1,720,981 research outputs found
A Mosaic of Gardens
No full textThe British suburban landscape is a ‘mosaic of gardens’. Britain is a ‘Nation of Gardeners’. Domestic suburban gardens permeate the discourse of UK suburbs, in terms of their origin, development, theory and popular appeal. Each domestic garden is individually crafted by its owners. As owners change, as the life-style of owners change, as gardening fashion changes, the gardens gradually change. The ‘mosaic of gardens’ is continuously transformed reflecting social, cultural and economic shifts in the life of suburban residents.
The paper proposes that an understanding of the impact of individual gardener decisions on this mosaic is crucial in any discussion of land use and sustainability. Domestic gardens are at the heart of new research challenging the long-held view that suburban neighbourhoods are less sustainable than a compact urban form. To increase the potential suburban gardens have to enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, health and well-being, social sustainability and urban agriculture, it is important to understand the crafting of individual gardens and how to manage gardens across spatial scales; important to link the individual vision of millions of gardeners, crafting their garden space, into a vision for the sustainable future of UK suburban neighborhoods
Co-designing Speakers Corner
Get PDF“What might a twenty-first century Speakers’ Corner look like and how should the design process ensure that local people can contribute?”
The paper considers this question through describing a three year collaboration between MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments (MACPfNE) at CSM, and the Speakers’ Corner Trust (SCT). SCT is a charity promoting public debate and active citizenship to revitalise civil society in the UK. It pursues its aims by forming local Committees which ‘own’ and steer the establishment of Speakers’ Corners as platforms for public engagement. MACPfNE is an innovative course that encourages multidisciplinary collaboration and the use of narrative as a tool to develop user focused environments.
Working closely with SCT, MACPfNE staff and students developed a methodology whereby communities co-create their own physical manifestation of Speakers’ Corner to suit needs and environment. The methodology and its theoretical foundation were developed through a series of live projects, including: a generic mobile Speakers’ Corner prototype, tested at the Global Forum for Freedom of Expression in Oslo; the co-design with local school children, followed by implementation of London’s second Speakers’ Corner in a community park in North London; and a pilot project to co-design Speakers’ Corner in every school playground
Making Together: Three Little Tea Rooms, Details and Spaces, Re-constructing Garden
No full textThe article describes and reflects on three 1:1 construction projects, undertaken between 2014-17, each with a cohort of first-year BA (Hons) Interior and Spatial Design students at Chelsea College of Arts (University of the Arts London). Three Little Tea Rooms, Details and Spaces and Re-constructing Garden are part of an ongoing collaboration between the course’s staff and students, architect Takeshi Hayatsu, the College’s workshop technicians, the local community of Millbank (the College’s neighbourhood) and others. All three projects explore the transition between drawing and building; the importance of scale and how diverse materials and different methods of construction influence the quality of the spaces they produce. The briefs offered students, at a very early stage of their professional careers, an opportunity to be involved in ‘live’ construction projects, with tight budgets and timescales, working alongside architects and other professionals. Importantly, all three projects introduced first-year students to collaborative practice. Drawing on student and staff feedback, this paper considers what impact the projects had on the cohort’s social dynamic, on their studio culture and on their growing understanding of the importance of skills for working with a variety of people from a wide range of backgrounds
What is a Window?
Get PDFWhat is a Window? showcased a selection of work by first year BA Interior and Spatial Design students. Asked to choose a London window and explore it through orthographic scale drawings, models, photography and film, they then combined individual windows with their peers to create new spaces. The project culminated in this exhibition, collaboratively designed and curated by the students to present their proposals, ideas and research
A Common Ground to Community House and Garden
No full textA film produced to record A Common Ground to Community House and Garden, a collaboration between students and staff from BA (hons) Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Arts, A Common Ground designers Something and Son, Tate Britain, Millbank Creative Works and Millbank Estate Moat Community Garden.
Students constructed on The Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground a mobile community garden from materials recycled from A Commonground, Tate Britain’s temporary community garden and invited Millbank local to the garden explore, what role could local green spaces play in bringing communities together?.
