This exhibition was held in the V&A.  It displayed objects such as, Salvador Dali and Edward James: Lobster Telephone, 1938 and Elsa Schiaparelli: ‘Skeleton’ evening dress, 1938. 

This exhibition was a really good opportunity to see a large collection of surreal art.               

http://www.vam.ac.uk/

A group of us went to the event Shifting Sands held in Littlehampton.  This was a series of lectures on the design and changing image of seaside towns looking at the regeneration

The highlight of the event was the talk done by Thomas Heatherwick.  He talked about the design of the East Beach Café which the Heatherwick Studio designed.  The design of the café is to become a popular attraction and a place that could be opened up all year round. 

The café is located on the seafront offering good views of the sea.  The café design moved away from the stereotypical seaside building with shells and buckets painted on the facades.  The shell of the building is a series of undulating vertical slices cut out from steel.  The café also has a decked area on the top of the beach offering a place to eat outside. 

I really liked the design of the building and how it evolved.  I can see the café becoming a popular attraction and a reason to visit Littlehampton.  I also like the choice of the materials of the steel.  It will age and decay within the environment of the seaside location giving its unique character.  I also like the fact that the steel shell was constructed offsite by local welding experts which gives the project a more community based outcome.

Other talks during the day were about the Brighton tower that is to be built.  The tower is to become an attraction to Brighton, very similar to that of the Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth.  The team that designed the London Eye have designed the tower.  It will sit near the seafront in line with the old pier.  I didn’t like this design; it won’t show the character of Brighton and will become a place of little significance to the area as it could be located anywhere in the world. 

Over the course of the day the talks also went over the history of the tourism to the seaside and how the focus has shifted and that British seaside towns are battling against the cheep package holidays abroad to places like Spain.  Overall the day was good.  It was interesting to see the different presentations and views of the how to get people back to spending money in coastal resorts.

Caldecotte Lake was built in 1982 as a balancing lake and is the second largest lake in MK.  The lake forms part of Milton Keynes urban drainage system by controlling flooding through storing the flood water from the River Ouzel as it enters MK. 

The lake has an urban location with housing built on the southern end and therefore receives sewer discharge from the adjacent areas of Walnut Tree and Tilbrook.  The lake has been enclosed by road and rail connections by the A5D, the Bedford to Bletchley railway line, Brickhill Street, and Simpson Road.  There is also a four lane road, the H10 Bletcham Way (A4146), which crosses the lake on a bridge, dividing the northern and southern lakes.     

Due to its location the lake has various uses.  It has a hotel, restaurant and children’s play area, a sailing club, provides opportunities for people to walk, cycle and fish, and it also aims to attract the local wildlife, particularly water fowl.  However, these cannot all mix together so there have been restrictions of boats to some areas of the lake to encourage the wildlife.

There have been plans to construct 109 new homes, a seven-unit hotel and nursery which began in October 2006 and is due to finish in September 2008 but this is a scaled down version of what was previously proposed.  Local residents protested about the plans so the development has had to decrease.  These protests were not based on the damage it would do to the wildlife but instead the loss of green space and the fact that people living by the lake do not want to be over looked by more housing.

www.theparkstrust.com

During the third focus week I began to learn how to draw sections on the computer using the program Illustrator.  Doing this I was able to apply what I had learnt doing the Colchester and Ostend project.

1:100 at A3 Section of proposed sand dunes in Ostend

This was an event that was held in Earls Court which had over 300 companies exhibiting work which were split into the five events of; Cityscape, Ecobuild, Futurebuild, Regenex, Building for health.  There was also the opportunity to go to seminars which were on topics like Security of streets, Designing for Quality Spaces, Creating Urban Diversity, and many more.  The event ran from the 27^th February – 1^st March.

www.cityscapeonline.com

Making places from spaces

This was a conference that a group of us had the opportunity to go to. It had four speakers and started off with the introduction of “What makes a place into a space” and “There is no there, there”.

Lorna Walker from Cabe was the first speaker. She talked about the relationship between people and the built environment. She gave good and bad examples of places in relation to the Built environment, Security, Recreation, Culture, Access, and Mixed community. One of the examples was Peckham Library. This building has now become the educational centre for the community. It has created a pleasant atmosphere for people to learn and interact with others of varying backgrounds and ages.

Peckham Library

I found this talk really interesting and to see examples of why the environment is important to people and how it can affect your health and attitude. One of these examples was Nature Deficit Disorder and how children now are more likely to stay indoors playing computer games instead of going out and climbing a tree.

The second speaker was Jason Prior the vice president of Edaw. He talked about the legacy of Lea Valley after the London Olympics games. Also how regeneration of the area starts now and not in 2013 after the Olympics which has been the mistake of other Olympic host cities in the past, such as Sydney and Athens.

It was really good to hear what will happen after the games with the scaling down, for example, the 40 hectares of paving that will be built for the game’s, three quarters will be removed once the games are over because the area will not be dealing with huge quantity of people. The presentation was really enjoyable and was the most useful compared to the other presentations in seeing good quality images. The work which was shown is what I am interested in and something that I may explore in my year out.

The third speaker was Patricia Brown from Central London Partnership. She spoke about creating cities where people want to be. The final speaker was Professor Robert Bruegmann from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He spoke about the history of Sprawl and its economic, social and environmental affects.

Blue Lagoon LNR is located in Bletchley, south Milton Keynes. It is managed by Milton Keynes Borough Council with help provided with the support from English Nature.  Blue Lagoon is designated as a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) and is the only one in the borough of
Milton Keynes.  Blue Lagoon has also been designated as a Biological Notification Site (BNS) and a Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Site.  The site is 26.3 ha. 

The reserve has shallow ponds, a 60ft deep lagoon, scrubland, grassland and woodland offering a wide range of diverse habitats.  Within these areas are footpaths and boardwalks guiding visitors around the reserve.  The lagoon is also used by a local scuba diving club where they explore lorries that have been put in the lake.

The site of the reserve was previously occupied by brickworks and to the west of the reserve a landfill site has been created.  What is now the lagoon is where the clay pits were and on the landfill site these pits are now being filled in with rubbish.  Bletchley was a good location for these brickworks as it sits on the Oxford clay belt.  There was plenty of business for these brickworks, the first one opened in 1890, saw the development of Milton Keynes and provided the bricks until the Blue Lagoon site closed in 1970.  The final brickworks closed in 1990 which is now where the landfill site is located.

Oostende Park is 37ha and is located on the west side of the city, south of the commercial area.  Since 2000 cars have been banned from going through the park.  Alternatively a link road was constructed which connected the west side to the east side of the city.  Within the park the old road was reduced from 9 metres to 4 metres in width to suit pedestrians instead of cars.  This meant that a further 1.5ha of green space was added to the park. 

There are three areas to the park which have the theme of recreation, formal landscape and ecology.  One of the main features in the park is a suspension bridge which crosses the lake.  It has 4 steel cables bounded in concrete cement and also has 60 columns.  This forms one linear feature leaving the rest of the focus on the park.

What I really liked about the park is the ongoing community project to renovate the old velodrome.  Skaters and cricketers have claimed the space and use it side by side.  The council are now working with these people with the aim of putting an entrance to the velodrome which will also have a sheltered bus stop.  The aimed completion date is 2012 which is to co-inside with Ostend’s bid to become Europe’s Cultural City.   

The park brings a welcome break to the urban activity of Ostend.  The materials and construction have been carried out sympathetically to the space.  The park also forms a mental connection to the natural aspects of the city such as the beach and the sand dunes on the east side. 

The park also had a massive climbing frame which everyone seemed to enjoy!!