Well if the Queen says so...

The Queen's Christmas Speech 2010

'During this past year of abundant sporting events I've seen for myself just how important sport is in bringing people together from all backgrounds, from all walks of life and from all age groups. In the parks of towns and cities, and on village greens up and down the country, countless thousands of people every week give up their time to participate in sport and exercise of all sorts, or simply encourage others to do so. These kinds of activity are common throughout the world and play a part in providing a different perspective on life. Apart from developing physical fitness sport and games can also teach vital social skills, none can be enjoyed without biding by the rules and no team can hope to succeed without co-operation between the players, this sort of positive team spirit can benefit communities, companies and enterprises of all kinds.'

The Abercrombie Plan 1944

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21126


http://www.gardenvisit.com/landscape_architecture/london_landscape_architecture/landscape_planning_pos_public_open_space/1943-44_abercrombie_plan


http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/X20L/Themes/1337/1075/


http://www.gardenvisit.com/landscape_architecture/london_landscape_architecture/landscape_planning_pos_public_open_space/abercrombie_plan_chapter_open_space

Land used for allotments during the war and bomb-damaged areas presented a post-war opportunity for a network of open spaces that Abercrombie hoped would contribute to the improvement of people’s health and wellbeing.

‘Standards of Open Space’ recommended that, for every thousand city inhabitants, there should be at least four acres of open space available.

Abercrombie proposed a network of ‘parkways’ to run along existing roads and footpaths to provide connections ‘from garden to park, from park to parkway, from parkway to green wedge and from green wedge to Green Belt’.

Most of Abercrombie’s plan was never implemented in its totality; some parts were, though. The most developed part is the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, created by a special Act of Parliament in 1968 and today still funded by a tax on all of London – apparently despite the fact that the park is mainly used by locals.

T27 Start Again #2 Liza Fior (MUF): Villa Frankenstein

Understanding places as archetypes of development.
'How are thoughts made into things?' From detail to strategy and back again.
Idea of 'offering' something through architecture. Smithsons. see link:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PbT8SWIOHNgC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=peter+smithsons+offering&source=bl&ots=FPjGmX5sYh&sig=-ibZmcPXHZx5BNAMHD3NuMUenDk&hl=en&ei=iDH5TI6dO8G3hQfVlYCACQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=peter%20smithsons%20offering&f=false


Alison and Peter Smithson: from the house of the future to a house of today By Dirk van den Heuvel, Max Risselada, Peter Smithson, Beatriz Colomina, Design Museum (London, England)

For a piece about Smithson's Pavilion and Patio:

'Henderson, Paolozzi and the Smithsons collaborated on Patio & Pavillion, an installment of painters, architects and sculptors at the Whitechapel Gallery...here too , the position of the visitor played an essential part in the definitive organisation of the installation. Thirty-four years after the exhibition, the Smithsons were to write: 'Our Patio and Pavilion answered a "programme of our own making, offering a definitive statement of another attitude to "collaboration": the "dressing" of a building, its place, by the "art of inhabitation".'

MUF's programme had to comply to the brief of 'People meeting in architecture', a tight budget and a shorter timescale.

Projects are funded by briefs and jobs, and hence are economically driven to a certain extent. 'You go over time on the programme... How do you make money?' personal attachement to projects mean that they are continued even when there's no time left for them 'our bank manager said we should have gone bankrupt 15 years ago...'

To address the factor of a tight budget, MUF tried to logicaly think and use it wisely, one cut being in transportation costs, so the project was hand made in Venice. (1:10 of olympic pavilion.)

I didn't go to Biennale, so can't judge first hand, but from the presentation, I felt that there were a few too many things going on. The creation of a salt marsh, a seemingly irrelevant 'puddle' that needed to be pumped everyday and refilled with fresh water. Even a journalist said that after studying it he felt he didn't know it at all. Were they almost apologetic for the fact that they didn't have enough time?

