Corridor

I wanted to carry on my idea of  how different areas are annexes to the north and south banks of the Thames. I liked looking at bridges and how those bridges forge connections and allow these areas to flourish. Yet when I was developing these ideas I realised I was going into an area that I've explored alot in past projects- Mapping. I wanted to avoid my work becoming too repetitive and boring, which I think can happen quite easily with me because I can often play it a bit safe. So instead of mapping around London I bought my work even closer to home, well my new uni home.

The halls I'm in is split up into lots of flats of about 6 people. In my flat, all 6 rooms lead off a main corridor. As I can't start messing about with actual rivers, as they're more often than not quite big or heavily used in London, I wanted to carry my ideas over and think about this corridor as the 'river' in our flat- our rooms being annexes to it. I asked my flatmates if they could imagine the corridor was a river and they had to find a way of getting from one side to the other using only what they could from their room.
I made an animation of how they got on. I like the way that each person chose a slightly different way- Thom made a boat out of a bin, Laura used cusions, Dan and Megan chose to use books as stepping stones and Claudia made a bridge out of her patchwork quilt. And even though both Dan and Megan had the same basic idea, they carried it out in different ways- Dan laid out his stepping stones before hand and Megan did it as she went.  
So I'll shut up now and here's the short film.

1st project: Annex

It's quite late, so I don't think I'm going to go into great depth explaining my ideas for this project- this blog has mainly become a way of showing my parents the type of stuff I'm doing anyway. So far I've mainly been thinking about the different areas of London. Patrick, one of the first year tutors, described London as being a collection of villages all interwoven and connected to form a huge sprawling city. As someone who was born and raised in London it initially felt quite strange living in a new area of the city which I had rarely visited before, yet was only a short bus journey away from home. I wanted to concentrate on the way I have a 'base' at home in north london but have built various attachments to specific areas all over the city.
I also wanted to concentrate on the river and how it 'annexes' areas. I liked the idea that the thames starts as a small stream and ends up splitting a major city in two. I went on a walk from Pimlico to St Pauls. crossing back and forth across the bridges on the way. I concentrated on the contained areas that cling to the sides of the riverbank like limpets- the southbank, county hall, victoria embankment, all are bound to the river.

Some photos of a piece i did using thread and tracing paper. Interpreting my route back and forth across the river. I like the way pulling the string taut has made bridges form. I chose to start more experimentation with bridges- forging connections, allowing the annexed areas on either side of the river to flourish. I will add more in the morning- despite saying I wouldn't do any long explanations, I still managed to outdo myself.

Starting at the Bartlett

It has been a ridiculously long time since I posted anything on this blog. We were asked to start them for our Chelsea foundation and I felt a bit stupid posting at first, because I had never done anything like it. I don't usually like talking about my work, but my foundation showed me you need to involve people in your projects- especially if its something like spatial design or architecture. You need to be able to present your ideas well.

Anyway, I just had a look at my friend Jessica's food blog (http://athriftyfoodie.wordpress.com/ if your feeling peckish) and it inspired me to carry on with mine. I finished my Chelsea foundation in about late April and since then have a had a ridiculously long summer. I did a bit of this and that, I went to America with my friend Amy for a month which was amazing- we travelled what felt like quite a way but when I now look at our route on the map it only covers about an eighth of the humongous country that is the U.S of A. We went to NYC, Philly, Washington DC, Chicago and Boston- and also dragged my poor friend to Connellsville, PA to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water ( it wasn't even the middle of nowhere, but in our car-less state it was impossible to get around.) I also went to Lucca in Italy for a week which was lovely too. But neither of those holiday's match up to the 5 month 'gap yahs' quite a few of my mates have been on.

I'm going to stop rambling and get to the point of this post. Yesterday I moved in to my Uni halls- I'm starting my undergrad degree in Architecture at the Bartlett (part of UCL) and I want to carry on uploading the trials and tribulations of the projects I undertake. I know this is still called ' Ellie's Chelsea Blog' but we from now on it can be 'Ellie's Bartlett Blog' -which to be honest has a better ring to it.

This post feels a bit lacking in photos or colour, so I'll just add on some photo's of my America trip and my Summer sketchbook. Sorry for the absence of a scanner.

A little tribute to the royal wedding- which seemed to take over London in April.
(Why are these pics still rotating themselves!? this happened before as well)

I started doing little sketches of the different railings and decoration added to some of the landmarks we visited.
From the New York Public Library to the steps in Harvard 

NYC

Washington Monument, we had to wait quite a while to get to the top of it.

4th of July- spent on a train, not very celebratory

Chicago

Boston

Lucca

Lucca again- we spent a lot of time walking around the walls of the city

Santa Maria Novella- Florence

yet more railings

Booklet & Film

This week I've been concentrating on different ways to evaluate and present my revival project. It's a bit weird because my event day was essentially my 'final piece.' It's been going quite well, but its been quite difficult gathering together eveybody's photos, sketches, notes etc. and organising them. Also I had about two thousand pictures of the day to edit down for my film, which is a mix of stop frame animation and video footage. The film turned out quite well, but it was really hard using windows movie maker on my old slow computer. There are a few changes I need to make- some parts are frustratingly juddery.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite photos people took on the disposible cameras.

