This site called Google earth is just absolutley AWSOME, can not believe i had never heard of it up untill the other day. you can zoom in anywhere in the world so well that i can see my own house and back garden, some areas come out a lot clearer than others, mainly city's are the best ones, in some images you can zoom in from outer space right in to individual person, you just type in where you want and it will take you their so long as teh computer recognises it. absolutley fantastic site.worth d.laoding from google. its called google earth, doesnt take long to dload, its completley free (even better) you can print and save them by the way. just look at some of the following photos i have from my house to around the world.

My house is on the right, the large white thing is one of the biggest tesco's in britain.above is swansea bay, lovely beaches in swansea.

Now some images of london to the right below is the london eye.

The eiffel tower------->

Central Park new york <-----

Colluseum in Rome -------->

Golden Bridge

San Francisco

Grand Canyon <-

Ground Zero, New York --->
Hymalayas<-----
Liberty island NewYork------->
Niagra falls
Canada <-------- Olympic Village Barcelona ---->
Mount St Helens <----- Sydney Opera House ------->






Below is the river Nile in Affrica

Jamie sent us a really good site on materials and textures the other day. i think its worth recording it on here. http://www.mayang.com/textures/ some other usefull sites that may be handy are as follows
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Geology-Britain.htm good on geology around Britain
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ good on environment relations e.g floods
http://www.thecarbontrust.co.uk/carbontrust/ good on carbon relations, e.g climate change

This the Ecology Park in Greenwich, it was built as part of Millenium Village scheme, that looks at quality of life and sustainability. theirs so much going on within this area i could babble on for ages. a site definatley worth looking at, it seems as though they've covered every thing that needs to have been covered, this tiny park gives home to bats, native and non native birds, loads of insects. They have also seen some species of dragon fly that have been extinct in london for several years, the whole ecosystem is amazing. what makes it better is the size of the park and the way one habitat co-works with another. they consider season to season, speceies to species, even the levels of water within ponds are crutial. Very good scheme to look at.

An article from Thames Gateway in 'The Times'

Thousands of houses are being built across Thames Gatewayina rea the size of Leeds. the challenfe is to provide gamily houses, starter flats and affordable homes in lively communites within easy reach of facilities, and to build communities that will last.
''We have to ensure that what we do today doe snot depreciate the quality of life for people in the future'' Alan Cherry chairman of countryside properties.
At greenwhich millenium village they are building nearly 3000 new homes including affordable housing for key workers, shared ownership schems and homes for rent. an example of this scheme in action is the Ingress park in Dartford Kent. One of the biggest challenges they face is flooding, the insurance industry say's that several thousand new homes in Barking, Dagenham, Havering and Woolwich will be at risk, homes below the thames barrier will aslo be at risk with tidal flooding. So with this a SFRA (Strategic flood risk assessment) was carried out, that analysed the level of risk and oriduced maps and information on area's of highest risk. Anne Robinson of the thames gateway london partenrship say's that they wouldnt risk vulnerable development such as hospitals on areas that are of greates risk therefore ground floors have been used as car parking spaces rather than living room space. The SFRA looked at extreme flooding when you get a combination of flood sige with high tide and heavy rain, they also say the other ground elvel spaces such as green spaced will be used to help soak up some this water.

Does anyone recognise these??
yeh! you guessed it. it's Hadlow. thought i had finally escaped it. but news Jamie's taking us back their. Only jocking it isn't that bad.

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Amsterdam: Feburary 2005

Amsterdam was one of the study groups we had. was really good and bloody freezing. Above are some images from the sites we visited.

1= Was from one of the structure parks we visited. was not all that interesting and by the least exciting bit of the holiday all though they had nice food here. me and rach also had a good cycle on the bikes we rented out here.

2+3 = Dreisberg Nord was one of the sites was incredibly different but exciting especially for the future when the sites established. This area was foramly a factory in part of Germany's very industrail area. when it was later closed the grounds were turned into a park. and although its still young the area had potential with certain parts catering for children and other for various other entertainment.

5= Is from one of the parks in Amsterdam, it was quite interesting but a bit rushed due to the fact that we had to go home. the park/forest was built within a small housing area. and described a lot about natural sustainability.

6 = this photo is a pic of the centre of Amsterdam. also near where we were staying. i just really like this photo. i think it more scenic with the fact we just had a heavy snowfall and the area looked really crisp and scenic

been working all day today, to finish this bloody sketch design project. tired and raty now. but hey thats no surprise. suppose its my fault by leaving most if it till alst minute.
Had a disaster with making my second model ( the one where we had to use the key words from what we took from the origianal one. ) so i did another one and was much happier with the design.
But will have to wait and see what jamie's reaction is tomorrow.

Design Week

Starting another design sketch studio with jamie last monday, the model's before hand show the start of that. had great fun doing that this week now i have been playing round with Key words, concepts and some early rough sketch ideas. key words i felt from my model were:
Inofrmal
Texture
Levels/Height
Shapes
Dynamic
Dominant
Scale
Baseless
Curves
Slightly Organic
Shadey
Zig Zag
Lines
Cubic
Connected
3d
Asyometric
Interlocking
Depth
Arches
Sections
Linking
Formal in some hidden area's
Voids
Spacial
Spacious
Circular
Factory
Busy
Network

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These are different angle shots of the baseless model we had to create on Monday, the model was based on the following key words:

performation,
scale,
contrast,
3d model,
space,
interlocking and
perspective

This model will be the base idea to start of the last of our sketch studio designs, so better get cracking.