FREE UNIT CONTRACT SIGNING

My Free Unit Contract takes the form of a guide book, architecture* value guide, which introduces Caledonian and sets out how I will observe, research, record and analyse value in the form of my ‘Value Essentials: Top 5 Things To Do’

1   Value Mapping

2   Existing value tools

3   Desktop studies

4   Precedent studies

5   Gift project

The value mapping exercises will be overlaid to form an analytical site model that will identify a site or sites that currently lack value, and would therefore most benefit from architectural intervention that adds value.

The contract presentation and signing was attended by Lucy Musgrave and Anne Markey, our tutors, Robert, Katrina and Peter, and the Free Unit Seoul Satellite via Skype.

Lucy considered ‘Adding Value’ to be a topical project in our current context, and encouraged me to include as many interpretations of value as possible or ‘difference’, and that I must ensure this research formulates my values and methodology as a basis for professional practice.

Thankfully - Lucy agreed to sign my contract!

SITE PHOTOS

VALUE PERCEPTIONS II _ Utopia on Trial

The Caledonian Ward contains several post war estates built by the London County Council and later the Greater London Council that follow some of the utopian ideas, which have seen been examined and criticised:  Jane Jacobs was the first to consider what design features made them so unsuccessful and cited the need for a scientific evaluation based on observed facts, rather than aesthetic taste.

In ‘Defensible Space’ Oscar Newman moved towards more quantitative methods of assessing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ design, focusing on crime and vandalism levels.  He identified 3 principles that encourage crime:

Anonymity - related to density and size

Lack of surveillance

Alternative escape routes

Alice Coleman’s ‘Utopia on Trial’ presents the case for design disadvantage increasing the possibility for social malice.  She identifies 16 (quantifiable) design variables which affect design value in high-rise housing (listed in order of relative influence):

Dwellings per entrance

Dwellings per block

Storeys per block

Overhead walkways

Spatial organisation

Vertical routes

Access points

Interconnecting exits

Corridor type

Blocks per site

Storeys per dwelling

Blocks per site

Entrance type

Entrance position

Play areas

Stilts and garages

Do the post-war housing estates in Caledonian devalued by design disadvantage?  The assessment criteria established by Coleman could prove a useful tool in quantifying existing design quality.

VALUE PERCEPTIONS I _ artists

As a way of considering other perceptions of value I looked at the work of several artists who record their experiences of environments similar to those I had initially found 'least valuable' in Caledonian.


George Shaw


Shaw documents forgotten, left-over and in-between spaces, exactly the kind of spaces that encourage loitering and antisocial behaviour, the spaces everyone tries to design out.  But such spaces can have a more positive value - certainly as a child these were exactly the kind of spaces I would hunt out with my friends, not to vandalise and cause trouble, but because we could make them our own and adapt them to create our own little worlds.

Matt Small

A portrait artist, Small looks beyond the facades of estates and sees the lives being lived within them:

“These landscapes are from my journeys around town. I find there is something beautiful about these estates. You can walk through them and think they look horrible, you never see anyone but in each house there is a drama going on, there are thousands of lives being lived, there is a lot more than just the outer walls.”

The next time I walked through the 'least valuable' bits of Caledonian I stopped to sense the lives 'being lived'.  I need to understand the value Caledonian holds for these people beyond the outer walls.

Rosalind Davis

“I seek out buildings that on the surface might seem neglected. But for the individuals who use the them, they are a refuge and are of vital importance. Often, the buildings house communities in areas of widespread social deprivation that may seem hostile or full of pathos. I am interested in transience and survival, community and isolation.”

BRIEF 1 _ A PIECE OF FINITE & ACTIVE RESEARCH

“We would like you to carry out a precise and finite piece of active research relating to your project and to present this.”

We were encouraged to use this research task to explore a weakness in our projects.  I used this opportunity to identify a testing ground for my thesis.

In line with the government policies of localism I have decided to work in my local ward of Caledonian, in the London Borough of Islington.  This also enables me to have a constant and iterative relationship with the site, so I will built up a more thorough understanding of the area and be in a better position to make sensitive and appropriate interventions.

To beginning thinking about the value I conducted a brief mapping of Caledonian, recording my initial, personal interpretation of the value of the built environment, on a scale from 'adding value' (green) to 'devaluing' (red).

The resultant mapping image presents my first impression of Caledonian, and was a useful exercise to begin thinking about the many meanings and understandings of value.  This exercise provides a platform from which to develop more rigorous and diverse mapping investigations in to value.