The Villa Savoye – Le Corbusier

“Our engineers are healthy and virile, active and useful, balanced and happy in their work, while our architects are disillusioned and unemployed, boastful or peevish. This is because there will soon be nothing more for them to do. We no longer have the money to erect historical souvenirs. At the same time, everyone needs to wash! Our engineers provide for these things and so they will be our builders.”

Corbusier believed that the houses of the future should be clean, ascetic and free of decoration. He believed that true, great architecture should be motivated by the quest for efficiency. The function of a house in Corbusier view was to provide “1. A shelter against heat, cold, rain, thieves and the inquisitive. 2. A receptacle for light and sun. 3. A certain number of cells appropriated to cooking, work and personal life.”

Inside the villa, there are tiles of the floor, naked bulbs, a basin in the middle of the hall and exposed pipe work. There is no ornamental decoration and the visual language takes inspiration from industry.
Modernism believed that the point of a house was to be functional, not to be beautiful. However, this creates a problem because there will always be an aesthetic choice made and modernism has chosen to create buildings that look functional no matter how functional they are in reality.

The Peckham Experiment

INSPIRATIONAL PROJECT

photo from the peckham experiment website

A project that involved, to some degree, using architecture to promote a more positive and healthy well being. Taking people who had not had much access/education to sport or a healthy lifestyle as the subjects.

The building, built in the early 1930′s was one of the first examples of how it was possible to use architecture to stimulate/encourage a more positive sense of well being in it’s users.
The building featured large windows to allow lots of light into big, high-ceilinged rooms, and with many open spaces – encouraging people to interact, without feeling claustrophobic.
These ideas were all with the intention to move away from traditional forms and ideas of what a hospital or health orientated building had tended to be like.

visit the website for the Peckham Experiment:

http://www.thephf.org/

Project proposal for Mile End Lock

I am going to design a Free Running School for use in the evenings and at weekends. It will be for the children that i met. They will be able to practice freely and for them to teach other children, sharing their knowledge and giving them a chance to engage with the wider community. I feel like this will give them a more respected place in society, where their lives will have some value, which they can share with others.
In the building there will, as well as the free running features, be a juice bar and a gym. This will mean that the school can be used during the day (school hours) by other members of the community.

the ‘new’ canal children

While I was spending time at the site, I met three boys who were bunking off school to practice Free Running in the area. It struck me as sad that, while these boys had the chance to get a good education, they had chosen not to use that chance. Compared to those children in the photographs from the canal museum, who, I’m sure would have jumped at the chance to go to school.

After talking to them I began to understand their passion for Free Running. They had taught themselves and it was something that they very much enjoyed and could be proud of. Unfortunately, while the sport is gaining popularity, it is not totally accepted because of reasons such as they (these boys) would, in an effort to explore the urban landscape, sometimes end up on private property or outside it and this had not been popular with the police/residents for obvious reasons.

History – The Canal museum

This is a museum in London, near Kings Cross that I visited several weeks ago.
They have a large collection of everything “canal” and the local area. Maps, showing the development of the canal and the reservoirs, models of many different types of canal barge used on the canal and a life size model of a typical barge that a family would have lived on and worked from. The part which I found most interesting were the photographs of the ‘canal children’. The whole family would live and travel together, and the children would start working from a very young age, missing out on any school education.

Here are some photographs from the exhibition that struck me to be very sad:

images are from the canal museum collection.

visit their site here:
http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/

Frank Gehry ……architect

frank Gehry presentation
follow the link

After a visit to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain I decided to investigate the life of Frank Gehry, sometimes referred to as a de-constructivist architect or “DeCon”
I hope you enjoy the presentation

Building Control

Building control

http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk

The building control service is responsible for ensuring that all building work carried out within the borough complies with building regulations. We deal with the construction of new buildings, change of use, alteration or conversion of existing buildings. This is done by determining applications, after consultation with the fire authority where appropriate, within statutory time limits and inspecting the building work on site.

National building regulations, which are made under the Building Act 1984, are designed to ensure the health, safety and welfare of people in and around buildings by outlining requirements for building design and construction.

In addition, the regulations promote energy efficiency in buildings and contribute to meeting the needs of disabled people.

The building control service also imposes conditions to preserve public safety and amenity in respect of demolition works and provides a 24/7 response to reports of alleged dangerous structures or buildings, acting to remove immediate danger where required.

