I'll take the blue pill please Morpheus

The group meeting today was to clarify a organisational schedule for the upcoming visit and design workshop within All Hallows. The agenda is as follows;

Saturday

• 8:30am Meet at Sheffield Station
• 10am - 12pm Participation activities (community group) and setting up of events by other groups (site and building)
• 12pm - 1 pm Lunch
• 1pm - 5pm Design development, filling in the matrix (2hour idea documentation + short break + 2hour strategy documentation)
• 5pm - 6pm Dinner
• 6pm - 10pm Design development, developing the possible design strategies from the previous matrix documentation

Sunday

• 10:30am All Hallows Church service
• 12pm - 1pm Conversation, participation, coffee and tea with the worshipping community
• 1pm - ?pm Participation activities, packaging and clear up of resources
• ?pm Train back to Sheffield Station

The meeting also involved discussions on the types participation activities that will be undertaken and whereabouts these will be. Ranging from the wearing of interactive t-shirts to the placement of inquisitive questions within the urban environment.

Resolution was made upon how the project will be guided, through the development of a matrix to provide a focus on certain key issues. This matrix will be a tool to aid the PCC in understanding possible avenues of development as a result of funding and business model choices.

Post client meeting

From the discussion with Carolyn this morning, we considered creating a portfolio of ideas and strategies for the client, providing them with a timeline / matrix of possibilities for organisational development through the alteration / formation of a projective business plan. This document will then form the basis of a visual presentation to be conjoined with the ARCH exhibition on the 12th November.

Client meting 02

Inspirational messages within the creche

The presentation to a critical audience

Today was the groups second chance to meet the client team and present work in progress up to this point, proving to be encouraging, insightful and uneasily docile from the client. Some of the more telling points from the meeting (in no particular order) were;

1. the building is seen as a hub and want people to come here and want to attract people there to use the building
2. All Hallow's Church has tenuous connections with the other local community centres but wish to strengthen relationships with these other community and religious centres
3. we should consider the duality of approaches to the building (front and back facias)
4. wishes to make visible the activity within the building to the outside
5. building should be considered to have a fluidity of movement patterns and overlapping of uses
6. the 'greening' of the building should be considered as a tool of engagement with the community
7. skill sharing of the building and community users should be explored in more depth to help place with building within a community context
8. considering the site boundary as a 'green island'
9. enjoys the play of light within and around the building

Project deliverables and progression were;

1. the production of a strategic funding document to aid grant applications and a future visioning of the organisation, starting small and gradually growing to more extreme propositions
2. exploration of religious networks to All Hallow's Church

There was a general consensus that the problems the church currently faces are much bigger than just the physical maintenance, but also includes social engagement and outreach as the congregation is quite isolated due to their radical viewpoints.

"Leave the religion to us"

Steve - All Hallow's Church 2010

Exploring Signage

Some more collages

productive wall / picnic wall

open air cinema / theatre space

wall as noticeboard / venturi theory of size of sign to visibility of information

productive wall / picnic wall

visual transplant

I'm pretty sure I could keep providing ways of softening the walls oppression for the rest of the night...but I'm going to stop there although it may be useful to suggest these forms of artistic interventions within the landscape to gauge the PCC's reaction to (some) creative and less economical solutions.

Collage of possibilities

planted wall

sports wall (chalk football net / basketball net?)

painted games wall (where's wally)

activity wall / alternative ways of scaling the wall - slides / mountaineering

community mural / inspirational message (active involvement)

Some quick collages for the possibilities of the rear wall of the church. A really quick and dirty graphic style but I think its rather appealing because it portrays a suggestive emotion over a reality and recognises that the ideas are only redolent.

Pre client meeting

Although an edgy meeting with Carolyn today we did awake to the realities of the urgency of work to be done for the client meeting tomorrow. Our focus today is on creating a creating a visual and substantial powerpoint presentation documenting the processes through which our work has been carried out to provide the client with an understanding of how the project will develop and give an understanding of the considered deliverables.We will use the upcoming client meeting to be a fact finding mission whilst presenting a snippet of our work so far.

Impromptu site meeting

Sacred Wing practicing within the main hall

During site and community centre research today I bumped into Steve whilst photographing the front facade and was invited to meet and converse with a choral group (sacred wing) who were practicing for the All Hallows Church Christmas Service. I had a chance to speak with the group prior to practice and some comments from the discussion were;

• none of the choral group were part of the worshipping community
• All Hallows was seen as a community hub where the faith element was down played
• there is not enough natural or artificial lighting to illuminate a musical score
• sunlight through the main window of the hall was used as a gauge for the passing seasons
• most members arrive via car-sharing therefore the car-park is a valuable resource for this activity group
• thought that the administrative areas of the building were cold and unfriendly

http://dalstongarden.site11.com/

Networking Diagrams

Some updated business and social networking diagrams as an elaboration to the previous stakeholder diagrams. The purpose of these diagrams is to provide an understanding of the business and social context of All Hallow's Church. It should be understandable but through the overlaying of information although the information does become dense.

All Hallow's Church business and social networking

Current community centre business and social co-operation

Local community centres business and social networking