Detail design designed; details decided and designated
Its always a bit of challenge to think of interesting names for these posts..and I guess I can’t always win huh!
Just a short update this week.
Well we’ve done it, we’ve completed our design for the balustrade, which means that all the features for the stage 1 development of the bagel factory site have been worked out!
Here’s what we came up with:
Pretty cool huh? The massive poles on the side are ex power power poles and the horizontals are rope donated by the regional council and the zoo (see the samples in the top image).
We still need to get the design approved by the council before everything can be installed..but we’re optimistic :)
At this stage it looks like everything will go in during June. We’re going to need some help with this and with some of the detailing of the features…so watch this space!
Poles and Rope
At our last session we confirmed our decision to use ‘coromandel green’ and ‘provincial blue’ tiles for the stream sculpture. These really are beautiful bold tiles, and should look really amazing against the earthy stones of the stream stone sculpture.
The great thing about these Middle Earth tiles, is that being hand glazed, there is a lovely natural variation in the colours which should help add a ‘livingness’ to our sculpture. We are hoping to have the laying of these tiles take place in workshop setting, so if you are interested in taking part in that- watch this space.
We then got back to task of nutting out the details of the balustrade.
We’ve managed to source some ropes, telephone poles and half round posts (all recycled) and are playing with ideas of how to fix it all together. While we’ll need secure fixings, we’re thinking about using some kind of flax weaving as a feature at each join…something else which might take the form of a workshop.
Before we can make a final decision about the balustrade we need a details drawing, so Hugh got out his pencils and flexi-curve and made a start.
At our next meeting, we’re hoping to have some sample of the rope we will use so we can get a sense of what it will look like.
Putting up barriers
While the Catchment Community crew, and the awesome contractors and other partners we are working with are eager to get started on the hardlandscaping…we have to be patient for a little while longer.
Hugh has helped us to realise that is makes sense to finalise the design of the balustrade first, so that we can get the poles/posts put in before the stream scuplture is built. Otherwise we might risk damaging it.
Luckily we have made some great progress with the balustrade. We are going for a rope and timber based design which will serve as a curved ‘frame’ for beautiful view down to the pool.
Using our growing networks we have managed to source enough heavy duty rope and will likely also get to use some ‘butty’ recycled telephone poles…meaning that our balustrade will be pretty distinctive as well as super strong!
On top of this we have also settled on the tiles we will be using for the stream sculpture. We’ve chosen the New Zealand company ‘middle earth’ http://www.middleearthtiles.co.nz/ as not only do they have beautiful hand glazed tiles, but they also have a string environmental ethic. Our friends at Wellington’s Tile Trends are helping us out with a bit of a discount too…which certainly helps :)
Master Plans and MOUS
A necessary requirement of engaging in a project such as this on Council land is developing a clear Memorandum of Understanding between the Council and the project group.
Friends of Owhiro Stream have an existing agreement with both WCC and GWRC regarding what we can and can’t do on council land (largely for safety reasons), but because Catchment Community is a slightly different kettle of fish, it also require a slightly different agreement.
Luckily for us the WCC seems to like us! So the negotiation of an MOU which has now been completed was a piece of cake :) Part of the requirement was for us to produce a implementation plan of what was to happen and agree to stick to it. Below you can see the basic plan (birds eye view) of the stage one development. You can see the steps, stream sculpture and the position of the balustrade, for which the final design needs to be approved.
And here is Hugh Underhill’s sketches of the stream sculpture:
So now that we have a final plan, it will be one last check over with the rest of FOOS and other interested parties and then the work shall commence!
Carl will be up first with the earth works and step placement, then Living Planet will step in to lay the stone for the stream sculpture. Hugh will then guide the creative group in placing the tiles.
Projecting Management
While the fun part of this project certainly continues….one of the more challenging parts has begun.
Can we afford it?!?!?!?!
The quotes for constructing the steps and developing the stream sculpture have come in, and while they are certainly reasonable (local labour is good!) there will definitely be a little juggling required for us to achieve all that we have planned.
We will be discussing the quotes this week at the meeting and making a final decision. While this is tough, I can already see that it will open us to whole new ideas as we find compromises. As part of the learning process for all the members of the Catchment Community creative group, this is a valuable stage of the project as we all gain more experience in the logistics of turning collective dreams into objective realities!
Its not all dollars and spreadsheets though!
Last week we started brain-jamming on what a balustrade could look like for the site. We started with visions of carvings and climbing frames for Clematis (native paniculata NOT vitalba….for the nervous plant geeks out there). However we had soon moved on to designs reminiscent of rope swings and sailing boats..and returned to previous ideas of using harakeke together with plastic to reflect on culture and colonisation.
I’ll put up the photos as soon as I find my camera…..
Stories told in Stone
As we needed to get back to the site to visualise the size and location of the sculpture, we held our last meeting on a (somewhat drizzly) Saturday. Carlos, Dhyana, Martin and Charles hit the bagel factory with string, spray cans and 20 meters of cloth to ‘mark out’ on the site the path of the stream/awa sculpture and the way it will wind across the topography.
