Beckton Gas Works

Urban Design Project at Beckton Gas Works. The design was based upon the large amount of film that was shot on location here in the 80s and 90s - most notably Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket,  1984 film based on Orwell's novel, Bond film For Your Eyes Only, and a couple of notable music videos including The Smiths and Oasis. The result was a series of visual based follies and installations throughout what remains of the site. Below is a selection of images from the final presentation.

Some early drawings

Comparing maps of the site as it was in the 80s (below left) to map of Hue city in Vietnam - the city that Kubrick was trying to represent in FMJ. Surprisingly similar.

 Overlying maps - including military attack maps. There are dozens of these. 

The 'Masterplan'

 Visual Installation 1

 Visual Installation 2 - Room 101

View Finders

Massing Model sections

Massing Model human scale

Pavilion Design: Serpentine Project

Serpentine Design - Landscape Futures

Here are a couple of plans I did for a design of the Serpentine Pavillion. The first is for context (1:500@A1) and second (1:100@A1) is to illustrate massing of the design. More to follow...

Urban Food Production Seminar

Seminar focused on food miles vs local food production. So much space in london for this to happen, just needs a push. 

Sketch Design - Urban Food Production

Sketch Design - Brockwell Park path system

 before

after

barking cross section

quick cross section illustrating barking riverside and an idea of what would occur in the area

process process process

diagrams studying a selection of processes that occur within our site, barking. these would go on to influence the final master plan.

Water Mitty (2013) Trailer

I just love this trailer! A great example of how trailers do not have to give the entire movie away for them to sell a film. Can't wait to see it. 

(double click for full screen)

Beckton Sewage Works process diagram

Would love to turn this into a short 2D animation of some sort...

'Jonah' - short film by Factory Fifteen

Jonah is a short film made by factory 15, a UK based film and animation studio led by directors Jonathan Gale, Paul Nicholls, and Kibwe Tavares. The three of them come from a mixed background of architecture, 3-D visualisation, engineering, and photography. 

The film is centred around two young men who live in a sleepy fishing town and yearn for riches and excitement. They stumble across something that will bring them all of this and more. 

Visually stunning, and with moments of humour and warmth, there are several more serious undertones to this film. Greed, pride, and envy are what really drive this story forward. There are also more modern-day themes: the destruction of nature and habitats, and third world countries being ruined and corrupted by western cultures. The transformation of a green underwater paradise to a sub-aquatic landfill is brilliantly illustrated. The same can be said of the fish itself – fresh and colourful to start but dirty and debris laden by the end.

Themes such as these I believe have such strong connections to landscape they should not be ignored. Sometimes the most beautiful and interesting events and processes are happening all around us, but we are either too lazy, spoilt, or ignorant to really appreciate them. Man is so set on comparing itself to one another that it does not appreciate what is here now. As landscape architects I believe we have the capacity to not only protect these events, but to reveal them as well. 

MAKE SURE YOU WATCH IT IN HD HERE (above youtube version doesn't do it justice):

http://factoryfifteen.com/7936/1433863/home/jonah

Diagramming - some early ones

Design and Concept Development for Site Design II

Some Photoshop Images for Site Design II

First Crit for Portland Place

This image shows visual noise being removed. Mainly conceptual. 

My first plan for the site - feedback was mainly questions - why is the rain garden the shape it is? Why is it the same width throughout? Etc etc. Also cafe area looks like an afterthought, which I completely agree with. 

Sections - I tried mixing hand drawn with photoshop - I'm not sure how I feel about the outcome. As the area shown of the site is actually quite small I need to make sure they are big images when I final print them. 

Birds eye view - this was a complete accident, i just transformed the buildings and the plan using the perspective tool in photoshop when playing around and came out with this - needs more people and the steps need a more 3D feel to them. Also Ginko are IRREGULAR!

Seq sketch - Again Ginko need to be more irregular - but more importantly more thought needs to go into the paving - as it makes up so  much of the scheme it must be more detailed and interesting. I don't really like this image - feels a bit clunky and rushed to me. 

Site Design II - Portland Place

We were tasked to choose a site along the line - I went with Portland Place as I wanted to do something with the traffic - ie get rid of it. Started with site surveys and some quick sketch models:

Context Plan

Site Survey

Sketch Model with car crash detail - the traffic really got to me