Deer Park Alpha

Well it’s out. Feedback so far has been very positive and Prince Charles has his copy!

The book has been created as a beginners guide, we have endeavoured to write and illustrate it in such a way that even an interested teenager might understand it. Not because it is squarely aimed at that market. But if it is understood by a fourteen-year old then certainly it will be understood by those who are older. Furthermore, there is some hope that we understand what we have written - which is by no means a given when reading books on the subject of architecture and design!

To get your free copy go here.

SEEDA funded the project, there is a bit of information about the project on their website.

The layout of the book was excellently designed by Sifer Design

Deer Park Alpha spent a few hours recently working with Wessex YOT, Aspex Gallery and Tom Wichelow. We helped four young people reimagine the city using drawing and photomontage.

The results are currently on show at Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth until the end of June 08. The image above was produced by Lois who reimagined guildhall Square in Portsmouth.

After years of research Deer Park Alpha have finally released their Cake Saw. You can buy it here.

If you mention you want to cut cake with it when you buy they give you a 10% discount. The Cake Saw has been tried on many cake types, it performs especially well on battenberg and fruit cake. It works well on cream cakes too, but please avoid the temptation to lick the blade clean.

We’d love to see your Cake Saw in action, do send pics to info@deerparkalpha.org

Our new book ‘Where we live: A Guidebook to Urban Design’ will be out very soon. If you live in the South East of England reserve your free copy be sending an email to book@deerparkalpha.org

‘Blank walls proclaim the power of the institution, the inconsequence of the individual, whom they are clearly meant to put down, if not intimidate’ (Whyte W.H. 1988 – City: Rediscovering the Centre).

A street with a continuous blank wall offers no life or experience of what is going on behind it. The street may feel unsafe and gives the passer-by nothing to look at. By contrast, a street with lots of windows and doors opening onto it will encourage street life, feel safe and show the activity within.

Building facades should be designed so that they reach out to the street and offer what is called an ‘active frontage’ onto public space, adding interest and vitality to the public realm.

As windows and doorways indicate human presence, the more windows and doors onto a space the better. Views into buildings provide interest to passers-by, while views out ‘put eyes on the street’ and contribute to safety.

The numbers of doors and entrances generating activity is a good indicator of the potential for street life. There are a number of technical methods of measuring the intensity of ‘active frontage’.

Large buildings that fill an entire city block often have only one entrance. This can deaden a street. On the other hand, many narrow plots within a block provide opportunities for many doors and entrances.

The blank frontage is unacceptable in most cases and should be avoided. A large area of blank frontage on a street breaking the continuous ‘active frontage’ will affect adversely the vitality of the street.

Within some residential developments, garages are dominant at the front of houses. This creates dead frontages. Garages and parking are best placed to the rear, leaving the front able to make visible the front door, porch and windows to main interior spaces overlooking the street.

The image above is of the proposed John Lewis store at Portsmouth’s Northern Quarter development. The image shows one of the main routes into the city. The architect, planner and John Lewis have conspired to kill this street before has even been created. http://www.northernquarter.info/

Giorgio de Chirico depicts cityscapes where random, spatially disconnected elements - arched colonnades and loggias, a clock, a train behind a wall, palm trees, towers - are seen in terrifyingly stark afternoon light, with dead patches of sun and dire shadows. Like the mission church in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (certainly influenced by De Chirico) this repeated, obsessive scene tempts us in; we imagine ourselves walking across that empty space, under that frozen clock. Also the final scene shown above is so de Chirico…the shadowy figure.

This is the view from Deer Park Alpha’s new studio in Portsmouth, UK. We have a fantastic view across the Solent with the Isle of Wight in the distance and the many shipping movements of Portsmouth Harbour. This view was taken today whilst a Royal Navy destroyer was passing.

Our address is 17 Pembroke Road, Portsmouth, PO1 2NT, UK. T: +44 20 3239 8932. Our studio is on the second floor of the Royal Naval Club & Royal Albert Yacht Club or ‘the club’ for short. We have a members bar in the club so if you fancy discussing a project over a drink and good food do call!

Guildhall Square in Portsmouth is a good public space with well proportioned buildings around its permiter. With the exception of major events it lacks life at all times of the day and with the exception of the main entrance the ground floor facade of the civic offices is not an active frontage. Our proposal is relatively small but would make an enormous difference. We suggest coverting two small areas of the ground floor of the civic offices to cafes with glass frontages to the square and external seating. The cafes would be sunny as they are south-west facing and would bring some much needed activity to the upper level of the square.

