Daniel WadmanIDAT 309

Pin Lane: Evoked

Title Page 1 Contents Page 2Image Illustration Page 3Site Page 4 - 5Research Contents Page 6Research Page 8 - 17Project Page 19 - 48Conclusions Page 47Appendices Page 48

Contents

Illustration Reference

Page 6 - Pin Lane logo, facing North, Pin Lane pattern 8 - Cornell Building, Inspired 10 - Las Maninas, perspectives 12 - CJ Lim, Origami 14 - Hyper Space 14 - Hyper Space 16 - Anne Corina Volkel 20 - Old and New 22 - Creating Space 10-Chronograph 11-Negative Space 12-Perspectives 13-Origami 14-Cut out V1 15-Cut out V2 16-Free cut model v1 17-Free cut model v1 18-Laser cut model v2 19-Laser cut model v2 20-Laser cut model v2 21-Laser cut model v2 22-Laser cut model v2 23- 24-Final Blueprint 25-Final Blueprint 26-Final Blueprint

Pin Lane

Unpacking Pin Lane is a project that is based in Pin Lane, a street in the Barbican, Plymouth. The street from the outset does not have much accetic value to it, but when looking closely, much can be revealed.

After the first visit I was struck by the feeling of history in Pin Lane. The cobled lane and victorian stryle street lampwere the biggest factors to this impression. After researching Pin Lane I found some information on a local news paperwebsite. It was an article that resited a conversion that happened between the reporter and local resident.

“Tony Evans, the Pin Lane potter was next door”

This suggests that there was at some point a potter that lived in Pin Lane.

“Obviously were you to wind the clock back another 30 years again the character of the area would have been verydifferent to the one I've just been reminiscing about, and that in turn would have been very different to the Barbicanof a hundred or two hundred years ago; a fact I'm only too well aware of in my four-hundred-year-old New Streetpremises. Nothing stays the same for ever, but what we do have around the Barbican generally are a fine collectionof lovely old buildings that have witnessed all these changes and more, and which somehow manage to hold thewarm glow of the past within them.”

This gave me a real feeling of heritage that Pin Lane must have.

The ambition of my project is too investigate the complex relationship between a physical site and its history by extending perspectives and creating nostalgia.

Research Reference

Researh 1 - Cornell Building, Inspiration 2 - Las Maninas, Inspired ideas of perspecives 3 - C.J Lim - Origami work and shodows 4 - form ULA, Dimentions 5 - anne Carina Volkel, expressing time

Research

In the book exquisit corpse, Michael Sorkin described the Cornell buildingdesigned by Stirling and Wilford as:

The best, most sophisticated most cogentof the American Projects. Stirling and Wilford havebeen stimulated by the programmatic complexity ofthe centre into producing a building of relative comp-lex expression. More, the scenes main event, thatgorge-skimming loggia is a lovely thing, handsome inconception and clearly destined to be handsome inuse. The central body space and sequence of arrival toit is also measured in fine. Indeed, the core of a buildingis its most coherent and graceful interlude.

This quote inspired me and got me thinking about the core of Pin Lane,and how it could be represented. To start with though to find the realcore, I needed to extend out Pin Lane to get a good perspective.

Las Maninas is a famous painting by Diego Velazquez, it waspainted in 1656. It shows how perspetives can be manipulated.It has had a big impact on how I have looked at perspectives within Pin Lane. The same concept that Diego used to paintLas Maninas, I believe I have applied to my Project in PinLane. Only when you see things from a birds eye, zoomedout perspective, will you get the true perspective.

CJ Lim is an experimental architect and director of international development forthe bartlett School Of Architexture. In his recent work “Sky transport for London”Lim has used origami techniques to create his work. What I like about theuse of origami to unpack a space is that origami models are often in a comp-ressed state themselves and the only way to see their blueprints is “unpack” them. Lim has also cut out models in order to make use of shadows.