Hybrid - not a succesful one? The idea of children drawing is enough, Ruskin's books is another strand, collections of photographs another, childrens dens anoother...Territory that comes with handing over is that everything becomes a bit jumbled in nature?

Much study of Venice and use of its public/private spaces by adults and children alike. 'Take care of what you have as replacing it is very complex' in relation to their salt flat but applies generally. Playable landscapes are OK in Venice, so should be OK in the UK. The scapes of Venice showed a lot more life in the 'inbetween' of outdoor and indoor, in courtyards.

'2 way traffic', bringing back ideas started in Venice to projects in East London. Highstreet 2012. Collage takes a long time. What relevance does 'made here' have on the visitor - getting hands dirty is a good thing.

Economy of tension between exhibits, questions the way of currating to become far more propositional.

'Public'? Who are they? The exhibition wasn't open to the public. Exhibitions tend to be looked at differently when payed for. There's a need by the audience to take every detail in, to be, not just to pass by. So for 20euros I think I would sit for a while. And draw.

Example of how a relatively small practice can make a difference on a global scale, though these are very unique circumstances. Bringing people together can make good things. ie architect and planner??? Can an architect and planning policies get along?

Reconnecting communities in Hackney Wick 'Fish Island', is this what you call localism?

Very incremental approach to design and planning of space. But should this be the permanent method? Deconstructing economics to get the best out of the system, but we can't make do and mend forever. Should there be a clearer methodology of how we make better spaces from the outset? And are these places appreciated more because they've been saved? Melodrama.

T24.5 Start Again #1

In the first of the 'Start Again' half of the lecture series, Peter Carl returned to give a summary of his initial 'rip up' of the contemporary city. He addressed how through our 'duty of care', we as architects are preoccupied with 'doing good', creating salvation through social engineering, when in reality the city needs its proportion of 'bad' and conflict to function. Though I agree that architects shouldn't merely insert pretty pieces into the city and hope that solves a problem, the work seen later in the lecture by Studio Weave was of a very aesthetic nature, yet was well received by the public. (Though these pieces look to be mainly set in the better parts of the city in the first place), ie Somerset House:



Maria Smith from Studio Weave presented using the metaphor of bridges to convey ideas. the most prominent idea being the disconnection between an architect's social conscience and their need to make a living. Why are they mutually exclusive? Can a project be playful but also make money? An interesting point was raised at the end of the lecture of whether small practices can take a bigger role in their 'playful designs' and design buildings that are less invisible but equally as carefully designed. Why should mainly big practices with the higher PI cover get the more high profile jobs? There should be a bigger push in the profession to share big schemes between smaller practices rather than tackling all design scales of a big project within one office. Money shouldn't be the only motivator in making a team work, personal and team motivation is important (sometimes seen in the creation of stories to aid in a schemes selling).

Maurice Mitchell continued the theme of ethics in architecture, questioning how we should practice, with narrative courage, modesty and wakefulness. 'Sometimes great design occurs where there are no architects', accommodating particular design rather than 'throwing the baby away with the bath water.'

David Kohn's presentation of the situation in art gallery design was very current, questioning how local communities will be able to involve themselves in the art world if there is no funding in it anymore. His sensitive and grounded response in promoting green spaces and art cohesively seemed effective, where the woodlands cut to accommodate a new art centre would be constructed using the felled wood and also used as fuel to run the facilities, so that the parks themselves are not purely there to be enjoyed as recreational spaces but have an active use. This part of the lecture seemed very relevant to our unit work as we focus on the difficulty in designing to conserve our city's green spaces, doing so in an appropriate way. This approach seemed appropriate.

Kohn's diagram of a collaboration way of working rather than the traditional divides between consultants, contractors, commissioners etc was also intuitive and seemed to echo discussions regarding consultation held in our proposition seminars of working with others and our role as designers.

Particularity rather than general was important to this lecture, though every presentation and project shown contained a more particular approach to design, from unique schools in india, to never ending benches on beaches by Studio Weave.