Network simplification

Any views /objections to these simplified networking diagrams, layout, legibility of diagrams, amount of information etc.?

Itinerary for ARCH exhibition week

Where should we aim for to hand over the work to the PCC? Saturday the 13th, either before 1pm or somewhere between 3 - 6pm?

What do you all think?

Funding document skeleton proposal

Another thing to think about over the weekend is the structure of the document(s) we will produce. I previously suggested two documents for the hand-in:

1. a funding document - including a business plan, context of organisation strategy, a template for individual funding proposals and timeline of suggestive proposals (if possible)
2. a process document - including documentation of working techniques (participation, meetings, discussions with external parties, events, blog etc.), all of the options, their testing, possible avenues of funding for these options and how we produced their business plan

I have produced a skeleton contents list for the funding document and it would be great to get everyones opinion on additions and subtractions of it: (all text in this colour will be completed by the church in relation to what amount of funding they are looking for in relation to sets of proposals we provide)

1. Vision of the church - What funding / time is required to create this vision, why is the church applying for funding
2. Overview of the church - What is the churches ethos - What the church provides the community with, activities, solace, belonging - The relevance of the church within the community and why it is important to retain and expand upon the social uses of the spaces
3. Analysis of the church - The proposed organisational strategy / business plan of the church, their analysis of local community centres and religious institutions, SWOT (strengths weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, PEST (political, economic, social, technological) analysis of the area, the expertise of the church in relation to the prior analysis
4. Funding requirements - Financial breakdown of the company, past funding schemes / grants applied for / received, what the proposed funding / grant would be used for, the proposed outcomes from the funding and a timeline for of the proposal
5. Implementation - How this work would be carried out and how the work would be sustained
6. Conclusion - What outcomes wold be expected from this
7. People / Acknowledgements - An image of the PCC and small descriptions of them and their interests

Everyones opinions on the structure of the document is critical to getting this right, so comments should be made on the proposals please. I will look at the layout of the process document over the weekend if I have time.

Group meeting

Donations? Fixed fees?

Interesting meeting (...at times) in the studio today. A lot was covered, it is now time to generate the work for Mondays revision and amalgamation of the results. Discussion was had on the a series of issues relating to the interconnectivity of each groups work and the a critique session ensued.

Wall

From this, we decided that the storage wall will take a different form on the inside of the church hall to its face upon the corridor, it will provide a series of functions (to be determined from necessity and requirements from the research the community group is doing) and will have different profile throughout the building, encapsulating the entranceway so the occupant enters through the thickened wall. For this to be done it was discussed that an itinerary of existing furniture was required to move forward.

Chapel

Further investigation was required on the chapel with attempts to make the space more flexible, multi-functional, tactile, atmospheric etc. with an understanding of the intentions behind the proposals produced. This could be investigated through the making of a 1:20 model

Site proposals

Investigation in to the ways of ascending the topography (from the back of the church) was required.

A more fluid and less formal landscaping strategy for the back of the church was discussed along with alternative suggestions for the front landscaping (including making the space more temporal, less formal, having an intimate space within the memorial garden and extending the memorial garden)

A window strategy was unresolved for the rear of the church

If you feel something is missing, please edit the post.

Case study for our scheme?

Self perpetuating organisation in Leeds that previously was a church.

Very similar to what we perceive All Hallows to be, in that the church wished to retain its spirtual significance whilst opening its doors, freely to the public to use the building as an artistic and creative resource.

"This project is focused on producing a business plan, with four strands of activity, which can be developed. The business plan reflects the goal to operate without a reliance on grants, but there is an acceptance that grant funding will be required to undertake the necessary alterations to the building to turn it into a viable arts venue...The arts activities have helped to raise the profile of the church in the community and they demonstrate how open and accessible the church venue is for everybody"

Group meeting

Secret passageways

We went through our progress so far with Carolyn today, discussing the intentions behind our each groups proposals, leading to conversations around the longevity of the certain interventions and the possibilities of using the existing skills base of the church to direct viable and achievable interventions. Also suggesting that we become more ambitious in our long term proposals.

Along with this we thought of producing an open ended business plan for the church which would based on the NCVO's Sustainable Sun Needs Analysis Tool. Thus providing the church with a tool to comprehend their sustainability status and also providing them with possible paths of progression and a possible educational resource.

Networking diagram

Just to keep everyone informed, i am making some adjustments to the networking diagrams and including the religious networks onto some of these, initially understanding their individual organisational networks and then overlaying them upon a abstract geographical base. This will then be extended to include those centres who are willing to engage with us on a broad community level. It seems to be going well so far.

Religious and community organisations positioning

Religious and community organisations willingness to engage with the project (so far)

All Hallows Church religious interaction

All Hallows Church community interaction

The intention is to compile these onto a few pages for knowledge of who to engage in the process and also for a future networking proposal.

Walk of friendship

Interfaith and community group solidarity event in Leeds, in which All Hallows participates.

"Saturday 01st May 2010, members of the community from various cultural and religious backgrounds joined together as 'one' for the Walk Of Friendship, to walk through some of the streets of Leeds, with paying visits to spiritual sites and places of worship."

Friendface

Christmas has come early guys...All Hallows are on Friendface. It seems relatively inactive though (one post every month or two) and is used to publicise specific religious and social events, almost separately as there is another friendface group for the live acoustic nights.

It seems like a tool for ex-congregation members to remain in contact with the worshipping community.

Great quote from the group wall :

"Happy memories with my children there we used to cycle to church like a family of ducks in a row"

Group meeting

10 DAYS TO DRAFT DOCUMENT SUBMISSION

28th October

The general outcome of the meeting today was that, all of the work done so far has been useful, but requires categorisation and its importance considered in relation to its position within the final funding document. Therefore, for Thursday each group should have a comprehensive contents list for their specific section and a general understanding of a graphical layout.

