Owen Harries Landscape Blog

 Having been developing ideas and concepts for North Place over the past few weeks, I have been exploring different shapes and patterns, as well as looking at precedents. Some of these being how starlings murmurate for example. I was interested in how they move further apart and then back together to looks as if they are dancing and changing in shade and density in the skies.  However I took more inspiration to develop into a design from seeing pick up sticks in a specific layout and pattern, and I thought these could be used to figure out how my circulation and pathway layout is laid out on site. I then developed this rough shape into a design on site with the required buildings and features from the briaf drawn on. I developed this idea at 1:100o @ A3, however I will draw it larger at 1:500 now that I have a close-to-finished design idea. I also took inspiration from a facade of a multi-storey car park I saw near Queen's Square in Bristol and thought I could replicate someth...

 I am interested in making my multi-storey car park at the North Place site not look like too much of an eye-sore. Therefore, I have been exploring different facade options for the building, and ways which could make it more interesting to the eye, and create interesting reflection on water in the space. The first image below is of a facade I spotted while in Queen's Square in Bristol last week, and photographed it as inspiration/a precedent. This sort of pattern could work as a facade and mirrored in a pond of water. This could be enhanced by having LED lighting strips on the lines of the pattern to light it up at night and alter the experience of the space and change the reflection. The second image is of a sketchbook page I created to explore different facade ideas which I could think of and imagine myself. Facade near Queen's Square, Bristol. (O. Harries) Exploring building shapes and facades.

 These are some examples of some concept diagrams and ides sketches I have done in my sketchbook to think about how I will lay out the site, where the primary routes and green spaces on site will be. These are very roughly drawn and sketched, and are rendered to make visualising the ideas easier. My favourite is the sketch view whcih I rendered with watercolour. I believe this helps to visualise the space being a more naturalistic parkland easier. This idea was to make the space more 'green' and wild and to put the buildings in amongst it. The buildings could have been contrastingly clean and modern, or alternatively could have been rustic and using natural materials to fit into the space.

 I recently saw a video of the evening starling murmurations at Aberystwyth Pier in Wales. This made me think, the patterns and dances these birds create in the sky are caused by them flying closer and further apart from eachother and changing their densities in the sky as the fly around. I then thought, what if I replicated this in a planting design or using columns. This could be that tree or column spacing changes from dense to more sparse and back to dense again as you journey through a space. This could be used in my North Place site project to help to fulfil the requirement of biophilia in the brief. I then tried my best to draw this inspiration and idea roughly in my sketchbook, as dots, in radial order, as well as linear, before trying to draw it as trees in plan form.  This is an idea I would like to explore further implemented in my design for North Place, as the feel of the space this could provide could be very impressive and unique. For example if one was to cycle...