Monday 18th january 2010
Lecture by Kate Digney;
Whitelaw Turkington
As part of the 'Detail' project we are working on at the moment (The brief is to study a Landscape project which has a particular detail which represents the identity of the overall site, and detail the project, in the classic sense but also in a more creative way. The idea is to make the details more easily readable and interesting) there are a series of lectures organised by the landscape department, by professionals in the field of Landscape Architecture. Several of these have been very interesting and helpful. In partic
ular I found the lecture from Kate Digney (who works as a senior landscape architect for Whitelaw Turkington) very inspiring and interesting. I have studied two projects run by Whitelaw Turkington in previous written assignments, so it was very interesting to hear about the projects from the point of view of someone who potentially had a design input to them. One of these projects was Gillett Square in Dalston, which I studied and critiqued for a written project last year; it was interesting because some of the criticism I had for the project was considered during the design stage but, when it came to the final stages of the project it wasn't included for money reasons (for example).
Another thing I took away from the talk was the idea that initial design intentions and concepts that are held by the architects for a project are sometimes lost in translation. This was picked up on when we were shown the design of the shared space created in Ashford with Elwick Square at the centre of the development. The design of the paving was based on leather templates and patterns laid on top of one another which formed a jagged pattern with different styles of paving in different colours interlocking. This was based on the areas past as a leather works. The paving is very bold and geometric, I think you would either love or hate it, but not necessarily relate the pattern to the past of the area unless you were told.
I especially thought about the way a concept can sometimes be misrepresented or lost in a design when Kate was talking about the concept behind Peninsula Square. (which was another project I have studied, in first year) She said the concept was based on the fissuring of stone and the areas industrial past, when I was looking into the project I read very different ideas as to the concept behind the design. But I think that concepts can be watered down by different inputs along the way.
