initial thoughts to get the ball rolling:

·         Increase the appeal of Elephant & Castle as a destination in its own right;

·         Improve the pedestrian experience of the E&C to South Bank area;

·         Introduce/improve green infrastructure in the E&C to South Bank area;

·         Provide high-quality public open spaces, including spaces for formal and informal performances;

·         Work with/complement/enhance existing activities/uses, culture, population, features, etc (i.e. avoiding ‘instant gentrification’ if at all possible);

·         Sub-areas to retain their own character, but be linked thematically (performance theme) and possibly with use of similar or the same materials/features;

·         Enhance the public experience and usability of the key corridors: Waterloo Road and Blackfriars;

·         Avoid the provision of prescribed or directed route(s) between E&C and South Bank, aiming instead to encourage exploration/discovery within the area.

Concept diagram

First attempt at a Concept Diagram - you need to imagine it rotated 90 degrees left as for some reason it keeps turning round when I try to upload it! It would need 'beautifying' if we want to use it, but the idea is that E&C is the 'stage', Heygate the back-stage area/scene shop (hub of creative activity), South Bank the front of house area - welcoming the audience - and the bits in between the 'auditorium', with the two key corridors as aisles; the college area could be the orchestra pit if you like. Think it kind of works?!

Revised areas for us each to focus on in developing the design.

1. Heygate (backstage/scene shop)
2. College 'zone' (orchestra pit)
3. Residential 'zone' (auditorium - stalls)
4. Stations 'zone' (auditorium - circles & boxes)
5. South Bank (foyer/entrance)
6. The two main corridors, Waterloo Rd and Blackfriars Rd (aisles)
Plus separate E&C area - The Stage

[Old version -
  ]

Rough costs for some of the areas:

Slogan

Updated list with all our suggestions. Now it's time to choose...
My favourites (in order) would be 'Elephant goes to the theatre' (hybrid of 3. and 4.), 6. which I don't think is necessarily too long, and 13.

1. Swans reflecting Elephants (Dalì's painting)
2. Stage the Elephant
3. Elephant at the Theatre
4. Elephant goes to the South Bank
5. Acting the Elephant
6. Dressing up and Stepping out - the Elephant goes Theatrical (a bit long!)
7. Bright Elephant
8.  A man's elephant is his castle
9. The elephant in the artist's room
10. Scene change in Southwark
11. Set for change in Southwark
12. All the world a stage - in Elephant & Castle
13. Elephant & Castle set for 'dramatic' change
14. Dramatic new scenery for Southwark/ Elephant & Castle
15. Southwark and Elephant & Castle Revamp
16. New Street Scene for Southwark and Elephant & Castle
17. The elephant's creative castle
18. A green river runs through it
19. A creative river runs through it.

According to the brief, the slogan should "summarise the group response to your agenda... like a heading [ ] in a newspaper summarise the content of the urban design proposal." It should convey the idea of the scheme to someone who knows nothing about it. With this in mind, my own feeling is that it should include Elephant and something related to our theatre theme.

Are there any more suggestions? Do we need another vote?

Final version Sketch Proposal:

Second impression version 1

Second impression version 2

SketchDesign - FirstImpression

I Must say, it was quite straight forward putting all this together.
There is still lot of work to do but just wanted to show you how the Sketch design looks so far.
Most of the general areas were treated in the same way by all of us with particular details and different thoughts in smaller areas.
I combined the thoughts and an even greater detail showed up, which is good. I personally added the "green touch" to it as it was missed from most of sketches.
Overall, good group exercise .. well done guys!
If my son gets tired of pulling me, beating me, creating mess and shouting I hope I can finish this today.
Feel free to add comments about what else needs to be added and will make the changes as the work progresses.

First Impression - Sketch Design

Greening the area

There is definitely a need for more greenery.
A thought is green walls like New Street Square london

but I think this might be too high maintenance for the area. 
What about ivy? - It's low maintenance & doesn't mind shade. 

Something to fill in the streets with and ideas of changing the street scene...

Mirrored boxes - interactive street art

Break up the concrete and hard surfacing

Make every space useful

Add more green to every space

My vote for Eyesore-it

My vote would be for Tam's Elephant picture (No 1) second choice would be Stuart's Elephant picture (No. 12) . 

Adding a bit of colour

Here are some of the images that we already discussed on Friday  and a few extra murals.  The type of thing thet could add colour- and again a linking theme to our area

Murals, Havana

Haas & Hahn favela painting, Rio

La Boca, Buenos Aries

San Diego

Thoughts about our mission!

1) Create a cultural “district” which hosts a mixture of activities: culture, education, leisure, commercial that interact with each other

2) Use the Heygate as major art and performance building (it could host theatre, music and art gallery venues) + learning facilities for students 

3) Create a number of exhibition and performance pavilions (or squares) dotted around the district alongside major art and culture facilities. Create a  colorful route to follow from Heygate to Southbank with performances, music, commercial  "pit-stops" and green spaces.

4) Art and performances should represent the different cultures of the area (black Jamaican and African, Bangladeshi and Indians)

Along the walk...

Floating Landscapes by Numen

And City Lounge by Carlos Martinez