Time is ticking and it is now just two weeks till crit day. I am feeling slightly nervous. Over the past week, due to the construction of my buildings they have changed and changed and changed again. This was not a surprise to me, as I did begin to realise the shape of my buildings were too complicated with maybe a bit too much going on. I am a lot happier with my design now and the plan of both my Rural Craft and Community Centre has progressed to become a lot more functional.

Last Friday the Landscape Architects came in to help us with our design of the whole site. It was pin pointed that my playground was way too small and playground equipment has a lot of spacial requirements. I was given a very good website which gave me the dimensions and spacial requirements for each piece of equipment. Also where I have decided to put my playground is a better place compared to before.

On Tuesday in Folio, we were taught how to model interiors of rooms on 3d studio max to create hand drawn perspective drawings which was very useful. I really enjoyed doing this and it is a tool, I will probably be using later on in Caravanserai for my perspective view.

Overall I am now content with my design of my buildings and the landscaping of the site. There is a massive list of final requirements for crit consisting of site plans, block plans. massing models, landscaping models, building models, perspective drawings and an array of construction details which I can finally get onto doing.

Two weeks till crit and time is ticking...

This week we had intercrit which went well I think. I was really nervous because I hadn't really prepared what I was going to say. However the feedback I got was really helpful. I know what I have to change to my plans and site layout to make my design of the City Farm better. For Monday we need to do construction details which I have started drawing up. I'm a bit confused about how the drainage would work with my roof on the community centre, also I'm unsure about ventilation as well. I would also like to draw up elevations of my buildings so the viewer will have a better idea of what the buildings will look like. 

Another assignment we had for the module 'folio' was to make introductory videos for our blogs where we interviewed each other in front of a green screen then edited the footage putting a slide show of our work behind us. I felt quite anxious about this task, since I am not the most confident person when it comes to filming and I felt a bit put on the spot with a video camera in my face, but I got the footage done. The worst part was trying to edit it on Adobe premier pro which would keep crashing every minute or every time I wanted to play my video. So when I thought I finished my video and exported it to a video (which took an hour to do) I finally got to watch it properly and there were so many things wrong with it. So I had to redo it again. This time I did it on my laptop instead of doing it on the computers in studio 2. With time ticking Im still not 100% happy with it. If I could do it again, I would record the footage again knowing what I was going to say.

Now half way through the term, I need to settle my design for Caravanserai and start thinking about the construction part for the Enclose module.

Isn't it funny that Architecture Students don't seem to get much time during reading week to actually read, instead we work on our projects A LOT!

So in the past couple of weeks, I have seen the design for Stepney City farm come together, then change, then change again and guess what change again. But along the way I can see it develop into something better than it was before. In my previous post I talked about how my Rural Craft Centre would be influenced by 'childhood memory', that has now completely changed since I felt I was going on a tangent with this idea and it was relating less and less with the site in Stepney. Instead I have kept the idea of my buildings relating to the River Thames which was highly important in Stepney. This is because many of the residents of Stepney used to be fishermen and shipping people.

The past week I have been working on drawing up plans of the Community Centre and The Rural Craft Centre. They both contain the curvy shape of the River Thames but in different planes. This is a distinguishable shape which can easily be recognised as the River Thames. The Community Centre has this shape curving over the roof, while the Rural Craft Centre has it horizontally on the facade. 

I also have been looking at materials. Since the City Farm is about educating people about agriculture, I feel that the materials used in my buildings should be kept organic and natural. Looking at the natural forms that these materials can take I felt was also important since natural forms have highly influenced my design with the River Thames.

For my Community Centre I have decided to have a wooden roof which will use gridshell construction which will be exposed on the interior with plywood. On top of this will be a layer of insulation then an aluminium standing seam waterproof roof. I chose the exterior to be metal because I want it to reflect light and shimmer like water. There are many small slim skylights in the roof especially above the indoor cafe to resemble water rippling on the interior of the cafe. The roof has been highly influenced by the Savill Buidling in Windsor. The exterior walls will be made of Kentish Ragstone. It is a local stone to the area and there is a quarry less than an hour away from Stepney. The stone is not too textured and can be cut into good sized blocks which is good so it will be subtle and not contrast too much with the complicated curved roof. It also looks quite nice with timber.

For the Rural Craft Centre, this has been influenced by Lobolly House, the National Assembly of Wales, and John Fernely College. This building will be made out of horizontal timber slats. On the front facade which is influenced by how Lobolly House has a glass skin behind the lobolly timber slats which you can see through. I have done this but horizontally instead so that visitors can look through to see workshops going on. These timber slats will be made out of Weston Red Cedar which is what the National Assembly of Wales is made out of. This will also be used on the back facade which has three massive double height windows which look out onto the lake. Weston Red Cedar has a high natural resistance to decay and is very veritale, it bends in strips which is good for the curvy back facade. With these big windows reflecting the lake also relates back to the River Thames since this facade is in the shape of the River Thames having it reflect water is an interesting effect. 

So my design is taking shape ready for intercrit. I have drawn up the plan of the whole site, I need to do an elevation and finish my study models and take some photos of them. I have to start to think about construction details, so the building construction handbook will have to be dug out. I have never drawn construction details before and feel a bit lost when it comes to doing something so technical. I will definitely need a lot of feedback on this.

