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.

AA

Arnold Reijndorp

The City as Performance

Date: 30.11.2010
Time: 18:00:00

The city as theatre is a well known metapher. In this theatre the residents and visitors of the city are both actors and spectators at the same time. Public space offers a stage, architecture the settings. The performance, city life, is often predictable, but at times unexpected, suprising or shocking. In the last decades we can observe a strong tendency to make public life more predictable. The brief for architecture and urbanism is no longer to stage urban life, but to design the performance of city life itself. On stage 'the public' wants to see themselves, acting as a public, like in a mirror.

Arnold Reijndorp is an independent researcher at the cutting edge of urbanism/architecture and social and cultural developments in the urban field. At the moment he holds the Han Lammers Chair of Social-economic developments of new urban areas at the University of Amsterdam, and is associated with the International New Town Institute in Almere. With Maarten Hajer he published In Search of NewPublic Domain. Recent co-authored publications in Dutch: Atlas of the Western Garden Cities of Amsterdam and Themed Communities: Living in a imaginated place.

Image: De Veste, Mieke Gresnigt 2010

CRIT - stage 2

some pics of this intercrit

Btw, should we create a template where everyone could put their work on it so we could post here?

J

Venice Biennale

Meanwhile, if you want to get to know briefly about Venice Architecture Biennale, and because I haven't post any picture yet AND video worths!.. follows 2 videos showing a sneak peek of the venue!

PART I

PART II

CO-OP COAST overseas!

Hi guys,...well, apparently we may be everywhere :)

(pictures from Venice Biennale will be post soon)

Dover Photographs

Ban on swims across Channel urged by French coastguard

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11664240

Swimmers should be banned from crossing the Channel from Dover to Calais, according to the French coastguard.

Typological studies | For inspiration only!

Landscape Urbanism

Monday 15 November

RA Forum, Royal Academy of Arts, London W1J 0BD

The scale, forms and inevitable indeterminacy of landscape all fit well with the challenges of working in today’s urban environment, and is thus a source of ideas and inspiration for architects. This event looks at this emerging movement, called landscape urbanism, and how it promises to connect nature and culture more deeply than ever before.

Royal Academy; 6.30–8pm; £7/£4 reductions* (includes a drink)

To book call 020 7300 5839 or Click here to book online