We confirmed our decision that the awa would feature two arms/tributaries, one of which would flow from a pipe at the entrance (shown in blue above) and the second which would trickle out from behind a big boulder and make its way through cracks created in the stone steps (green).
Local Landscaper Hugh Underhill then joined us on site to help us make some decisions about materials. With his help we decided that the bold central element in the stone awa would be composed of bright tiles, likely in ‘ming’ blue and ‘emerald’ green which would make their way down the respective arms of the stream and join together when the arms converge. Hugh is going to prepare a quote for Living Planet to do the concreting, stone and tile work for us…and we will hopefully get a chance to help out on the trowels too!
Then today, Charles caught up with Owhiro Bay legend Carl ‘Carlucci’ Gifford to discuss the placement of the stone steps and earth works that need to happen before the sculpture can be constructed. As a passionate environmentalist, artist and advocate of community empowerment Carl is very happy to be involved in the project and is giving us a good price!
During the meeting Carl discussed his growing concern with the pollution of the stream and the need of people to take action before it is too late. We took a trip down to Carlucci land to look at the troubling state of the water down there and discussed what else we could do to lobby for its protection…. but this is another story.
Carl also took the time to give Charles a geology lesson and showed him his favourite character rocks; Casper the friendly ghost, Moby dick, Shrek the sheep… Carl also shared his excitement at learning that the strange shapes he would see in split boulders were explained by the process of sedimentary rock formation, which could cause older rocks to become encased within the center of younger ones!
Oh the characters you meet on community journeys!
Stream of consciousness, stream of stone
We made clarifying the final form of the ‘making the invisible visible’ stream sculpture a key focus of last weeks session. We have been exploring various ideas on the form, materials and finishes of this element of the site for a while now and it was great to see that while their were some strong individual ideas from the group (thanks Carlos, Dhyana, Thomas and James!) we’ve managed to bring them together into something that we are all happy with.
The idea for this feature is that it draws people’s attention to the fact that underneath where they are standing is a piped stream. We wanted the feature to be a bold striking element but one that was not overwhelming or garish. We wanted to have a natural look but with definite sculptural elements, and we wanted it to have facets on which the wider community could collaborate or add to.
The idea we have settled on includes a flowing 3D stone masonry form that starts in two converging locations (one out of a pipe on the site, the other out of a ‘crack’ in the stone steps) before meandering around the space and ‘flowing’ over the edge of the bank. Within the stone sculpture will be a bold blue concrete strip that will give definition to the piece. There will be hidden little touches that people can discover over time, and areas of the ‘bank’ of the stream that schools and other groups can fill with finishes of their choice to show the diverse community of the stream system.
This weekend we will be getting together on site with paint, large bits of cloth, stakes and string to ‘mark out’ exactly where the feature will go. We will also be getting together with stone mason extraordinaire Carl Gifford ( to clarify how we will construct our steps) and local landscaper Hugh Underhill (to discuss construction details of the sculpture).
Resume and assume (new responsibilities that is)
We had a first get together of the year last week, and while it was a small crew (holidays linger for some!) we had some really good conversation about how to move forward.
A key decision was made to push back the opening celebration (which is gearing up to be pretty darn exciting!) to the spring. This will not only give us more time to develop the site and artwork, but will also mean we have another planting season worth of growth and new flora to enliven our space.
In light of no longer having Paul as a core facilitator of the group (though he has assured us he is always at the end of the phone or wifi router) we discussed ways to shift to more of a collaborative self facilitation model for the group, and Dhyana showed some strong interest in helping us with our art and design process - thanks Dhyana! We see this as being a key milestone for the project as it evolves from being one largely directed/guided by professional facilitators to one in which the group takes responsibility for its own process. Charles will still be there to help keep the group moving, but empowerment and cooperation will be the keynotes of this next phase.
To help with this, and the end of each meeting we we will aim to set the agenda of the following meeting so that everyone can come prepared. We have also agreed to try meeting every fortnight for the next little while, but trying to keep the meetings shorter in duration.
In terms of the project itself, the wheels are in motion for the hard landscaping (track development/grading and the installation of our large steps) and we are currently focusing on the final design of the ‘stream mosaic/sculpture’, for which there are still many interesting ideas.
We then aim to finalise the ballustrade design, and then the planting plan…. before brainstroming some exciting ways to engage people in the future of this project through the interactice opening event.
Its a new year, he tau hou tēnei…full stream ahead!
Every ending is a new beginning
We had our last creative core group meeting for the year last week, but before that Paul and Charles met on site with David Halliday from the WCC to discuss the landscape plan that had been developed in the previous meeting. David was very supportive, discussed implementation ideas and materials with us and offered his assistance with forming the tracks in and out of the space.
