Sunday, 30 December 2007

Doris Salcedo Shibboleth, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

Doris Salcedo's work is been displayed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. Her work consist of a long snaking crack across a vast length of the Turbine hall, fracturing the concrete floor of Tate Modern.

The concrete walls of the cracks shown below are ruptured by a steel mesh fence to create a tension between these elements.



My Opinion about this is that its an original, a more real and unique way of sculpturing into a building space rather than just adding a piece of sculpture to it. This has really shown how one can create a sculpture in order to interact with its own space.

Louise Bourgeois @ Tates Modern

This gigantic spider that is been displayed outside Tates Modern is Louise Bourgeois's most famous works. Louise Bourgeois said "this spider sculpture symbolises her mother" because she had the personality of a spider which are deliberate, clever, patient soothing, reasonable, dainty, neat and useful ".

The spider sculpture has a very large scale comparing it to human size. The Picture below shows the aerial view which shows the Tates Boat passing by. I think this is a very picture which captures the activities, the sculpture and the Tate Boat on the Thames.

Its Structure:

The spider sculpture is made up of Bronze Stainless steel;

The Spider sculpture is sheltering a sac full of eggs under her abdomen. The material used for the eggs is Marble. As shown below:

More Photos:



Ground Lights by Waterloo Station

Festive Lights

These festive light was used to decorate around the Royal Festival Hall, London. They are very colourful and are made of up of Hand-made tinted bulbs composed entirely of different colour shades, these shades are made up of recycling bottles.

SouthBank, London

Along Southbank river edge, there was a display of sand sculptures which was done by 2 sculptureres. These shows that the edges of the southbank can be used for something exciting that will attract peoples attenion. This sand sculptures was used to design the river bank landscape. As shown below:




Further down towards London Eye are statues of different people pretending to be statues. They looked like real concrete statue. Examples are shown below:






Landscapes towards Royal Festival Hall, London




Changes in the level along Southbank:

I like the way they have been able to achieve this and it still looks very beautiful and has beautified its surrounding landscapes very well.

Bernie Spain Garden

The Bernie Spain Gardens is an area of green park located between the London Television Centre and the Oxo Tower. The gardens are named after a local resident and campaigner.



The image below shows the type of poor litter bin used in the garden. To i think it doesnt fit into the urban and modern space.


Opposite Bernie spain Garden is some good looking modern architecturual buildings which have a stainless steel coated Chimneies. this buildings have made the Garden to look like an urban modern space. as shown below:


The gardens combine green space with modern functional architecture. One such piece of architecture is the recently installed rest area for cyclists. This ferro-concrete structured was designed by Gerry Judah.



Paddington Basin "Water Love Nest"

Conceptual Diagram of Concept

Below shows the original Plan and section drawing of the new site Paddington Basin....


Model of Original site:




Development of Concept

Incoorprating my idea onto Paddington Basin site, therefore testing and trying to make my inground sitting nesting to adapt to this site.

Firstly, i changed the shape and direction of the existing canal to run across the site. Also making my concept sit in the middle of the canal. As shown below:












NB: Green represents Pedestrain Movement
Blue represents Movement of water around the nest
Further changes to the original shape of the site by trying to soften the edges by making the shape of the canal edge curvy.The Nest sits just in the middle of the site.The Hard straight edges of this nest represents “Her” while addition of trees to soften the nest represnts “Him”But this hasnt be resolved as a nest because the nest needs water for it to be complete for this couples to have a their romans bloom. As shown below:

I decided to bring the nest to the edge of the canal in other to include water in their romanic nest rather than it been in the middle of the site. The same Hard straight edge represents “Her” but i tried to include “Him” by adding a Planting Screen around the edge of the nest and also some trees to soften the hard paving too. From this plan i havent included enough of the soft side therefore “He” has not been brought into the nest yet. As shown below:

Experimenting with Model below:


I was experimenting ways in which i can bring both “Her” + “Him” + “Water” = NEST
i.e combining the Hard Edges with a Soft edge together with water.

The Hard straight Egde Steps is represented by the Cardborad while the “Green” bit represents a “Soft Corrugated Grassed slope” which will be suited between the steps of the Hard Straight edges. Then the “Blue” represents “Water”.

Making this model has enabled me to resolve the question “HARD + SOFT + WATER" = “LOVE NEST” .

The plan below shows the Nest along the edge of the canal with the “Soft Corrugated grass slope between the steps” of the nest as shown in the model above.looking at the plan above, the hard straight steps doesnt seem to fit or stay properly on the Paddington Basin site and also doesn’t suit the canal shape too.

I have explored ways in which the steps can fit and flow with the canal.I decided that the Hard straight edge steps should be parrallel to the existing building structure and also did the same method to re-shape the canal too.
Secondly, i decided to continue the pattern of the steps on the surface of the site in other to create a concrete paving pattern. As shown below:


Final Plan












Fully resolved concept: HARD +SOFT + WATER = NEST. On the plan i continued the soft bit over the paved area by adding onto the suface 1m high “Grass Moulds” across the soft and also the grass still runs along the corrugated slope between the hard edges.

Plan & Section Drawings: