02- VALLEY GARDENS AND THE LEVEL

Site User Analysis

Due to the recent developments taking place on The Valley Gardens and Old Steine Gardens I managed to obtain very thorough user analysis for the site. Orchestrated by The Brighton and Hove City Council their questionnaire outlines the key uses for the site as well as including the communities opinion of the site. Whilst largely traffic based, a number of interesting pieces of information can be gathered.

Source: Valley Gardens Report 2018 Brighton and Hove City Council

Identified opportunities as a result of this research.

One of the most striking outcomes of this survey is that 85% of the users surveyed use valley gardens for travelling from A to B. The second most common use is catching a bus (52%) which again is a travel based use. This seems to highlight an opportunity as proximity to work and travel via car begins to change as a result of a sustainability conscious, big data, societal shift. Is there an opportunity to slow down the pace of the site and introduce opportunities for diverse, multipurpose spaces for people to stop, work, relax, exercise and interact within? It’s also important to note that one of the top use responses was attending events. Events only take place within the site at certain points in the year. However, they’re a large part of the character of not only Valley Gardens but Brighton as a whole. Is there a way to provide agency for these events when they occur but also provide alternative uses all year round?

Giggamapping idea assembly.

As my considerations for this project began to grow in complexity it was important to see how all these factors interacted and what the connection was between all these influencing narratives. This gigamapping style visual mapping was attempting to bring all the design research considerations into one place. From here and as result of studio discussions it became evident that I was approaching the site from an event based standpoint. Perviously this was geological events (such as the valley forming wellesbourne river) and then are into social events, historical events, daily events and annual one off events. This was a key point for the realisation of my critical position and the formation of my personal brief.

Hidden Underworld

To the illustate the precense of the influential forgotten about underworld. Ray Traced Section of Brighton Rhino Model. Conceptually speculating on the world below.

03. DESIGNING FOR ‘EVENT’ STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT.

“As we have amplified our ability to shape the world, so we become more responsible for the long afterlives of that shaping. The Anthropocene asks of us the question memorably posed by the immunologist Jonas Salk: ‘Are we being good ancestors?” Robert Macpharlane

Gigamapping of all research considerations, trying to identify their connections and determining how they might interact.

Geological Events

The site holds a strong geological history. I explored this in much more detail in this courses predecessor Design 1. However, it’s important to carry this information as it certainly applies to this project as well. Geological events such as the formation of valley gardens by the now underground Wellesbourne river could help to inform the interconnectivity of more modern events and could also inform the visual narrative of any design interventions.

Diagram produced for Design 1: Urban Strategies Strategic diagram illustrating the old Wellesbourne rivers impact on the flat and untouched nature of The Valley Gardens.

Diagram produced for Design 1: Urban Strategies 20 21

Monument Events

Throughout the site there are a series of ‘monumental’ events. Monuments that highlight an important person, event or period of time. Their location is important when considering interventions on the site. These visualisations layer the monuments throughout the valley gardens. These images begin to represent the possibility of one form of event informing another. For instance the columns of the war memorial and the level park. Although constructed at different times and for very different purposes they begin to relate when viewed in this way.

A site wide strategy can also begin to bring some of these monuments back to life. The war memorial for instance has been dried out and has fallen into disrepair. The Levels park has also fallen into disuse and is a fragment of what it once was to the community.

New monuments have also established themselves as key areas within valley gardens. Such as the skatepark. Although not a monument in the traditional sense the skatepark is a permanent testament to a thriving skate community.

Historical Events

Childrens Playpark and Boating Pool

The children’s playground designed by Bertie Hubbard MacLaren was laid out with a boating pool, bridges and pergola. MacLaren, the Superintendent for the Brighton Parks Department. MacLaren previously designed Preston Park in Brighton.

Military Congregtion

The Great Peace Festival to mark the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte took place.

Practice trench digging and air raid shelter construction during the first and second world wars.

Cricket was played on The Level from at least the mid eighteenth century. The northern part of The Level was laid out as a cricket ground for the Prince of Wales in 1791.permeation up to the urban world above. The children’s playground designed by Bertie Hubbard MacLaren Practice trench digging and air raid shelter construction

The Level was used as a take off location for hotairbaloons for tours over East Sussex. during the first and second world wars. The Level was now the only recreational area in the town. The coronation of George IV was celebrated by the roasting of two bullocks at a public dinner on The Level.

Royal Promenade Daily Events and Flows

Key routes

Public Buildings THE LEVEL Green Space

Seasonal Events

At certain points throughout the year Brighton is home to large scale events that draws in large amounts of visitors. Previously quiet areas of Brighton become heavily populated and drastically change in character. The Valley Gardens in particular is heavily involved in the Brighton festival, pride, the Brighton marathon and is used for numerous other smaller events throughout the year. Including markets and foor and drink festival.

Sussex Beer Festival (Mar) Brighton Racecourse is the venue for one of the best beer and cider festivals in England, as more than 150 brewers come together to provide the thirsty thousands with some seriously good plonk. The food selection is pretty excellent too.

Brighton Fringe (May) All things chucklesome are embraced at Brighton Fringe, a month-long arts festival that takes place in May. This is the largest open-access arts festival in England, a veritable buffet of creativity and artistic excitement.

