Site Survey

As part of the Honours Project I am required to conduct a site survey. The information I gather will vary depending on how much I can gain access to. Following the research I had found online about the Paradox Clock Tower I decided to go down to the site and check it out myself.
I couldn't enter the site because it was shut off with a big fence but I managed to get a feel for the place, its surroundings and took some photos of the building exterior and the grounds it sits on.

Site Plan (Click to enlarge)

Parked in Prego carpark next to the Paradox Site. Can see the clocktower in the distance.

Walked up the road running along side the site to get a better look at the building. 

 The building id derelict. Plaster falling off the walls, broken and boarded up windows.

 Branches growing between the brick work and the signage.

The entrance. Boarded up tight so knowone can enter. 

 The building has a quite eery feel to it.

 Can see where the other buildings attatched to it at one point.

 This photo sums up the building for me, spooky, old, dark and intersting.

The Paradox signage that once glowed is now brocken. As you can see by the picture below.

Missing letters R & A from the Paradox sign and the clock window with the letters Vernon Pools on are smashed. 

Weird shape windows, boarded up. Wonkey, reminds me of a sort of haunted house attraction in a fair.

A better view of the entrance door.

Circle windows with this clock style panelling on all four sides of the building.

Ground to one side of the building, grass. A very large site in whole. Train track runs along one side, train service Ormskirk to Liverpool.

Concreted ground to the other side, once was a car park. A very busy road runs along the other side.

Driving past this building, you can't help but stare as you go by. Its a very ugly looking building but I find beauty within because of the top windows, the red rough brick peeking out from behind that plaster, the fact that there are still remains of  joining walls.The style of windows and that its a larger building vertically than horizontally is an interesting feature. Its stood in the middle of this large site that once contained a large building. It used to be filled with so many people, music and entertainment.

I found planning permission had been granted to knock down this graded building and build a Sports Direct facility in its place. I think that the idea is a good one because it will open up job oppurtunities but I would of liked to have seen a design incorporate this clocktower.



Whilst I was photographing and observing the surroundings I didn't really think about what its uses could be, all I thought was that I need to bring this building back into the 21st century with something new exciting and different.

Pop Up!

Starting my design research and inspiration for Future Life I have been looking at bottle art and installations, in the form of sculptures and pop up art. Here are some images that inspired in some shape or form;

Above is what I imagined when I first thought about my design concept. I thought; What would this bottle bank of memories look like? I instantly pictured hundreds of thousands of bottles all standing in a row, bottles above, bottles below; a whole wall filled with bottles.

I like this artist's work. It takes the stacked bottles and tranforms into a shape, allowing movement imbetween these structures.

 Hanging bottles or suspending them in this way gives a dream like feeling to the installation.

I like the machine that carries the bottles through the factory to the packing bay. I like the flow of all these bottles, they way they move in unison, curving like a snake. A kind of metaphor for memories and how they are carried round from person to person. A flow of constant information.

I like the shape of this structure, the form that has been created is portraying a sort of flow of the bottles. Travel.

Another interesting, inspiring structure shape. This could be quite a good structure for my installation if it were on a much larger scale.

 A pop up cinema makes use of a derelict petrol station.

I like the way the architects have used materials sourced from the site and other waste materials to creat this really quirky cinema. Petrol stations across the country have potential for many different uses.

Soundboard

I like how this brings the public in and allows them to become part of the installation, making it interactuve aswell as educational in a way. 

London Subway Art

An underground train station in London was used to display numerous pieces of art. What this photo inspired me in was a site for my installation. Train stations are extremely busy places, lots of human traffic, people coming and going. Lots of links, places they have been, places they are going. No one stops for a long length of time and takes note of all the people going their way or another. A train station could be an ideal place.

Lego

An advertising design for lego. I dont really see the link between lego and this 'cube' other than the Logo and website. But mayby that is the whole point. The cube is bold enough to attract people, they wonder what it is, go to look and see it's Lego.

Va Va Voom!

Va Va Voom!

From the moment I saw this advert for the Renault Clio I fell in love with it, I thought it was quirky, unique and entising. From the music to the 'pop up' installations used. It's inspiring. And it's all to promote a car...
I think what brought me to look up this video on youtube is the faces on the people in the video, they look amazed, happy, bewildered and inspired. The key feelings I want my Future Life installation to inflict on people. I want them to feel the way I felt when i watched this advert, it made my eyes light up and fixate on it. It is one of those things you come across in life that makes you hopeful of something. Truly and amazing piece of advertising art.

Wasted Memories

The concept

Just a little bit I wrote, my initial ideas for the concept of my design;

A day, dedicated to an event based on wasted memories, a celebration. Held in every major city all over the world, the uk cities for example would be; London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast. Mayby a few others. People who choose to take part in this celebration will be asked to take a transparent glass bottle, and fill it with all the things they accumilate over that day. A memory of what they were doing that day. Every person around the world taking part will be on the same say. (The idea is to link everyones memories together to one specific day in history.) The bottles will be anonymous. These bottles will be taken to the nearest city and be used to create an installation, something to show off all these memory bottles. Every country will compete to create the biggest and most spectacular installation. Photos of these installations will be shown off to every country. They will be viewable by the public for a number of days or weeks.

Dipping into Photography

I recently bought a DSLR camera with my 21st birthday money :-) a Sony Alpha A65SLT kit with a 18-55mm lens. Anyone thinking of buying a Digital SLR camera, I really reccomend this model, it is brilliant.
Anyway....
Ive been snapping away, mostly of my little boy :-) he loves the flash of the camera. I'm still learning the basic skills of photography so find the auto setting very useful for now, but, here are some photos I took using the likes of ISO and aperature speed etc.

The beautiful flowers my boyfriend bought me

My beautiful, quirky little sister

The awful english weather

My son @ 5 months old

E-Databases and Stuff

I learnt a very valuable skill today; how to search the university database for journals, magazines, articles etc. I think we should of learnt this in level 1 so that we could make use of the universities resources from day one. However I am also glad I have learnt now as this is going to become very useful for my 'Boogazine'.

I had my Future Life project concept approved today so designs will go ahead based on wasted memories. See my post 'Wasted Memories' for more info on ideas etc. I'm also really looking forward to seeing other people's designs at the end, some ideas sound incredible and interesting.

Also found out I need to scale my CAD Tutorial piece 1:100 instead of 1:300 ( on an A3 sheet) now my drawing will probably end up on an A1 sheet :-/ whats worrying me is that I accidentally deleted my actual CAD file and only have "finished" drawing on a PDF..... so trying to scale this file by 300% is going to be a task.

Wish me luck!

Getting back into AutoCad!

Over the summer I really lost my way with some programs we had learnt last year. So I am recovering my skills in AutoCad and skectup.
Here is my first finished tutorial in copying a cad drawing;

I found an existing cad drawing on the internet.

I imported this into AutoCad and scaled it back up to 1:1 size.
Then i copied over the image, using layers, different line weights and styles.
I then plotted it onto an A3 sheet on a scale 1:300 and opened it in photoshop.
It is in photoshop that rendered the drawing, adding trees, colour and people.

I am really please with my finished image. I think it shows the building off alot more and makes the drawing look more proffesional and interesting.