Christmas Holidays and the Productive Distraction

ARCHINECT - School Blog Project

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Walt Disney's Magic Highway, 1958

10 EU Countries Pledge to Create North Sea Renewable Energy Grid

The North Sea is already home to the world’s largest offshore wind farm, but its seems the sea is about to get even greener as ten EU countries have signed a memorandum to develop an international offshore energy grid. The memorandum saw Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom pledge to combine renewable wind energy sources in the sea. The grid, which would become fully operational in 2020, would allow the EU countries to share renewable electricity throughout the continent and the British Isles.

The ten countries have pledged to work together to identify and to overcome the regulatory, legal, market, planning, and technical issues that will come with creating the North Sea grid. At the center of the North Sea Grid is Scotland, whose experience with offshore grids and the award-winning ISLES project (Irish Scottish Links on Energy Study) makes it the ideal country to headline the grid project.

from inhabitat follow link for report

After looking at caravan sites I was intrigued
by the temporality of the sites. Each site has
its differences in terms of size and layout.
The differences in the number of permanent
caravans and temporary caravans also makes
each site unique.

After visiting a site I was also intrigued by the
the way that most caravan owners were keen
to make their caravans different to others by
changing some of the things on it.
This has lead me to want to explore the idea
of plug-in Architecture.

'Toy Town'

Port City

The UK is predominated by seaside.  It produces much of the country's wealth and in one way or another, affects every non-domestic relationship and transaction that takes place on the Islands that make it up...  Those areas which would appear to benefit most from the maritime necessities of such a place are often those most by-passed with regard the commerce of international trade and shipping.  The proximity of people to the coast often has a diametric effect to that which one might expect - coastal towns are frequently left below average for UK income and life-expectancy, especially with the reduction in industrial endeavours in such places.  Conversely, ports and their governing authorities (often in direct impingement of their 'namesakes') can have multi-million pound turnovers and incredibly high commercial value.

 

The below images are an exercise in mapping the energy production that affects the coastal towns in question.

My aims within the context of co-op coast are to investigate and discuss the relationship between ports, their authorities and needs, with those of the towns they are attached to.  Focussing on the 'Channel' ports, the investigation will produce mappings, diagrams and eventually a proposal in built form based on the relationship that is uncovered.

Dover Territorial Analysis

The borders and controllers of territories within dover harbour highlighted a series of boundaries that often resulted in blunt divides. These Divides were investigated through section and with photography to reveal their scale and materiality, can a port ever truly engage with other programmes or the public realm, or are the strict drawn territory lines paramount to its functioning and security?

The main port of dover or fortress of dover was photographed at night in a attempt to reveal its true nature, this being a regulated platform of intense movement.

Folkestone Harbour Regeneration

Inspired by the elegance and continuity of the railway line, where once there was life and movement, vital part in urban infrastructure, the project seeks to find a new place for industrial liaison transforming it into a moment of post-industrial laser.

A sequence of episodic and varied public spaces. Landscapes arranged along a single line but in the same way very consistent. The link between Folkestone town with the seafront, one of the richest region of Kent coast.

The City's Gray Area

Cities are facing an increasing demographic growth. It is a fact.

Prices of plots in the city are far expensive. Several research and stats point out these urban issues. Steps are being taken towards a more coherent urbanized system. Indeed.

Nevertheless city has different rhythms, composing a dynamic set of rising concrete to its decadence, result from that a whole spread over urban corpses.

Ownership, bureaucracy, politic issues, culprits of their abandoned status.

Places that in nothing contribute for the operative system of the city.

In fact, they are in the limbo, between stating a useless function on the city and some eventual reposition of programme, which may take dozens of years to solve and take place.

The Dirty Reality of the urban vacant lands in the coastal towns. The periodic occupation, the social/economic instability, the post-industrial era.

images: ramsgate, dover, catalogue

Inhabitation of Ramsgate 's Coastal Barrier

The purpose of this investigation was to discover how the coastal sea defences of Ramsgate are inhabitied and used in a secondary way to their original purpose of inhibiting coastal erosion. The chosen area to analyse is shown above starting at one end of the sea wall through the port, marina and all the way to other end of sea wall.

Two photogaphic surveys were done. The first on Monday the 8th November, from 14:00 - 16:00 hours. The second on Saturday the 13th November, from 10:00 - 12:00 hours. 46 positions were chosen, each 100 paces apart and can be seen below marked by a camera symbol. Photographs were taken looking both East and West along the line of the sea walls.

Findings suggest a denser inhabitation to the East of Ramsgate. The port and sea wall to the west appear to suffer from a distance from the town centre.

Hannah Wyatt - Surburbia

Health and the Coast

East Kent is home to various sized hospitals that cater for specific services.

The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate was chosen for closer analysis. Over the years it has evolved into an ad-hoc configuration due to new buildings being added over time.

The extracted route of the hospital illustrates the atmospherical and ephemeral moments of this hospital sometimes detached from the outside world.

Margate was home to the Royal Sea-Bathing Infirmary and a reminder of this old hospital is a ward named 'Sea Bathing Ward'. However this ward deals with emergency orthopaedics.

Whilst in Margate it can be said that the old notion of the seaside being beneficial for your health has been lost where there are little traces left of the facilities connected with the health-giving properties of the coast.

Research upon Thanet Earth

A decision to look into Thanet Earth was taken to continue my interest in agriculture and food production. Thanet Earth seems to reflect current attitude towards food production and may prove to be the case study for the future of agriculture.

Thanet Earth is the largest greenhouse complex in the country growing tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. The size it occupies can be compared to nearby village of Minster and 73 football pitches. 33 Thanet Earths could provide the whole country with salad crops.

Since Thanet Earth is not using an actual soil and the crops are suspended above ground, speculations could be made, how this concept could be more space efficient. Sites such as abandoned spaces within cities, brown sites, landscape running alongside motorways, large rooftops, such as warehouses or supermarkets (all of which are currently hardly used for anything) are possibly suitable for such food production process.