For the finding document we need to consider a standard requirement criteria, which seems to encompass recording statistical evidence of engagement; examples of this would be documenting :

• how many people took part in the activity
• the age group of the participants
• the ethnicity of the participants
• the people who passively saw the activity occur
• the people who actively engaged with the activity

The next group meeting with Carolyn will be on Thursday at 2pm where we will present some preliminary images (to confirm a graphical style) and a comprehensive contents list to confirm the necessity of all the information in creating a coherent document for client hand-over.

Funding document graphical style

Binding style

Open bind / string bind - Allowing for adjustments to page layouts of each section. Making the document extendable after the hand over

Document size

I have a personal preference for an A4 Portrait Document. More manageable for the client, business like and friendly to pick up and read than and A4, I feel that the portrait page format is more elegant than landscape page format.

Chapter division / Specialism division

Colourful inlays (rainbow coloured if possible) - These will divide the document into community, site and building interventions

Page layout

Jan Tschichold (just a suggestion, if anyone prefers a different grid system, please mention it) - Simplicity and proportion should enhance the reading of the drawing, there should be a consistency to page layouts with a simple grid layout forming the basis of the design, this grid can be broken to highlight important images / diagrams. The design below is only an indication of how it could be done, I probably would alter the position of the grid slightly, although its a classic document grid

Graphics

Line-drawings - Clean black and white diagrams for the most simple drawings (if applicable, may better to use polychromatic diagrams instead of monochromatic depictions)

Swatch palette

A swatch palette has not been defined yet...although I would suggest that we a colourful and friendly palette based loosely on a rainbow spectrum. I don't think they should be overly saturated or desaturated colours. Tentatively I would suggest the following 7 colours (that should be enough for all the diagrams we will produce) These colours would be combined with a clean line drawing (such as those above)

Example of the palette in a drawing

Hand-over extendability

CD / DVD of document and the programme files

Fonts

Minion Pro (Body text) and Gentium Book (Chapter titles) - Just a suggestion because I think we need to be considering this now. my preference for this document is a serifed font, giving historical connotations to what is produced and also a sense of progressive knowledge (and they're really nice fonts and i have the font families for each)

Minion pro

Gentium book

I'm quite happy to talk to all about their suggestions for the document style as this is quite early and i'm sure everyone wants to create something that is coherent and essentially professional and pretty

Group mavens

Vas - Finance

Tim - Graphics / blog

Sarah - Client contact / funding

Craig - Environmental / matrix

Allessandro - CDM

Design Workshop Day 2

After an eventful and productive first day we began setting up the tasks for further user participation through re-configring the car park. To do this we temporarily placed some of the cafes furniture upon the expansive asphalt drive way. The purpose of this task was to determine the reaction of the worshipping community to the alteration of traditional procedures.

We then participated as a group in the church service, assimilating ourselves into the rituals of the worshipping community. After this, we all had some tea and coffee on the car park and had some interesting conversations with old and young members of All Hallows Church.

Site participation tool, extending the cafe to the car park and engaging the worshipping community

Conclusion = Exhaustion

Some tired campers...bless their wee cotton socks

Design Workshop Day 1

Today saw the commencement of a two day intensive design workshop within All Hallows Church. The was design to focus our understanding of where the project was going and also to imbed us into the cultural and religious positioning of the church through active engagement of the building users and having a presence within the community / site / building

Community participation tool, posting flyers at specific locations

The day started with the community group descending upon three agreed areas of the ward to informally understand the communities knowledge of the whereabouts of All Hallows. This exercise proved interesting through its verbal application, although less successful (over two days) in its informal documentation as the results gathered were sparse and unhelpful, in saying this, it was insightful as it demonstrates that public members are aware of the urban environment although passive about interacting with it, therefore the exercise was beneficial in providing a better community understanding

Design development, focusing the design approach to specific areas for progression

Whilst the community exercise was undertaken the remainder of the group began recording the initial stage of the matrix (all of the current issues of the design). We then discussed this a collective and began distilling the information into areas of potential focus through voicing the clients interest along with our individual interests. This was assembled through asking four key questions :

1. What is of most important to the client?
2. What is of most importance to us?
3. What will be most beneficial for All Hallows?
4. What is the most achievable?

By doing this we then consolidated the information of the matrix into areas of importance based on the question posed, these being :

Question 1 - What is of most important to the client?

• Building users
• Funding
• Ethos
• Storage and the practical use of the space
• Visibility of activity

Question 2 - What is of most importance to us?

• Organisational networking
• Internal / external connectivity
• Signage

Question 3 - What will be most beneficial for All Hallows?

• Visual appearance
• Funding
• A sustainable business model (increasing the buildings activity)
• Internal / external connectivity

Question 4 - What is the most achievable?

• Increasing the buildings activity
• Signage (communication of the activity and visibility of activity)
• Alteration of the cafe area
• Sustainable food sourcing

This was then consolidated into THREE KEY THEMES :

1. New users of the building through social connectivity and networking
2. Communication of the buildings activity (signage, ethos, presence etc.)
3. Connectivity of spaces internally / externally and the practicality of building uses

After this, we assessed strategies for analysing developing these three themes looking at specific design tasks.

The physical team then interacted with the activity groups within All Hallows through asking a series of poignant questions which were to be answered in a jovial way, through writing upon the back of each team member. This proved very successful as the users responded to the participation tool with a sense of conviviality

Physical participation tool, getting the building users opinion

"...and they hopefully gazed upon what made...and it was good..."