Brief 2

PROJECT 2. A SUBURBAN LEXICON

Looking closer

 

AIMS

Having begun our investigations of MK from afar we are now going to pay our first visit.  The purpose of this trip and the subsequent development is to:

•  Undertake a visual survey of the key elements that constitute each grid square with the aim of developing a formal lexicon for MK

•  Test the hypotheses of our initial investigations from afar

•  Gain additional information ‘on the ground’ to enable us to develop the analytical drawings of MK, in particular the significance of use

•  Develop skills for exploring a site, including visual survey, wayfinding and conversation

•  Continue to develop an understanding of how the study of an archetype can be used to develop a general approach.

 

BRIEF

I. SUBURBAN LEXICON

Every member of the studio is to take a prescribed set of photographs of their grid square, for the benefit of their own investigations and the studio.  Through taking the same photographs of the same elements in different grid squares you will be able to undertake careful comparative analysis of the MK condition.

You must take the following photographs:

A. FLAT ELEVATIONS

The composition of each image should be very flat, similar in composition to the photographic surveys of Bernd and Hilla Becher.  It should be in full colour and pay special attention to capturing the space in front of the building as well as the building itself.

 

 

1. Buildings for living – Produce photographs for the three most common e.g. terrace house/detached house/flats:

a. front elevation

b. side elevation

c. back elevation

 

2. Buildings for meeting and assembling – Produce photographs for the three most common e.g. church, pub, community centre:

a. front elevation

b. side elevation

c. back elevation

 

3. Buildings for working – Produce photographs of the three most common e.g. shop, office, home/office:

a. front elevation

b. side elevation

c. back elevation

 

4. Buildings for learning – Produce photographs of the three most common e.g. school, college, nursery:

a. front elevation

b. side elevation

c. back elevation

 

5. Service stations – Produce photographs of service stations in your grid square. We mean ‘service’ in its broadest sense:

a. front elevation

b. side elevation

c. back elevation

 

B. CHARACTERFUL PERSPECTIVES

 

Each grid square has a distinct character that is expressed through the specific combination of the elements that make up its environment.  Character can be explicitly expressed through ‘things in space’ and what they look like, but is likely also to be more ambiguous, suggestive and elusive; relying on sounds, smells and feel, as well as things you can’t quite put your finger on such as ambience, mood, narrative and a sense of time passing.

 

Greg Crewdson’s carefully orchestrated photographs capture the specific character of places as moments in time particularly well. They inspire the viewer to construct complete imaginary narratives – filmic, almost scratch-and-sniff – around just one image.

 

The character of your grid square must be conveyed through the careful selection of angle, composition and content for the following photographs:

 

1. Entrances – every entrance to the grid square e.g vehicular entrances, pedestrian subways & bridges

2. Vehicular ways – min. three types e.g boulevard, cul-de-sac, canals

3. Bike and pedestrian ways – min. three types, inc. Redways, cut throughs, canal paths

4. Communal space – min. three types

5. Landscaping – min. three examples of typical landscaping, including trees

6. Heritage – the oldest building, object or maintained place

7. Boundaries – min. three examples of real, legal or perceived boundaries e.g. timber fence, open wire mesh fence, parish boundary, gang territory

8. The Centre – one image, that captures the essence of the centre of the grid square

 

 

II. LAND USE

Using the resources available you have been able to analysis the form of the city but not its use.  Through a combination of visual survey and data collection record the use of both land and buildings to enable you to draw maps that will analyze use.

 

 

III. TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESES

Your initial investigations have produced a number of hypotheses that need testing through on-site research.  Before our visit, list the hypotheses that need testing and the way in which you will test them; ‘20 Questions’ that you would like to ask your grid square. Record the results of your investigations.

 

 

QUESTIONS

 

1. What is the character of your grid square? How is this manifested visually, and otherwise?
2. How do the layout, form and character of your grid square support empowerment at an urban scale? What does it enable and what does it restrict?
3. What capacity does your grid square offer for change and adaptation?
4. What patterns can you find and what hypotheses can you develop by studying the suburban lexicon of your grid square? What do the buildings in your square have in common? How are they different?
5. To what extent have inhabitants adapted their buildings? How readily did the form enable or restrict this?
6. Take special note of semi private spaces. How are these defined? How big are front and back gardens and yards? How are they enclosed? What shape are they? How are they used? What happens on the verges? What goes on on a roundabout?
7. How is your grid square used? What activities go on behind closed doors, as well as outside? It is conventional to record use in terms of ‘use classes’ such as: residential or commercial or industrial, but what about uses and activities that overlap; ebb and flow? How does one map home-run businesses or elicit woodland activities? How does one record use in order to draw conclusions at an urban scale that might be useful to us as designers?
8. How does one record a more personal and insightful response to an environment, alongside more generic and conventional studies? How do you map something that has never been mapped? What use might this be to us as designers?

 

REQUIREMENTS

 

1.         Visual lexicon 

all requested photographs, printed full bleed and full colour at 120x80mm

2.         Use

1:2500 or similar, plans of your neighbourhood, analyzing its use (2 minimum, 6 preferred)

3.         Testing

Verbal description of the hypothesis you tested with graphic information to support your findings.

 

INITIAL REFERENCES

 

VENTURI, SCOTT-BROWN AND IZENOUR, Learning From Las Vegas, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1972

RATTENBURY & HARDINGHAM, Supercrit #2. Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, Learning from Las Vegas, Oxon, Routledge, 2007

WALKER, The Architecture and Planning of Milton Keynes, London, Architectural Press, 1982

BECHER & BECHER, Basic Forms of Industrial Buildings, Thames & Hudson, 2005

LANGE, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Life and Work, MIT Press, 2006

HAMMOND & PETHICK, Person to Person, People to People: Stephen Willats, Milton Keynes Gallery, 2007

ROWELL & WEINBERG, Ed Ruscha, Photographer, Steidl Verlag, 2006

CREWDSON & BANKS, Beneath the Roses, Harry N Abrams, 2008