We also had the idea of some new signage for the civic offices as the current sign is very weak. The idea is that each of the large format letters shown on the sketch is designed and decorated by children (with the help of artists) from the districts or perhaps wards of Portsmouth. Each District/Ward then has a tangible representation within Guildhall Square. Each district/ward could then adopt its letter as its logo.

Take a look at these 360 panoramas of the world trade centre construction site. Really good quality, if you look right down at the ground you can even see the tripod.

Here is the link.

‘when a person looks for a place to sit down outdoors, he rarely chooses to sit exposed in the middle of an open space – he usually looks for a tree to put his back against; a hollow in the ground, a natural cleft which will partly enclose and shelter him’ (Alexander 1977)

The importance of enclosure in urban design becomes obvious when you ask yourself the simple question: Would you rather be enclosed or exposed? The need to protect is a basic human behaviour that probably goes back to our time as cave men. Enclosed places shelter us from the sun, wind and rain.

Enclosure occurs when streets and squares are contained by buildings and to a lesser extent by walls, fences and tress. There are varying degrees of enclosure and it is the variety that makes a place interesting and pleasant.

Stand alone buildings such as large blocks of flats rarely create a sense of enclosure and therefore often fail at making a nice place to live. They are usually positioned in the middle of a site with car parking around, perhaps a playground and other grass or tarmac areas that know one uses or cares about.

To create enclosure smaller buildings should be placed around the edges of the site to create public and private areas between them that are enclosed, sunny and overlooked.

However enclosure should not be confused with a closed space. A closed space is a place of no escape, whereas an enclosed space leads you to the next place along well designed streets and paths. Successful urban design is a series of interlinked enclosed spaces that are easy and safe to find your way around.

Therefore a repetition of the square site with perimeter buildings and a central square creates a network of streets and squares that creates this ideal of interlinked enclosed spaces.

Enclosure is most successful when buildings are organised together to create positive space rather than positioned randomly without respecting one another resulting in areas that are useless, sometimes unsafe and generally unpleasant.

We have been working with the Portsmouth & South East Hants Partnership on a Care Farm facility in Dorset.

What is Green Care?

The idea behind Green Care is to combine farming with teaching and care. The health sector, social services and schools require alternatives to traditional medical treatment, therapy and teaching methods. This is exactly what Green Care does – the program offer a new and different kind of care. The following list gives some concrete examples, but the offers can vary between farms:

Green Care can offer:

· children/young people or young people with behaviour disorder different activities on the farm, adapted teaching methods, holiday, leisure activities, work experience, family-homes, education including theory and practice, kindergarten, etc.

· people with alcohol problems a residence under supervision, work experience, etc.

· people with mental problems a residence under supervision, adapted work, relief, etc.

· mentally handicapped adapted work, leisure activities, relief, etc.

· families/single parents with special needs a residence (where other families who can offer support are living near by), adapted work, activities for the whole family, holiday, relief, etc.

· elderly different kinds of activities, residence under supervision, recuperation, holiday, etc.

· others, like refugees, different kinds of activities.

Green Care has following aims:

· To develop good and varied co-operation projects between the agricultural sector, and the health sector, social services and schools.

· To make use of farmers’ knowledge and the farm as a good place to be, and use these values to improve quality of life for people with special needs.

· To keep more people employed within agriculture, and increase farmers’ income.

We have just returned from a trip to Bologna, a fantastic city in northern Italy. The visit was part of the the EU Grow Relemcom Project.

We were given a tour of the Mercato regeneration project in the northern part of the city, more info on this can be found here.

The Moving Gallery is looking for a new home, anyone want it? Do call us!. Please see the design report for more information.

Deer Park Alpha have had a mention in Portsmouth City Growth Summer 2007 Newsletter. Check out Page 7 of the PDF.

DPA Director Carl Leroy-Smith sits on the City Growth board in Portsmouth, which is leading a process of research, consultation and strategy building with a number of Portsmouth’s 6,500 businesses.

This is a private led approach to economic development, resulting in an evidence base that helps to define where growth is being generated within the local economy. Our strategy will seek to publish those business concerns and issues that hinder growth and the ways in which various stakeholders can address them. As a city we can all foster and support growth, which will then provide local jobs for local people.

