REFLECTIONS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

SUPERVISOR: DOINA PETRESCU

REGISTRATION NUMBER: 200202462

Because of the wide range of Elliott street, and the holistic identity of high street regeneration. We divided the site into three pieces, completed our 3D model in collaboration, and had general cognition of the site. Affected by the pandemic and lockdown rules, only a few of us go to the site, shared photos, also their feelings about the journey to enable others to have an comprehensive view.

We shared our design every studio day, although most of our studio days are online and some of us suffer from jet lag, we pitched constructive thoughts and comments from others and have some individual concepts gradually. Otherwise, we use the way of quick sketches to share ideas that are effective for communicating.

02 Collecting and Mapping

Collecting

Collecting can be the first step after we defined the theme. To have a general view of the objective situation, since we cannot come to the site at the beginning, I started collecting data from inquiring local official information through the internet.

To have a clearer definition of today’s high street, I walked in the high street of Sheffield and chatted with passersby, comparing the basic data between Sheffield and Tyldesley, it helps me build general cognition of their dilemma before going to the site. When we came to the site, as most of the shops are closed, observation has become the main method of our site visiting journey. We talked to local people and asked about the situation before the pandemic, and feelings on their high street.

Walking in the city, which is promoted by Michel de Certeau, is an important method for collecting and researching. He described the sense of the procession as a ‘fiction of knowledge’, a ‘totalization produced by the eye’,1 which means a subjective view by authors and spectators.

I collected data as much as possible to have an entire view of the objective at the beginning and omitted redundancy data after I turn to my design and think more about Ethnography and the real world. When I try to organize those data visually, I’m not making a general statement of background information, I try to make it as an introduction of story background. Like the collage I made to have a statement of ‘high street’, it shows the general history of high street and questions towards their history. (image 3)

Ethnography

Ethnography is a research method in the field of anthropology.

1 The essence of Ethnography is more like observe the relationship between people and society, observation is also the most fundamental approach in ethnography for gaining insight in consumer behavior. 2 One of the principles of architecture design is to make users satisfied, which is quite difficult. The Ethnography research of people’s internal attribution is necessary for architects to comprehend others’ demands. Not only focus on the directly demands, but also think of potential demands and make respond to possibilities in future.

1 Paul Dourish, ‘Implications for design’, In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems , ACM (2006), 541-550 < https://doi. org/10.1145/1124772.1124855 > (pp.541-50)

2 Christina Wasson, ‘Ethnography in the field of design’, Human Organization, 59.4 (2000), 377-388 (pp.384)

Mapping

“Mapping has emerged in the information age as a means to make the complex accessible, the hidden visible, the unmappable mappable.”1 diagram of the site, which from co-drawing from my joint group in semester1. Using several icons to describe information like functions and sunset surroundings.

As students major in architecture, mapping is the basement of our design. A traditional topographical map that shows physical terrain with scale, details, geospatial objects but also the surroundings situations such as street and other buildings, is the start of the site exploration.

I found the detailed map from the official website and other materials like distance and time use from several websites. Using those materials to produce the locational map (image 5), introduce the site and enable readers to connect with their own experiences. The map I produced is not a topographical map since I deleted many useless details, remained the information that can highlight the points and enhance its narrative. It is more like a topological map to give others an intuitive feeling.

Actor Mapping

Image 9 is an actor mapping from the joint group’s work, simulating the example of AAA- ecobox project, which shows the connection between people, actors and elements in spaces.

Learning from the material occupation diagram, we produced a similar one (image 10) for the elements of conceptions, which shows the relationship between objects, people, and space.

Maps can also be as possibilities, image from joint group work is another stimulation of diagram from the program Ecobox. It is based on possibilities to narrate the relationship between people’s activities and the location. It shows an interesting phenomenon that the function and site residents will go, and make us think more about the relationship between ideal functions and real demands.

Timelines, narrative, and history map

Historical analysis can be an important role in the design, historical knowledge can we understand the local culture and city memories. Following the suggestion of our tutor, I began analysis from the topographical maps in different years, compared and found the changes and marked the time, to explore the reasons and try to make connections with important historical junctures.

To summarise the information, I produced the image to show its typical objects in different periods, followed by the example from Bucharest: the city as an agglomeration of open space, which Maria Alexandrescu showed in the lecture Frame-of-Frames.

To make information more narrative, I use collage to transform the points into a more vivid way. Omitting details of the physical map and just focusing on the conclusion and representative elements, it became clearer which impacted Tyldesley deeply.

03 Analysing

“To analyse something is to release, to unloose, to expose for assimilation its constituents and working – its powers.” 1

The studio project is focused on ‘design by research’, we used many methods for analysing and producing, and most can be classified as a scenario analyse. We worked as a group to find out the problem of Tyldesley, make system analysis to identify relevant external influences and discuss solutions from various aspects, which inspired me a lot.

We also used the methods of quantitative analysis and quality analysis, using the integrated methods of deductive and summarize, and visualized the conclusion ultimately. Image is the visualization after the demography analyse.

Section drawing is another important drawing in the design process, I have used sections to think about activities possibilities in different scenes and levels, also the building scales. Section drawings are vivid to illustrate the relationship between different objects, not only physical space dimension but also a narrative description.

Image21 is from Helsinki central library design competition produced by Chloe Blain, the section drawing shows the relationships not only between different height but also relationships between surrounding environments and user activities.

Image22 shows the section of my design, which focus on more to express the relationship of the building and surroundings, and I think about more inside spaces and human perspective through the section drawing.