Taking these new details with us we got together for our meeting, which was very exciting as we confirmed our implementation timetable for the stage one of the project, but also a little sad as we said our official farewell from the project to Paul.
Paul is moving away from Wellington to be closer to his loved ones and take on an exciting new job. While he will still offer his feedback and support to catchment community, and be there for the opening ceremony of the stage one project his daily involvement has come to end. While it will be challenging for the group to not have so much of Paul’s guidance and creativity, it is also a great opportunity for us to take on some new skills ourselves as the project continues to grow and evolve.
This ‘endings becoming beginnings’ idea was a key theme of our last meeting, as we discussed the idea that the end of each stage of the development of the bagel factory site, should include the engagement process for the next stage. This means that we are continuously creating opportunities for new people/ideas/energy to be involved, whilst ensuring that each new stage works within the context of the project as a whole and does not lose momentum. We discussed this as if it were a rope, in which each stage of the project has its own identity, but is woven into both the previous stage, and the stage to come.
For the current project, this means that we have decided to hold off on installing the seats and pole/pou initially so that we can encourage a new group of people to help us design and place them. We are planning using the opening ceremony, which will also celebrate the ending of stage 1 to begin this process.
As such the implementation plan for stage one is as follows:
Late Jan
•Earthworks - creation of a smooth path in and out of the site and a leveling of the the ground surface
•Steps - creation (with Carl Gifford www.carlucciland.co.nz) of large stone steps at the base of the entrance path which will also serve as seating
•Track surfacing - ‘clay overburdan’ mix to protect tracks and aid with drainage
•Ballustrade construction- poles to be provided by WCC, horizontals to be designed by Catchment Community group with help of Living Planet Landscapes
February
•Stream feature sculpture creation - detail design still to come
•Ground surface treatment - ‘shell/gravel’ mix to aid with drainage and prevent muddiness in the winter.
•Entrance way - install entrance feature (still to be designed)
Stage 2 – date t.b.c – further design required
• Pole design
• Seating
• Planting to highlight contours of open space and tracks
We still have some detail to add to our design, but it is great to see how all the hard landscaping is going to come together. We are still clarifying the design of the stream sculpture and are moving towards a design in which the main feature is created with boxing and infilled with different treatments by different groups over time.
In the new year we will get back together to clarify this design, work on the design for the entrance way, plan the opening ceremony/ beginning of stage 2 and work out how we will survive without Paul!
Before we can officially begin any of this work we need to sign off our landowner MOU with the WCC (which is a formality serving to ensure we keep ourselves safe on site and protect the resource of that piece of whenua). The get this MOU we need to provide the council with a simple site map and implementation plan of each stage of the project before we commence physical work, and commit to carrying out the plan as agreed and following health and safety requirements.
This will not be too complicated, and the wheels are in motion as Amber Bill from the Council is supportive of what we are doing and the way we are doing it. With a project like this, which is trying to engage the community and set up an ongoing design process (that is responsive to the ongoing evolution of the landscape) plans are bound to change along the way which can present challenges to standard Council processes. However as there are great officers working in the council, and our group is committed to open and honest communication, it seems like we are all pretty excited about the journey.
See you next year!
What we want….
At this week’s creative session we brought together the great site maps James had prepared for us, the ideas and refined concepts we have been working on over the last few months and the greater knowledge we now have as a group about what materials we have available to us.
Before we ‘got back to the drawing board’ we met on site at the bagel factory, with our scale maps to pace out where things would go on the site and what earthworks and other large scale physical landscaping might need to happen.
We were lucky to have landscape architect Thomas join us to offer his feedback and ideas to our planning.
We made some decisions about the order of implementation of different features and decided that the earth works and access would happen first (obviously!) but that we would hold off on the installation of any seating until people had started to use the site more, a decision which works well with our idea of a response interactive design process.
Thomas suggested that we may want to consider using heavy stone steps in the site rather than the earth sloped path we had been working with- an idea which we all took to quickly and worked in well with the stream bed sculpture/installation which is to be central to the site.
We then returned to the Brooklyn Community Center with our giant maps and began to talk about specific materials for the different features.
There was a lot of excitement and energy in the room as we could all see our plans becoming more and more real. By the end of the session we had made the following progress:
• The stream bed sculpture would flow out of an old pipe and be formed from a rock bed, featuring cast metal and mosaic detailing that could be developed over time by different groups.
• We need to have some kind of ‘encounter device’ to introduce people to the site. Paul suggested we use the pipe itself to create a miniature rise that people cross over as they enter the space.
• We decided to hold off on including the pole/pou into the site at this stage, as the design of this would be something that local schools and community groups could be included in as yet another way to engage people with this ongoing project.
• We will confirm with WCC about whether we need a balustrade around the stream and if we do we will construct a very simple one and plant in front of it to make it invisible over time. Our ideas of a ‘balustrade sculpture’ can then be included at a later date and can be design as a stand alone feature rather than having to also having to meet the specifications of a safety barrier.
Exciting….
