_Ant Farm

www.ubu.com/film/ant_farm_dirty1.html

_Leaky building duvet

While you are waiting for the bus at the Royal Albert Hall, wrap yourself in some free warm air from our leaky building. [Trials for waste-heated greenhouses, RCA, Thursday afternoon.]

_Context

TRIGGER

Taken out of its context, an image with clipping path of a chair, presented in a design magazine, or a chair, presented in an exhibition, is floating in space.  A chair you can’t sit upon has to be judged by other, often irrelevant criteria that it has a hard time living up to.  Due to a lack of relevant criteria, a piece of furniture placed on a podium is often judged as being a sculpture or even a picture.  But design becomes relevant only when placed in a context, it needs a surrounding.  Furniture in a room is much more complex than furniture on a podium.  Furniture in a context is more interesting than furniture taken out of context.


Uglycute [Stokholm, Sweden], in Social Perspectives on Architecture and Design
Published by the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art

RESPONSE

Taken out of its context, a profession with clipping path of a department, presented in a prospectus, or an design project, presented in an exhibition, is floating in space.  A spatial work you can’t experience has to be judged by other, often irrelevant criteria that it has a hard time living up to.  Due to a lack of relevant criteria, an architectural design project placed in an exhibition is often judged as being a sculpture or even a picture.  But design becomes relevant only when placed in a context, it needs a surrounding.  Architecture in a context is much more complex than architecture on paper.  Architecture in a context is more interesting than architecture taken out of context.

_Emancipation: Letting go

I'm really really interested in the concept – [because it is a concept]

of limitlessness

of being able to claim a freedom to be whatever you wish to be,

or ever feel you are.

I just like opening the windows.

Tilda Swinton

_We made a tent

We stretched a huge tent over the rooftops, and suddenly all the tiles were paving stones, and the chimneys were barbecues, the aerials were our clothes-lines.  The satellite dishes were our picnic baskets.  We paddled in the gutters, and sat astride the ridge tiles.


Image of temporary protection for the roof of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, during restoration works.
Photograph by Chris Wells

_The need to play

I need to play with space.  This week is all about playing; diving in, making, stitching, connecting people, connecting materials and objects.  I've had ideas in my head for so long - they need escape routes.  I've explored and found people and places to collaborate with...

My two inspirations for this week of play are ParaSITE by Michael Rakowitz www.michaelrakowitz.com and Microsituations by Marc Trotereau www.marktrotereau.com.  Look them up, they are such eloquent observations of life, streets and behaviour.

I'm planning on making inflatable greenhouses on the roof of Seven Sisters station.

_Infectious

The urge to reclaim the land is alive and strong in North London.

http://www.muswellhilljournal24.co.uk/content/haringey/muswellhilljournal/newsmhj/story.aspx?brand=hcejonline&category=news&tBrand=mhjonline&tCategory=newshj&itemid=WeED03%20Mar%202010%2013%3A20%3A09%3A790

_Spatial Agency

A resource and database of architecture and design practices, themes, collaborations and movements which seek to ask the underlying questions of how spatial things come into being.

How? The means through which this action or product is achieved.

Where? The site of a groups' action or product.
Why? The motivation behind a group's action.
Spatial Agency is an ongoing research project that aims to shift the of focus of architectural discourse from one that is centred around the design (= building) and making (= technology) of buildings to one where architecture is understood as a situated and embedded praxis conscious of and working with its social, economic and political context.
www.spatialagency.net

_Public Works

We were very happy to have joined up with art and architecture practice public works for our latest project.  The Mobile Porch was a fantastic base for our Garden Workshops and provided a talking point in itself.  See their website for details of their current work.

We are an art and architecture practice working within and towards public space.  All public works projects address the question how the public realm is shaped by its various users and how existing dynamics can inform further proposals. Our focus is the production and extension of a particular public space through participation and collaborations. Projects span across different scales and address the relation between the informal and formal aspects of a site.

Our work produces social, architectural and discursive spaces.  Outputs include socio-spatial and physical structures, public events and publications.  public works is a London based non-for-profit company. Current members are Kathrin Böhm, Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and Polly Brannan who work with an extended network of project related collaborators.


www.publicworksgroup.net

_Hornsey Police Station

Following our Introduction to Permaculture class at Hornsey Library on the 9^th March, with Richard Williams from Transition Crouch End, we have decided to take the next class out to the Plot at Hornsey Police station, to design an edible garden based on permaculture principles.  We have already made a good start - we have lots of potatoes planted, as well as a young cherry tree - we should be able to make a dinner party before long from this neglected pocket park.

http://chati2009.ning.com
http://sarahcopeharingey.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-at-hornsey-police-station.html

_Finding The Plot - Overdue Update

See our updated Flickr page for photographs of the Crouch End and Hornsey Finding the Plot project, which took place throughout March.
Lisa Johansson and myself set up our Mobile Garden Workshop in Crouch End Broadway and Campsbourne Estate to start conversations about new growing plots in Haringey.  Would you turn your front garden into a community allotment?  Would you add your compost into a community biofuel distiller?  Supported by Haringey Council, we had lots of organic seed potatoes to give out, Earlies for new potatoes ready in 8-12 weeks, and Maincrop for summer and autumn harvests.  Ice cream cones were turned into temporary plant pots, and sprinkled with herb seeds to be taken home and planted.

www.flickr.com/justsostudio