Community centre investigation

After this afternoons meeting with Trish and Simon and the physical activity that ensued, I visited the community centres within walking distance of All hallow's Church, spoke to some of the users and staff of these buildings, documented their physical presence within the community and the welcome received from each, these brief encounters proved incredibly insightful. I will disclose the information gathered at the meeting on Monday. Below is a snippet of the information gathered which can be interpreted without any explanation.

All Hallows Church noticeboard

Cardgian Centre noticeboard(s)

I was unable to enter the Burley Lodge Youth Project due to activities within the building, although stopped and spoke to some of the lingering users outside of the building, whilst the Woodsley Road Multicultural Centre was closed for the entirety of today.

Artist meeting and participation

Rear of All Hallow's Church

We had the chance today to visit the site and understand its social, physical and environmental context in more detail.

Approach from the adjacent park Construction of mosque

Social activity outside the buildings boundary Visual restriction of the window guards

Sanctioning of social interaction Some 'typical' locals

After this we met with the resident artists of All Hallow's Church, Trish and Simon, to comprehend the work they have done for the church and to get a more encompassing view of the tensions within the building and their emotional reading of the spaces and the meanings they provide. We were grateful that Trish and Simon allowed us to converse with the participants of their dance group, providing us with an insight into some of their initial impressions and their emotional response to the spaces within the building, many of which commented on the buildings confused spatial meaning and sequencing, giving a sense that they believed the building itself did not initially seem welcoming but after consistent usage the building acquired new meanings through social and physical associations and participation.

Active participation from the group

We then had a discussion about what each sub-group should produce for Mondays internal meeting, focusing on;

1. the consolidation of all previous research
2. each individuals interpretation of the client brief
3. suggestions for project progression

Random acts of kindness?

 

Greening the city

 Recipe ideas

Knitted railings 

All found on Broken City Lab

The Generator Project

Creating an "object" that stimulates debate about culture and creativity, the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council along with the city's 6 key Arts clients sponsored the Generator Project in order to collect communities responses on themes of movement, migration and home. The initail idea included a quirky "shed" with an internal "hive" for ideas and messages to be generated by the public over the summer and recorded on the project's website. (www.dla-media.co.uk/generator)

Culture team: BEAM, Faceless, The Art House, Theatre Royal Wakefield, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth Gallery.

Contributors: Wakefield Council, DLA Design Group, Marshall Building Contractors, Kirklees College.

Security of the building

MaccreanorLavington - Weert

Sarah, Vas and myself were speaking earlier of the possibilities for alterations to the window grills and we were wondering if the grill becomes some form of artistic statement. Built examples of this would be MaccreanorLavingtons project in Weert, Netherlands or it could be something more Parisian and take the form of sculpted ironwork.

Random building and tree base in Paris

Some interesting examples of signage and interventions

Broken City Lab is an interdisciplinary creative research group that tactically disrupts and engages the city, its communities, and its infrastructures to reimagine the potential for action in a collapsing post-industrial city.

Some interesting and provocative signage on the Broken City Lab blog:

There are lots of these signs in Essex County. Most often, they’re used to advertise a local shop or event, but the abundance of them on a range of properties on main roads is interesting

Open Engagement, a conference that asks questions like, “Does socially engaged art have a responsibility to create public good? Can there be transdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art making that would contribute to issues such as urban planning and sustainability?”

All Hallows Church: Flyer suggestion?

All Hallows Church: Flyer suggestion?: "Numerous lost and found posters could be created, so here is a first draft at one...it seems a bit off, suggestive that they have no commun..."

Student opinions of Hyde Park

Some opinions that students have of the Hyde Park area. they seem quite contradictory between the people who live there and those who travel through.

Flyer suggestion?

Numerous lost and found posters could be created, so here is a first draft at one...it seems a bit off, suggestive that they have no community at all and also a map would be better than the address but its a first draft to see what you all think. Comments would be appreciated.

Group meeting

Today we met to consider proposals for passive, active and provocative participation techniques to encourage social engagement and interaction with the building and the existing community networks. The techniques involve considering participation as both an on going process through client meetings and the attending of activities within the community centre to stimulative participation that will highlight the centres presence within the varying communities. These events will take place at various locations within the ward to provide a spectrum of responses from these divergent communities.

As a group we discussed the manifestation of these techniques within the urban realm and decided that they will carried out within three distinct boundaries:

1. inside the premises
2. within the site boundary
3. within the community

this, created a matrix of activities that could happen at each scale and what the purpose of each event would be, either to gain information, to gather information or to highlight the churches presence.

It was then discussed that the group would continue with its current subgrouping of environmental, physical and social to address the issues which the church require resolution on; green issues, storage and community interactions respectively along with each team considering the technical issues involved within their respective category.

Altering perceptions

Stadtlounge St.Gallen

Stadtlounge in St.Gallen was created by Carlos Martinez Architects and artist Pipilotti Rist as a piece of public art within the urban realm, it is a pedestrianised area of the city centre that was designed to represent a lounge within the street environment, thus making people interact differently with the object around them and perceiving their environment in a unique and unaccustomed manner.

Stadtlounge St.Gallen

Networking Diagrams

Diagrams in their most simple form

I've created a series of networking diagrams, attempting to understand how the community centre works and although complicated looking...I hope it is understandable. like mentioned earlier in the meeting the relationship between the community and the facility is cyclical but i would interpret it in a slightly different manner to how it was spoken of. Give me opinions on the diagrams please.

Networking Diagram

Cyclical relationship

Mathematical graphic of cyclical relationship

Also related to this is a power structure diagram, where it seems that all of the power within the organisation doesn't exist within the community / parish boundary therefore they actually have NO INFORMAL COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP. Simple thought process but enlightening all the same.

Power structure of the organisation

Group meeting

A decision was made to travel to the site on Friday and partake of the morning, afternoon and evening activities along with the continuation of the mapping process, concentrating on the local scale along with possibility to undergo a 2-3 day workshop either in the location of the church or along a community node or at several locations within the ward providing different activities to encourage community participation with the building whilst making the community aware of the facilities and functions that All Hallow's Church provides.

Flyer suggestion?

Anyone got an opinion on what our presence in the community and within the building should be? Carolyn had stated that we should consider inviting people from other community centres to any events. I did this very quickly to start a discussion. I also think that we should place photos of ourselves into the community centre so that if we are involved in some of the activities that people recognise us and we have a proactive presence.

Leeds in the news

GuardianLeeds has loads of interesting articles about the city from,  
sites and blogs in Hyde Park, Burley and Woodhouse 
to an independent Leeds Map.

A different take on participation

Public works is an art and architecture practice based in London which was established in 1999. They employ playful methods to involve local users, residents and passers-by in their projects, often making interventions on site in order to inform and expand a given brief.

Mobile Porch
a mobile mini-architecture designed for roaming the public sphere. It is an urban toy used to engage on a one to one level with the users and governing bodies of public sites. The observations and experiences collected during on-site residencies are a valuable source of information in regard to the state and potential of everyday situations and future policies/strategies. Mobile Porch was developed for the North Kensington Amenity Trust to roam its public domain. Everyone was invited to use it, to shape it, to mould it, and to temporarily own it.

Park(ing) Day and Tinwolf

I realise that they sound like a pair of catchy new superheroes but...no!

The Park(ing) Day event is undertaken on a worldwide platform, in the majority of major cities, the participant in the UK is not London but...Leeds.The purpose of the event is to temporarily increase the ratio of provided public space by reclaiming unused, underdeveloped and undesirable functions of the city and re-appropriating them with a desirable green park / space based on the idea of 'guerrilla gardening' of the city.

On a slight tangent from this, I have unearthed an community based organisation called Tinwolf, its ethos is to 're-invent the city through creating community solutions for a sustainable Leeds. It does seem a bit 'radical' (they have their own constitution) which may suit the desires of the church and they have an association with the University of Leeds and seem to attract student and community interest and play an active role in community engagement through the formation of activities and events. More knowledge is required. The blog for this organisation is here.