Anyway, enough waffle......first up is 'Playful'. Undoubtably the word which I initially thought would be the most inspiring and in all honesty I think I had already decided I would choose this design, before I even got anything on paper. I wanted to produce something that was playful without being tacky or 'Disney' like, as I think this would be some peoples response. It's not just about creating a quirky childrens playground. In fact it is not necesarily about children. I'd say 'playful' in the way I see it is more about it's opposites. In that I mean like I mentioned in an earlier post; something which is unrestricted and informal. A space that is accessible to all and enjoyed by all, which of course is not as easy as it sounds.....and I'm sure none of these categories were ment to be easy in the slightest.
So the elements which you can see here are things like the lighting. Instead of the main promenade lighting being permanently illuminated, they are movement sensored as in many modern offices today. When you enter a room the lights come on, when you leave the lights go off. As you walk the promenade the first three lights say, come on in front of you and then switch off as you pass them. This creates a visual experience for the individual, an interactive piece of art seen at a distance and of course an appreciation of sustainabilty which we all should be involving in all new design.
Other playful elements which you can see are an outdoor gym, running in an area of woodland . This can be utlilised by anyone wanting to keep fit. It could be incorporated into private fittness classes or by the Sovereign Leisure Centre. Essentially depending how hard core the individual is, it could be used all year round.
There is a geyzer shooting water from the centre of a new pier. This was inspired by St. Mary's Lighthouse in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear where I grew up. The lighthouse is situated on a small rocky island (as you would expect!) The pressure of the sea pounding into the rocks over time eventually find cracks that lead to the surface and shoot the pressured water with every wave. This used to entertain my friends and myself for hours....until the tide came in and we were forced to pedal our bikes across the course way through 2 foot of water!
So sculpture was another element, but I found myself designing something which just had a number of instalations plonked on the site. And although giant wind turbines excited me and curled up stone structures of the ground ripped up by the wind sounded quite fun, I think I was heading towards the type of design I initially wanted to avoid.
'Playful'
The second scenario was 'Connective'. Now again I have found elements of this design interesting and was hugely inspired by the river front of Bordeaux when thinking about this design.
After visiting the city in the summer, I came away constantly thinking, why don't we do things like this in Britain? They have an old city which is heavily pedestrianised and successfully interlocked with new developments. A park and ride service which ferries the public from outside the city using an electric tram. The tram stores electricity as it travels outside the city via overhead cables, enabling it to run without any cables or electrified rails within the city. A clean and safe system which costs about 3 euros a day to park and use the trams!
Bordeaux tram service running parallel to the river
Bordeaux tram service leaving the station near the river, and situated in the cover of trees. The space was formerly a car park.
The promenade along the river bank is designed to allow walkers, joggers, skaters and cyclists all to use the space. A simple change in ground surfaces is all that is needed to separate pedestrians from those on wheels. The path for bikes etc is a smoother resign finish, whereas the footpaths are rougher resign surface. There was no need for great big signs everywhere to explain this either.
The footpath and cycle path of Bordeauxs river front
Along different sections of the river development, which was a few kilomtres long, the designers had thought about something for everyone. There are planted areas with seating, sports areas, versitle areas for markets and exhibitions, restaurants and shops, hidden parking and of course the transport links from the centre of the city to the river. All in all I was very impressed. Not only that the work only took a year to complete.
With the Eastbourne site I tried to encorporate a number of theses design concepts. So there is a sports area, an amphitheatre, and an area for markets and even a tram system linking Eastbourne to Sovereign Park and perhaps the harbour. My problem with the design is that....well it is Bordeaux in Eastbourne! And again I felt that perhaps although these elements had more depth and reasoning than the 'Playful' scenario, they were still lacking a little connection to eachother.....ironically.
'Connective'
The third option was based on 'Educational', perhaps was the least inspiring word to me and yet I think overall the most successful. Well you would hope so seeing as this is the scenario I am taking forward!
My personal 'design ambition' I wrote at the beginning of this course was that with every space I created it would change the life of at least one person, emotionally or physically. Now I realise this is no ambition at all, I want to change the lives of as many people as possible. I want to create spaces that question peoples thoughts, their choices and their own personal ambition. I want spaces to be inspiring and memorable and unique. Hopefully by the end of this project I will have achieved the possibilty of all of these things.
So the initial plan below is my 1:2000 sketch design for Eastbourne. It has a number of issues that need to be sorted out, but overall I think it is the strongest base for a great design.
Within the design are elements of all three scenarios and I suppose they all overlap one way or another. For any of our designs to work, the elements must 'connect' and you'd hope there would be an element of 'playfulness' or all the designs are going to be pretty boring.
So in saying all of that I want my 'Educational' scenario to connect with as many people as possible. The more obvious educational parts to the design are the Education Centres placed at each end of the site. To the east this will be more directed towards sustainability, re useable energies and coastal habitats. Its position being close to the protected habitat of Sovereign Park. To the west the centre will be more to do with marine life and it's habitats. This site would also incorporate an aquarium. The buildings will be designed to blend in with the landscape and include some sort of green roof system.
The most exciting part is the creation of a new habitat. By building a secondary, lower sea defence around the Martello Tower, this will be designed to collect the salt water at low tide and in turn a saltwater marsh will be created. I was very interested in allowing the public to have better access to the sea as presently the groynes and granite sea defence prevent many people from leaving the promenade. So within this space extending into the sea will be two walkways. One of these will be for access at low tide the other allowing you to walk above the sea at hiigh tide.
In between the two educational centres are areas of planting and an area to hold exhibitons, markets and fairs. I think, after studying the three designs I will encorporate some of the lighting elements I have thought of as this links well to the sustainability side of my design. There is also the possibilty of some wind based sculpture for elements of scale and again natural energy and sustainability. The drawing below needs a little more thought to circulation and the scale of my seconadary walkways, but overall I think this is the basis of a great design.
I hope I haven't waffled to much and anyone reading this has found it interesting.
Watch this space!