Deer Park Alpha’s Health & Safety Consultant, Jon Skipper has just come back from Japan with some amazing pictures of urban chaos. The picture above was taken in Shinjuku a district of Tokyo.

Deer Park Alpha have been commisioned by the Solent Centre for Architecture and SEEDA to write and design an introduction to Urban Design. The book will be aimed at lay people involved in urban regeneration projects in their area. To achieve this the publication will have two sections 1) a narrative based on four study areas which express eight abstract urban design objectives in a simple language and 2) a traditional illustrated dictionary of this simple language.

We are working with graphic designers Sifer Design and are exploring ideas of pop-up elements within the book.

Nearly 100 designers and supporters attended the launch of the Portsmouth Branch of the South Coast Design Forum (SCDF) at The Spinnaker Tower last week. Supported by Portsmouth City Council, the University of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth and South East Hants Partnership the branch has 40 members and meets regularly on the 2nd Thursday of the month at The Kings Tavern, Southsea.

Members and guests were welcomed by Portsmouth Branch chairman, Carl Leroy-Smith who said the purpose of the evening was to reach out to local designers and engage with commissioners of design and local decision makers.

Keynote speaker for the evening Wayne Hemingway founder of fashion chain Red or Dead and chair of SCDF told designers ‘their time had come’. He reminded the audience that Gordon Brown recognised that some time ago: with the creative industries now second only to the service industries in economic value to the UK and truancy levels amongst art & design students the lowest in schools because the subject is ‘interesting’, the moment is there to be seized. In a wide ranging talk drawing on his own experiences in the design world he entertained and inspired everyone and finished by saying that Portsmouth was on an upward curve and it was up to the creatives in the city to ‘make the place fly’.

There was a novel twist to the evening when all guests were given a portable cardboard chair designed and manufactured by University of Portsmouth student James Chu which was featured on Meridian News the previous evening.

SCDF is an independent not for profit regional network for the design community and one of a growing number of similar organisations across the country. It aims to promote good design and be a voice for this increasingly important sector of the economy. Founded just over a year ago it now has over 150 members.

The model is nearly complete. We will post more on the finished product shortly.

Our large scale (1 to 50) model of the Moving Gallery in central Portsmouth is well underway, just the discs to add now. Thanks to Allslade for cutting a 6mm slice of a 406 circular section, and Gifford for working with us on the design.

Deer Park Alpha have been commisioned to design this new theatre café extension

A view of the model we are building to test the composition and size of the discs. The circular frame is 20 metres in diameter and 7 metres high. We have appointed Gifford Engineering to help us.

Seems people want the Pavarotti Collection and international exhibitions cannot get enough if Deer Park Alpha. We have been shortlisted from 5000 entries and are to be exhibited at Macef in Milan from 19 to 22 January. Macef runs every year and is an International Home Show, Macef 2006 had 86,000 visitors. We are going, gonna take a celebrity and some old plates.

This is our recent entry for new ceramic TABLEWARE designs. An international design competition run by DesignBoom.

After producing a number of watercolour paintings of various ceramic designs it occurred to us that the world does not need more ceramic stuff. Charity shops are full of Tableware, some beautiful, some not.

Why design more when plenty already exists?

We can recycle and repackage.

Most things are valuable because of what they represent rather than how beautiful they are: photos of a loved one, memories of a summer romance…

Celebrity Selections brings your life closer to theirs: contact by association lends significance. By attaching significance we are generating desire for an object that was not previously desirable: a sort of emotional recycling.

The collection would be stamped (hallmarked) with the collection name: proof of your connection to the stars.

Hot of the press this is our design for a new bridge in the north of England. A perfectly serviceable bridge exists. Proposals were sort for a new iconic one in the same location with a very tight budget. Total madness we thought, re-use, humnaise and deal with the real issue: the spaces at either end.

The existing bridge gets clad in panels of local hands cast in aluminium . The ends of the bridges get new urban spaces with 12 metre high etched metal hands; waving, marking and anchoring the bridge in its community. The hands will be experiential objects, casting shadows, reflecting light, making music and moving in the wind.

Who knows how we will do against an onslaught of Calatrave-esque Icons that (more than) blow the budget on a new bridge and don’t (or cannot afford to) deal with how it physically and mentally integrates into the community.