A Common Ground to Community House and Garden is part of Chelsea Local, an ongoing project by Chelsea College of Arts, Interior and Spatial Design staff and students working with local communities to cultivate the wealth of local resources, history and the creative potential of Millbank
Signs and Realities: developing and exploring critical thinking with maps: towards a critical cartosemiotic pedagogy
Get PDFThe paper presents practice-based action research that develops and explores critical cartosemiotic pedagogy. The research builds on Lackovic's (2020) ‘Inquiry Graphics’, hybrid signs that place graphic data at the centre of learning exploration and inquiry, linking a multimodality approach and a theory of educational semiotics. The research addresses a gap in edusemiotics and higher education scholarship regarding applying maps to critically engage with complex spatial issues among spatial design students; to support students' exploration of space and place concerning identity and climate justice. Students are invited to creatively reinvent mapping an area as a personal composition of various geospheres - their cultural semiosphere, noosphere and natural biosphere. The project builds on the work of the map semiotician Denis Wood to evolve a semiotic framework to decode the position politics of these maps. Wood proposes a theory of map signs grounded in Barthes's two-tiered semiological system, the language and the myth, and presents ten codes to unravel the complex text of maps (Wood, 2010). Wood's codes were used in map elicitation interviews to interpret students' maps. The paper will be presented as an emerging Atlas. This multimodal document will bring together affective maps crafted by student cartographers, their reflections and an evolving cartosemiotic framework to decode the maps
The promise of landscape urbanism, the challenge of suburbia: gardens of cities, houses in garden and a house in a garden
No full textA proposal for a “Landscape Urbanism Framework” for suburban neighbourhoods, with the suburban domestic garden as a key spatial concept and structuring element.
Urbanisation is affecting the world's climate, water and biodiversity. Around 80% of urban dwellers in the UK live in suburban neighbourhoods, private domestic gardens take up around 40% of the land in these neighbourhoods. As such, suburbs and their gardens, are inherently tied into questions of land use and management as they relate to sustainability; however, both have traditionally been ignored or portrayed negatively by UK policy makers, academics and professionals. The reason is deeply rooted in a dualistic world view in which gardens and suburbs are considered liminal spaces. Landscape Urbanism is one of many new fields challenging this world view and emphasising the importance of finding a way to entwine nature and culture to accommodate urban expansion whilst protecting the natural environment.
A review of the historic development of the UK built environment, highlights the importance of gardens in the suburban realm. A review of a growing body of current suburban studies highlights that the garden is key to the ongoing popularity of the suburban form. A review of new research in a range of fields, finds that the garden is central to the challenge of the long held view that suburban neighbourhoods are less sustainable than a compact urban form.
A Landscape Urbanism framework, with the suburban garden as a key spatial concept, is used here to structure this new research and suggest a way that the suburbs could be designed to be more sustainable, giving a new meaning and role to the garden within them. A Landscape Urbanism framework in which nature and culture, pattern and process are considered at three nested scales: the garden and house, houses in gardens and gardens of cities
Space Moves
No full textSpace Moves was an interactive exhibition at Tate Exchange that showcased work produced by 100 second year Interior and Spatial Design students from the University of the Arts London.
Students responded to the annual Tate Exchange theme of Movement, exploring different kinds of movement, from migration of bodies to performance, to mobile structures engaging time, body, and space
Artful Maps: Developing and exploring critical thinking with maps: towards a critical cartosemiotic pedagogy
No full textThe paper presents initial findings from practice-based action research developing and exploring a critical cartosemiotic pedagogy. The research builds on Lackovic’s (2020) Inquiry Graphics, hybrid signs that place graphic data at the centre of learning exploration and inquiry, linking a multimodality approach and a theory of edusemiotics (educational semiotics). The study addresses a gap in edusemiotics and higher education scholarship regarding applying maps in imaginative ways among spatial design students. Maps are used to support their creative and critical exploration and understanding of space and place in relation to identity and sustainability. The study contributes to knowledge in the edusemiotics theory and higher education studies, focusing on developing innovative pedagogies. The paper will be presented as an emerging Atlas, a multimodal document that will bring together affective maps crafted by student cartographers, their reflections and an evolving cartosemiotic framework to decode the maps
Millbank Stories
No full text‘Millbank Stories’ is a collaborative project between Millbank Creative Works (MCW), a Millbank community based social enterprise, and students and staff of Design Research Studio 07 (DRS07), BA(Hons) Interior and Spatial Design (BAISD), Chelsea College of Arts.
‘Millbank Stories’ asked DRS07 students, as local actors, in collaboration with MCW and other local stakeholders, to develop a series of informal initiatives, exploring the role of art and design in place making and building networked, resilient communities. The work developed consists of two phases: collecting (local) stories, initiating dialogues with the spaces and people of Millbank, forming personal connections, talking to those experiencing the area first-hand; and sharing stories, retelling of these local stories to plot narratives of larger global issues through a ‘DRS07 Millbank Storytelling Procession’. The procession was constructed predominantly from locally found and sourced, recycled and up-cycled objects, and traveled around Millbank in November 2015.‘Millbank Stories’, was the first phase of establishing a long-term relationship towards a resilient, creative Millbank. It concluded, in January 2016, in the first joint exhibition between staff and students of the college and the local community, coinciding with Chelsea College of Arts 10 years at Millbank celebrations. For the exhibition, DRS07 exhibited the parade structures and video recordings of the event. MCW showcased artisan collages, from the Westminster Creative Upcycling Arts Collection, which includes work developed by creative local residents with support from Westminster City Council
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