21 Feb 2010

Mysterious Shadows


Artist Kumi Yamashita's work explores two truths: things are not always as they seem, & sometimes people need to view things in a different light to discover a new meaning or truth. Simple wall-mounted cut-outs reveal unexpected, life-like shadows.




Yamashita uses simple materials; slim pieces of wood, squares of paper, & aluminium letters & numbers. All of her installations have meaning behind them, for exampe the use of letters & numbers creating a profile to symbolize the thoughts & words that may be going through his head.


2 Feb 2010

Gap Year Work at IronsideFarrar




Courtyard Proposal


Planting Plan

Stobhill Hospital employed IronsideFarrar to redesign the courtyard in the centre of their Adolescent Unit. I was given the job to take the architects rough layout plan & improve the aesthetic qualities of the design. It was necessary to make as direct as possible routes from all entrances to avoid people cutting across the grass. The area was to be used by adolescent patients with various forms of physical & mental illness, so the design had to provide a welcoming & comfortable atmosphere. The design went through several stages of development, & the above image shows the final design plan that was to be constructed. The drawing above was originally an outline plan without colour, drawn by hand, then imported into Photoshop & colour was added.



Douglas brownfield site


Douglas is a small village in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The village had an area of brownfield that previously had derelict buildings on it, IronsideFarrar were commissioned to turn the site into a town car park. My job was to design a simple but efficient car park, fitting as many parking spaces in as possible. The hard surfacing was asphalt with an area of 434.2 metre squared, & the car parking spaces used a Type 1 surface with an area of 212.5 metre squared (17 bays). Surrounding the hard surfacing was a low Beech hedge (Fagus Sylvatica) which was 97.8 linear metres long. Behind the hedge was a simply landscaped area (457 metre squared) which was planted with wildflower seeding. The car park was a simple & effective way to utilise the brownfield site, & provided off road parking for residents & visitors to the village.

Selkirk Riverside Mapping

Dundee City Centre Spatial Analysis

Douglas Heritage Trail

Greenpeace Airplot




As our Semester 2 project we are complying to the Greenpeace brief to create a 'fortress' on the Airplot site. You must design a structure, or landscape, or anything really that will withstand pressure from airport security, police & anyone else that tries to stop Greenpeace from protesting against the expansion, & that allows dozens of protesters to live on site for a series of weeks. I have looked into the defensive systems that occur in nature; from animals nests/habitats to carnivorous plants. Below are some images of natures defenses that gave me inspiration for this project.




1 Feb 2010

'Strange Worlds' by Matthew Albanese







From looking at the photography Matthew Albanese produces you have to think what a lucky guy he is; always being in the right place at the right time. His photos have captured such things as volcanic eruptions, raging tornados, a burning room & many more. But how does he know when he will be able to catch these incredible rare occurances on film???.....


.....He doesn't, all of the photos above are fake. He is not only a photographer but a very detailed model maker. He creates small-scale miniature landscapes, which he calls his 'Strange Worlds', & then he photographs them.