Brighton Festival (May) Brighton Festival takes place across the entire month of May and is a celebration of all the arts, from live music to theatre via dance, art and plenty more. The festival has been running for more than half a century and continues to stand tall as a celebration of creativity and inventiveness.

The Great Escape (May) A three-day festival that takes place every May, The Great Escape has grown from humble beginnings into one of the UK’s most beloved musical extravaganzas. More than 300 bands wow crowds at around 30 venues across the city, with past acts including Django Django, Stormzy, Frank Turner and IYP favourites And So I Watch You From Afar and Future of the Left.

Naked Bike Ride (Jun) This protestival isn’t ironically named, there are no jokes, this is not a test. The Naked Bike Ride is, yes, exactly that — a big naked bike ride around Brighton. Get in touch with the organisers if you’re interested in riding in your birthday suit, although we can only imagine the damage it does to certain sensitive areas.

Brighton Kite Festival (Jul) There are few sights as instantly nostalgic as that of a colourful kite flying high above the beach. Brighton Kite Festival is this on steroids, as masses of the things are found above Stanmer Park in the city. This might be Brighton’s most colourful festival, which is some going when you take into account the UK’s largest Pride festival.

Paddle Round The Pier (Jul) Paddle, paddle, paddle. The clue is in the name with this one, as thousands of daring fools make the most of the English summer and take to the sea armed only with a paddle and board, in a desperate attempt to paddle as though their lives depended on it. It is a whole heap of fun.

March of the Mermaids (Jul) Have you ever seen hundreds of mermaids follow each other into the sea, mimicking lemmings with long hair and glitter? No? You haven’t lived! The March of the Mermaids takes place in Brighton every July. Get yourself there.

Brighton Pride (Aug) The UK’s biggest Pride Festival takes place in Brighton every August, and the city certainly lives up to its reputation as the LGBTQ capital of the United Kingdom. This is not your average Pride festival, far from it, as hundreds of thousands of people descend on the city for the parties, the live music, the workshops and the rest. Burning the Clocks (Dec) Not literally. Burning the Clocks is the winter solstice, Brighton style, and it takes place through the centre of the city. The whole culminates with a massive lantern bonfire on the seafront, a big middle finger to the excessive commercialism of Christmases past and future. It takes place every year on December 21.

London to Brighton Bike Ride (Sep) Each year, thousands of cyclists take part raising funds for extraordinary charities across the country.

Event locations

04. CRITICAL POSITION.

Critical Position

As a result of site and user analysis I have developed a critical position for this project. I have established a profound interest in the ‘event’ and the sudden influx of event activity as large scale events take over the site. A site which largely acts as a threshold between A and B throughout the rest of the year. These different primary (daily), secondary (regular), annual, geological, historical events that have taken, currently take and will take place on the site should have a symbiotic relationship with one other. I am opposed to the ‘all or nothing’ event narrative that has ruled over this site for decades. Employing a more ‘ebb and flow’ attitude towards events, allowing events to leave a physical trace or residue as they happen and interact all year round.

There are sustainability benefits to this outlook as it combats single use infrastructure and limits the associated impact of large scale events coming and going. Furthermore it will encourage consistent use of the site. This site is woefully undervalued on a daily basis given its central location and scale.

05. PRECEDENT STUDIES.

Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette - Paris

Bernard Tshumis approach to architectural design does not separate the form and the user. These two things are intrinsically intertwined. He is equally concerned about the events, actions and stories that take place within architectural space as the form of the building. The Parc de la Villette is a series of programmatic pavillions that allowed him to explore architectures detachment from function. In many ways the Parc de la Villette in Paris could be considered to be one of the largest buildings in the world. Discontinuous, yet each of the grid orientated, individual follies, act as one part of the whole. Described in the parks competition brief as “an Urban park for the 21st century”, the park was a lot more than a simple landscape redevelopment. It involved the development of a complex programme for cultural and entertainment facilities. Tshumi’s considered and thorough grid based proposal that successfully navigated the intertwining of narrative, form and function is likely to have been the reason his entry won the competition, out of 470 international competitors. Opposing the park ethos of the period where parks were intended to be separate escapes from the city. Parc de la Villette incorporates the city and embraces the stories of the existing landscape and of people that the building facilitates. - Sourced from an essay written for Critical Readings Module, by Ewan Malloch.

Play Contract - Superflex - Billund

Beşiktaş Fish Market - Istanbul Arco da Apoteose - Rio de Janeiro - Oscar Niemeyer

Pyramid Stage - Glastonbury - Temporary Architecture

Designed in large part by children, Plays Contract in Billund, Denmark is a series of five sculptures surrounded adapted landscape. The large scale block ‘playground sculptures’ invite a variety of uses and encourage different interaction year round. The sculptures connect through materiality and form.

Located on a triangular, unusually shaped site the Beşiktaş Fish Market in Istanbul is an example of event orientated architecture. The structure comes to life when the market takes place and provides electricity, shelter and lighting for the marketeers and the market goers. A distinctive piece of event architecture, the parade square, used for frequent large scale events also has daily event functions. Beneath the ‘stands’ built into the structure is a school, offices and multipurpose public space.

The Pyramid stage at Glastonbury is another more contemporary example of event architecture. The stages structure remains throughout the year and is then built upon once a year to form the full pyramid stage seen by hundreds of thousands of people at Glastonbury music festival. This additive attitude towards architecture could provide a solution to consistent and wasteful arrival and departure of event structures.