Term 2 Review

As I did for the first term, I would like to talk about how this second term has gone in terms of work and also socially.

This term, the work load has certainly increased compared to that of first term. First term it seems that the work was just to ease us into the way of life of university and the work demand. However this term the deadlines have seemed to flow thick and fast, meaning I’ve had to be better with my time-management. I personally have found the work load manageable and haven’t had any sleepless nights; I am truthfully trying to avoid them as much as I can! With the increased work load it has meant that there hasn’t been as many nights out as there were in first term; as much as we haven’t had nights out in our group we try to fit in little meals and trips to the pub when we can.

I would have to admit that my most enjoyable piece of work I have done is the House Extension project. I found it very entertaining just to think that my design could become a real life project and could be there for the foreseeable future. I also loved the design element of the project; even though we had to design our ‘Make and Break’ group project and small amounts of the ‘LifeBox’, it wasn’t the same as this. In this project we had an open design brief, we could look at traditional, modern and advanced technologies to incorporate them into our extension and design an exclusive extension (see my ‘House Extension Review’ blog post to learn more about the project, what I enjoyed and my final

design).

This term, unlike last term, there has been a piece of work which I haven’t enjoyed as much as the rest; the Hand Drawings Portfolio for Design Communications. I believe that there could have been changes made which would have made the work a lot more enjoyable to me and my cohort. The project was a drawing portfolio which seemed to be dragged out, and the work towards the end was not helping in the development of our course; more the Architecture and Interior Designer courses.

I have to admit that these last 12 weeks have flown by and I cannot believe that there are only the 5 weeks left until the end of the year. We have been given our final project titled ‘Pop-Up Kitchen’ which will be similar to the house extension project (working for a real client of a live project). I am looking forward to it very much, but first, a two week Easter back at home.

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House Extension Project

This project quickly followed the LifeBox project (which if you have read my blog about that project I was happily to see go). When we were given to project brief for this I was very excited to say the least; working on a real project with a real client is the way I want to work.

In the first week of the project we were assigned to a team, we were divided up to focus on different tasks, choosing to my strength I decided to do the group CAD work. Another sub group where tasked to do a site survey and within a 2hr visit produce a fully measure survey of the house, which had its problems with the measurements now adding up. After a couple of days of recalculating dimensions with site photographs, the base drawings were complete and the design stage of the project begun. Below are some photographs of the original house.

Side Facade

Front Facade

Back Facade

 As can be seen on the photograph of the back facade, there had already been a single extension done on the back of the property with a conservatory. However both the conservatory and extension had been poorly constructed and therefore my design incorporated the demolition of this previous extension to make way for the new, 2-storey extension. 

Over the next few weeks we built up our portfolio of work which included a series of deadlines. These deadlines, every fortnight, where challenging yet helped pushing you to finish the work off early, which I believe  made the project more and more interesting. The work we had to was nothing which we hadn’t done before, the Construction Tech 1 module we have done throughout the year has been very helpful in completing this work, however I had to find new details for boundary gutter work (to avoid a party wall agreement). Below is a collection of pdf images of my final, 2 storey extension on the read of the property.

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

My 2-storey extension provides a new, open plan kitchen and dining area with an enclosed utility room. I also have added the conversation of the understairs storage into a small powder room (toilet ans sink). Upstairs the extension provides a nice master bedroom, and the split of the original spare room creates an en-suite for the master bedroom and separate bathroom (as shown in the ground and first floor plans).

Side (South-East) Elevation

Back (North East) Elevation

I have to admit that this has been the most enjoyable project I have done in the past two years of university. This is the first project that I’ve done which has real life potential and could be used in the design of the client’s extension (waiting on the result on which design the client has chosen). Also, because the project has been a real one it has made it very interesting and pushed me into doing the best work I could do. No words could describe how happy I would be if my design was chosen by the client! 

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Task 4. Re-Appropriating The Past

In this task, we have been asked to walk around the Lace Market and uncover an Industrial Revolution era factory or commercial building which has been redeveloped and converted into new accommodation, retail, leisure or either a residential building. As I live within the Lace Market, I walk through it every day to get to university of the city centre, and I have already identified an old factory (of the industrial rev era) which has been converted into retail;47 Stoney Street. By using the Planning Portal on the Nottingham City Council website, I would like to explore the work done on the factory and any problems/constraints placed on the conversion. 

Fig 1. Location Plan of 47 Stoney Street (Nottingham City Council, 2004)

Fig 2. Corner of 47 Stoney Street
(Bagnall, 2014) 

 After looking on the Planning Portal on the Nottingham City Council, I found that to this present day, one conversion have been made to 47 Stoney Street with an alteration to a single floor made later on. The conversion was given planning permission in 1996, which allowed the original factory building to be converted into student accommodation. Like most industrial era factories, each floor was an open plan which had to be changed for the proposed conversion; therefore the addition of partitioning walls was approved in each floor to create the individual flats. As well as additional walls, planning approved the addition of dormer windows for the top floor accommodation, the addition of new external doors and finally the incorporation of a patio doors opening out onto a roof terrace (planning application reference 96/01919/LLIS1). In the same year, the conversion of the basement into a restaurant/bar was approved (planning application reference 96/01920/PFUL3).

The client/developer’s main intentions in this conversion were to provide addition accommodation to the public (aimed at students), turning an old and then disused factory building into accommodation with retail (bar/restaurant) below. Between the client/developer’s and the Local Authority there would have been some potential comprises made; for example as the building itself is Grade II listed, the exterior aesthetics could not be altered unless permission was granted (acceptable for new dormer windows). Also the consideration of the bar/restaurant in the basement of the building would have to of been considered, as this would bring a new social group of people to this quiet part of town (sound considerations to be considered).

Fig 3. Access to 47 Stoney Street (Bagnall, 2014)

Fig 4. View of Roof Terrace & Chimney
(Bagnall, 2014)

As previously mentioned 47 Stoney Street has more recently been under alteration work. In 2004 a planning application was submitted to alter the ground floor of the building from accommodation into retail/offices. Within this alteration, it was planned that the partition walls which were incorporated within the original conversion would be knocked down to once again create an open plan floor space. This open plan would be in keeping with the original factory floor design and also would be beneficial for retail/office use. Furthermore this planning application sought the creation of a new external door which would be in the place of an original door which was on the building when it was still a factory and removed during the conversion to accommodation.

Bibliography

Fig 1. Nottingham City Council, 2004.  Location Plan of 47 Stoney Street. Available at: http://publicaccess.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/online-applications/propertySearchResults.do?action=firstPage [Accessed 8th March 2014] 

Fig 2. Shaun Bagnall, 2014. 47 Corner of 47 Stoney Street. Photograph taken from 7^th March 2014.

Fig 3. Shaun Bagnall, 2014. 47 Access to 47 Stoney Street. Photograph taken from 7^th March 2014.

Fig 4. Shaun Bagnall, 2014. View of Roof Terrace and Chimney. Photograph taken from 7^th March 2014.

Nottingham City Council, 2014. 96/01919/LLIS1 (Ref No. . Available at: http://publicaccess.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=9601919LLIS1&documentOrdering.orderBy=description&documentOrdering.orderDirection=ascending [Accessed 8^th March 2014]

Nottingham City Council, 2014. 96/01920/PFUL3 (Ref No). Available at: http://publicaccess.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=9601920PFUL3 [Accessed 8^th March 2014]

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Task 3. Drawing Exercise

All copies seen below can be seen in my A5 sketchbook. The sketchbook includes all other drawings of Nottingham; different building and architectural feature which i have like.

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