A new Polling Station
Can the architecture of voting be re-thought to make this vital democratic act an engaging social and spatial ritual?
Exisitng polling stations in Leeds
Sisterhood Room, Methodist School Room, Lofthouse
Portable building, land adjoining, Bancrost towers, Seacroft
Belle Isle Branch library, Belle Isle
Meanwood Community Cenre, Meanwood
Venerable Bede Parish Church, Bramley
Dance Studio, Bramley Baths, Bramley
Seacroft Library, Seacroft
Calton Primary School, Calton
Harewood Village Hall, Harewood
Old Halfway House Pub, Robin Hood, WakeďŹ eld
Wetherby St James, C of E Primary School, Wetherby
Otley Civic Centre, Otley, Warfedale
My last vote
Description of my last vote Arthington village hall stands as an anonymous single story structure, replete with pitched roof and white rendered walls. Its entrance faces onto the car-park, its windows too high for the passer by to look into from the busy Poole to Harewood stretch of the A659. The hall is one of 367 polling stations in the Leeds constituency, and part of a division of 33 wards for the General Election. The signage exclaims ‘POLLING BOOTH’ and ‘WAY IN’, the lettering is clean, alert and upright, optimistic but in no nonsense instructive manner, the spaces between letters make each one stand out creating a clear instruction to act. The car-park is empty, I am on foot and make my way inside, I am greeted by the presiding officer and her assistant sitting at a collapsible table, I register, then take the ballot paper and enter one of the wooden booths. After crossing a box from a list of unknown candidates, for parties I am familiar with, I fold and post the ballot paper into a plastic ballot box. I ask the women if it has been busy today, they remark on the weather. I notice the curtains and leave.
examples from accross the world
Papua New Guinee
Norway Jerusalem
What a mobile polling station could be
Trade and Democracy Making every voting booth (the stage for the democratic act) involves a supply chain of global capitalism
Making the plywood Voting Booth in the workshop
Tracing the global journey of the plywood
12.5 Ecterior Grade Plywood
Shire Timber yard, Cross Green industiral estate, Leeds
Southampton Docks
Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia
Plywood Factory, Sibu, Malaysia
Machining the logs into ply
Malaysian Tropical Forrest
A Local link between trade and democracy Birmingham, the city
of 1000 trades correspondingly became a centre for workers rights, civic pride and democracy
Birmingham grew during the early industiral revolution as a centre for making and inovation - The Jewellery quarter and the Soho area of the city were central to the growth of UK manufacturing at the end of the 18th century , utilising a new and exstensive canal network, and the local specialisim in steam power and engineering.
Gold
Boulton and Watt Soho Manufactury, Birmingham 1800, a world leader in steam engine technological and engineering development.
Gold Bar
Jewellery smiths workstation in the Jewellery Quarter Musuem
Mathew Boulton, Candle Vase
Mathew Boulton, Candle Vase, dimantled into its many complex elements
Global distribution of products made at Boulton’s Birmingham steam powered mint.
Chart showing where vistors to Boulton and Watt Manufactury came from at the end of the 18th Century
trade, workers rights, civic pride and democracy were developed in Birmingham during the Victorian period. Notably Joseph Chamberlain - A Birmingham screw manufacturer became one of Britains most influential 19th century politicians. Major links between
Joseph Chamberlain
Design of booths, pamphlets and voting properganda
Materials arrive to site for booth manufacture
Public archive of global trade and democracy
Initial building program proposal
voting booth spectacle for general elections visible form street
Production and manufacture of voting booths
Classroom to hold conferences and teach pupils
Distribution of voting booths by canal barge
dsitibution of voting information and posters by courier and fly posters
Distribution of ballot boxes to presiding officers on foot/ car
Distribution of voting booths by van
Storage and repair of Voting booths pamphlets, posters and electoral sundries
Birmingham
Walking from Birmingham New Street station to the site, out of the city centre towards the Jewellery Quarter
