studio session - 1st November/ warm up for master planning

I'm having a break from place and culture and thought I'd run up some images from an exercise we did on 01.11.10.

All images courtesy Alick Nee

This relates to the SEQUENCE & RHYTHM compositions we produced prior to the class, but after completing the master planning workshop (see posts a & b) the purpose of this preceding exercise is beginning to crystallise.

In groups of four we shared our sketchbook images and selected our favourite.

We went with Alick's hopscotch diagram- on the basis that it illustrated rhythm especially well:

Next, some brainstorming *sorry* mind mapping concerning the word "rhythm".

Always a good ideas springboard, right?



Taking 5 words from the mind-map (aren't all maps mental?) we then produced a conceptual master plan of a park/ landscape experience...




Conceptually, this was a series of interlinked spaces of oscillating size (creating rhythm) to be experienced in a linear-but-circular fashion (progression- like a spiral or an elliptical narrative)... the path can be repeated in a circular manner different textural experiences were granted via the different planting in each area.

Believe it or not, there was an underlying theme to all of this! The ascent up the hill represented the journey through life (uh... hence death hole..)

As in life, you can just end up going round and around in the same circle without getting anywhere...

...or you can climb up to the very top.

It could also be a comment on the cycle of death and rebirth...

I was nominated to speak on behalf of the group.

In a classic Jamie twist, everyone nominated for this role was asked to only talk about how the words fitted into the design, whilst a second group member (in this case Imogen) was asked to described the design.

We were then tasked with producing a map of our survey site from memory:


Not bad at all, really- mainly due to Imogen, I think. My contribution was a few street names, a railway line that's actually underground and a misaligned north-point: something no-one seemed to notice- I've only realised now. I'm much more familiar with the site than I was a few weeks ago.

Our final task was to apply the key words from the previous exercise to Royal Tunbridge Wells, to redesign the site.

Naturally time constraints meant this was by no means the finished master plan for RTW- reverting the town centre to a series of interlinked, transitional green zones.

The biggest challenge was in attempting to explain our concept to the member of another team- who then had to present on our behalf.

Perhaps the lesson of this is that a good concept must be easy to communicate- and must correspond with the plan...

the map is NOT the territory (or is it)... but the medium is the message...