Catching Up - 21 days to go

Hello,

I haven't really done much work lately, and I've just been generally hating my projects, course, self... the lot.

I now have 21 days to be ready for the next review, and I'm going to have to kill myself a little bit to get myself there.

Some work done over the weekend:

P.S. I got PADS (plymouth architecture and design society) PRESIDENT!!!!! Woooo!

My presentation:

Cabilla Feasibility Study - T minus 7 days

Currently we are still working on the project. Personally, I am putting together all the research into a comprehensive report with a colleague. Meanwhile, we are sketching designs and really just trying to pull it together.

Just a snapshot into what we are doing!

Project 1 write up

It was a fun project, and to end it, we went to Sweden which was great. More on that when I am not so sleep deprived from creating a presentation for the clients. As this had to be in PDF form, it's not on the original paper (beautiful stuff), but it makes more sense. Enjoy!

Introduction

Milland Project,

Abigail Banfield

My aim in this project was to create a habitable building that not only fulfilled the brief of 'zero fossil fuel usage', but was in itself an attractive and unique building.

My main motives for design, aside from that lead by technical issues related to fuel, were born from narratives I created for the perspective inhabitants. I wanted the couples retreat to be just that; a retreat - not only from our technological, consuming modern world, but of the natural world too. The building would serve as a place to come back to after time spent exploring the land, to take off muddy items and retire to the fire side. I had an idea of creating increasing 'levels of enclosure', so the building has a large porch to shelter under to allow the inhabitants to sit outside to watch the summer rain roll through the woodland, and lowered windows in places to view the land whilst being inside. My intensions were to link the cottage to the land as much as humanly possible. These notions can be seen, in part, on page one.

Cob is used for the extension, and the shape of such was intended to show the difference between the old and the new, thus making it a 'readable' building. The overhead insulation is sheep's wool, available very locally indeed! The building is taken off of the ground with a course of gravel (from the nearby river bed), then a naturally made hempcrete, then a suspended (for ventilation) wooden floor.

I hope that you can see the thought processes of my project, and enjoy looking at the work I have enjoyed producing. To follow the concept and principles of the project, all of my presentation was hand drawn on recycled, handmade paper from the Plymouth area. This of course does not come across in the digital format.

Abigail Banfield

A great house.

This is the hobbit house that I read about in a daily mail article. It was built by Simon Dale and his family, at the cost of around £3000. Which is not bad at all I think.

I really love this little house.

 

Who wouldn't want to live here??

The original film version of Bilbo Baggins' house 

Simon Dale's project can also be found on his website.

In fact, I was so inspired by this project, that I have just put myself forward as a volunteer on the Lammas Project.... how exciting?!?!

Merry Christmas

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas yesterday, and that you are enjoying the festive season!

The last week of term, we had a project which bridged the gaps between the years; our teams contained members from every year of the course. 

We were given a section of the university campus and told to improve it in order to enhance the learning experience of uni. So followed ideas for interventions.

These interventions were translated to 1:50 scale models, which - when joined together - gave us a mini campus inside the main building. 

Lots of festive cheer

Abi

My contribution... a little silhouette army

Campus within a campus

The studio took a beating

Feeling like godzilla

Assembly

More internet finds

My housemate (after discussing the lego house of yesterday) has just introduced me to an amazing concept; filing in cracks with lego. The artist, Jan Vormann, has inspired me with his "dispatchwork" project; its juxtaposition and mix of the seriousness of structure and the childlike colours of the bricks is something I have never seen done in such a way.

Personally, I will be finding out where these still exist and going to see them. Failing that, i'm sure plymouth has some holes I could fill.

x

This 'fill in the gaps' is from Tel Aviv

Tonight's PADS Lecture

Ok, so there are probably a lot of things I would have to write about to inform of the coure so far. What I shall say is this: I love it. Today's workshops pushed me to create quick (mostly stupid) ideas, and work in ways that I would have never thought of before. I love Bob Brown's passion that he just lets flow into the studio. It is truly infectious.

Tonight we had our first PADS (Plymouth Architecture and Design Society) lecture, our speaker being the amazing Anthony Hoete of www.whatarchitecture.com:

"Hoete's  past projects, from a rooftop nursery in Hackney, to the architectural ‘hijacking’ of a suburban detached house, take problematic briefs and stringent red-tape requirements as an opportunity for innovation. His next project is a west London school with a Lego facade. The idea was a response to the Government’s Every Child Matters programme, and managed to include the pupils, as well as parents and local officials, in the design process."

Taken from Blueprint Magazine. ( I have included links to the work he went through with us)

Trust me, there is much more this guy has done. His talk has really pushed me to work harder and see the potential for creating something better, and not just going for the norm. As he said about the Lego school; just because the budget is small doesn't mean that you have to settle for a 'concrete box'. 

Check out his bloggy thing, which he intended to make architecture more accessible ( I believe?)

x

The mayor and a religious man with a great taste in colour  filling in some of the bricks.