Encounter with the site - Brindley House and the BT tower
Pedestrian bridge accross dual carriageway
Arrive Birmingham New Street Station
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Access to site
Illustration shows the site without Brindley House and the BT Tower
1. Access to the site from street level on Lionel Street over an exisitng building with a carpark on its roof.
REET
NEWHALL ST
2. Access from Newhall Road along the tow path 3. Potential access to the site from the side road running parralell with the canal 4. The canal towpath runs under Ludgate Hill 5. Access from Ludgate Hill
LIONEL STREET
6. Boat access along the canal
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Existing movement through site
Brindley House
BT Tower
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LUDGATE HILL
Site as central node in communications and transport network
BT tower links to satalite communicationshh
Road l
Site sits over the canal
Pedestrian bridge to City centre
Canals and waterways
Rail network
Rail link nearby
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Sun path analysis
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BT Tower
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Site
Brindley House
15.00 18.00
William Hogarth, 1755 Chairing the member. Oil on canvas, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Run up to the election, showing courtyard use and utilisation of the canal 1:200
work zone - no pedestrian access
Office for electoral events team
Courtyard
areas reserved for media and event tents
1. The courtyard to the left of the building is utilised for events in the run up to elections, including parties canvassing for votes, speakers corners, and media interviews. There is space at the rear of the courtyard for media and events tents.
2. The canal is vital to the life of the building. It is accesable from the street and becomes an inhabited public space, for canvassing and events. Each pollitical party might have a boat moored on the canal.
LUDGATE HILL
Heavy duty grill over canal
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Initial registration
Two tier registration Initial registration takes place at the front of the building, the two tier registration system, (the final check takes place just before the voting booths) is akin to checking in for a flight. It allows voters to quickly ‘check in’ before 10pm, enabling them to wander around the building, or if busy que to vote until midnight. This new two tier system will avoid any people being stuck in a que to register at 10pm and therfor unable to vote, as happened at the 2010 general election.
1:20 detail of Registration
Key moment 5/7 following the path
Store for Electoral Sundries Hundreds of objects are collected by the presiding officers the evening before an election.
Events office of Electoral Commission
1:200 Plans
Ground floor
to the jewellery quarter
Registration office
canal
workshops voting promenade route
LUDGATE HILL
Workers zone between buildings
public toilet
public toilet
events office
Events Courtyard
areas reserved for Media and event tents
to city centre
First floor
Gangways for counitng ballots
Debatte chamber lift access
Top down view
fold out candidate information panels
un-covered ramp up
exit stairs
polling booths
lift access
ballot box electoral official
Showing key eleciton day moments
1:200
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1. Registration desks
5. View up the steps (and option to take lift)
9. Final document check by electoral official
2. Choice of short route, or longer procession
6. Conversation moment, looking over the city
10. Enclosed, quiet, and non distracting place in which voting takes place.
3. View and walk past the counting wall showing every Birmingham polling station, and the 59 electoral candidate
7. Fold out information boards with info about canditates
11. Placing the ballot in the vessel top, back out in the open.
8. Crossing between the two buildings
12. Descending through building two to the entrance courtyard
4. Bridge under Brindley house, utilising existing canal concrete structures
Showing deliveries of ballot boxes from polling stations accross the West Midlands after the Polling Stations have closed
LUDGATE HILL
trolley takes ballot boxes to the lift and up to levels in main counting wall
1:200
workshop rooms become counting and sorting areas
Heavy duty grill over canal
registration of deliveries
work zone - no pedestrian access unloading
vans and cars arrive with ballot boxes
marked off pedestrian area
areas reserved for Media and event tents electoral officials direct traffic and pedestrians
main road networks
Heavy duty grill over canal
trolley takes ballot boxes to the lift and up to levels in main counting wall
unloading
marked off pedestrian area
work zone - no pedestrian access
workshop rooms become counting and sorting areas registration of deliveries
LUDGATE HILL vans and cars arrive wi ballot boxes