We can provide expert advice on

building regulations
fire safety
pre-application advice
whether you need building control approval
what additional information you need to give us
what application form(s) you need to fill in
what charges you will need to pay
Before you start building work you or your agent (i.e. architect, builder, surveyor, developer) must notify the council either by submitting a full plans or building notice for building regulations approval.

If you have any doubts about the work you are planning to do you should consult us first.

Types of notifiable building work

construction of new buildings
conversions of existing buildings i.e. loft conversions
extensions
internal alterations
demolitions
roofing
drainage
electrical work
heating
replacement windows
Further information

Communities and Local Government
The Planning portal
Building regulations explanatory booklet (at the Planning portal website)
Local Authority Building Control
Electrical Safety

National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contracting NICEIC
The Part P competent person website
New rules for electrical safety in the home at Communities.gov.uk
Gas safety

Gas Safe
Corgi
Replacement windows

Fensa
Other

National Association of Professional Inspectors & Testers
BSI Product Services
How to contact us

For all general enquiries please telephone the planning & building control hotline: 020 7364 5009

Building Control offices
Mulberry Place (AH)
PO Box 55739
5 Clove Crescent
London
E14 1BY

Fax: 020 7364 5265
Email: buildingcontrol@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Mile End Canal – project site

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Two of us are working on developing a building project on this site
The canal, which was built for industrial purposes – transporting of goods, is now used mainly for the purpose of leisure.

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High Street 2012….. the vision

http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk

High Street 2012

High Street 2012 is an initiative that will use the Games as a catalyst for improvements to the A11/A118 corridor through the centre of Tower Hamlets (taking in Whitechapel High Street, Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road and Bow Road) and on into Stratford in Newham.

The vision for High Street 2012 is to create a world class and thriving ‘High Street’, where there is a balance between pedestrian and road uses, where people and places are connected, where locals, visitors and tourists want to be, and where there is a sense of well being, community and history.

Proposals for the route have been developed in consultation with local communities. They include

street actions – a series of measures for the length of the street, such as better lighting and wayfinding, more trees, and restored historic buildings
area studies – suggesting short, medium and long term improvements to places along the route, including Aldgate, Whitechapel, Mile End and Bow.
Works on the first High Street projects – the new park at Braham Street, and a programme of enhancements to historic buildings in Aldgate, Whitechapel and Mile End – will begin in 2009. Additional projects such as those set out below will be developed further, working closely with local communities.

High Street 2012 is a joint initiative by Tower Hamlets and Newham councils, LDA/Design for London, TfL, English Heritage and the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation.

High Street 2012 – street actions

Decluttering Improving the street’s visual appeal and coherence
Historic building enhancements Restoring and improving the historic fabric of the street and reusing abandoned or partly vacated buildings
Lighting strategy Defining a unified system for lighting the High Street’s carriageways and pavements, historical assets and special spaces
Green thread Introducing new trees and planting, green roofs and walls
Street surfaces and cycleway Improving the material quality of the street and, in the longer term, forming a new ‘cycleway’
Wayfinding Aiding the intuitive use of the street and wider-scale movement
Community projects Keeping the community involved in delivering the High Street 2012 project and celebrating its history and cultures

Duty of care – Workshop at London Met

The workshop consisted mainly of group discussion about our personal ideas about duty of care as architects and individuals towards others and ourselves. To set off the discussion we were asked “what do you care about when you go out of your front door?” My instant response was keys, purse and phone. So my duty of care to myself is to fill needs that allow me to function at a basic level.

From this I thought that my duty of care as an architect would logically be to allow others to fulfill their basic needs so that they can function properly and look after their own higher needs

Maslow's hierachy of needs explains that before higher needs can be attained, the most basic needs must be fulfilled

Then as the discussion progressed I realised that when somebody else leaves their house, their main concern will be very different from mine; from taking a snack or remembering a music player (mood enhancing) to checking their own appearence (ideal self). These very different duties of care show how each of our priorities are different.

The group I was working with felt that the problem with finding a suitable definition for everybody was that it was dificult to apply because it wouldnt be specific enough. Eventually, we decided that the soulution is to create a general guideline which must be made more specific with each seperate individual it is applied to.

We decided that our duty of care is to ‘respect the individual, the group and humanity; we should care about the individual values and needs of those affected by us. Our duty as humans is to respect and to be trustworthy and to help wherever and however it is needed.’