So now in our Caravanserai project we have moved onto Concept. I found this really hard to get my head around because I really still had no idea for my design. We had a workshop with artists on Friday to help us along. We had to think of a word and bring a picture along with us. My word was heritage and I bought a map of the River Thames along with me. The idea was that Stepney has many links with the River Thames within its history. Many shipping people lived in Stepney since it was near to the river, there was also many fisherman residents. As you can see from my photos of my concept models the idea of the river has highly affected them. I looked at the shape of the Thames itself and how it curves, also ripples and reflections that the river makes. Unfortunately after this workshop I was left feeling uninspired since I still had no idea how to design my building. I found it hard to link my concepts to anything into designing my building. 

As time went on, my ideas started to become more clear. I decided that the shape of the river would make an interesting roof. Also I would like to have a wall with slits in it in front of glass to let light through to represent light reflecting off water would be quite atmospheric. These are the ideas I have come up with for my community centre.

For the Rural Craft Centre, I took a different path. Since I felt like I was coming to dead ends with my word 'heritage',  I started to think about reliving the childhood memory. This reminded me when visiting the City Farm how much I enjoyed as a child going to see the animals on a farm. Those little things that bring you back to your childhood. I think visiting farms was a big part of my childhood, it was a day out which I always enjoyed. I think having a City Farm here is so good so children in the city do not miss out on this opportunity.

Thinking back to my childhood, where I would have picnics with my soft toys, hide in bushes like I was in Africa, pick flowers like I was a flower girl, I remember the games we used to play at break time at School. 

From Tag to skipping ropes, I remember that time in Autumn when we all used to gather under the Horse Chestnut tree and scavenge for the most hardest, shiniest and ultimate conker to beat everyone else at one of the most timeless playground games. 

So this is where my precedent came from for the rural craft centre. Since it is a rural craft centre, I was also thinking about organic and natural forms and I think conkers would suit well.

So these are my design ideas for my buildings at the moment. Next is drawing up plans, precedents and study models, which is another hurdle, but I am highly looking forward to this and seeing my building coming to shape.

On Monday we had our 9:00 Caravanserai lecture and seminar. This is where they made sure we were familiar with the brief. For Friday we have to show some ideas of where to put the buildings on site in a figure ground diagram at 1:100. This means tomorrow I need to go to the Studio and print out my site map at A1 a couple of times. I hope the A1 printer isn't too expensive...

In the lecture I learn't that the client had said she wanted a 'beautiful kitchen' and I hope to meet or even beat her expectations.

Another point I really liked about the site is that this kitchen will be a sort of community kitchen. It is not just to be used by staff for the cafe, but for the people who own growing boxes on the site. They can grow their own vegetables, cook them in the kitchen, eat in the cafe, then the wastage would be composted. This process reduces CO2 and it quite a green approach to the way people eat. It teaches people about food and where it comes from. Supermarkets get food from all over the world, even when it can be grown in our country. At last weeks KASA open lecture CJ Lim talked about this. He talked about how is designing 'Eco-cities' and the people who live in them would be Eco-warriors. Big parts of busy cities say in China would be turned into these 'Eco-cities' He discussed about the residents growing their own fruit and vegetables even owning livestock as well. The main aim was to reduce CO2 emissions. Even though in the UK we have many good food sources where we can grow and cultivate food, supermarkets still choose to import lamb from New Zealand or Strawberries from Egypt. Stepney City Farm is a sort of much more smaller scale 'Eco-city' it holds some of the same beliefs as CJ Lim's projects.

During Seminar we talked about Site Analysis, the strength and weaknesses of the site and some opportunities the site holds. I have been doing some site analysis for Friday. So far I have a materiality/topography plan of the site and its surroundings and a Site photo plan showing the strengths and weaknesses of the site.

We talked a little about precedents. The first few to start looking at would be looking at other farms and zoos. One precedent I thought of was Slimbridge Wetland Centre, which is conservation area near where I live. http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit-us/slimbridge

It is really popular with the public and it does get quite busy during summer. It teaches people about the many birds and Wildlife in Severn Estuary area and raises awareness of the issues that effect their survival. Like the City farm, it isn't the most clean and pristine place. It has lots ducks, swans and many other birds waddling, swimming and flying everywhere. Yet however they've made the place a warm and welcoming place. It has many beautiful seating areas where people can have a picnic or buy food from the cafe. It also has a nice restaurant inside the main building which is very bright with large full length windows staring out onto the lakes. At the back there is an outdoor seating area which looks out onto the vibrant pink flamingo pond. These sort of beautiful views that you get in Slimbridge from the restaurant I would like to incorporate into my design of the cafe in the community centre.

We also talked about stone masonry and iron masonry. The idea of keeping the building materials sentimental and true to this area of what did used to be a small village. Also what else could be added to the farm? A wildflower garden, a fruit orchard?

Tomorrow our group will be getting together to do a site model made out of cardboard. Also I need to do my figure ground plans and work out the new size of the building since the brief has now changed and so have the room sizes.

I guess the way to look at it is that in real life the client is always changing their requirements and the Architect has to satisfy or even better impress the client.