Design diary

  In order to work out the cut and fill these were my calculations to try and figure out wether the mounds were equal to the amount of cut and fill. I have changed the heights of the mounds to try and ensure the soil on the site is redistributed rather than being taken off site 

This week we did a community presentation. This involved talking to the local community about our design and listening to their concerns and suggestions. The majority of concerns were surrounding ensure people from their cars can access the site safely and quickly, especially as the people who will use the site will be a variety of access needs.  There was also some concerns over safety, however from our research we think creating a well designed and open space will cause a decrease in the amount of people who will use the site for illegal activities.

  As part of the St Aidens project I was asked to create a masterplan. I used techniques I have used in the past of layering different textures to create a more realistic masterplan, however on reflecting I may next time try and use procreate or another software to create a more subtle masterplan.

In researching my dissertation I have discovered the idea of colourful crossings. These were intended to represent the LGBT community and show support for them, however, these caused major issues for people with access needs, especially people who are visually impaired. These crossings caused visually impaired people to not be able to cross the roads safely as it was hard for them to identify where it was safe to do so, especially for visually impaired people who had guide dogs. There was then an open letter written to the government by many charities which aimed to get the government to stop painting the crossings and remove the ones currently around the UK as they were a danger to people who had visual impairments. 

 When looking at my Pecha Kucha presentation I was searching for different issues surrounding rewilding and found no mow may. The concept of no-mow may be that gardeners will not mow their grass throughout the month to promote natural biodiversity forming, with no human intervention. Although this sounds great, it came with a lot of backlash, especially surrounding the fact that weeds can start to grow within people's gardens which can then cause nutrients to be removed from native plants.

  As part of one of the projects we are currently doing we are doing a tree survey within Park Campus. This has been really interesting to look at as tree surveying hasn't been something I've really looked at. Within this, I have also been looking at creating target notes which will show different key elements of the site such as what the hedges are made of etc.

 The purpose of these shoes is to enable people who live in more urban environments without gardens to take part in rewilding.  These shoes have a 3D printed outer soul which has small hooks on them, these mimic the natural process of seeds and flowers getting hooked onto things, usually birds, and are spread. Small projects such as these shoes are such a great way for us all to get involved at a local level, especially due to the increased amount of urban environments.

  For St Aidans our brief has been to research the Seven Sacred Spaces. Each space has a different meaning, we need to make a garden based around these 7 spaces. After researching different bible verses there was one which really stood out to me about lilies which effectively said if god can take care of lilies he will take care of you. Therefore I believe within the st aidens design the base of it will be a lily as they have 6-7 petals.