“As the name implies, the agenda of Form:uLA Dimension Laboratory is to explore dimensionality, to seewhat happens when competing or conflicting modes ofrepresentation—graphic vs. sculptural, erspectival vs.axonometric, digital vs. gestural, Cartesian vs. temporaltry to co-exist. In these collisions of contradictory formsand functions, mechudzu emerges as a mutant but highlyrobust architectural entity.”

These Two images from the Form:uLA blog, really inspired me and got me thinking about how to show the underlying features of Pin Lane. To me, theseimages almost represent an explotion, and the thingsthat you see have exploded from a very small entity.

This image is by a student at the Bartlett school of architexture called Anne Carina Volkel. It was images of the same image but at different times and they were layeredup to create a scene of movement. What I liked about this image was the seemlessnessof it. The ability to which Anne was able to represent time effectively. By creating animage about layering time. I also like the different opacity levels that Anne uses onthe peoples feet in order emphasise them walking.

History could be seen as:

“History proposes to find out how things actually happened” - Leopold De Ranke

I will ‘unpack’ Pin Lane by revealing its hiddenfeatures. The historic view that I express will be purely subjective as there are no real facts about Pin Lane.

I believe unpack is a relevant word to use in my projectbecause when you unpack something you revealsomething that was hidden and so i’m revealing a varietyof ways to look at Pin Lane. The problem is so manypeople just look at the obvious, what I plan to do is lookat the not-so-obvious, the unreleased potential hiddenbehind the exteriour shell.

I will identify different artifacts from the site and articulatethem into a more complex and yet more clear subjectivehistories from my design methodologies.

Project

This image was the result of my initial visit to pin lane. It iscomprised of two images, one I found from the interent that was clearly taken from victorian times and the other was taken by me looking up at Pin Lane. The first image took quite a whileto find due to the very specfific sizes that needed to match.

I have tried to represent the emotion and rawity that I feelwould have existed in Pin Lane. I like how old lady at the frontfitted into the images. I think I was able to capture the essenceof an old victorian street, whilst relating it to the run downfeeling that I got whilst at Pin Lane

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The Second concept I had for Pin Lane was about tryingto find space from where there wasnt any(from a 2d perspective). So this involoved looking atPin Lane from a 3d perspective. I decided to work on the road part to try and find space, but instead of workwith the cobled road i decided to take it out completlyand put in my own form of digital space.

I have tried to add form and structureto the existing space in a seemless manner, not by obviously manipulating or adding anything.

I have tried to create new digital space within the old.The space would purely be practical , as you can see i havemade it to be a road. Of course with the existing road onthe top, it would actually be a tunnel.

What I liked about creating this image was trying toeffectively reinvent and create space from an old space.

My third unpacking reveals time through a linear nature.I have added different parts of the first image I madeabout histroy. I only added what I thought was important.It has been set up so that the time appears to be a naturalprogression by using the shell intervals. It could also beseen as a type of chronograph.

The next image shows what was left after cuttingout the intitial important images. Ironically what was left, I think is just as interesting and shows the negative spacesor voids that have been left. I think the remnants left in thisimage, have formed just a background of an image, because these are no main features left in the image, the image hasbecome just a background scene.

The image to the right was an attempt I made at trying toextend perspectives further. The spiral is the core of theimage. It was inspired by watching various clips from theTron Legacy in which two bike riders were racing and switching between too levels by means of spiral cores.

My Project then took an important turn towards origami. After looking at workby CJ Lim I was inspired to create the image to the right. What I like about it isthe formation of the curves and how the extending of lines exaggerates them.By cutting around my hand, I was able to make it look like my hand was ableto make the origami stand out more. This concept or history and origami wasat the core of my prototype. The extending of lines was an idea that I used inmy previous concept, “extending perspectives”.

