A beautiful reference I found today : KYOHEI SAKAGUCHI.
http://www.0yenhouse.com/en/index.html

Houses, the whole society built out of found materials. Looking simple at first, at a closer look makes this beautiful and a very personal space to live in.

what an amazing site i found! although its just a little glimpse, but what a space it used to be there!!!
http://www.pitchford.com/cardboard.html
I think I'm getting obsessed to find out more how everything looked like in there, how they lived.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shiXCC9CaP4

Video found on youtube to hear real people's voices living on the street.

http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke/blog/9055/southbank_blue_paint_mystery.html

Eurydice

Sue Hubbard

This poem was written for the Waterloo underpass leading to the IMAX cinema in London. You can read about her public works for more information; also see her home page.

---

I am not afraid as I descend,
step by step, leaving behind the salt wind
blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Second fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light.

http://downlode.org/Etext/lostcity.html

http://paulyrichard.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/239/

Photographer's blog on homeless people. Learned some interesting facts about them and some of them even made me realise that they're living not so bad after all.

Talking with real people

http://vimeo.com/16183435 - listen to video here.

So disappointed that sound quality is so poor and she didn’t want to film her… Basically I interviewed a homeless woman. Not sure if record is too distracting to listen to it properly, but I’ll write what I found out. I met this woman next to St John’s church in Waterloo. She was sitting on a ground with a blanket on and had a dog besides her. She stays there in a day time and sleeps by the Waterloo bridge tunnel in a night time. Her name is Louise, 32. Didn’t get along with mum well so run away from home being a teenager. As I mentioned about Waterloo bullring as it used to be called, she said she used to live there. (I felt very excited about that, as I knew it will be so useful to me. Later on I shown few pictures from my research- she knew half of the people and even found her sister and uncle). So she lived there till the end- later they all tried to keep it open but they still had to leave. They tried to send them hostels but they didn’t want to- I asked didn’t you like in there- she said that its aright, but you have to be back at certain times and they don’t allow the dogs.
While they were living at Waterloo tunnel, they all had their own little personal spaces and dogs to keep a company, although there was many people being beaten up.
I shown pictures to her of my research. She said she missed it and they all been like one big family. Most of the people she knew is dead now and some of them is in hospitals/hostels.
-he’s dead now…she’s dead now…
Most of her family is in Ireland, while she’s on the streets for 15 years. Got two chidren, one of them is 17 years old. Keeps in contact with them but refuses to meet as she’s too embarrassed for them to see her is such a state.

Dead now.

Dead now.

Girl in the middle- Louise's sister, guy at the end on the right hand side with hat- her uncle.

Oh, also I asked the guy at Pimlico station, who looked familiar in photos to me. He said it's not him, but suggested to go to Big Issue office just over the vauxhall bridge, there will be more people who knows better. I'll know where to go next time!

Cardboard City

So as I was interested in Imax pedestrian underpass, also before that called Waterloo bullring, I discovered, that before Imax has been built (1998) the place belonged to homeless people and been so called Cardboard city. It was home for up to 200 homeless people for more than 15 years. It was symbol of society's failure to eradicate homelessness. I found some pictures of the place and accidentally saw the familiar guy who sells big isue just next to Pimlico station, guy who I pass everyday around 4pm. It made me think, how he lives, how he survives, how bad was it that he had to end up being on the streets... So I have an idea of interviewing him and all homeless around Waterloo station, to find out some familiar faces to them, ask what would be their dream home and how they imagine it, or at least, what was their dreams as they were young. And also now, when they're looking for a place to live, what are the main factors for them in order to survive another day? How they build their little shelters?
I started to be very curious and excited about this, but also it made me think about so many things, as well as the more I research, the more it makes me sad knowing the whole reality...


But as for the project, as I don't exactly know now how my final outcome should look like, I will let the research flow. Thinking to rather make a film set based on homeless people stories or make a design of a furniture/home based on their dreams and wishes.

So my first stop will be at Pimlico station, hopefully nice and interesting chat with the guy from photographs.

People and their life style living on the streets/ Waterloo bullring.

Not sure if I'm right, but I think this is the guy I see everyday on my way to university. (The guy above)

All images are from http://people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/moyra/bullring.html and belongs to Moyra Peralta.

Southbank/ Imax cinema pedestrian underpass

For this project we had a task to research Southbank and it’s history, find what interests me and makes a good starting point for my own theme of the project. While I was walking along the Southbank, which, by the way is not one of my favourite places but also has huge interest from tourists, as well as being one of the most known creative arts centre points, I’ve been very fascinated by and interested in foot pathways which leads into IMAX cinema, now biggest 3D cinema screens in England. Started researching it by taking pictures and being taken away by lighting in there, which reminded me of Dan Flavin works, where he used light to create a certain atmosphere, depending on the colour with minimalist look.
And then I had this thought, if IMAX cinema just been opened here recently (well, at 1999), what happened there before? Was there just regular trespass, underground pathway, was that just as one of those dark, smelly pathways if so, was there many people walking there, because now there is even four exits.

Fresh start of 2nd year.

As I had a blog from the beginning of year 1 and there is no need of huge inductions, I will post a few photos of my work that I've done throughout the last year. There is drawings from two projects- Device, and more recent one- Performance space. Both I enjoyed doing, learned a lot and more details about them should be in my previous blog entries (although not on performance project- whoops...) .
Past year been a great experience and a chance to learn more about myself who am I as a designer and what I enjoy doing the most. I started to realise, that interactive designs, huge, theatrical spaces fascinates and inspires me the most.

Device Project.

Performance Space.