There were so many more photos. I expected to find alot of shots of the clocktower when I picked up the prints and I thought I would find this a bit boring and predictable, but actually I really loved looking at the different way people had recorded it. I liked the fact I knew exatly where the person was standing when they took the picture and what was surrounding them at that specific moment- for example, Paul (the newspaper vendour) has the best view of the clocktower because his booth sits directly infront of it, but his photo gave me the chance to see exactly the view he's seen almost every day for 32 years.

The Big Day

On Sunday I set up my installation at the crouch end town hall and tried to involve the public- luckily it went really well! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm so happy that people took some time out to take part. The main thing I took away from the day was that people in Crouch End are much more willing to try something different or unusual and surrender themselves to a creative concept. Even people who told me they weren't that creative enjoyed responding to their surroundings in alternative ways.

I could tell some people were a bit self concious at the idea of sketching with their eyes closed or doing rubbings of different textures- Paul from the newspaper booth had a go at the 'blind' drawing and said it was "absolutely awful".

I was also quite surprised about how honest people were about the ways they felt in certain areas of Crouch End. Some said that at times they felt "slightly intimidated" or that they were a bit "frustrated". Of course people also revealed how attached they were to the area- the words "home", "comfort" and "familiarity" came up alot.

I started this project because I felt a sense of disassociation towards Crouch End. Alot of the shops were brand new, unfamiliar or part of chains; I also think that going into town every day for college and meeting people from all over London or even all over the world made Crouch seem much smaller and maybe a bit claustrophobic. But, after staging this event I'm starting to see what I loved so much about the area growing up- people chose to visit all sorts of places which I'm sure everyone who's lived in Crouch End have shared memories of. People visited the Library, stayed in the town hall, went to the clocktower, went to their own homes nearby or visited homes they'd had as children. Lots of the places were places that the whole community could visit- particularly the town hall and the library.

Staying in the town hall all day showed me alot about the community activities which still exist. Families came with their children, people came to eat lunch, some people just sat on benches and I had a couple of people come up to me asking if I was part of a demonstration which had been planned for that day.

Now I'm trying to figure out my next step in the project. I want to bring everything I've done together. I'm going to make a film of the day, but I also want to think of a way to display the information that people collected. I liked the way it was presented on the installation, but it was quite chaotic and hard to focus on each individual journey. I might make a small book of peoples findings that could accompany my installation where the information is organised and easy to follow.

Yesterday I laid out all the information that people returned to me (apart from the disposable camera photos, which I picked up this morning) so I could make more sense of what I had.

Weekly evaluation

I'm pleased with the work I've done so far this week, but at times I've felt a bit worried about my project becoming too confusing. This project is about 3 times as long as our usual foundation projects and I've found it a bit of a struggle to keep the momentum going. Today we had a crit in the studio which helped alot. Some people looked through my work and said that they found it difficult to follow my development. I've been doing most of my writing and annotations in my log book so my work feels like its divided up into words and pictures. I'll have to look back over my work so far and connect the dots between my experiments and developments.

Here is some photos of my work with MDF

After tracing out my map onto the Mdf I cut out the shapes using a jigsaw. I'm really pleased with the result but I need to add some supports to the piece to make sure it doesnt fall over and hurt anyone.

I added a piano hinge to make the sheets open out like a book.

To try out the process for my event on sunday I did a trial where I asked my mum and 2 family friends to take part. I made them close their eyes and mark out a random spot on the map of crouch end. I then went to each spot and recorded my surroundings.

I displayed my findings on my installation, screwing in a hook to the place they marked and hanging the photos, objects and sketches from string attached to the hooks. I thought when the information was displayed it looked good- I can really imagine loads of strings all feeding out from different areas showing all the different places around crouch end. I think people will find it really interesting and hopefully it will get them thinking about how the different areas are used. I also like the way that in the focal space of the installation the photos and notes will all become mixed up as the different strings cross over. I think Crouch end can be divided alot of the time despite the fact that alot of people from diffent cultures and age groups live there.

I thought the trial was alright, but I my ideas weren't presented clearly enough and the process became quite convoluted. I didnt like the fact that the people's role in the project was over in a matter of minutes. As this is a project about rejuvinating a community spirit and getting people actively interested in the spaces around them, I want the public to play a more active role in my installation. By people choosing a place at random, their connection to the different areas is limited. I want this piece to weave into the patterns of people's daily lives.

So as a way to improve my Crouch end event I'm going to step back a bit from the process and see what happens when the development of the installation is put into the hands of the public. I'm going to provide each person that's willing to take part in the piece with a small kit. It will have a disposable camera, a pen, paper etc. and I'm going to ask them to take it with them wherever their going and record their surroundings.

I'm aware that some people wont be up for taking part, but I hope that some will have a go. I'm most worried about people walking off with the disposable cameras.

Anyway, I'll have to see how it goes on sunday and hopefully I'll be making a film of the event. As the project is based on how people interact with Crouch End and ways to catch peoples attention and get interested and involved in the area, I think a film will be the best way to record what happens.