After creating the initial origami image, I decided to createmy own physical cut out. I took staggered photos of Pin Lane.Then printed them out and progessively cut out more and moreuntil the front image was a quarter of the original image. Thisfollowed on from my idea negative image idea. It allowed meto really explore the idea of origami and how important it isto really choose what is important in an image in order to allowmore detailed or creative areas to show more.

This idea then continued into another way of trying toshow the important bits within Pin Lane.The back dropis of a laptop display showing Pin Lane in high contrrast.There is then a cut out of Pin Lane in the forefront. both this idea and the last one were evolutions from my chronograph image but in a physical form. What I likedabout these ideas were how new things are formed just by replicating a single item. This is an importingconcept in origami.

After experimenting with these differnt ways of unpackingPin Lane, I decided that the origami work that I investigated most interested me and decided to expandupon my previous work. The images to the right show aspiral that I cut out and cut detail into it and used acylinder lamp in a dark room. What I liked about theses images was how the light was captured through the gapsin the spiral This is my prototype v1.

After cutting out the spiral, I decided to draw blueprints on paper and then cut them out using a craft knife. Whilst designing the blue print I took into consideration how the paperwould be folded and how shadows might be formed. It resultedin prototype v2. This prototpye allowed me to find out how I could best make use of laser cutting and how I could use it effectively. What I found was that laser cutting can not be donein a purely visual way as the plan that is put into the laser cutter willbe seen completley differently when its folded up into the model.

I found that in order to truelly realise the idea I had with laser cuttingI had to continue to trial and error the design.

This is the start of my laser cut prototype v3. It has been made fromdifferent details in Pin Lane and also metaphors of what Pin Lanestands for, fishing. I originally started out cutting out different bitsof detail with a craft knife but it was taking too long, so I thendecided to use laser cutting. This produced a far faster cut time and was far accurate. I was pleased at how I was able to capture the lightcoming through the model, it really emphasised the detail within themodel.

After being pleasantly surrprised by the effectiveness of laser cutting, I decided to change the smaller detail that I used to test the laser cutters accuracy to outlines ofspecific details that I noticed within Pin Lane. The mainoutline being cut into the paper to the right is the oldlamp that is at the centre of Pin Lane. Other detailsinclude clam shell relating to the history of the fishingscene that is prevalent on the barbican, fishing lineand net needle (taken from Pin Lane sign) and fish gills.

The images in the next few slides are the blueprints for thelaser cutting. They fold up to make three very distinct individualmodels. But then come together to make a more complex, single model. The first image is the shell of the model and so isthe largest followed by the middle model of a lantern withinPin Lane, and then the fishing logo which is located on Pin Lanesstreet Sign. I decided to put more detail in the core image torelate to the heart of Pin Lane. The detail is of a fishing line and a netneedle which are the essentials of a fishmans arsenal.

After these initial designs, I decided to further develop the laser cutting blueprints. After Doing so I produced my final laser cut model v4. This is the final version. Itincorporates more related parts of Pin Lane. It includes more details and because it is in three parts it was more difficult to combine them together to form a seemlesssingle model. The lighting and shadows formed were paramount to capturinginteresting and complex images. I was pleased with the final model as I believeit captured the essence of what I was trying to convey.

Conclusion

I believe that the ambition I had for this project was finally realised in a very unexpected but unique way. The evolution of the work involved many ways tounpack but there was always a clear link between pin laneand how it was unpacked, and also relating it back to thehistory. I gained a lot of experience in laser cutting and have really developed as a creative thinker and learned new ways to develop an idea and write my ideas in a fluent and concise manor.

References

Exquisit Corpsehttp://form-ula.blogspot.com/http://innenoderaussen.blogspot.com/Las Maninashttp://origamiblog.com/origami-inspired-architecture/2008/07/03http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Historic-Barbican-changing/article-570088-detail/article.htmlhttp://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Historic-Barbican-changing/article-570088-detail/article.htmlhttp://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Historic-Barbican-changing/ article-570088-detail/article.html