More Designs By the GRaphic's team (Kiran + Anu)

Pod Research

Here is some research on the contemplation pods by Alice:

A Matter of Identity

In trying to relate to our manifestos we had to find a way to incorporate the key ideas of curiosity and discovery of the unknown into our proposal. The idea we came upon was to have 3 distinct lines in the street from Bermondsey Station all the way up Keeton’s Road to the college. These 3 lines would would be coloured in relation to the 3 key zones in the social space. This is how the street looks currently:


This is a section of the College as it is:

This is how we envisage the coloured lines leading up to the college:


The lines would create a sense of curiosity as well as act as signage to direct people towards the college. They would end up joining together at the base of a spire that would be visible from the station:


We feel that this provides a more exciting and curiosity inducing way of directing people towards the college as opposed to the single small sign that currently exists:

Filling in the Spaces

Here are some sketches and 3D images illustrating the ideas we've been having about how to split the site into 3 effective zones:

The wall starts off as part of the existing structure but becomes something else the further away it goes. Looking down from the balcony to the Eating Zone






Individual half pods for contemplation, moments of introversion


Stepped seating spaces for larger groups of students in the Action Zone, this is where the noise is, this is where the social happens.


The scheme so far.


A rough collage showing the direction we're going in:


Tomorrow is our meeting with the clients, we hope to once again receive some valuable feedback and direction from them.

More Progress

We've been working away, trying to rationalise our ideas (which we have many of) whilst trying to constantly keep referring to our manifestoes. The manifesto serves as a guide as well as a tight constraint. Our meeting with the clients proved fruitful and once the atmosphere became relaxed and the dialogue started flowing they gave us many helpful pieces of advice, once we got them talking they knew what they wanted and what they didn't want. Zoning was something important that came away from the meeting, different zones.

We decided that there will be 3 main zones within the space, somewhere to eat, somewhere to relax, and somewhere to socialise. It is possible that the clients would create more of their own zones through habitation of the social space. We would encourage this. Some images to describe our intentions:

Existing site:

Proposal:

Progress so Far!

Amongst the frenzy of designing a whole functioning school of Architecture for our university (no pressure) we have been working away at the Sorrell Project. Here's what we've done so far:



As my previous post mentions, the students decided to only focus on the social space they wanted so myself and Farid went along to the college last Wednesday and took more photos, measured out the area and drew up a plan of the site, it took a while but site survey is always important, it helped us decide where we want to locate the social space:


We decided to locate the social space in the central pathway which is directly accessible from the entrance and reception. We felt this was the best place because:

1. Easy access from the entrance, for students and visitors
2. Provides a calm zone away from the learning environments of the college
3. Near to the gym, swimming pool and dance hall, reinforcing the idea of a leisure zone
4. Central location means that students can either choose to settle here or keep on going to get to their lesson, picking up friends on the way who may have been waiting for them.
5. The route is away from classrooms so there is no disruption to lessons.

This is a plan of the existing site:

Here are some initial responses to the proposed social space from our group:

(From Farid)


(From Alice)

Beginning to layout the proposal.

Initial ideas from our Graphics partners.

So we are well on our way now, the excitement is apparent and we are working full steam ahead to take this as far as we can, stay tuned for further updates!

Post by Imran.